Author: Paul Johnson

Anna Della Subin discusses the Theosophical Mahatmas at length, with Krishamurti as a human who was deified, but she devotes equal attention to Mahatma Gandhi in this award-winning book.

This 2022 book is the most enthralling example of “collective biography” of all I’ve found in recent years. I was cited in reference to the Theosophical deification of Krishnamurti, but for this blog more relevant is the Brotherhood of Light lessons about Mohandas Gandhi whose status as a “Mahatma” was a matter of public acclaim rather than mysterious claims. Will follow up from volume 20 of the BOL lessons.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250296870/accidentalgods

Henceforth when posting a natal chart and report from the original Brotherhood of Light books, I will add an update with most recent information about the person in question. My analysis of the meditation instructions I followed for years in Search for God groups led to the realization that they derived from an Indian-born California spiritual teacher from the Sant Mat tradition, also known as Surat Shabd Yoga and the Radhasoami Faith. Since then much of the work of Bhagat Singh Thind has been published by his family, but this is the first academic inquiry to date and it sheds much light on his career including his connection to Cayce.

(99+) Doctorji the Divorcé Understanding Bhagat Singh Thind Through His Marriage to Inez Buelen | Philip Deslippe – Academia.edu

This new book from University of Toronto Press fulfills both a hope long expressed and a prophecy I have made, that real significant progress in research on Blavatsky will occur only when a scholar immersed in her Russian writings takes them into account as historical documents. Her chapter on Blavatskaia, as she spells it, is 38 pages so twice the length of usual chapters in academic collections. “Collective biography” has been much on my mind lately, as it covers two of my SUNY Press books as well as Pell Mell and the editorial work I did with Patrick Bowen in Letters to the Sage. All these were focused on the late nineteenth century. But the genre also includes books I admire by Ronnie Pontiac and Gary Lachman whose work spans centuries and millennia. A Woman’s Empire features eight authors of one gender, ethnicity, nationality and era. It is one of the best recent examples of an engaging collective biography that also goes into great scholarly depth in its research. Especially interesting is the author’s discussion of the concurrently published (by the same publisher, Katkov) Durbar in Lahore which by comparison to Caves and Jungles of Hindustan is a more straightforward non-fiction travel book that has yet to be published in book form in English translation.(KPJ)

Propagandist of Russian Imperialism: Madame Blavatsky in India, Chapter Three of A Woman’s Empire, Excerpts:

From Apreleva’s closely observed sketches of Central Asian life, which require the reader to interpret the Russian imperial role in Central Asia, we turn in Part Two to two far more outspoken writers who place Russian imperial efforts into the context of Great Game rivalry with the British, Elena Blavatskaia and Iuliia Golovnina. Chapter three addresses the former, the famous Madame Blavatsky, and her quasi-travel-writing narrative texts written about India. In these texts, while India and the British control of the country are Blavatskaia’s main focus alongside her thoughts, observations, and proclamations about numerous topics, the issue of Russian imperialism in the Caucasus and Central Asia is never far from the surface. Blavatskaia often uses British examples in order to promulgate Russian counterexamples, typically defending the Russian empire as a “better” one and serving as a Russian propagandist.(p111)

Caves and Jungles of Hindostan is certainly also a travel narrative, despite its relative distance from factual reliability… Others included Narayana, a mysterious travelling companion, and The Thakur, or Gulab Lal Singh, the latter of which can be described as “a fictionalized character in the narratives published in the volume From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan. The character broadly corresponds to Helena Blavatsky’s spiritual Master.”(119) (citation to an online website). Not only that, but as K. Paul Johnson points out, his presence sometimes serves as a way to give the Indians a voice against the British: “Miss B—is clearly providing an opportunity to demonstrate the hatred felt by Indians toward the British. Not only does Gulab-Singh exhibit an attitude which is both threatening and derisive, but he also asserts that a successful uprising will occur the moment his brotherhood decides to allow it. Such a portrayal of the Theosophical Mahatmas was quite different from that conveyed to Anglo-Indians like A.P. Sinnett!”(119-120)

Moncure D. Conway

A window into the mindset that embraced Theosophy in Calcutta is provided by Norendro Nath Sen’s second article by that title which appeared in 1882. Sen (1843-1911), editor of the Indian Mirror, was also a founding member of the Calcutta branch. Referring to “the great demand in Bengal for the new work, called `Esoteric Theosophy’,” Sen explained that his appreciation for Theosophy was not based on the teachings of Blavatsky or any living writer, but rather the TS objective of restoring Indian cultural and religious traditions. “Whether it be called Theosophy or after any other name, what we want to see is that the study of our ancient science, philosophy, and shastras should be earnestly taken up, and diligently pursued by our educated countrymen in every part of India…What entitles them to our respect and confidence, is that they have devoted themselves to the disinterested duty of awakening in us an intelligent curiosity to explore our ancient literature, to study our neglected shastras, and to make researches into our old systems of science and philosophy.” (57) Implicit in this remark is a reason that Bengali intellectuals’ enthusiasm for Theosophy declined after a few years; the TS seemed more interested in promoting its own distinctive doctrines than in appreciating India’s ancient traditions. In 1881, Swami Dayananda had complained in a letter to Blavatsky, “You had come here to become disciples, now you wish to become teachers.” (58) Mohini Chatterji continued to work for the goals that had motivated the original TS/Brahmo alliance, through Bengali channels, for another two decades. Beginning in the late 1880s and continuing until at least 1912, he promoted the teachings of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and other Bengali mystics to Westerners. In 1898, Vivekananda praised him to a Calcutta audience as “one who has seen England and America, one in whom I have great confidence, and whom I respect and love…working steadily and silently for the good of our country, a man of great spirituality.” (59)

The American Transcendentalist and Unitarian clergyman Moncure Conway (1832-1907), who visited TS headquarters in 1883 and wrote a sarcastic but affectionate account of the experience, reported an encounter with Sen on board the ship which bore him away from India, in an account published many years later.

“This Mr. Sen, of the ‘Indian Mirror,’ was a relative of the Brahmo leader, Keshub Chunder Sen. That he did not have perfect faith in the Theosophic miracles was evident to me from the fact of his expressing regret that the movement should be permitted to be anything more than an ethical and religious reformation. He rather complained of myself and others who were interested only in the ‘signs and wonders,’ being thus the means of preventing Theosophy from developing into the great Reformed Religion of India. He was an intelligent man, and I received from him a clear idea of the causes which had given so-called Theosophy its success…there appeared from America this company of people who had abandoned every form of Christianity, taken up their abode in India to lead in the work of at once rehabilitating and revising these ancient systems, and pointed Hindus and Buddhists to their own scriptures and prophets as fountains of faith and hope. They naturally gained a hold on the hearts of these people, and in a few years moved and attracted them more than did the Christian missionaries in as many centuries.” (60)

The mutual influence of Theosophy and the Bengal Renaissance reached its zenith during the meteoric career of Mohini Chatterji as the model chela of Blavatsky’s Mahatmas. By the early twentieth century, it was fading into history, as seen in the comments of Aurobindo Ghose (1872- 1950) in a 1911 manuscript that was not published until 1997. Objecting to Theosophy’s authoritarianism and obscurantism, Aurobindo connected both to the relationship between India and British imperialism. Under the title “The Claims of Theosophy,” he wrote:

“One sees, finally, a new Theocracy claiming the place of the old, and that Theocracy is dominantly European. Indians figure numerously as prominent subordinates, just as in the British system of government Indians are indispensable and sometimes valued assistants. Or they obtain eminence on the side of pure spirituality and knowledge, just as Indians could rise to the highest places in the judicial service or in advisory posts, but not in the executive administration. But if the smaller hierophants are sometimes and rarely Indians, the theocrats and the bulk of the prophets are Russian, American or English. An Indian here and there may quicken the illumination of the Theosophist, but it is Madame Blavatsky or Mrs Besant, Sinnett or Leadbeater who lays down the commandments and the Law…These peculiarities of the Theosophical movement have begun to tell and the better mind of India revolts against Theosophy. The young who are the future, are not for the new doctrine.” (61)

Aurobindo’s judgment, published decades after his death, provides a glimpse of the disappointment felt by Bengali intellectuals after their initial enthusiastic embrace of the TS. The impact of Blavatsky and Olcott in Bengal, seen through the eyes and words of Bengalis like Mohini, Aurobindo, or Sen, lasted only a few years highlighted in this chapter. But the impact of Bengal on Theosophy represents a more enduring legacy of the cultural exchange. In the twentieth century the significance of the TS/Brahmo Samaj encounter faded from the collective memory of both groups. Nevertheless, Theosophical literature of the decade from 1877 to 1887 offers a rich and multifaceted portrait of the short-lived alliance between the two groups, and the “Indo-Western” perspectives that they shared.

Conclusion

Despite the rich evidence in primary sources, the TS relationship with the Brahmo Samaj has been obscured in subsequent accounts. None of four recent biographies of Blavatsky mentions the Brahmo Samaj (62) and David Kopf’s authoritative study of Brahmo history mentions neither Theosophy nor Spiritualism, while providing exhaustive evidence of western Unitarianism as an influential factor in the Brahmo movement. The TS relationship with the Arya Samaj began after that with the Brahmos, and lasted less than four years, yet it has received a disproportionate share of historical attention because it was more dramatic and public. Like an ill-starred marriage that began in mutual misunderstandings and ended in public divorce, the Arya Samaj relationship was a formal alliance, publicly proclaimed and then publicly dissolved in mutual recriminations. The TS/Brahmo relationship was comparable to a friendship that developed informally and gradually and then faded in the same way. Hence the Brahmo Samaj was downplayed as early as the 1890s in Olcott’s Old Diary Leaves, and virtually forgotten in the twentieth century TS. The present study has sought to redress the historical imbalance and restore Brahmo/TS relations to their proper relevance, which has been recently highlighted by the availability of TS membership records.

57 Norendro Nath Sen, “Theosophy in Calcutta,” Reprinted from The Indian Mirror (Calcutta), Vol. XXII, May 2, 1882, p. 2.] <http://www.blavatskyarchives.com/sen1882b.htm> Accessed August 14, 2014.

58 K.C. Yadav, ed. Autobiography of Dayanand Sarasvati (third edition, Delhi: Manohar, 1987), 62.

59 Gopal Stavig, Western Admirers of Ramakrishna and His Disciples (Uttarakhand: Advaita Ashrama, 2010), 453.

60 Moncure Conway, My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906), 203.

61 Aurobindo Ghose, “The Claims of Theosophy,” Sri Aurobindo. Essays Divine and Human // The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo.- Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 12 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997), 67-68. <http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/37_12/0016_e.htm>

62  There are no index entries for the Brahmo Samaj in Marion Meade’s Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth (1980), Jean Overton Fuller’s Blavatsky and Her Teachers (1988), Sylvia Cranston’s HPB (1993), or Gary Lachman’s Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality (2012).

Mohini Chatterji’s role in the Theosophical Society was pivotal but brief, lasting only from 1882 through 1887. Chatterji was a great grandson of Ram Mohun Roy and his wife was the great granddaughter of Debendra Nath Tagore (1817-1905). As a promising young lawyer, Mohini attended the final annual meeting of the TS in Bombay in November 1882, as the headquarters moved to Madras at the end of the year. Mohini went to Europe with Olcott and Blavatsky in 1884 and was hugely successful in the propaganda role for which he had been recruited. He was well-spoken, well educated, and handsome, and the latter quality made him attractive to female Theosophists, one of whom produced a hundred love letters from him after learning of the existence of his wife in Calcutta.(52) During the years of his TS involvement he did more than any other Indian to promote Western appreciation of Hinduism, and to integrate Hindu ideas with a Western esoteric framework. In April 1886 his extended visit to Dublin made a lifelong impression on William Butler Yeats, whose poetry reveals the influence of Hindu ideas absorbed from Mohini. Most notably, Yeats wrote a poem in 1928 entitled “Mohini Chatterjee,” which brought attention to him in his old age when he was largely forgotten by Western Theosophists.

Before his resignation, Mohini joined forces with Arthur Gebhard in a privately distributed manifesto challenging the leadership of the Theosophical Society and the powers of its president in particular. Dated September 23, 1886, the joint statement appeared under the title “A Few Words on the Theosophical Organization” and was denounced by Blavatsky in a letter to William Q. Judge (1851-1896) as “ungrateful, cold, and unjust to poor Olcott and cruel” adding that Mohini was “now regarded as a Jesus on wheels and a Saint” who owed his fame to “Olcott’s advertisements of him and my enthusiastic claims for him.”(53) Mohini’s change of perspective, after years of serving faithfully as a supporter of her claims about the Mahatmas, is also evident in her complaints to Judge, Mohini was believed responsible for persuading two London Theosophists that the Masters “were no longer regarded as the living actual Adepts, but either white Magicians with grayish tints, or `fictions’… unreachable Beings they could neither communicate, nor take concern in worldly or private affairs could never write letters or send messages—therefore our Masters could never be MAHATMAS…Mohini is then exercising for over six months his influence over Miss Arundale to make her lose faith & belief even in the Masters.”(54)

Before leaving America, Mohini was embraced by the Boston Unitarians and Transcendentalists as evidenced by his role as a featured speaker at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the arrival of the Rev. Cyrus A. Bartol (1813-1900) as pastor of Old West Unitarian Church. He was thus returning to the alliances that the Brahmo Samaj had established in the 1830s with the Unitarians of Britain and America. Mohini’s presence as a speaker at this event is a reminder that Unitarianism was the first Western movement with which the Brahmo Samaj found common cause:

“It affords me very great pleasure to have this opportunity of saluting a body of men, brothers and Christians, in the name of the God who is the one God, no matter under how many different names and different forms he may be worshipped; the God who is the Father of all men, in whom we live and move and have our being… In the home of my childhood there was a book called ‘The Precepts of Jesus: Guide to Peace and Happiness.’ This book was written by an ancestor of mine. The great misunderstanding and misconception of the Christian faith that prevails in our country had given me such a false opinion of Christianity that I thought it would be a perfectly profitless thing to read this book… There is another reason why I have a personal pleasure in being here. Fifty-four years ago, four years before Dr. Bartol began his ministry here, an ancestor of mine died in Bristol, England, surrounded by Christians who believed in the unity of God. Therefore it is to me a matter of delight that I have this opportunity of addressing you as men, as brothers, and as Christians.”(55)

Mohini was not simply embracing Christianity and rejecting Theosophy; his position was nuanced but he was moving out of the orb of Blavatsky’s influence by returning to the conciliatory and pro-Western stance of the early Brahmo movement. Having served as a Theosophical missionary to the West, he was rejecting his role as the spokesman of Mahatmas who were harshly critical of Christianity, and returning to an earlier model of Indo-Western relations that did not exalt Indian religions over others. The celebrity he achieved in England, Ireland, and America may have turned his head as Blavatsky and her supporters believed. But his remarks at Bartol’s anniversary celebration indicate a genuine change of heart about a cooperative rather than competitive attitude of Hindus to Christians, which was a return to the path of his ancestors.

Cyrus A. Bartol

Having gotten too close to the flame of Blavatsky’s political involvements might have burned him, according to evidence unearthed in Christy Campbell’s 2002 The Maharaja’s Box. Campbell discovered a letter written by Philip D. Henderson (1840-1918) in 1886, when he had become the “general superintendent of the Thugee and Dacoity department,” reporting to Foreign Secretary Sir Henry Mortimer Durand (1850-1924). Henderson had been responsible for surveillance of the Theosophical Society since its arrival in India in 1879, and had become concerned about TS involvement in attempts to incite the exiled Maharaja Dalip Singh to open rebellion against the British. This led to an investigation of Dalip Singh’s associations in England, and on June 15, 1886 Henderson reported to the Police Commissioner of Madras:

“When Colonel Olcott was in India in 1882-83, he founded a secret society among the admitted. The purpose of this secret society is said to be to send information to Russia, and the headquarters are now said to be in Madras. An agent of the society was sent to England and is supposed to be the medium, or one of the mediums, of transmitting information. This man is one Mohini Mohun Chatterji… I heard from England myself that Mohini Mohun was in the habit of seeing a great deal of Duleep Singh … at the present time the necessity for vigilance to intrigues going on in India has been impressed on the Government of India.”(56)

In light of the fact that Mohini’s dealings with the maharaja came to the attention of the Government of India, it is conceivable that attempts were made to dissuade him from continued association with Blavatsky and the TS, and that his distancing himself from her was motivated by pressures brought to bear behind the scenes. Whatever the combination of factors, after his resignation in October 1887, Mohini had no further dealings with the TS other than assisting G.R.S. Mead (1863-1933) with an 1896 translation of the Upanishads, which he did under a pseudonym.

52 Letters of H.P. Blavatsky to A.P. Sinnett (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1973), 297.

53 H.P. Blavatsky, “The Original Programme of the Theosophical Society,” Compiler’s Notes, H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. VII, 136.

54 Ibid., 137

55 The West Church, Boston. Commemorative Services on the Fiftieth Anniversary of its Present Ministry… (Boston: Damrell and Upham, 1887). 68-70.

56 Christy Campbell, The Maharajah’s Box. (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook, 2002), 254-255.

In April 1882, Olcott lectured at Calcutta Town Hall on his first visit to Bengal, more than three years after his arrival in Bombay. He was introduced to this fateful lecture audience by Mittra, now a TS Vice-President and President of the Calcutta branch. Olcott attributed to Indian Mahatmas all the early paranormal wonders he witnessed in New York, and dated his desire to move to India to his earliest acquaintance with Blavatsky in Vermont. “She soon proved to me that, in comparison with even the chela of an Indian Mahatma, the authorities I had been accustomed to look up to knew absolutely nothing… I began to count the years, the months, the days, as they passed, for they were bringing me ever nearer the time when I should drag my body after the eager thought that had so long preceded it.” (39)

This account makes the move to India an inevitable destination of the TS even before it was founded, which conflicts with numerous accounts from other founding figures and even his own story of the fateful 1877 introduction to the Arya Samaj. As the alliance with Dayananda collapsed, so did his significance in Olcott’s explanation of his reasons coming to India: “During the three years when I was waiting to come to India, I had other visits from the Mahatmas, and they were not all Hindus or Cashmeris. I know some fifteen in all, and among them Copts, Tibetans, Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, a Hungarian, and a Cypriote.” (40)

Olcott’s visits from the Mahatmas have acquired the connotation of mysterious paranormal events through decades of Theosophical elaboration. But regardless of paranormal claims, as seen in Olcott’s description above, there was a remarkable series of encounters with international acquaintances who shared common interests. He mentions no Bengali Mahatmas, yet makes a long-term commitment to the Theosophists of Bengal, saying “I expect henceforth to spend at least two or three months of each year in Bengal…We have not the least intention of returning to our own countries to reside. India is our chosen home, the land of our adoption; and the Hindus are our dearest friends, if not our brothers.”(41)

In Old Diary Leaves, Olcott described his arrival in Calcutta for the first time and its aftermath:

Calcutta was my final stage on this roundabout tour of 1882. I was first entertained there by my excellent friends Colonel and Mrs. Gordon, and, later, by the Maharajah, Sir Jotendro Mohn Tagore, the premier Indian noble of the Metropolis…became his guest at his palatial Guest-House (Boituckhana) for the remainder of my stay in Calcutta. This gentleman is one of the courtliest, most cultured and estimable friends I have ever known. On the 4th, the Maharajah held a reception for me, to make me acquainted with the chief Indian gentlemen of the city. On the 5th, my lecture was given at the town hall to a tremendous audience…The beloved Bengali author and philanthropist, the late Babu Peary Chand Mittra, was my Chairman. H.P.B. joined me the next day at the Boituckhana, and that evening, at the same place, we organized the Bengal Theosophical Society, one of our best known Branches, with Babu Peary Chand Mittra as President. (42)

Blavatsky’s first mention of the Brahmo Samaj after her visit to Bengal was in the June 1882 Theosophist with an article “Hindu Theism” in which she introduced an article on Brahmo history:

“In 1838 the leadership fell into the hands of Babu Debendra Nath Tagore, a Bengali gentleman of high family, and of a sweetness of character and loftiness of aim equal to that of the late Raja. Primitive Brahmoism was first split into two, and, later, into three churches. The first and, it is claimed, the original, one is known as the Adi Brahmo Samaj, of which the now venerable and always equally revered Babu Debendra Nath Tagore is theoretically, but Babu Raj Narain Bose practically—owing to the retirement of the former to a life of religious seclusion at Mussooree— the chief…the second Samaj comprises a small group which has followed the lead of Babu Kashab Chander Sen, down the slippery road to the quagmire of Infallibility, Direct Revelation, and Apostolic Succession…The Third branch of the original Brahmo Samaj of Ram Mohun Roy is called the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, and headed by Pandit Sivanath Shastri, who is a gentleman of unblemished character, modest disposition, a well-read Sanskritist, and a good though not exceptional, orator…In conclusion, we must note the coincidence that, upon the very heel of the Swami’s defection, comes a most cordial greeting from Babu Raj Narain Bose, leader of another Hindu society, and a man whose approbation and friendship is worth having…” (43)

In May 1883, in “The Chosen `Vehicles of Election’” she protested that “Brahmoism proper, as taught by Raja Ram Mohun Roy, or the respected and venerable Babu Debendranath Tagore, we have never ridiculed nor deprecated, nor ever will.” (44) The following month, Blavatsky published an article in the Theosophist which commented on an article from the previous month’s number by Bose on “Essential Religion” in a friendly but critical tone. This echoed the tone of the original criticism, in which Bose pointed out that Theosophy was as much a propagandistic religion as Brahmoism despite claims to the contrary. In his response Bose wrote “I am not therefore unfriendly to Theosophy, but I have a word of humble advice to offer to the disinterested leaders of the Theosophical movement, for whom I entertain every feeling of respect. The more they keep Theosophy and Theology distinct from each other, and the less they mix up their personal opinions of the subject of religion with their legitimate province, Theosophy, the better.“ (45) Blavatsky replied that “The saintly characters of Ram Mohun Roy, Debendra Nath Tagore, and a few others of his colleagues, have not won the Hindus from their exoteric worship—we think, because neither of them has had the Yogi power to prove practically the fact of there being a spiritual side to nature. (46) A further exchange appeared in the December 1883 number of The Theosophist, in which Blavatsky commented that “We never spoke of the `Adi Brahmo Samaj,’ of which we know next to nothing, but of the spurious Brahmo Samaj calling itself New Dispensation where all is to be taken on faith and the Universal Infallibility is claimed to have taken its Headquarters in the person of Babu Keshub Chunder Sen who has now come to comparing himself publicly—nay with identifying himself—with Jesus Christ.” (47) Describing all branches of Brahmos combined as having fewer than 150,000 members, Blavatsky adds “we were told in Calcutta by a near relative of the Babu—that the direct followers, or the apostles of Babu Keshub could be counted on the ten fingers— they do not exceed fifty men.” (48) But while the New Dispensation was subject to relentless scorn in Blavatsky’s writings, Mittra was always praised: “There are a few converts to modern Spiritualism, such as Babu Peary Chand Mittra, whose great personal purity of life would make such intercourse harmless for him, even were he not indifferent to physical phenomena, holding but to the purely spiritual subjective side of such communion.” (49)

While Blavatsky’s first trip to Bengal to promote the TS among the Brahmos in April 1882 was of short-term import, her second trip, when she visited Darjeeling and the Ghum monastery six months later, had a more lasting significance. She traveled in the company of several Indian chelas, including Keshava Pillai who was instructed in a letter from Koot Hoomi to adopt the name Chandra Cusho and the attire of a Gelugpa monk. The name Chandra may be a nod to Sarat Chandra Das (1849-1917), a Bengali scholar of Tibetan Buddhism who was in Shigatse at the time of Blavatsky’s trip to Darjeeling, in the company of a Sikkimese lama named Ugyen Gyatso. In the December 1883 Theosophist, she referred to “Ten-Dub Ughien, the lama next to our Mahatma—and the chief and Guide of his chelas on their travels.”(50) Ugyen Gyatso and Sarat Chandra Das returned from their trip to Shigatse in December 1882, and Colonel Olcott visited Das in Darjeeling in 1885 and 1887 and wrote of him as a “wonderful explorer of Tibet” who had returned with “priceless MSS. and printed books.” (51)

39 Henry S. Olcott, Theosophy, Religion, and Occult Science (London: Redway, 1885), 122-124.

40 Ibid., 124.

41 Ibid., 119.

42 Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Third Series (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1972), 340-341.

43 H.P. Blavatsky, “Hindu Theism,”The Theosophist, Vol. III, No. 9, June 1882, reprinted in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. IV (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1969), 109-111.

44 H.P. Blavatsky, “The Chosen `Vessels of Election;” The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 8, May, 1883, reprinted in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. IV, 414-415.

45 Babu Raj Narain Bose, “The Essentials of Religion,” The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 11, August, 1883, reprinted in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Volume V (Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1950), 99.

 46 H.P. Blavatsky, “Editor’s Note,” Ibid., p. 100.

 47 Babu Raj Narain Bose, “The God-Idea,” The Theosophist, Vol. V, No. 3, December 1883, in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. VI, 12.

 48 “H.P. Blavatsky, Editor’s Note, “Ananda Bai’s Reception,” The Theosophist, Vol. V, No 3, Supplement to December, 1883, reprinted in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. VI, 68.

49 H.P. Blavatsky, “Tibetan Teachings,” Lucifer, Vol. XV, Nos. 85-86, September and October, 1894, in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. VI, 96.

 50 H.P. Blavatsky, “Editor’s Note,” Preo Nath Banerjee, “Existence of the Himalayan Mahatmas,” The Theosophist, Vol. V., No. 3, December, 1883, reprinted in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. VI, 38.

 51 Henry Steel Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Third Series, 4-6.

This is the second of the subdivisions of the chapter “Theosophy in the Bengal Renaissance.” Noteworthy for students of the Brotherhood of Light Lessons or readers of the History of the Adepts books is that Mittra (Mitra) was held in high esteem by Alexander Wilder and Thomas Moore Johnson as well as by Emma Hardinge Britten and James Martin Peebles. The former were more Platonists than occultists and the latter more Spiritualists than Theosophists– but the lines were always blurred in the 19th century. KPJ

Peary Chand Mittra was the first Bengali member of the TS, and the third Indian admitted, member #135 in the Adyar membership books with an entry date of December 9, 1877.

Blavatsky referred to Mittra in a note recorded in her scrapbook next to a clipping from the London Spiritualist of Jan 25, 1878 of a letter to editor from Peebles, “who is attempting to prove that there are Hindu Spiritualists” to which she added a note commenting “Ask Peary Chand Mittra whether he would accept `materialized’ spooks with sweating and corpse-stinking bodies for his dear `departed ones.’”(26) In The Theosophical Enlightenment, Joscelyn Godwin suggests that Blavatsky and Olcott first made contact with Mittra through Peebles, which is credible in light of their known friendship.(27) Although Mittra is known in the West as an Indian Theosophist and Spiritualist, in his homeland his reputation is as a pivotal figure in the Bengal Renaissance who was acquainted with most of its leaders. In Awakening, a recent survey of the century-long revival of Bengali literary culture, Subrata Dasgupta describes “the ultimate and supreme product” of the Bengal Renaissance as a “cross-cultural mentality, let us call it the Indo- Western mind.”(28) Involvement in the TS was the ultimate expression of Mittra’s Indo-Western mind. Indeed the entire Bengal Renaissance was encouraged by the literary pursuits of Westerners living in Bengal in the late 18th century, and flourished with the mutual interest of Bengalis writing in English and Englishmen learning Bengali.

Mittra features prominently in Dasgupta’s study as “a librarian, businessman, and literary man- at-large, but most famously, under the nom de plume of Tekchand Thakur, the author of Alaler Gharer Dulal…regarded as the first novel in Bengali.”(29) With Radhanath Sikda he “established a monthly Bengali magazine which ran for three years.”(30) A Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge, founded in 1838, hosted Mittra as a lecturer on a variety of themes, and he was subsequently involved in the creation of the University of Calcutta. Mittra was a founder of the British Indian Association and in 1868 became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. All these developments illustrate Dasgupta’s thesis that “the Bengal Renaissance’s richest production was the creation of a cross-cultural mentality, a capability to think, perceive, and create in a manner that involved the melding of two or more traditions seemingly unconnected and even contradictory…the `Indo-Western mind’, resulting from a constellation of encounters of all sorts between Bengal and the West…”(31)

The first details about the Brahmo Samaj in Blavatsky’s writings came in an 1878 article about the Arya Samaj: “in October, 1839… Debendra Nath Tagore founded the Tattvabodhoni-Sabha (or Society for the Knowledge of Truth), which lasted for twenty years, and did much to arouse the energies and form the principles of the young church of the Brahmo-Samaj. We now find it with Samajes established in many provinces and cities. At least, we learn that in May 1877, “fifty Samajes have notified their adhesion to the Society and eight of them have appointed their representatives.”(32) The rest of the article was devoted to the Arya Samaj, and for the next four years the TS Founders would pursue alliances with that organization and with the Sinhalese Buddhists. Their travels to northern and western India and Ceylon occupied much of their time and energy in 1879 and 1880. It was only in 1882, the year in which the Arya Samaj and the TS became permanently alienated, that they would visit Bengal and strengthen their ties with the Brahmo Samaj. The first mention of a Bengal Renaissance leader in Blavatsky’s writings in India was found in an American Spiritualist publication, the Banner of Light, where she wrote that “the frequent statements of Dr. Peebles to the effect that this country is full of native Spiritualists are—how shall I say it? a little too hasty, and exaggerated…Dr. Peebles quotes from the letter of an esteemed Hindu gentleman, Mr. Peary Chand Mitra, of Calcutta…We all know that Mr. Mitra is a Spiritualist, but what does it prove?”(33) In an unpublished fragment found in Adyar Archives and published in the Collected Writings as “Theosophy— the Essence of Philosophy,” dated 1879, she wrote: “and here, in the present century, we will find ourselves face to face with, and recognize as Brother Theosophists, such original thinkers as Swami Naratan, Ram Mohun Roy, Brahma charya Bawa, Keshub Chunder Sen, and finally, last, though by far not least on our catalogue— Swami Dayanada Sawaswati, the learned Pandit, eminent Vedic scholar and elocutionist, and the founder of the Aryan Reformation.”34 Although Mittra’s acquaintance with the TS dates to 1877, he took four years to contribute directly to Theosophical literature. In a March 1881 article for the Theosophist, Blavatsky commented “Ever since we came to India friends in Europe and America have been asking us to tell them something about the Brahmo Samaj. We have been promised such an exposition of Brahmoism more than once by Brahmo friends.”(35)

In 1882, Mittra was elected president of the TS branch in Calcutta, and Blavatsky wrote about him as “certainly the most spiritual Theosophist and most theosophic Spiritualist we have ever met.”(36) Answering questions about the suitability of a Spiritualist president of a Theosophical branch, she wrote that “many excellent persons are both, and none need alter his faith.”(37) Emma Hardinge Britten’s Nineteenth Century Miracles (published in 1884 but in a passage apparently written during Mittra’s lifetime) called Mittra a highly esteemed Indian Spiritualist: “Amongst the recent literary productions which bear testimony to the spread of the spiritual faith in India, no writings are more highly esteemed than those of Peary Chand Mittra. Besides a number of excellent magazine articles contributed by this gentleman to the different Spiritual periodicals of England and America, Mr. Mittra has written an interesting brochure entitled `Spiritual Stray Leaves,’ and a still more profound work on `the Soul; it’s [sic] nature and development.”(38)

23 Stainton Moses, “The Early Story of the Theosophical Society,” Light, Vol. XII, No. 602Jul 23, 1892, 356.

24 Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1 (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 2003), 361.

25 Krishna Singh Arya and P.D. Shastri, Swami Dayananda Sarasvati: A Study of His Life and Work (Delhi: Manohar, 1987), 17-18.

26 H.P. Blavatsky, H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. 1 Second edition. (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1977), 282.

27 Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 327. This book devotes several psges to Brahmoism, far more than other works addressing TS history, but concentrates on the period prior to TS/Brahmo contact.

28 Subrata Dasgupta, Awakening (Noida, U.P.: Random House India, 2011), 3.

29 Ibid., 178.

30 Ibid., 179.

31 Ibid., 431.

32 “The Arya Samaj,” New York Echo, June 2, 1878 in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings Vol. I, 381.

33 H.P. Blavatsky, “Echoes rom India, ” Banner of Light, XLVI no 4, October 18, 1879, in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. II (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, n.d.).

34 H.P. Blavatsky, “Theosophy, the Essence of Philosophy,” H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. II, 209.

35 H.P. Blavatsky, “The Brahmo Samaj,” Theosophist 2:6, March 1881 reprinted in H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. III (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1968), 55.

36 H.P. Blavatsky, H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. IV (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1969), 170.

37 Ibid.

38 Emma Hardinge Britten, Nineteenth Century Miracles (New York: Lovell, 1884), 317.

Hurrychund Chintamon

1870-1877 Initial Contacts (from Theosophy in the Bengal Renaissance, Chapter 10 of Imagining the East)

Old Diary Leaves describes a visitor who recognized Bombay Arya Samaj leader Moolji Thackersey (d1880) in a photograph on the wall of the New York apartment that Colonel Olcott (1832-1907) shared with Madame Blavatsky. “One evening in the year 1877 an American traveller, who had recently been in India, called…he did know Moolji Thackersey and had recently met him in Bombay.(3) This photograph had been allegedly taken on a transatlantic voyage from New York to Liverpool in 1870, where Olcott met Moolji Thackersey and another Indian traveler named Tulsidas Jadarjee, five years before the formation of the Arya Samaj. Hurrychund Chintamon, with whom Olcott began corresponding after Thackersey introduced them, was the second Indian entered in the Adyar Membership records now available online from The Art Archive. The first, Jadarjee, #120 in the entries, precedes #123 Chintamon and has been considerably more elusive. Herbert Monachesi (d1900) gave his name as Tulsidas Jadarjee in an October 6, 1875 New York Mercury article “Proselyters from India,” claiming that Thackersey and his travel companion had been on a Hindu missionary journey to the West.(4) Newspaper accounts in New York (November 12, 1869), Louisville (November 20, reporting their presence in Chicago), New Orleans (December 3), Macon (December 24, reporting their presence in Mobile), Charleston (December 26), and Philadelphia (January 6, 1870) trace their travels around the United States on a business mission to study the cotton business in hopes of establishing direct trade. The New York Times for January 13, 1870 included the names “Moolja Thackersy, Toolsidas Jadarzee,” and “Colonel. Hy. S. Olcott” as having departed the previous day on the steamship Java, bound from New York to Liverpool.(5)

James Peebles (1822-1922) has been suggested as the possible visitor of Olcott’s anecdote, but he was out of the country throughout 1877 and thus less likely as the visitor in question than a heretofore overlooked colleague of Olcott, David E. Dudley, MD.(6)  Like Olcott, Peebles did make a journey to England in 1870 that led to acquaintance with Indians who became pivotal in the establishment of the TS in Asia. Two years later his travels in India made him a catalyst in the relations between the Brahmo Samaj and western Spiritualists. His acquaintance with the Brahmo Samaj had begun in 1868 when Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-1884) wrote a letter to a Free Thought Convention, in which “Dr. J. M. Peebles and Miss Lizzie Doten (1827-1913) spoke for the Spiritualists…there was also an inspiring letter from Keshub Chunder Sen, the great leader of the Brahmo Somaj movement in India.”(7) In 1870, Sen wrote a note to Peebles while both were in London, leading to a meeting about which Peebles later wrote: “This educated and gentlemanly missionary from India, attired in the vesture of his native land, made quite a sensation when reaching the great metropolis of her Majesty’s domains… we learned that he was well acquainted with Peary Chand Mittra, and other leading Spiritualists of India. Multitudes in this distant country accept the central thought of Spiritualism; that is, intercourse with departed spirits.”(8) Sen wrote of the meeting in a diary entry: “Tuesday, 26th April. Mr. Peebles, United States Consul in Asia Minor, calls on me with a friend of his who, it appears, is a spiritualist. They are both very liberal-minded, and they most warmly sympathize with me in my desire and efforts to promote theism. Mr. Peebles asks me to visit America where he will be going in next June. He is enthusiastic about it.”(9)

James Martin Peebles

In his 1875 travel memoir Around the World Peebles also describes meeting Brahmo Samajis in Calcutta, one of whom had translated Emma Hardinge’s Spiritual Commandments into Bengali and distributed it as a pamphlet.10 In 1871, Hardinge (not yet Britten) had written a glowing three page preface to the first biography of Peebles, The Spiritual Pilgrim by J. O. Barrett (1823-1898). The following year he met the Cairo Spiritualist circle in which Blavatsky had been involved.(11) In light of these circumstances, we can surmise that Peebles vouched for Blavatsky’s Spiritualist credentials to Olcott, and endorsed her phenomena that are described in People From the Other World. This 1875 book describes the séances at the Eddy brothers’ farmhouse in Vermont where Olcott first met Blavatsky. Peebles also is featured in the narrative as a man who “is well known as an eloquent speaker and scholarly writer upon Spiritualism, but that doesn’t imply that he is either a fool or knave.”(12)

Henry S. Olcott

Although in 1874 Peebles had been present at the time of the first acquaintance of Blavatsky and Olcott in Vermont, he kept distance from her thereafter. Adyar membership records indicate that Peebles was not an early TS member. In fact he condemned Blavatsky and supported her accusers the Coulombs in 1884 during the Society for Psychical Research investigation of the TS. Near the end of his life he repeated his condemnation of Blavatsky in Five Journeys Around the World (1910), writing that “Continental, English, and American Spiritualism and Spiritualists were shamefully misrepresented in India a number of years ago by Madame Blavatsky and a number of her biologized subordinates.”(13) Clearly, Olcott was chief among the “biologized subordinates” yet in the same book Peebles wrote “Adyar is not only restful, inviting to study and meditation, but the centre of Theosophical culture, research, and authority for the enlightened Theosophical world. Happy were the days and weeks that I spent in this palace of books, companioned with Col. Olcott, the only living founder of modern Theosophy!”(14) After Blavatsky’s death he finally joined the Theosophists in 1894 and was on collegial terms with Olcott on a return trip to South Asia three years later.(15)

Emma Hardinge Britten

Art Magic and Ghost Land, published in 1876, were the first expressions of interest in India in books by a TS founder. Emma Hardinge Britten (1823-1899) has been largely written out of the early TS narrative and deprived of her rightful status as a founder. Although she has been perceived in terms of the polarities East vs. West and Spiritualism vs. Theosophy, she wrote as a Theosophical Spiritualist and a reconciler of Eastern and Western traditions. In Art Magic she wrote that “the same imperishable sources of knowledge from which the ancients derived their opinions and framed their systems of Theosophy, are open to the students of the nineteenth century in all their fullness,”(16) and eight years later in Nineteenth Century Miracles she asserted that “’Theosophy’ and `Occultism,’ are terms of world-wide import.”(17) Despite her open break with the TS due to its hostility to Spiritualism, in 1884 Britten still maintained that “India has been the cradle of all known theological beliefs…the actual marvels wrought by religious ascetics, in the realm of matter and force, have opened up a new and highly suggestive page in the study of Occultism and Psychology.”(18) Isis Unveiled, published in 1877, refers to Bengal briefly in each of its two volumes. In Volume I, Blavatsky gives a first-person narrative of a “Magical Séance in Bengal,” in which she describes having made “hundreds of experiments with cats, dogs, monkeys of various kinds, and once, with a tame tiger” in the Western Ghat mountains, and then describes witnessing a tiger, a lion-monkey, and an oriole being mesmerized all in the same “séance” attended by nine persons in Bengal.(19) In the second volume, she describes an encounter with snake charmers by a British “Captain B” before recounting another tale of mesmerizing a tiger, this time in a village near Dacca.(20)

Swami Dayananda Sarasvati

Correspondence between the Theosophists and the Bombay Arya Samaj began in November 1877 when Olcott contacted Moolji Thackersey. In December, Blavatsky wrote for the first time to Peary Chand Mittra (1813-1883), asking “in what pagodas are the records preserved? Where are these temples situated and what are their names, and how old is each known to be?”(21)

Although Blavatsky corresponded with the Arya Samaj before making contact with the Brahmos, in The White Buddhist, Steven Prothero notes a letter written June 5, 1877 from Olcott to Mittra which thus occurred months prior to TS contact with Dayananda and his disciples.(22) Peary Chand Mittra was the first Bengali member of the TS, and the third Indian admitted, member #135 in the Adyar membership books with an entry date of December 9, 1877. Although Olcott would later claim that his motivation to move to India predated creation of the TS, an 1876 letter to Stainton Moses (1839-1892) shows him resistant to Blavatsky’s desire to relocate to India. She had been convinced that criticisms by D.D. Home (1833-1886) had destroyed her credibility in Europe and America. This letter, published in Light in 1892, seeks the assistance of Moses’ spirit guide Imperator:

“I wish you would ask Imperator, with my compliments, if he can’t do something, in the psychological way, to prevent Madame Blavatsky from going to India…She is a changed woman these past few weeks. She is moody, reserved, and apparently desperate. The calumnies circulated in Europe and here have cut her so deeply; she feels such a disgust with our world; she so longs for her sacred Ganges, and the society of her Brethren, that I am afraid we will lose her.”(23)

Daniel Dunglas Home

In November 1877, after the decision had been made to move to India, Blavatsky wrote a letter to A.N. Aksakov (1832-1903) in Russia that confirms Home’s hostility as a factor: “It is for this that I am going for ever to India, and for very shame and vexation I want to go where no one will know my name. Home’s malignity has ruined me for ever in Europe.(24) Perhaps what changed Olcott’s mind were Blavatsky’s elaborate claims on behalf of Swami Dayananda. She had portrayed him as part of her Great White Brotherhood of adept sponsors, and Hurrychund Chintamon had also encouraged Olcott’s religious adherence to the Swami. On February 18, 1878, Olcott wrote through Chintamon to Dayananda, “we come to your feet as children to a parent, and say, ‘Look at us, our teacher; tell us what we ought to do. Give us your counsel and your aid.”(25)

This sequence of events revises the traditional understanding of the TS move to India. Rapprochement between western Spiritualists and the Brahmo Samaj was behind the scenes of the early TS through Peebles, Sen and Mittra during the writing of Britten’s Ghost Land, well before the connection to Swami Dayananda developed. Theosophical tales about Indian missionaries to the West were likely derived from Brahmo activities and orientation. Arya Samajis cared no more about European contacts than did Tibetan Buddhists, but Bengalis were more global in perspective and did send missionaries to the West. The first to play this role in the early Victorian period was Brahmo Samaj founder Ram Mohan Roy; most visible in the 1880s was his great grandson Mohini Chatterji (1858-1936).

(endnote numbers continue from the previous installment)

3Henry S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974, 1975) Vol. I, 395.

4 Josephine Ransom, Short History of the Theosophical Society (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938), 98.

5 “Passengers Sailed,” New York Times, January 13, 1870, 8.

6 Dudley’s role in the TS move to India is discussed in my editorial foreword to the 2021 reprint of Chintamon’s 1874 Commentary on the Text of the Bhagavad-Gita. In The Dawning of the Theosophical Movement (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 1977), Michael Gomes noted that the American traveler “is usually identified as Dr. James M. Peebles” and asserts that Peebles had indeed met Thackersey, but cautions that Peebles was out of the U.S. throughout 1877. In 1980, Marion Meade reported as fact that Peebles was the visitor; the most recent book to name Peebles as the visitor to Olcott is Diane Sasson, Yearning for the New Age (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 57. My The Masters Revealed variously asserted this as a possibility and a fact, despite noting Michael Gomes’s objections re chronology. Joscelyn Godwin and Gary Lachman have more cautiously and accurately described this as a possibility rather than a fact.

7 Proceedings of the Fortieth Annual Meeting (Boston: Free Religious Association of America, 1907), 22.

8 James M. Peebles, Around the World (Boston: Colby and Rich, 1875), 251.

9 Keshub Chunder Sen, Diary in England (Calcutta: Brahmo Tract Society, 1894), 79.

10 Peebles, Around the World (Boston: Colby and Rich, 1875), 252.

11 Edward Whipple, A Biography of James Martin Peebles, M.D., A.M. (Battle Creek: The Author, 1901), 529

12 Henry S. Olcott, People From the Other World, (Rutland: Tuttle, 1972), 308.

13 James M. Peebles, Five Journeys Around the World (Battle Creek: Peebles Publishing Company, 1910), 432.

14 Ibid, 419.

15 At this point a timeline may be helpful in clarifying Peebles’s travels in relation to those of others. 1) 1870— Olcott meets Thackersey and Jadarjee en route to London; Peebles meets Keshub Chnder Sen in London. 2) 1871— Britten writes preface to the first biography of Peebles. 3) 1872—Peebles meets P.C. Mittra and other Brahmo Samajis in Calcutta, and visits Cairo and learns of Blavatsky who has left for Odessa, or perhaps met her before her departure as evidence is conflicting. 4) 1874 Peebles is at the Chittenden VT home of the Eddy Brothers when Olcott and Blavatsky met there.

16 Emma Hardinge Britten, Art Magic (New York: The Author, 1876), 29.

17 Emma Hardinge Britten, Nineteenth Century Miracles (New York: Lovell, 1884), 304.

18 Ibid., 294

19 H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1976), Vol. I, 467-468.

20 Ibid., Vol. II, 622-623. The otherwise unidentified “Captain B” may be a veiled reference to Richard F. Burton, who referred to snake charmers in several of his travel narratives and who joined the TS in late 1878.

21 Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, Vol. I (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 2003), 391.Blavatsky was seeking information on the oldest astronomical calculations preserved in India.

22 Stephen Prothero, The White Buddhist (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 206.

 23 Stainton Moses, “The Early Story of the Theosophical Society,” Light, Vol. XII, No. 602Jul 23, 1892, 356.

 24 Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, Vol. 1 (Wheaton: Theosophical Publishing House, 2003), 361.

 25 Krishna Singh Arya and P.D. Shastri, Swami  Dayananda Sarasvati: A Study of His Life and Work (Delhi: Manohar, 1987), 17-18.

This is the opening of my chapter “Theosophy in the Bengal Renaissance” which is chapter ten of Imagining the East from Oxford University Press. In future blog posts I will add illustrations of relevant people and places, in five more segments of the chapter. I would like to acknowledge the tremendous assistance of editors Tim Rudbog and Erik Sand who helped me integrate several different biographical profiles and kept pushing me to explain the meaning of the facts I dug up, making connections between different biographies and not just reporting them individually. They also helped break the chapter down into digestible sub sections which I will post separately as series of blog entries adding illustrations not in the book from Oxford University Press. 

INTRODUCTION

The Bengal Renaissance was a movement of religious awakening, literary creativity, political consciousness, and social reform, emerging in the late eighteenth century and ending with the death of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), first Indian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.¹ A little known aspect of the Theosophical movement is its early and continuing association with the Bengal Renaissance, and the strong interest shown in this alliance by H.P. Blavatsky (1831- 1891). Her books show little trace of this involvement, but her journalistic writings show her to be a keen observer of the middle phase of the movement in the 1880s and especially of the three factions into which the Brahmo movement (which was inaugurated in 1823 as the Calcutta Unitarian Committee, renamed in 1828 as the Brahmo Sabha, and again as the Brahmo Samaj in 1843) had divided. This chapter examines the initial TS contacts with Bengal which developed while the organization was still based in New York, and describes the cooperative relationships with Bengalis that developed after Olcott and Blavatsky’s move to India. These relationships were largely with members of the Brahmo Samaj, which according to historian David Kopf “played a crucial role in the genesis and development of every major religious, social, and political movement in India from 1820 to 1930.” ² The most prominent Bengali Theosophist, Mohini Chatterji (1858-1936), began as a fervent disciple of the Theosophical Mahatmas, but after leaving India in 1884 he became a dissident and then an ex-Theosophist before returning in 1887. By the early twentieth century, Theosophy was losing favor among young Bengali intellectuals like himself. An eloquent explanation of this decline is found in posthumously published writings of Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950) who, like Chatterji, was a descendant of Brahmo Samaj leaders.

The success of Tamra Lucid’s Making the Ordinary Extraordinary has been a joy to behold. In  retrospect, having seen the first draft I could tell immediately that this story had to be told and Tamra was the person who had to tell it.  The subtitle refers to “Occult LA in the 1980s,” which describes a period of my life when I briefly crossed paths with Manly P. Hall as we were both presenters at the Secret Doctrine Centenary in Pasadena.  He opened the Saturday afternoon session, October 29, 1988 at two pm and I followed at three with one intervening speaker. Many Theosophists were fans of his Secret Teachings of All Ages, and his wife Marie’s obsession with Bruton Parish Church made her notorious in Tidewater Virginia.  Because Hall was an occultist contemporary of Edgar Cayce and Elbert Benjamine, his name was also familiar in the Association for Research and Enlightenment and The Church of Light.

“I could not put it down” is a compliment I can rarely pay to books I read for historical information and insight.  Fiction can have that effect, but so can memoirs when the author’s voice is compelling.  Tamra covers the emotional rollercoaster of the Philosophical Research Society’s turmoil, from comedy at the beginning to tragedy at the end.  Only an eyewitness account can convey such a situation from the inside. The talent that most impresses me is to write a first person memoir that carries a story from start to middle to finish never losing sight of the narrative arc.

The Magic of the Orphic Hymns is a new translation by Tamra Lucid and Ronnie Pontiac that is now listed as “in stock” by Inner Traditions International. pre-ordered it and await my copy next week:

The Magic of the Orphic Hymns (innertraditions.com)

Here is an informative review of Making the Ordinary Extraordinary:

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary, by Tamra Lucid

Of the 2022 titles mentioned in the previous post, I have only just received the Green book The Religious Revolution, and many of the 2021 and 2020 titles are very expensive so I can only cite them from free excerpts online. But I have now read the works by Lucid, Della Subin, Urban, Dann, and Kramer, while Sites is next after Green. (PS Hokanson arrived today, Friday July 7.) These will be featured in future blog posts. The value of seeing whose books cite mine is they rarely say anything about me but just the adept biographical subjects in my books– in very interesting ways. [Out of 25, one is very flattering and one is very insulting but 23 just use the research without flattering or insulting the author which is what I want.]

2021 Citations in Books:

Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration, and the Power of  Imagination Page 171

Bernd-Christian Otto – 2021 Brill

Esoteric Transfers and Constructions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam… Page 286

Mark Sedgwick, ‎Francesco Piraino · 2021 Palgrave

Secrecy: Silence, Power, and Religion – Page 223

Hugh B. Urban · 2021 University of Chicago Press

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: My Seven Years in Occult Los Angeles… Acknowledgments

Tamra Lucid · 2021 Inner Traditions International

Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age – Page 538

Olav Hammer · 2021 Brill

The Subtle Body: A Genealogy – Page 224

Simon Cox · 2021 Oxford University Press

Accidental Gods

Anna Della Subin- 2021 Metropolitan Books

Sino-Tibetan Buddhism across the Ages – Page 168

Ester Bianchi, ‎Weirong Shen · 2021 Brill

Die orientalische Wende der Theosophischen Gesellschaft.. Page 508

Ulrich Harlass · 2021 de Gruyter

Das Chakra-System: Der Schlüssel zum Verständnis des Menschenbooks.                                                   

Kurt Leland · 2021 Aquamarin-Verlag

Freemasonry and Rudolf Steiner…Page 262

N.V. P. Franklin, 2021 Temple Lodge

Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity … Page 264

Zack Kruse · 2021 University Press of Mississippi

2020:

Kabbalah in America: Ancient Lore in the New World – Page 110

Brian Ogren · 2020 New York University Press

The Reception of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Britain: East Comes West – Page 187

Brendan McNamara · 2020 Brill

Enchanted New York: A Journey along Broadway through Manhattan’s Magical Past… – Page 324

Kevin Dann · 2020 New York University Press

Inhaling Spirit: Harmonialism, Orientalism, and the Western  Roots of Modern Yoga…Page

Anya P. Foxen · 2020 Oxford University Press

The Return of Holy Russia: Apocalyptic History, Mystical Awakening, and the Struggle for the Soul of the World

Gary Lachman · 2020 Inner Traditions International

Theosophy across Boundaries: Transcultural and International Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement, endnotes

Hans Martin Krämer, ‎Julian Strube · 2020 SUNY Press

Searching for the Spirit: Theosophy in Australia, 1879-1939

Jill Roe · 2020 · ‎Wakefield Press

Sun Ra’s Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City

William Sites – University of Chicago Press 2020

As we approach Summer Solstice this blog will turn over a new leaf and focus solely on the early twentieth century Brotherhood of Light and Church of Light as sources of clues about associations and influences. From my earliest books to my latest editorial projects, the time frame 1875-1900 has almost defined the scope of research, although it involves many countries and different esoteric and spiritual groups. This article from the Los Angeles Evening Citizen Times appeared April 19, 1941. It came as a revelation to me that Elizabeth was a speaker at a Masonic lodge in Los Angeles, and a new puzzle to solve– who was C. N. Redmond her fellow speaker? Another news article describes her visit to Ohio on behalf of The Church of Light. This appeared in the Mansfield News-Journal on August 13, 1941.– KPJ

Editing to add– this Redmond seems to be an impostor, taking the name of a real Rev. C. N. Redmond. No matter how much I try to avoid discussing aliases of impostors, they keep popping up.

Ronnie has given many good interviews since American Metaphysical Religion was published, explaining his research to interviewers approaching the book from different points of view. Here is a recent one with a psychological author.

Patrick’s contacts with the Johnson Library and Museum in Osceola, Missouri resulted in the greatest find of 19thc correspondence I have ever heard about in the realm of esotericism. We both had chapters in the same Oxford University Press book; his based directly on the Johnson correspondence but mine only indirectly related. His chapter is now available online here, a gold mine of info for anyone interested in the pre-history of the Brotherhood of Light.

https://www.academia.edu/97678012/_The_Real_Pure_Yog_Yoga_in_the_Early_Theosophical_Society_and_the_Hermetic_Brotherhood_of_Luxor

In the first volume of the Brotherhood of Light Lessons, Elbert Benjamine published his own natal chart next to that of Church of Light Vice President Fred Skinner. Precise birth data valued by astrologers is also helpful to genealogists for historical research, and Elbert’s chronologies of major life events are often biographically helpful.

Frederick Huffman Skinner was born in Chariton, Iowa on April 10, 1872. Tracing him through the census, we find him a single 28 year old “General Agent” in 1900 in Oregon, then living with his wife Helen in California in 1910, 1920, and 1930. Elbert reports that Fred left an “occult secret society” in 1917 and joined the Brotherhood of Light in 1918. This indicates that he had formerly been associated with the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. That would be one factor in common with Elbert; being fellow Iowans another similarity, and being avid outdoorsmen and naturalists a third connection.

Fred’s wedding to Helen Buckley was described in the Napa Weekly Journal on June 29, 1906:

Fred’s obituary describes a harrowing experience for his young niece, who had accompanied him five miles into the San Bernardino mountains on a nature photography expedition during which he died of a heart attack. He was 67, not 71 as stated in the paper. This is from the San Bernardino County Sun, February 8, 1940.

May brings two changes to sites where History of the Adepts research has been shared. Academia.edu now offers free access to the entire text and annotations for all letters received by Thomas Moore Johnson and published in two volumes in Letters to the Sage. Introductions by Patrick Bowen and Ronnie Pontiac, appendices by Erica Georgiades and myself, and illustrations are available only in the print and ebook volumes, but the letters themselves and the correspondent biographies can be examined here. The excerpts from Grimke, Astley, and Chintamon books have recently been expanded and updated as well.

For years at History of the Adepts I added many tags and created a tag cloud with several dozen names. As more posts were added this became more cumbersome, too much noise. When an upgrade required reconfiguring the menu, categories are at the top of the page rather than tags. This is more like a table of contents rather than an index, and increases the signal to noise ratio. Categories show posts about all authors who had been tagged ten times or more: in ascending order Alcott, Theon and Chintamon 10 each, Randolph 11, Wilder and Britten 14 each, Johnson 17, Benjamine 19, Astley 22, Stebbins 25, Burgoyne 34, Grimke 39. Clicking on their names on the menu displays all posts referring to them in reverse chronological order. Twelve author names and eleven individuals may be confusing, but combining the Burgoyne and Astley entries would be even more so. A post can be in more than one category, and often Burgoyne/Grimke, Astley/Stebbins, and Wilder/Johnson were tagged in the same posts as literary collaborators.

This article naming Hurrychund Chintamon as a participant in the 1874 International Congress of Orientalists was published September 17 in the Morning News of London, the same year that his first book was published. Still in London in 1889, he was a Marathi language instructor at the School for Modern Oriental Studies.

The works of fiction recently shared here from P. B. Randolph and Max Theon have very different relationships to history. Tom Clark and His Wife is an autobiographical novel describing a real sea voyage, with many references to historical persons known by Randolph and prominent religious and military leaders. Attanee Oannes is an entirely fictional creation not referring to any historical persons. The name Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor seems to reflect the North African preoccupations of Theon. The 1909 dissolution of the US HBofL was followed by a name change to the Brotherhood of Light and recruitment of Elbert Benjamine to write the group’s lessons. After the death of his wife in 1908, Theon had retired from the spiritual leadership role which had been a joint enterprise with Alma for twenty-five years.

Although not a prolific author, Hurrychund Chintamon was a serious literary intellectual as well as a creative photographer well acquainted with Indian royalty. His Commentary on the Text of the Bhagavad-Gita is on the same philosophical level as the writings of Thomas Moore Johnson and Alexander Wilder. The article excerpted above is the only one to name his wife, Damodu Nana, as Mrs. Chintamon, but so far I have not found any further information about her.

PART VII.

BETSEY CLARK IN DREAM—LAND.

Could I with ink the ocean fill,

were all the earth of parchment made; Were every blade of grass a quill, And every man a scribe by trade—

To tell the love of God above would drain the briny oceans dry:

Nor would a scroll contain the whole,

Though covering all the arching sky.”[From the poem “Akdamut” bu Meir b. Isaac Nehonai, c1060, which became the basis of the Christian hymn The Love of God.]

“I BELIEVE just as did the writer of these lines,” said the Rosicrucian, as he began his recital in the cabin of the” Uncle Sam,” after partaking of what the purveyors of that steamship line, in the rich exuberance of their facetious imaginations were pleased to call a supper.

“Betsey Clark was dreaming: It was morning, and the glorious face of the sun shone in unclouded splendor over the world—this world, which, to the good man and woman, is ever a world of Good and Beauty, viewed from the God-side, whatever it may be from the human. All things were praising Him—at least all dumb things were, for men so intently adore their Lares and Penates—Dollars and Dimes—that they have scarcely time to devote a worshipful thought to Him who is King of kings, and regnant God of gods.

“Nature was arrayed in gala robes; she had put aside her frowns, and now smiled sweetly on the world, decked gaily in pearls and light; she was on her way to attend the weddings of the flowers and the birds. Betsey Clark was a blythe young girl again. In her dream she was gaily tripping o’er the lea, her happy heart swelling and palpitating with strange emotions—she was a budding virgin now, and her heart overflowed with innocence and love, accompanied with that pure, but strange, wild discontent, and longing for, she knew not what, but something, which all young women feel, and are conscious of, as they pass the golden barrier that divides their youth from womanhood. It is, and was, the holy and chaste desire to love, and be loved in return— from the heart, sir, right straight from the heart! Ah, how I sometimes wish I had been created a girl instead of a boy. Bah! What’s the use of wishing? especially when all the girls desire an opposite transmigration.

“Betsey’s bloom outrivalled the blushes of the newly—wedded roses—roses just married to sunlight, in the morning dew, with all the trees for witnesses, and all the birds to swell the sounding chorus! And she was happy; ah, how full of happiness and yet it was slightly dashed with bitter ness—just a taste of gall in her cup of honey—for she imagined a more perfect state, had vague dreamings of something still higher. So have we all. We have it! and that is a certain sign that that higher something is attainable, if we try. Some one said he wanted to eat his friend. Good, but I want to lose myself in another self—to make of them twain a unit, which is better! or to thus blend, and then lose ourself in the great God—life, which is Best!

“And she gaily tripped over the lea. She was going with a pitcher of cream, and a basket of fresh eggs, toward a hole in the rock, not a great way off, to present them to the strange ‘ Hermit of the Silver Girdle,’ who dwelt within a little grotto just upon the edge of a forest wild, hard by her girlhood’s home.

“Now, be it henceforth known to everybody, and to everybody’s son and daughter—if the fact is not already patent unto them—that every female between the ages of fifteen and twenty—three, is naturally, spontaneously, and inevitably, in love; and all that is then wanting, is a suitable and worthy object to lavish it upon. If she finds such, well and good; but whether she does, or not, still she must, and will pour it out—either healthily, or otherwise—on a cat or a man; a poodle or politics; marriage or a mirror. Between those ages the female heart is just as full of love as an egg is full of meat; nor can she help it; it is the birth of affection, love, romance—the endeared and endearing spring-tide of life and emotion. Alas! that the tide too often ebbs, never, never to rise again this side of the grave! Then, in the rich exuberance of her innocence and purity, woman, unlike man at the same age, thinks no wrong, fears no harm. Gentle, trustful, noble girl! Blessed is he who then calls her to himself—who, in the morning of his life, and her own, shall win, and worthily wear, her heart; and abased indeed is he who then shall gaze upon her with unhallowed eyes, and seek to lure her from the path of honorable womanhood!

” Presently the girl reached the hermit’s abode, saluted the reverend man, presented her welcome gift, and received on bended knee his blessing in return.

“They conversed awhile, did that fair girl and that strange recluse; the hermit stood on this side, the maiden stood on that. ‘Daughter,’ said he, as he placed his white palms upon her beaming forehead, ‘the world and all it contains amounts to but little, if it, and they, be not improved to the utmost—the attainment of the soul’s aliment, knowledge, which it assimilates and digests into Wisdom. I have partaken of that food for fourscore years and ten—have converted it into wisdom, and expect to be thus engaged during long centuries to come. Thou seest me living here alone, dependent upon the charities of such as thou: poor in California, where even the rocks are retained by golden wedges in their places, and where diamonds sparkle in a hundred valleys. Thou seest me shut out from the busy world and drawing life from Charity—and Heaven. Such an existence is suitable for me, but not for such as thee. I am a student and professor of a strange and mighty magic, for I possess the marvellous Mirror, and the still more wondrous Crystal Globe—both of which are heirlooms of the early foretime, handed down the ages to me, as I in turn shall bequeath them to the ages yet to be. But thou! thou art a woman, and cannot afford to shut thyself out from life, society, and pleasure, as Rosicrucians do, and must, if they would obtain the kingdom, the password—that uplifts the sable curtains that hide a dozen worlds—and the key, by which the doors of Mystery are opened. Child, for thee there are more fitting things in store than the upper knowing—better than solitude; higher charms than study, and abstruse pondering over recondite lore, and subtle laws of Being and of Power. Thou in thy way, I in mine, are, and must be, soldiers in the strife for holy peace; toilers for the millions yet unborn mechanics for redemption of the world; active bees in the busy hive—thou of active human life, I that of human destiny; together, marchers in the grand army whose movement is ever onward, and which never looks behind. I strive for the True; thy destiny tends toward the Beautiful; together, we shall reach the goal of Good, moving over thorny roads, albeit, on the way; for there are—many dangerous pitfalls, deep morasses, dismal swamps, gloomy forest-solitudes, and stony mountains, steep and slippery, that bar man’s path to happiness.” Prepare ye the way…. Make His paths straight!” Such is thy business—and mine. To accomplish this duty I am here; but a different field is thine to labor in. To achieve thy destiny thou must place thine affections upon a son of man—thy soul’s great love on God alone. You must wed, bear children in great agony, yet gloriously, to your husband, your country, and to Him.

“I will now, by means of the higher magic, which I am able to use in thy behalf, show the figure of a man whom you will hereafter marry. You shall behold him as he is; as he will be, and as he may become—provided you choose to make him so; for a husband is ever and always just what a woman makes him! I am now about to display a phantarama of the future before you. Observe, and note well all thou mayest behold. Speak not thereof to vain worldlings, who cannot comprehend deep mysteries, such as these; above all, utter not one single word while thou sittest at yonder table, gazing into the Future—revealing Crystal Globe.’

“And so saying, the grey-clad hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt in a forest wild, led the way to a recess of the grotto, where the light was very subdued, very dim, and exceedingly religious. There he seated her before a tripod, supporting a triangular shelf or table, himself taking a seat directly opposite. Upon this table he then placed a small, square, dark leathern box, opening on brass hinges across the sides and top. He opened it, while reiterating his caution, and disclosed to the enraptured gaze of the doubly-delighted girl—all girls are delighted before they get their husbands and many of them are considerably delighted, if not more so, to get rid of them afterwards!—a magnificent globe of pure crystal, clear as a dew-drop, radiant as a sunbeam. It was not over four inches in diameter, was a perfect sphere, and was altogether beautiful—in this respect, infinitely transcending that of a soap—bubble of the same size—a humble comparison, but a just one—for there are few things more beautiful than these self-same soap—bubbles!

“The first impulse of the girl was to handle this beautiful trinue—as it was called; and she made a movement with that intent, but was instantly prevented by the hermit in grey, who said: ‘Not for a hundred husbands, should mortal fingers touch that sphere; for such contact would instantly rob it of its virtues, perhaps never to be regained! Look, my daughter, look, but touch not!

“She obeyed, and withdrew her hand, but reluctantly; for her fingers itched severely—as what young woman’s would not, under similar circumstances. Vide the Apple and Eve —by means of which, man fell—but fell up—hill nevertheless. A great trait is this curiosity. It is woman’s nature; it is her great prerogative! Eve looked into matters and things generally, induced Adam to follow her example, and thus was the main lever that lifted the race out of Barbarism, and into civilization and decency. So much for this much—abused ‘Female curiosity.’ But for it, man had remained a brute. With it, he has risen to a position a long way below the angels, to be sure, but then he is ‘Coming Up.’

“The twain now began to gaze steadily at the magic globe, maintaining perfect silence for the space of ten minutes. All was still, hushed, silent as the grave, and only the wild throbbings of the young girl’s heart could be heard. Presently the crystal began to change, and to emit faint streams of pale light, which gradually became more pronounced and distinct, until finally there was a most magnificent play of colors all over its surface. Presently the rich, effulgent scintillas, the concentric, irridescent flashings previously observed, ceased entirely, and in their stead the girl began to notice two very strange and extraordinary appearances, which, to her and to all save those who are familiar with such mysteries (and which, although nearly unknown in this country, are still quite common in the farther East), are totally unaccountable. In the first place, she became conscious that she was breathing an atmosphere highly charged with a subtle aura that manifestly emanated from the body of the crystal itself. This air was entirely different from that which floated in the grotto an hour before, when she entered with her offering, because it was unmistakably charged, and that, too, very heavily, with a powerful magnetic aura. I said ‘magnetic;’ I should have said ‘magnetoid,’ for whereas the former induces drowsy feeling and somnolence, the latter had a purely opposite effect, for it provoked wakefulness, and promoted greater and intensified vigilance on the part of both the woman and the man.

“In the second place, there came a remarkable change in the crystal itself; for, having lost its brilliant, diamond—like colors and interchanging rainbow spray, it now became decidedly opalescent, speedily passing into the similitude of a ball of clear glass, with a disk of pearly opal transversely through its centre. Very soon even this changed, until it became like a dead—white wall, upon the surface of which the eye rested, without the power of penetration as before. Gazing steadily upon this opaque frame, the girl in a short time distinctly and perfectly beheld, slowly moving across that pearly shield, as if instinct with life, numerous petite, but unmistakable human figures!—figures of men and women, tiny to the last degree, but absolutely perfect in outline and movement. And they moved hither and thither across the field of vision; she saw them moving through the streets of a city. A little closer!—as I live, they are going up and down Bush street!’—an aristocratic thoroughfare in the great city known in this story as Santa Blarneeo. This fact she instantly recognized, with that strange and inexplicable anachronism peculiar to Dreams, and the still stranger inconsistency peculiar to dreamers and voyagers to the ‘Summer Land.’

“Gradually these tiny figures appeared to enlarge, or rather, she saw them in such a perspective, that they looked like full—sized persons some little distance off. Even while she gazed, the crystal changed again, or rather, vanished from her perceptions altogether, the figures enlarged—approached, as it were—and she became a passive spectator of a scene at that moment transpiring—but where? Certainly not in this world of ours, nor in Dream-land, nor in fancy’s realms, nor in the home of souls you read about in the ‘very funny’ descriptions of ‘Starnos and ‘Cor,’ nor in ‘Guptarion,’nor around the ‘Lakes of Mornia,’ nor among the ‘Pyramidalia,’nor in ‘Saturn,’ nor in any of the gloriously ridiculous localities imagined by A. J. Davis, and put forth by him in the delusive hope that any sane man or woman could be found green or fool enough to swallow. Few men better deserve the name of impostor than the author of ‘Guptarion,’ ‘Mornia,’ ‘Foli,’ ‘ Starnos,’ ‘Galen,’ ‘Magic Staffs,’ ‘Harmonly—Man,’ and ‘Cor,’— not one of which has the least existence on the earth, under, or above or around it; but the true and exact location of which is on an extensive and very soft spot just above their author’s ears, and the soft spots of his followers, for it is morally certain that no one with even an ordinary modicum of—not sanity, but common sense, can, would or could accept his funny ‘Philosophy?’ as true. [another attack on Andrew Jackson Davis.]

“‘Where, then, was the true locality of the scene that Betsey saw taking place?’ you ask. And I answer, and I tell you, in nearly the words of the strange Hermit of the Silver Girdle, when explaining it to Betsey Clark : All these strange things are occurring, not in any sort of phantom world, but in another material earth, quite as solid as this. This crystal is a magic telescope through which we may view whatever we desire to, whether on this earth or off it.

“Listen! Space is by no means limitless, but is a globular or elliptical, definite region—the play- ground of the Powers—and is bounded on all sides by a thick amorphous Wall, of the materials of which new worlds and starry systems from time to time are fashioned. This Wall is thicker, a million-fold, than the diameter of the entire menstruum wherein this universe is floating. Surrounding this universe, on all sides of this wall, are seven other universes, separated as is this, from all the others; and they all differ from our own and the rest, as differs a volcano from a sprig of rosemary—that is to say, utterly—totally. The material worlds of each of these other universes outnumber the sands of the desert, yet their number is precisely that of the one in which we live; but they are larger, for the earth that corresponds to, and bears the name of this of ours, is, in the smallest of the other universes, quite as bulky as the sun which gives us light, and the other solar bodies in proportion. The universe next higher is immeasurably larger than the one just alluded to. It has the same number of material worlds, and the earth corresponding to this of ours is as large as the solar system in which we are. That of the third is as large as the solar system of the second, and so on to the last of the series of seven; but not the last in fact, for outside of, and surrounding the entire seven, is another Wall, separating them from forty—nine other systems, in ascending grade. I cannot now give you any information respecting the sublime realities of these forty—nine, nor of the regions and realms STILL BEYOND; therefore I recall your attention to this world and sphere of being.

“On earth there are seven distinct classes or orders of men: the INSTINCTUAL, AFFECTIONAL,  INTELLECTUAL,  INTUITIONAL,  ASPIRING,  INDIFFERENT,  and WISE, to all of whom a different destiny is decreed. Organizations determine destinies! Every nebulae seen in the far-off heaven is a system of worlds. That wonderful family of stars to which our sun belongs is, with all its overflowing measure of star-dust, but a single cosmos; and there are myriads of such within the confines of this present universe, and before we cross the vast ocean of Ethylle, and reach the Wall alluded to. All things are in halves male, female— negative, positive—light, dark and so on. So is the nebulae of worlds to which we belong. Now, remember what I have said of the resemblances between this earth and universe and the seven others beyond the Wall. Precisely such likenesses exist between the worlds of the respective halves of our own system.

“At various distances, flecking the vault, we behold suns and systems innumerable. These all belong to this, the female half of our system. Beyond them lies a vast ocean of Ether, separating the Continents. Across that Ocean, at a distance incomputable by the human intellect, is the male half of our system. There—there is a sun precisely as large, as brilliant, and as hot as ours—and no more so. Around that sun fiery comets whirl, planets revolve, and meteors flash, just as they do hitherward. There is a Venus, Mercury, Asteroids, Mars, Jupiter, and all the other planetary bodies, just as here, and of the same dimensions. A globe there is called Earth; it has a moon, an Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and ‘other seas, exactly equivalent to ours. It has a California, a San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, just as here; and their names, as are those of its trees, countries, counties, town, people, capitals, are exactly as on this earth. There is a President Lincoln, and General Fremont; a Thurlow Weed, and Cullen Bryant; an Agassiz, and Horace Greeley; Atlantic Monthly, and Harper’s Magazine; a New York Mercury, an Independent, edited by Beecher, Tilton and Leavitt—and they deal the same as do their similitudes here. The streets and omnibuses are precisely as here; Wall street is as full of thieves, and contractors get fat off their country’s gore as they do here. There is a Rebellion there, and Union Generals sell themselves to Treason just as here—while the menu who could and would save the nation are left out in the cold, in spite of the Tribunes, Posts, and Times—all of which long since pointed out the road to Richmond and to victory—and were laughed at just as in our planet.

“In that far-distant world there is at this moment a steamer, ‘Uncle Sam,’ sailing across the Gulf of California, as at this moment we are, and on board of her there are just as many men and women as on this one, and their persons, names, habits, features, motives, hopes, fears, characters, secrets, and intellectual and moral natures, are precisely the same as our own, on board this ship. Our namesakes there are at this instant doing, thinking, acting, reading, as are we ; and some of them are listening to a very strange story, and its still stranger episodes, told by a Rosicrucian—just such a personage as myself—indeed my Very Self—in the self—same form and feature. And I say, and I tell you, that the alter ego—the living portrait of each man and woman in this circle, is thinking of him or herself, and of me and my revelations, at this moment, with the same stupid levity, with the same deep and awful impression of their truth, in the same manner, whatever it be, as are all of you at this moment. And some there, as here, set me and my story at naught—stigmatize me as an enthusiast or dreaming poet, as do some of you. Others believe my truths. You have heard that coming events cast their shadows before them, and that Prophecy has been demonstrated true. Behold the solution of the world—enigma. Events transpire in that other world a trifle sooner than they do here; yet you must remember that there is a vast interval of space, and therefore time, that must be bridged by even that swift courier, Sympathy. According as a man there, and his counterpart here, are fine, aspiring, and spiritual-minded, so is their rapport across the awful gulf; and the male half, the more perfect portion of each man or woman’s self, very frequently telegraphs the other, often a long time before the event becomes actualized on this earth. You have heard of Fays and Fairies. Listen, and learn the truth concerning them: Remembering that no human soul can by any possibility quit the confines of this universe until it has exhausted the whole of its, the universe’s, resources, and has attained all of Love, Will, Majesty, Power, Wisdom and Dignity, that this vast cosmos can give it; after which it sleeps awhile, but will awake again to the exercise of Creative Energy, on the thither side of the Wall—both duplicates sleep at once; for, after their deaths on the material earths, they exist apart, but sustain the same relations, in certain aromal worlds attached to their respective primary homes. At the final deaths, they blend forever, their stature is increased, and they enter, through the Wall, that earth resembling the one whereon the double unit had its birth originally.

“You have heard of Metempsychosis, Transmigration, of Reincarnation, and of Progress. Listen, and learn more: Not only the inhabitants of the countless myriads of worlds in this material and aromal universe, but also the material and aromal worlds themselves, are in a constant state of progressive movement. By aromal worlds I mean the aerial globes that attend each planet. They are places where souls rest awhile after death, before they commence in earnest the second stage of their career; and this state is an intermediate one, just like sleep, only that they are conscious and active while there; but it is an activity and consciousness, not like, but analogous to that’ of Dream. Every world, and assemblage of worlds, is periodically reduced, by exhaustion, but at enormously long intervals, into Chaos, and is then reformed, or created anew, still, however, being the same world. After this passage, each system and world becomes vastly more perfect than before; but, owing to the diminished quantity of Spirit or essence which has been consumed in giving birth to hosts of immortal armies, each system and world is vastly smaller than before. This is for two reasons, one of which I have just stated; the other is, in order to make room for new cosmi and new worlds, both of which are being constantly created from the material of the Wall; and the wall itself is the condensed effluence of the Maker—.in short, it is God—Od, and therefore inexhaustible. The majority of those who have lived on any world are re—born in it after its restitution, they, in the meantime, having grown correspondingly clean and perfect. The same relative proportions between a world and its occupants is still preserved, and never varies; and, consequently, the six-foot man and the five-foot woman of one career, find themselves, in their next state, occupying five and four-foot bodies respectively. The present is our thirty-fourth Incarnation. Originally we were taller than many of our present trees, and coarser than our mountains. We are smaller and better than ever before, and our worst man is better than the best of the preceding state. The worst, in the next change, will be better than our best.* To illustrate, let me say, that the following persons, viz.: Thurlow W —, Abraham L— ., Russel L —, J. Gordon B .— , Henry J. R— , Win. Cullen B— , Jefferson D——, John

C. Fre—,——— James Buch—, Wigfall, Charles Su, Horace G , Fernando— W , George B. Mc—, Gen. J. H—k—r, Dr. H. F. G—d—r, Charles T—n—s, Lizzie D— and myself, [Thurlow Weed, Abraham Lincoln, Russell Lowell, J. Gordon Bennett, Henry J Raymond, William Cullen Bryant, Jefferson Davis, John C. Fremont, James Buchanan, Louis Wigfall, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, Fernando Wood, George B. McClellan, General Joseph Hooker, Dr. H.F. Gardner. Charles Tinius. Lizzie Doten] respectively, were, previously to the last change: the first, a feudal lord; the second, an editor; the third, a Danish prince; the fourth, a court—jester; the fifth, a missionary; the sixth, a generalissimo; the seventh, a harpist; the eighth, a theatrical manager; the ninth, a knife— grinder; the tenth, a privateer; the eleventh, a preacher; the twelfth, a schoolmaster; the thirteenth, a trumpeter; the fourteenth, a politician; the fifteenth, a hunter; the sixteenth, a very little boy, died exceedingly young; the seventeenth, an emperor; the eighteenth, a born queen and the last, a barber’s clerk; so that it is evident, that though our progress is slow, still that we are ‘Coming up.’ Little as our actual worth may be, still we are better now, generally speaking, than in the former stage. Thus, we will grow smaller at every change. Some worlds, and their dwellers, in this universe have thus decreased, and being sometimes seen by people here, have been called Fays or Fairies. The world has yet to undergo some thousands of these changes, until at last we become very small indeed, which will occur when conception is no longer possible in the universe, either in the vegetable or animal worlds; and then will occur the change and transference beyond the Wall.

“Betsey Clark was beholding persons and events of that other world—half of this, our little staying—house, beholding things through that fairy lense—that beautiful magic crystal, through which the human eye can see, the human brain sense, things that have occurred, are occurring, or are to occur upon the world—stage of this our life’s theatre.

“It is an established fact that fools never dream! Wise people often do! And those belonging to the latter category cannot have failed to notice that things, dates, persons, circumstances, and probabilities, are considerably mixed up, as a general thing, in dreams. Their anachronisms are especially remarkable and provoking, and indicate that time is of but little, if any, account, so far as the soul, per se, is concerned. A dream of a minute often embraces the multifarious experience of a century. This instant you are hob-nobbing with one of the pre-Adamite kings on the plateaus of eastern Asia, and in the next are taking wine with Pharaoh and Moses on the banks of the Nile; now you are delivering an oration before Alexander the Great, and in a jiffy find yourself stuffing ballots on Cornhill in an election for ward-constable; now you are contemporary with Sardanapalus or Thothmes III., and in half a second you are delivering a ‘Spiritual Lecture’ in Lamartine Hall, having paid fifty cents for the privilege of listening to your own ‘Splendid and Overpowering Eloquence.’ Taken together, dreams, like Complimentary Benefits, are queer concerns. Such was that of Betsey Clark; for at one moment of time she was a virgin girl, a wife, a widow, and a wife again. She recognized at once the facts of her girlhood, that she had carefully deposited one husband in a hole in the ground, and was in high hopes of performing the same kind office for a second—Mr. Thomas W. Clark.

“Presently the view in the crystal faded away, and in its stead there came the appearance of a large and splendid atelier, containing numberless statues, in a more or less finished condition, standing on pedestals or in niches round the wallsides. The sculptor was absent. It was evident at a glance that his images were not hewn of marble, but of some other material, which needed but a touch of fire to make them start up into life, liberty, and light. It was a man—factory—place where people were carved out to order by a wonderful Artist, who had just opened business thereabouts and who, judging from appearances, was already in a fair line of patronage, and quite likely to do well, if not better.

“Standing near the centre of the apartment, propped up with bits of wood, Betsey saw the exact, likeness, in all respects, of Mr. Thomas Clark—but the. figure was unfinished—soft, puttyish, and doughy as a Northern Politician.

“This statue stood semi-erect, and strongly suggested an invalid kitten, leaning on a hot brick; or, a modern philosopher of the spread-eagle and Progressive school, when the contributions are small. The figure was labelled ‘Tom Clark, as he was;’ that is to say, soft, ductile, capable of being moulded into the Ruffian or the Man. Directly beside it was another statue, closely resembling the other in many points, but yet different. It was labelled ‘Tom Clark, as he is!’ that is to say, it looked as if abundantly capable of feeding on tenpenny nails, dining on files, and supping upon pigs of iron. It looked, for all the world, as if the greatest possible favor that could be done for it, would be to tread on the tail of its coat, or knock a chip off its shoulder, or as if its supreme delight would be to be permitted to wrap itself in a star-spangled banner; move across the room in three strides and a straddle ; fire off two horse-pistols, and die like a son of ar—gun, after having exercised a special penchant for divorced women—separating wives from their husbands, for the sake of position, wealth, beauty and passion. It looked as if it was troubled about stealing rain—producing theories not for stealing, but for being caught at it. It looked as if its heart was breaking, because it had not brains enough to be a Pantarch—or the tenth-part of one. It looked as if its heart would burst with envy, because other men had friends, and power, and applause, and merit, in spite of its little, perked-up, seven-by-nine, skull-cracked soul—poor cambric, needle-eyed soul, twelve hundred and eighty trillions to the half ounce. It looked, for all the world, as Tom really did the very last time he came home, just before they lay down upon their couch, in the little chamber in which was the little window, whose upper sash was down—that is to say, short, crusty, crisp, and meaner than ‘git;’ as—he felt before they both lay down, and dreamed such ‘very funny’ dreams—mean, despicable, iron- hearted Tom Clark, the plague of her life, bane of her existence, and source of all her troubles. So at least it seemed to the lady in her curious vision. Presently both these figures slowly faded from her sight, and in their stead there arose through the floor a third figure, labelled, ‘Tom Clark, as he may be.’ While she was admiring the vast superiority, in all respects, of this new statue, a fourth human figure entered the atelier; this figure as alive, and, mirabile dictu! the woman beheld the exact counterpart of—herself!—clad as a working artist—a sculptor with apron, paper-cap, and dusty clothing, all complete as if she had just left chiselling the dead marble. This lemur of herself appeared deeply gratified at the appearance of the statue; for, after surveying it awhile, she proceeded to arm herself with a flame-tipped baton, wherewith she touched the figure in various places, but mainly on the head, and over the region of the heart. The effect of these touches of flame was to make the figure move; and, in five minutes the deadmass was warm with life, vitality and genius—for the phantom-artiste appeared to endow the figure with a portion of her own life; and a closer inspection revealed the curious fact that the flame at the end of the staff—which was hollow—was fed from a deep well of subtle, fine and inflammable ether in her own heart.

“The statue lived. It was Tom Clark, and no mistake; but Heaven! what a change!—what a difference between the actual and the ideal man! His features fairly blazed with the fires of Genius and Ambition; and they beamed like a sun, with Friendship, Intelligence, Truth and Manhood they all held high court in his soul, and radiated from his inspired features ; his very presence charged the air with Mind, though his lips spoke never a word, breathed never a syllable. And now Betsey heard her alter ego speak; and it said to the living statue: ‘Rise, Tom Clark; rise, and be a Man-be yourself. Rise!’ And it rose; stepped from the pedestal, erected its head—and such a head!—while she the phantom artiste, with careful tread, and anxiously holding her nether lip between her teeth, slowly retreated backward from the room, quitting it through the door by which she had entered a little while before. She was followed majestically the statue, which moved with power and grace, as if charged to the brim by God’s Galvanic Batteries.

“Scarcely had the two phantoms left the room, than the woman on the stool—the real Betsey Clark—followed their example with a sudden bound, exclaiming, as she did so despite the warning of the Hermit of the Silver Girdle (for whom at that moment she didn’t care;—not even a piece a fig), ‘My husband! my husband! Human nature, especially woman nature, could stand the pressure no longer. She felt and acted as she felt—as every woman has, since the year ONE—and will, until Time and Eternity both grow grey. ‘My husband!’ there spake the woman. In an instant the Hermit of the Silver Girdle was in a very great and unprecedented fluster.

“Silly girl! didn’t I tell you not to speak? Only look! see how you have gone and done it!—done me! Oh, dear !f I warn’t a Rosicrucian, I’d get excessively angry, Dorg onit, if I wouldn’t’ and in his trouble, he pronounced dog with an r. Commend me to a female for upsetting the best calculation of the wisest Rosicrucian that ever lived. I speak from experience.

“I told you not to open your lips, and here you’ve gone and spoken right out! What’s the consequence?’ exclaimed the venerable grey—beard. ‘Why, the spell is broken—the harm fled—nor can either be recalled before the sun has set and rose again, and once more declined toward the western sea. Familiar as I am with the secrets of Galae and the mysteries of magic crystals, I know that you have done very wrong; for no one is fit to consult Destiny by their aid who is not competent to keep silence for an hour, no matter what the temptation or provocation to break it may be. Now hie thee homeward. To-morrow thou mayest return again, provided thou wilt obey me, and speak not a syllable while the phantasmal game of Fate is being played before thine eyes.’

The Hermit of the Silver Girdle had spoken truly; for at the very first movement of her lips, the whole scene of enchantment vanished into thin air, leaving only a three-cornered table and a little glossy-looking ball behind.

“To depict her chagrin and disappointment at this abrupt termination of a very strange affair, is a task totally beyond my capacities. She bounced out of the grotto in a miff, tossing her pretty head in a manner peculiarly adapted to play the very Old Scratch with the soft and susceptible heads and hearts of the male ‘sect’—especially their heads; but she had no idea of abandoning the adventure at that point—not she; but was fully resolved to see it out next day, even if she bit her tongue in two, in the endeavor to keep still warriors, statesmen, philosophers, and well— read men can comprehend the sublimity of her resolution, because they know that of all earthly tasks, the one assigned herself was the greatest, most heroic, and one compared to which the twelve labors of the Greek god were mere child’s pastime. At all events, to keep perfectly silent she would certainly—’Try,’ said a voice, right beside her ear! She started, attributing the circumstance to mere fancy; but again the magic word was, by unseen lips, gently, softly whispered in her ear. ‘Try,’ it said—and the word went echoing through her very soul. Whence came the voice? Who was it—what was it that spoke? Certainly not—herself, nor the Hermit. When was it, where was it, that she had heard that voice—and word before? When, how, where had it made so deep an impression on her mind? Was it in a dream? Who can tell? she could not. My hearers, can you?

“Next morning, bright and early, the young girl returned once more to the grotto of the Hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt on the shady borders of a forest wild. An hour or two elapsed in friendly converse and admonition and. now again behold the dissimilar twain once more seated silently before the little table, on which glittered, as before, the rare, pearl-disked, magic, wonder-working crystal globe. Again, as before, the glorious play of colors came and went. Again it faded, and she saw the atelier, the artiste, and the artiste’s living statue; but this time Betsey could look right through its body, as if it were made of finely-polished glass. Tom Clark stood before her. She saw and comprehended him on all sides—soul, spirit, body; and though she was neither a strong-minded woman, a ‘lecturess’ on philosophy, ‘The good time coming,’ nor ‘Woman’s sacred and delicate work,’—and though she knew but little of the human organism, beyond a few familiar commonplaces—yet she comprehended enough of the glorious mystery before her to be aware that the red, pulsing lump just beneath its throat was technically known and considered as the heart; and she couldn’t help admiring its wonderful and mighty mechanism; its curious movements, mystical arrangements of parts, and adaptation of means to ends; its auricles, valves, and veins; its ventricles, and its pump—tapping the well of life, and forcing its water through a million yards of hose, plentifully irrigating the loftiest gardens of man’s body, and hence, of his imperishable soul. The inspection was almost too much for the girl, who had liked to have screamed out her wonderment and delight; but having made up her mind to keep still this time, she, by dint of much handkerchief and tonguebiting, succeeded, to the eternal credit of herself—or any other woman!

“‘That which you see,’ said the Hermit, who of course had the privilege of talking as he pleased, “is a man’s heart, in full play. It is, as you perceive, filled with blood, whose office is to give life to the body and vigor to the mind. But the heart has other chambers than those containing the venous and arterial fluids; for all its walls and valves contain innumerable small cells; and these cells secrete and contain certain aeriform fluids far more potential than blood and which subserve the ends of a higher and far more wonderful economy. There are two kinds of blood; so also are there two kinds of the subtle fluid I have mentioned one sort is born with us, and we come into the world with exactly one half of these cells full, while the other half are entirely empty; and so they must remain until they are filled from the heart of some one else. Males are born with the cells of the left side empty, females with those of the right unfilled while the other cells of each are always full. These fluids are real, actual, perceptible, but imponderable. Their names Love; and when things take their proper and natural course, the fluid flows out from the cells of a woman’s heart into the empty ones of a man’s; and the full cells of a man’s heart fill the empty ones of a woman’s, in which case they are said to “love each other.” Two men cannot thus love; nor can two females. Many of either sex travel from the cradle to the grave without either filling, or being filled in turn; for it is a law that love cannot flow unless it be tapped by the opposite party; and it can only be tapped by KINDNESS, GENTLENESS, RESPECT— these three! The unloved and unloving are only half men and half women—and, believe me, my child, there’s a mighty sight of Halfness in this world of ours! Much of it comes of not Trying to have it otherwise. People—married people, especially—devote half their days to growling because they have not got somebody else’s wife or husband, when the fact is that their own partners are quite good enough—as they would find out with a little proper endeavor. Men expect a woman’s love to bubble up all the time. Fools! why don’t they sound its depth, and bring it to the surface? There are altogether too many divorces—a divorce first, and the next step—is dangerous. I knew a wife of three divorces; I knew a man the husband of two consecutive divorcees. Good intentions! ah! Hell is paved with such. I know of fifty brokenhearted women whose husbands, after wearing them out, sneaked off to Indiana [An 1852 statute made Indiana the center for “migratory divorce” in the 19thc in the same way Nevada became in the 20thc due to the ease with which divorces could be arranged] and robbed them of name, fame, life, and hope;—the demons! Out upon the wretches! The woman who has wasted her youth and bloom upon a man who then wants a divorce, and permits him to obtain it, is a fool. He promised for life. Make him keep it, even if you invoke the law’s strong arm. If both agree, that alters the case. I have a legal acquaintance in New York who drives a large trade in the divorce line, at twenty-five dollars a head. I feel called upon to expose the infernal methods by means of which it is done, and I call upon the Legislature to see to it that the thing is not suffered to go on! A. is a lawyer; B. and C. are husband and wife. B. wants a “divorce without publicity;” goes to A. and pays a fee to secure it, but has no legal quibble by means of which to obtain it. A. gives him the following counsel : “Go to a brothel, take up with an inmate thereof; call her D.; make three or four male and female acquaintances (E., F., G., and H.), introduce them to D. as your wife ; leave town a day or two, but take care that D. is well watched in the interim. Of course she will avail herself of your absence to ply her vocation. E., F.,G., and H. furnish the most incontestable and damning proof of her supposed guilt.’ The witnesses may or may not know your precious scheme. You prosecute the the woman under your wife’s name—she, of course, knowing nothing about the proceedings—poor thing! The court takes the evidence, hands it over to a referee, who passes on it; returns it, affirmed, to the court, which forthwith enters a decree of perpetual divorce. A scoundrel goes unwhipped of justice, and an honest woman’s reputation is forever damned!”

“Legislators, I tell you that these things are done everyday! I was told it—could not believe it— and assuming to be desirous of such a decree, received the above counsel, word for word, from a practitioner at the New York bar. Legislators, here is a crime worse than murder! Will you sanction it longer? How prevent it? Summon the witnesses and performer of this marriage; or at least prove the identity of the woman or the man, as the case may be—for women practice in that court also!

“‘There would be far less of this sort of iniquity, if there were fewer blatant philosophy-mongers afloat on the tide of the times, inculcating their morbid, detestable, blasphemous, brothel—illing, “Harmonial” theories, all of which directly pander to the worst vice a man can have — Meanness.

People insanely look for and expect perfection in others—not only without the slightest claim thereto themselves, but without the least attempt in that direction—which is a very suicidal policy to pursue. Such soon come to be vampires, consuming themselves and destroying others—ravening tigers at their own fold’s side! Sometimes one person’s affection which is akin to love—goes out toward and clings round another; but Death ever flaps, his wings by the side of such, then that other fails to give it back. The unloving love done, if such a thing be possible, is a born thief, from the cradle to the clouds; .and there are a great many such robbers in the world.’

“But how is one to love when one don’t feel like it, or as attractions in another direction?’ asked Betsey.

“Where duty and honor point, there should the attraction lie! Whosoever shall render themselves lovable and lovely, can no more help being loved than smoke can help ascending through the air. Make yourself agreeable to the partner of your lot in life, and that partner can no more help loving you than mirrors can help reflecting.

“‘The heart of yonder statue, which is that of the man who is destined to be a future husband of yours, said the old man—pointing to the first figure of the previous day, which had, together with the second, re-appeared upon the scene, will be only half full by reason of your withholding and refusing all tender wifeliness; you will rob him and yourself of better meat of life; your years will be gloomy ones; you will make him wretched, and be the same yourself— cheat our bodies of health, your souls of happiness and vigor! Take heed; correct the fault. You “can’t?” There’s no such word. TRY—!

“Turning now to the second figure of the previous day, he observed: ‘See! Tom Clark’s heart is empty. All its cells are filled with a void—hollow as the apples of Persia’s arid wastes. Have mercy, Heaven, on him whose heart throbs not with the rapturous burden of a woman’s love! Pity him whose soul groweth not tender with the love—light beaming from a baby’s eyes! Ah, what a world of nameless glory flashes from an infant’s eyes! They are telescopes through which my soul sees Heaven—through which I watch the mazy dance of starry worlds, and behold the joys of seraphim. We Rosicrucians love babies—seed of the ages—and their mothers, too—because they are such; for we believe that after death the maids fair worst—the wives fare better; but no tongue or pen can express the rapture that awaits those who have borne sons and daughters to the world and heaven! Bachelors! Bah! I will pass by such cattle merely remarking that their place is not to be found in heaven or the other place. They repair in a body to Fiddler’s Green—and ought to stay there, if they do not!

“And Betsey gazed on the forlorn figure of poor Tom who was all one—sided, crooked, lean; his hopes and joys were flown, because no one loved him, not even his wife; and who else should, if not she? And so he was wretched, like full many another whom I have seen as I journeyed down life’s glades. His soul was driven back upon, and forced to eat itself, day by day, and year after year. ‘And this great wrong you will do,’ said the hermit; and ‘This great wrong have already done,’ thought the girl-wife-widow-wife—four in one, with that strange, anomalous inconsistency, peculiar to Dream-Life. ‘I have done badly; but this I will do no more—not another second longer!’

“Bravely, royally thought and said! Better, if more gloriously done!—and that’s just the difference—saying and doing. The first is common; the last is very rare. ‘Better still, if truly said, and still more nobly done!’—was whispered in the woman’s ear, in the same low, silvery voice, she had heard the day before. Who was it that spoke these melodious words? Not the hermit in grey. Was it the invisible Hesperina, telegraphing Betsey’s soul across the vast expanse of the Continent of Dream? Who shall answer me these questions?

“Said the silver—girdled hermit, as he smiled a smile of more than human gladness—more than human meaning—’It is Well.’ She looked again toward the magic globe, and ho! within a moment, its disk had changed. The first two figures had disappeared; the third had once more come upon the scene—a conspicuous actor in such a terrific drama, as neither earth nor starry eyes ever saw before, may they never see again!

“The Gorgon, WAR, had glutted himself on Europe’s bloody fields, and had flown across the salt sea, alighting on our shores. The demon landed with a howl, midway between Moultrie and Sumter. He had seized the reins of government, proclaimed himself sole Lord and King; strangled Reason in his dreadful gripe, until she lay bleeding on the gory earth, and meek-eyed Peace fled tearfully away from his grim presence, and hid herself upon a distant mountain-top, whence she could survey the shock of armies on the plains beneath, and sigh, and long for Liberty and rule.

“War and Carnage, side by side, with gory banners flying, marched from one end of the nation to the other, until their footsteps rested on the graves of eight hundred thousand men. God’s precious word was disregarded, and His blessed soil dyed red with human blood—the rich, fat blood of the noblest race that ever trod His earth—the blood of your brother, and of mine, O my countrymen!

“And now, the loud-lunged trumpets brayed their fierce alarums, and summoned Columbia’s sons to deeds at which our grandsons shall turn pale—deeds of heroic daring such as Greece, nor Rome, nor Carthage ever dreamed of, nor storied page has chronicled: summoned them to Sumter’s stony ramparts, and Potomac’s grassy banks—summoned them to do, and—die. Eight hundred thousand Men! And they went—going as tornadoes go—to strike for a Nation’s life to strike the foul usurper low, and fling his carcass to the dogs. They would have struck—struck hard and home; but they were stayed. That was not the ‘little game’ of Generals and Statesmen, and of high contracting parties. Oh, no! Victory would never do! ‘Let us fight the foe with gloves on!’ said the Minister. They fought. The foe wore gloves also; but the palms were brass, the fingers iron, and the knuckles polished steel! But the Minister had his whim, and unborn generations will feel its consequences! Eight hundred thousand graves!

“And the Union legions went, from decreed Fate toward a consummated Destiny, in spite of Ministers, their minions, or the ‘little game;’ and Tom Clark went, too.

“And loud the trumpets brayed; and the heavy drums did sound; and they woke strange and fearful energies in the slumbering Nation’s heart. What a magic transmutation! Plowmen transformed to heroes, such as shall forever put Cincinnatus in the shade; day laborers, carriers of the hod, claiming—and rightfully, too—high places in the Pantheon of heroic demi—gods. Look at Fredericksburg! Forget not the Black Brigade! Bear in mind the deeds of a hundred regiments on a hundred fields—fields, too, that might, and would have finally decided the carnage and the quarrel, but for the Minister, his gloves, his ‘little game,’ his great whim—and lo! its consequences!

“Tom Clark, quickened into life by the subtle, flame-tipped staff in the hands of the phantom- artiste—the proprietress of the wonderful atelier and Man-factory, now stepped forth —through the door of the room, and forthwith the scene expanded to such vast dimensions, that Betsey found it impossible to realize the magic mimicry, for the whole thing was too real, and on too grand a scale. She stood on the hill of the world, surveying its valleys at leisure. Tom Clark, apparently heard—deeply heard, his Country’s wail of agony —for unchecked Treason was then griping her tightly by the throat. That cry called him to a field of glory, such as God’s green earth never before afforded, nor His sun ever saw; nor His moon; nor His myriad, twinkling, starry eyes!

“Clark’s soul was in arms, as his offended ears drank in the hoarse, deep thunders of Treason’s cannonry, pouring iron hail upon a prostrate Nation’s head; and his eyes beheld the flashing of the guns, as they vomited a hell of iron and fire upon Sumter, upon Anderson, and the peerless EIGHTYTHREE! Tom Clark saw the storm, and his heart indignant swelled, at the insult to the Star—gemmed Flag of Human Rights and Liberty—an insult, long since wiped out in traitor’s blood, but for the Minister, and the gloves, and the ‘little game,’ and the whim, whose consequences are—eight hundred thousand skeletons!

“Like a true man, Clark, inspired by a true woman—the phantom—wife, and artiste—ran, leapt, flew to arms and deathless glory. Ah, God! to arms, and fadeless glory! He had no time to grieve, or grumble; or to criticise this general or that battle. He looked over the heads of cowards and traitors in his own camp, at the noble men in arms, and who bravely fought, and nobly died, for the Country. He saw, and gloriously emulated such men as Lyon, Saxton, Hunter, Fremont—and Baker! Baker—O Oregon! my tears fall with thine, for him He was mine, yours—ours! Ours, in his life; in his nobleness; in his soul-arousing eloquence; in the valor, and the effulgent glory of his death—the result of another whim, and lo! the consequences! [Edward Dickinson Baker was the only US Senator ever killed in a military engagement, the Battle of Ball’s Bluff on October 21, 1861.]

“And now, see! Behold the smoke of yonder battle! Death rides on cannon-balls, to-day! And, to—night, there will be much mourning in the land; for strong men in thousands are giving up the ghost. Weep not,— O widow, for God accepts such sacrifices ; mourn not, O orphans, He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, will hold thee in His keeping ; thy grateful country will not let thee want for bread; and, by-and-by, it will be a proud boast of thine, ‘My father died to redeem the land from treason!’

“Death rides on cannon-balls, to-day, in the fight that we are seeing. Tom Clark is a hero. See! he leads the van. God spare him! What a presence! What blows he deals for Liberty and the Union! Lo! the thundering battalions of the brave and bold, but insane, misguided, and revengeful foe, sweep down the embattled plain, their war-cry ringing out above the belching roar of artillery; and, with such might and valor do they charge, that Freedom’s cohorts reel and stagger beneath the dreadful shock of arms. Another such a charge, and all is lost. But, see, there comes a man from the ranks—a common soldier—his voice rings clearly out upon the Sulphur-laden air: ‘Follow me!’ The inspiring words and action kindle new fire in the wavering breasts of hundreds. They rise; they throw themselves upon the foe—they hush his battle-cry in’ death. He is repulsed! ‘Who did that?’ demands an aide-de-camp. ‘Private Thomas W.,’ is the response. ‘Hero! greet him in my name, as Color Sergeant,’ says the General; and Tom Clark is promoted on the field.

“The first day’s fight is over. It is renewed next day, and, when the tired guns give over with the sun, a group of soldiers are gathered round a man. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Who is it?’ ‘ I thought you knew—why, it is the man who saved the Tenth Brigade—and was rewarded on the spot— Captain Thomas W.!’

“With the sunrise, came the foe! Pass the word along the line, there—Captain Clark is wanted at the tent of the General-in-Command!’ He goes.

“Captain Clark, do you see yonder battery of the enemy? It must be taken, or we are lost. If I give you command of a regiment whose colonel was killed yesterday, can you take it?’ ‘I will try.’ . . . ‘ General, the battery on the left is ours,’ says an aide—de—camp an hour afterwards.’ It is taken, and all its men are either dead or prisoners! ‘Indeed! So soon? Greet the commander in my name, and salute him as Colonel Thomas W.’

“Another day dawns on the ensanguined field—a field where privates were heroes and generals poltroons! Hard fighting is before us. Up, up the soldiers spring; and on, on to death or victory they rush. Oh it was a splendid sight—those death-defying demi-gods, who, had they in previous battles had but a Man to lead them, would have taken fifty rebel strongholds in as many hours. But such was not the drift of the ‘pretty little game.’ More men must die, more ditches must be dug, and more human bones must fill them, else how can Ministers carry out their whims; how else can the enemy be fought and placated at the same time it isn’t Constitutional! besides which it hurts the prospect for the Presidency of the re-United States— which prospect would be forever marred, and the ‘little game’ played out, if we fought without gloves, and violated our Constitutional obligations by kicking the wind out of the foe, who is trying might and main to strangle the Nation. He might hereafter say: ‘ You, sir, fought without gloves on!’ which wouldn’t do, you know.

“‘Damn that Colonel Thomas W. If the fellow keeps on at that rate, we’ll surely whip somebody—badly. Curse the fellow, he don’t believe in the glove business, or in the “Erring Sisters’ theory,”‘ soliloquized somebody on a certain day. ‘This’ll never do! Aid, come here; go tell Colonel Clark take possession of the Valley down yonder, and hold it at all hazards till nightfall!’ ‘But, General, he has only seven hundred men—the foe is thirteen thousand strong!’ ‘So much the ‘worse for ‘— he meant Clark, but said, ‘the enemy—they will fight like tigers.’ And the aid transmitted the order—shaking hands with the Colonel as he rode away, muttering, ‘Poor fellow! His goose is cooked for a certainty! What a pity he stands in somebody’s light— somebody who is jealous of even a private’s fame. Ah me! and he rode back to headquarters, wondering whose turn next it would be to face the forlorn hope—such a singular number of which this Rebellion has developed.” But there was no flinch in Colonel Thomas W.—no flinch in his men. They all saw the hazard; but they were Men and Soldiers. They knew how to obey orders, when their superiors did not. But then again, they had no hopes of success in a general election; they had no little game.

“‘Their’s not to reason why, Their’s but to do or die.’ And they done it!

“On, on, like more than Spartan heroes, on they dashed, literally, as absolutely as anything earthly can be, ‘into the jaws of death—into the mouth of hell.’ I have a minnie bullet on my table that plowed a furrow through a brother’s heart of mine in that same dreadful valley! Away they went—that gallant band, that gallant man; and many a bullet went crashing through skulls and bones as they went; and many a soul sped its way to God ere the cohort reached the knoll in the valley. Once there, they were no longer men they were as sublime exemplar gods. But a man fell—fell before the resistless force of a hundred horses charging with all of Treason’s vehement strength, and the gallant man went down, and the thunder of iron hoofs exploded in his ear, and then the cloud passed on.

“And Thomas Clark went down—down, as Truth, and Justice and I went down; but he rose again—so ever does Truth and Justice; and as for me, je renais de mes cendres let those beware by whom I fell…. Down to the gory soil he went ;but even while the woman sat there in the grotto, with suppressed breath, so still was she—sat gazing, her blood on fire, her pulse beating three hundred to the minute, beating with a deep, fierce, tumultuous fire; sat gazing stilly, while her heart bounded and thumped within its bony citadels if impatient of its duress, and longing to burst its tabernacle, and let the imprisoned soul go free; sat gazing, while her eyes, large grey eyes, all the while gleamed with a light that proved her capable of giving birth to heroes—even while thus she gazed on the wheeling squadrons, the charging hosts, and the great guns, as they gave forth their fiery vomit, charged with sudden deaths—the man, Tom Clark, sprung to his feet again, and, as he staunched his blood with one hand, he pointed with the other to the foe. ‘Follow me!’ he cried. ‘See! we are reinforced! On to victory—on! And his voice rose above the tempest, and it flew over the spaces, and it fell upon the ears of a ‘great man,’ and the great man’ wrung his hands, and he thought: ‘Not dead yet! Damn the fellow!— He will make us win a victory and that’ll never do! Dear me! that cursed fool will spoil my little game! Oh, for night, or a fresh division of—the enemy! I must reinforce him, though, else it’ll get into that infernal Tribune—or into that cursed George Wilkes’ paper—and that’ll spoil my little game! Ho, there! Aid, go tell General Trueman to reinforce Colonel Thomas W. my little game!’ and he arranged his epaulettes and gave his moustache an additional killing twist. In the meantime, Tom Clark had charged the enemy with bayonets with the remnant of his own force, followed by hundreds whom his example had transformed into something more sublime than fighting soldiers.

“And now occurred one of those conflicts which make or mar the fortunes of a nation: one of those terrible multipersonal combats which mark a century’s history, and strike the ages dumb with awe; one of those terrific scenes in the world’s great drama, that mark historic epochs, and

enshrine men’s names in fiery letters upon the scrolls of Fame.” The charge and the action were short, sharp, swift, desperate; but at its close the

‘Flag of the Planet gems, With saphire—circled diadems,

‘floated proudly over the scene of Treason’s battle lost—a Nation’s battle won! [From The Healing of Nations by Charles Linton, 1858]

“Day closes again; and the wounded hero in an ambulance was borne fainting—almost dying, from the field. ‘Colonel Clark, can I do anything for you?’ said one of the fighting generals to the stricken man—a bullet had gone through him. ‘You are a noble fellow, and I speak for myself, our comrades in arms, and for our country. Can I, can they, can we, can she—do anything for you, in this sad hour of your destiny? If so, I beg you to speak.’

“Alas! no, my friend,’ replied he, reviving, only to swoon again. A little cold water on his temples partially dissipated the coma, but not all the fog from his perceptions; for his general’s words, ‘Can she,’ considerably obfuscated his intellect, and he thought: ‘He means Betsey— that’s the only she I know of.’ And then he strengthened up for a last dying effort strove to collect his thoughts, partly succeeded, and said: ‘Nothing more, dear general. Yes. No. I’m— dying—going—home. Tell Betsey—dear Betsey—I did not—find her out till—it was—too— late. Tell her that I loved—her from my—soul—at last. Tell her—that’—

“She can’t stand the pressure any longer—globe, or no globe, hermit or no hermit—not another minute. You Bet! it’s a pretty how de do, me a settin’ here, and poor Tom laying there, killed a’most to death!’ shrieked the fair girl in the grotto of the hermit of the silver girdle, waked up beyond endurance, by the skillful magic of the weird recluse and repeating the Californian, ‘You Bet!’ with vehement emphasis on the last word, she sprung to her feet, in spite of the warnings of the man who dealt in magic crystal globes in the precincts of a forest wild—upsetting table, tripod, stool and hermit, in her eagerness to reach Tom’s side and give him wifely ministry.

“What luck she might have had in bridging Phantom River I know not, having omitted to remain long enough for inquiry, not having had time, to thus devote; but this I do know, namely, that she nearly kicked the veritable Mr. Thomas W. Clark completely out of bed—the bed at whose foot was a window, whose upper sash was down—the identical window through which came all the ‘funny things’ of his most veracious history, which, of course, is all true. Betsey woke from excitement, Tom from being kicked, and both had finished their double dreams.

“‘What’n thunder’s up now, Bet—no, Lizzie, I mean?’ said he, checking the less respectful utterance, and modulating his voice to what he doubtless intended to be a ‘velvet dulcet cadence,’ but which wouldn’t pass for that in Italian opera. ‘Not nothing, Tommy, dear.’ ‘Not nothing, Lizzie’ ‘Not nothing.’ ‘That ain’t grammar, sweet.’ ‘I was paragorically speaking, my turkle dove! Only I’ve been having two very funny dreams.’ ‘You! Two dreams. That is queer!’ ‘You Bet’ ‘What about, Lizzie?’ ‘Oh, all about how we didn’t love— each other —as we ought to, husband.’ ‘And, dorg on my buttons, wife, if I haven’t had two just such dreams myself—all about a precipice, and a pile—Oh, wasn’t it a pile, though?’ ‘ You Bet!’ ‘ And my dreams were all about how I ought to love you, and didn’t and then, again, I did.’ ‘That’s a dear!’ ‘You Bet!’ ‘Let’s love each other this time out, will you?’ ‘ I will; will you?’ ‘You Bet!’ ‘Let’s profit by our dreams. I mean to; won’t you? ‘I’ll try!’ I’ll try!’ ‘We’ll both try!’ ‘You BET!’ And they tried to forgive and forget.

“Will you do the same?” asked the Rosicrucian of the Angular Character, who had told his own story in disguise. The latter saw that his secret was out; yet his heart was touched, for, as a great tear-drop rolled down his cheek, he said, with smothered breath, the holy words—”I’ll try!” Amen!” said the Rosicrucian.

“Amen!” said we all; and then, turning to his auditors again, the story-teller said: ” Friends, go thou and do likewise; and so long as you live, charge you never to forget the Rosicrucian nor his story; nor IT, the Shadow; nor Hesperina, the Light; nor Otanethi, the Genius of the Hour; nor the silver-girdled Hermit, and his Crystal Globe in a forest wild; nor, above all, the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.”

A day or two afterwards we reached Panama, and after that we saw but little of our entertainer; but before I finally lost sight of him he told me that he was about writing some Rosicrucian stories, the MSS. of which he would send to me when ready. [No passenger lists for this outgoing trip have been located, but Randolph was recorded as arriving in New York having departed from Aspinwall, Panama on Northern Light, arriving in New York 6 May 1863, and departing again from Aspinwall on The George Law, arriving in New York 14 December 1863.  As early as 21 January 1851 arrived in New York aboard the Cherokee which had departed from Chagres, Panama.] I have received some, and they will be published by me as soon as I can spare time to attend to it, which will be———

“When this cruel war is over,

P. B. R.

PART VI.

WHAT BECAME OF THOMAS CLARK.

OUR entertainer ceased to speak, for the evening meal was nearly ready, and the golden sun was setting in the West, and he rose to his feet to enjoy the glowing scene. Never shall I forget the intense interest taken by those who listened to the tale—and doubtless these pages will fall in the hands of many who heard it reported from his own lips, on the quarter-deck of the steamer “Uncle Sam,” during the voyage begun from San Francisco to Panama, on the twenty- first day of November, 1861. At first his auditors were about ten in number, but when he rose to look at the crimson glories of the sky, fifty people were raptly listening. We adjourned till the next day, when, as agreed upon the night before, we convened, and for some time awaited his appearance. At last he came, looking somewhat ill, for we were crossing the Gulf of California, and Boreas and Neptune had been elevating Robert, or in plainer English, “Kicking up a bobbery,” all night long. We had at least a thousand passengers aboard, consisting of all sorts of people— sailors, soldiers, and divers trades and callings.

And yet not one of us appreciated the blessing of the epigastrial disturbances—caused by the bobbery” aforesaid. Many could successfully withstand any amount of qualms of conscience— but those of the stomach were quite a different thing altogether! and not a few of us experienced strong yearnings toward “New York,” and many “reachings forth” went in that direction. Indeed the weather was so rough, that scarce one of us in the cabin fully enjoyed our breakfasts. As for me, I’m very fond of mush and molasses, but I really couldn’t partake thereof on that occasion. No, sir! The gentleman from Africa who stood behind us at table to minister to our gustatory wants, found his office a perfect sinecure that morning; and both I and the Rosicrucian, in whose welfare that official took an especial interest —because, in a fit of enthusiasm, we had each given him four bits (ten dimes)—seemed to challenge his blandest pity and commiseration, for we both sat there, looking as if we had been specially sent for and couldn’t go. The waiter— kind waiter!—discerned, by a wonderful instinct, that we didn’t feel exactly “fat,” and he therefore, in dulcet tones, tried to persuade us to take a little coffee. Coffee! Only think of it! Just after Mrs. Thomas W. had poisoned her husband through that delectable medium. He suggested pork! “Pork, avaunt! We’re sea-sick. “Beef.

“Just then I had a splendid proof of Psychological infiltration and transmission of thought; for my friend and I instantaneously received a strong impression—which we directly followed—to arise from our seats, go on deck, and look over the lee rail. OUR entertainer ceased to speak, for the evening meal was nearly ready, and the golden sun was setting in the West, and he rose to his feet to enjoy the glowing scene. Never shall I forget the intense interest taken by those who listened to the tale—and doubtless these pages will fall in the hands of many who heard it reported from his own lips, on the quarter-deck of the steamer “Uncle Sam,” during the voyage begun from San Francisco to Panama, on the twenty-first day of November, 1861. At first his auditors were about ten in number, but when he rose to look at the crimson glories of the sky, fifty people were raptly listening. We adjourned till the next day, when, as agreed upon the night before, we convened, and for some time awaited his appearance. At last he came, looking somewhat ill, for we were crossing the Gulf of California, and Boreas and Neptune had been elevating Robert, or in plainer English, “Kicking up a bobbery,” all night long. We had at least a thousand passengers aboard, consisting of all sorts of people—sailors, soldiers, and divers trades and callings, Toward the trysting time, however, the sea smoothed its wrinkles, and the waters smiled again. Presently the expected one came, took his accustomed seat, and began the conclusion of

TOM CLARK’S DREAM

“There’s a tide in the affairs of men, which, Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”

SHAKSPEARE.

“There’s a tide in the affairs of women, which, Taken at the flood, leads——— God knows where.”

BYRON.[The Shakespeare quote is from Act IV, Scene III of Julius Caesar, the Byron quote from Don Juan, Canto the Sixth)

“Neither do I! Last night, my friends, we left poor Tom in a desperate situation, from which it seems necessary that I should relieve him, but really without exactly knowing how—not feeling particularly well from the motion of the ship last night, it is not easy to think under such circumstances; still, believing as I do, in the sterling motto, Try, why, I will endeavor to gratify your curiosity, especially as I perceive we are honored with the presence of the ladies, and, for their sakes, if not for our own, I feel it incumbent to do something for him.

“Tom Clark had, by the waves, been already taken in, and by this time was nearly done for, so far as easy breathing was concerned. Slowly, but surely, his vision was fading away, and he felt that he was fast sinking into Night.

“‘Deep the gulf that hides the dead—Long and dark the road they tread.’ That road he felt that he was rapidly going; for his senses were becoming numb, and a nauseant sensation proved that if he was not sea-sick, he was remarkably sick of the sea, even to the point of dissolution.

“All dying persons hear musical sounds: all dying persons see strange, fitful gleams of marvellous light, and so did Thomas Clark—low, sweet music and soft and pearly light it was, but while he drank it in, and under its influence was. being reconciled to Death, there suddenly rose high and shrill above the midnight tempest, a loud and agonizing shriek—the wild, despairing, woeful shriek of a woman—and it was more shrill and piercing than the ziraleet of Egyptian dame or Persian houri; and it broke upon the ear of the perishing man, like a summons back to life and hope. Well and instantly did he recognize its tones. ‘It must be—yet no!—still it can be no other than her v—voice ! It cannot be—and I am dy—ing!’ and an angry wave dashed over him, drowning his utterance, and hurling his body, like a wisp of straw, high upon the ledge of rocks, whence the recoil, or undertow, was about to whirl it out again into the foaming waters, when it was prevented by a most wonderful piece of good fortune, which at that instant, intervened to save him, at what certainly was the most interesting and critical juncture of his entire earthly existence. Again that sharp voice rang out upon the storm, and a hand, small, soft, yet nerved with all a woman’s desperate energy—desperate in Love clutched him by the hair, and dragged—triumphantly dragged him to the hard and solid land, just over the ledge, on a winding path at the foot of the overhanging cliff. It was Betsey Clark’s voice; it was Betsey Clark’s hand; it was she who saved him; and thus he received a new lease of life at the hands of the very woman whom, in a former dream, he had sent so gaily sailing down the empty air— down through four hundred feet of unobstructed space—with boulders at the bottom—solid boulders of granite and quartz——gold-bearing quartz at that, and very rich, too, but still quite solid and considerably harder than was agreeable to either the woman, the buggy, or the horse, for not one of them was ‘Soft as downy pillows are’—not even Governor Downie’s of California.[John Downey, Los Angeles Democrat, served as California governor 1860-1862]

“It was, indeed, his wife’s voice that he heard; it was she that rescued him from what, in very truth, was a most unfortunate pickle—or brine—as you choose, or both—but at all events one into which he would never have got had he not been far greener than a cucumber.

“In a dream strange things come to pass. And in strict accordance with the proprieties of that weird life and Realm—a life and Realm no less real than weird—Tom was speedily cared for, and emptied of the overplus of salt water he had involuntarily imbibed, while Mrs. Clark carefully attended upon him, and a score or two of good people busied themselves in saving all they could from the wreck. After this they all retreated to a comfortable mansion, situated on the summit of this cliff, in the regions of Dream, and there the following explanations took place: It appeared that Betsey had been on a visit to her uncle, who kept the lighthouse and had for several days been on the look—out for the arrival of the vessel—the wrecked one—in which, some time previous, Tom had sailed on a voyage to Honey-Lu-Lu, the Bay of Fun-dee, or some other such place that vessels trade to. The ship had at last been descried, laboring in the midst of a violent storm, just before dark, and under such circumstances as rendered it positively certain that she would drive headlong upon the rocks at the foot of the very cliff on which the light-house stood.

“But by a singular coincidence, perfectly unaccountable anywhere else, save in Dream-land, Betsey Clark had learned to love Tom dearly, at the precise instant that he had discovered, and repented his own great error. At the instant that Tom had declared that, could he be spared, he would be a better man, she saw his deadly peril; the icicles began to melt around her heart— melt very fast—so that by the time she reached him her soul was in a glow of pure affection for the man she had until that moment hated. She now saw, with unmitigated astonishment, that, with all his faults, there was a mine of excellent goodness ; that God had not made anything either perfect or imperfect ; and that, after all was said or done, he was of priceless consequence and value to her.

“Human nature and woman nature are very remarkable institutions, especially the latter. We seldom value either a man or woman, until they are either dead or a long way off, and then—’ Who’d a’ thought it?’

“When Clark awoke from the gentle sleep into which he had fallen after the kind people had made him comfortable, he found his head pillowed on a bosom a great deal softer than down or Downie’s—that of his loving and tender wife —for she was so now, and no mistake, in the full, true sense—A Wife!

“Tom Clark got well. He never grew rich, and never wanted to. He went to Santa Blarneeo and had both their pictures taken in a single frame, on one canvas, and he hung it over the window in the little room—the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.

“Years rolled by. Long did they live in the enjoyment of a domestic bliss too great for expression or description—a happiness unsullied by an unworthy thought, unstained by any blot; for it was full, pure, husbandly, wifely; and daily, hourly, did they bless and learn to love each other more.

“‘Cease dreaming,’ said Hesperina—the beautiful Hesperina, the Genius of the Garden and the Star—cease thy dream, of Perpetual Peace, and live to actualize it on thy way through the World! Cease dreaming, but awaken not. Remember the counsel of Otanethi, the radiant, Lord. of the Temple, the Spirit of the Hour; and when thou wakest, TRY to be a nobler and a better man. Waken not yet, O frail and weak! but still sleep—sweetly, soundly sleep, yet awhile, and only wake to be a full, true, loving man, forgiving and forgiven!’ And then the peerless being waved her hand over the prostrate woman, and, lo! her movements gave token that the strange and mighty magic was felt, and that she was swiftly passing the mystic Threshold of that sphere of new and marvellous activities where the Dream Fay reigns supreme.”

At this point of the story, a lady, Mrs. V., invoked the narrator’s attention, saying: “Thus far, sir, your story is an excellent one, and its moral is all that could be desired; yet how comes it that you, who so strongly deprecate all human hatreds and unkindness, are yet, in a measure, amenable to the very thing you decry? In the proem to the remarkable story you have been reciting, you have admitted that there was one man toward whom your soul felt bitter. Is this right? Is it just to yourself, your foe, the world, or God? Answer me!

“The Rosicrucian studied awhile, and then replied: “It is not right or just, and yet it is very hard to forgive, much less to forget, a cool, deliberate injury, such as I suffered at the pen, and hand, and tongue of the man alluded to. It is hard to forget”—

“And still harder to forgive,” said one of our company, a rather young-looking man, who had been one of the speaker’s most attentive auditors. He spoke with much passion.

Said the Stranger: “It is hard to forgive or forget. Few people in the world are capable of long- continued love in a single direction, unless self-trained; fewer still of deliberate, continued hatred, and fewer still are competent to full, free, unqualified forgiveness. I am not. In all my experience, I never knew but one man in whom unqualified Hatred was a paramount King- passion, over-riding and surviving all others whatsoever. I will tell you that man’s story as he told it to me, for he was a friend of mine whom I dearly loved, and who loved me in return. One day I asked him to open his heart to me, which, after a while, he did as follows, saying: ‘Listen, while I briefly sketch the story of my life. There was a man who, because I differed with him on questions of Philosophy—for he claimed to be Nature’s private secretary, which claim all sensible people laughed at, and only weaklings listened to and believed—he, this man, for this cause, called in question, not only my own, but the fair fame of the mother who bore me—that mother being already dead; and for this I hate him, as roses hate the foul malarious swamps of earth. The blazoned motto of that man was—Let no man call God his Father, who calls not man his brother. I rose in the world, and he hated me for the talent God gave me. Envy! I was in a sense his rival, and as such, this man, snake-like, used his very utmost influence and power, by tongue and pen, to injure me—and did—for he took the bread from my children by depriving me of employment. I wrote a pamphlet, under a nom de plume, and he joyfully exposed my secret. Jealousy! He attacked me personally, grossly in his paper, misrepresented well known facts—LIED! Robbing me of fair fame, as he had my dead mother before me. It is impossible for A. to forgive B for a crime against C. I hated him for the dead one’s sake; that hate I once thought would survive my death, and be the thing next my heart through all the Eternities. Perhaps it will not. He crushed me for a time, but “Je renais de mes cendres!” We two are yet in the World. He will not forget it! Will I? Never!—for the sake of my dead mother. I can overlook his crimes toward me, but before the Bar I hold him ever accountable for the injury to her—and to my little ones, who nearly starved, while this fiend of hell, in the garb of heaven, triumphed in my misery, and gloated over their wrongs. I am the watchful proxy the rightful Nemesis, of the living and the Dead! I put forth books to the world. This demon in saint’s garb, and his minions, howled them down as bloodhounds do the panting slave. More bread lost to my hungry’ ones, more stern calling for reprisals. All men have foes. I had; and this man—this impostor, this conscienceless outrager of the dead and starver of little children, listened gladly, and covertly published their statements—and that when he morally knew them to be as false as his own black, polygamous, scoundrel heart. More wrong done, more little pale hands reaching vainly forth for bread; and more hatred laid up for him and his minions at the bottom of my heart of hearts, the core and centre of my soul!’

“Thus he spake, and the man’s eyes flashed fire as the words escaped him, proving that they were not the impulsive utterances of temper, but the deep and cherished results of tong and bitter years of feeling. Said I: ‘And does this feeling demand a physical atonement?’ With a look of ineffable scorn, he replied: ‘ Not for an empire’s scepter would I harm a single hair of that man’s head. Were his wife in a burning building, I would rescue her, or perish in the trial ; were his children—but, thank God, he cannot propagate his species—Monsters never do!—but had he such, and they were hungry, I would work till I fell from exhaustion, in the effort to procure them bread were the man himself in want or danger, I would joyously risk my life to save or serve him. Why? Because my revenge is one that could not be appeased by blood. It is too vast—too deep—and I will wreak it in other worlds, a myriad ages from now. To this I pledge my very soul; and when hereafter I point him to what I am, and what he has brought me to, I will thunder, in the ears of his spirit, in the very presence of the Judge, “THOU ART THE MAN!” Wherever he may be, in the Vault, or in the Space, there will I be also. Nor can this feeling die before he shall undo his doing, and—no matter what. At length this feeling of mine grew strong. I loved. It drowned all love. I was ambitious, and ambition paled before it. I had wealth within my reach, and turned from the shining gold to the superior brilliance of the pole star of my passion against the soul of this man, not against his body. And then I said: —I will rise from my ashes. I will win fame and name. I, the Angular Character, will rise, and in my dealings with this fiend will be as remorseless and bitter as the quintessence of Hate; I will suffer patiently, and mount the steeps of fame, and I will ring the bells at the door of the world till all the peoples wake, and then, then will I launch him down the tide of time in his own true colors—stripped to the centre, and show him to the Ages for the monster that he is. This is a revenge worthy of an immortal being; one that merely extends to the physical person is such as brutes enjoy, but is not full, broad, deep and enduring enough for a man. As for his minions they are too contemptible to engage my attention for a moment; but in their master’s soul will I fix my talons so deep, that an eternity shall not witness their extraction; and henceforth I dedicate all my life to the one purpose of avenging the dead!’

Five years rolled by after this recital, when again, in a foreign land, we met each other. In the meantime he had grown grey. His foe still attacked him; he had never once replied, but his hatred had crystallized in the centre of his soul, and, said he, ‘I can wait a million years; but revenged I will be yet, by the Life of God!’ That is my story; believe my friend will keep his oath,” said the young man as he turned from the company on the quarter-deck, and slowly walked toward the bow of the steamer.

The words he had spoken were bitter ones, and they were expressed with such a verve—such a vehemence of vigor, intensity and passion, that not one man or woman on the quarter-deck of the steamer doubted for an instant that himself was the injured one, himself the vehement hater, notwithstanding his implied disclaimer. We saw that he fully, deeply, felt all he gave utterance to; and never, until that Moment, did I comprehend the awful depths and capacity of the human soul for either love or hatred ; nor had any of us, even the Rosicrucian, the faintest idea but that every word “I CAN WAIT A MILLION YEARS!’ of his awful threat came from his heart; nor the slightest doubt that if there were a possibility of wreaking his revenge in the World to come, that he would find that possibility, and remorselessly execute it. Said the Rosicrucian, as the man finished his terrible recital: “This episode comes in quite apropos to my own story’s moral. It is well to beware, lest we, by some act or word of ours, so deeply plant the germ of hatred, that in after years it spring up to annoy us, and mar our peace of mind. Now, I have some knowledge of the soul, and am firmly convinced that the man who has just left us means all that he says; nor would I incur so dreadful a penalty as that man’s hatred, for all the diadems on the terraqueous globe. His passion is not merely external, else he would, by an assault, or by slander, seek its satisfaction. But his feeling is the offspring of a sense of outraged justice. I have not the least doubt that the object of his spleen laughs at the man. But Revenge will outlive laughter, wealth, position, influence—all things, when of the nature of the present case. Thus, Madame, your question, I hope, has been answered to your satisfaction. Of course, I deprecate hatred, but demand justice.

“But see, the sun is setting again, and the conclusion of our story must be deferred until after supper, when, if you will again assemble here upon the quarter—deck, you shall learn what befell Mr. Thomas W., and what other events transpired in the little chamber with a window at the foot of the bed, whose upper dash— was down.”

PART V.

THE ROSICRUCIAN’S STORY.

“Tom Clark’s dream had changed. All the former troubled and exciting scene had vanished into thin air, leaving only vague, dim memories behind, to remind his soul of what it had been, and what it had seen and suffered. In the former dream he had been on dry, solid land; but now all this was strangely altered, and he found himself tossed on a rough, tumultuous sea; his lot was cast upon the deep—upon a wild and dreary waste of waters. In his dream the rain—great round and heavy drops of rain fell in torrents; the mad winds and driving sleet—for the rain froze as it fell—raved and roared fiercely, fitfully; and the good ship bent and bellied to the hurricane, and she groaned as if loath to give up the ghost. And she drove. before the blast, and she plunged headlong into the foaming billows and ever and anon shook her head—brave ship! as if she knew that ruin was before her, and had determined to meet it as a good ship should—bravely, fairly in the face. “I have yet to disbelieve that every perfect work of manship, watch, engine— has a semi-conscious life of its own—a life derived from the immortal soul that gave its idea birth for all these things—these ships, watches, engines, are ideas, spiritual, subtle, invisible, till man hides their nakedness with wood, iron, steel, brass—the fig-leaves of the Ideal World. Some people cannot feel an idea, or be introduced to one, unless it be dressed up in matter. Sometimes we lay it on paper or canvas, and draw pencil lines around, or color, it, and then it can be seen ; else we take one and plant it out of doors, and then put brick and iron, marble and glass, sides to ‘it, rendering the spirit visible, and then the people see the Idea’s Clothing, and fancy they behold the thing itself, just as others, when looking at a human body, imagine they behold the man, the woman, or the child, A mistake! None but God ever yet beheld a human Soul, and this it is, and not the body or its accidents, that constitutes the Ego.

“And the ship surged through the boiling seas, and her timbers strained and cracked in the combat, and her cordage shrieked as the blast tore through, and the tattered sails cried, almost humanly—like a man whose heart is breaking because his wife loves him not, and all the world for him is robed in mourning—and they cried, as if in deadly fear they were craving mercy at the Storm—King’s hands. He heard the cries, but he laughed ‘ho! ho!’ and he laughed ‘ha! ha!’ and he tore away another sail and hurled it in the sea, laughing madly all the while; and he blew, and he rattled, and he roared in frightful glee; and he laughed ‘ha! ha!’ and he laughed ‘ho! ho!’ as the bridegroom laughs in triumph.

“And still the storm came down; and the yards bent before the gale, and then snapped asunder, like pipe-clay stems, and the billows leaped and dashed angrily at her sides, like a trained blood- hound at the throat of the mother, whose crime is being black—Chivalrous, well-trained bloodhounds! And the waves swept the decks of the bark—swept them clean, and whirled many a man into the weltering main, and sent their souls to heaven by water, and their bodies to the coral caves of Ocean. Poor Sailors! The Storm-King’s spirit was roused, and his soul up in arms; and the angry waves danced attendance; the lightning held high revelry, and flashed its applause in the very face of heaven, and lit up the night with terrible, ghastly smiles; and the sullen growlof distant thunder was the only requiem over the dead upon that dismal deep. It was night. Day had long left the earth, and gone to renew his youth in his Western bath of fire—as we all must—for death is our West—ands the gloomy eidolon had usurped Day’s throne, arrayed in black garments, streaked with flaming red, boding no good, but only ill to all that breathed the upper air. And the turmoil woke the North, and summoned him to the wassail; and he leaped from, his couch of snow, with icebergs for his pillow, and he stood erect upon his throne at the Pole, and he blew a triumphant, joyous blast, and sent ten thousand icy deaths to represent him at the grand, tempestuous revel. They came, and as if the waters leaped into the rigging, they lashed them there with frost—fetters; and they loaded the fated ship—with fantastic robes of pearly, heavy, glittering ice—loaded her down as sin loads down the transgressor.

“And still the noble ship wore on—still refused the bitter death. Enshrouded with massy sheets and clumps of ice, the good craft nearly toppled with the weight, or settled forever in the yawning deep; for despite her grand endeavors—her almost human will and resolution—her desperate efforts to save her precious—freight of human souls—he nearly succumbed, and seemed ready to yield them to the briny waters below. Lashed to staunch timbers, the trembling remnant of the crew soon found out, while terror crowned their pallid brows, that the tornado was driving them right straight upon a rock-bound coast—foaming and hopeless for them,— notwithstanding that from the summit of the bold, cliffs, a light-house gleamed forth its eye coldly cynically upon the night in mockery lighting ,the way to watery death and ruin. Steadily, clearly it glimmered out upon the darkness, distinctly showing them the white froth at the foot of the cliff—the anger—foam of the demon of the storm. Ah God. Have mercy! have mercy!

“Look yonder, at the stern of the ship!

“What frightful gorgon is that? You know not! Well, that is Death sitting on the taffrail. See, he moves about: ‘Death is standing at the. cabin door; he is gazing down below, looking up aloft, glaring out over the bleak; into the farther night. See! he is stalking about the deck—the icy deck—very slippery it is, and where you fall you die, for he has trodden on the spot. Ah, me! ah, me!’ Woe, woe, terrible woe is here, Tom Clark! Tom Clark, don’t you hear? Death stands glamoring on you!’

“Hark! he is whistling in the rigging; he is swinging on the snapping 3 ends of yonder loosened halliards if they strike you you are dead, for they are Whips, and Death is grapping them! He is calling you, Tom Clark; don’t you hear him? Balling from his throne, and his “throne is the Tempest, Tom Clark—the Tempest. Now he is watching you—don’t his glance trouble you?’ Don’t you know that he is gazing down into your eyes? How cold is his glance! how colder his breath! It is very, very cold. Ah! I shiver as I think—and Death is freezing you, Tom Clark; he is freezing your very heart, and turning your blood to ice. He is freezing you, and has tried to freeze me, in various ways. But I bade him stand back—to stay his breath—for, unlike you, Tom Clark, I am a Brother of the Rosie Cross, and I have been over Egypt, and Syria, and Turkey; on the borders of the Caspian, and Arabia’s shores; over sterile steppes, and weltered through the Deserts—and all in search of the loftier knowledge of the Soul, that can only there be found; and I found what I sought, Tom Clark—the nature of the Soul, its destiny, and how it may be trained to any end or purpose. And the History and Mystery of Dream, Tom Clark, from the lips of the Oriental Dwellers in the Temple—and Pul Ali Beg—Tom Clark—our Persian Ramus and our lordly Chief—and I learned the worth of Will, and how to say, and mean, I will be well, and not sick—alive, and not deadly and achieve the purpose. How? That is our secret— the Rosicrucians’—strange order of men; living all along the ages, till they are ready to die—for Death comes only because man will not beat him back. THEY DIE THROUGH FEEBLENESS OF WILL. But not so with us, Tom Clark; we leave not until our work is done, and mine is not yet finished. We exercise our power over others, too, but ever for their good. Well do I remember, how, when I lived in Charlestown, there was an old man dying, but I bade him live. He exists to—day. And long years before that, there reached me—lightning borne, on the banks of the Hudson, a message saying, ‘Come, she is dying!’ and I went, and stood beside the bed of the sick child, and I prayed, and I invoked the Adonim of the Upper Temple; and they came and bade her live. And she liveth yet—but how ungrateful!

“Till our work is done! What work? you ask me, and from over the steaming seas I answer, and I tell you through the boundless air that separates us: Our work is to help finish that begun lang syne upon the stony heights of Calvary; in the shade beneath the olive in Gethsemane, where I have stood and wept—begun when Time was thousands of years younger than to-day. Our work, Tom Clark, is to make men, by teaching them to make themselves. We strive to impress a sense upon the world of the priceless value of a MAN!” And the vessel drove before the gale straight upon the cliff. All hope was at an end; all hope of rescue was dead. There was great sorrowing on board that fated bark. Heads were downcast, hearts beat wildly, ears drank in the mournful monody of the scene, and lo! the strong man lifted up his voice and wept aloud. Did you ever see a man in tears—tears tapped from his very soul? When they laugh at his misery, whose lives he has saved? When he discovers that the man he has loved as a brother, and for whom he has sacrificed his all during long years, was all the while a traitor and a foe, a mean and conscienceless traitor, and a secret, bitter Judas Iscariot, yet wearing a smile on his face continually? God grant you never may.

“The strong man wept! the very man, too, who, a few brief hours before, had heaped up curses, for trifling reasons upon the heads of others; but now, in this hour of agony and mortal terror, fell upon his knees—in the sublime presence of God’s insulted majesty; who now, in the deadly peril, lashed to the pump, trembling to his soul’s deep centre, cried aloud to Him for—Mercy! God’s ears are never deaf! At that moment one of His Angels—Sandalphon—the Prayerbearer in passing by that way, chanced to behold the sublime and moving spectacle. And his eyes flashed gladness, even through his tears; and he could scarcely speak for the deep emotion that stirred his angel heart; but still he pointed with one hand at the prostrate penitent, and with the other he placed the golden trumpet to his lips, and blew a blast that woke the sleeping echoes throughout the vast Infinitudes and he cried up, cried up from his very soul: ‘Behold! He prayeth!’ And the Silence of the upper courts of Heaven started into Sound at the glad announcement, ‘Behold he prayeth!’ And the sentence was borne afar on the fleecy pinions of the Light, from Ashtoreth to Mazaroth, star echoing to star. And still the sound sped on nor ceased its flight until it struck the pearly Gates of Glory—where was an Angel standing—the Recording Angel—writing in a Book; and, oh! how eagerly he penned the sentence, right opposite Tom Clark’s name: ‘Behold! he prayeth!’ and the teams—great, hot, scalding tears, such as, at this moment, I am shedding—rolled out from the angel’s eyes, so that he could scarcely see the book—mine own eyes are very dim—but still he wrote the words. God grant that he may write them opposite your name and mine—opposite everybody’s, and everybody’s son, and daughter—opposite ALL— our names!

“Behold! he prayeth!,’ And lo! the Angels and the Cherubim, the Seraphs and the Antarphim, caught up the sound, and sung, through the Dome; sung it till it was echoed back from Aidenn’s golden walls, from the East to the West, and the North and South thereof; until it echoed back in low, melodious cadence from the Veiled Throne, on which sitteth in majesty the Adonai of Adonim, the peerless and ineffable Over Soul, the gracious Lord of both the Living and the Dead! Are there any Dead? No! except in sin and guiltiness! And there was much joy in the Starry World over one sinner that had in very truth repented.

“And still the ship drove on, and on, and on—great heaven I right on to a shelving ledge of rock, where she was almost instantly dashed into a million fragments; masts, hull, sails, freight, men, all, all swept and whirled with relentless fury into one common gulf of waters; and yet, despite the din and roar, there rose upon the air, high and clear, and shrill: The startling shriek— the bubbling cry of one strong swimmer in his agony.’

“And that swimmer was Tom Clark. Thrice had he been thrown by the surf upon a jutting ledge of rock; thrice had he, with the strength of despair, clung to it, and seized upon the sea—weed growing on its edges, with all the energy of a drowning man. In vain; the relentless sea swept him off again, broke his hold, and whirled him back into the brine. His strength was almost gone; exhaustion was nigh at hand; and he floated, a helpless, nerveless mass at the mercy of the tide. And yet, so wonderful a thing is a human soul! in that dreadful moment, when Hope herself was dead, and he was about to quit forever and forever this earth of sin and sorrow, and yet an earth so fair and bright, so lovely and so full of love, teeming so with all that is heroic and true, so friendly and so kind; his soul, even then, his precious and immortal soul, just pluming its wings for a flight to the far-off regions of the Living Dead—that soul for which God Himself had put forth all His redemptive energy—had abundant time to assert its great prerogative, and bid Death himself a haughty, stern defiance. With the speed of Light his mental vision flashed back along and over the valley of the dead years, and saw arrayed before it all the strange phasmaramas of the foretime. Deeds, Thoughts, and Intuitions never die! They are as immortal as the imperishable souls that give them life and being!

“And in that wondrous vision Tom Clark was young again; his childhood, youth, maturity; his sins, sorrows, virtues, and his aspirations, all, all were there, phototyped upon the walls of the mystic lane through which his soul was gazing—a lane not ten inches long, yet stretching away into the immeasurable deeps of a vast Infinitude. A Paradox! I am speaking of the Soul!—a thing whereof we talk so much, and know so very little.

“The spectres of all his hours were there; painted on the Wall of Memory’s curved lane; his joys, his weary days of grief—few of the first, many of the latter—were there, like green and smiling oases, standing out in quick relief against the desert of his life. His anxious eyes became preternaturally acute, and seemed to take cognizance both of fact and cause—effect and principle at the same glance. His marriage life—even to its minutest circumstance—stood revealed before him. He saw Betsey as she had been—a girl, spotless, artless, intelligent, ambitious; beheld her married; then saw her as she was when she joined her lot with his own.

He beheld her as she had become—anything but a true wife and woman, for only her surface had been reached by either husband. There was a fountain they had neither tapped nor known. Her heart had been touched, indeed; but her soul, never. He was amazed to find that a woman can give more than a husband is supposed to seek and find. More, did I say? My heaven! not one man in ten thousand can think of a line and plummet long enough to fathom the vast ocean of a woman’s affection; cannot imagine the height and depths—the unfathomable riches of a woman’s Love. Not a peculiar woman’s—but any, every woman’s love; your sister’s, sir, or your wife’s, sir, or mine, or anybody’s sister or wife—anybody’s daughter.

“It appeared to Clark’s vision that a vast deal of his time had been worse than wasted, else had he devoted a portion of it to the attentive study of the woman whom he had, in the presence of God and man, sworn to love, honor, and protect;. for no man is fit for Heaven who does not love his wife, and no man can love his wife unless he carefully studies her nature; and he cannot study her nature unless he renders himself lovable, and thus calls out her love; and until her love is thus called out, the office of husband is a suicidal sham. Thus saith the canons of the Rosicrucian philosophy. Are they bad?

And he gazed in the depths of her spirit, surprised beyond measure to find that God had planted so many goodly flowers therein—even in virago Betsey’s soul! And he said to himself—as many another husband will, before a hundred years roll by—What a precious fool I’ve been! spending all my time in cultivating thistles—getting pricked and cursing them—when roses smell so very well, and are—so easily raised? fool! I wish—and he blamed his folly for not having nurtured roses—for not having duly cultivated the rich garden God had intrusted him with; execrated himself for not having cherished and nursed this garden, and availed himself of its golden, glorious fruitage. It was as a man who had willfully left down the bars for the free entrance of his neighbor’s cattle, and then wondering that his harvest of hay was not quite so heavy as desired. Clark saw that it had been in his power—as it unquestionably is in that of every married man—by a few kind acts, a few tender, loving words, to have thawed and melted forever the ice collected by ill usage—and every woman is ill—used who is not truly, purely) loyally loved! He saw that he might easily have warmed her spirit toward himself, therefore toward the world, and consequently toward the Giver. He might have made their life a constant summer—time—that very life that had been by his own short—sighted externalism, confirmed into freezing, stormy, chilling winter.

“Wheat and lentils I have seen in Egypt, taken from a mummy’s hand, where they had lain three thousand and four hundred years. Some of that wheat I still possess; some of it I planted in a flower-pot, and it forthwith sprung up, green and beautiful, into life and excellence. The mummy’s hand was crisp, the tombs of Beni-Hassan were not the places for wheat to grow, for they are very dry. Do you see the point, the place—the thing I am aiming at? It is to show that the ills of marriage life are to be corrected not by a recourse to law-courts and referees, but by each party resolutely trying to correct them in the heart, the head, the home. Another thing I aim at is to seal the lips—to strike to the earth the brawlers for Divorce—the breakers-up of families, who preach—or prate of—what they have neither brains to comprehend, nor manhood to appreciate—Marriage!

“Clark saw, in the soul of his wife, in an instant that which takes me an hour to describe; for the soul sees faster than the hand can indite, or the lips utter. He beheld many a gem, pure and translucent as a crystal, shut up in the caverns of her nature shut up, and barred from the light, all the while yearning for day. What seeds of good, what glorious wheat was there. The milk of human kindness had been changed to ice-froth—sour, and sugar-less, not fit to be tasted. Inestimable qualities had been left totally unregarded, until they were covered up, nearly choked out by noxious weeds. God plants excellent gardens, and it is man’s express business to keep them and dress them, and just as surely as he neglects them, and leaves the bars down, or the gate open, just so surely along comes the Tare-sower, whether his name be ‘Harmonial Philosopher,’ ‘All—Right’ preacher, Tom, Harry, Dick, Devil—or something worse. “Many good things, saw Tom, that might have been developed into Use and Beauty, that had, in fact, become frightfully coarse and abnormal; and all for want of a little Trying.

“‘The saddest words of tongue or pen Are these sad words: IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!” But that he was not kind, tractable, and confiding; and that he was the reverse of all this. Faults of his own—great and many; tremendous faults they were. He had been curt, short, sarcastic, selfish, exacting, petulant, offish, arbitrary, tyrannical, suspicious, peremptory—all of which are contained in the one word MEAN!—and he was mean. Too late he realized that he might have brought to the surface all the delicious, ripe sweets of her woman, and her human nature, instead of the cruel and the bitter. He saw, what every husband ought to see—but don’t—that no woman can be truly known who is not truly loved!—and that, too, not with mere lip homage, nor with nervous, muscular, demonstrative, show love— for no female on the earth but will soon detect all such—and reckon you up accordingly—at your proper value—less than a straw! She demands true homage, right straight from the heart; from the bottom of the heart—whence springs the rightful homage due from man to woman—right straight from the heart—without deflection. Mind this. Give her that, and ah, then, then, what a heaven is her presence! and what a fullness she returns compound interest, a thousand—fold repeated!—a fullness of affection so great that God’s love only exceedeth it!—a love so rich and vast, that man’s soul can scarce contain the half thereof. This truth I know. This truth I tell, because it is such. You will bless me for it by—and—by, when I am Over the River—if not before—will bless and thank me— despite of what ‘They say.’ Remember that!

“Tom Clark was drowning, yet he realized all this. He regretted that he had treated his wife as if she were soulless, or a softer sort of man. He could have so managed as to have been all the world to Betsey—all the world, and something more and better, for there are leaves in wedlock’s book which only those can turn and read who truly love each other. Marriage is, to some, a coarse brown paper volume, with rough binding, bad ink, and worse type, poorly composed, and badly adjusted, without a page corrected. It may be made a super-royal volume, on tinted paper, gilt-edged, clear type, and rich and durable covers, the whole constituting the History of two happy lives spent on Hymen Island: profusely illustrated, in full tints, with scenes of Joy in all its phases. Price, The TRYING! Very cheap, don’t you think so?

.

“He saw, as he floated there in the brine, that he had never done aught to call out his wife’s affection, in which he resembled many another whiskered ninny, who insanely expect women to doat upon them merely because they happen to be married. Dolts! Not one in a host comprehends woman’s nature; not one in two hosts will take the trouble to find it out;

consequently, not one man in three hosts but goes down to the grave never having tasted life’s best nectar—that of loving and being loved’

“O Betsey, Betsey, I know you now! What a stupid I have been, to be sure!’ “Profound ejaculation!” ‘I’ve been an out—and—out fool.

‘”Sublime discovery!”

Thus thought the dying man, in the dreadful hour of his destiny—that solemn hour wherein the soul refuses to be longer enslaved or deceived by the specious warp and woof of the sophistical robe it may have voluntarily worn through man a ear, all the while believing it to be Truth, as some people do Davis’ and Joe Smith’s ‘Philosophy.’ [Andrew Jackson Davis’s three marriages were nearly as controversial as Joseph Smith’s polygamy and reflected badly on Spiritualism in Randolph’s view.] It is not till a dose of Common Sense has caused us to eject from our moral stomachs the nice philosophical sweetmeats we have indulged in for years, until at last they have disturbed our digestion—sweets, very pleasant to the palate—like the ‘All Right—ism’ of the ‘Hub of the Universe’—but which, like boarding-house hash, is very good in small quantities—seldom presented—and not permanently desirable—that we begin to have true and noble views of life, especially married life, its responsibilities and it& truly royal joys and pleasures. Clark had reached this crisis, and in an instant the scales fell from his eyes—the same that blinds so many of us during the heyday and vigor of life.

“‘If I could be spared, Betsey, I’d be a better man.’

“Bravo! Glorious Thomas Clark! Well said, even though the waters choke thine utterance. “I would. O wife, I begin to see your value, and what a treasure I have lost—lost—lost!’

“And the poor dying wretch struggled against the brine struggled bravely, fiercely to keep off the salt death—the grim, scowling Death that had sat upon the taiffrail; that had stalked about the deck, and stood at the cabin door; the same fearful Death that had whistled through the rigging, and ridden on the storm, and which had followed but had not yet touched him with his cold and icy sceptre.”

It would be an understatement to say that we learn more about Max and Alma Theon in this one book than in all previous literature combined. Sixteen chapters are divided into four sections, the first of which focuses on 19th century origins and hence the early Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.

A great many mysteries are solved about the biographies of the Theons by editors Julie Chajes and Boaz Huss, and John P. Deveney’s third chapter sheds new light on Charles Barlet, but these had appeared separately before. Now the entire book is available and includes two more chapters with special relevance to readers of this blog. The second chapter by Christine Ferguson, Zanoni’s Daughters, traces the influence of Edward Bulwer-Lytton on English female novelists with special attention to Emma Hardinge Britten. The fourth chapter, The Reception of Ritual Magic in Max Theon’s Circles, by Gal Sofer, is the only one to utilize Patrick D. Bowen’s research on The Light of Egypt published in Letters to the Sage. It sheds tremendous light on the influences of Burgoyne and Theon on ritual magic teachings in the HBofL and Cosmic Movement.

The book sheds no new light on Theon’s Algerian associates and who might have been “the Arab” or “Moor” that Burgoyne considered the initiator for TM Johnson to meet on the inner plane. Nor does the book provide any clues to Sufi influences on Johnson around 1887, but primary sources are being translated and published that may provide better understanding of the Theons’ dealings with Algerians.

(ILLUSTRATION: 1892 San Francisco Examiner article mentioning Randolph’s acquaintance Isaac B. Rumford, a nursery owner as of 1862 but now involved in the “Edenic Institute” in Los Gatos.)

PART IV.

THE DREAM OF BETSEY CLARK.

“MADAME, awake, it will be remembered, had come to the conclusion to settle Tom’s coffee— and hash, at the same time, with a dose or two of ratsbane, or some similar delicate condiment; and now, in her dream, she thought all her plans were so well and surely made as to defy detection, and laugh outright at—failure.

“In California there is a small but very troublesome rodent known to Science as ‘Pseudo—stoma bursarius,’ and to the vulgar world as ‘gopher’—a sort of burrowing rat, nearly as mischievous and quite as wicked, for the little wretches have a settled and special penchant for boring holes in the ground, particularly in the vicinity of fruit trees. My friend, Mr. Rumford, who has a very fine orchard in Fruit Vale, Contra Costa, just across the bay from Santa Blarneeo [Fruitvale, now a neighborhood in Oakland, had many orchards in the mid-19thc and Isaac B. Rumford of Brooklyn in neighboring Alameda County was listed in the 1860 census with Nursery as his occupation] recently assured me that the rascals make it a point to destroy young trees, not only without compunction, but even without saying, ‘By your leave.’ Now it so happened that Clark’s place was overstocked with the pestilent animals alluded to, and the proprietors had, time and again, threatened the whole race with extermination, by means of arsenic, phosphor-paste, or some other effective poison, but had never carried the resolution into practice. This fact was seized on by Mrs. Clark, as a capital point d’appui. Accordingly, with a dull hand-saw, the lady hacked a few dozen of the very choicest young trees, in such a way as to make them look like unmistakable gopher-work, thus subjecting the brutes to charges whereof they were as innocent as two unborn babes. Gophers and the Devil have to answer for a great deal that properly belong to other parties. Her act was a grand stroke of policy. She meant that Tom should voluntarily get the poison, which she intended he—not the gophers should take at the very earliest possible opportunity. She didn’t mean to purchase arsenic—oh, no, she knew too much for that! The ravage was speedily discovered by Clark. He raved, stamped his foot in his wrath, turned around on his heel, pulled his cap over his eyes, ejaculated, ‘Dod dern ’em! started for the city, and that very night returned, bearer of six bits’ worth of the strongest and deadliest kind of poison quite as deadly, almost as strong, as that which stupid fools drink in corner stores at six cents a glass. “That night about half the poison was mixed and set. Twelve hours thereafter there was great tribulation and mourning in Gopherdom; for scores of the little gentry ate of’ it, liked the flavor, tried a little more—got thirsty—they drank freely (most fools do!) felt uncomfortable, got angry, swelled—with indignation and poisoned meal! and not a few of them immediately (to quote Mr. Clark), ‘failed in business’; that is to say, they burst —burst all to thunder:Alas, poor rodents!’

“Next morning Tom’s coffee was particularly good. Betsey fairly surpassed herself, in fact she came it rather too strong. About ten-o’clock he felt thirsty, and inclined toward cold water; for the weather was hot, and so were his ‘coppers,’ to quote the Ancient Mariner. He would have taken much, water, only that Betsey dissuaded him, and said: ‘It was just like him, to go and get sick by drinking ever so much cold water! Why didn’t he take switchel, or, what was much better, cold coffee, with plenty of milk in it,—and sugar, of course; and so he (Tom) tried her prescription, liked it, took a little more, and that night followed the Gophers! “Three days afterwards a kindly neighbor handed Mrs. Clark a fresh copy of the ‘Santa Blarneeo Looking Glass,’ wherein she read, with tearful eyes, the following true and veracious account of

“‘A MOST DISTRESSING AND FATAL SUICIDE!

“‘We regret to announce —the fearful suicide, while laboring under a fit of temporary insanity, caused by the bite of a gopher, of Mr. Thomas W. Clark. It appears, that in order to destroy the vermin, he purchased some arsenic, gave some to the animals, got bitten by them, ran stark mad in consequence, and then swallowed the balance (about a pound) himself. His unfortunate wife now lies at the point of death, by reason of the dreadful shock. She is utterly distracted by, the. distressing and heartrending event, which is all the more poignant from the fact, that probably no married pair that ever lived were more ardently and devotedly attached than were they. The coroner and a picked jury of twelve men sat for two hours in consultation, after which they found a verdict of “Death by his own act, while insane’ from the bite of a gopher!”

“In due time the body of the victim who had been killed so exceedingly dead, by cruel, cold poison—(if it had been warm he might have stood it, but cold !)—was consigned .to the grave— and forgetfulness at the same time ; and after a brief season of mourning, materially assisted before company by, a peeled onion (one of the rankest kind) in a handkerchief, applied to the eyes—my Lady Gay, our—disconsolate reliot—fair, forty, and somewhat fat—gave tokens, by change of dress, that she was once more in the market matrimonial,

“With her tacks ‘and sheets, and’ her bowlines, too And colors flying—red, white, and blue,’ [Casca LLana (pseud.) 1872]

She was once more ready to dare and do for husband number three. To do her justice; she was good—looking—all women are, when they choose to be—Her face was fair and intelligent; she possessed a voluptuous degree of’ what Monsieur de Fillagre calls ‘oom—bong—pong’ (embonpoint), could sing— at a mark; and not fat!, was, au fait—a little of both, perhaps—on the light, fantastic toe—of the California Order; while as an invaluable addition, there was no woman on the coast who could equal her in getting up either linen, a dinner, or a quarrel. She excelled all rivals in the really divine art of cooking a husband—beefsteak, I mean. Her pastry and bread were excellent, her tea was fine, and her coffee was all that man could wish, and more so, for it was good—perfectly killing—as we have seen.

“Betsey took matters coolly; was in no apparent hurry, for she had resolved to shoot only at high game, and, accordingly, after a time, deigned to smile upon the Reverend Doctor Dryasdust, the honored head of the new sect recently sprung up in the land,. and which was known as the ‘Wotcher Kawlums,’ and who rejoiced in repudiating everything over five years old in the shape of doctrine, tenet and discipline, but who went in strongly for Progress and pantaloons—for women; for Honduras and the naked truth; for Socialism and sugar estates; mahogany and horticulture—a patent sort.

“Now, the pastor of this promising body felt that it was not good for man to be alone, and therefore cast about for a rib whereof to have fashioned a help meet unto him. He saw the widow, fell in love, proposed, was accepted, and in due time she became the wife of the Newlight preacher. I like the old lights best; she didn’t.

“Betsey achieved a ‘position’—a thing for which her sex almost proverbially sacrifice all they have on earth—happiness, health, long life, usefulness. She enjoyed herself quite well, and only two things disturbed her peace of mind: First, she could not bear the smell or sight of coffee, which drink her new lord was strongly addicted to, and insisted —on her making for him with her own hands; thereby inflicting daily tortures upon her, compared to which all physical pain was pleasure. The second disturbing cause was this: by a very strange fatality their house was overrun with rats, and their garden fairly swarmed with gophers—which, with infernal malice and pertinacity, became quite tame, semidomesticated, and intruded themselves upon her notice a dozen times a day, thereby fetching up from memory’s storehouse fearful reminiscences of other days—horrible recollections of the gophers of the long—agone. It is hard to be weaned of your fears; nevertheless, after a while she conquered herself, brazened down her horrors, weighed herself, applied a false logic, tried herself by it, and returned a clear verdict of ‘Justifiable all the way,’ and concluded that her present happiness, what there was of it, fairly outweighed the crime by which it had been reached. She was materially justified in her conclusions by an accidental development of character on the part of her present husband, who had, in a fit of petulance, unfolded a leaf from the inner volume of the soul within.

“Not caring to recapitulate the whole story (for reticence is sometimes wisdom), I will merely observe that at the end of a somewhat heated controversy, her husband had smashed a mirror, with one of Webster’s quarto dictionaries, and roundly declared that he ‘preached for pay. Hang it, Madame, the salary’s the thing!—you Bet! How can souls be saved without a salary? That’s a plain question. They are not now, at all events, whatever may have been the case with the’ Old Lights, who had a great deal more zeal than discretion—more fools they. It can’t be done in these days of high prices and— costly raiment—with the obligation of feeding well and dressing better. What’s life Without money? What’s talent without brass? What’s genius Without gold? They won’t—pay?’ No, no, Madame; in the game of life, diamonds are always trumps, and hearts are bound to lose. What’s the result—?

“Listen! Five years ago, up in the mountains, I thought. I had a call. I did, and went—and preached the new doctrines of Do-as-you-feel-a-mind-to-provided-you-don’t-get-catched-atitism—the regular out and out All-Right-ite-provided-you don’t-tread-on-my-corns religion. Well, I preached it, had large houses, converted many—and nearly starved! What’s the consequence?’ Why I left, and now hear only the loudest kind of evils! What’s the loudest call? Why, the biggest salary! that’s what’s the matter! Do you see the point the place where the laugh comes in? It’s as plain as A B C to me or any other man and all the rest is leather and prunella—

—stuff, fudge—Hum!

“Honest, out-spoken Dryasdust! How many of the world’s teachers sail in the same boat! His eloquence—not all false, perhaps—was not lost upon his wife. ‘The Dryasdusts are not all dead; there’s a few more left of the same sort—only they keep their own counsel, even; from their wives. New Lights!

“As a result of this conversation; Madame became a sort of cross between an Atheist and—God knows what; “for she was neither one thing nor ‘tother, but a sort of pseudo—philosophical nondescript, without any set principle—of belief whatever. Her conscience froze.

“‘Who knoweth the spirit of a man that it goeth upward; or of a beast that ‘it goeth downward? The Spiritualists?— a pack of fanatics! I don’t believe in ghosts—but she shuddered as she gave utterance to the words, and her hair crawled upon her head as if touched with spectral fingers. No man disbelieves his immortality—the ‘thing is impossible, per se; for although he may differ with that class of people who pretend to very extensive ghostly acquaintanceship and commerce, as many do—yet he doubtless always whistles as he passes a graveyard in the night! I certainly do! Why? Because I disbelieve in ghosts—of course.

“She resumed her soliloquy: I’m nervous—that’s all! I mean to eat, drink and be merry, for to— morrow I die.’ What—of it—isn’t Death an eternal sleep? My husband says that it, is, to all except the New Lights but he’s a fool in some things, that’s certain. And after death the Judgment’, And she shuddered again, for a cold wind passed by her, and she thought it best to light two more candles and run her fingers over the piano, and take a glass of Sainsevain’s best Angelica. Bah! who knows anything about a judgment? There’s no such thing. He’s dead. ‘What of it”? He can’t talk! If be could, what of it? ‘Ghosts can’t testify in court! Besides, it was to be— and it’s done. ‘Fate is responsible,’ not I—

In spite of Reason, erring ‘Reason’s spite,

One truth is clear, whatever is is right. [Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, misquoted]

“Tom was to die. The conditions that surrounded him were just such as had determined the results that followed. I was but the proxy of eternal Fate. Am I to blame? Certainly not, for I acted in precise accordance with the conditions that surrounded me—that made me do as I did— tempted me beyond my strength; and, for that reason, the crime, if crime it be, was a foregone conclusion from the foundation of the world! Hereafter?’

“Come from the grave to—morrow with that story,

And I may take some softer path to glory.

[from Parrhasius and the Captive, Nathaniel Parker Willis, published in his 1846 Collected Works.]

“‘Parrhasius was a true philosopher—or Willis. Pshaw — I guess I’ll take another drop of Angelica!’

“Poor Betsey! she had been reading Pope and Leibnitz, and Ben Blood—bad, worse and worst, unfairly interpreted good, better and best, rightly understood—and as the respective writers probably meant. Weak people read a book as children do Swift’s Gulliver—on the surface; others read the great book whose letters are suns, whose words are starry systems, in the self—same manner; and there is still a greater volume—the first edition, to be continued—the Human Soul —which they never read at all. All of these must go to school; they will graduate by— and— by, when Death turns over a new leaf. It is best to study now—there may not be so good a chance presently. “Betsey Clark believed, or thought she did, that because God made all things, therefore there could be no wrong in all the world. She accepted Pope’s conclusions literally,  read them, and totally overlooked the sublime. teachings of the third author named; and her mind went to rest, and her conscience slumbered under the sophisms—for such they are, from one point of view. The opiate acted well. And so she slept for years—long years of peace, wealth, all the world could give her——slept in the belief that there would never be a waking. Was she right? Wait. Let us see.

“We are still in the little chamber, near the window, the little window at the foot of the bed whose upper sash was down.”

TOM CLARK DREAMS AGAIN

“Mind now the Shadow—the terrible, monstrous Thing, that had so strangely entered the room through the window —the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down— hovered no longer over the heads of the woman and the man—the unhappy woman, the misery- laden man, who, when the last sun had set, went to bed with Murder and Revenge—and Hatred—this wretched couple, who had contemplated such dreadful crimes, and who, within the past two hours, had had such strange and marvellous dreams! Only two hours! and yet in that space had been crowded the events of a lifetime. They say there are no miracles! What, then, is this that are these strange experiences of soul which we are constantly having—fifty years compressed in an hour of ordinary Dream!—thirty thousand ages in a moment of time, while under the accursed spells of Hasheesh?’ The soul flying back over unnumbered centuries; scanning the totality of the Present, and grasping a myriad Futurities—sweeping the vortex of unborn epochs by the million!——and all in an instant of the clock, while under the influence of the still more accursed Muust. What are the frogs and bloody waves of Egypt, compared to these miracles of the human soul—these Dream—lives that are not Dreams?

“And so the Thing took the glare of its horrible Eye from off the woman and the man. Its mission—its temptations were over. And it floated from off the bed, frown—smiling at Hesperina as it did so; and it passed lazily, gloomily, scowlingly through the window at the foot of the bed—through which it had a little previously entered; and it ‘moved through the starlight with a rush and a roar—a sullen rush and roar—as if each star-beam stabbed it with a dagger of flame; and the Thing seemed consciously angry, and it sullenly roared, as doth the wintry blast through the tattered sails of a stormtossed bark, toilsomely laboring thro’ the angry deep: a minute passed, and IT was gone thank God! It was gone, at last—that horrible Incubus—that most fearful Thing.

“Simultaneously the sleepers evinced by their moments that their souls, if not their senses, had been relieved ‘by the presence ‘of its absence; and they were apparently on the point of waking, but were prevented by the magic or a magnetic action of the angelic figure at that moment leaning over their couch; for she gently, soothingly waved her snowy hands, and, in a voice sweeter than the tones of love whispered ‘Sleep on; still sleep—softly—sweetly sleep dream. Peace, troubled hearts! Peace; be still ‘ and they slumbered on.