The Life Everlasting | Page 7

'infinite faculty'? Is it for such poor aims and ends as these that we are told in the legended account of the beginning of things, to 'Replenish the earth and subdue it'? There is great meaning in that command--'Subdue it!' The business of each one of us who has come into the knowledge and possession of his or her own Soul, is to 'subdue' the earth,--that is, to hold it and all it contains under subjection,--not to allow Its forces, whether interior or exterior, to subdue the Soul. But it may perhaps be said:--"We do not yet understand all the forces with which we have to contend, and in this way they master us." That may be so,--but if it is so with any of you, it is quite your own fault. Your own fault, I say,--for there is no power, human or divine, that compels you to remain in ignorance. Each one of you has a master--talisman and key to all locked doors. No State education can do for you what you might do for yourselves, if you only had the WILL. It is your own choice entirely if you elect to live in subjection to the earth, instead of placing the earth under subjection to your dominance.
Then, again, you have been told to 'Replenish the earth'--as well as to subdue it. In these latter days, through a cupidity as amazing as criminal, you are not 'replenishing' so much as impoverishing the earth, and think you that no interest will be exacted for your reckless plunder? You mistake! You complain of the high taxes imposed upon you by your merely material and ephemeral Governments,- -but you forget that the Everlasting Government of all Worlds demands an even higher rate of compensation for such wrong or injurious uses as you make of this world, which was and is intended to serve as a place of training for the development and perfection of the whole human race, but which, owing to personal greed and selfishness, is too often turned into a mere grave for the interment of faulty civilisations.
In studying the psychic side of life it should be well and distinctly understood that THERE IS AN EVER LIVING SPIRIT WITHIN EACH ONE OF US;--a Spirit for which there is no limited capacity and no unfavourable surroundings. Its capacity is infinite as God,--and its surroundings are always made by Itself. It is its own Heaven,-- and once established within that everlasting centre, it radiates from the Inward to the Outward, thus making its own environment, not only now but for ever. It is its own Life,--and in the active work of perpetually re-generating and re-creating itself, knows nothing of Death.
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I must now claim the indulgence of those among my readers who possess the rare gift of patience, for anything that may seem too personal in the following statement which I feel it almost necessary to make on the subject of my own "psychic" creed. I am so often asked if I believe this or that, if I am "orthodox," if I am a sceptic, materialist or agnostic, that I should like, if possible, to make things clear between myself and these enquirers. Therefore I may say at once that my belief in God and the immortality of the Soul is absolute,--but that I did not attain to the faith I hold without hard training and bitter suffering. This need not be dwelt upon, being past. I began to write when I was too young to know anything of the world's worldly ways, and when I was too enthusiastic and too much carried away by the splendour and beauty of the spiritual ideal to realise the inevitable derision and scorn which are bound to fall upon untried explorers into the mysteries of the unseen; yet it was solely on account of a strange psychical experience which chanced to myself when I stood upon the threshold of what is called 'life' that I found myself producing my first book, "A Romance of Two Worlds." It was a rash experiment, but it was the direct result of an initiation into some few of the truths behind the veil of the Seeming Real. I did not then know why I was selected for such an 'initiation'--and I do not know even now. It arose quite naturally out of a series of ordinary events which might happen to anyone. I was not compelled or persuaded into it, for, being alone in the world and more or less friendless, I had no opportunity to seek advice or assistance from any person as to the course of life or learning I should pursue. And I learned what I did learn because of my own unwavering intention and WILL to be instructed.
I should here perhaps