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Karma is thought: spiritual, mental, psychic, physical thought.

Mental thought is of atomic life-matter in the mental zodiac.

—The Zodiac.

THE

WORD

Vol. 8 JANUARY 1909 No. 4

Copyright 1909 by H. W. PERCIVAL

KARMA

VI
Mental Karma

A GENIUS does not depend on education or training for his powers, like those whose faculties are of a lesser degree. Genius is sudden, spontaneous use of knowledge not acquired in the present life. Genius is the result of effort devoted to a given line of work, the nature of which is shown by the faculty through which genius appears. One who sacrifices other considerations to the particular work to which he has devoted his life may not in that life attain an extraordinary knowledge of and ability to express his ideal. Nevertheless, his devotion to the work is the beginning of his genius.

The genius of Mozart, indicated that the line of his effort in past incarnations was that of music. His entire thought must have been devoted to an understanding and his work to the practice of music. With his mental energies bent on the acquirement of the knowledge of music, and his mind focussed on his subject, he had, as the result of those efforts and training, borne into him from his higher mind, that which he had trained the mind and which it was attuned to receive. He did not require long years of training. He could at once use his body because the over-knowledge was present and operated through his child form. He was able to rise into the realm from which music comes and there he saw and understood that which he symbolized and presented to the world through his compositions. The same may be said of a Shakespeare, a Raphael, or Phidias, as to the particular work of each.

There is a good and a bad side to genius. The good is brought out when the powers of genius are used to serve the ideal which it represents, the senses being subordinated to that ideal, and when the genius is broadened into other realms of thought. The karma of a genius who uses his genius so that other minds may see that which he has seen, and so as to bring the light of genius into the world and to further his own insight into the world, is, that he will attain to a development of all his faculties and the knowledge of himself. The bad side is seen when genius is used to gratify the senses and provide them with sensation. In such case, the use of other faculties than the one required by his genius will be lost, until such a person may become a thing to be despised. So if a genius gives way to inordinate appetites of drunkenness, gluttony or debauchery, the quality of genius will be present in a succeeding life, but other faculties will be lacking. Such a case was that of the person named Blind Tom, a negro who had a remarkable musical genius, but whose instincts and habits are said to have been brutal and loathsome. One who devotes his mind entirely to mathematics, but in its application to material ends, may become a mathematical genius, but will be defective in other respects.

The development of genius alone is not the best development, as it is not that of a balanced nature. A balanced nature develops all faculties equally and uses the mind to acquire knowledge of all things. The development of such a man is slower than that of a genius, but it is surer. He acquires not only knowledge and use of the senses and faculties in their relation to the world, but acquires the spiritual faculties and powers which gain him entrance into all worlds above the physical, whereas the ultimate attainment of a genius is only the ability to use the genius of his faculty on its line.

As a race we are entering the sign Sagittary (♐︎), thought. Each century has produced its thinkers, but we are entering a period in which thought, as thought, will be recognized, its reality, possibilities and power will be more and more appreciated. This is the age in which many of the old accounts must be settled and stricken off and new accounts begun. This age with the beginning of the formation of the future race is to be the season for many new mental appearances. We have long been guided by desire only in our mental operations. Desire, scorpio (♏︎), is the sign in which the old nations and races have been working. This new era changes the conditions for growth and development. This new era is the age of thought, and we are now and will be working in the sign of the zodiac, sagittary, thought. It is owing to season and cycle that so many new phases of thought are coming into existence. There is an inrush of the old races in the formation of the new race which is beginning in America.

In America have sprung up new systems of thought, cults, religions and societies of all kinds, mushroom-like, that have spread not only over the United States, but have extended their branches to all parts of the world. The world of thought has been explored to a slight degree only. Vast areas remain to be discovered and to be made known to the mind of man. He will do this by the use of thought. Mind is the explorer, thought must be the vehicle of its travel.

From the number of books written on philosophy, religion, arts and sciences, it might seem that if thoughts are things, and books the representatives of thoughts, the world of thought must be crowded. However, the world of thought is traveled by human thought on a small portion, and which borders on the psychic and physical worlds. There are highways and beaten roads as well as the paths where here and there some independent thinker has made a trail between the beaten roads, which, as he continued, became more distinct and extended, and as he completed his system of thought the trail became a road and could be traveled at any time by himself and other thinkers. The schools of thought we know of represent these highways and paths in the world of thought.

When the mind begins to grow out of the physical, through the psychic into the mental world of thought, it goes out in thought with great hardship and difficulty. With the discovery that it is in the world of thought and above the passions, anger and blind desire of the psychic world, it feels elated, but on unfamiliar ground. Continuing, it finds itself in one of the schools of thought.

At times, a thinker tries to plunge into the unknown regions on either side of the road, but the effort is too great and he is glad to retrace his steps, if possible, to the beaten track. So long as these beaten roads are followed, men will live over and over the same routine, be ruled and hampered by the same desires and emotions of the psychic world, and take occasional journeys into the world of conventional thought.

Such has been the mental karma in times past. But within recent times a new, yet old, race of Egos have begun to incarnate. They are even now finding their way into the world of thought. Among the multitude of modern movements are Spiritualism, Christian Science, Mental Science, and such others as are included in the term New Thought, the practice of Pranayama, and Theosophy. These will have to do with the future thought of the race. Each of these movements is old in its essential teaching, but new in its presentation. Each has its good and its bad aspects. In some the good predominates, in others the evil.

Spiritualism was known to every ancient people. The phenomena of spiritualism are well known and condemned among the Hindus and other Asiatic races. Many of the tribes of the American Indians have their mediums, through whom they have materializations and communicate with their departed.

Spiritualism appeared when Science was making great headway in establishing its theories of evolution and of materialism. The particular lesson spiritualism teaches is, that death does not end all, that there is a survival of something after the death of the body. This fact was denied by science; but as a fact, it has overcome all objections and contrary theories of science. By permitting social intercourse between the living and departed, it has endeared itself to the hearts of many of those who sorrowed and suffered from the loss of relatives and friends and in many cases it has strengthened their faith in a future life. But, aside from the lessons which it has taught and is teaching, it has done a great deal of harm. Its harm comes in establishing relations between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Some of the communications received from the other side have been lucid and even of benefit, but they are few and meagre as compared with the mass of useless, vapid, and nonsensical babbling of the seance room and would have little weight in the forum of reason. The evil results come in exciting and making the medium an automaton, possessed by low, degrading, extraneous influences; in causing the idle curious to run after the medium for materialization and tests; in lowering the moral tone of the persons obsessed, and in causing them to commit acts of immorality. The practice of mediumship often results in insanity and death. If the spiritistic practices were generally persisted in by the people they would establish the religion of ancestor worship and people would become worshippers of dead men’s desires.

Incarnating with the new race of Egos are some who confuse, confound and destroy. They appear with the new race of builders, because the old new race neglected in past times to make plain the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and some of the race excused themselves for wrongfully making mental images to influence those whom they wanted to control. Now that they would see and build new images of thought more in accordance with law, they are beset by their past thoughts, presented often by many whom they have deceived. These confounders attack the religions of the countries among whom they appear. They also attack the foremost learning of the age. Appearing in Christian nations and in the age of science, they offer insult to Christianity and Science by using the name of each as their title. They change the meaning of the word Christian, as used in the religion of that name. They denounce and repudiate the sciences. Combining the two words as the banner under which they want to be known, Christian Science, Science of Christianity, they issue dicta as with absolute authority, and propound doctrines to supersede the fundamental teachings of Christianity. They deny the facts established by science and would give the term a false meaning by forcing them to their ends. Each of the bodies whose names the Christian Scientists or “Scientists,” for short, have adopted, are receiving in their turn some of the karma administered by them to others. A curious feature indeed lies in the adoption of these two names.

The first term is singularly free from the implication of Christ, either as principle or personality, because the “Scientists” claim that there is nothing that is not God, and demand directly of God the cures which they wish performed. Those of the Christian faith appeal to Christ directly as the saviour of their souls. The “Scientists” deny the existence of sin, of evil and of death, and say that all is God—which leaves nothing to be done by Christ. As an evidence of the divinity of Christ, his followers point to the miraculous cures which he performed and the healing of the sick, which only Christ could do. Christian Scientists have healed the sick and have performed their cures without the aid of Christ, but they point to the cures of Jesus to establish their right to cure. They point to him to establish a precedent, that they may prove their claims to those of Christian faith. But they ignore the teachings of Christ.

Science could have received no more cruel thrust than by the adoption of the name of Science by the Christian Scientists, because all work that Science held most worthy, Christian Scientists denied. Science said: All is matter, there is no God. Christian Science says: All is God, there is no matter. Science said: Nothing can be done by faith alone. Christian Science says: Everything can be done by faith alone. Science regarded the claims of Christian Scientists as wild fancies, childish prattle, or the outpourings of unsound brains; yet the Christian Scientists have, in some cases, apparently made good their claims to cure.

Two classes mainly make up the active Christian Scientists, those who enter the faith on account of its cures and those who enter for money and position. Those who enter on account of the cures effected are the mainstays of the church. Having seen the “miracle” of cure, they believe in it and preach it. This class is largely composed of such as were formerly nervous wrecks, and people who were possessed of hallucinations. On the other hand, those who are in it for money are business people who see in the new faith a new field for speculation.

The church is young, its parts are newly organized and the tree has not yet had time to show the effects of the worms, disease and profit, now eating at its heart. The worm of disease, physical, psychic and mental, grows in those who have come into the church on account of its system of cure. While they appear to be cured they are not cured in reality. The “Scientists” will be unable to make good their claims; the defenders of that faith will lose heart, will fear that they have been deceived and will attack the church and its leaders with all the venom of their disease. The worm of profit, the love of gold, is already eating into the core of the “Scientist” tree. Place and position in the management of the finances will cause quarrels, and disagreement will precipitate and will disrupt the church when too large profits are sought by one side as against the other, when the business management thinks it expedient to increase the assessments on the shareholders in the faith.

A branch of the same family of “Scientists” known by the improperly and unjustly used word science, are those who speak of their branch as being Mental, to distinguish it from the branch called Christian.

Many well meaning, sincere and honest people are drawn into the different beliefs and practices of these so-called “Scientists.” They must extricate themselves from the glamour and hypnotic, psychic spell thrown around them if they would retain their mental balance, remain sane and free in mind to see the facts on each plane as they are.

(To be continued)