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LETTER XXVII
INVISIBLE ENEMIES
You
may have wondered why the elemental beings that as I have told you
precipitated the great war were so malicious at this time, why they hurled
themselves upon mankind with such overwhelming force. There is no reason why
you should not know something of these causes, having seen so much of their
effects.
The saying that man has made more material progress in the last
hundred years than in the preceding two thousand, has become a mere
newspaper commonplace. It is because he has not made a corresponding moral
progress that the evil elemental beings, who fear for their rule in their
own kingdom, could come so near to succeeding in their attacks upon
the human race.
It is not merely in material ways that man
has progressed with such amazing rapidity, for some of his inventions and
discoveries touch the invisible regions. The doors of man’s mind are opening
on the untracked spaces of aether in which these beings live. Man is
chaining the elements, and to chain the elements may be to chain the
elementals. One man in America has come so near to a great and dangerous
secret that his eyes have had to be veiled by those who fear for man’s too
rapid progress.
Occult societies dot the world. In other days these societies
were really secret, and no one had access to their knowledge until after
tests were passed which proved fitness for further study and further
secrets. But the doors of the unseen have been besieged by an army of
intellectual enthusiasts who have not passed the tests. Curiosity demands to
know that which only the nobility of the spirit was once trusted with.
Democracy has spread even into the occult orders, and sacred mysteries have
been published broadcast by those who put no curb upon their personal
ambitions. The hosts of the unseen world have themselves suffered invasion.
Now the hosts of the unseen will obey a
great soul that they know to be more powerful than themselves. They run like
docile children at his call, and they go at his command as a dog goes. But
the unseen hosts are very jealous of their freedom, and they will yield it
only to one whose superiority is manifest to them. Many—yes, most—of those
who are now seeking to open the doors of that region are unfit to command
there; because he only can command the unseen forces outside who can command
the unseen forces inside himself.
In a former letter I spoke of the danger of black magic in
America; but the danger is everywhere. And what is black magic? It may be
briefly defined as a use for selfish purposes of those very forces of the
unseen world. Not until a man has advanced beyond himself will the invisible
forces serve him long without rebellion.
Pick up a common newspaper, and you will
see the advertisements of men and women who promise for a fee to
bring about results which can only be brought about by using those
invisibles. What blasphemy! What presumption! If these advertisers could
make good their claims, they would be more dangerous than typhus fever. Such
advertisements arouse all the curiosity and ambition and fiery selfishness
latent in the heart of the ignorant. These untrained dabblers in the
mysteries attempt to do things which an Adept would never dream of doing,
for most of their efforts have for purpose some attack upon the free will of
others; they seek to influence the desires and the judgment of others in the
narrow and personal interest of those who pay them to set the forces in
operation. Would you let a child loose in a gunpowder factory with a box of
matches in his hand? That is what has been done in the last few years all
over the western world.
No wonder the invisible beings have rebelled. They will follow a
master, but they resent the interference of a fool.
It is not the fools they fear, however. The men they fear are
the great scientists. Man’s progress in science has been such that he
must purify his motives, or he will be destroyed.
That is one reason why I am preaching brotherhood, in an attempt
to save men from their own folly. Once let the feeling for brotherhood
become general, and these experiments with unknown forces would be less
dangerous. Mankind as a mass might work with the power of a White Master,
whose motives are always unselfish.
The great scientists come nearer than
anybody else to that pure working with mind for mind’s own sake, which I
recently described in writing of a great being, a great Initiator, who
serves the world by influencing along the line of evolutionary law
the thoughts of certain men who are the chosen instruments of evolution.
How little men know of the unseen world surrounding them!
I recently followed you into a lecture room in New York that was
even more crowded with invisible beings than with men and women. Your
restlessness there had a cause, as you well knew. The purpose of that
meeting was to form a nucleus of a society of curiosity-seekers for
investigating the unseen, for necromancy and ceremonial magic. Madness of
madness! I heard one man express the determination that the proposed society
should not, like the Society for Psychical Research, close its doors to the
outside world; but that the society should invite all who were
interested in the investigation of the unseen, including the newspaper
reporters. A press agent for the occult!
Let me describe a few of the auditors who
were invisible to any in the room except one person:
A long lean hungry being with the face of a gargoyle and the
stomach of an unfed leech yearned over the gathering. He was almost
affectionate in his interest in one of the speakers.
Another, bloated and lethargic, had already fed himself since
entering the room.
Another, frightened and tortured, was seeking an exit; but could
not get outside the desire-aura of one of the participants in that orgy of
curiosity.
Another, powerful and malignant, moved from place to place,
selecting his future victims. He will be present at the meetings of
the society. He will try to keep it alive, for he knows of a fascinating
possibility which I shall not record here.
Why do you go to such places?
April 18.
Letter XXVIII
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