War Letters from the Living Dead Man (20 page)

“Perhaps,” I said, “they have seen the light of the Christ, the true Beyond Man.”

“Perhaps,” he repeated.

“And you have seen it, too?”

“Faugh!” he said. “Are you ambitious to convert the devil?”

“Ah, no!”

Suddenly he turned to me:

“Will you take me for a pupil?”

“Again, no,” I answered. “You will make that request of some good woman, with a better chance of deceiving her.”

“So you know all the tricks?”

“My teacher has taught me much regarding the ways of your kind.”

“Then I bid you good evening,” he said, and disappeared in the darkness.

World for which I write, I am telling you these things that you may be armored with knowledge. When Satan asks you to convert him, beware lest he convert you. When Satan points to Beyond Man, even to Christ, be sure that his Christ is not Antichrist; be sure He is full of compassion, that His heart bleeds for the woes and
weakness
of the world, that His crown of thorns is the mark of His sacrifice for man, and not merely a becoming ornament. For, as He said:

“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

And also:

“Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many, for there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”

June 2

Letter 47

The New Brotherhood

I want to speak of the new race, the coming race. The world is big with child, and the present generation will look with wonder into the clear eyes of the infant that shall redeem its parent. Pin your faith to the standard of the new race, work for it, make the garments that it shall wear, and be ready for its coming. Already you are in touch with those who will help in its training, who will be its teachers and guides. Give yourself also to the Great Work that is planned for America in the coming days. No, you need not spend all your time there; but do not remain away too long. Come and go, that going away you may receive new impressions, and that coming back you may bring the romance of older lands to entertain and inspire the new land. But be ever loyal to the new.

In the untrodden wilderness of America there is strength that shall renew you from time to time. The cities of America will be redeemed by the wilderness. The cities are too worldly. They have forgotten God. In the open air, under the open sky, the message may be received by the awakened soul. Send the children out to the wilderness to drink from the uncontaminated springs. The water that flows through lead pipes may refresh the body; but the water of mountain springs refreshes the soul. Behind the veil of Nature is the face of the Great Mother, and though she does not always smile, yet her eyes are full of dreams and mysteries. Nature is not the devil. The devil is ever at war with Nature. Nature is Isis, the Mother. Do not listen to the blasphemers. They have confused the offices of Isis and of Typhon. It is Isis, Nature, which shall bring forth Horus. Go back to Nature and ask her for her message. She waits in the silence of the woods, and the voice of the brook is her whisper; when the wind stirs in the trees it is the rustling of her garments. The Mother is coming, O children of the new race! In her arms you shall know refreshing rest, and in her eyes you shall read the love that knows no selfishness, the bliss of self-giving.

Too long have you dwelt in cities, forgetting the Mother who bore you. Too long have you lived without the magnetism of the kind earth in contact with your naked feet. Too long have you trodden the dead, stony and unmagnetic streets, that take from you but give nothing. Go back to the woods and the streams. Read your destiny in the eyes of the stars themselves—not merely on a printed chart. Jupiter has a message for you which he will give only face to face, and so has the gentle Venus and the eager Mars. Go to them for your lessons, in the quiet of the hilltop alone with the Mother. Do not set up your temple in the marketplace. Let your cathedral be the aisles of the forest. Go to the city when you must, for it is always well to know the opposite. The cathedral is stiller after the voice of the mart.

Give honor where honor is due, to those who have led the children forth to learn the mysteries of the primeval life. You grown-ups are only taller children. Dance in a ring round the mulberry bush or round the campfire. In the smell of burning wood the visions may come, as I wrote you once before of your wood-fires in Paris. But what is a wood-fire in a Paris grate compared with a campfire in the woods? Yes, I was there the other night, on the outskirts of the gathering, and I enjoyed it, too. My greetings to the Chief! The salvation of America lies in this wildwood movement! Movement! Well may you call it that. It is stirred by the very forces of the earth herself; it is inspired by the race-spirit; it will go on and on, in ever-widening circles. Whoever puts a stone in the way of this work will stumble over it himself. Whoever brings Satanism into this movement will be devoured by the demonic forces. There will not be enough left of him to grease two sticks for the campfire. Rest you in peace. We watch, and with us the souls of all the thousands and tens of thousands and millions of native Americans, who cannot go on to their rest until they have passed on the torch of the Nature mysteries that were their heritage from their remote ancestors.

They must be despised by those who despoiled them; but their forgiveness shall redeem you, O America of the new race! Do you not know that many of those who made their escape into the rest of the “happy hunting ground” are already coming back to incarnation in the land they loved before? Look at the high cheekbones of many of the children, look at the eagle eyes and the straight taut forms. O America, you did a great wrong once in the pursuit of your destiny! Yes, you did. Now strive to atone. Let the reincarnated red children play in the wild woods, teach them the old code of honor and courage, and they will work hand in hand with the reincarnated souls that came by way of Europe, hand in hand shall they stand together in the Woodcraft Brotherhood. My salutations to the Chief!

July 9

Letter 48

In the Crucible

I am still profoundly interested in the land that gave me birth. There are dark days ahead for her, and the great soul of Abraham Lincoln is very near to the helm of State at this moment, when peace and war hang in the balance and the action of a day may decide the question. No irreparable injury must overtake this land. It is the great pioneer of race freedom. As I told you months ago, one of America’s hands threatens the other, and both threaten the whole body. May she keep peace so long as she can have peace with honor! But if the dark day comes, may she face it with squared shoulders; and if her foes be also those of her own household, it will not be the first time. A man once prayed to be saved from his friends, declaring that he could deal with his enemies himself.

The stillness of the Germans in America at this moment is potent with danger. If the hour comes when drastic action is necessary, they should be invited to return into the fold of their naturalization, and those who refuse should be dealt with severely, even to deportation. There yet remains one country which might receive them for transportation to that Fatherland they left—in quest of the freedom which they have now abused and betrayed. The world is in the crucible, and Satan is in the laboratory with all his cohorts. Our labor is to stand. It is not always easy to stand steady. Be calm, and trust in the Motherland that shall yet give birth to the new race, the synthesis of races.

Letter 49

Black Magic in America 

You have seen pretty clearly the methods employed by the evil forces to balk progress, to destroy the work of centuries, to destroy the workers for the future, and to frighten away those who seek to interfere with this maliciousness. Notice that none of this is constructive work. It is all destructive, tearing down. Wars of construction have been engineered by angels; but this is not a war of construction. Now let me tell you a few of the things against which the new race in America will have to guard itself. As always where the forces of progress are strong, the opposition is strong. I have written enough about the good influences of this new birth; but I want to give a few warnings, to analyze a few influences which are of a destructive character.

There is developing in America a great group of people who seek to gain control of the desire-nature and the will of others, that they may use them for their own purposes. These people are not all in one place, they are not organized into one body but into many bodies, and some of them are working quite independently. But in the astral world, and in the language of us who work in that world, they are known as a “group.” They teach to those that will pay them, either in money or in service, certain rules for controlling the mind of self and of others. They teach the rudiments of astral knowledge to the many, and they teach more advanced principles to the few. Some of their teachings are true, some of their teachings are false; but there are few among them who undertake any real discipline of character with their students. As one profound teacher has said, for every step in psychic development, three steps should be taken in the development of character. I need not name those who are most criminally active in teaching the formulas of black magic to men and women who are utterly unfit to be trusted with that knowledge.

The question will naturally arise in the mind of the reader, what is black magic? I think I have given a similar definition before, but you may restate it thus: Black magic is an attempt to gain control over the will or the astral or the mind of one’s fellows, through means other than the normal physical or the legitimate mental influence by word or pen; be it through the use of elementals of nature, artificial elementals, or one’s own mental or elemental nature. Black magic may be deliberately used to influence, or black magic may be deliberately used to injure; and its votaries often employ the substances of the body of the victim, through which to gain sympathetic control of his astral and etheric nature. I want to say to those who think it smart or amusing to fool with these things: Beware of any man or of any woman who by normal or abnormal means seeks to get possession of the fluids of your body, especially the blood and the other vital fluids. I shall not go into detail here. Those who accept my warning owe me no thanks; those who disregard my warning do so at their own peril.

It gives me no amusement thus to thrust myself between the evil forces and their victims. By so doing I draw down upon myself the rage of those forces that I thwart so far as I can. Be it so! I am competent to deal with them. And I want here to notify anyone who thinks to destroy my work, or to destroy those who with self-abnegation and selfless courage are helping me in the work of trying to save my country from the forces of hell which are now ravaging Europe—I want to notify any evil magician who is interested in this matter, that if he gets in the way of my resolve it will be he who will suffer and not I. The ring which I and the Masters draw round our workers can be passed with evil intent only at the peril of the one who passes. This is no threat to use evil magic. We do not use evil magic. But we know how to deflect a malicious current from its chosen victim, so that it returns with overwhelming force upon its own source. And I also want to say to those who in their ignorance or wantonness allow themselves to be used as cats paws to draw the devil’s chestnuts from the fire, that fire will burn, and that the devil’s hot chestnuts stick to the fingers. This is an unpleasant subject. I will now leave it.

Let me talk to those who are ignorant of these matters, and most people are ignorant—even those who have “studied psychism.” Many an innocent (or half-innocent) soul has been driven nearly insane by the pressure of the evil thoughts of others, by the will-driven thoughts of others. Let me advise such not further to weaken themselves by fear, but to strengthen themselves by prayer. I have said that there is a god and a devil in every one of you. Turn to the god for protection from the devil. If there were no devil in you, the devils of others could not harm you. Remember that. Set your own devil to serve your own god. If you want to use signs and symbols, meditate on the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ is profound enough for a lifetime’s meditation. Do not use evil magic to protect yourself against evil magic. Call on the god within to send evil back to its source.

Protect yourself before sleep by prayer to your god for protection. The evil workers can sometimes reach your soul in sleep when they cannot reach you while awake. The child’s prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” is more potent than a magician’s spells. Childish, you say? Yes, but I am writing now for those who are children in these things, be they seven or seventy. Of all countries on earth, America is the most abysmally ignorant of the dangers of evil magic. Be willing to be children until you acquire adult knowledge of these subjects. “I am in no danger, for I understand these things,” is often said with self-gratulation by these who are in the very grip of the evil forces. Truly, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

If you want an added protection, my children, guard your own evil passions and resentful thoughts, your jealous emotions and unkind criticism of others. The devils ride on waves of anger and resentment.

Beware also of temptations, remembering that young souls are tempted through their faults, greater souls through their virtues. Be not deceived into saying there is no evil. Evil is—so long as good is. “Beyond good and evil” is a state to which few of you can aspire, and you have no conception of it. But “beyond good and evil” is a mighty slogan for the temptation and bewilderment of vain souls. When you are really beyond good and evil you will not gossip about your neighbors, nor envy them their charm or possessions, nor try to use them for your own ends, nor worry lest some evil person shall do you harm, nor twist your faults till they seem virtues, nor deceive yourself as to your motives. Examine yourselves, my children. Look for your faults. If you can find no fault in yourself, hang your harp on the nearest willow, for your progress is at an end. Man progresses through recognizing his faults, through transmuting them and transcending them. If you are perfect, this world is no place for you. “Beyond good and evil,” indeed!