These are the three appendices included in the original 1913 edition of The Quest of the Spirit. This concludes the 2024 series of excerpts from books by early ancestors of the BOL Lessons. Henceforth the blog updates will be mostly about 20thc individuals relevant to the Lessons shared on their birth dates– upcoming in November, Max Theon and Mark Twain. Having already featured Elbert Benjamine, I have no more December births to feature. But January includes birth dates for George Ivanovich Gurdjieff as well as Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and Marie Sinclair Countess of Caithness whose birthdates were previous undetermined.
APPENDIX I- A CASE OF SPIRIT IDENTITY
Only a brief outline of the main and necessary facts are here given to show that a theory of self- deception, hallucination, telepathy, or fraud upon the part of others will not explain the facts of the case; each of these being rendered impossible by the peculiar circumstances of the two sides of the case.
One night, after a day’s hard study, I was trying to go to sleep, but found sleep impossible, when suddenly, the distinct form of a woman appeared before me. She stood between my bed and the window, and I remember that I could dimly see through the figure. I was not at all afraid.
The apparition spoke in a faint but distinct voice- gave me her name, date of her death; together with the name and address of an unknown stranger whom she stated to be her son. Here she related a certain circumstance in her life; then asked me to write to hereon and convey this information; adding, that for reasons, which I would know later, it was import for us to know each other.
Acting on the spur of the moment I got out of bed and made a note of the facts, promising to write to the son. Not until I had completed the memoranda did the figure speak again. Turning half round, it said: “Thank you, my friend,” then the vision disappeared. Now, if I was really asleep before, I was certainly very wide awake when the figure vanished. To say that I regarded the whole thing as a hallucination is scarcely true. I tried to persuade myself that it was a dream- but there was the writing with the names, etc. I had heard of strange tricks performed by somnambulists, and finally, felt that that must be the explanation. I put the thing out of my mind. The idea of writing what I considered nonsense to a fictitious stranger appeared to be the height of absurdity.
Nearly two years passed by, and the entire circumstance was completely forgotten, when again I had a dream- this time a real one. Upon retiring, I had fallen asleep at once. The same woman again appeared in my dream. This time there was no communication whatever- nothing but a look of profound sorrow. A feeling of remorse came over me. I remembered my former promise; but somehow I felt myself incapable of asking questions. I awoke feeling heartily ashamed of myself. Again, of course, consoling myself with the thought that it was only a dream.
Nevertheless, I could not, do what I would, rid myself of the haunting look of that sorrowful face. I determined to write to the address given to me previously. I did, and quite contrary to my expectation received an answer in due course. Now for the first time I was really astounded.
A thorough investigation followed. Every detail of the first vision was confirmed. But a still greater wonder was to follow. I found that it was no trivial affair but one of the last importance to me, which became, and still is, a dominating influence in my life.
Now for the other side of the story which to me, in view of my own experience, appeared the most remarkable: About the same time that the first vision appeared to me, a gentleman residing nearly two thousand miles from where I was staying, received a communication through the mediumship of a woman-friend of unusual psychic gifts. Only her immediate friends were aware of her abnormal power. This communication, purporting to come from his mother, who had been dead many years, stated that before many days he would receive a letter from a stranger who would ask rtain uestions and state certain things that would convince him of her identity. It is important here to say that he was very sceptical in spiritual matters. Weeks passed away. No letter was received. So he merely looked upon it as one of the “misses” of mediumship.
About a year and a half afterwards another communication was received through the same source, saying: “Be patient; wait; I shall succeed.” However, he paid no attention to this. After five or six months further delay, the unlooked-for letter arrived. I need not add that it was mine.
The promise of two years before was fulfilled. The explanations on both sides being compared left no room for doubt in any sensible mind. Only the most confirmed sceptic, who would refuse any testimony against his prejudice, could remain unconvinced.
APPENDIX II-NOTES UPON MAN’S PSYCHICAL CONSTITUTION
N.B.-The following paragraphs have been culled from many lengthy notes and “communications” received through what has been called “automatic writing.” They are here given for what they may be worth as suggestions to other “investigators.”
The Aura.
The Aura of a person is a purely psychical form of atmosphere seen or felt only by sensitive temperaments. It surrounds all forms from mineral to man. Much that we call instinct in animals is nothing but a sensing of the feelings, passing as currents in the mental strata of their race. Many times, wild animals have been observed to become suddenly suspicious, nervous, alarmed, when such warnings as scent, sound, or wind were out of the question. Transmitted by some subtle invisible current, a sense of danger was awakened, their sphere of consciousnesss received the race alarm which aroused the inherited racial instinct, or memory.
Man, to a greater extent than he is aware of, is influenced by this sensitive atmosphere. To the eye of a seer, it is varied in extent and changeable in colour.
The planet, apart from the atmosphere of gas, has also a mental envelope, a psychical atmosphere within the gaseous, and this must not be mistaken for the universal ether of space. Finally, the solar system has its own peculiar, psychical aura, so that planetary intercommunication is at least among the possibilities of the future.
Man may be likened unto a musical instrument in bis psychical constitution, and the sensitiveness of his auric sphere. He may range, according to race, from the conch, and wooden tom-tom of the savage, to the most exquisite cremona-violin, while the consciousness within the auric sphere rises from the Tasmanian Black to a Buddha, or a Jesus of Nazareth. There is, therefore, a wonderful difference in kind in the transmission and reception of thought- waves, which like light-waves in the ether, travel in their own medium. These thought- waves, producing sensation in the auric-sphere, have to be transmuted into conscious ideas; and an idea entirely foreign to our consciousness will pass without recognition, or at best, be wholly mistranslated.
One human instrument will only respond to another in harmony, or sympathy with it, and in whatever sense this sympathy, or harmony is, will be the terms in which the idea will be expressed.
To revert to our analogy, every human-being is in accord with some tone, or semi-tone of a musical- scale. Minds corresponding to B flat will receive no message from G sharp; though there are some minds, almost neutral in their sphere of sensitiveness, who respond more or less to anything.
These currents are transmitted in the psychical atmosphere of the planet. The spheres of human consciousness are but so many wireless-stations for sending or receiving messages. Each station is limited to messages of a certain kind and grade from similar stations.
We are now approaching the mystery of the frequent confusion in thought transference. According to its quality of refinement, and its complex relations with the psychic form of consciousness, and the aurio-sphere, the human brain has every degree of receptive quality, from a clear-receiving of the thought to its reception in broken rays. As light is split up by a prism of glass, so such ramifications are lost in the thought of the individual.
All musical-instruments can be attuned to respond perfectly to each other, so by training, two sympathetic persons can become so responsively attuned as to. receive and transmit thought clearly, consciously, and without error. To investigate this is the great work for the psychologists of the future.
APPENDIX III-THE GROUND OF NATURE
A critical friend, to whom this work was submitted before going to press, suggested that the writer should further elaborate what he means by the “Ground of Nature,” and illustrate that meaning by some familiar analogy. This suggestion appealed to others less critical.
By the Ground of Nature, we mean, of course, the whole invisible psychical basis of spiritual activity and material phenomena- the world-spirit, ocean of life which, ever in flux and change, ebb and flow, is, at the same time, ever becoming richer in content. Illustrative of this, we find a striking analogy to this cosmic ground in the oceans of the earth we inhabit. We can go back in the imagination to a period in geological time when the hot seas were first precipitated upon the steaming planet- before the first form of life & before the first strata of the aqueous rocks were laid down- and can note that the waters thus formed were fresh waters unimpregnated with their present saline content.
Slowly, as the primitive crust of the earth was eroded and deposited by the waters- strata after strata, the salts of the decomposed rocks impregnated the water with their quality. The ocean, at first, became brackish: gradually increasing in their salinity in and richness until the present day. Life, likewise, at first, was simple in form, and probably limited in extent. There appears to be a perfect parallel between the increasing salinity and richness of the ocean and the increasing diversity and richness of its organised life. Generation succeeded to generation through unknown millions of years. Organic life became constantly more complex, divergent, and higher in form, as the ocean became more saline. The content of the planet grew in richness until life ran riot with infinite variety. And man, that final instrument of the Spirit, burst through the barrier and added self-consciousness to intelligence and instinct. Now, we are to note that the first primitive form we can trace, the Eozoon, was impossible before the waters were formed. The giant mosses, ferns, and reptiles of the coal measures, impossible until ages of erosion of the primitive rooks had formed a suitable soil in which to flourish. The earth, in fact, increased in vital riches from age to age, as the waters of the ocean grew more saline by the continuous decomposition of the rocks, and the soil more fertile by the decomposition of its own organic life. We can use this illustration to form an imperfect but intelligible image of the psychical ground– the primeval ocean of Nature. We are dealing with the ground in our own time after inconceivable eons of preparation; after the movement of life bas become inconceivably rich in possibility. We would be worse than fools, we would be insane to imagine a beginning as a something evolving from nothing; but we can profitably go back in imagination to a conceivable period or process in which the elements of the ground were simple and the possibilities limited to simple forms of expression. System after system of solar energy, and planetary struggle arose to light and beauty, and passed away leaving their primitive achievements to live and blush un-seen by any self- conscious forms of life. But there was no waste. Each form of life added to the riches of the psychic ground. Every form evolved- though it perished and sank back into the earth again-did not really die. The experience was not lost. The form attained sank back again as a formless poteniality, adding to the richness of the ocean of life as the perishing rooks add to the chemical richness of the sea; as the decomposing bodies of organic life add to the richness of the soil.
The ocean of life, like the oceans of earth, is in ceaseless motion- action and reaction- ebb and flow- with this difference- the ocean of life reaches a higher point in matter with every tide. Something new is created, some advance is made, something comes into being which never existed before, because the life-force itself is growing richer in content with every moment of time. In a chapter devoted to the same subject, Edward Douglas Fawcett, in his valuable work, The Individual and Reality, writes:
We need not ask whether a cosmic plan or design was Immanent in the Ground. We have agreed to discard the conceptions of ‘unconscious purpose.’ ‘Purpose,’ ‘plan,’ ‘ scheme,’ ‘ design’- these imply a conscious individual, a being who is aware of desires and aversions and can remember, expect, deliberate and choose. On the other band, there is no call to suppose that the Ground was ever mere chaos, an abyss of confused differences whence, if chance so decreed, a preposterous Nature and fantastic individuals might arise. System is itself as primeval as the Ground. We have laid stress on the important part played by struggle. But the fecundity of struggle presupposes this system- a germinal system which is to change into a Nature and individuals in most respects differing from itself. This germinal system may have issued from a former one and so on. The universe in the Time- process is always becoming what it was not. Huxley said of ‘ protoplasm,’ that it is continually dying in order that it may live. This is, also, our own lot. The conscious person is always ceasing to be what he has become. This, too, on the great scale, is the lot- the ‘contradictory’ life of the universe. The supposal, even on idealistic lines, of a primeval chaos is gratuitous. The Ground while sub- conscious, was yet a psychical whole. It was the source of that very strife which sired Nature. “We do not speak of a primeval ‘design’ for we must not speak of the Ground as possessing that which presupposes individual life, for individual life belongs to a relatively late stage of becoming. But ‘design’ even if we allow only for the activities of men and animals, is certainly an important phase of reality now. The Ground, then, is the remote source even of design. Its fecundity was such that it had to pass into this form of activity at last.”
The biologists’ natural selection is familiar to all [System here means Tendency] of us. It may be viewed as continuing that strife which began with time. It has scourged man with scorpions. And even among the higher animals it involves a system of terrorism from the beginning to the end, as a famous explorer tells. [Sir Samuel Baker] It shows no partiality towards what we call the nobler forms of life. It fixed grim instincts, and renders destructive activities, which make for suffering, pleasant. The butcher-bird is encouraged to impale mice, etc. alive on thorns; parasites multiply and torment creatures superior to themselves. Men not yet touched with sympathy, and inheriting ancestral proclivities once of use in the struggle for life, show cruel dispositions which are genuine natural gifts. A passion for cruelty characterises certain communities. This need not surprise any one who accepts the metaphysics offered here. It was no moral power which ordained the process in which individuals arise. The passport to a place in reality, is- just to succeed! . . . We return now to the topic of a finite God or gods. There was no design, properly so-called, immanent in the Ground. But world-histories without number may have been their course before the present evolution era, and, more especially, the story of this minor solar system began. And Individuals, motioning to a finite god or gods may have been the fruit of such histories. A being or beings of this sort may have helped to produce our part of reality and may be continuing to modify it now. We must allow, at least, that the hypothesis must be considered.
