THE

WORD

THOUGHT

WITH thought begins the third quaternary.

The first quaternary: consciousness (aries), motion (taurus), substance (gemini), breath (cancer), lies in the noumenal world. The second quaternary: life (leo), form (virgo), sex (libra), and desire (scorpio), are the processes by which the principles of the noumenal world are expressed in the manifested phenomenal world. The manifested phenomenal world is called into existence by breath and ends with individuality. The third quaternary, beginning with thought, consists of thought (sagittary), individuality (capricorn), soul (aquarius), and will (pisces).

As life is the beginning of the process in the building of a body for the outer senses, so thought is the beginning of the process in the building of the body of the inner senses.

Thought is a fusing of mind and desire. The mind through the breath blows on the unformed body of desire in man, and desire arises as a shapeless mass, combines with the breath, is given form and becomes thought.

Thoughts enter the body only through certain centers. The character of the thought may be known by the function of the center through which it enters. The number and combinations of thoughts are more numerous and varied than the millions of beings from whom they come, but all thoughts may be classified under four heads. These are sex, elemental, emotional, and intellectual.

Thoughts of the sex nature stimulate and enter through that center and, acting on the solar plexus and arousing the organs of the abdominal region, they rise like a hot breath to the heart. If they obtain entrance there they rise as indistinct forms to the throat and thence pass into the head where they are given form — as clear and distinct as the individual development will allow. When one feels a stimulus in the sex region he may know that some extraneous influence is acting on him. If he would expel or divert the thought he must refuse to sanction it when it asks

Above is light, below is life. Again the order changes, and now, through the aspiring thought, these manifested worlds of life and form, sex and desire, and thought itself, are changed by alchemy to light. THE ZODIAC. entrance in the heart, and by feeling in the heart a love for the being who is within the body, or by turning the thought to the highest consciousness which he is able to reach and invoking its presence. The feeling will then pass into one of aspiration and exaltation, and then peace. It is much easier to transmute a thought than to drive it away. No thought can be killed at once as is sometimes erroneously believed. It may be driven away but it will return according to cyclic law. But if it is refused sustenance each time that it returns it will gradually lose power and will finally fade away.

Thoughts of an elemental nature enter the body through the navel and the pores of the skin. Elemental thoughts are those of anger, hatred, malice, envy, lust, hunger and thirst, and those which excite the five organs of sense, such as gluttony, or seeing a conflagration. They act on the solar plexus and stimulate the tree of nerves, with its root in the sex center, and its branches in the solar plexus, or play on that tree of nerves, the root of which is in the brain, with branches in the solar plexus.

These elemental thoughts are acted on and given force by the abdominal organs and rise to the heart from where, if they receive sanction, they rise to the head, take definite form and are sent forth from one of the openings like the eye or mouth, else they descend, disturb the body and, by affecting all its atoms, cause it to respond to their action. Any elemental force or evil thought which thus finds entrance through the navel can be changed by employing the mind at once with some definite thought of a different nature, or by changing the thought to one of unselfish love as before suggested; else the thought will be accentuated in force, given form according to the individual’s capacity to think, and be sent forth into the world to act on others who will permit it.

Thoughts of a human emotional nature enter the heart by way of the openings and centers in the breasts. What emotional thoughts (sometimes called feelings) are, can be best understood by considering the aversion which some people have against seeing the spilling of blood, or seeing poverty or the sufferings of others when they are brought directly into contact with such misery, but forget about it as soon as the sights and sounds have disappeared, then religious mania, the psychism of revivals, the enthusiasm of fighting, unreasonable sympathy, and the impulse of a rushing mob. According to the character of the emotions they descend from the heart to the lower regions, or rise and take form in the head and are there raised to high intellection and power. All kinds of thoughts and impressions seek admission to the head because the head is the intellectual region where impressions are given form and active thoughts are remodeled, elaborated and embellished. The head has seven openings: nostrils, mouth, ears, and eyes, which, together with the skin, admit respectively the five elements known to the ancients as earth, water, air, fire, and ether, corresponding to which are our senses of smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing, and touching. The elements and the objects of sense act on or through these sense channels which start into operation one or more of the five functions of the mind. The five functions of the mind operate through the five senses and the five organs of sense and are the processes of the material side of the mind.

The four classes of thoughts have their origin from two sources: thoughts which come from without and thoughts which come from within. It has been shown how the three first named classes come from without, stimulate their respective centers and rise to the head. All such thoughts serve as the material and food which enters the mental stomach just as the physical food is taken into the stomach. Then the mental food passes along the digestive tract similar to that of the alimentary canal, where it is acted on by the organs in the head having analogous functions to those in the abdominal and pelvic regions. The cerebellum is the mental stomach, and the convolutions of the cerebrum the canal along which the material for thought passes, in the process of digestion and assimilation, before it can be sent forth from the forehead, eye, ear, nose, or mouth, fully formed into the world, on its mission of good or evil. So the impressions or thoughts received through the lower three centers are from an external source and may serve as food for the intellect to fashion into form.

Thought which comes from within has its origin in the heart or in the head. If in the heart, it is a soft steady light which radiates an unemotional love for all things, but which may become an emotional love and pass out in response to the cry of humanity, through the breasts, if it is not raised as a flame of aspiration to the head. When so raised it may be analyzed, synthesized, and balanced by the universal motion into the thought which clarifies the five intellectual processes mentioned. The five-fold function of the mind through the senses will then be appreciated and understood. The thought form which originates within the head can scarcely be called a thought as it comes fully formed without any mental process. Simultaneous with its appearance in the head there is an action in the region at the base of the spine which causes the head to be filled with light. In this light is comprehended the interior world of thought. The source of the thought which comes from within is one’s ego or Higher Self. Such a thought can be called at will only by one who has reached illumination and attained to wisdom. To all others it comes unexpectedly, in deep meditation, or by fervent aspiration.

Thought is not mind; it is not desire. Thought is the combined action of desire and mind. In this sense it may be called the lower mind. Thought is caused either by the action of desire on mind, or of mind on desire. Thought has two directions; that which is associated with desire and the senses, is the appetites, passions, and ambitions, and that which is associated with the mind in its aspirations.

In the vaulted blue dome of a cloudless sky a wind blows and a fleecy filmy mist-like mass appears. From this, forms appear which increase in size and become heavier and darker until the entire sky is overcast and the light of the sun shut out. A storm rages, clouds and other forms are lost in the darkness, broken only by a lightning flash. Were the prevailing darkness to continue, death would spread over the land. But light is more permanent than darkness, the clouds are precipitated in rain, light once more dispels the darkness, and the results of the storm are to be seen. Thoughts are generated in a similar manner when desire takes form in contact with the mind.

Each cell in the body contains the material and germs of thought. Impressions and outer thoughts are received through the sex, elemental, and emotional centers; odors, tastes, sounds, colors, and feelings (of touch), pass into the body by the gateway of the senses through the five intellectual centers; the mind breathes rhythmically, and simultaneously with a double motion in two opposite directions, through the entire body, and thereby awakens and liberates the germs of life; desire gives direction to life which rises with a vortex-like movement to the heart, receiving impetus from along its path as it ascends. If it is a thought of some fierce passion, lust, or anger, which gains entrance to and sanction of the heart, a steamy, murky, cloud-like mass will ascend to the head, may stupefy the mind and shut out the light of reason from the heart. Then the storm of passion will rage, lurid thoughts like lightning flashes will shoot forth, and while the storm of passion lasts blind passion must prevail; if it continues insanity or death is the result. But as in nature, the fury of such storm is soon spent, and its results may be seen in the light of reason. The desire which gains entrance to the heart — if it be of blind passion it can be subdued — arises in a vari-colored funnel-shaped flame to the throat, thence to the cerebellum and cerebrum where it receives all the elements of sense in its processes of digestion, assimilation, transformation, development, and birth. The olfactory center gives it odor and solidity, the gustatory center causes it to be parched and bitter or moist and sweet, the auditory center tones it into a harsh or melodious note, the visual center gives it figure and enriches it with light and color, the perceptive center endows it with feeling and purpose, and it is then born into the world from one of the centers of the head a fully formed entity, a curse or a blessing to humanity. It is a child of the mind and desire. Its cycle of life depends on its creator. From him it draws its sustenance. Thoughts which do not receive the proper nourishment during the process of gestation, or which are prematurely born, are like grey skeletons, or lifeless shapeless things, which wander aimlessly about until drawn into the atmosphere of a person of uncertain desire, to pass in and out of his mind like a ghost through an empty house. But all thoughts created by a mind are the children of that mind, who is responsible for them. They collect in groups according to their character and determine the destinies of the future lives of their creator. Like a child, a thought returns for sustenance to its parent. Entering his atmosphere it announces its presence by a feeling corresponding to its character, and demands attention. If the mind refuses to entertain or listen to its claims it is compelled by the law of cycles to withdraw until the cycle allows of its return. Meantime it loses strength and is less distinct in form. But if the mind does entertain its child, it remains until it is refreshed and invigorated and then, like a child whose desire has been gratified, it rushes off to join its companions in games and to make room for the next applicant. Thus man is the victim of his thoughts, who pursue him throughout life, who create his heaven or hell after death, who crystalize into the astral design-form which embodies the hereditary tendencies of his past, into which he reincarnates, and from which the old seeds of thought take root and spring into life and form in their season and cycle.

Thoughts come to one in clusters, in clouds. The ruling influences of the zodiacal constellations, in connection with one’s seven principles determine the advent of his thoughts, and the measure of the cycle of their return. As he has nourished thoughts of a certain kind, on their return to him in life after life, so he has sufficiently strengthened them, and so they in their turn have weakened the power of resistance of his mind and of the atoms of his body, until the appearance of these thoughts, moods, emotions and impulses, has the power and irresistible terror of fate. Thoughts accumulate, solidify, crystalize and become physical forms, acts and events, in the life of an individual as well as of a nation. Thus come the sudden uncontrollable tendencies to commit suicide, to murder, to steal, to lust, as well as to sudden acts of kindness and of self-sacrifice. Thus come the uncontrollable moods of gloom, of rancor, of malice, of despondency, of an uncertain doubt and fear. Thus comes the birth into this world with a character of kindness, generosity, humor, or serenity, and their opposites.

Man thinks and nature responds by marshalling his thoughts in a continuous procession while he looks on with wondering gaze, unmindful of the cause. Man thinks in passion, envy and anger, and fumes and frets with nature and his fellow man. Man thinks and fructifies nature by his thought, and nature brings forth her progeny in all organic forms as the children of his thoughts. Trees, flowers, beasts, reptiles, birds, are in their forms the crystallization of his thoughts, while in each of their different natures is a portrayal and specialization of one of his particular desires. Nature reproduces according to a given type, but the thought of man determines the type, and the type changes only with his thought. Tigers, lambs, peacocks, parrots, and turtle-doves, will continue to appear so long as man shall specialize them by the character of his thought. The entities experiencing life in animal bodies must have their character and form determined by the thought of man until they themselves can think. Then they will no longer need his aid, but will build their own forms even as the thought of man now builds his own and theirs.

As a lemniscate, man stands in the noumenal and phenomenal worlds. Through him substance differentiates as spirit-matter and unfolds in this physical world in its seven conditions from spirit to matter. Through man, who stands at the center, these seven conditions are harmonized and re-become substance. He is the translator who gives form to the invisible when he condenses and solidifies it—through thought. He changes solid matter into the invisible and again into the visible — always by thought. So he continues in his processes of changing and refining, creating and dissolving, destroying and building his own bodies, the animal and vegetable worlds, the characteristics of the nations, the climates of the earth, the conformation of its continents, its youth and age and youth throughout the cycles—always through thought. So by means of thought he carries out his part in the great work of changing matter until it becomes Consciousness.