CHAPTER
X.
MY JOURNEY TOWARDS THE END OF EARTH BEGINS. – THE
ADEPTS' BROTHERHOOD.
My companion did not attempt to watch over my motions or in any way to interfere
with my freedom.
" I will for a time necessarily be absent," he said, " arranging
for our journey, and while I am getting ready you must employ yourself as best
you can. I ask you, however, now to swear that, as you have promised, you will
not seek your wife and children."
To this I agreed.
" Hold up your hand," he said, and I repeated after him:
" All this I most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, with a firm and
steadfast resolution to keep and perform my oath, without the least
equivocation, mental reservation or self-evasion whatever."
" That will answer; see that you keep your oath this time," he said,
and he departed. Several days were consumed before he returned, and during that
time I was an inquisitive and silent listener to the various conjectures others
were making regarding my abduction which event was becoming of general interest.
Some of the theories advanced were quite near the truth, others wild and
erratic. How preposterous it seemed to me that the actor himself could be in the
very seat of the disturbance, willing, anxious to testify, ready to prove the
truth concerning his position, and yet unable even to obtain a respectful
hearing from those most interested in his recovery. Men gathered together
discussing the " outrage "; women, children, even, talked of little
else, and it was evident that the entire country was aroused. New political
issues took their rise from the event, but the man who was the prime cause of
the excitement was for a period a willing and unwilling listener, as he had been
a willing and unwilling actor in the tragedy.
One morning my companion drove up in a light carriage, drawn by a span of fine,
spirited, black horses.
" We are ready now," he said, and my unprecedented journey began.
Wherever we stopped, I heard my name mentioned. Men combined against men,
brother was declaiming against brother, neighbor was against neighbor,
everywhere suspicion was in the air.
" The passage of time alone can quiet these people," said I.
" The usual conception of the term Time- an indescribable something flowing
at a constant rate- is erroneous," replied my comrade. " Time is
humanity's best friend, and should be pictured as a ministering angel, instead
of a skeleton with hour-glass and scythe. Time does not fly, but is permanent
and quiescent, while restless, force-impelled matter rushes onward. Force and
matter fly; Time reposes. At our birth we are wound up like a machine, to move
for a certain number of years, grating against Time. We grind against that
complacent spirit, and wear not Time but ourselves away. We hold within
ourselves a certain amount of energy, which, an evanescent form of matter, is
the opponent of Time. Time has no existence with inanimate objects. It is a
conception of the human intellect. Time is rest, perfect rest, tranquillity such
as man never realizes unless he becomes a part of the sweet silences toward
which human life and human mind are drifting. So much for Time. Now for Life.
Disturbed energy in one of its forms, we call Life; and this Life is the great
enemy of peace, the opponent of steadfast perfection. Pure energy, the soul of
the universe, permeates all things with which man is now acquainted, but when at
rest is imperceptible to man, while disturbed energy, according to its
condition, is apparent either as matter or as force. A substance or material
body is a manifestation resulting from a disturbance of energy. The agitating
cause removed, the manifestations disappear, and thus a universe may be
extinguished, without unbalancing the cosmos that remains. The worlds known to
man are conditions of abnormal energy moving on separate planes through what men
call space. They attract to themselves bodies of similar description, and thus
influence one another- they have each a separate existence, and are swayed to
and fro under the influence of the various disturbances in energy common to
their rank or order, which we call forms of forces. Unsettled energy also
assumes numerous other expressions that are unknown to man, but which in all
perceptible forms is characterized by motion. Pure energy can not be appreciated
by the minds of mortals. There are invisible worlds besides those perceived by
us in our planetary system, unreachable centers of ethereal structure about us
that stand in a higher plane of development than earthly matter which is a gross
form of disturbed energy. There are also lower planes. Man's acquaintance with
the forms of energy is the result of his power of perceiving the forms of matter
of which he is a part. Heat, light, gravitation, electricity and magnetism are
ever present in all perceivable substances, and, although purer than earth, they
are still manifestations of absolute energy, and for this reason are sensible to
men, but more evanescent than material bodies. Perhaps you can conceive that if
these disturbances could be removed, matter or force would be resolved back into
pure energy, and would vanish. Such a dissociation is an ethereal existence, and
as pure energy the life spirit of all material things is neither cold nor hot,
heavy nor light, solid, liquid nor gaseous- men can not, as mortals now exist,
see, feel, smell, taste, or even conceive of it. It moves through space as we do
through it, a world of itself as transparent to matter as matter is to it,
insensible but ever present, a reality to higher existences that rest in other
planes, but not to us an essence subject to scientific test, nor an entity. Of
these problems and their connection with others in the unseen depths beyond, you
are not yet in a position properly to judge, but before many years a new sense
will be given you or a development of latent senses by the removal of those more
gross, and a partial insight into an unsuspected unseen, into a realm to you at
present unknown.
" It has been ordained that a select few must from time to time pass over
the threshold that divides a mortal's present life from the future, and your lot
has been cast among the favored ones. It is or should be deemed a privilege to
be permitted to pass farther than human philosophy has yet gone, into an
investigation of the problems of life; this I say to encourage you. We have in
our order a handful of persons who have received the calculated fruits of the
close attention others have given to these subjects which have been handed to
them by the generations of men who have preceded. You are destined to become as
they are. This study of semi-occult forces has enabled those selected for the
work to master some of the concealed truths of being, and by the partial
development of a new sense or new senses, partly to triumph over death. These
facts are hidden from ordinary man, and from the earth-bound workers of our
brotherhood, who can not even interpret the words they learn. The methods by
which they are elucidated have been locked from man because the world is not
prepared to receive them, selfishness being the ruling passion of debased
mankind, and publicity, until the chain of evidence is more complete, would
embarrass their further evolutions, for man as yet lives on the selfish
plane."
" Do you mean that, among men, there are a few persons possessed of powers
such as you have mentioned?"
" Yes; they move here and there through all orders of society, and their
attainments are unknown, except to one another, or, at most, to but few persons.
These adepts are scientific men, and may not even be recognized as members of
our organization; indeed it is often necessary, for obvious reasons, that they
should not be known as such. These studies must constantly be prosecuted in
various directions, and some monitors must teach others to perform certain
duties that are necessary to the grand evolution. Hence, when a man has become
one of our brotherhood, from the promptings that made you one of us, and has
been as ready and determined to instruct outsiders in our work as you have been,
it is proper that he should in turn be compelled to serve our people, and
eventually, mankind."
" Am I to infer from this," I exclaimed, a sudden light breaking upon
me, " that the alchemistic manuscript that led me to the fraternity to
which you are related may have been artfully designed to serve the interest of
that organization?" To this question I received no reply. After an
interval, I again sought information concerning the order, and with more
success.
" I understand that you propose that I shall go on a journey of
investigation for the good of our order and also of humanity."
" True; it is necessary that our discoveries be kept alive, and it is
essential that the men who do this work accept the trust of their own accord. He
who will not consent to add to the common stock of knowledge and understanding,
must be deemed a drone in the hive of nature- but few persons, however, are
called upon to serve as you must serve. Men are scattered over the world with
this object in view, and are unknown to their families or even to other members
of the order; they hold in solemn trust our sacred revelations, and impart them
to others as is ordained, and thus nothing perishes; eventually humanity will
profit.
" Others, as you soon will be doing, are now exploring assigned sections of
this illimitable field, accumulating further knowledge, and they will report
results to those whose duty it is to retain and formulate the collected sum of
facts and principles. So it is that, unknown to the great body of our
brotherhood, a chosen number, under our esoteric teachings, are gradually
passing the dividing line that separates life from death, matter from spirit,
for we have members who have mastered these problems. We ask, however, no aid of
evil forces or of necromancy or black art, and your study of alchemy was of no
avail, although to save the vital truths alchemy is a part of our work. We
proceed in exact accordance with natural laws, which will yet be known to all
men. Sorrow, suffering, pain of all descriptions, are enemies to the members of
our order, as they are to mankind broadly, and we hope in the future so to
control the now hidden secrets of Nature as to be able to govern the
antagonistic disturbances in energy with which man now is everywhere thwarted,
to subdue the physical enemies of the race, to affiliate religious and
scientific thought, cultivating brotherly love, the foundation and capstone, the
cement and union of this ancient fraternity."
" And am I really to take an important part in this scheme? Have I been set
apart to explore a section of the unknown for a bit of hidden knowledge, and to
return again?"
" This I will say," he answered, evading a direct reply, " you
have been selected for a part that one in a thousand has been required to
undertake. You are to pass into a field that will carry you beyond the present
limits of human observation. This much I have been instructed to impart to you
in order to nerve you for your duty. I seem to be a young man; really I am aged.
You seem to be infirm and old, but you are young.
Many years ago, cycles ago as men record time, I was promoted to do a certain
work because of my zealous nature; like you, I also had to do penance for an
error. I disappeared, as you are destined to do, from the sight of men. I
regained my youth; yours has been lost forever, but you will regain more than
your former strength. We shall both exist after this generation of men has
passed away, and shall mingle with generations yet to be born, for we shall
learn how to restore our youthful vigor, and will supply it time and again to
earthly matter. Rest assured also that the object of our labors is of the most
laudable nature, and we must be upheld under all difficulties by the fact that
multitudes of men who are yet to come will be benefited thereby.
