To read a book inscribed this way, an Allatian places his nose into the groove and drags it through. The delicate proboscis vibrates in sympathy with the waveform of the groove, and a hollow chamber in the Allatian skull magnifies the sound. In this manner, the voice of the writer is re-created.
So how is the conditional relation in outer dependent arising to be seen? As due to the coming together of six elements. As due to the coming together of what six elements? Namely, conditional dependent arising is to be seen as due to the coming together of the elements of earth, water, fire, wind, space, and season. The earth element functions as the support for the seed. The water element moistens the seed. The fire element ripens the seed. The wind element opens the seed. The space element performs the function of not obstructing the seed. And season transforms the seed. Without these conditions a sprout cannot form from a seed. But when the outer element of earth is not deficient, and likewise water, fire, wind, space, and season are not deficient, then from the coming together of all these factors, a sprout forms as the seed is ceasing.
Hollow Earth Audio.epub
The sprout is not created by itself, not created by another, not created by both, not created by Isvara, not transformed by time, not derived from prakrti, and not born without any cause. Nevertheless, through the coming together of the elements of earth, water, fire, wind, space, and season, the sprout forms as the seed is ceasing.
Similarly, there is nobody at all who transmigrates from here after death and is born elsewhere. And yet, because there is no deficiency of requisite causes and conditions, the result of karma nonetheless manifests. It is like how the orb of the moon travels at a distance of forty-two thousand yojanas above earth, and yet its reflection nonetheless appears in small vessels filled with water. It is not that the moon moves from its position and enters the small vessels filled with water. Yet, because there is no deficiency of requisite causes and conditions, the orb of the moon nonetheless appears there.
"The Searcher of all hearts knows that I write the truth; nor is there anycause to accuse me of envy. I write with an unterrified quill in an unheard ofstyle, to the honor of God, to the profit of my neighbors, with contempt of theworld and its riches, because Elias, the artist, is already born, and now gloriousthings are declared of the city of God. I dare affirm that I do possess moreriches than the whole known world is worth, but I can not make use of itbecause of the snares of knaves. I disdain, loathe, and detest the idolizing ofsilver and gold, by which the pomps and vanities of the world are celebrated.Ah! filthy evil! Ah! vain nothingness! Believe ye that I conceal the art outof envy? No, verily, I protest to you; I grieve from the very bottom of mysoul that we (alchemists) are driven like vagabonds from the face of the Lordthroughout the earth. But what need of many words? The thing that wehave seen, taught, and made, which we have, possess, and know, that we dodeclare; being moved with compassion for the studious, and with indignationof gold, silver, and precious stones. Believe me, the time is at the door, I feelit in spirit, when we, adeptists, shall return from the four corners of the earth,nor shall we fear any snares that are laid against our lives, but we shall givethanks to the Lord our God. I would to God that every ingenious man in thewhole earth understood this science; then it would be valued only for itswisdom, and virtue only would be had in honor."
Of course there was a more worldly class, and a large contingent of mercenaryimpostors (as science is always encumbered), parasites, whose animuswas shamefully unlike the purity of true esoteric psychologists. These mendevoted their lives to experimentation for selfish advancement. They constructedalchemical outfits, and carried on a ceaseless inquiry into the natureof solvents, and studied their influences on earthly bodies, their ultimateobject being the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone, and the alkahest whichBœhaave asserts was never discovered. Their records were often a verbosemelange, purposely so written, no doubt, to cover their tracks, and to makethemselves conspicuous. Other Hermetic believers occupied a more elevatedposition, and connected the intellectual with the material, hoping to gain bytheir philosophy and science not only gold and silver, which were secondaryconsiderations, but the highest literary achievement, the Magnum Opus.Others still sought to draw from Astrology and Magic the secrets that wouldlead them to their ambitious goal. Thus there were degrees of fineness in afraternity, which the science of to-day must recognize and admit.
"You should look for the death sentence," was the reply, "butit has been ordained instead that you are to be given a lengthenedlife. You should expect bodily destruction; but on the contrary,you will pass on in consciousness of earth and earthly concernswhen we are gone. Your name will be known to all lands, andyet from this time you will be unknown. For the welfare offuture humanity, you will be thrust to a height in our order thatwill annihilate you as a mortal being, and yet you will exist,suspended between life and death, and in that intermediate statewill know that you exist. You have, as you confess, merited asevere punishment, but we can only punish in accordance withan unwritten law, that instructs the person punished, and elevatesthe human race in consequence. You stand alone among mortalsin that you have openly attempted to give broadly to those whohave not earned it, our most sacred property, a property that didnot belong to you, property that you have only been permittedto handle, that has been handed from man to man from beforethe time of Solomon, and which belongs to no one man, and willcontinue to pass in this way from one to another, as a hallowedtrust, until there are no men, as men now exist, to receive it.You will soon go into the shadows of darkness, and will learnmany of the mysteries of life, the undeveloped mysteries that[Pg 49]are withheld from your fellows, but which you, who have beenso presumptuous and anxious for knowledge, are destined topossess and solve. You will find secrets that man, as man isnow constituted, can not yet discover, and yet which the futureman must gain and be instructed in. As you have sowed, soshall you reap. You wished to become a distributor of knowledge;you shall now by bodily trial and mental suffering obtainunsought knowledge to distribute, and in time to come you willbe commanded to make your discoveries known. As your pathwayis surely laid out, so must you walk. It is ordained; to rebelis useless."
"No; I speak openly, and the truth. Our brotherhood islinked with the past, and clasps hands with the antediluvians;the flood scattered the races of earth, but did not disturb oursecrets. The great love of wisdom has from generation togeneration led selected members of our organization to depthsof study that our open work does not touch upon, and behindour highest officers there stand, in the occult shades betweenthe here and the hereafter, unknown and unseen agents whoare initiated into secrets above and beyond those known to theordinary craft. Those who are introduced into these innerrecesses acquire superhuman conceptions, and do not give anopen sign of fellowship; they need no talisman. They walkour streets possessed of powers unknown to men, they concernthemselves as mortals in the affairs of men, and even their brethrenof the initiated, open order are unaware of their exaltedcondition. The means by which they have been instructed, theirseveral individualities as well, have been concealed, becausepublicity would destroy their value, and injure humanity's cause."
I stood before him a free man, in the prime of life, full ofenergy, and this stripling alone interposed between myself andliberty. Should I permit the slender youth to carry me awayas a prisoner? would it not be best to thrust him aside, ifnecessary, crush him to the earth? go forth in my freedom?Yet I hesitated, for he might have friends outside; probablyhe was not alone.
"Have you not sometimes felt that in yourself there mayexist undeveloped senses that await an awakening touch to opento yourself a new world, senses that may be fully developed, butwhich saturate each other and neutralize themselves; quiescent,closed circles which you can not reach, satisfied circuits slumberingwithin your body and that defy your efforts to utilizethem? In your dreams have you not seen sights that wordsare inadequate to describe, that your faculties can not retain inwaking moments, and which dissolve into intangible nothingness,leaving only a vague, shadowy outline as the mind quickens, orrather when the senses that possess you in sleep relinquish thebody to the returning vital functions and spirit? This unconsciousconception of other planes, a beyond or betwixt, that isneither mental nor material, neither here nor located elsewhere,belongs to humanity in general, and is made evident from theunsatiable desire of men to pry into phenomena latent or reconditethat offer no apparent return to humanity. This desire has[Pg 65]given men the knowledge they now possess of the sciences;sciences yet in their infancy. Study in this direction is, atpresent, altogether of the material plane, but in time to come,men will gain control of outlying senses which will enable themto step from the seen into the consideration of matter or forcethat is now subtle and evasive, which must be accomplishedby means of the latent faculties that I have indicated. Therewill be an unconscious development of new mind-forces in thestudent of nature as the rudiments of these so-called sciencesare elaborated. Step by step, as the ages pass, the faculties ofmen will, under progressive series of evolutions, imperceptiblypass into higher phases until that which is even now possiblewith some individuals of the purified esoteric school, but whichwould seem miraculous if practiced openly at this day, will provefeasible to humanity generally and be found in exact accord withnatural laws. The conversational method of men, wherebycommunion between human beings is carried on by disturbingthe air by means of vocal organs so as to produce mechanicalpulsations of that medium, is crude in the extreme. Mind cravesto meet mind, but can not yet thrust matter aside, and in orderto communicate one with another, the impression one mindwishes to convey to another must be first made on the brainmatter that accompanies it, which in turn influences the organsof speech, inducing a disturbance of the air by the motions ofthe vocal organs, which, by undulations that reach to anotherbeing, act on his ear, and secondarily on the earthly matter of hisbrain, and finally by this roundabout course, impress the secondbeing's mind. In this transmission of motions there is great wasteof energy and loss of time, but such methods are a necessity ofthe present slow, much-obstructed method of communication.There is, in cultivated man, an innate craving for somethingmore facile, and often a partly developed conception, spectraland vague, appears, and the being feels that there may be formortals a richer, brighter life, a higher earthly existence thatscience does not now indicate. Such intimation of a deeperplay of faculties is now most vivid with men during the perfectloss of mental self as experienced in dreams, which as yet manin the quick can not grasp, and which fade as he awakens. Asmental sciences are developed, investigators will find that the[Pg 66]medium known as air is unnecessary as a means of conveyingmind conceptions from one person to another; that materialsounds and word pulsations are cumbersome; that thought forceunexpressed may be used to accomplish more than speech cando, and that physical exertions as exemplified in motion of mattersuch as I have described will be unnecessary for mental communication.As door after door in these directions shall openbefore men, mystery after mystery will be disclosed, and vanishas mysteries to reappear as simple facts. Phenomena that areimpossible and unrevealed to the scientist of to-day will befamiliar to the coming multitude, and at last, as by degrees,clearer knowledge is evolved, the vocal language of men willdisappear, and humanity, regardless of nationality, will, insilence and even in darkness, converse eloquently together inmind language. That which is now esoteric will become exoteric.Then mind will meet mind as my mind now impinges on yourown, and, in reply to your unuttered question regarding myapparently unaccountable powers of perception, I say they areperfectly natural, but while I can read your thoughts, because ofthe fact that you can not reciprocate in this direction, I must usemy voice to impress your mind. You will know more of this,however, at a future day, for it has been ordained that you are tobe educated with an object that is now concealed. At presentyou are interested mainly in the affairs of life as you know them,and can not enter into these purer spheres. We are approachingone of your former friends, and it may be your pleasure to askhim some questions and to bid him farewell."[Pg 67] 2ff7e9595c
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