War Letters from the Living Dead Man (14 page)

Now the owner of the mountain where the magician lived discovered that the neighborhood of his hut was a good place for hunting the wild animals of that region, and soon the quiet of the magician’s studies was broken by the reports of the guns of the hunters, who even crossed with their despised bodies the very circle which the magician had prepared for his own use. This proved that he was not a very high magician, for had he made that center for a work having as object the benefit of humanity, members of that humanity could not have profaned it. The retreats of the Masters of Compassion are secure against intrusion. In his rage and disappointment he called down curses upon the hunters and upon all the region roundabout, and by his evil magic he created beings who should execute his curses. He created them upon the earth and in the air above and in the region below the surface of the earth, and to each he allotted a task with fearful penalties for disobedience. His use of the power he had gained was a use positively forbidden by the Law under which the real Masters work.

It really caused the hunters to go away from that neighborhood, but the beings he had called and the beings he had created remained there; for he had not sufficient knowledge, or maybe not a sufficient sense of responsibility for his nefarious work, to make him destroy or banish them himself. And when he died, at the ripe age of one hundred and twelve years, and his will was removed from them, they still remained in a state of semi-animation in the lower regions of the astral world. Then, a century or more afterwards, when the great war wave broke over Europe, and the evil hosts of the unseen came clamoring for their prey and their satisfaction, these old astral monsters awoke out of their sleep and joined themselves to them, and the whole neighborhood which the evil magician had cursed became an infected place, from the exhalations of those beings whose
raison d’être
had been a man’s hatred of the people who had disturbed him in his selfish labors.

I am not going to describe the process by which he had created them and laid an evil spell upon a whole neighborhood, for I am determined not to bestow upon a selfish world any knowledge that it can use to make more trouble in future. But I want you to realize that Serbia is really a dangerous place. That is why it was chosen as the focusing point for the evil onslaught of war. The people of Serbia are brave and innocent of all this astral evil which has come upon them. They were used because the evil forces could get at them through this region already under a curse from of old. The time has come when the men of the new race must know that there are things to be avoided in the astral world. If certain teachers had told less, this warning might not be necessary; but the world has acquired already so clear a perception that there is another world within and outside their own, that their natural curiosity must be protected by warnings not to fool with the unseen, until they have acquired such a selfless devotion to their fellow beings that they may explore it without being themselves infected by the poison of the snake that nestles there among the flowers.

The old magician has passed on into that sphere where selfish scholars pursue their investigations unhampered by the limitations of gross matter; but the full responsibility for his actions in those Serbian hills when he was last on earth will wait for him at the door of rebirth. When he comes to the world again it will be in a body which is itself a victim of all the plagues which he let loose there, in the determined effort to protect himself against others who had as good a right there as he had. Stay out of Serbia until it has been cleansed of plague, you whose work is not connected with the specialty of plague-destruction. But those doctors and other scientists who are devotedly going thither to save the race from the horror that threatens it—to them shall be accorded all the honors and glories of war and of peace, for they have consented, their higher selves have consented, that they be used in the service of the world. I have said before that the evil elemental beings fear the scientist; and though the scientists fight this plague with material means, yet the force of their will and of their unselfish purpose acts beyond the material base of their operations, extending its influence even into the invisible world of which their objective minds have no knowledge, purifying it with vital air. Yes, all honor to the scientists!

April 26

Letter 32

Judas and Typhon

I have spoken of the crucifixion through which the soul of the race is passing. Now I want to speak of the Judas who betrayed that race for thirty pieces of silver. Reader of this book, whether you are a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu or a Mahometan, if you know anything at all about the initiatory process of the soul, you must know that the gospel drama—be it historical or legendary, whichever way you choose to take it—is a faithful dramatization of the process of initiation. And in that process the betrayal of Judas is an inevitable part. Without it, the cup of bitterness would not be full, and the cup of bitterness must be full for the soul of the race, the soul of the individual, the soul of the Christ. “My Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” has been on the lips of many a mangled soldier on this awful Calvary of the race.

The heavy cross has been borne all through the toilsome months of the journey from autumn to spring, and now in the April time the race has been nailed to the cross for the agony. The crown of thorns is on the bleeding brows, the nails have pierced the hands and feet, the cup of vinegar has been offered, and now on a million lips is the cry, “
Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani!
” The betrayal of Judas was inevitable, as the deed of Typhon was inevitable. Had it not been for Judas, the story would not be complete. Had it not been for the act of Typhon in slaying Osiris, Horus the Son could not have arisen. And yet in the face of this I stand here—safe behind the veil of the invisible, as some objectors will say—and advise the world to soften the awful punishment of Judas, so far as lies in its power. For did not that One himself say upon the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”? Nothing in the Sermon on the Mount, nothing in the sacred records of the East, nothing in the archives of the whole world can compare with those ten words for grandeur and spiritual significance: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” They who now sin against the race, indeed know not what they do. They are drunk with the rage of destruction, maddened by the subconscious of their own guilt; but what they do they cannot know. Only the initiate souls among the Germans even vaguely know what Germany has done. And yet I say, forgive and pity them; for their office is a terrible one, and their suffering will be great. Fear not, when your blood relations are slain by thousands, and when you feel yourself also slain by spiritual participation, the good must triumph in the end, because the race is on its upward journey. Its blood is not spilled in vain. Did the human race not know, when it gave the sop to Germany in the last conclave, that it was Germany who would betray it? The race knew. And in that awful July the subconscious selves of men knew in their sleep that the terrible trial was at hand. Do you remember? In many a sensitive soul that drama was pre-enacted, before it was enacted on this Calvary of the nations.

That Germany would betray the world was written in the soul of Germany; but if the world should hate her with a continuing hate for that betrayal, it would be a sore in the heart of the human race which would ache for a thousand years. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” To admit the necessity of evil in the cosmic scheme is not to condone evil. To forgive the sinner is not to minimize the sin. It is because of the inability of the undeveloped mind to grasp the awful law of the balance of forces that the Guardians of the sacred knowledge have been so reticent in their public utterances. “It must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh,” has been repeated in thousands of churches; but the latter half of the sentence has been understood far better than the first half, “It must needs be that offenses come.” Being what she is, Germany could not help betraying the race to this crucifixion. It was written that the human race would be betrayed, and no nation could have done it but Germany.

Typhon was obliged to slay Osiris, by the very law of his being. And now Isis, the great Mother, the Womanhood of the world, wanders wailing up and down seeking for the fragments of the body of her husband. On the battle line for a thousand miles those fragments are scattered. Isis is indeed widowed. And as man is the type of the great Archetype, so one man stands this day as the type of the Betrayer, and that man is Wilhelm of Germany. The disease which long has eaten at his brain, a contributory cause of his egomania, was the vulnerable spot, the spot unguarded between the lamps of the magic circle of Europe, where the evil forces found entrance. Verily, it shall be woe to him by whom this offense has come! And in saying that the world must not hate the nation which Evil has used as its servant, I am not advising sentimental weakness in the final closing of this account. The world for its own protection must make it impossible that Germany should ever repeat this betrayal. The details I leave to the specialists, being a modest ghost, and speaking from my safe retreat behind the veil of the invisible.

April 27

Letter 33

Crowns of Straws

In seeking to hold back the karma of Germany, I am not seeking to upset the law of justice, the law of cause and effect. On the contrary. Your studies in the law of karma have been but superficial if you have not learned that time is a factor. Many a solvent firm would be thrown into bankruptcy should all its creditors demand at once full payment of their accounts. The moral and financial indebtedness of Germany is its awful karma. Give it a little time in which to adjust itself to an entirely new way of thinking. I listened to a discussion which you had with a friend the other day in regard to the hypothesis that Germany’s false assertion of “
Deutschland über Alles,
” being so powerfully postulated, could overcome facts; that the human race might be evolving into the era of mind, and that a powerful concept, however false, might make facts conform to it. Let us see.

The idea that Germany and the Germans are superior to everything else in the world lies so deep in the minds of that race that it will be difficult to eliminate it. As you yourself observed, there is another race known to history which declared itself to be the chosen people of God, and for that arrogant assumption is now scattered over the face of the earth, a homeless people, no longer even a nation. The attempt to create a thing by postulating it is already existent is not new. Affirmation and denial are used with telling effect by a modern school of thinkers, who disregard utterly the facts of nature. Now when we disregard and deny the facts of nature, we may suspend the operations of nature in ourselves to a certain degree and for a certain time, or we may fail in so doing, and by reason of our consciousness of our failure become more than ever the puppets of nature.

The Christian Science healer who fails to heal and honestly acknowledges his failure, may go on asserting his power in the face of the demonstrated failure, or he may become a complete doubter of himself and of the claims of his science, or he may re-examine both in the light of facts and become a real student of the mysteries of nature and of mind. Germany may take any one of these three courses when she has demonstrated the old saying of the wisest of men, that they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Did you ever try to convince a German of a fact which he denied? I see that you have. Did your proof of his mistake convince him that he could be mistaken? Probably not. Now Germany has really made herself into a great nation by postulating her greatness and superiority in all things. Her mistake consisted in trying to prove it. In trying to prove a statement you tacitly admit for the time that the opposite assumption may have some base, and if you are not able to demonstrate your contention you are lost—unless you are a German. A German convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

If facts do not bear him out, then facts are false. Now facts are not false, and Germany is not superior in all things to every other nation on earth. She may have more guns and more soldiers than two or three of the other nations, that is a fact which we gladly admit; but superiority in guns and soldiers is only superiority in guns and soldiers. It is not superiority in all things. Germany has said in effect that might is right. Well, let her prove her might, and we will then discuss the right of might. Some years before I left the earth I was stronger than most men of my acquaintance; but if I had on that ground knocked them down and taken their watches, my own superior strength might have been useless to me except to propel my six-foot body up and down a cell in the county jail. I might have taken the watches, but I could not have kept them, for my individual might would have been outclassed by the might of the society in which I dwelt. So it is with Germany.

Most men consider themselves superior to their friends and acquaintances, and are secretly annoyed that their friends and acquaintances do not acknowledge it. But on the strength of that supposed superiority they do not generally knock their neighbors down. My assertion of my superiority to all other men and angels does not make me superior to them in anything but fatuous conceit. If a Christian Scientist with a broken leg asserts that he has not a broken leg, it does not change the fact. The strength of his assertion may work in the direction of curing the defect—granted. It often does. The conceit of Germany has called out her energy and made her material present superior to her material past; but that cannot place her “over all,” unless she convinces the world of it, and the world accepts an inferior place. Germans are not convincing advocates, because they always arouse opposition by overstating the facts in their favor, and in disputing the facts against them. So little do they understand the critical minds of the more critical races, that they try to convince by mere assertion, and so prejudice their case from the start.