The Mystic Will Part 8

Very significant is what PARACELSUS declares in his _Fragmenta Medicina de Morbis Somnii_, that so many evils beset us, "caused by the coa.r.s.eness of our ignorance, because we know not what is born in us." That is to say, if we knew our mental power, or what we are capable of, we could cure or control all bodily infirmities. And how to rule and form this power, and make it obey the _Geist_ or Will which PARACELSUS believed was born of the common conscious Soul--that is the question.

For PARACELSUS truly believed that out of this common Soul, the result of Sensation and Reflection, and all we pick up by Experience and Observation (and such as makes all that there is of Life for most people), there is born, or results, a perception of Ideas, of right and wrong, of mutual interests; a certain subtle, moral conscience or higher knowledge. "The Souls may become inimical;" that is, the Conscience, or Spirit, may differ or disagree with the Soul, as a son may be at variance with his father. So the flower or fruit may oft despise the root. The Will is allied to Conscience or a perception of the Ideal. When a man finds out that he knows more or better than he has. .h.i.therto done: as, for instance, when a thief learns that it is wrong to steal, and feels it deeply, he endeavors to reform, although he _feels_ all the time old desires and temptations to rob. Now, if he resolutely subdue these, his Will is born. "The spirit of the Reasoning faculty is not born, save of the Will. . . . what exists and acts according to the Will lives in the spirit." The perception of ideals is the bud, Conscience the flower, and the Will the fruit. A pure Will must be _moral_, for it is _the_ result of the perception of Ideals, or a Conscience. The world in general regards Will as mere blind force, applicable to good or bad indifferently. But the more truly and fully it is developed, or as Orson is raised to Valentine, the more moral and optimistic does it become. _Will_ in its perfection is Genius, spontaneous originality, that is Voluntary; not merely a power to lift a weight, or push a load, or force others to yield, but the Thought itself which suggests the deed and finds a _reason_ for it. Now the merely unscrupulous use of Opportunity and Advantage, or Crime, is popularly regarded as having a strong Will; but this, as compared to a Will with a conscience, is as the craft of the fox compared to that of the dragon, and that of the dragon to Siegfried.

And here it may be observed as a subtle and strange thing, approaching to magic apparently, as understood by HARTMANN and his school, that the Will sometimes, when much developed, actually manifests something like an independent personality, or at least seems to do so, to an acute observer. And what is more remarkable, it can have this freedom of action and invention delegated to it, and will act on it.

Thus, in conversation with HERKOMER, the Artist, and Dr. W. W.

BALDWIN, Nov. 2d, 1878, the former explained to me that when he would execute a work of art, he just determined it with care or Forethought in his mind, and gave it a rest, as by sleep, during which time it unconsciously fructified or germinated, even as a seed when planted in the ground at last grows upward into the light and air. Now, that the entire work should not be too much finished or quite completed, and to leave room for after-thoughts or possible improvements, he was wont, as he said, to give the Will some leeway, or freedom; which is the same thing as if, before going to sleep, we _Will_ or determine that on the following day our Imagination, or Creative Force, or Inventive Genius, shall be unusually active, which will come to pa.s.s after some small practice and a few repet.i.tions, as all may find for themselves.

Truly, it will be according to conditions, for if there be but little in a man, either he will bring but little out, or else he must wait until he can increase what he hath. And in this the Will _seems_ to act like an independent person, ingeniously, yet withal obedient. And the same also characterizes images in dreams, which sometimes appear to be so real that it is no wonder many think they are spirits from another world, as is true of many haunting thoughts which come unbidden. However, this is all mere Thaumaturgy, which has been so deadly to Truth in the old _a priori_ psychology, and still works mischief, albeit it has its value in suggesting very often in Poetry what Science afterwards proves in Prose.

To return to PARACELSUS, HEINE complains that his German is harder to understand than his Latin. However, I think that in the following pa.s.sages he shows distinctly a familiarity with hypnotism, or certainly, pa.s.ses by hand and suggestion. Thus, chap, x, _de Ente Spirituali_, in which the Will is described, begins as follows: "Now shall ye mark that the Spirits rule their subjects. And I have shown intelligibly how the _Ens Spirituale_, or Spiritual Being, rules so mightily the body that many disorders may be ascribed to it. Therefore unto these ye should not apply ordinary medicine, but heal the spirit--therein lies the disorder."

PARACELSUS clearly states that by the power of Foresight--he uses the exact word, _Fursicht_--Man may, aided by Sleep, attain to knowledge-- past, present or future--and achieve Telepathy, or communion at a distance. In the _Fragmenta, Caput de Morbis Somnii_ he writes:

"Therefore learn, that by Foresight man can know future things; and, from experience, the past and present. Thereby is man so highly gifted in Nature that he knows or perceives (_sicht_), as he goes, his neighbor or friend in a distant land. Yet, on waking, he knows nothing of all this. For G.o.d has given to us all--Art, Wisdom, Reason--to know the future, and what pa.s.ses in distant lands; but we know it not, for we fools, busied in common things, sleep away, as it were, what is in us. Thus, seeing one who is a better artist than thou art, do not say that he has more gift or grace than thou; for thou hast it also, but hast not tried, and so is it with all things. What Adam and Moses did was to _try_, and they succeeded, and it came neither from the Devil nor from Spirits, but from the Light of Nature, which they developed in themselves. But we do _not_ seek for what is in us, therefore we remain nothing, and are nothing."

Here the author very obscurely, yet vigorously, declares that we can do or learn what we _will_, but it must be achieved by foresight, will, and the aid of sleep.

It seems very evident, after careful study of the text, that here, as in many other places, our author indicates familiarity with the method of developing mental action in its subtlest and most powerful forms.

Firstly, by determined Foresight, and, secondly, by the aid of sleep, corresponding to the bringing a seed to rest a while, and thereby cause it to germinate; the which admirable simile he himself uses in a pa.s.sage which I have not cited.

PARACELSUS was the most original thinker and the worst writer of a wondrous age, when all wrote badly and thought badly. There is in his German writings hardly one sentence which is not ungrammatical, confused, or clumsy; nor one without a vigorous idea, which shows the mind or character of the man.

As a curious instance of the poetic originality of PARACELSUS we may take the following:

"It is an error to suppose that chiromancy is limited to the hand, for there are significant lines (indicating character), all over the body.

And it is so in vegetable life. For in a plant every leaf is a hand.

Man hath two; a tree many, and every one reveals its anatomy--a hand-anatomy. Now ye shall understand that in double form the lines are masculine or feminine. And there are as many differences in these lines on leaves as in human hands."

GOETHE has the credit that he reformed or advanced the Science of Botany, by reducing the plant to the leaf as the germ or type; and this is now further reduced to the cell, but the step was a great one.

Did not PARACELSUS, however, give the idea?

"The theory of signatures," says VAUGHAN, in his _Hours with the Mystics_, "proceeded on the supposition that every creatures bears in some part of its structure . . . the indication of the character or virtue inherent in it--the representation, in fact, of its ideal or soul. . . . The student of sympathies thus essayed to read the character of plants by signs in their organization, as the professor of palmistry announced that of men by lines in the hand." Thus, to a degree which is very little understood, PARACELSUS took a great step towards modern science. He disclaimed Magic and Sorcery, with ceremonies, and endeavored to base all cure on human will. The name of PARACELSUS is now synonymous with Rosicrucianism, Alchemy, Elementary Spirits and Theurgy, when, in fact, he was in his time a bold reformer, who cast aside an immense amount of old superst.i.tion, and advanced into what his age regarded as terribly free thought. He was compared to LUTHER, and the doing so greatly pleased him; he dwells on it at length in one of his works.

What PARACELSUS really believed in at heart was nothing more or less than an unfathomable Nature, a _Natura naturans_ of infinite resource, connected with which, as a microcosm, is man, who has also within him infinite powers, which he can learn to master by cultivating the will, which must be begun at least by the aid of sleep, or letting the resolve ripen, as it were, in the mind, apart from Consciousness.

I had written every line of my work on the same subject and principles long before I was aware that I had unconsciously followed exactly in the footprints of the great Master; for though I had made many other discoveries in his books, I knew nothing of this.

CHAPTER XII.

LAST WORDS.

"By carrying calves Milo, 'tis said, grew strong, Until with ease he bore a bull along."

It is, I believe, unquestionable that, if he ever lived, a man who had attained to absolute control over his own mind, must have been the most enviable of mortals. MONTAIGNE ill.u.s.trates such an ideal being by a quotation from VIRGIL:

"Velut rupes vastum quae prodit in aequor Obvia ventorum furiis, exposta que ponto, Vim cunctum atque minas perfert caelique marisque Ipsa immota manens."

"He as a rock among vast billows stood, Scorning loud winds and the wild raging flood, And firm remaining, all the force defies, From the grim threatening seas and thundering skies."

And MONTAIGNE also doubted whether such self-control was possible. He remarks of it:

"Let us never attempt these Examples; we shall never come up to them.

This is too much and too rude for our common souls to undergo. CATO indeed gave up the n.o.blest Life that ever was upon this account, but it is for us meaner spirited men to fly from the storm as far as we can."

Is it? I may have thought so once, but I begin to believe that in this darkness a new strange light is beginning to show itself. The victory may be won far more easily than the rather indolent and timid Essayist ever imagined. MONTAIGNE, and many more, believed that absolute self-control is only to be obtained by iron effort, heroic and terrible exertion--a conception based on bygone History, which is all a record of battles of man against man, or man with the Devil. Now the world is beginning slowly to make an ideal of peace, and disbelieve in the Devil. Science is attempting to teach us that from any beginning, however small, great results are sure to be obtained if resolutely followed up and fully developed.

It requires thought to realize what a man gifted to some degree with culture and common sense must enjoy who can review the past without pain, and regard the present with perfect a.s.surance that come what may he need have no fear or fluttering of the heart. Spenser has asked in "The Fate of the b.u.t.terfly":

"What more felicity can fall to creature Than to enjoy delight with liberty?"

To which one may truly reply that all delight is fitful and uncertain unless bound or blended with the power to be indifferent to involuntary annoying emotions, and that self-command is in itself the highest mental pleasure, or one which surpa.s.ses all of any kind. He who does not overestimate the value of money or anything earthly is really richer than the millionaire. There is a foolish story told by COMBE in his Physiology of a man who had the supernatural gift of never feeling any pain, be it from cold, hunger, heat, or accident.

The rain beat upon him in vain, the keenest north wind did not chill him--he was fearless and free. But this immunity was coupled with an inability to feel pleasure--his wine or ale was no more to his palate than water, and he could not feel the kiss of his child; and so we are told that he was soon desirous to become a creature subject to all physical sensations as before. But it is, as I said, a foolish tale, because it reduces all that is worth living for to being warm or enjoying taste. His mind was not affected, but that goes for nothing in such sheer sensuality. However, a man without losing his tastes or appet.i.tes may train his Will to so master Emotion as to enjoy delight with liberty, and also exclude what const.i.tutes the majority of all suffering with man.

It is a truth that there is very often an extremely easy, simple and prosaic way to attain many an end, which has always been supposed to require stupendous efforts. In an Italian fairy tale a prince besieges a castle with an army--trumpets blowing, banners waving, and all the pomp and circ.u.mstances of war--to obtain a beautiful heroine who is meanwhile carried away by a rival who knew of a subterranean pa.s.sage.

Hitherto, as I have already said, men have sought for self-control only by means of heroic exertion, or by besieging the castle from without; the simple system of Forethought and Self-Suggestion enables one, as it were, to steal or slip away with ease by night and in darkness that fairest of princesses, La Volonte, or the Will.

For he who wills to be equable and indifferent to the small and involuntary annoyances, teasing memories, irritating trifles, which const.i.tute the chief trouble in life to most folk, can bring it about, in small measure at first and in due time to greater perfection. And by perseverance this rivulet may to a river run, the river fall into a mighty lake, and this in time rush to the roaring sea; that is to say, from bearing with indifference or quite evading attacks of _ennui_, we may come to enduring great afflictions with little suffering.

Note that I do not say that we can come to bearing all the bereavements, losses, and trials of life with _absolute_ indifference.

Herein MONTAIGNE and the Stoics of old were well nigh foolish to imagine such an impossible and indeed undesirable ideal. But it may be that two men are afflicted by the same domestic loss, and one with a weak nature is well nigh crushed by it, gives himself up to endless weeping and perhaps never recovers from it, while another with quite as deep feelings, but far wiser, rallies, and by vigorous exertion makes the grief a stimulus to exertion, so that while the former is demoralized, the latter is strengthened. There is an habitual state of mind by which a man while knowing his losses fully can endure them better than others, and this endurance will be greatest in him who has already cultivated it a.s.siduously in minor matters. He who has swam in the river can swim in the sea; he who can hear a door bang without starting can listen to a cannon without jumping.

The method which I have described in this book will enable any person gifted with perseverance to make an equable or calm state of mind habitual, moderately at first, more so by practice. And when this is attained the experimenter can progress rapidly in the path. It is precisely the same as in learning a minor art, the pupil who can design a pattern (which corresponds to Foresight or plan), only requires, as in wood-carving or repousse, to be trained by very easy process to become familiar with the use and feel of the tools, after which all that remains to be done is to keep on at what the pupil can do without the least difficulty. Well begun and well run in the end will be well done.

But glorious and marvelous is the power of him who has habituated himself by easy exercise of Will to brush away the minor, meaningless and petty cares of life, such as, however, prey on most of us; for unto him great griefs are no harder to endure than the getting a coat splashed is to an ordinary man.