Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

He who wants to carry the name of Christ by right, must come into the Spirit; he who shines in external knowledge, is only demonstrating the theses of the Scriptures by other theses from the same Scriptures, is moving in a circle of which he never finds the centre.

Christ plainly declares the necessity of regeneration. (John III. 1-5.) To be regenerated by the Spirit, and reborn in it, is the immutable precept of our sublime religion; and we can only deplore that this fundamental truth is so frequently overlooked and, instead of being confirmed. by practice, is only demonstrated by quotations and argument.

By what does man recognize himself to be regenerated? By his lifewalk if he reforms and passes from the temporal on to the eternal. He sees it in the change of his sentiment, when he finds pleasure in eternal and unchangeable things only, when he considers all perishable things as a passing thought with which to test and purify himself.

He will recognize it by the new senses appearing in him with which he sees also things invisible to the physical eye, hears sounds and words that come from no human mouth, yea, is internally renewed in all his organs by the illumination and aid of which he now looks into Eternity for Knowledge and Guidance.

I know there are many who do not believe; but, that does not change the issue by a single hair; an eternal life is a verity in spite of them, it is in us and manifests itself if we seek earnestly. (see Math. vII. 7, 8).

In these three commandments is contained the freedom, liberty, and power to win everything. He who incessantly seeks, unremittingly asks, and daily yea, sometimes hourly, knocks at the Gate of Eternity, will find and obtain what he is asking for, and gain the entrance into Eternity in the visible body.

Christ calls us to the Kingdom of God; now to enter the Spirit is also to enter the Kingdom. (see Luke XVII. 20, 21.)

On this side we have to win the Kingdom, after death we lack the means. It is from the flesh we have to draw forth the Spirit that comes from God; we can obtain it nowhere else. Or do you think, the Spirit comes uncalled for, and manifests itself without pains-taking and devotion? It cannot be; for even the bad spirits do not enter us unless we call them and open the door for them.

Man has many propensities to sin, indeed, but they would not grow so dreadfully if we did not nurse them by craft and idleness, immorality and pride, ambition and haughtiness, calumny and thievishness. And if we give ourselves to one only of these satellites of hell, he opens the gates and doors for the others. But fortunately the same is the case with the man's virtues. He who cultivates but one of them, as love, or faithfulness, fear of God, humility, temperance, moral conduct, truthfulness, will, by and by have all the virtues which then will open the gate for Divine wisdom to enlighten him that is yet here, and strengthen as with its invincible powers.

As we come closer to the matter we are explaining we find that it is not so easy as many think to obtain the true faith. Ceremonies are not truths of faith; they are but means to obtain them. Let these externalities be eversomuch at variance with each other, provided we do not lose sight of the goal, we are safe.

In the examples of our treatise the teacher could not even apply the Christian doctrines, because his disciple had no understanding or esteem

for them. He was necessitated to penetrate into his interior by other teachings, partly taken from Greek mythology, and thereby to awake the spirit. Now I ask: Has he done evil? No, he could not act otherwise, and Christians can take no offense if they are reasonable, and remember that God is in all beings. To know Him and to awaken His Spirit in us, this is the task; if this is accomplished then the first day of a Christian career is fulfilled. To those who think this can be done in the orthodox way we say it is well, provided you first give the seeker the capacity to learn in such ways; but if he does not have it then it must be awakened and brought forth. An infidel is like a child that must be educated before we can employ it for any business however insignificant, and every child must be led according to its capabilities, then it will learn and allow itself to be educated. But if you proceed otherwise, it becomes stiff-necked and obdurate and may thus be spoiled for a life-time. Can we then blame Fielding for dealing with Silbert in the same way?

Christ is the Son of God; but not as such did he choose to come to men. He came rather to give them an example of how high they stand before God on the ladder of creation. Not as Son of God has Christ aided, but as a Man in order to teach us how to win the Kingdom, to ennoble ourselves for a better life, and to free ourselves of all the tribulations of our short earthly existence.

We have shown thus far the powers of faith. Now we enter the circle of eternity, where the spirit puts itself in relation with spirits, acting upon or being acted upon by them according to the requirements of the circumstances.

Christ has overcome everything by faith, and shown to man how that power works. But he stands higher yet through his being in immediate contact with the eternal forces of Nature, with angels and spirits, and becomes to us an irrefutable example of immortality.

We see in His history, as in the narratives of this book, two principal classes of spirit apparitions, one acting subordinately, the other coming from the heavenly realm presenting themselves in perfect purity.

The hellish or wicked spirits are products of our perverted desires, and prepare also a transformation in us, but one derived from a bad seed. All that man carries on and performs with zeal, becomes animated and takes the dominion in him. Speech, form, gesture, gait, all become subject to that power, so that it finally possesses him wholly, both as to thought and

act.

He who permits this new wicked self to rule undisturbed, is led by it through life with prudence and sagacity, and finally gets accustomed to confide exclusively in earthly forces and to take eternal principles and influences for fairy-tales. Such a man can with great effort, rise to a kind of sham-faith; a belief in the power of true faith remains shut up from him. Relation to, and conversation with, spirits is an impossibility, is nonsense for him, and to every allusion to them he has some objection suggested by the bad spirit he has generated in himself. The ability for prompt contradiction increases his obduracy, because he is pleased with the glittering illusion of his objections, which he considers as a product of his fine reasoning.

In our days things have gone so far that to be an agnostic and a reasonable man is one and the same. But as a compensation our physicians and

natural philosophers in the presence of the least spiritual phenomenon do not know what they are dealing with.

Silbert chose for his problem the conviction of Immortality. He could not in his condition of mind, that obstinate skepticism, reach it otherwise than by coming in contact with immortal spirits. His teachers saw this and pursued a plan laid out according to that perception. Not however until they had removed all foreign elements in him, or, to speak in biblical language cast out all the bad spirits and re-established in him the original human nature, did they succeed in leading him to the New Heaven, or the Kingdom, where he perceived new forms and, among them, the spirit of his own father.

First he saw phantoms and spectres that tormented and hindered him, but by pains-taking and effort he succeeded in ridding himself of this bad company. We meet the same apparitions with Caroline Rupert, who, but for outside help would have succumbed to their destructive influences.

Christ also calls these forces "spirits" and "devils," as though they were something beside ourselves, something separate. But this must not mislead us; for while, as to their effect they are something outside of us, inas much as, especially when they have to depart, they do so as apparent beings, and only by force, as agents they were one with us, mental excrescences which had to be amputated if we wanted to come again into full oneness with ourselves.

-

The purified man stands as a perfected unity, and nothing can disturb his soul any longer. The obdurate and dark man is also a complete unity and rebels against the dissolution that sooner or later must take place in his soul. This dissolution is visibly manifested, by the images of his dreams; a kind of insanity; and visions of phantoms. The first kind is irrefutable because all men experience it. The second has been registered among the physical diseases, and its cure is usually attempted by physical remedies. The third belongs to the ridiculed and discredited things that are rejected as frauds and delusions, in spite of the most evident proofs.

Uncommon experiences, misfortunes, remorse, fear of death, sometimes shake man's obduracy, and arouse forces in him opposite to his usual state; a struggle ensues in which the former desires and passions present themselves as images and fight for the preservation of their dominion, and it may sometimes happen that the number of such phantoms becomes legion. If a man or woman, in such a condition feels the power to give strength to the better and purer nature and lift it up to its original dignity, then these phantoms flee, and by and by the individual that was previously tormented by them, comes out of such struggle as one reborn, to whom heaven is opened and angels themselves sing hymns of praise.

That is the course in the examples narrated in this book, and in the same way Christ dealt with the obsessed or those tormented by bad spirits. To confirm this, let us review some of his works in his history, and hear his own words about them. (Math. vIII. 16, 28-32, x. 7, 8. xv. 22, 28. XVII. 14-20. Mark. 1, 23-26, 32, 34.

We see by these passages how closely the spirits of the Scriptures resemble those treated by Mohrland; for we find them in all cases most intimately connected with the qualities of the person and have to regard them, so to speak, as mental excrescences that have become overpowering by their growth. They have interior knowledge and seem to know that Christ has power over them, and who he is.

But by all these powers and experiences Immortality is not yet forcibly demonstrated; therefore Mohrland leads his disciple through the whole legion of apparitions, in order to finally render him capable of seeing the New Heaven and there to gather new knowledge.

In the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, there are many examples of men who had attained to such an identity with the Eternal; but let us content ourselves with referring to some of those in the New Testament, in order to supply the reader with the means for his own further research. (Math. XVII, 1-5. Luke vIII. 11-13, 18-20.)

Let this small number suffice. Those who wish to read more, we refer to the books of Moses, the Prophets, and the latter history of Israel, and they will everywhere meet with examples of this kind.

To conquer death is the highest task given to mankind by Christ. But many have become doubtful and think that if such a thing is possible to the Son of God, the natural man may not dare to think of such perfection for himself. But I say it again: Christ is given as an example to man; what he has done, man also shall do, what he has accomplished man also can accomplish. At this people may be astonished; and many will accuse me of exaggeration, or even blasphemy. But I trust in the sentence that everything is forgiven except the sin against theSpirit; Him I seek! And in Him speak the truth that is infallible because it comes from Him.

Christ is our example and to imitate him is our duty. Now the question is how do we imitate him? We do as he has done. This is easily said, but how is it possible? We answer: The Spirit helps. He who does not have that, is a lost member, and cannot even comprehend the works, let alone do them.

What has Christ done? He has brought help where it was needed, by the power of Spirit taught in the synagogues, healed the sick, resuscitated the dead, cast out devils and finally robbed death of its sting. "But" objects one, "if all did so, one would have to displace the other, for otherwise we would have no one to teach, to heal to resuscitate, in short all social life would have to be transformed!"

66

"True," we answer, everyone would be taught by the Spirit, diseases would disappear, and death be banished from the earth. so bad after all?"

Would that be

[CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT.]

SPIRITUAL SCIENCE OF HEALING.

THE basic principle of Spiritual Science is that there is but one sub stance, viz., Spirit; from which, and by which all things were and are created. This assertion does not imply, as many erroneously suppose, the denial of the existence of the visible universe of matter. What is taught and implied is, briefly, as follows. God, the Creative Force, Life, Energy, and Intelligence, is Spirit; and was before all visible things. This Creative Force or Principle is omnipresent, and the material or visible universe is but the concentration in visible form of ideas of Spirit. Consequently, the essential substance of matter is Spirit. The material universe is but the expression or outshowing of Creative Spirit. Spirit, God, is not a person in the ordinary meaning of the word person; nevertheless He (and She also, for Spirit is both male al female, and God is both Father and

Mother), has personality in mankind. Man is spiritual, the expression of Spirit, and in his true being, his inmest and REAL SELF, is good and perfect; for the Spirit is good, and all things created by Spirit are good. The Good is omnipresent. Evil only exists by and with the consent of the lower animal soul of man. Evil does not spring from any self-existent principle of evil, for there is no such principle; it can only exist as a perversion of that, which is in its essence, good. People talk of "evil spirits," but there are no such beings; what are called evil spirits are merely undeveloped souls. This is not a denial of those conditions termed evil, for such conditions do exist. But it is denied that these conditions arise from any principle or power of evil. Evil is conceived and born of ignorance, and when ignorance is dispelled evil disappears. The basic principle of Spiritual Science Healing is founded upon the concentration of the mind upon an ideal, the idea of health as it is found in the REAL SELF, that is perfect in every respect. In doing this, there is no necessity of denying the physical condition of disease, for that condition does, through ignorance and a perversion or undevlopment of good, exist; and it would be folly to deny it. But as in disease the dominant thought or idea of disease controls the physical organism, it is sought by concentrating the mind upon the perfection of health, found in the REAL MAN, to restore the body to the dominance of the REAL SELF, and in proportion as the real self regains control of the body, the patient is healed.

Such, in brief is the Spiritual Science of Healing. The explanation and demonstration of the truth of the principles here briefly sketched can best be given in classes by competent teachers of Spiritual Science. CHAS. W. CLOSE, S. S. D. Bangor Maine.

FAMILIAR SUNDAY AFTERNOON TALK.

[By Hiram E. Butler, before the Society Esoteric of Boston.]

THERE is one thought that seems most prominent in our mind this afternoon that will undoubtedly give rise to many others. It seems to take the form of the soul's aspiration toward the Supreme, viz: Oh, that we had power to reveal the facts of human existence in a manner adapted to human intelligence. There are so many forces and principles that are acting upon and through the human mind and body, — feelings, and emotions that are known to us in our experiences that, could we but open our eyes and see and understand the multitude and variety of causes and effects that operate in our own organism, we would think at once that we had never yet lived, that the present life was truly a dream and devoid of any real consciousness. We are, while living in the five senses, like one down in a cavern beneath the surface of the earth where no sunlight can penetrate, where no consciousness of real existence upon the surface can be known. The real, can and will never be known to us, until we make it the study of our lives to understand the methods of laws and principles.

On first arrival in Boston we met a gentleman who stands prominent before the world as a writer and advanced thinker, and he asked: “Do you expect to do a work here in Boston?" We answered, "That is what we came here or, to present to the people's mind the laws and principles gov

« AnteriorContinuar »