Privileged man! Evolution-forsaken baboon! Hylo-Idealism asserts that the origin of man has to be sought in the vesiculo-neurine of his hemispherical ganglia, and that even ingratitude is a phenomenon of atavism. Psychical Research is a misnomer for Pseusmatical Research. Modern Idealism is the great ally of Materialism. Their conclusions are so far stretched, that they both converge in their atheism and pessimism. The “scientific” union of Materialism and Idealism takes place in grey matter, affirms Dr. Lewins. New philosophies are the spawn of overworked intellect. They keep sprouting like mushrooms from their mycelium after a rainy morning — interminable, outlandish, multisyllabled, and multicipital. While we tearfully beg Dr. Lewins, in the interests of humanity, to have pity on his poor readers, we shall fight the usurper “Solipsism” in favour of the legitimate King of the Universe — Egoism. Hylo-Idealism is at odds with Hylo-Ideaism. Since Dr. Lewins regards consciousness as a function of the nerve-tissue, he is an uncompromising materialist. If apart from brain there is no Ego, no external world, what then is the brain itself — this solitary object in a void universe? On the one hand, matter is asserted; on the other, matter is denied. The Vedantins symbolise Cosmic Duality by Logos and Mulaprakriti, i.e., Universal Spirit and Noumenon of Matter. The latter is the metaphysical basis of the intelligent operations in Nature. The orthodox concept of God is not, as Dr. Lewins contends, a myth or phantasm of the brain; it is an individualised ray of the all-pervading Logos, the inner light of which is blurred by the fog of lower minds. Modern Idealism is based upon gigantic paradoxes and even contradictions in terms. Venus, the morning star, was created before the sun and the moon — metaphorically, not astronomically. Venus-Aphrodite is one with the Astarte-Astoreth, the moon-goddess of generation presiding at human birth, just as Jehovah is the god of generation, foremost of all. Astoreth, as a planet, is one with Lucifer, the Morning Star. Like modern Spiritualism, Hylo-Idealism is transcendental Materialism. No man can be at once a Materialist and an Idealist, and remain consistent. The new school teaches that brain is the Creator of the Universe and originator of consciousness; that in it alone all our ideas are born, and that, apart from it, nothing has real existence, everything being illusion. By denying the Vedantic idea of non-separateness, the Hylo-Idealists vitiate every one of their arguments. The real “I” which thinks, feels, and acts is a ray of Absolute Consciousness, which is no “consciousness.”

The choice between good and evil can be traced to a particular phase of the evolution of human life on earth, when the Sons of Mahat quickened the mind of animal man, and reason succumbed to the temptation of personal desires. Having informed history, legend and language will now confirm archaic custom and practice. We heard of golden and silver days, and of primeval innocence unstained. The early Lemurian men, of the sweat-born Third Root-Race, were mindless hence sinless. Old Greece had two Apollos: the Hyperborean, a personification of the Sun (whose birthday is December), and the Southern Apollo. Ulysses, an Atlantean hero, must have been a profligate in the opinion of the pastoral Cyclopes. His adventure with the three “one-eyed” giants stands for the gradual passage of humanity from the Lemurian civilization of stone and colossal buildings in the North, to the sensual and physical culture of the Atlanteans in the South, which finally caused the last three subraces of his progenitors to lose their Spiritual Eye. The other allegory, that of Apollo “killing” the Cyclopes to avenge the death of his son Asklepios-Soter (Mercury, esoterically) does not refer to the Lemurian subraces but to the Hyperborean Arimaspian Cyclopes, the last Lemurian subrace endowed with the Wisdom Eye. Apollo, the God of Seers, whose duty it is to punish desecration, “killed” them with shafts representing human passions — fiery and lethal. The Hyperborean Continent, home of the Second Root-Race, extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted god of snow storms and hurricanes. Nocturnal shadows never fell upon it and knew no winter in those early days, for it was the land of Gods and the favourite abode of Apollo and his beloved priests. Greenland was part of the Hyperborean Continent and had an almost tropical climate. It was the blessed land of eternal light and summer. At the close of the Third Root-Race spring reigned over the whole globe which was not subject, like our own, to the vicissitudes of seasons and the abrupt changes of temperature. But when the fatal hour struck, its ever-blooming lands were transformed into an underwater Hades. Lemuria and most of its people perished in the first great throe of evolution and consolidation of the globe. The other submerged landmass was Atlantis, a large group of continents and islands. Asia issued from under the waters after the sinking of Atlantis. Africa surfaced later, and Europe much later. The Hyperborean Continent and its people are symbolised by Latona. The golden apples carried away by Hercules were not in Libya but in Hyperborean Atlantis. The Greeks naturalised all the gods they borrowed from India and made Hellenes of them. Accountable, endowed with moral sense, with sapience of right and wrong endowed. Then the Watcher descended on earth and reigned over the Lemurian men. Under the silent guidance of this Wondrous Being, the pupils of the incarnated Rishis and Devas of the Third Root-Race handed their knowledge from one generation to another. Endowed with divine powers, man felt he was god in his inner self, though still an animal in his physical self. The struggle between the two began from the very day they tasted of the fruit of the “Tree of Wisdom.” Those who conquered their lower principles, by obtaining mastery over the body, joined the “Sons of Light.” Those who fell victims to their lower nature became the slaves of matter. The Golden Age, when the old gods walked the earth and mixed freely with mortals, was brought to an end by the Atlanteans, the womb-born heirs to the Lemurians: they adored themselves, cursed the Sun, worshipped the phallus, and thus became the new gods on earth. And when the old Lemurians ascended toward the Northern Pole, the Hyperborean Heaven of their Divine Progenitors, the new Atlanteans descended toward the Southern Pole, the “pit,” cosmically and terrestrially, and abode of Cosmic Elementals. This is the origin of the dual and triple nature in man, and of the good and evil in our world. Every man is now responsible and therefore accountable for his thoughts and actions. A firm grasp of Esoteric Anthropogenesis will help us better understand our divine ancestry, our privileged position in the universe, the meaning and purpose of life on earth, and our shared destiny. Atlantis was a landmass of an indefinite size. It contained two countries and two “cities” or races, the Northern and the Equatorial: the former was inhabited by a pious, meditative race; the latter by a fighting, warrior race.

Insights to the wisdom-peddlers of Greece. Protagoras, followed by Gorgias and others, found Pythagoras’ title philosopher too narrow, and so they assumed the title of Sophist, signifying one who professes the power of making others wise, a wholesale and retail dealer in wisdom — a wisdom-monger, in the same sense as an iron-monger or fish-monger. Many Sophists, e.g., Euthydemus and Dionysiodorus, were empty disputants, sleight-of-word jugglers, but this was far from being their common character. Both Plato and Aristotle repeatedly admit the brilliancy of their talents and the extent of their acquirements. Gorgias will ever be cited as an example of prostituted genius from the immoral nature of his objects, and the baseness of his motives. These, and not his sophisms, constituted him a Sophist whose eloquence and logical skill rendered him only the more pernicious. The causes of the corruption that came about, first in private and next in public life, which displayed itself in all the free states and communities of Greece, but most of all in Athens, are themselves the effects of that passion for military glory and political preponderance, which may well be called the bastard and the parricide of liberty. Being hireling hunters of the young and rich, the Sophists offered to the vanity of youth and the ambition of wealth a substitute for that authority, which by the institutions of Solon had been attached to high birth and property, as the regular and ordinary results of comparative opulence and renowned ancestry. The minds of men were to be sensualized; and even if the arguments themselves failed, yet the principles so attacked were to be brought into doubt by the mere frequency of hearing all things doubted, and the most sacred of all now openly denied, and then insulted by sneer and ridicule. Religion, in its widest and purest sense, is the act of reverencing the Invisible, as the highest in nature and man. By celestial observations alone can even terrestrial charts be constructed scientifically. The first attempt of the Sophists was to separate ethics from the faith in the Invisible, and to stab morality through the side of religion — an attempt to which the idolatrous polytheism of Greece had furnished too many facilities. Polybius attributes the ruin of the Greek states to the frequency of perjury, which they had learnt from the Sophists, to laugh at as a trifle that broke no bones, nay, as in some cases, an expedient and justifiable exertion of the power given to us by nature over our own words, without which no man could have a secret that might not be extorted from him by the will of others. In the same spirit, the sage and observant historian attributes the growth and strength of the Roman republic to the general reverence of the invisible powers, and the consequent horror in which the breaking of an oath was held. Those who first made the laws were feeble creatures which, in fact, the greater numbers of men are. Laws, honour, and ignominy were all calculated for the advantage of the law-makers. But in order to frighten away the stronger, whom they could not coerce by fair contest, and to secure greater advantages for themselves than their feebleness could otherwise have procured, they preached up the doctrine that it was base and contrary to right to wish to have anything beyond others; and that in this wish consisted the essence of injustice. Another code of right was that the nobler and stronger should possess more than the weaker and more pusillanimous and, therefore, the stronger has a right to control the weaker for his own advantage. The language of sophistry is the power of barefaced selfishness that excludes partnership, a power which all men should have an interest in repelling. And if for power we substitute pleasure, and the means of pleasure, it is easy to construct a system well fitted to corrupt natures, and the more mischievous in proportion as it is less alarming. Music may be divided from poetry, and both may continue to exist, though with diminished influence. But religion and morals cannot be disjoined without the destruction of both; and that this does not take place to the full extent, we owe to the frequency with which both take shelter in the heart, and that men are always better or worse than the maxims which they adopt or concede. As sciences are systems based on principles, so is morality a principle without a system. Systems of morality are nothing more than the old books of casuistry generalized, even of that casuistry which the genius of Protestantism gradually worked off from itself like a heterogeneous bodily fluid, together with the practice of auricular confession. Selfishness it the origin and cause of all evil. It is the thorn in the soul which, unless a man shall have it removed, he can never soar above and be free as air. The word constitution has been altered to mean capitulation, a treaty imposed by the people on their own government (as on a conquered enemy), thus giving sanction to falsehood, and universality to anomaly. Popularise and philosophy and you will soon end in perverting every noble truth.

Occultists forget self in favour of other selves. Spiritists doom other selves to unremitting recollection of their shameful existence. No wonder that Spiritualism is yet to produce a single Adept. Mediums are blind worshippers of dead thoughts decomposing, which vampirise both mediums and the living. Unlike Adepts, mediums lack self-control. Their raison d’être is to transmit unquestionably alien thoughts and passions. Theosophists are cautious in ascribing mediumistic communications to any foreign source. Rare cases of genuine mediumship may be the outcome of divine knowledge revealed to Atlantean stock.

When a Solitary Ray from the Infinite One is about to become the Many, Duality interposes between It and Its finite differentiations. In the mayavic worlds of being everything is dual. Even the Divine Logos manifests as a double principle of Good and Evil. In terms of human evolution, the seeds of White and Black Magic were sown in Atlantis. Though perfected in materiality, Atlanteans degenerated in spirituality. Black magic, bestiality, selfishness, and self-adoration spelled their demise. Magic is arcane knowledge of the subjective side of Universe and Man, and of the Occult laws and powers that govern their objective manifestations. Arcane science misused, is Sorcery; wisely applied, True Magic. Black Magic is the predictable outcome of selfish motives. For it is the motive, and the motive alone, which makes any exercise of power become black, malignant, or white, beneficent Magic. Practical Theosophy is the modern term for old Magic. Metaphorically speaking, Magic is the conscious reunion of Psyche with Cupid, her beloved groom, upon her return to their celestial abode, or the re-integration of Thought and Spirit. This is the mystery that sanctifies marriage and every earnest hope for a better life. Thus true Magic is the marriage of Nous (Atma-Buddhi) with Manas, a union where Will and Thought, separated at the beginning of time, become One again when self-consciousness reaches the summit of divine power and inner knowledge. When man was first created he couldn’t commit any sin, for he was mindless and therefore irresponsible. The only “vice of his origin” was not his: it has been committed by those who refused to fire him with self-consciousness, with its inherent freedom of thought, and personal responsibility borne by informed decisions. Gnosis is the Western term for the mysteries and destiny of our being, both White and Black. A metaphor for the same enigma is Resurrection or the Raja-Yoga of Eastern Occultists. Amongst Neoplatonists, Raja-Yoga is known as Theurgy. Gnosis will either crown the pure with the sovereignty of their own spirit, or crush the opportunist in the darkness of ignorance and earthy passions. Theosophy is the keynote of our relationship with and in Divine Magic. For Magic is the study and application of divine law. Magic is the ancient Persian word for knowledge and embraces all Chaldeans sciences. It is proficiency in Nature’s hidden powers and laws, or Secret Wisdom, as it was taught in the sanctuaries of the Old World. Magic is the Maha, Magi or Maginsi of Medes and the Egyptians, and the Meghiston of the Zoroastrians. Ancient Magic is Secret Wisdom, the very opposite of Diabolism. It is the theurgy of Iamblichus, the gnosis of Pythagoras, the ecstasy of the Philaletheians, the summit of Eastern Philosophy and Ethics. Magic or Practical Occultism, is the object of Yoga. Mesmerism is another key to our inner nature. It is the Gupta-Vidya of the Eastern Occultists, excellence in universal philosophy, and pinnacle of human knowledge. As Truth is One, so the method for attaining It must be also one. Its disciples help each other in their lessons. The Witches of Thessaly are still amongst us. But as Magic differs from Sorcery, so the Magician differs from the Witch. Hypnotism is Black Magic, irrespective of whether conscious or unconscious. There is little difference between Voodoos and the Vivisectionists of our age. Therefore, Western practitioners of the Black Arts should not have the punishment and reputation without the profits and enjoyments they may get therefrom. Selfish initiates, lured by the glamour of power, retrogress inexorably, and curses always come home to roost. There are “Brothers of the Light” and “Brothers of the Shadow,” there are genuine seers and passive mediums, there are High Planetary Spirits and their illusionary appearances on the psychic screen of mediumistic perceptions. There is White Tantric Magic and its tainted counterpart, there is Neoplatonic Theurgia and its opposite number, Goëtia. Christians beware! The New Testament is all about Unselfishness and Spirituality. The Old Testament is a manual of Selfishness and Psychism. At the apex of its development, our Race will branch off to initiated Adepts, “Sons of Light,” and natural-born mediums, or “Sons of Darkness” — the latter to be exterminated by fire when time expires. We live in dangerous times. There are scores of unconscious crimes committed and many innocent people punished. Terror, tremor and dreadful incidences, as well as beauty, peace, and inspiration are “true presentiments of what lies in the bosom of the future, and much of which is already born.” Practical Theosophy is fraught with dangers for dabblers and neophytes alike. No one should go into occultism or even touch it before he is perfectly acquainted with his own powers. For, it’s all too easy to fall into Black Magic. Even a deed of kindness done with partiality may become evil, by stirring up animosity in the mind of others.

If people could see that life on this earth, even the happiest, is but a burden and an illusion, that it is but our own Karma, the cause producing the effect, that is our own judge, our saviour in future lives, then the struggle for life will soon lose its intensity. Might is not right, it is “the triumph of the most unprincipled.” When vanity and selfishness hinder Nature’s ultimate possibility, they sow the seeds of their ultimate disintegration. This is the destiny of the callous and the spiritually selfish. “Disciples may be likened to the strings of the soul-echoing Vina; mankind, unto its sounding board; the hand that sweeps it to the tuneful breath of the Great World Soul. The string that fails to answer ’neath the Master’s touch in dulcet harmony with all the others, breaks and is cast away.” And the reckless schoolboy cannot be being helped, because it acknowledges no master. The main cause of pain lies in our personality seeking the permanent in the impermanent. Animals do not suffer so keenly as human beings, and do not remember suffering. Only those who dare to lift the veil of illusion can soon stand beyond all pain, all misery, and beyond all the wear and tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Mutual toleration and charity for each other’s shortcomings; mutual help in the research of truths in every domain, moral or physical and even, in daily life — these are the hallmarks of a True Theosophist.

Works of fiction are no fiction, but presentiments of what lies in the bosom of the future. Many will be the unconscious crimes committed, and many will be the victims who will innocently suffer death at the hands of the righteous judges and the too innocent jurymen, both alike ignorant of the fiendish power of suggestion. The body may be slain but not the soul. The consequences of the death penalty for judge and jury, the community at large. and not the least for the criminal, are too grim and too harsh to contemplate. Capital punishment is futile, unnecessary, and fraught with potentially dire societal harms. While the seed of a tree may be destroyed, the spiritual “seed” which produces the soul of a man cannot be destroyed by capital punishment, but will eventually produce such a man again as sure as the seed of a thistle will produce nothing else but a thistle. One’s criminal powers and proclivities cannot be eliminated by killing his body. Having been deprived of one instrument for their manifestation, such powers will manifest themselves in other, still less convenient, and more dangerous ways. Moreover, by deferring the manifestation of an evil cause we pass on to a future generation an evil inheritance, with which we ourselves ought to have contended, and which we ought to have sought to ameliorate. Mortal man is an instrument of immortal spirit. A ray of divine mind dwells in the heart of every man. But the divine mind is veiled in man; his animal brain alone philosophises. The physical man is the musical instrument; the divine the performing artist. The physical body is a transient mask of the spiritual man within, and instrument of action on the objective plane. By the power of an inequitable law the slayer’s knife did stab himself, thus the unjust judge has lost his own defender. Letter to “Lucifer” from a puzzled student. Like an eye-for-an-eye, capital punishment is nothing but a relic of Jewish barbarity. As the juryman, in deciding for a verdict of guilty, becomes an accessory in a fresh murder, so an increasing number of people refuse to repay evil for evil.