The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul

To build, and keep in order, and tune the Harp, constitutes the science of music. Some day, when we have leisure and inclination, we may turn our attention to the Musician, but that day seems far off. We admit that his function is purposive. He, no doubt, has designs on the Harp, and upon us, but we are handling musical instruments at present, and if he objects to our calling ourselves “Musicians” (psychologists) he is impertinent, and should study the science of music, or keep silent.

I am not “begging the question” in regard to the human soul. I am simply emphasizing the fact of the Individual Intelligence, which, at the point of equilibrium, sweeps the strings with that harmony which is the soul of music.

This Harp of a thousand strings, is indeed, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Its physics and kinetics; its consonants and dissonants; its shifting keyboards; its changes in pitch, rhythm, and harmony from atom and molecule, to neurons, cells and mass; with the tides of life – blood, plasma, water, air, magnetism – sweeping the whole at every breath or pulse beat, to the cry of the builder – Life – “out with the old! in with the new!” and yet the conscious identity in health, typically unchanged and unchanging —causative, designed, scientific– yea verily! and purposive, human, intelligent, spiritual, divine, but a dead corpse, given over to decomposition the moment it is bereft of that something we feel, and know, and name – the Individual Intelligence– the Master Musician; or the staggering, drunk, crazy fiddler, with this Harp of a thousand strings, twanging perhaps in a mad-house!

Put the house in order; analyze, and classify; adjust the furniture with the handmaids of science, art, and beauty in evidence and at call; but for goodness’ sake! stop hypnotizing the musician – “Just a little” – under the fallacy or the pretense of strengthening the Will by weakening it just a little more! This is “giving your patients fits, because you are death on fits”! Rescue Science from this atheromatous degeneration, and then suppress the dabblers in “black magic” who pose as Hypnotists, as Münsterberg advises.

For clear intelligence and exhaustive analysis, Münsterberg’s “Psychotherapy” is a masterpiece, but his psychic equation of causative and purposive, with all his mathesis, not only remains unsolved, but leads to confusion, from the false light shed on the unknown quantity, and his failure to indicate the gnosis; the demarcation between automatism and purposive Intelligence.

That this confusion exists in the daily life of the average individual whose evolution is still incomplete; that it constitutes a large per cent. of all cases of “dominant ideas,” obsessions, riotous emotions and passions; that it is nowhere recognized and defined in modern psychology, or made synthetically clear in modern philosophy, all these lapses make it all the more necessary that it should be clearly defined and made plain as the basis of Scientific Psychology.

In addition to all this, if Münsterberg’s conclusions and applications are unsound because psychologically unscientific at the point; for example, where he almost hesitatingly indorses hypnosis, however qualified or safeguarded, he is certain to be quoted as authority on the subject by those who will ignore all his qualifications to justify the practice.

In order to meet these imperative conditions, the attempt to formulate any philosophy of psychology will not be made.

Even were such an attempt made successfully, that would remove the discussion from the field of science, where it should by all means remain. What we need is a real science of life, and this should involve the whole mental and psychical realm, and lead ultimately to a knowledge of the human soul.

Recognized facts in common experience only need be appealed to, though different values will have to be placed upon some of these facts as their importance is made plain.

We begin with the fact of consciousness. What it is, we do not know. What it means and does, we know very largely and broadly. In itself, it is purely passive. It never acts. Like space, it is the “all container.” It is the background, the theatre of our intelligence.

With the individual intelligence, plus, or with consciousness, we have awareness. This is perception, or cognition, still negative.

These basic conditions, faculties and capacities, are like a company of soldiers on parade. Now comes the “word of command” —Attention!

Latent consciousness – awareness – now becomes concentrated, focalized on one point, one feeling, or emotion, or act. The soldiers “dress up,” glance down the line, and are ready to act. Then comes the action, the movement, the drill, or the fight.

The drill master is also a soldier, but he is in command. He is called the Will. Without him and his recognized authority, the soldiers may be a mob, or a rabble. With him, they “fall in line,” give “attention,” “dress up,” and are ready to act.

These are facts, and are basic and primary in our conscious awareness and attention in consciousness; the one negative, though inclusive; the other positive, and motor, or active.

In his “Psychotherapy” under the heading “The Subconscious,” Münsterberg has much to say upon the meaning and differentiation of awareness, attention, and recognition, but he fails to point out in direct relation, at this point, the primary power – the Will, moved by the Individual Intelligence.

Later in his work the will is recognized and frequently referred to, but from beginning to end he makes it incidental, rather than basic. When he comes to broad groups of psychic phenomena, or pathological symptoms, the sounding board of Rational Volition is cracked and there is where hypnosis slips in.

Broad as he has laid his foundations in physical and physiological synthesis, he loses sight of its importance in the psychological; regarding as an incident that which is a basic principle of prime importance. Schopenhauer went, perhaps, as far to the opposite extreme. Perhaps “the truth will be found in the middle of the road.”

The heir apparent, the prince regent, the lawful Sovereign, by heredity, by the laws of Nature, and “by the Will of God,” in this Tabernacle of Man, is the Individual Intelligence; no matter whether we recognize or dispute his rightful authority. His Prime Minister is the Human Will; whether conspiring against, or co-operating with, the King. We may analyze the foundation of the kingdom, and the affairs of state, and designate them as causative, or purposive. We may see monarchy, or anarchy; democracy or republicanism; we may dethrone the king, and turn the state, literally, into a mad-house; but all the facts of nature, conscious awareness, and Scientific Psychology, cry, with one voice, Hail to the King! Long Live the King! I! Me! Mine! Myself! A fact so basic, that it is as patent to the child as to the man.

Now comes the Juggler, the little Joker. Münsterberg has sufficiently revealed the variety-stage, “the Subconscious,” and his biography of the various individual players and troupes is very elaborate. They are, one and all, Suggestions. And suggestion is the “Juggler,” and the “little Joker.”

After the Intelligence and the Will, our awareness finds subjects and objects, ideas, images, pictures, percepts and concepts.

That all these, both within and without, are Suggestive; that one idea, or image, or object, suggests another, or others, no one will deny, who has ever thought about his own thinking. It is like saying, all mental pictures are composite; the elements of many kinds coming from many sources.

So far, Suggestion is all right. It is awareness of an idea, percept, concept, or act awakened, called to attention by another, with the question, how does it strike you? what do you think of it? what, if anything, do you wish, or propose to do about it?

It is purely negative, and suggests action or inhibition, without the slightest domination.

Remember that the Will – rational Volition – is that power, which, from the point of attention enables the individual to act, or refuse to consider, as he pleases.

If I suggest to my friend here in my library, that it is near train time; that he can go if he chooses or remain with me all night, he is free to act on the suggestion and go or stay as he chooses. I have called to his attention certain facts of time, place, or circumstance, but left his will untrammeled. If I am tired of him and wish him to go, or really wish him to stay, in either case it is still a suggestion, because I have left him free to act or not. But in this case certain tones of my voice, not direct by touching the will, but coloring the feelings or emotions, color both his preferences and my own. Even persuasion, the power of another example, the placing of certain views or considerations before another, all these but make the more clear and specific the suggestion. They reach the will through the inside, in the realm of ideation, and not from the outside, in the way of domination. All these things are essential elements in social intercourse.

If, however, I have a motive in wishing my friend to go, or to stay, and have determined in my own mind which it shall be; ignoring or overriding his own choice; and if I use my will, or passes, or touch his eyes, or forehead, with the purpose of concentrating his attention or will, on my wish, or idea, or command, it is no longer free choice with him, but domination; no longer suggestion, but hypnosis, pure and simple.

The confusion and juggling at this point has been made the sole excuse for hypnotism, through belittling or ignoring the importance, normal action, and supremacy of the human will.

No one denies that the exchange or forcible expression of ideas, percepts, mental pictures, or concepts, is suggestive. But the normal individual is free to accept or reject them.

Education, bias, prejudice, and the like, have also much to do in determining results.

But the moment you interfere with the free choice of the individual and dominate toward your choice, regardless of his own, you enter the realm of hypnosis; deprive him, just to that degree, of free choice, and might as well call it “fiddlesticks” as “suggestion.” It is domination, the mastery, so far as it goes or exists at all, of the will, voluntary powers, and sensory organs of one individual, by the will of another; thus reversing completely the process of nature.

To dominate the will of another is to weaken it. Timidity, apprehension, fear, are in inverse ratio to confidence, self-assurance, courage, and self-control.

Health, happiness, and self-development lie along the lines of man’s higher evolution, and the basic principle, the primary power, the minister of state, is the rational and intelligent Will.

The scientific theorem of Psychology can be nothing else than Nature’s Modulus of Man, with its root in Universal Intelligence. Man individualizes and involves this Intelligence as he evolves form, function, adaptation, and adjustment, and at least secures and maintains perfect equilibrium.

This is Nature’s Modulus, else the whole of human life is purposeless and meaningless.

Given, then, an Individual Intelligence, endowed with self-consciousness; with Rational Volition, the power to choose and to act or refuse to act; how shall it master its environment; adapt itself to any conditions; secure adjustment and become Master?

The starting point and the keynote from first to last is Self-Control.

Then come high Ideals, intelligent choice, and the will backed by discrimination and judgment. These lead to understanding and wisdom.

The “courage of one’s convictions,” can be neither conceited nor blatant egotism, but a readiness to assume full responsibility of motives, acts, and results.

This recognition of Personal Responsibility is what we call Conscience. It is the Judgment-seat of the Individual Intelligence in the Kingdom of its own Soul, or realm of consciousness. The moment this throne totters, or is obscured, devolution begins, and degeneration, insanity, and Inferno lie that way.

It does not change one principle involved, or weaken either Modulus or Theorem when we reflect that most equations are ended by death, long before being brought to successful solution. For the time they are certainly interrupted.

Neither do the babel of tongues, the theories, theologies, or philosophies change either Modulus or Theorem, because they are grounded in demonstrated facts, recognized, either vaguely or clearly, in the conscious experience of every intelligent thinking man and woman.

Constructive Psychology, based upon Science, for the building of character by persistent effort, increasing continually all personal resources, means the normal higher evolution of man.

So-called religions and the life after death have been purposely left unconsidered.

If we really have a Science of the Soul – the Individual Intelligence – based upon psychological facts, demonstrated in the daily experience of every healthy individual, it touches religion at its most vital point, viz.: ethics or morals. If these ethical principles are true and demonstrable, they must constitute the foundation of religion as of ethics. If morals are strengthened and made clear, and Personal Responsibility as Conscience, is recognized and accepted, the Vicarious Atonement will have to go, and Theologians will have to change their mystical and miraculous interpretations from Vicarious Atonement to personal at-one-ment with Christos.

The “miraculous conception,” and “virgin birth,” held equally in regard to Christna centuries before, and also the literal resurrection of the physical body will have to be otherwise explained.

The purposive view as one full term of the psychological equation, will find uniform law and order in place of the credulous legends of ignorant and superstitious monks, while the Divine Man will be taken down from the cross and restored to the heart of humanity, as the Modulus of Nature, realized as a normal evolution, under natural and spiritual law.

Salvation from sin, ignorance, superstition, and fear, will be recognized as the result of “Leading the Life,” and Vicarious only through a divine example; or, if you please, legitimate Suggestion; with personal effort, rational volition, and personal responsibility working in harmony toward the desired result.

SECTION TWO

THE NEW AVATAR OF NATURAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER VIII

OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO ANCIENT INDIA

It is more than thirty years since in Southern Europe, England, and America, a genuine Renaissance of Vedic literature, philosophy, and religion began to assume a popular form and to become accessible to the general reading public.

Scholars, like Sir William Jones, had for the past century been familiar with the ancient civilization and the Vedic literature and the study of Sanscrit had made some progress in the Universities.

The idea, however, that these antiquities had any vital interest to us, beyond curious myths and obsolete superstitions, had not been perceived, much less admitted.

The antiquity of man, and the Philosophy of Evolution, had opened new fields for thought, and necessitated a revision of all previous concepts of man and nature.

Old records and interpretations were everywhere revised, and the interpretations of the Mosaic records were challenged at every point.

Popular religions were up in arms and were compelled to adjust themselves to the new régime.

But even after this century of progress and enlightenment, it has scarcely yet dawned on the mind of theologians that the challenge of science was, after all, insignificant, compared with that which was to come, and for which modern science had paved the way.

The whole realm of theology, and the foundations of religion, were to undergo revision.

Facts incontestable were being gathered and proofs established beyond all possible denial, or controversy, that all modern theologies and religions were copied and adapted from Vedic and ante-Vedic sources, antedating our present era by more than two thousand years.

The superficial and devout churchman, whose faith is fortified on the one hand by superstition, and on the other at least borders on fanaticism, is apt to be resentful in the presence of these facts, and, falling back on the infallibility and plenary inspiration of the Bible, to declare that if his own superficial interpretations are questioned or denied, Religion will be done for and mankind left in utter darkness.

He does not perceive that the facts of nature and the essentials of religion are one thing, and man’s interpretation of them another thing entirely.

He does not perceive how these ignorant and superstitious interpretations of men have set at naught the real life of Jesus and the teachings of the Christ.

He does not realize how doctrine has usurped the place of duty, and dogmatism has hardened the soul of man.

One thing, however, is inevitable. Facts and evidence as to origin, analogies, and adaptation of the Christian Mysteries from ancient India, are widely known, and the time has come when these mysteries are being examined as to their intrinsic meaning and their bearing on the daily life of man and the progress of the human race.

The author of this little book has only attempted a bare outline of these great facts, and to put them in such shape that the reader may perceive their general bearing, and the sources whence they are derived.

The following extracts made almost at random, the quantity of evidence being so redundant, from Jacolliot’s “Bible in India,” a translation of which was made in this country as early as 1873, and Prof. Max Müller’s Lectures, “India, What Can It Teach Us?” printed here more than a quarter of a century ago, will give the reader the evidence and the assurance that these ancient sources of wisdom are scarcely yet known in outline to the Western World.

Jacolliot spent many years in India, studying its present civilization and its ancient lore, while Prof. Max Müller derived his knowledge largely from study of Sanscrit and the Vedanta.

“Soil of Ancient India, cradle of humanity, hail! Hail, venerable and efficient nurse, whom centuries of brutal invasion have not yet buried under the dust of oblivion! Hail, fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry, and of science. May we hail a revival of thy past in our Western future.

“I have dwelt ’midst the depths of your mysterious forests, seeking to comprehend the language of your lofty nature, and the evening airs that murmured ’midst the foliage of banyans and tamarinds whispered to my spirit these three magic words: Zeus, Jehovah, Brahma.

“I have inquired of Brahmins and priests under the porches of temples and ancient pagodas, and they have replied:

“‘To live is to think, and to think is to study God, who is all, and in all…

“‘To live is to learn, to learn is to examine and to fathom in all their perceptible forms the innumerable manifestations of celestial power.

“‘To live is to be useful; to live is to be just; and we learn to be useful and just in studying this book of the Vedas, which is the word of eternal wisdom, the principle of principles as revealed to our fathers.’” (“The Bible in India,” p. 15.)

Plotinus, the Neoplatonist, said: “God is not the principal of beings, but the principle of principles.”

This was the Hindoo concept of Para Brahm two thousand years before.

“In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life – it will be the solace of my death. [Schopenhauer, quoted by Max Müller.] … If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow – in some parts a very paradise on earth – I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind had most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant – I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life – again I should point to India.”

The reader should remember that this is not the opinion of an ignorant enthusiast, but the mature judgment of one of the most profound scholars and Sanscritists in Europe in his day – Prof. Max Müller.

“The study of Mythology has assumed an entirely new character, chiefly owing to the light that has been thrown on it by the ancient Vedic Mythology of India.

“Buddhism is now known to have been the principal source of our legends and parables.”

The story of the two women who claimed each to be the mother of the same child is found literally in the Kanjur, translated from the Buddhist Tripitake, and the “Judgment of Solomon” is only a copy of the older story.

“The history of all histories, and yet the mystery of all mysteries – take religion, and where can you study its true origin, its natural growth and its inevitable decay better than in India, the home of Brahmanism, the birthplace of Buddhism, and the refuge of Zoroastrianism.

“Take any of the burning questions of the day – popular education, higher education, parliamentary representation, codification of laws, finance, emigration, poor-law, and whether you have anything to teach and to try, or anything to observe and to learn, India will supply you with a laboratory such as exists nowhere else.

“And in the study of the history of the human mind, and the study of ourselves, of our true selves, India occupies a place second to no other country. Whatever sphere of the human mind you may select for your special study, whether it be language, or religion, or mythology, or philosophy, whether it be laws or customs, primitive art or primitive science, everywhere, you have to go to India, whether you like it or not, because some of the most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India, and in India only.

“Sleeman tells us men (in India) adhere habitually and religiously to the truth, and ‘I have had before me hundreds of cases,’ he says, ‘in which a man’s property, liberty, and life have depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it.’ Could many an English judge say the same?” (Remarks by Prof. Müller.)

Prof. Müller quotes from an Arabian writer of the thirteenth century, “The Indians are innumerable, like grains of sand, free from all deceit and violence. They fear neither death nor life.”

And again, from Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, “You must know, Marco Polo says, that these Abralaman (Hindoos) are the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful, for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth.”

“In the sixteenth century Abu Fazl, the minister of the Emperor Akbar, says in his ‘Ayin Akbari,’ ‘The Hindus are religious, affable, cheerful, lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, admirers of truth, grateful and of unbounded fidelity, and their soldiers know not what it is to fly from the field of battle.’”

(How badly these “poor heathen” were in need of the Jesuit missionary, and the British government and civilization!)

Prof. Müller quotes Warren Hastings regarding the Hindus in general, as follows, “They are gentle and benevolent, more susceptible of gratitude for kindness shown them, and less prompted to vengeance for wrongs inflicted, than any people on the face of the earth – faithful, affectionate, submissive to legal authority.”

Bishop Heber said, “The Hindus are brave, courteous, intelligent, most eager for knowledge and improvement, sober, industrious, dutiful to parents, affectionate to their children, uniformly gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kindness and attention to their wants and feelings than any people I ever met with.”