Sepharial

“ Man has harnessed some of the most potent forces of Nature and has constrained them to his service, but for some as yet undiscovered reason he prefers to remain in ignorance of the laws which relate him to his greater cosmical environment. We have imagined that by controlling these natural forces we have asserted our mastery over destiny. The heavens from out the immeasurable depths of space are the silent witnesses of our folly and arrogance. The same stars that fought against Sisera fight ever against the man who is ignorant of the laws of the universe which condition him. ”

“ Water will wear away a rock by continual fretting, though nobody doubts that water is softer than a rock, and if the barrier between this and the soul-world be like granite, yet the patient and persistent action of the determined mind will sooner or later wear it away, the last thin layer will break and the light of another world will stream through, dazzling our unaccustomed eyes with its bright effulgence. ”

“ It is futile to say the vision does not exist. If he sees it, it does exist so far as he is concerned. There is no more a universal community of sensation than of thought. When I am at work my own thought is more real than any impression received through the sense organs. It is louder than the babel of voices or the strains of instrumental music, and more conspicuous than any object upon which the eye may fall. These external impressions are admitted or shut out at will. ”

“ Nature is jealous of its offspring, and concentrates the whole of its forces when in the act of generation. That is the reason of its apparent neglect of powers and function already under its control while the evolution of a new faculty is in process.
The would-be seer, therefore, must be prepared to pay the price of any success which may attend his efforts in the direction of inducing clairvoyance by means of the crystal.
"The universe is thine. Take what thou wilt, but pay the price," is the mandate of Nature. "What shall be the price of this new faculty?" ”

“ Life has no qualities of its own, it gets them by use or function. The same energy that is expended in rioting and bloodshed could as readily be used for purposes of constructive enterprise. Extravagance is only a morbid generosity, a philanthropy gone astray. The Sun that shines alike on the just and the unjust cannot be credited with all the abuses to which we submit our vital powers. Why, then, should we ascribe to the planets all those evil influences which in truth have no existence except in ourselves, who are both receivers and transmitters of their influence? ”

“ There is a whole cycle of evolution between the sordid, money-grubbing propensities of “the man with the muck-rake” and the provident carefulness and circumspection of the man who is under the influence of the higher Saturnine ray. It is all a question of personal colouring. It is not that the planets rule us and compel us to be that which we are, but that we transmute and corrupt the natures of the planets and abuse the energies and powers which they confer on us. We can never hope to be lords of the Universe, but we can be rulers of ourselves. Self-government is at the root of the matter. ”

“ All these anomalies and contradictions are due, as I shall show in my new Tables and Thesis, to the importation of false factors into the problem of the Moon’s motion, which, in fact, is extremely simple, perfectly regular, and affected only by its anomaly or distance from the aphelion and, where the time equation is employed, by the increase of radius. Jupiter and Venus have no more action on the Moon than have Mars and Saturn, in fact none at all, and the only body that has any action upon the lunar orb is the Sun, which it exerts indirectly through its action on the Earth. ”

“ Therefore, above all things it is essential for the investigator to have an unflinching love of truth, to be resigned to the will of Heaven, to accept the revelations accorded in a spirit of grateful confidence, and finally to dispel all doubt and controversy by appeal to the eyes of one's own immortal soul. These are qualifications with which the seer or seeress should be invested, and if with these the quest is unsuccessful after a period of earnest trial, it must be taken as sufficient warrant that the faculty is not in the category of one's individual powers. ”

“ Now the danger at this supreme moment is that the seer will be surprised into full waking consciousness. During the process of abstraction which precedes every vision or series of visions, the consciousness of the seer is gradually but imperceptibly withdrawn from physical surroundings. He forgets that he is seated in a particular place or room, that he is in the company of another or others. He forgets that he is gazing into a crystal or mirror. He knows nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing, save that which is being enacted before the senses of his soul. ”

“ For if it be said that the world has no existence apart from our consciousness, it may with equal truth be said that our consciousness has no existence apart from the world to which it is related. What we understand as the laws of the universe are formulated in terms of our thought, but inasmuch as the laws of thought are imposed on us by existence, it is clear that we do not ourselves impose cosmic laws, but we merely apprehend them. It is not in the Idealistic sense that the universe is a symbol, but in the real sense of it being the embodiment or out-realizing of the Supreme Life and Mind. ”

“ From the earliest ages of the world’s history the subject of Astrology has excited the interest of, and exercised a great influence over, the minds of a certain order of thinking men. The science has never been universal in its acceptance, though it is safe to say that, with its countless adherents in the East and the ever-increasing number of its advocates in the West, there is no faith which has a more universal application than the belief in the influence of the heavenly bodies over the destinies of human beings. ”

“ We all have the same laws of thought and the same general constitution. Humanity comprehends us all within the bonds of a single nature. Yet despite these facts we are divided by differences of opinion, of emotion, of sympathy, of taste and faculty. It is probable that these differences obtain in spheres immeasurably higher than our own, the sole element of consent being the recognition of dependence upon a Higher Power. God is the co-ordinating centre in a universe of infinite diversity. ”

“ In the early stages of development the crystal will begin to cloud over, first becoming dull, then suffused with milky clouds, among which sparkle a large number of little specks of light like gold dust in the sunlight. The focus of the eyes is inconstant, the pupil rapidly expanding and contracting, the crystal at times disappearing entirely in a haze or film which seems to pass before the eyes. Then the haze will disappear, and the crystal will loom up into full view again, accompanied by a lapse of the seer into full consciousness. ”

“ SOLAR INFLUENCE The Sun as the centre of the universe is the gravitational focus of all the forces of the cosmos. It stands to us as the symbol of Deity, or of that Logos which is the manifestation to us of the Inscrutable and Omnipresent. So far as we are concerned it is the source of Light and Heat to the world, and these two properties are the ultimate expressions of the Wisdom and Love of the Creator. When we speak of light and heat we mean those forces which, when they impinge on the Earth’s atmosphere and are sensed by us, produce the sensations of light and heat. ”

“ All overloading of the stomach with indigestible food and addiction to alcoholic drinks tends to cloud the spiritual perception, It depletes the brain-centres, gives the heart too much work, and overthrows the equilibrium of the system. Ill-health follows; the mind is centred upon the suffering body, spiritual aspiration ceases, and the soul folds its wings and falls into the sleep of oblivion. The consciousness of man works from a centre, which co-ordinates and includes all the phenomena of thought, feeling, and volition. ”

“ I should be the last to allow the study of psychism to usurp the legitimate place in life of intellectual and spiritual pursuits, and I look with abhorrence upon the flippant use made of the psychic faculties by a certain class of pseudo-occultists who serve up this kind of thing with their five o'clock tea. But I regard an ordered psychism as a most valuable accessory to intellectual and spiritual development and as filling a natural place in the process of unfoldment between that intellectualism that is grounded in the senses and that higher intelligence which receives its light from within. ”

“ We see how the anciently destructive forces of the planet Mars are converted by human evolution into the executive ability of the man of action. How the ostentation of the Jovian plutocrat is changed to the benevolence of the true philanthropist, and how even the mean sordidness of the ancient Saturn becomes the constructive carefulness of the social economist. And from the remnants of this old universe of ours, maintaining its cosmic integrity for ever, there shall at length be evolved “a new heaven and a new earth.” ”

“ If we regard clairvoyance as a normal faculty we are more likely to treat it normally than if we give it a paramount and exceptional value and seek to beatify those in whom it appears. I am convinced from experience that it is both normal and educable though not usually active in the large majority of people. I am also of the opinion that it is not peculiar, except in its higher functions, to human beings. I have known animals to possess this faculty; in a higher degree I have seen humans in the exercise of it. ”

“ The Hebrew records give us the familiar case of Babel, that achievement of human arrogance which reached to the gates of the Sun. The great civilizations of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome have gone the way of all things temporal. In the modern endeavour to “beat the record” there is an element of danger which is too lightly regarded by those who have no knowledge whatsoever of the forces with which they are playing. These are not of the air and wave alone but of the whole universe, as well spiritual as physical. Let us look at the matter in the light of a modern example. ”

“ The suggestion that the clairvoyant faculty is latent in all of us has no doubt been responsible for much misunderstanding, and not a little disappointment; but I doubt if it is so far removed from the truth as that which makes the possession of the faculty a certain sign of a superior degree of evolution. Although the faculty of clear vision brings us into more intimate conscious relations with a new order of existence, where the past and future, the distant and the near, would seem to be brought into immediate perception, it does not therefore confer upon us a higher degree of spirituality. ”

“ The bare facts of astronomy are not generally interesting. We are not solicitous of knowing in exactly how many days, hours, minutes and seconds the planet Jupiter completes its course about the Sun. What is of more practical interest to us as terrestrials is to know Jupiter’s relations to this world of ours, what it stands for in the economy of life, and what influence, if any, it exerts over us. ”

“ Psychic tradition is as important a fact as is physical heredity. The latter is a factor of immense importance as affecting the constitution and quality of the organism in and through which the soul is required to function. But psychic tradition is that which determines the power and faculty brought to bear upon the physical organism. Past evolution is not a negligible quantity, and its effects are never wasted or lost to the individual. We are what we are by reason of what we have already been, as well individually as racially. ”