HEAVENLY BRIDEGROOMS
By Ida C.
The Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose.
Genesis 6:2.
[From Alienist & Neurologist, August, 1917.]
Early in the 17th Century, a light dawned upon the horizon of these illusions and diableries. That light was the manifesto of a secret society of mystics called the Rosicrucians or followers of the Rosie Cross. In 1603 the sect became known; in 1623 it placarded Paris with mysterious announcements; but it professed to have existed long before. Who its members were, whether the society really existed, or whether the whole affair was a joke on the mystics, are questions which to-day remain still unsettled. But, whether a reality or a myth, the Rosicrucians were a factor in the literature and mysticism of their time, and a secret society of the same name still exists. They dealt a powerful blow at the superstition which assumed the spirit bridegroom and the spirit bride to be diabolical.
"They discarded forever all the old tales of sorcery and witchcraft and communion with the devil. They said there were no such horrid, unnatural and disgusting beings as the incubi and succubi and the innumerable grotesque imps that men had believed in for so many ages. Man was not surrounded with enemies like these, but with myriads of beautiful and beneficent beings, etc., all anxious to do him services. The sylphs of the air, the undines of the water, the gnomes of the Earth, and the salamanders of the fire were men's friends, and desired nothing so much as that men should purge themselves of all uncleanness, and thus be enabled to see and converse with them. They possessed great power, and were unrestrained by the barriers of space or the obstructions of matter. But man was in one respect their superior. He had an immortal soul, and they had not. They might, however, become sharers in man's immortality if they could inspire one of that race with the passion of towards them. Hence it was the constant endeavor of the female spirits to captivate the admiration of men, and of the male gnomes, sylphs, salamanders and undines to be beloved by a woman. The object of this passion, in returning their love, imparted a portion of that celestial fire, the soul; and from that time forth the beloved became equals to the lover, and both when their allotted course was run, entered together into the mansions of felicity. These spirits, they said, watched .constantly over mankind by night and day. Dreams, omens, and presentiments were all their work, and the means by which they gave warning of the approach of danger. But though so well inclined to befriend man for their own sake, the want of a soul rendered them at times capricious and revengeful; they took offence at slight causes, and heaped injuries instead of benefits on the heads of those who extinguished the light of reason that was in them by gluttony, debauchery, and other appetities of the body." (Mackay's Popular Delusions, Mysteries of the Rosie Cross, by A. Reader, Orange Street, Red Lion Square, London, 1891.) There is a book called Sub Mundanes, which in a vein of delicate humor deals with this belief of the Rosicrucians. It purports to be written by an acquaintance of one Count de Gabulis. It was published by the Abbot de Villars (nephew of Montfaucon), in 1670. Sub Mundanes refers to stories told of the Gothic Kings being born from a bear and a princess of Pegusians being born from a dog and a woman; of a Portuguese woman, who was exposed on a deserted island having children by a large monkey. The author goes on to say that the sylphs of the Rosicrucians seeing that they are taken for Demons when they appear, in order to diminish aversion, take the form of these animals, and accomodate themselves thus to the whimsical weakness of women, who would be horrified at the sight of a handsome sylph, but less so at a dog or monkey.
Sub Mundanes tells a story of a hard-hearted Spanish beauty who repulsed a Castillian gentleman so effectually that he left her and set off to travel to forget her. A sylph fell in love with her, took the shape of her absent lover, wooed her persistently and won her. A son was born; and when she was again pregnant, the earthly lover returned to Seville, quite cured of his passion, and hastened to call on her saying he should now displease her no longer, as he had ceased to love her. Result: a scene, tears, reproaches on the part of the young woman parents come in and the whole matter is brought to light. The writer continues:
"And what part played the Airy-Lover (interrupted I) all this while? I see well enough (answered the Count) that you are displeased that he should forsake his mistress, leaving her to the Rigour of the Parents and to the Fury of the Inquisitors. But he had reason to complain of her: She was not devout enough; for when these gentlemen immortalize themselves they work seriously, and live very holily; that they loose not the Right which they came to acquire of Sovereign good: So they would have the person to whom they are allied, live with exemplary innocence."
Sub Mundanes also tells of a young Lord of Bavaria who was not to be comforted for the death of his wife: Whereupon sylph took her shape. The same story as told elsewhere, however, stated that it was his own wife who returned from beyond the grave. They lived together many years, and had children. But he "swore, and spoke lewd uncivil words." She reproved him vainly, and at last "she vanished one day from him, and left him nothing but her Clothes, and the Repentance of his not having followed her Holy Counsels." Monsieur Bayle informs us that the "Count de Gavalis" was published at Paris by the celebrated Abbott de Villars (nephew of De Montfaucon) in the year 1670.
These two stories show what stress is laid by the spirit lover upon the necessity for the earthly psychic to keep the moral law.
Another story, unreal and fantastic as is the catastrophe, shows that bigamy is not condoned on the Borderland, and that no man can serve two mistresses without punishment, when one of the earthly partners of one of these nymphs is his Borderland spouse. It appears that he "was so dishonest a Man as to fall in Love with a Woman; But as he Dined with his new Mistress and certain of Us Friends, there was seen in the Air the Loveliest Creature of the World; which was the invisible Lover, that had a mind to let herself be seen by the Friends of her unfaithful Gallant; that they might Judge how little reason he could have to prefer a Woman before her. After which the enraged nymph struck him dead immediately." (Sub Mundanes.)
But popular prejudice regarding the reality of witchcraft died hard. The Rosicrucians were charged with doing as did the witches projecting their astral forms for selfish and lawless purposes. It was believed by the populace, and by many others whose education should have taught them better, that * * * gentle maidens, who went to bed alone, often awoke in the night and found men * * * of shape more beautiful than the Grecian Apollo, who immediately became invisible when an alarm was raised. (Mackay's En. Pop. Delusion.)
But this seems rather unlikely, when we carefully consider the following pronouciamento with which they placarded Paris. "We, the deputies of the principal College of the brethren of the Rose-cross have taken our abode, visible and invisible, in this city by the grace of the Most High towards whom are turned the hearts of the just. We shew and teach without books or signs, and speak all sorts of languages in the countries where we dwell, to draw mankind, our fellows, from error and from death."
"Moreover, the Rosicrucians maintained most positively that the very first vow they took was one of chastity, and that any of them violating that oath would be deprived at once of all the advantages he possessed, and be subject to hunger, thirst, sorrow, disease and death like other men. Witchcraft and sorcery they also most warmly repudiated."
(Mysteries of the Rosie Cross, by A. Reader.)
And the editor of Sub Mundanes, in a footnote, refers to the Rosicrucian marriage with the elementary or Spiritlife, esteemed a duty by the sages and cultivated with fasting, watching, prayer and contemplation and acquiring thereby that condition of spiritual repose, only in which inspired visions occurred.
Why did these mystics call themselves Rosicrucian? Some writers have attempted to derive the name from two words meaning "dew" and "cross": but the usual interpretation is "followers of the Rosy Cross" a cross with a rose being used as the society's symbol. Some derive the word from the name, Christian Rosenkranz, the reputed founder of the society: but in view of the fact that it is uncertain that he ever lived, and that the stories told about the opening of his tomb 120 years after his death, have a decidedly mythical flavor, one may be pardoned for considering this personage a myth, invented as a convenient explanation to outsiders to throw them off the track of the real meaning of the society's name.
Now, the cross is an old, old religious symbol of the union of man and woman the world over, and dates from an unknown antiquity. The rose is a well known symbol of love under its most ardent form. We have already seen that the Mexican Virgin, Sochiquetzal, was presented by a heavenly messenger with a rose when the annunciation was made that she should bear a mysteriously begotten son; that her name means the "lifting up of roses": and that this event marks the commencement of an epoch called "the age of Roses." We have seen that the Mexican Eve sinned by plucking roses which elsewhere are called, apparently, "the fruit of the tree." We have seen that quite on the other side of the world, among the Mohammedans, is found a tradition that Christ was conceived by the smelling of a rose, and there is an Eastern legend that the burning brush in which the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses a bush which burned without being consumed, was a rose bush. May not these roses be symbolically one and the same with the rose upon the Rosicrucian cross? If so, remembering the Rosicrucian teachings, about the duty of chastity, the joy of nuptials with a being from the unseen world, and the obligation to enter upon that heavenly marriage with "fasting, watching, prayer, and contemplation" we may well believe that they had learned the inner mystery of aspiring through passion to communion with God and of placing the rose of Divine Love upon the cross of marriage union in Borderland wedlock.
Although a book entitled "In the Pronaos of the temple of Wisdom," by Franz Hartmann, occurs a list of Rosicrucian symbols followed by the significant remark: "He who can see the meaning of all these allegories has his eyes open."
Many of these symbols are evidently phallic, and yield easily to the interpretation that they are symbols in the training of the occultist in the three degrees to which I have already referred.
But, despite the good work done by the Rosicrucians in lifting Borderland wedlock to a higher plane in the estimation of the public, it was not all plain sailing yet. The Church that conservator alike of the useful and the useless things of the past clung to the old belief of witchcraft days: When one of her mystics either nun or priest became thus espoused, the Church seems to have a middle course between the old and the new. Usually she termed such experiences "Congressus cum daemonius" and bent her powers to exorcising the evil one. But occasionally, as in the case of St. Teresa, the nun was a clear-headed woman of known integrity and purity. "Congressus cum daemonius" was out of the question where such a woman was one of the parties to the union in these instances. By what me can only call an inspiration from on high, the Church promptly decided that the congressus was diabolical, but leaven sent. And, since the nun was the professed "bride of Christ" what more natural than that her experience should be viewed as a mystical union with this Divine Bridegroom? In this, the Church acted according to her light, and I think it must be admitted she did fairly well, considering the ignorance and prejudice of the times.
Latin scholars will notice that the laws of Latin syntax require a word to J>e supplied in translating this phrase a general term, such as the word "something," or "that which belongs to." As this grammatical construction was used by a very learned Catholic priest when discussing the matter with me, I cannot suppose it to be a slip of the tongue, as I should have supposed, had the speaker been less of a scholar. This construction, however, instead of obscuring really sets forth the matter with clearer resemblance to the psychic's useful physiological experience, as will be seen by comparing it with the legends I have referred to regarding the finding of the body of Osiris by Isis. Only by comparing this Latin expression with the legends and their application, will the phrase be properly understood.
It is noteworthy, however, that in St. Teresa's case, her confessor after having her write out a detailed account of her experience, ordered her to burn a great part of it. Was it because the objectivity of her experiences did not harmonize very well with the mystical idea of "espousal to Christ"?
Where the earthly partner in these unions was a woman, and a nun at that, pledged to unfaltering obedience to her official superiors, it was probably an easy matter for her confessor to lump all her experiences veridical as well as illusory under one heading, that of subjective. A virgin is usually by reason of her environment as a woman, so ignorant of the physiology of marriage that it is difficult for her as a psychic to distinguish what is real from what is unreal until she has been a Borderland wife for sometime. But for the priest to whom the blessed experience of Borderland wedlock came in all its fullness, a different course of treatment must have been necessary, since being a man, with the opportunities of knowledge open to a man, and to a priestly confessor of sinful men and women, he could not be hoodwinked by his superior into taking for subjective illusions these experiences which were distinctly objective. The records of witchcraft contain accounts of priests who were burned at the stake for a union of thii sort extending over forty or fifty years, with a spirit assumed to be the Devil in the form of a woman.
Pope Gregory is known as Hildebrand, that pope who strove so persistently to purge the priesthood of simony and unchastity and to emancipate the Church from inter ference by the temporal power. But what is done with priest nowadays who enter upon Borderland wedlock, is not, so far as I can learn, revealed to the general public. From a French physician, however, I learn of a custom among the Continental priests concerning their sleeping arrangements which suggest that more allowance is made nowadays than formerly for those who Heaven has thus singled out, and that the Church bows to the will of Heaven in this matter, and lays no blame upon the priest.
Theophile Gautier has written a novelette called Clarimonde, which recounts the love of a beautiful vampire for a priest. She comes to him each night and they mount a horse and gallop away to her palace, when he returns at daybreak for his priesthood duties. The author represents the priest as struggling between his duties as a priest and what he considers the allurements of sin: and in consonance with the idea, that punishment is visited upon the sinner. Gautier reveals her as a vampire sucking the blood of her lover while he sleeps.
It would seem as though the author, especially for a priest of God, were catering to the popular superstition that it is sinful to enjoy sensuous love. But if any one in the world is entitled to the joys of true Borderland wedlock, it is surely a priest who has kept his vows of asceticism, and who is really pure-minded. If any one in the world needs it, it is surely the priest who is supposed to stand midway as a bridge-builder, between earthly sinners and celestial beings of the unseen world beyond the grave, since it is pretty generally acknowledged that well ordered sex life is necesary to the development of a symmetrical character. For what mean the words "holy" and "holiness"? They mean "whole-ly," "wholeness." The man and woman who expects to be indeed "holy," must be "whole," i. e., symmetrical. In old Testament times, Jehovah forbade any priest who was a eunuch to minister before Him, thus recognizing the importance of sex in the perfect man. The Rev. Arthur Devine, Passionist, in a book entitled: "Convent Life, or the Duties of Sisters Dedicated in Religion to the Service of God" a book which the title page shows is "intended chiefly for superiors and confessors," takes up the subject of nuns who are subject to visions and supernatural revelations. Considering the question as to whether such experiences are true visions or the results of deception and error, he mentions as one test the consideration of "Whether it [the revelation] contains anything false, because in this case it cannot proceed from the spirit of truth: Therefore, it is necessary to consider whether it is conformable to Scripture, to faith and morals, to theology and to the doctrine and traditions of the church. * * *
"Are they [these communications] accompanied by the cross and by mortification, and do they tend to the manifestation of the faith and the utility of the Church? From which it will be seen that a heavenly bridegroom who is not a good Catholic has every prospect of being classed as demoniacal, if he happens to have the same religious belief as herself [she being heretical]. This is a case where religious prejudice furnishes the standard by which to test the communication, and it will be remembered that to start with, for, upon any subject when dealing with occult phenomena is certain to bring about occurrences of a fantastic misleading or diabolical character.
The spiritus percutiens, "rapping spirit" (?) conjured away by old Catholic formulae at the benediction of churches, was brought forward by some of M. de Gasparin's critics. As his tables did not rap, he had nothing to do with the spiritus percutiens who proves, however, that, the church was acquainted with raps, and explained them by the spiritualistic hypothesis.
A learned priest has kindly looked for the alleged spiritus percutiens in dedicatory and other ecclesiastical formulae. He only finds it in benedictions of bridal chambers, and thinks it refers to the slaying spirit in the Book of Tobit. Andrew Lange, Cock Lane and Common Sense, pp. 316-317.
The "slaying spirit" in the Book of Tobit, it will be remembered, was a so-called evil spirit who was in love with Sara and who objected to her marrying, and who slew seven successively earthly aspirants to her hand, on their bridal night. He is always referred to as an instance of the incubus. But let us not forget that so-called incubi are angels, and are never evil; since in order to hold communication with the beloved earthly person they as well as the psychic are obliged to live correctly and think clearly. And what is evil on the Borderland is all subjective and never objective. And the number seven too in regards to the husbands of a virgin who already has a spouse has a suspiciously mythical, folklorish look.
That the Roman Catholic Church should take account of such a spirit in the benedictions of bridal chambers shows that it has had good reason to suspect the visits of incubi to the virgins of its laity, as well as to the virgins of its nunneries. Indeed, Tylor in his Primitive Culture tells us that the frequency of incubi and succubae "is set forth in the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484, as an accepted accusation against "many persons of both sexes, forgetful of their own salvation, and falling away from the Catholic faith."
The following, which I take from Sub Mundanes, refers to one of the most noted instances in convent life of an incubus who was objectively as well as subjectively the spouse of a nun. "A little Gnome got into the affections of the Famous Magdalen of the Cross, Abbess of a Monastery at Cordova in Spain; she made him Happy, when she was but twelve years old; and they continued their Amours Libres for the space of thirty years; until an ignorant Director persuaded Magdalen that her lover was a Fiend; and forced her to demand absolution of Pope Paul the Third. Yet it is impossible that this could be a Demon; for all Europe knew, and Cassidorus Reniris has made known to all Posterity, the great miracles which daily were wrought in Favor of this Holy Woman; which certainly had never come to pass, if her Amours Libres with the Gnome had fallen so Diabolick, as the Venerable Director imagined."
Another account, however, informs us that the abbess was accused by her nuns of magic "a very convenient accusation in those days when a superior was at all trouble some" and that she very cleverly anticipated them by going to the Pope to confess all and throw herself on his mercy. Inasmuch as he granted her absolution, one cannot help wondering if he did not read between the lines of this confession the occult truth and recognize her as a lawful Borderland spouse. Most of the accounts state that Magdalen's lover was the Devil, who appeared to her as a black man. Here we come upon the same root idea, doubtless, as that behind the black Madonnas, the black Krishna and the black Quetzalcoot of Mexico, a symbolism due perhaps in part to the darkness of the unknown world whence they emerge, and in part to their folklore and occult aspect as deities of night-time and Borderland nuptials. "I am black, but comely," says one of the lovers in that mystical and passionate Song of Solomon.
I have already referred to the Song of Solomon as being interpreted by Christian comment and said to be a poetical statement of the rapturous union between Christ and his Bride, the Church. A side light is thrown upon the interpretation by a note in Kitto's illustrated Bible, which quotes Lane (Modern Egyptians) as saying that the odes sung by Mohammedans at religious festivals were of a similar nature with the Song of Solomon, generally alluding to the Prophet as the object of love and praise. In the small collection of poems sung at Zikirs it appears is one ending with these lines:
"The phantom of thy form visited me in my slumber; I said: 'O phantom of slumber! who sent thee?' He said: 'He sent me whom thou Knowest: He whose love occupies thee.'
The beloved of my heart visited me in the darkness of night. I stood to show him honor, until he sat down, I said, 'O thou my petition and all my desire! Hast thou come at midnight, and not feared the watchman?' He said to me, 'I feared: but, however, love Had taken from me my soul and my breath.' "
"Finding that songs of this description are exceedingly numerous, and almost the only poems sung at Zikirs; that they are composed for that purpose and intended only to have a spiritual sense (though certainly not understood in that sense by the generality of the vulgar): I cannot entertain any doubt as to the design of Solomon's Song."
This religious mysticism finds a modern echo in a little publication recently issued by the Adi Brahma Samaj of Calcutta, as the first step in a new propaganda. It is entitled "The Religion of Love!" In its pages occur these words:
"Though these terms, Father, Mother, Friend, Husband of the soul, all allegorical, they very aptly express our sweet relationship with God, and we have every right to use them. Among these allegorical designations the Husband of the Soul is the best."
Zanchius wrote an "Excellent Traite du Mariage Spiritual Entre Jesus Christ et son E'glise," in which he drew a close parallel between earthly wedlock and the spiritual and divine marriage of Christ with the Church Universal. Among other things he laid stress on that Scriptural saying of earthly husband and wife, that the twain shall become one flesh; and he said that, according to Scripture, it was neither God the Father nor God the Spirit who is Sponsor of his Church, but the Son, who was made of like nature with ourselves like in all things to us, but without sin. He added:
"His soul does not pervade all space, because it went out of his body when he died and consequently was not in all places, since going out of the body, it did not remain therein, afterwards being returned to the body [and] never was and never will be (any more than the body) in all places. * * *
"In this spiritual marriage, all the person of each faithful one that is to say, the body and the soul is conjoined with all the person of Jesus Christ, and is made one flesh and one person with him."
As to the method by which this combined fleshly and spiritual union of the Christian with Christ can take place Zanchius seemed to think that the Eucharist in which one partakes of the body and blood of Christ, is the sole appointed means.
Now the Eucharist, or the use of bread and wine in a sacred rite, was an old Pagan custom bound up with the idea of entering into blood brotherhood of which Jesus made use to emphasize his own brotherhood with his disciples. The ceremony of the Eucharist was found in Peru and when Jesuits first landed. In fact, it is a very, very ancient rite existing in widely separated countries. The Christian writer, Arnobius rebukes in cutting terms the Pagan mock modesty which blushed at the mere mention of "bread and wine" a matter which indicates some folklore connection between the Eucharist and sex: and if so, then between the Eucharist and the ancient mysteries of Phallicism. Inasmuch as by far the greater part of all that was pure and holy in Phallicism is bound up with Borderland wedlock, it is possible that the Eucharist may have esoterically a wider significance than either Arbnobius or Zanchius was aware.
Modern believers in the union with Christ have taken a less mystical and more practical view of it, than did Zanchius. Mrs. M. Baxter of the well known institution for Divine Healing, Bethlehem, London, issued a little pamphlet on that text of 1st Corinthians VI. 13., "The body * * * for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." In it, she says:
"One of the most successful devices of Satan has been his attempt to divorce our bodies from our souls in their relation to God. 'Your soul is the Lord's of course, but your body is your own. You must serve the Lord with your soul, but /enjoy yourself with your body.' Such is his counsel to those whose tendency is gross and carnal, such as easily become drunkards, fornicators, or prostitutes, and form the large class of fallen men and fallen women in our midst. To another class he comes and says, 'You are religious; but it is your soul with which you can serve God; all you can do with your body is to punish it, and destroy it by slow degrees/ Many look upon this as religious heroism; but it is as much a lie to the truth of God, as is the grosser misuse of the body for lust or appetite. God comes with his glorious claim. "The body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body.' " (Mrs. M. Baxter.)
Under the Divine Touch, a pamphlet written by Chester E. Pond, of Philadelphia, contains the following recorded experiences, which, mystical as they may be considered from one standpoint, are singularly suggestive of the earlier experiences of the psychic who has entered on Borderland wedlock, but who has not yet learned to distinguish between subjective and objective touches that is, between a touch which is material, tangible, real, and one that is only an hypnotic suggestion made by the Borderland spouse.
"For the last eleven months my whole being has been open more or less to the joys, delights and peculiar sensations of heaven. Recently the Lord has been giving me his choicest foretastes of heavenly blessedness just before I arise in the morning. During these eleven months I have been daily and almost hourly conscious of His positive and holy touch in some part of my natural body. But during these recent morning experiences His touch has been more sweet and more powerful than usual. These heavenly experiences when viewed from a human standpoint seem remarkable. But when viewed from a heavenly standpoint they seem perfectly natural. They have come to me very gradually. In every way they have been orderly and helpful. They seem just what might be expected to come to any devout Christian. For the Lord is no respecter of persons. In considering these experiences it should be borne in mind that Jehovah Jesus is in every way infinite, that He never makes two things just alike in the natural world, and that He never acts twice alike in the spiritual world. Hence, as might be expected, He touches my 'natural body' through my 'spiritual body' in an infinite variety of ways, and with infinite sweetness. But for convenience I will classify, and say that He touches me, first directly or immediately; secondly, He touches me through the medium or ministration of angels; and, thirdly, through the medium of His Written Word. * * *
"To my distinct consciousness the spirit of the Lord is that living divine, or divine substance which constantly proceeds from His divine person, somewhat in the same way and manner that rays of light and heat are continually proceeding from our natural sun. It is written that 'God is love/ and that 'God is light/ or truth. From this we learn that love and truth constitute the divine essence. And in the ordinary use of language heat corresponds to love and light to truth. We call a loving person warm-hearted and an educated person enlighted. Jesus Himself taught spiritual truths by natural symbols. * * *
"The Lord, in His mercy, tempers the inflowing of His spirit to our different states of receptivity. * * * If He had poured His divine love and truth into my soul and body one year ago, with the same degree of heat and power that He does now, I believe I should have been consumed.
"My experiences are endless in variety. At times, when love seems to predominate over truth, the divine proceeding that streams forth upon me appears to my spiritual vision like the golden beams of an autumn sunset, but when truth predominates over love, they appear like streams of white light reflected from burnished silver.
"At times I am consciously alone with the Lord. At other times I am consciously in the presence of angels. Since these touches of the Lord are infinite in variety, I can never tell one minute what will occur the next. As I now sit writing I am so literally full that every particle of flesh in my body feels as if it were alive and moving. This extreme fullness in the day time does not occur every day. It will probably not continue more than eight or ten hours. While I am busy it is not excessively delightful. But if I were to lean back in my chair, or to go and lie down, I should soon be completely deluged with floods of heavenly glory, and be 'lost in wonder, love and praise.' The movings of the spirit are usually undulatory. When I am still, and sometimes when at work, they come like waves of liquid sweetness, and roll over me and through me in every conceivable direction, and with all conceivable variety.
"Occasionally at night the Lord touches me all over alike for a few seconds. At such times I seem to be literally resting in and on the Divine. Sometimes He touches only a few fibres in some very small muscle, and through these He fills and thrills my whole being with unutterable divine glory. At times His holy touch is very delicate, tender and meltingly sweet. At other times He touches me with a power that moves the very foundations of my being, and that seems almost startling. Sometimes He moves very slowly, at other times so rapidly that it seems as if the next wave of glory would loosen my 'spiritual body' from its present moorings in the 'natural body.' A few mornings ago while lying in bed under a divine influx that filled me with divine love and sweetness to the very utmost extent of my present capacity. I could but exclaim, 'O Jesus, my dear heavenly Father! Thou alone art infinitely wise and infinitely holy! In Thy presence I am nothing, I am nothing! Before Thee I know nothing, I know nothing! These sweet touches of Thy spirit, these indescribable sensations, these angelic delights, these ineffable thrills of divine glory I cannot understand! I can now understand them no better than if I were a new born infant lying at Thy feet! Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it! Dear heavenly Father, I can no more understand how each divine touch can fill me with such holy sweetness and with such transports of joy, than I can understand how Thou canst create a world! O Thou eternal Word, by whom the worlds were framed! I can no more comprehend Thy present movings within my own little body, than I could have comprehended the ancient movings of Thy spirit upon the face of the great deep if I had been present when Thou didst say, 'Let there be light, and there was light' * * *
"Through the loving touch and conscious presence of an angel, be it a man or a woman, the Lord can fill me with celestial delights and sensations that are similar and almost equal to those produced by the direct inflowing of His own holy spirit. The difference between the two is easily discernible, but not easily described. Both are immeasurably superior to any soul or bodily delight we ever experience in the ordinary planes of Christian life. As near as I can describe it the difference between the two is this: When waves of glory are produced by the direct touch of the Divine Spirit they seem to have, as it were, a golden tinge, a delicate crest of holy sweetness, which does not accompany those produced through the touch of an angel. * * *
"The angels are so thoroughly honest, so perfectly free from all false modesty and pretended humility, and are so free from all formality and human ceremonies, that the presence of an angel is always elevating and refreshing. * * *
"The Lord touches me consciously now through the medium of His Written Word. * * *
"When I read the Scriptures my whole 'spiritual body' can feel the touch and power of the Living Divine that flows through its words and sentences, just as plainly and unmistakably as my natural body can feel the touch and force of the wind. And at time^ the 'Spirit of Truth' flows all through me, and all over me, so forcibly that I feel as if I were literally 'in the Truth/ At these times the Eternal Word shines through the Written Word with such illuminating power that various human theories and speculations are scattered to the four winds. And under such illumination 'it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.' * * * I can learn more in one hour under such practical tuition, than I ever have learned in a whole year at Yale Theological Seminary. In religion theories have their uses, but the school of experience is the only school that can be relied upon for instruction in the mysteries and deep things of God. It often seems to me as if the Christian world, ministers included, were looking more to their creeds, and to one another, for their theology, than to the Word and the Spirit. * * *
"Before any one can become personally acquainted with the Lord, and with the true meaning of His written Word, he must necessarily forsake every known sin and he must know what it means to live up to every known requirement and privilege of the Gospel. He must also ask for and receive a tender conscience, an enlightened reason, and a sanctified common sense. Then he will no longer be afraid to use his own reason and his own good sense. I have recently received from the Lord as I believe the following unsectarian motto:
"'Love everybody, learn of everybody, and follow nobody but the Lord Jesus Christ!'
"To obtain and retain constant Divine guidance and tuition I find that my higher nature must bear complete and easy sway over my lower nature; that the 'old man' must be wholly put off and the new man wholly 'put on'; that the affections and thoughts of my 'upward man' must have easy and complete control over every appetite, passion, and desire of my 'outward man'; and that I must keep myself so full of the Lord, that I can live ' a heavenly life upon earth,' in all places and under all conceivable circumstances, just as easily and naturally as I can breathe the sweet air of heaven. * * *
"This loving and indescribable union with God, is no longer a mere matter of faith with me, but it is a matter of actual knowledge and sweet experience. * * *
"While enjoying these heavenly experiences the Lord has given me better health than during any eleven months for the last twenty years. And he has dealt more tenderly with me than any human mother ever dealt with a helpless infant. * * *
"I sincerely hope that the love and goodness of the Lord, so bountifully manfested in giving me such large foretastes of heaven while yet in the body, will prove helpful and encouraging to every honest-hearted reader. But since the ways of the Lord are infinite in variety let no one look for an experience precisely like mine. I have prayed for years that the Lord would make me just as pure, just as holy and just as useful as lay within the scope of human and Divine possibilities. He is now taking His own way to answer my prayers." (Under the Divine Touch, by Chester E. Pond, 1432 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. Pa. First published in the Mount Joy Herald, Mt. Joy, Pa., under dates of April 8th and 15th, 1882.)
In the following experience, it will be seen that this so-called Divine touch, reveal itself as that of a Borderland bridegroom. It is taken from a letter written by a lady, a devout and pure-minded Christian, as will be noticed. Her experiences occurred at a well known summer resort in the United States where a cottage for divine healing had been established. But as the letter was shown to me by a third party, I do not feel at liberty to mention the town, lest some clue be given to the writer's personality. Indeed, it was only upon this condition that the person who showed me this letter allowed me to make use of it herewith:
"Dear Sister:
"Since learning from Miss that you know the experience which is mine, I have thought I should write you.
"At first, as the newly married Bride, I shrank from exposing the secrets of my Love. They were sacred between my Beloved and myself. Now, it has shown me that this wondrous truth, as well as all other truth, must be acknowledged, and that a most glorious part of my high calling is to co-operate with Him in calling his Bride unto Himself. * * *
"For myself, I had not time to question; the truth was sprung upon me unexpectedly, and I just went under. The fears and questionings came afterwards; but blessed be my God! He did not let me parley long with the foe, but Himself strengthened me to shake off his power, and, coming fully under the shelter of His love, press on until He has fully established me, and I impelled by His mighty Spirit within me, reach eagerly forward to the glorious un foldings of His love and power that lie beyond. * * *
"Suffice it to say, I am in great and abundant fullness and blessing, alike in my physical and in my spiritual nature, and that His own abounding life flows in power through my whole being. * * *
"I would have * * * fully understand that this is the fulfillment of the marriage relation between Christ and the body that as he has been recognized in the soul as Lord over it, and also over the other parts and organs of the body, so now must He be recognized and accepted in the organs of generation as Lord over them; and His life must be allowed to come in, where, through fear of evil, the emotions of life have heretofore been suppressed. Satan is bound to beset the soul with fears, it may be the most terrible, and to whisper, perhaps, dreadful things. The only way is to remember the faithfulness of Him who has led us these many years—never betraying our confidence. Standing upon the written word, and casting ourselves in complete abandonment upon Him, let Him have His way in every part. The life abundant must flow into every part of His purchased possession, ere we are fully redeemed.
"'Inasmuch as we withhold from Him one part or organ, we are robbing God of just this much. God has given us no idle words in his written Word; EVERY PROMISE is to be realized by us, as we follow on, and enter into the experience portrayed in each particular position of the word. * * *
"The Body, the Temple of God. I These. IV. 3, 4; I. Cor. III. 16-19;'
"'The Living Sacrifice. Rom. VI, II, 12, 13; VIII. 10-13; Rom. XII. I;'
"'The Bride and Husband.' Isaiah XXVI. 9; LIV. 5; Cant. III. I.; Eph. V. 29-32; 22, 23?; 2 Cor. XL 2; I Cor. XII. 21-23; Col. I. 25-27; Ezek. XXVI. 25; Hos. II. 14-16; John XVII. 23; Hos. XIX. 20; Hos. VI. 3; Rev. XIX. 7-9; Rev. ch. XXL; Ezek. ch. XIIL, to end.
"The Song of Solomon was not to be a dead letter but meant by the Holy Ghost to be experience of the Bride of Christ. I find now in wondrous reality in His written Word. The meaning, hitherto unknown, of different passages, stands out clear and distinct—and Living Word within me, throbbing and thrilling and permeating my whole being with His glorious Presence, bears witness of the written truth. * * *
"One day, I read in the Word, being led to it, the assurance of the angel concerning Mary. Perhaps that day —or very soon after—the Spirit brought to me, as I was preparing dinner,—'Fear not, that which is conceived within thee is of the Holy Spirit.' Such a rapid and powerful witness to the word went^ through and through me, beginning at the organs of generation, going all through, that I was in great weakness, physically. The tempter had been busy about this time, casting fear upon me lest the flesh were in the matter. Thus the Spirit gave him answer with the revelation came the thought, 'I am with child!'—but so sure was the witness, that instead of being greatly alarmed—praise the Blessed One, a great joy swelled up within me at the thought of such a possibility.
"A glorious victory, afterwards. He showed me that it meant that this precious truth of the marriage relation between us was, 'that which was in me was of the Holy Ghost.' Praise the Lord! He has made me willing to do to bear to suffer anything for Him. He is making me fearless and filling me with His own desire for the spread of all His truth—though I feel more especially the desire to win souls for Him. I am assured that this, His most glorious and satisfying revelation of Himself must be acknowledged as He shall call upon us to do so, or we shall come into darkness indeed, and distress. Shall the chosen and honored wife shame to confess her husband when He would woo others, through her, to the same high place?
"When we enter into this union, He is, as never before, the Life within us, and how shall we seek to suppress the Life that has entered in to displace our own old self-life, and to manifest Himself in and through us, in whatever way He wills. He must be permitted to speak through us—and as I constantly pray, to love, through me. Oh! with us there must be no question but one, viz: 'What wilt Thou, my Beloved?'—and ready response, opening up to meet His blessed will. 'As Thou wilt'—'no longer I, but Christ.' No more my will, in the slightest particular, but the honorable will of my Beloved.
"Reading Madam Guyon in 'Spiritual Progress,' Part II., on 'Union with God,' I find the experience into which I have entered. * * *
"We have, in these last days, by the * * * been realizing, as we did in the earlier days, the Presence and power of Him whom we love. God comes upon us as we meet together from 6 to 7 o'clock in the morning, to wait in silence before Him at the table, before and after meals; as we partake of the food He gives. We meet Him—in our rooms, and bow down before Him. As I go about my work, ofttimes, His Presence so fills me—or I hear the sweet wooing of His Voice, until I am constrained to step aside, where I may—to be alone with my Love, and fall at His feet in adoring worship. * * *
"One asks, how is this Baptism obtained? In the same way exactly that all other of His gifts are—if we are in the condition to receive them, that is, by faith. He says, 'Thy Maker is thy husband/ and 'in that day thou shalt call me—Ishi.' * * *
"I would say, whatever you do, do not question, lest distress and perplexity come in; but immediately go to Jesus, accepting Him as Ishi—with the words I have given—'be it unto me as Thou wilt.' He will do the teaching afterwards. Then again, lest one should make of it too scriptural a truth, separating it entirely from the physical, it should be plainly understood that the union is as the sexual intercourse of husband to wife.
"If we expect this when the sensation comes, we will not be alarmed, but willingly and freely give those parts to our Divine Husband as the Bride would naturally do.
"I have written very plainly, because, first, I know it is the way He would have me write; and secondly, because I would seek to save from distress and fear, that would harass, if the whole truth is not understood, viz: If one looks for one kind of manifestation (spiritual), and finds physical and animal.
"Let me hear from you both, when the Lord leads.
"Lovingly in Him. *******
[For convenience of future reference let us call the authoress of this letter Mrs. R. S. T. Theodore Schroeder.]
The same friend who showed me the above letter, also showed me letters from a gentleman who is the editor of a religious newspaper, giving a similar experience, upon several ocasions in his life but with more circumstance of detail. Nevertheless, he regarded it as entirely a union with Christ, the Bridegroom of the Soul, and spoke of it reverently.
Madam de Guyon has left us memoirs of her rapturous union with the Divine Bridegroom of the Soul, and verses concerning His love and watchful tenderness which are rare specimens of pure and delicate sentiment. Yet, so little was Borderland wedlock understood by the learned of those days, that Bossuet made a coarse joke about her marriage with the Child Jesus; and another French bishop, says Arthur Little, wrote what might almost be called an episcopal lampoon. One couplet will be enough:
"Par l'epoux quelque foi une jeune mystique
Entend un autre epoux que celni du Cantique."
(A young woman who is mystical understands another spouse than that of Canticles). From which it would seem as though the Roman Catholic Church admitted that there might be objective realities in Borderland wedlock (so far at least, as appears on the surface) eschew objective phenomena on the Borderland and tries to keep her mystics entirely in the realm of subjectivity—a realm where illusions arise through the ease with which it is confounded with objective planes and where a well-trained mind is needed to distinguish between that which is suggested or thought hypnotically and that which actually occurs. And yet, it is for a Divine Bridegroom on the Borderland that the Church has long trained her nuns in the life of ascetics. For in various forms of austere self-denial, asceticism as well as total suppression of the sex-nature is an absolute preliminary, step to Borderland nuptials, though only for a time. The question arises however, who is this Divine Spouse of the purified and ascetic nun? Is it Christ? Or is it an angelic lover? The church says Christ when the union is uplifting and insists that the relation is entirely mystical and not at all objective. I think from the testimonies in which I have adduced from church writings an angelic bridegroom is not impossible. And it is quite conceivable that, where a nun believes that Christ is the only Borderland Spouse, her prejudice may result in her lover's appearing to her as Christ, just as the mediaeval witch who believed that her Borderland spouse could only be the Devil was pretty sure to see him with horns and hoofs and to be whisked away (subjectively) to a Witch's Sabbath of diablerie.
Madam de Guyon, indeed, admits that "the vision is never of God himself nor scarcely ever of Jesus Christ, as those who have it picture it to themselves: it is an Angel of light, who, according to the power which is given to him by God for this purpose, causes the soul to see his representation, which it takes for himself." (That is, the vision is subjective, probably an hypnotic suggestion induced by the angel.)
The following stories of saintly Catholic women who became espoused to a Borderland bridegroom, show that they were untrained in distinguishing subjective from objective phenomena. No wonder then, if they should mistake an angel for Christ himself.
St. Mary Magdalene, born of the illustrous house of the Pazzi at Florence * * * burned with so great a heat of divine love, that she would at times exclaim "O love! I can bear thee no longer!" and she used to be forced to cool her bosom with a copious sprinkling of water * * * By Christ she was wedded with a ring, and crowned with a crown of thorns; whilst by the blessed Virgin she was covered with a most white veil, and by St. Augustine she had twice written upon her heart: 'The word was made flesh.' Being rapt out of her senses while embroidering, she used, though the windows were closed up and her eyes veiled, yet to proceed with her work and finish it most accurately. * * * She was cannonized by Clement IX in 1669. (Breviary — Nuns and Nunneries, 37-38.)
"The first flower of sanctity from America was the Virgin Rose, born of Christian parents at Lima, who even from the cradle shone with the presages of future holiness; for the face of the infant being wonderfully transfigured into the image of a rose, gave occasion to her being called by this name; to which afterwards the Virgin Mother of God added the surname, ordering her to be thenceforth called the Rose of Mary. At the age of five she made a vow of perpetual virginity. * * *
"Having wondrously familiar intercourse, by continual apparitions with her guardian angel of St. Catherine of Sienna, and the Virgin Mother of God, she merited to hear these words from Christ—'Rose of my heart, be thou my spouse.' At last being carried to the Paradise of this her spouse and glittering with many miracles, both before and since her departure, Pope Clement X. enrolled her with solemity in the Catalogue for Holy Virgins." [From Breviary?]
The following are extracts from the Bull of her canonization:
"At this time she was favoured with the following revelation: There appeared to her in her sleep an extraordinary person, beautiful above all the sons of men, habited like a sculptor on a festival-day and he seemed to court her as a lover. Before Rose would consent to his proposal she set him a task namely, to carve a piece of marble; and she bade him return again shortly, when the sculpture should be finished. At the return of her spouse, the virgin blushed when she perceived the task she had assigned him was accomplished in a manner beyond his strength; and he opened to her his workshop, where were a number of elect virgins, working like men at carving and polishing marble. She discovered that they were his espoused, by the style and beauty of their nuptial dresses; they were moistening the stones, and preparing them for cutting by their tears, which dripped upon them. Rose perceived that she was to be dressed like one of them, and prepared to be advanced to a like espousal. * * * The mystery was disclosed to her thus: On Palm Sunday, when Rose was absorbed in meditation, in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, her lover thus addressed her: 'Rose of my heart, be my love.' The virgin trembled at the sweet voice of her Divine Spouse and at the instant she heard the voice of the Mother of God, wishing her joy, and saying, 'Rose, it is no mean honour which this my Son proposes to you * * *' After this revelation, Rose began to torture herself more than ever. * * * When her Spouse did not appear to her at the accustomed hour, she used to admit an angel (who was always visibly present with her as her guardian) to her confidence, as his footboy or valet (ut pararium aut vereda reum)."
Various miracles were said to have been wrought through St. Rose of Lima: such as, for instance, the materialization of bread and also of honey in her father's house in time of scarcity; also in answer to prayer the payment of a debt of her father's by a stranger who appeared at the house, bringing the money wrapped up in a cloth.
"These are the assistances which her Divine Spouse promised to the parents of Rose, that he would give her as a dowry, when he wooed her in the character of a heavenly sculptor." (Ibid.)
In this last, we seem to be getting back to these angelic bridegrooms spoken of in ante—Nicene Christian literature, who materialized gold and other precious articles for beloved earthly spouses.
But, it may be asked, are these unions with a heavenly spouse mere marital unions with angels, and does God (or Christ, as His human manifestation) play the part in them? By no means. God is a party to Borderland wedlock in its highest aspect, whether that wedlock be an objective marriage union as in earthly wedlock or subjective and mystical blending with a divine invisible intelligence. Mme. de Guyon was right in saying that her love toward God and God's love toward her was the blissful feature in Borderland experience. There are lower aspects of Borderland wedlock than that which includes union with God; which are subject more or less to illusions, fantastic or diabolical. Only when the earthly partner aspires to the Divine Soul of all things, does the supreme bliss of union with the angelic mate transpire. At such times one is fain to apply such a conception as that of Mrs. Gillen, a London teacher of Divine Healing, which is:
"The Universe consists of three factors—a Thinker, outward Expression of His thought, and the realm of Mentality which lies between that Thinker and His Expression, and which is the means by which the Uncreated shapes what it thinks into Expression in physical, material forms. If we conceive this Great Thinker (God) as the central nucleus of a great circle"[1] which embraces the Universe, his Expression of thoughts, motives, feelings, will be on the rim of the large circle, and the sphere of Mentality, where those thoughts are being moulded into shape previous to Expression, will be the zone lying between the nucleus, or Central Thinker and the outer rim of His all-embracing circle. Each living creature, as part of this great circle is a sector of the circle—thus: [drawing ommitted]. Such a sector, consists as does the entire circle, likewise, of three factors,—(1) that which thinks; (2) mentality, where thoughts are shaped; (3) the body, the material life, where spirit finds expression as outward form. Nos. 2 and 3—mentality and the bodily form—are but the instruments of the spirit, the thinker within us. The thinker within us is part of the Great Thinker at the centre of the circle of the Universe. So that, according to Mrs. Gillen, it is incorrect to say "I have a spirit." We should say "I am spirit": i. e., "I am part of God." When the zone of our mentality is kept unclouded between our material, bodily form and that within us (up at the point of the sector [drawing omitted]) which thinks, we are, as will be seen, in unbroken communication with the Great Thinker, God, who is Himself all in all: for our thinking self is part of Him. The application of this conception from Mrs. Gillen's point of view, is that when that zone of mentality is unclouded by dislike or other antitheses of love, then disease and other mundane annoyances no longer exist for us; since, being part of God, and being one with Him at the heart of the Universe, we have His power to create outward circumstances.
From my own point of view, this conception has a bearing on the third and highest degree in the mysteries of Borderland wedlock. But before enlarging this, it may be well to begin with the preliminary training necessary to render one the Borderland wife or husband of an angel, and to set forth the three degrees in order with such detail as may be allowable in a work like this, which is intended for the general public. The readers hope to profit by these instructions for personal development, inasmuch if one can persuade one's earthly partner to try, with one's self, to live the life which is obligatory for Borderland wedlock, it brings the Kingdom of heaven into earthly relations.
The preliminary training necessary may be summed up by the admonition: Live a correct moral life, according to our own highest standard (a standard, by the way, which should never be fixed, but always moving onward to still greater excellence) and to strive to think clearly and to form accurate conceptions of ideas, to express conceptions of ideas, to express conceptions with exactness, and to follow Truth, wherever she leads, and whatever your previous convictions upon any given subject. Especially you must have high and clean thoughts about sex that you can think about, read about it, talk about all the details without agitation, without grossness of thought, and with as impersonal a state of mind as if you were discussing the circulation of the blood. And you must learn to recognize the educational value of sex attraction in the evolution of humanity from savagery into civilization. Chiefest of all, learn that sex is holy before God and the angels. During this preliminary training, all sex union must be refrained from absolutely. The nervous energy which has hitherto been evoked for expenditure in this direction must no longer be expended, but, by continual self-mastery, be returned to the system for its upbuilding. Gradually, as the neophyte who has habituated himself to a pure-minded and idealistic conception of sex becomes accustomed to thus maintaining selfpoise, no matter what the temptation, there will spring up in him a joy in his own power which will amply repay him for all his struggles.
This process may take months, or it may take years. The Hindus have a saying that he who seeks a Borderland spouse must have known no women for seven years. But whether the process be long or short whether the partner be sought by Borderland or on the earthly plane it must be perfected before the first degree can be entered upon. For those who would like to have at hand some text-book to help in passing this preliminary training, I would recommend a little pamphlet entitled, "Practical Methods to Insure Success," published by the Estoric Publishing Co., Applegate, Placer Co., California. It will be sent free on receipt of postage. It is written from such a standpoint that it can be placed in the hands of young people, and it is suggestive rather than exhaustive of the subject under consideration. But it has nothing to do with Borderland wedlock, and, so far as I can tell, it seems to make this training—which I call preliminary—almost the ultimatum. It also advocates incidentally one or two ideas, such as astrology, and the necessity for occasional fasting, the truth of which it seems to me, remain to be proven. But, apart from these things, it is so admirably written that it will furnish a safe ground-work for any neophyte to build up his ideal sex life upon, and therefore I earnestly recommend its perusal. The first degree, should not be entered upon, as I have said, until the neophyte is proficient in this preliminary training.
The first degree embodies the teaching of what is known as Alpha-ism. Its principle is: "No sex union except for the distinct purpose of begetting a child." The bearings of this principle will be discussed in my forthcoming treatise on "Psychic Wedlock." Suffice it to say here that the staunch adherence to this principle has uplifted and brightened the lives of many husbands and wives who had begun to find the marriage state a hell on earth. But it is a mistake to consider this the most advanced teaching regarding the marital relation. It is beautiful, helpful, and necessary to acquire for those who would live the life of the truly wedded: but it is only the first of the three steps which lead husband and wife up to the ideal relation. In The Christian Life, a journal edited and published by Rev. J. D. Caldwell, Chicago, the teaching of Alpha-ism will be found set forth clearly and reverently.
Following this should come another pamphlet called "Diana," written by Prof. Parkhurst, the astronomer, and published by the Burnz Publishing Company, New York, price 25 cents. This pamphlet is unfortunately, marred by being printed in the reform spelling, but one forgets after a page or two. It is a psycho-physiological essay, intended for husbands and wives; written from a high standpoint, and in refined language. Diana will furnish the initiate with a bridge between the first and second degrees; and it is one of the most important and helpful contributions to the sex question that have ever been published.
It is evident that this first degree is likely to prove a stumbling-block to those who degrade this beautiful principle of Alpha-ism (a principle embodied in the Scriptural command, "Be fruitful and multiply") into an excuse for sowing more seed than is needed to produce the harvest. The man or women who whether on Borderland or in earthly wedlock, thus persistently distorts the above Scriptural command into a permission for something very different from what was intended will never get beyond the first degree of the marriage relation. To create children is not only a high and holy joy to every right-thinking husband and wife, it is a solemn duty imposed upon them by the laws of their own being. And the psychic who shirks this duty in Borderland wedlock, although maintaining marital relations by the angelic spouse, will be misled by all sorts of fantastic or diabolical illusions. Conversely whoever wedded on the Borderland to an angel, holds fast the though of the duty of the married to create (under suitable conditions), will ere long be shown the truth—i. e., that between two people dwelling on entirely different planes of matter, while the marital relation is possible, lawful and beautiful, to beget a child is impossible until the earthly partner shall have crossed to the world beyond the grave.
The principle of Alpha-ism must be mastered by those who aspire to the second degree, whether on the Borderland or the Earthly plane. The second and the third degrees have this principle for their corner stone. In none of the three degrees is it allowable to sow the seed except for the distinct purpose of begetting a child who has been reverently and prudently planned for at just at that time. Nor is it ever allowable to waste the seed by throwing it away (and with it the psychic energy). The second degree launches the initiate upon the perilous water of sense-gratification. If his previous training has enabled him to build a staunch craft for the voyage, well and good; otherwise he may be swamped at the first wave, or, if he rides its crest, and the crests of succeeding waves he may rashly venture too near the fatal rapids and be engulfed. It is possible that was the error into which Josephus says the "giants" fell when they trusted in their own strength. The second degree was practiced in the Oneida Community, for thirty years, and was obligatory upon all its male members. The result was highly satisfactory despite the society's unsavory practice of community of women. They do not seem, however, to have seen the necessity for a similar training of female members. The author of that popular novel, "The Strike of a Sex," has been preparing a book called "Zugassent's Theory," which is intended to deal with this method from a popular standpoint. I have not seen the work (which I believe is now going through the press); but from what I know of the author's reputation and his efforts hitherto in the cause of social purity, I feel that the book is likely to be judiciously worded and to be an aid in mastering the second degree. I doubt however, if it deals with the training of the feminine partner. But the principles underlying the training of the man may be studied out from such a work and applied by the woman. The author is George N. Miller, 59 Murray St., N. Y. The second degree is the most difficult of the three degrees to acquire physiologically speaking, inasmuch as it exacts supreme self-control at a crucial moment. Those who have never attempted this degree, when told of it, are apt to either declare it impossible, or to scorn it as undesirable. But those who have once mastered this degree would no more forego the power which is now theirs, than a freed prisoner would voluntarily return to his dungeon. This way lies the path of liberty and life, and joy, and they who have once trodden it in the perfect fullness, of magnetic union with a dearly loved spouse will never care to stumble along the old paths. The Oneida Community despite its social mistake of promiscuity, has made the human race its everlasting debtor, in that it has left a thirty years scientific experiment on record detailing the methods and attesting the value of this second degree.
But let it never be forgotten that this second degree must be built upon the first degree Alpha-ism. To make use of it as a means to increased sensuality is to degrade it, and to do so effectually bars the initiate from entrance upon that third and highest degree where all joys physical, mental, emotional and spiritual reach an intensity beside which the joys of the first and second degree pale as a candle-flame in the radiance of sunlight. Moreover, if this degree be thus degraded by the initiate, it is almost certain to bring nervous diseases of a very distressing character in its train.
On the third, and highest degree, no book has yet been written, so far as I know. The teaching seems to have been handed down orally or else by pictured symbolism or mystic rite, understood only by the initiates of this degree. I am now compiling notes for my work on "Psychic Wedlock" which I hope will take up the projected three degrees in more detail than is possible in this treatise. For the present, I can only lay down a few general principles,—and these principles which cannot be fully grasped by any except those who have mastered the first and second degrees.
The Hindus have the theory that God can enjoy food, drink and in fact all sense-pleasures but only through the offering of an earthly devotee. Therefore, the devout Hindi offers God a share in all his gratifications of appetite—thus living out, indeed, the Christian Apostle's admonition of "whether we eat or drink, do all to the glory of God."
Too often, it is true, this doctrine is perverted into an excuse for sensual excesses, the debauchee soothing his conscience by an offering to the god whom he worships. Thus has this sacred inner mystery become degraded by the unworthy. But even the tried and staunch initiate of the first and second degree, unless he holds grace as he enters upon this third degree, unless he holds fast to the teaching: "Aspire to the highest." Only in reverent and earnest aspiration to the Divine, to the Source of all things, to the Eternal Energy of the Universe, may this third degree be entered upon, either in Borderland or earthly wedlock. The more intense the emotion, the more absolute the necessity for aspiring with all one's faculties to union with the Divine. Every element of selfish desire must be eliminated; one must aspire at that time because it is right and beautiful to bring one's holiest and tenderest and most ecstatic emotions into the presence of the Great Thinker, in order that they may there be purged of all dross and be a worthy expression of our own best self. That is the first half of this highest degree. The second half is entered upon when spontaneously—not from selfish desire—it dawns upon us that to offer God a share of our pleasure at the moment may give him pleasure. When single-heartedly, and in all sincerity and benevolent feeling toward God we invite him to become the third partner in the marital union, then, indeed, do we understand what it is to love and to be loved. We enter thus into a personal relation with God in which, Impersonal Force though He be, we realize vividly that we are one with Him, and with Him one with all the universe. For that in us which thinks—the apex of our particular sector of the circle of the universe is, on the one hand, in unclouded relation with our physical self on the outer rim, and on the other hand, it is merged into the Great Thinker, the Great Nucleus who is at the centre of all creation. From that moment, we are able to say to this Pantheos, Great Thinker, to this All-Pervading Energy, "My friend!" (And inasmuch as God is love in the fullest possible sense of that expression, the connubial bliss of Borderland lovers is increased tenfold.) From that moment, we know what it is to truly love God. This divine trinity in unity must be the final goal of Borderland wedlock, if such wedlock is to be permanent.
It is in this sense, I am inclined to think, that Mme. de Guyon, St. Teresa, and other mystical Spouses of Christ received the Divine Bridegroom. Subjectively mingled with this rapturous union with Diety no doubt, were the experiences of union with the angelic husband, of whose very existence as such, they were unaware, confounding him with the Impersonal Deity who was the third element in their union. Then, too, we must remember that these women intelligent as they were, were untrained in the nice distinctions of subjective and objective hallucinatory, veridical, automatic, telepathic, subconscious, etc., evolved by the modern Society for Psychical Research, and other recent investigators of the occult. Moreover, there are psychical experiences in Borderland wedlock which are subjective while they seem to the untrained occults to be objective. Of such a nature (apparently) was the experience of a Philadelphia lady, a Spiritualist, who told me of her spirit husband. She was a widow, and this spirit was a deceased lover from whom she had been separated in youth by a misunderstanding. He returned from the world beyond the grave to explain matters, and to reclaim his lost love, and finally proposed that she should consider herself to be his wife from that time on, assuring her that it was so recorded in his land. Thereafter, on several occasions, she experienced (when she was by no means prepared) a series of galvanic shocks extending upwards through her body. These were doubtless hypnotic suggestions to prepare and train her for experiences of a more objective character. The manifestations, however, were in terfered with by the return of a chronic complaint of the liver with which she had suffered at intervals for years.
If it be asked how a misty, vaporous being, such as a ghost is popularly supposed to be, can sustain an objective marital union on the Borderland, I reply that the ghost is not mist-like in reality, but only appears so because he is in a new world of matter, with a more extended scale of vibrations per second for the various forces of sound, heat, light, and electricity than obtain upon our earthly plane. Beyond the last faint violet ray of the spectrum, sciena has demonstrated that there are rays of color to which we are blind, but which so lowly a creature as the ant can perceive. Dogs can trace a scent of which we have no perception. Many people are so color-blind as to be unable to distinguish a red from a green light—a fact brought out some years since very markedly in an examination for railway service in England. An astigmatic person is almost, if not quite blind, to a fine line running in some one direction. Recent experiments by Galton have shown that cats and birds are sensitive to a whistle which is inaudible to the human ear. If our inferiors in the animal Kingdom reveal such marked superiority—to ourselves in sensitiveness to vibrations is it unlikely that our former equal and our superior, the deceased human being who has passed out of earth life into a wider realm, shall also acquire sensitiveness to a wider range of vibrations? The ghost probably senses all things on our plane,, plus a great many more things on his own. Our sensations are included in his, but his extend far on each side of our own. Therefore we cannot perceive his form or hear his voice in all his material relations, because he is in^a world where forms, colors, sounds which we are physically incapable of perceiving—except in the exalted condition of the clairvoyant or clairaudient—are part and parcel of his daily life. When we see him, we see only through the narrow range of our own limited scale of vibrations: so that we see him but in part, and therefore mistily, or hear his voice but faintly, or perhaps not at all, as it may cover a range of vibrations per second quite one side or the other of our own scale of sound vibrations. For this reason, he is often obliged to speak to the psychic by the interior voice—an hypnotic rendition, apparently, of his voice through the medium of her sub-consciousness. For this reason, because his voice is not audible, as a rule, to her physical ears, the psychic must learn to discriminate accurately between this interior voice and the voiced imaginings of her own sub-consciousness, which will utter themselves quite as audibly as does the interior voice if the psychic has not acquired the faculty of holding her subconsciousness well under control. With experience, however, the discrimination comes in time to be made inerringly, as St. Teresa has stated.
Through the interior voice, a Borderland mystic may be wooed and won as a wife if she be clear-headed and keep the moral law with scrupulous care. She does not need to be clairaudient to hear her lover's voice interiorly. Nor does she need to be clairvoyant, if she be willing to go it blind, so to say. She is then in the condition, however, of a person who is totally blind; and who is almost totally deaf. Since she needs to be on the alert quite as much as if she were dependent on an ear-trumpet, in order to make no mistake in catching the remarks made by the interior voice. Nevertheless, even people who are blind and people who are deaf may fall in love with some one on this earthly plane and marry despite the defective means of communicating ideas. Fortunately there are other means of transmitting ideas than by the interior voice or by the eye or the ear. In this connection the following article by Paul Tyner, on "The sixth sense and how to develop it," in The Arena for June, 1894, offers a suggestive thought.
I have said that I regard psychometry as the key to the development, on rational lines, of the sixth sense. Psychometry itself seems to be a development on the psychic side of that physical sense, which is at once the finest, the most subtle, the most comprehensive, and the most neglected of all the five senses the sense of touch. While distributed over the whole surface of the body, through the nervous system, this sense is more delicate and sensitive in some parts than in others. The marvellous possibilities of its development in the hands, are shown in the cases of expert silk buyers and of coin handlers. The first are enabled merely by touch, to distinguish instantly the' weight and fineness of a score of different pieces of cloth hardly distinguishable to the eye. Girls employed in the mints, while counting gold and silver coins at an astonishingly rapid speed, detect at once the minutest difference of overweight or underweight in the coin passing through their hands. The remarkable sensitiveness developed by the blind in the tips of the fingers, under such scientific cultivation as that provided in the Perkins Institute, of which Laura Bridgman in the past and Helen Keller in the present are such conspicious examples, is familiar to most readers.
It may not be so generally known that recent post-mortem examinations of the bodies of the blind reveal the fact that in the nerves at the ends of the fingers, well defined cells of gray matter had formed, identical in substance and in cell formation with the gray matter of the brain. What does this show? If brain and nerves are practically identical, is it not plain that, instead of being confined to the cavity of the skull, there is not any part of the surface of the body that can be touched by a pin's point without pricking the brain? It shows, moreover, I think, that, given all the sensations generally received through the other physical organs of sense may be received through the touch at the tips of the fingers. It proves that a man can think not alone in his head, but all over his body, and especially in the great nerve centres like the solar plexus, and the nerve ends, on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. The coming man will assuredly perceive and think in every part, from his head down to his feet. Need I suggest the importance of remembering, in this connection, how much in our modern life is conveyed by the hand clasp, or the deep delight that comes to lovers in caressing touches, when impelled to pat the hands or cheek of the beloved one, or to stroke her hair? It is through the emotional life that our sensitiveness is led from the physical to the psychic plane of sensation. (The Arena, Boston, June 1894.)
It is through the nerves of touch that Borderland wedlock becomes objective. The lover may remain forever invisible, as in the fairy stories, materializing only at night, and then only to the touch of those nerves most capable of sensing his tangibility. But, ghost though he be, it was the testimony of Reginald Scot in his "Discourse of Witchcraft" that the Witch "hath more pleasure that way, they say, than with anie mortall man." The angelic bridegroom, as well as this earthly partner, must live a correct moral life and think clearly; and this means that he must exercise a tenderness, a considerate regard for his wife's comfort and happiness, and also a marital self control of which too many earthly men are ignorant. No wonder then, that, on the plane of sentiment, she should prefor this ghostly spouse to "anie mortall man." And on the plane of physiological relations, I think I have already shown that the husband who is an initiate in the third degree, who has trained his wife therein, can assure her of connubial bliss which is perpetual. The Borderland bridegroom has this advantage, too, over the earthly bridegroom; being able to read his partners thoughts, he can adapt himself to her most delicate fluctuations of sentiment at a moment's warning, and so never fail to be truly her companion.
"If one could prolong the happiness of love into marriage," wrote Rousseau, "we should have Paradise on earth."
In my own case, Paradise the Kingdom of Heaven has come into my earth life, and it has come through my heavenly bridegroom.
- ↑ This should be, of course, a sphere, and it is thus that Mrs. Gillen prefers to conceive the Universe, But a circle, being flat, is easier of comprehension by non-mathematicians when divided into sectors, and I have therefore adopted Mrs. Gillen's method of this easier representation.