THE OVERLAPPING OF CYCLES

—

LESSON 91

Just four times seven revolutions of the earth on its axis from the

day which closed the first ten-year cycle of the Esoteric Section of the

Temple movement (the 18th day of February, 1909), the Cosmic

timepiece, Fohat, rang out the knell of the past and coincidently struck

the keynote for the succeeding ten-year cycle.

Each one of those twenty-eight days opened and closed a single

note in an octave of the scale of life which represents two and one-half

years. In other words, the opportunities, failures and successes of any

one of those days prefigured the opportunities, failures or successes of

one twenty-eighth of 3,652 days (ten years), for all those disciples

who have been admitted to the Esoteric Section of The Temple

between February 18th, 1899, and February 18th, 1909.

The first yearly cycle of the organized Temple of the People has

low closed. If you could remember the main events, the trend of Mind,

the opportunities lost or gained within those past twenty-eight days

You could more or less accurately prefigure the events of your

[TT 236] lives for the coming ten years. Victories gained will be

accentuated ; evil done will be increased ; injustice and all

uncharitableness and viciousness will find their punishment. Kindly

deeds, charity, unselfish. ness and sincere efforts will meet their

reward before that era closes,

Eyes that cannot sec, cars that cannot hear, will let such marked

periods as I have referred to pass without note, and without realization

that all the important events and opportunities that such a ten-year

cycle can bring to them are determined in those days.

The sixth sense now developing, has awakened and implanted in

the mind of a vast number of the human race an innate realization of

the importance of each cyclic division of time, in the world. wide

inclination toward the holding of anniversaries. Carelessly or

thoughtlessly you hear repeated or repeat yourself the words, "It is just

a year ago today", or ten years, or a hundred years, as the case may be.

The impulse back of the words is the soul's effort to impress upon the

consciousness of the lower self the importance of such cyclic openings

and closings, for as surely as the cycle of a deed or thought is

accomplished just so surely a repetition of that deed or thought on

some plane of being will be enacted.

It is this God given impulse that sets the final bounds to every

living thing. It is the basic force of every habit ; and until man realizes

this truth and acts upon his recurring opportunities at the time the

cosmic cyclic forces open the same for him he will never be able

consciously to win a great battle with interior opposing forces, nor can

he rise to the heights of the offered opportunities.

With regret passing words I have closely watched the passing of

the last twenty-eight day period and have seen some of you willfully

throw away the hand outstretched to you ; watched you carelessly add

to your difficulties, throw away your opportunities, open new cycles

6f desperate trouble, as with joy passing words I have watched others

do exactly the reverse, watched the latter open cycles of true

benevolence, loving thought and loyal service. But it is to you these

cyclic opportunities come and I cannot even tell you of their coming,

or speak of them until they have passed, otherwise I might help to

defeat the ends of justice and increase weakness.

This particular ten-year cycle closed very near the time of the

completion of the organizing of the Temple of the People. This

organization is in no sense a new movement, but just such a cyclic

enlargement of a past opportunity as I have noted.

Each day of the ten-year cycle now commenced will accentual the

good, decrease the evil, or demolish the good and create the evil

[TT 237] for the Temple work as a whole, as each member

remembers and takes advantage of the words here given.

The exactness with which recurring lines of force are sent out

from the central sphere of energy cannot be measured by mind of man

but he is capable of measuring them to such an extent as to profit by

the opportunities they bring if he will take the trouble to note the time,

place and event in any given line of action, and when the same hour,

day or year, as the case may be, recurs use the planetary forces that are

in action when the hourly, or yearly round of those particular forces

recurs once more.

Many a lost disciple, many of those who have recently set up first

causes for the same end during the aforementioned twenty-eight day

period, would have had cause to kneel in gratitude had they

remembered even what has heretofore been said by myself and others

on this subject of cycles, and made some effort to discover and

uncover any concealed truths in the same, and have used them rightly.

The preceding words clearly indicate the original cause, and also

prefigure the further development of the one great science in two

divisions, Astrology and Astronomy.

The constant incitement by the soul to compel man to note

recurring events, as for instance the divisions of time, the movements

of the planets, the tides of large bodies of water, definite changes in

the physical body, etc., has aroused the mentality of many sages to

note, compare notes and keep anniversaries of individual or

worldwide events.

Little by little these notes have been and are being chronicled,

corroborated, and will finally be compiled by succeeding races into

the astrological and astronomical works of the future.

To understand the real basic truths of my statements and bring

them out for the understanding of those less fitted for comparison and

analysis we must first try to comprehend what the Initiates refer to as

the Great Breath . Motion, i. e., the cosmic impulse from a divine

source to move at certain definite periods of time the substance

created by itself. These movements constitute the measurements of

Erne.

Bring the mind and imagination to bear on the constant action and

reaction of the breath of a human being. Every inhalation carries

oxygen to every atom of the body but the oxygen cannot reach every

atom at the same instant. The various organs, nerves, muscles, etc., get

their supply in regular order according to their need and the method of

distribution, consequently the periods between contact, like the rests

between musical notes, accentuate the different rates of [TT 238]

vibration. The outbreathing exhales from the body the poisonous

carbonic acid and other poisonous gases formed by the contact of the

oxygen with other gases, other constituents of the blood of the human

body. Each double breath therefore adds to the sum total of the life of

the body and carries off the refuse resulting from the changing or re-

creating of the blood.

Now imagine what might be done if the mind of man, knowing

just when each one of the great cosmic double breaths obtained, could

take advantage of the tremendous composite forces corresponding to

the gases in the physical body, and in combination with corresponding

forces in perfect time and rhythm, from every sun and planet, he could

use them with his own breath as a carrying vehicle and by his will and

mind could direct those forces for the accomplishment of any desired

purpose. You can readily see what it would mean to him to know

exactly when each breath was due, as well as the rates of motion and

vibration of all those higher forms of energy, in order to bring their

strength and power to bear on his purpose. This is exactly what an

Initiate of high degree may accomplish, if Karmic law will permit.

...

GOD AND THE DEVIL

—

LESSON 92

Man uses his much vaunted reason to little effect when he throws

over with one fell blow the cherished religious ideals and beliefs of

preceding races and ages and of the earlier years of his present racial

cycle.

As a rule he is entirely unconscious of the loss sustained when he

casts down his former ideal, together with his belief in Heaver, and

Hell, in God and the Devil, in cursing and blessing, beliefs founded on

varied expositions of the sacred books and on ancient myths and

traditions, without an effort to seek out their basic source or interpret

their mysteries.

With the increasing flood of new literature and retranslation of

old which now sweeps over the world corroborating the false ideas of

a thinker and reader who bas for some apparently valid reason come to

believe that former ideas and ideals were false or incomprehensible,

there comes an almost overwhelming impulse to throw them all aside ;

and, as otherwise it seems to spell perfect shipwreck of all hope, he

[TT 239] seizes upon any plank of modern Science that is within his

reach which appears capable of bearing his weight . his doubts and

fears instead of making a strong effort to hold the more modern

theories and ideas on the surface of his mind tentatively while he

searches for the clews which when found would prove beyond

question that ancient and modern ideas and ideals had a common basis

and a common end.

There is the same foundation for a belief in a Heaven and Hell, a

devil and an angel in modern expositions of universal law, and in the

scientific hypotheses of the action of cosmic forces in the creation of

matter and its ultimate destiny . those forces which underlie every

phase of material phenomena . as there ever was in what are termed

the dark ages.

It is a bold speaker as well as an agnostic thinker who is willing to

stand forth in the present age and deny statements of the Initiates as to

the existence of at least three planes of consciousness states of

existence . or that the individual lives germane to any one of those

states have not many features in common with the lives of the other

states.

When one considers how nearly the supposed conditions of

heaven and hell are attainable by the great majority of the people of

earth ; how many devilish and angelic characters the daily papers of a

great metropolis bring to notice, the logical conclusion is that the

forces active in each one of the said characters must have had some

localized previous manifestation as well as a necessary future

expression. Even if the energy so operating be only embodied in some

degree of force such force or form of energy bas its natural habitat, its

original field of action ; and wherever that is, by whatever name it is

called, there will be a heaven or hell, the dwelling place of an angel or

devil. As like seeks like in all fields of action, the individuals in whom

those forces are peculiarly active must necessarily find themselves in

rapport with others of like nature and in homogeneous states of

consciousness. Once predicate the indestructibility of Matter, and the

destruction of Consciousness is . almost unthinkable.

As life is motion per se, and all motion must have some starting

Point, some impulse, some form of energy which sets in motion the

thing or object moved, and as every central point, every sun, moon or

star under observation in the heavens, is apparently subject to the

'notion set up by some such form of energy, it follows that there must

be one central point where that energy is generated or stored. Whether

you can call the author, the generator of that energy, God . good, or

the devil . evil, depends upon your present viewpoint, but the fact

[TT 240] remains that it is, and that every phase and expression of life

is dependent upon it.

Under the name of the Great Breath this source of energy has

been revered and worshipped by the greatest intellects, the most

spiritual teachers of all Time.

With every inbreathing and outbreathing by or from the spiritual

source of all life, there rises and falls in perfect rhythm and time

(according to the plane of manifestation, the size and weight of each

form of differentiated matter), the manifesting point, the heart of every

cell, whether it be the heart of a sun, planet or germ and whether it be

a material, mental, or spiritual body.

The rising and falling of the tides, the fluctuations of the earth's

crust, the atmospheric changes, the changes in the physical body of

man, and every movement of every thing and creature are all due to

the rising and falling of the Great Breath ; and, as even modern

science concedes the fact that all forms of life are but different rates of

vibration of one phase or state of energy commonly termed Ether, and

all vibrations are different modifications of motion per se, the Great

Breath, we may accept the ancient teaching without allowing much

room for controversy.

Once postulate intelligence and will as the guiding forces behind

or within the Great Breath, and a God, in the highest sense of the word

becomes an indisputable fact. Grant a plane of operations, which must

of necessity be a harmonious centre where all acting forms of force

and energy are in perfect accord, where all power is centred, and

surely the condition usually termed Heaven does not appear to be a

very far fetched idea. Reverse the action of these constituents of

Heaven, consider the negative action of all the positive forces

according to the well known scientific postulate that there can be no

manifestation of a positive pole of energy without the manifestation of

its antithesis, the negative pole, and in that negative aspect of Heaven

you have all the constituents of a state or plane of discord, the effect

of the action of anticonstructive, constrictive, rebellious forces ; and

the central point, the nucleus or heart of all this negative action and

reaction, the legendary devil and Hell, appear to be corollary realities,

whatever terms we may use to express realities so designated.

With the outbreathing of the Great Breath everything in bond of

form must swell, and consequent to the swelling, when its last degree

of resistance is reached, that form, whether it be sun, planet or

seedpod, must burst and scatter its fragments afar ; each fragment, a

lesser centre, drifts into the fields of space, and new planets, new stars,

new vegetation, new lives are formed. But before this bursting point

[TT 241] is reached, say in the life of a planet, for instance, it has

gathered its forces and swollen many times, its crust is covered with

great cracks and crevices, the effects of former breaks sometimes

becoming reservoirs for big rivers and lakes ; and the waves of human

and animal life force upon its surface, once transferred from other

centres, other planets, other fragments, rise and fall with the life tides

of the Great Breath. Races are born and die and are born again.

Exactly the same phenomena occur under other variations of law,

other conditions, made by increased vibrations of the homogeneous

substance, Ether, to which have been given the terms Astral, Soul and

Spiritual life, and even in those interior aspects of life we can imagine

similar operations of the one Great Breath causing more ethereal

combustion and resulting in expansion and explosion. The same great

life wave breaks on the shores of every form of substance in vibration,

with the same effect in every case. The era of duration, the cyclic

gathering, swelling, and bursting of its separate forms of life and their

transfer to other fields of activity occur just as methodically, as

purposefully and as surely on what are termed the interior, or Astral,

Soul and Spiritual planes as upon the physical plane, and must occur,

until the operation of the Great Breath ceases and the generator of the

breath ceases to act ; or as is related in the stanzas of Dzyan, "The

Eternal Parent, wrapped in Her Ever-Invisible Robes, had slumbered

again for seven Eternities."

The action of the moon on the ocean tides bas long been an

accepted fact, but the fact of 'a similar action by every sun and star or

planet on all other life tides, even the blood stream. of men and

animals within their individual sphere of action, is not so well

established, nor is the fact that it is the central nucleus or cell of any

one planet instead of the body as a whole that exerts whatever degree

of force is necessary to affect the tides of water or life force on any

other planet, and that all are subject to the central nucleus of the

central sun around which all suns and planets, alike, revolve.

In other words, from the universal point of operation, the home of

the generator of the Great Breath, is sent forth the impulse which acts

at one and the same time on every center of manifested life, whatever

its nature.

These centres constitute "the harp of a thousand strings" whereon

the fingers of God . the Cosmic Energies . are eternally playing the

great life symphony. As the breath sweeps over those strings, as their

tones rise and fall, suns and planets are born and die, to live again, as

man is born, dies and lives again. [TT 242]

...

THE CONSTRUCTIVE FORCES OF THE TEMPLE OR THE

PEOPLE

—

LESSON 93

Exactly on the same geometrical pattern, and in corresponding

periods of time and definite degrees of energy and force, humanity, en

masse, must rise to a corresponding height to that from which it fell at

the close of the last great world period.

Every dropped stitch in the evolutionary web of one manvantara

of human life must be picked up and fastened, or the place of cleavage

would enlarge until the whole web became a mass of tangled broken

threads.

One essential point in one decree of Divine law is being

continually overlooked, and the gaping wounds in the bodies,

religious ' political and social of this age are the results of the lost or

wasted opportunities of a previous civilization.

The efforts of mankind to leap over those now festering wounds

at a bound, leaving them to the destructive forces of nature, permit the

whole body to become infected with the virus of deadly disease.

The law of gravitation controls both the ascent and descent of a

body, but it is according to the weight and elasticity of the body

whether or not its ascent can be accomplished in the same period of

time consumed in its descent . though it must cover exactly the same

length and breadth of space in its ascent as in its descent.

The same law governs the rise and fall of nations, races, families,

as well as organizations ; but it is according to its weight, its density,

and interior power of overcoming inertia, whether or not either one

can rise in a like period of time to that consumed in its fall.

Until a center has become strong enough to repel invaders

through its own innate power by the exercise of the force of repulsion,

it will attract bodies of a similar size, though of different densities .

different calibres, and then commence the struggle for supremacy.

If the invading body is weighty and elastic enough to crush the

central cell of the invaded body, when they meet, both bodies will

crash and destroy each other by the power of momentum.

If the central cell is weighty and elastic enough to sustain itself in

poise, there issues from it a repelling force that will keep all invaders

at a sufficient distance from its auric envelope to prevent the

extraneous bodies from reaching its real center of operations.

This is equally true of the planetary bodies, of every physical

body, and organization of people karmically drawn together around a

common center. [TT 243]

Humanity has been much slower in appreciating the vital cause of

hindrance in its long struggle to reach the heights to which it aspires,

than it has in appreciating the fact that it was surely in process of

rising from the depths of the morass of evil into which it sank in the

closing years of the last manvantara.

The Soul's memory of its former high estate has been sufficient to

furnish the dynamic energy for the first necessary expulsive and

ascending effort ; but, as has so repeatedly occurred in the case of

man, lower desire runs away with Reason and Intuition, and tries to

force him upward in the scale of evolution by leaps and bounds while

the truth is that the energy exhausted by any such leap and bound

stays his progress at the step so reached, until sufficient energy is

generated to take him a step further ; and in that interval, the masses

of mankind he had left behind in that supreme effort, have reached a

position similar to that attained by him, by steady normal growth, and

reached it minus the weakening strain imposed upon some parts of his

nature by the extra effort to pass others in the race.

Man cannot outstrip the laws of his being, and every effort at so

doing causes him to retrace his steps, and as it were, to stop and pick

up those stitches in his part of the web of life that he had inadvertently

dropped.

No amount of reasoning will avail with the majority of the human

race to prevent their making such mistakes, because they will not

control the lower desire principle which drives them on as with a

whiplash into unwise disastrous effort.

An earnest study of the laws of Being would show the futility of

trying to build a body of any character by any other method of

formation than that used by nature.

A single cell is the foundation and generator of all the

constructive life forces that will enter into the building of any organic

body, whatever may be the purposes and functions of all subsequently

evolved cells, and however important any one set of cells may be to

the good and well-being of the mass as a whole.

If the central cell is cut off or cannot function properly, because of

some obstruction placed in its way by other cells, the body en masse

must fall apart by its weight, for the cohesive power rests primarily in

the central cell.

Every word I have spoken is peculiarly applicable to The Temple

of the People. The Initiates of the White Lodge make no mistakes

Placing the central cells of any of its organic bodies, for they form

those bodies in accordance with evolutionary and karmic law, of

which they are administrators ; and every failure of such a body to

[TT 244] fulfill its e in, due to the cause above noted, lower desire

outstripping Reason and Law in the individual cells . or members . of

the body and killing out or incapacitating the central cell . in other

words, unwillingness to wait for the law to take its course and

eliminate any self-seeking, or rebellious central cell by the right

means, which that law would invariably do if left to take its course.

As a rule, people have but little knowledge of the tremendous

power of elimination aroused in an organic body, where an

obstructing force is introduced, or some individual is in the wrong ;

and therefore fail to see the needlessness, as well as the inevitable

result, of precipitate action by any single individual or group.

In nine cases out of ten, the consequent anguish and suffering, as

a result of broken law by a limited number, or individual, must fall

upon the innocent ; and thus, a new Karmic debt is created, the

payment of which will be to disintegrate the body of which the

lawbreaker is a part if the latter be not eliminated.

I have advised and directed the formation of every main feature of

The Temple of the People, and I call your attention to the above

mentioned action of the Universal Law, that you may be enabled to

stand, when countless other organic bodies will fall . as you can do if

you can keep in mind and act upon the directions I have given you.

If you can always remember that the breaking of the law of

discipleship, by any one of your number, is a danger signal to you

individually, which calls for right and immediate action on your part,

you will be able to build a body which will stand the strain of the

coming pull of forces, without being torn apart.

The defection of one member should sound the rallying-cry for

the rest, to battle for the preservation of the whole.

Man always gets what he demands, and the demand is made by

his own obedience to Divine law ; and in no other way can he obtain

satisfaction of demand, but his motive for the demand determines its

final result.

There is a place, an opportunity, a certainty for every faithful

disciple in The Temple of the People. He may have to win that place

through his own heart's laceration . but win it he will . if he is faithful

to his trust.

Having won it, he must be prepared to hold it at all costs, and the

costs are generally heavy, for no man ever rose above his fellow men

without arousing the emissaries of the Black Lodge to action through

his erstwhile companions.

This is due to the inevitable effect of the action of the law of

Balance, which works for the proving of the tool it bas created and

[TT 245] raised to the proving point. Having won his place, man must

prove his right to hold it against all comers who would rob him of it.

I have scarcely ceased from telling you, during the last decade,

that your right to the protection and help of the White Lodge, and

what is of much more importance, the possibility of preparing as it

were, for the coming central figure of a new humanity, rested upon

implicit obedience to the laws laid down, and not upon the action of

any personality.

We can easily displace one or a dozen disciples from positions

which have been usurped or misused ; but we cannot form the

Guardian Wall for that Great Center, the coming Avatar, without the

suitable, steadfast, coherent stones (disciples) with which to build it ;

and without that Wall no such Center can maintain individual form

and carry out a divine purpose while in that form, for any length of

time on the physical plane.

Never let anyone persuade you that a single point of the six-

pointed star, which symbolizes The Temple of the People, can be

broken down, and the body of the star still be held intact by you.

It is possible, humanly speaking, that the representative of some

one point may be removed by death or otherwise, and some other

disciple moved up to sustain the same point, but the latter action can

only be taken by us who are building the form . and taken in no

uncertain way.

What I have said in relation to form applies just as certainly to the

new political parties forming in every government in the world as it

docs to The Temple of the People.

With all the basic truths of Socialism, it can never come into full

Power in any nation until the central cell . the nucleus . the right man

takes his rightful position, among his fellows, with six adherents, no

less rightly placed.

The Divine law governing construction of form will nullify every

effort, until that hour strikes, and the rebellious . the anarchistic

leaders of the minority, who are always in opposition to that law, will

bring into effect that which must inevitably follow upon the

manifesting of such a man, i. e., division of interests ; and thereby will

set in action the forces which will bring success or failure to the body

as a whole, and in either case great suffering to the world, which will

last until the law has eliminated the destructive forces or has changed

them into constructive forces, and the government of the Nation is

carried on by those who recognize the Father-Motherhood of God and

the Brotherhood of Man. [TT 246]

THE SOUL REDEEMED

—

LESSON 94

As far back in the annals of time as sacred and profane history can

take you, and aeons before any of the records now recognized as

authentic history were even thought out and tabulated ; at a time when

only the records of the astral light were available for research, the

thinking animal, man, destroyed his opportunity for rapid advance in

the life scale by persistent disobedience to one divine law, the Law of

Unity ; and the same sad tale with all its ghastly details will sometime

be recorded of the present generation. No matter how great the issue,

how terrible the results both to themselves and the unborn races which

follow them, personal ambition, lust for power or place, hatred with its

brood of devils, will turn away the sheep . like masses of human

beings into separate channels, and nothing can hold those so actuated

to the one great underlying principle of progress.

You have only to consider what the world would now be with all

its races united on one fundamental principle ; for instance, the

principle of justice, and then consider the now ruling injustice, to gain

some concept of the mighty change that would occur in all fields of

life.

The one unending riddle of the universe is the hidden cause of the

blindness of mankind. Why is it that man is willing to suffer and make

others suffer age after age when it could be prevented by just being

true to the principle of unity. Once perhaps in a century there arises

some man, some woman, who has seen the light and will not permit

either the lower self or the temptations of others to lead them back

into the darkness by repudiation of that one great law.

A man or woman who persists in being true to the Higher Self,

who cannot be deceived by the specious tales of others, that one takes

his or her place with the Initiates of the White Lodge when his trial is

over as surely as tomorrows sun will rise in the east. This does not

mean that such an one is blind to the evil committed by others, or to

personal weakness ; it only means that, having seen the light, he

becomes a part of it, and no matter what darkness reigns in the hearts

of others the power to stand by and see divine justice work out its

decrees year after year has been won. He can see his fellowmen fall

and rise again, can see the dearest things in the world taken away from

him, perhaps unjustly, but still can say in his heart, "I know that my

Redeemer liveth.' I have seen the light of His truth and I know there is

no shadow of turning with Him. I will not be [TT 247] false to God

and my own Higher Self by being false to my brethren, false to the

vows I have spoken, false to the principle I have founded my faith

upon.

There is no more chance for a further step in development to the

man who persistently lies to his Higher Self and his fellow creatures

by willfully breaking his solemn promises, until he has retraced his

way in sackcloth and ashes and made good those promises, than there

is for him to leap over the sun. He can deceive himself very easily if

he is not grounded in the principle of unity, but every time he tears

apart two souls or more that have started right in an effort to attain to

wisdom he places a bar across his own path and can never gain

another step up the ladder of his personal development until he has

brought back those souls to the point of divergence. It would not help

him in the least if he gave his body to be burned, all his possessions to

the poor and groveled in the dust, in an effort to escape the results of

his act. Nothing less than reparation would avail. He has committed

the unforgivable sin against the fundamental law of life, the law of

Unity. The gravity of the offense calls for a correspondingly full

atonement.

...

TO MY DAUGHTERS

—

LESSON 95

Pray God to keep you from the falling of the curse that all too

Often blights a woman's life and leaves her but a similitude of the

truly feminine ; the curse that blinds her to her own limitations, and

above all, robs her of her divine birthright.

When the gifts, the graces, and beyond all else the interior

qualities which set her apart from the rest of creation are prostituted to

unworthy ends, the power of intuitive perception and application of

the normal methods by which the feminine attributes can be raised

from the mediocre to the highest point in the scale, must remain

undeveloped and crude.

False impersonations of the divine attributes of purity and loyalty,

which qualities or characteristics spring from the action of lower

desires in woman, may deceive her as to their real nature for a time,

and even all others among her associates save the man she loves, or

Who loves her ; but that very force of love soon tears the deceptive

mask aside and shows her superficiality. However gross may be the

man, he creates an ideal and clothes it in the form of the woman he

[TT 248] loves. That ideal is destroyed as soon as lower desire gains

the upper hand in the contest between virtue and vice . between the

real and the unreal. He may even deceive himself for a short time into

believing that it still exists, but it is only a similitude of the real ideal

that still lives in such an instance, and the frivolous, over-sexed nature

of the woman soon palls upon him, satiety follows and finally utter

disgust.

There are few exceptions to this rule among the masses of the

present age, and as soon as such a woman comes to a realization of the

truth she either gives way to despair or in fury seeks revenge for

wounded self-conceit and pride, and becomes frankly intolerant of and

uninteresting to other women. She is either ill at ease or apathetic in

their presence. She will preen like a female bird at mating time, using

hands, head and eyes to attract attention when a male enters the room.

She seems neither to sit nor stand at ease for a moment. Every

molecule of body and brain is at a tension, or the reverse may be the

case ; she may become the attentive, devout listener, the admiring

flatterer of man's vanity, willing to "sit at his feet."

In other words, such a woman takes her color temporarily from

any man she is brought into close contact with.

Ah, daughter mine, pray God to shield you from the fate that

invariably overtakes a woman of that calibre.

Avoid the woman who despises or ignores others of her own sex,

the woman who openly acknowledges her preference for the male by

cruelly neglecting or avoiding other women, for she can give I you

nothing of value to you and she will not accept anything of value at

your hands. Your greatest treasure, the attributes which differentiate

you from her are unseen or despised, and she must pass through deep,

muddy waters and swirling waves of the life stream that will,

metaphorically, tear her to pieces ere she reaches the point where

desire for the great Motherhood of God will awaken and lead her into

higher paths.

The man or woman who condones the evil in another for the

purpose of covering up his or her wrong doing ; the man who becomes

accessory to the evil conduct of another for the purpose of preventing

betrayal of his own shortcomings ; the woman who finds excuses for

the impurity of another woman merely to satisfy her own conscience

when that conscience accuses her of like impurity, and thus seeks

license for the same, all have betrayed their birthright for trash.

At the very foundations of the soul of man there shine out the

twin stars, courage and self-respect. When the light of those stars is

dimmed or quenched by cowardice or self gratification, the soul is lost

amid the shadows that darken the path of life and can no longer

[TT 249] perceive the character of the beasts that beset that path. Evil

seems to be good and good evil, and the soul stumbles along, falling

into every trap which the demons of darkness have dug for such

weaklings, releasing itself with more and more difficulty each time. Its

garments stained and torn, it struggles on until the path leads out into

wide waters where it becomes a derelict, a stranded wreck.

The man or woman who drags down to the use and pleasure of

the physical senses the divine creative fire, against the behests of

conscience, against the teachings of the Masters of the White

Brotherhood, blots out his or her name from the book of discipleship.

From the moment the above-mentioned twin stars shine out into

the mind of man and the knowledge of good and evil comes to him

with the power to choose, if he chooses evil he does so with his inner

eye open. The disobedience of man to the divine laws of

interdependence and mutual responsibility has helped to fill the earth

with suffering and anguish, and only as he learns to obey the law can

he help to remedy that condition.

As woman has been the temptation to which the lower nature of

man has yielded, it is only as woman refuses to become accessory to

his fall and shows forth to his mind's eye the beauties and graces of

the higher aspect of womanhood that man can be compelled to

recognize and desire those higher aspects. Man will eventually either

bless or curse womanhood and it will be according to the extent and

use of her power to dominate and control his lower nature, whether it

will be blessing or cursing.

The wrong interpretation has been given to the allegory of the

temptation and fall of man. The double-sexed nature of original

mankind has been lost sight of. It was the struggle between the higher

and lower nature of a single being that was originally portrayed in that

allegory instead of a struggle between two personalities of different

sexes. The lower or negative nature was the tempter, because it

partook more strongly of the nature of matter at the time the force of

the whole double sexed nature swung to the lower . the negative .

pole of manifestation on its cyclic round. When the same nature

reaches the other pole on the same round, that which was the tempter

becomes the tempted ; the higher, the positive, then becomes the

tempter, in turn.

The correspondence is obvious. The woman of the single sexed

race Personates the tempter until the lower pole of her nature is

reversed and she then becomes the tempted of the higher pole, man,

"id it is then that all the power at her command is requisite for her own

salvation and secondarily the salvation of man. [TT 250]

The women of the present race are approaching such a period in a

cyclic round, and every woman who helps to save a man from his

lower self by refusing to yield to the temptation her lower nature

places in her way, thus proving the existence of a higher phase of life

than he has previously known, does more to save the race to which

both belong than any man, however great he may be, can possibly do

in the present age, and it is womankind that will to finally held to

strict account for the laxity in morals of the present race, far more than

man. His time will came in another age, as it came in a preceding age.

The present cycle is woman's great opportunity, so again I appeal to

you, daughters of the King, pray the God within to keep you clean.

...

THE HOLY PLACES

From the Master K. H.

—

LESSON 96

"Lovest thou me ?" saith the Christ. "Lovest thou me ?" whispers

the man to the maid who has gained his love.

"Lovest thou me ?" cries out the sorrowing mother to her

wayward child. "Lovest thou me ?" blossoms forth the lily and the

rose, in tones of fragrance and beauty, to the sun.

"Lovest thou me ?" softly calls the thirsty earth to, the fast falling

rain. Turn our eyes where we will, upward to the heavens or outward

upon the earth, and silently or loudly, unclothed or embodied, beats

the one thought . a query, "lovest thou me ?" in the brain or upon the

ear of all creatures ; and the answer which comes swiftly and

unfailingly in response must always bring a cry or moan of pain and

sorrow, or a sense of joy and gladness unspeakable.

Truly is the human heart the holiest of holy shrines, when once

unselfish, sacrificial Love hath entered it, and throned itself before the

Altar Stone therein-a shrine at which the proudest knee may well bow

low, the humblest soul prostrate itself when once the faintest,

recognition of the great reality behind all earthly seeming dawns upon

the consciousness.

Yet, thou, O little man ! in ignorance, in jealousy, in fear or

contempt of all that is obscure or hidden from thy gaze, dost laugh and

make merry, slaughter and torture, weep over or imprison those into

whose hearts is entering the light which always precedes the coming

of God . the God of Love. [TT 251]

Thou dost place a ban against, or form a cordon around that

shrine, and cry aloud : "Keep off, thou God of Love ; thou mayest not

enter in to bless that life, unless it be as I shall lead the way and make

conditions for thee, and if thou darest to enter, I will crush thee with

the law I have usurped, or kill thee in the mill' of poverty and crime

that I will drive thee into" . all unaware that He to whom thou

speakest is the Author of thy being . the same God . the same Love

that thundered out the Law on Sinai's heights . the same who lay upon

the cross and cried forgiveness unto those who nailed Him there ; he

who sat beneath the Bo tree and delved into the Heart of Life, until he

found the sesame to all the secret places of the Universal Heart.

Man may place a barrier between that Love and himself. He may

so befoul the substance of his heart that the Light of Love can only be

reflected in a dim and shadowy form therein.

He may pull down the altar where the sacrificial rites have been

performed day after day since first he saw the light, and leave but

shattered emblems fouled by sensuous vileness ; yea, may make that

heart a rendezvous for devils, and ask the Love of God to shine

thereon ; yet, naught on earth or in the vast infinitudes of Motion,

Time and Space can have power to cast a stain or darksome blot upon

that Love, or make it aught but what it is . the holiest of holy things,

the body of our Christs, the God who holdeth in His gentle hands the

blessings of all life, and all fulfillment.

Truly is the heart that purifies itself, and bids Love enter and

abide, the holiest of holy places.

...

THE OCCULT SCIENCES

—

LESSON 97

The occult sciences, or occultism, as the philosophy of the

spiritual aspect of the three sciences in one is now widely termed by

students of the same, indicates its nature by its terminology.

Do you ask what of this secrecy ? Are not things done in secret

condemned ? Does not the word open, the very reverse of secret, in

Connection with any phase of life convey a higher, nobler idea to the

human mind ? I answer : Yes, unless the student be far enough along

in his investigation of the nature of the sciences under discussion to

[TT 252] have learned that the two words "secret" and "open" express

two poles of the same thing or idea. An idea may be secretly unfolded

yet the instant the idea finds expression it has become open, and when

the same idea is opened wide enough it again becomes secret. It

disappears from common usage by over-use and becomes obsolete. It

is, as it were, indrawn. In other words, the idea becomes secret or

open according to its effects on the human mind and the period of its

cycle of manifestation.

The occult sciences are secret only because the right period for

their full revelation in the present Maha Yuga (great age) has not yet

been reached. We are halfway between the beginning and the end of

the cycle which gave birth to those sciences. They are as yet only

partially born, se far as the majority of the human race is concerned.

We find daily indications of the opening up of interest in the minds of

many in regard to all those deep mysteries of life which pertain to the

secret sciences, mysteries partially solved in other cycles, the sciences

of mysticism, psychology, medicine, art, literature, music, etc., but the

greater depths of those mysteries have net been sounded by the laity,

nor can they be fully sounded by the latter at present or in the very

near future.

The very few who have sounded the depths, the progenitors or

forerunners of the races that are to come, are compelled by their very

knowledge of the results of ignorant or unwise speculation to keep

those secrets, save as one by one there comes into incarnation a soul to

whom they may be safely imparted, a soul prepared for such

knowledge, a soul that has won in a previous incarnation the right and

the ability to comprehend and use such knowledge.

Examples of the terrible results of prematurely imparted

fragments of some occult science come under your observation almost

daily, as for example in the misuse of the powers of mesmerism. or

hypnotism, the misuse of spiritual forces that will bring terrible

karmic results to the careless operator, and results which, to the mind

of the ignorant observer, may appear to be disproportionate to the

wrong committed, but which are net se in reality, for the crime is

great.

The Temple is sometimes cruelly criticized for its seeming

secrecy, when the truth is there is net a single secret in the instructions

issued or in the foundation and formation of the body in whole or in

part.

Secrecy in the narrowest acceptance of the terra is the very

reverse of occultism. The true Initiate will tell you that clarity, clarity

of life, of purpose, of action, is the fundamental requisite of a disciple.

The man or woman with a secret is the man or woman to avoid as yet,

would a snake or a malignant, contagious disease. The man or woman

[TT 253] who can willfully deceive a friend by keeping secret

something that friend should know, at the same time deceives himself

or herself infinitely more, for the injury inflicted upon the soul

substance of that friend will call for sad retribution, and the demand

will be paid to the uttermost. There can be no friendship between

those who can permit a secret to find lodgement between them, and a

true occultist is above all else a true friend to humanity as a whole and

to those most closely associated with him in any miner division of life.

But a deep spiritual truth cannot be widely imparted, for the reason

that there is only one here and there who has evolved to the point

where that truth can appeal to his understanding, and the Initiate is

compelled by the very nature of that truth to protect those who cannot

comprehend and therefore might ignorantly misuse it.

An unprecedented effort bas been made by the Initiates ever since

the first instructions were issued by them, to convey some idea of the

truths outlined in the instructions, but unless the ideas expressed

therein are intuitively grasped by the student who endeavors to

decipher their inner relationship to life, the efforts are fruitless in most

cases. How can one person convey to another an idea of a formless,

bodiless, yet conscious character of energy or force which cannot

materially manifest its presence to man because there are no vehicles

through which it can function on the plane of its operations that man is

able to cognize ? Yet this is a simple proposition in comparison with

some of life's deeper mysteries.

Man cannot appreciate the necessity for or reality of those

mysteries unless his senses of sight, hearing, touch, and understanding

are developed to the degree where they can become centers of contact

and operation for those forms of force and energy which are the bases

of the mysteries, and which can function only through finer forms of

matter ; yet they are the most real of all real things.

It is dimly dawning on the minds of a few exoteric scientists that

there exists a medium in and through which they individually are

drifting as might a drop of oil through the veins or molecules of a

stone, a medium of se much greater density and solidity than the

matter of which they are now cognizant that there Can be no

comparison. Yet the etheric medium which penetrates or is

interpenetrated by every atom of matter is exactly such a medium. It

cannot be seen, touched, or heard by the physical senses, yet the soul

becomes doubly cognizant of it after death when it enters upon

another phase of life, the Lower Astral, and is capable of moving

unhindered through the avenues which traverse that ether, avenues

which correspond to the veins or interstices of the above mentioned

[TT 254] stone ; and it is conscious of a weight and heaviness and

density of which it was never conscious when confined in the vehicle

which permitted only one form of locomotion.

It is for the reason that the bird is more tenuous and elastic instead

of lighter than is the etheric base of the air through which it travels

that it can fly, and were it not for the power of attraction which holds

all non-elastic forms of matter to the earth's surface while that earth is

turning on its axis and moving through its orbit, man also could move

through the air by means of air currents which correspond to the

etheric avenues with equal ease.

Because he is not so entirely subject to the same pole of the force

of gravitation as are the other forms of physical life which are

attracted and held to the surface of the earth, the enlightened student

of the secret sciences can reverse the action of that pole of gravitation

in his own astral body and move at will through the astral or etheric

medium. There is no secret about it, but the average man will not even

believe in the possibility of such power. He is so much the slave of the

suggestion that has dominated the human races so long, namely, that

he cannot rise from the earth, that he simply cannot even control his

astral body to such an extent as consciously to leave the physical

body.

As ether is the basic principle of air and all coarser forms of

matter, so Akasha is the basic principle of ether, but neither is

comprehensible to one who bas not attained to knowledge of the

mysteries of reflection or shadow.

A little light may be thrown upon the nature of each principle by

the power of imagination.

If the Ego incarnated in a physical body were capable of

imparting life, intelligence, being, to every atom of a reflection cast

upon a mirror by its physical body, and the light in itself by which the

reflection was cast were also sifting through the interstices and made

visible between the atoms of that physical body, thus exerting file

pressure which would bind together the atoms of the reflected image,

the phenomena thus produced would exemplify the relation between

Akasha and Ether. The latter is the background upon or within which

Akasha, spiritual Will, casts its reflections by means of its inherent

light, and those reflections eventually become the various forms of life

on the visible planes of the universe.

How little the great majority of teachers of Christianity have ever

suspected the deep scientific truths revealed in countless utterances of

its founder ! Age after age has passed since the utterance was voiced,

"Oh thou of little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt ?" yet [TT 255] in

those simple words the Initiate gave the key to one of Nature's

mightiest secrets ; a secret which once fully solved will revolutionize

many of the deepest scientific theories ever recognized by man.

You may ask why, if my statement be true, did not that Initiate

more fully explain his words if he really had the well being of

humanity at heart. I answer, simply because he was powerless to do

so, not alone because of his obligations to the Degree of the White

Lodge which he represented, but man was not at that time capable

of externalizing the idea voiced. The right cyclic hour had not struck.

The peculiar sense through which alone such deep truths might be

apprehended was then only barely conceived, and had not been

developed to such an extent that it was capable of solving that

mystery. It is only within the last quarter of a century that mankind

has seen and recognized the fact that a new sense, termed the sixth

sense, was in process of evolution, and only here and there a single

individual bas been able to make any use of the same.

The term faith bas been made interchangeable with the term

belief, while in fact they are two poles of one potent force. Belief is

lost in faith. When faith disappears belief is quickly swallowed up in

unbelief. The possessor of faith can do much more than remove the

proverbial mountain. He can build or destroy a world. Yet these,

together with many other equally potent expressions of the Initiates

are frequently classed as "drivel", wearisome platitudes, etc., by those

who are tirelessly seeking for the clue to the great mystery of Cosmic

energy, which was given repeatedly by the Initiate and also by his

disciples, but it will escape the latter until they have still further

evolved the sense by which alone it is made perceptible and of which

it is a most important part. Strange as the last statement may seem,

when you have reached the point where the same Initiate's reproof and

injunction, "What is that to thee ? Follow thou me", falls with

sufficient intensity, and commands immediate obedience, a point

where all the concerns of other individuals, all the petty trivialities of

every day life, the faults and weaknesses of co-disciples become as

nothing, you will not merit such reproof as is contained in the first part

of the expression. Without faith you cannot "follow the Christ" which

the Initiate represents in the sense indicated by him, therefore cannot

touch the clue to the great secret which the Christ principle expresses

in and by the sixth sense, for faith is the substance-force by which the

etheric base of all power is tapped.

It would seem a far cry from the Christ principle as generally

Understood, to the energy which moves the sun and stars in their

[TT 256] orbits and which gives the power of locomotion expressed

by the Word "flight", to a tiny insect, yet it is one and the same.

Man's inability to, accept the fact that faith, will and mentality are

forms of substance, cripples his investigations. He cries wildly for

knowledge, for justice, for truth, and while the cry is on his lips

deliberately flings back into the faces of the Gods the opportunities

showered upon him for obtaining his desires, and then whines like a

whipped cur at the inevitable results of his revolt or indifference.

Is it to be wondered at that the observer of the same often cries

out with the prophets of old, "How long, oh Lord, how long wilt thou

suffer this people ?"

...

QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY THE MASTER

—

LESSON 98

QUESTION : What fits a disciple for exoteric work for the

Lodge ?

ANSWER : Indifference, and again I say indifference. As long as

a disciple can be spiritually hurt or can be incapacitated for doing his

best work by the attacks, the opinions, the criticisms of others, so long

can he be turned aside from his mission.

QUESTION : Is what the world calls "good character" an

essential to the highest service in a disciple ?

ANSWER : All that may be summed up in the words, virtue,

discretion, tact, honesty, etc., may be, and often is, requisite for

service in many fields of life. But for the service which leads to

attainment of the highest gifts in the power of the Lodge to bestow,

the possession of one of these characteristics alone, or all together, as

the world interprets them, is not sufficient for admission to the ranks

of accepted disciples. These characteristics are all embodied in

combined with, and overruled by another all-important attribute which

will live and endure when all differentiations in the line of

characteristics are in abeyance. What the world calls good character in

an individual is as a rule the combined result of some years of

ambition, emulation and adaptation to certain ideals fixed in the

mentality of the races. The essential attribute for the accepted chela is

the result of ages of effort by countless races. The former is something

which may be lost by a single unpremeditated act or as a result of

yielding to an overwhelming temptation. But the attribute which the

examining [TT 257] Master first seeks, in the hour of a disciple's

exanimation, is Charity . the love of the infinite life in which all

things are engulfed. Where charity exists all truly desirable

characteristics must inevitably evolve in time. Only long struggle,

suffering, sacrifice and unspeakable longing can arouse the long

atrophied center of the human brain which will respond to the

vibrations of divine love, and such response is necessary before the

disciple can answer aright the demand of the Master, but when that

centre is aroused and in action it will be found that all other requisites

for service are at the command of the disciple. Yielding to temptation

may plunge a disciple for the time being back into some gulf from

which he has escaped, but the power of the attribute which he has

gained through his personal struggle will bring him back in safety ;

where the one possessed of the before mentioned "good character"

alone, might fall into a similar gulf never to rise again in one life. The

former disciple may suffer more than he ever had suffered before in

order to win out, but he will win, and that is the important thing.

QUESTION : Having been warned that the disciple who goes into

the world to preach the truths of our philosophy, or any other good

tidings, must meet attacks upon the foundation of his belief, the

character of his Master or Guru, the nature or means of his material

existence, what course should such disciple take to combat the same ?

ANSWER : He should never combat any such criticism. He

should refuse absolutely and persistently to discuss a single outer

feature of an attack. He is not sent into the world to prove to others the

nature, circumstances, character or works of any person or group of

persons with whom he is associated. If he is an accredited disciple of

the White Lodge he goes with a message to the sick, the weary, the

heart-atrophied human race, who, as it were, stand by their own open

graves and know not that they are graves, or that they themselves are

dead, and his mission is to help to resurrect them or keep then, from

entering these graves. And no matter what intervenes, nor how hard

the Brothers of the Shadow strive to keep their hold on the "dead in

life", the disciple should cling to his message alone and should throw

up that message as a shield against every weapon raised to injure him

or his work. He should try to show his hearers the nature of the

methods used by the black brothers to mix the issues and cripple his

work by diverting the mind from the one all important subject of that

message. He must become one with his message. It must dominate his

nature and his hearers. It must sink so deeply into his soul that it

carries the soul by its very weight and [TT 258] importance of Infinity

and back again with every expression of it.

When the people of the world come to recognize the fact of the

disciple's impersonality, compassion, and desire to serve them

unselfishly they will do as they have always done . "follow like

sheep" that disciple who has been made their leader by the very force

Of his devotion to them individually and collectively.

Never should the disciple forget this. Never should he allow

himself to be turned aside for a moment ; for in that moment all the

baffled, malignant forces of the negative side of life may drag him

down, and make him commence the hard climb over again. The

imminence of the danger, the importance of the issues, should be the

"hurry call" to action for every Templar.

...

THE MIDDLE POINT

—

LESSON 99

The average Nineteenth Century man and woman has become so

habituated to wonderful inventions and discoveries of Science, by

which nature's bars have been taken down and her secrets unveiled,

that he is prone, when his interest in Occultism is first aroused, to

believe he has only to wait long enough to have the greater secrets of

Occultism, pertaining to psychic and spiritual development, unveiled

by similar means, and to be able to avail himself of all such

advantages without special effort on his part, and so he refuses to

accept the statements of the older Seers regarding personal effort, or to

use the only methods by which advancement in those fields is

possible, as those methods have been outlined, for they invariably call

for a greater amount of self-sacrifice than he feels willing to make.

But this is where he makes his great mistake, for he never can attain to

the understanding or use of the only powers that will differentiate him

from, others in the mediocre degrees of life, by means of the effort of

others.

As a race man is fast reaching the middle point of evolution

beyond which no man can go on the merits or by the efforts of any

other man. Before that middle point is reached advancement has been

made under the law governing differentiation . Repulsion. After this

middle point is reached other laws, governing combination,

unification . Attraction and Cohesion . are pre-eminently active, and

opposition only increases difficulty, and finally results in crushing out

the opposing thing, or person.

Many of the students of the Masters have reached or are nearing

the above-mentioned middle point of evolution, but the development

of the Spiritual Will bas not kept pace with the development of their

mentality, consequently in some instances they are falling away from

their original purpose, and being swept into the swirl of material

development along lines that will surely drag them into the same

vortex now being prepared by nature forces for many others.

It is utter folly for a man to expect that he can lead the same

useless, selfish life he led previous to initiation in even the lowest

degrees of the Lodge, and at the same time make any material advance

in Occultism. The line of demarcation between the two is definitely

fixed.

The accepted Neophyte bas literally nothing to do with the

requirements or commands of any other disciple or body of disciples,

or with his own past. He has formed a definite contract with the

Higher Self and his teacher, and to these alone he is answerable.

There was one of the deepest of all deep truths hidden in the

command of Jesus, to the would be disciple who would fain care for a

newly made bride, or bury a friend : "What is that to thee, follow thou

me." And contrary to the general idea of the apparent heartlessness of

the command, that command was in fact the most loving, the most

necessary, for anything that would tend to draw back the disciple into

the slough he was leaving, when just on the verge of attaining to

power by which he could succor those he was leaving or who had left

him, would be most deprecable from all points of view. But whatever

the effect of his primal efforts, the fact remains that the methods and

means by which a man may reach beyond that Middle point are as

clearly and as sharply defined as may be the methods and means by

which he may attain to power over steam or electrical energy, and

"there is no shadow of turning with God." He may attain to some

measure of knowledge and mental satisfaction by some other method,

but this is practically lost to him when he faces the fact that do what

he will he cannot go a step farther on the old lines. He will then either

renounce all and drift into something which promises big results by

little effort, and find out the facts in that way, or fall by leaps and

bounds back to the old condition Of dissatisfaction, materiality and

final despair ; or if he be brave enough, he will face the effects of his

previous failures, pull himself together and start out in the direction he

should have taken long before. [TT 260]

It is those of the first mentioned calibre that are the most rabid,

hypercritical and condemnatory of all others in respect to all others in

respect research. The effect of their own failure having permeated

their whole nature they will not admit there can be anything of value

in that wherein they have failed. They forget that their failure was to

be expected because they could not or would not conform to the rules

given for their guidance. They pride themselves on their own

supposed perspicuity in seeing, and morality in exposing what, in the

silence of their own souls, they know is a false estimate of something

far beyond them, and are in fact objects of pity to those who know

them for what they are.

One of the methods by which a student may finally reach such a

sad condition of mind is by laying down certain rules and conditions

by which alone he will consent to help his comrades, utterly ignoring

their needs, blinding himself to the fact that his methods would be of

no avail to accomplish a task set for others. Such an one is so entirely

possessed by his own ideas he is utterly incapable of perceiving the

Jinns who are waiting upon interior planes, to trip him up when the

inhibition of his mind is complete.

You cannot really help a man unless he chooses to be helped. All

you may do, up to that point, is "bread cast upon the waters, Il which

may or may not return to you, and if he cannot see the advantage of

your methods of procedure in the way of giving help, and you will not

accept his estimate of his needs, there will be just one more lost

opportunity for all concerned. In no other one way is the truth of the

importance of non-attachment to results more perfectly exemplified,

for it should make no difference to you individually what the results of

your helpful thought or deed may be ' or in what manner the help

given is used, once you have decided to give that help.

You can prove the truth of my statements very easily from the

personal standpoint. Of what advantage would it be to you if you were

given the multiplication table, and told you could use it only in a

certain way, when duty, inclination and in fact your whole heart was

set on using it in another way, by which you could solve a vital

problem of infinite importance to you.

While non-attachment to results is essential to attainment of the

heights of life, on the personal side of the equation it is equally true

that the rungs of the ladder of life upon which you personally are

climbing are built up by the opportunities for gratitude you have given

the human souls you have helped to reach some one or more of these

rungs. [TT 261]

"Step out of the sunlight into the shade, if there be but place for

thy brother, that so thou may'st add to that light, and thou wilt find that

the light will guide both thee and thy brother."

Remember, there is always place on the highest round of Life's

ladder for him who can climb thus high. It is only the lower rounds of

the ladder that are crowded by the climbers. Also remember that from

the middle to the topmost round, each one is gained by renunciation

energized by Discrimination.

...

POISON

—

LESSON 100

If the causation as well as the effects of certain poisons,

continually being generated and distributed by the self-conscious

votaries of black magic, were understood by the sufferers from their

practices, they would be able to protect themselves, and at the same

time destroy the effects of dastardly proceedings which, if left to

chance, might finally wipe out a whole human race.

In order to give you some idea of the rationale and the final effect

of what may originally have been but the satisfaction of vicious desire,

or which may be a deliberate attempt to destroy another living

creature, it will be necessary to consider the motive, the astral action

and pathological effects, as well as the final result of either act under

consideration. A tool of the Black Brotherhood, or an unconscious

tool of his own evil desires, urged on by a powerful personal desire

may generate by means of rapid, concentrated thought force, a

condition in his own mental sphere which is comparable to that

produced in cream by constant churning ; that is, the rapid thought

action separates certain ionic constituents of mental energy from the

rest, even as butter is separated, leaving a residue.

These constituents, in combination with others of an opposing

character, normally are beneficent, but are destructive, poisonous,

deadly in effect when isolated and consciously directed to any living

creature.

They are then in a different rate of vibration, firmer in texture,

More possible of manipulation by beings trained to their use ; and

because of their incisive, penetrative, disintegrating nature, when

directed into any channel, cannot easily be dislodged until their deadly

work is done. The deposits in the poison sacs or fangs of the serpent,

[TT 262] poisonous secretions in other animals, and even in man,

were originally all of this nature were primarily the result of voluntary

or involuntary depolarization and separation of one grade of substance

from what was, en masse, a beneficent form of substance, its

segregation into some part of a physical form of animal or man, and

its final degeneration, during which process the secretions reached

malefic condition.

When a votary of the Black Lodge desires to wreak vengeance

upon, or kill a man or animal, he first generates and then transmits that

deadly force to another, either by direct action or by slower forms of

infection ; but those in the more powerful ranks of that body are

careful to refrain from informing their dupes or votaries that by means

of such generation and transmission, they themselves will be come

individually infected with the same virus, and that the final results of

their action will be far worse for them individually than for their

victims.

The fact that it is even possible for a serpent to poison a man

without biting him, under some circumstances, indicates the

penetrating power of the poison ; and this being true of this grade of

matter of lower vibration, how much more effective must be the

concentrated, condensed forms of like poison of a higher vibration,

when emanating from a man.

The method by which this poison is injected into the body of one

man by another is very simple. Once the deposit is formed by

individual effort in the auric sphere of one man, a definite degree of

the fiery lives which constitute that deposit is directed by will power

to a certain center of the Medulla Oblongata. They there come into

contact with a very refined class of cells, and incite the nucleoli

therein to more rapid action, with the result that the whole character of

the cells is changed.

They first become swollen, then looser in construction, then break

down and are partially liquefied. Then, infected as they are by the

character of the elementary lives that have incited them to action, they

drift into the connecting nerve ganglia and are carried into the

pneumogastric nerve, then to the ninth pair of nerves, and so by means

of the nervous fluid, to all parts of the body.

In such a case the afflicted one soon begins to have fits of nervous

or sullen depression, marked by suspicion, morbid speculations, desire

for isolation and frequently inordinate sexual manifestation.

Finally the nerve walls break down and the nerve fluid, which

under normal conditions would vitalize the whole nervous system, is

constricted within smaller areas where, because of its concentration

[TT 263] and its disintegrating power, it destroys whatever nerve

centers of the body it contacts.

I have said a whole race might be destroyed by such means, and it

is for the reason that such an infected mind and body may infect all

Whom they contact, while those so infected may be entirely

unconscious of the existence of the power, or the object of the

generator of the poison, and so do nothing to counteract it, that it may

then manifest in some form of disease, as, for instance, some one of

the terrible plagues.

With the disabling or breaking down of the nerve tissue in some

vital organ, the organ itself is no longer able to throw off the

poisonous products which have resulted naturally from chemical

action.

Such an infected mind and body oftentimes unintentionally

transmit the same poison that first infected it, to others, and it is

according to the purity of the mind and strength and vitality of the

body of those so infected whether they can prevent similar action in

their own auric spheres to that which first led to the generation of the

poison, with all its after effects, even to insanity and death. Verily, one

life is dependent on another. Who can picture the Karmic effects of a

deliberate act of such a nature, to the person committing the crime ?

...