Sec. I. Page Line a few facts, the result is only to raise up a host of other unexplained facts." 313 4 "Even religion and therapeutics need regenerating." No one 199 19 admits this more fully than the leading exponents of these two great 199 32, 34 5 would-be benefactors of mankind. "At thirty, man suspects himself a fool, 10 We might add that at sixty he regrets his lost opportunities, 15 200 17 One can readily imagine an intelligent, well-informed visitant to this earth for the first time, reporting nearly the whole of its in- 278 habitants to be afflicted with an ignorance of the truth about their 253 own affairs that amounted to insanity. 14 105 103 13 4 44 17 8 22 Such a pitiable state of ignorance does the mass of mankind 189 appear to be in, that we find a well-known writer on astronomy saying: "Science therefore cannot go back to the absolute beginnings of things, or forward to the absolute ends of things. It cannot reason about the way matter and energy came into existence, or how they will cease to exist; it cannot reason about time or space, as such, but only in the relation of them to phenomena that can be observed. . . . Science cannot inquire into them [the facts that are stated in the first chapter of Genesis] for the purpose of checking their accuracy; it must accept them as it accepts the 52 4 fundamental law that governs its own working, without the possibility of proof" * (E. W. Maunder). This shows something fundamentally wrong in the line of research. Surely we have forgotten the injunction, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous S things out of thy law" (Ps. 119, ver. 18). Dr. J. W. Heysinger has said: "What is wanted is to see science put on her spectacles, and get honestly down to hard work on these difficult but universal and most important subjects. "When that time comes, and it is rapidly coming, psychism, in 35 its broadest sense, will be tried by a jury of its peers, and the verdict will be in accordance with the evidence of all mankind, everywhere and from the beginning, and will not represent merely a self-sufficient ignoring of the whole testimony, and an a priori judgment of the whole case. The facts will not be superciliously 330 14 40 thrown aside, the evidence will not be perverted nor garbled, in- 14 40 convenient facts will not be suppressed, the truth will be elicited as it would be by skilled lawyers, and the opinion rendered as it would be by able and impartial judges, and science will then win a crown of imperishable glory. Nay, more, in that day the judgment will be found reflected upon and applicable to many other great problems, now the despair of science, and solid achievements 45 * "The Astronomy of the Bible," p. 18, 19. Sec. I. will come in all directions. Science is clearly moving in the direction of the spiritual; nothing can be more certain." This prophecy is of interest, as it is now fulfilled, and "solid ` achievements" are coming in all directions. The Mystery of God.-" Amid the mysteries which become more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will ever remain the one absolute certainty, that man is ever in the presence of an infinite and eternal energy from which all things proceed" (Herbert Spencer): Cicero said: "It is difficult to attain and dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God." † 5 10 It is well known, and referred to in the Bible, that what the early Christians taught, was looked upon as a mystery, and that there were various grades of learners. "Without 15 controversy great is the mystery of godliness" (I. Tim. 3, ver. 16). What is the difference, if any, between Jesus the Christ and the ideal Christ that Paul taught us was the wisdom and power of God? Why are we told to have only one God in the Bible and yet told in the Prayer Book that "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the 20 Holy Ghost is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God"? Why does our Prayer Book, which is a schedule to an Act of Parliament, speak throughout of us as the Children of Israel, of Abraham, or of Isaac? Why does the preface of the only book in England of which the perpetual 25 copyright is retained, the authorised translation of the Bible, couple England with Zion, both words being in italics? "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory" (I. Cor. 2, ver. 7). This Mystery “Finished.' In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets" (Rev. 10, 30 ver. 7). Buddha). "Ignorance of truth is the cause of all misery" (Gautama Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8, ver. 32). This mystery, which is thus referred to by the great Apocalyptic * "Spirit and Matter before the Bar of Modern Science." St. Clement of Alexandria mentions the "minor mysteries, which have 40 Sec. I. Page Line 32 34 4 39 7 this "perplexing problem of human existence may be found in the floats o'er the earth. THE SOLUTION OF ALL MYSTERIES. 156 45 "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 22 20 33 The World of Illusion. The solution of all these seeming enigmas 261 lies in the fact that this so-called material world is only a world 71 of constantly shifting appearances, false illusions, so-called 224 7 mental phenomena; and every form of matter, every form of sin, 218 35 every form of disease and trouble, even the form itself of so-called 213 27, 37 man, can be caused to appear and disappear by what is falsely 201 31 termed "thinking." This is because all matter is ethereal,* that is, 212 merely supposititious mechanical vibrations in a theoretical ether. 195 "The one certainty of science is the existence of a mental world" Huxley). 18 4 495 22 554 14 Reality. The only reality is God and His mental or spiritual manifestation, perfect man and universe, a perfect state of consciousness, called heaven. Having a false sense of existence, viewed from a false standpoint, a belief of life in matter, the material socalled man has an equally false sense of substance, and sees this perfect world only through a false material sense of it. He has been fooled, self-hypnotised, into believing his material self and the 255 ether-world to be real and true; whereas the material part of it is simply a temporary misconception of the real man and universe, a false belief of substance in matter, an illusionary effect, einematographic pictures hiding heaven, the real world, from us. We must voice the truth and "make all men see what is the fellowship [Rev. Ver., 'dispensation'] of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God" (Eph. 3, ver. 9). "No-mind" and "Non-mental."- Mortals have hitherto been utterly deceived as to the definition of the word "mental." What has hitherto been dignified by the terms "mind" and "mental" turns out to be purely ethereal matter in varying degrees, from its most tangible and ponderable forms to the ethereal lines of force originally * The term "ethereal" throughout this work is to be taken in its literal meaning as applying to matter in its primary form. It means "of the ether." the ether consisting of lines of force at right angles to each other, these lines 291 39 being usually spoken of as thoughts." Page Line Sec. I. advanced by Faraday. It should be spoken of as "no-mind" and "non-mental." Human "mind" turns out to be human matter, a mechanical counterfeit of true consciousness, the result of electrical stresses in the ether, and therefore, purely ethereal. The only power is Love, alias Mind or God, and we cannot control 5 matter scientifically by a negative "mind." a 10 The False Spiritual World.--Being utterly ignorant of the ethereal conditions of the final yet elementary state of matter, and knowing that there must be consciousness and therefore reality, mortals have mistakenly conceived of the invisible, ethereal conditions as spiritual world, and against all logical deductions their buoyant sense of hope has led the majority to think that on death they reach a far-distant "life eternal,” in a hypothetical perfect world. The Real Mind, God. God, good, is infinite, eternal Mind, and is of necessity eternally good, and good only. Now this is demon- 15 strable. The knowledge of God, heaven, and our real selves is a true mental science, demonstrable through application of the rule of right thinking. So-called "mental" science, which is limited to mere mechanical change of human phenomena, is an entire misnomer, and utterly misleading, and should at best be distinguished 20 "non-mental" science, because it is not mental and not as scientific. Matter "Non-mental."- Numberless quotations might be given here which show that deep, logical thinkers have recognised that matter cannot possibly be solid fact, but must be merely a form of material impression, false mental or, more accurately, "non-mental" 25 phenomena. The following are instances, and more are given later. Professor Herbert says: "The common supposition, then, that the material universe and the conscious beings around us are directly and indubitably known, and constitute a world of 'positive' fact, . . . is an entire mistake, based upon astonishing ignorance of 30 the essential limitations of human knowledge." John Fiske, the well-known historian and professor of philosophy, writes: "It was long ago shown that all the qualities of matter are what the mind makes them, and have no existence as such, apart from the mind. In the deepest sense, all that we really know 35 is mind, and as Clifford would say, what we call the material universe is simply an imperfect picture in our minds of a real universe of mind-stuff."* Kant also said that "This world's life is only an appearance, a sensuous image of the pure spiritual life and the whole world of 40 sense; only a picture swimming before our present knowing faculty like a dream, and having no reality in itself. For if we should see things and ourselves as they are, we should see ourselves in a world of spiritual natures, with which our entire real relation neither began at birth nor ends with the body's death." "The Idea of God," p. 15. 45 MATTER THE MANIFESTATION OF FALSE IMPRESSIONS. Sec. I. 26 The practical value to the world of this truth, which has been enunciated by many other logical thinkers of equally world-wide reputation, has never been grasped by the majority. Until recently no one has ever followed it up to its logical conclusion, namely, that : if the material universe is simply an imperfect false impression, then 100 all that is necessary, in order that we should behold the real and 40 9 perfect universe, is to change our thoughts to the standard of 251 41 perfection, and so see the perfect picture, when the imperfections 135 23 must disappear and heaven appear. 46 Matter, like 99 16 Matter the Manifestation of False Impressions. space and time, cannot be defined" (W. W. Rouse Ball). Matter is merely the manifestation of false impressions of truth; Lord Kelvin expressed it as "made up of thought forces."+ It can be made to appear and disappear by so-called thought, and this in two different ways; one temporary because unscientific, the other 101 disappearance permanent because scientific. Consequently the 23 32 83 41 77 28 94 30 4, 15 32 78 14 material world, as long as it has its apparent existence, is subject to continual changes, and has no fixed laws; so-called "thought,” literally electric vibration, being the essence of material apparent 76 action. Matter is simply a series of cinematographic pictures. Carpenter says: "The source of all power is mind." Professor Huxley says: "If the hypothetical substance of mind 495 34 is possessed of energy, I for my part am unable to see how it is to be discriminated from the hypothetical substance of matter." His philosophic position he has summed up as follows: "The key to all philosophy lies in the clear comprehension of Berkeley's 491 11 problem-which is neither more nor less than one of the shapes of the greatest of all questions, 'What are the limits of our faculties?' And it is worth any amount of trouble to comprehend the exact nature of the argument by which Berkeley arrived at his results, and to know by one's own knowledge the great truth which he discovered-that the honest and rigorous following up of the argument which leads us to materialism inevitably carries us beyond it. "The more completely the materialistic position is admitted, the easier it is to show that the idealistic position is unassailable, if 156 45 the idealist confines himself within the limits of positive knowledge." And he adds in conclusion: "And therefore if I were obliged to choose between absolute materialism and absolute idealism, I should feel compelled to accept the latter alternative." Locke, another thinker misunderstood by materialists, writes: 490 "Bodies, by our senses, do not afford us so clear and distinct an idea of active power as we have from reflection on the operations of our minds. Of thinking, body affords us no idea at all, it is only from reflection that we have that. Neither have we from body any idea of the beginning of motion. I judge it not amiss to Mathematical Recreations and Essays," by W. W. Rouse Ball, Fellow and late Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. + Leibnitz defined matter as a momentary mind, an instantaneous consciousness. 28 |