I lost this great advantage at the age of twenty-one, but even now I can sometimes "get at" a solution by leaving the question severely alone, after turning it well over in my mind. The solution will suddenly pop up, often weeks after I have tried to get at it, and when it comes there, it arrives apropos of nothing, so to speak. It simply dawns in the thick of quite other subjects, which happen at the moment to occupy my mind.
Though I can no more demonstrate to others the existence of the subconsciousness than I can prove the existence of the immortal soul, I have got sufficient proof to satisfy myself, and I believe the same knowledge is open to many of us. Within our being are sympathetic chords that can vibrate to all the symphonies of Nature. There are visions of beauty and depths of feeling which may be seen and felt, if heart and mind are open to the higher influences. The finer forces of Nature, and her immutable laws, are ready to draw nigh to us if we desire to welcome them, and are eager to place ourselves in harmony with the Infinite Source of being. We are in the keeping of the best and highest, and whatever things are pure, whatsoever things are beautiful, whatsoever things are true and high and holy will gravitate towards us in proportion to the degree we desire them. The mysterious gift of existence is in itself a beckoning ideal, and a foregleam of the final awakening that will surely be ours.
Now what does the subconsciousness contain?
Firstly, I believe it to be permeated by Deity, and the Divine indwelling. It is the seat of Genius. I believe a genius to be one who is capable of drawing from the contents of his subconsciousness that which outwardly appears as a creation. It is said that genius creates and talent copies. I believe that a man becomes great when he represents the results of countless lives in his individuality, and each life is an arc of the infinite life of the Universe. The man with aeons of experience behind him is infinitely more _en rapport_ with his subconsciousness than those younger, more immature souls who have as yet experienced few earth lives and who const.i.tute the bulk of humanity.
The eternal mind finds its home in the subconsciousness, by which I mean that nothing is really forgotten by man. This lapse of memory is the pa.s.sing of the subject from the ordinary mind into the subconsciousness, whence it may later be recovered again. The memory of all our former incarnations I believe to lie hidden in the subconsciousness. It is from this region or zone that one gets sudden uprushes of memory, and such uprushes are induced by stumbling on a chance link between the two zones of consciousness.
Some chance incident, such as the presence of my bare feet upon the rough gravel, touches a correspondence on the other side of the threshold, and lays bare old scenes to the observation of the ordinary mind. It is noteworthy that the matter contained in this up-rushing is recognized first, and the means which brought about the uprush is recognized secondly.
I believe there is a vital communication between consciousness and subconsciousness which could be enormously developed and utilized by practice. The age in which we live has produced the most marvelous triumphs of mind over matter. Access to the subconsciousness is becoming commoner and simpler. We have broken in and harnessed material forces in a manner undreamt of fifty years ago. Yet there is an alas! a fact which detracts from all our legitimate pride in our achievement--the base uses to which our triumphs have been put. The whole of our inventive power has been turned against the life that gave it birth. The parents are being consumed by their own offspring.... Matter evolved out of spirit has threatened destruction to the latter.
The threshold between our ordinary consciousness and the region of subconsciousness seems to me like a bridge which is rarely used, and which separates the country known from the country unknown. I live in the country known, but if I can touch a b.u.t.ton at my end I can get a response instantaneously transmitted from the country unknown. The trouble is to find the b.u.t.ton. At present I only press it at long intervals and by the merest chance. Still it is something of an achievement to have convinced one"s self that such a region actually does exist.
I believe this subconsciousness of ours is in direct contact with the Great Creative Power. "It is G.o.d that worketh" in man, and its vital communications are hidden in the infinite eternity. Says a Sufi ideal: "To abide in G.o.d after pa.s.sing away is the work of the perfect man, who not only journeys to G.o.d--pa.s.ses from plurality to unity--but in and with G.o.d--continuing in the unitive state he returns with G.o.d (his subconscious self) to the phenomenal world from which he sets out, and manifests unity in plurality."
Though at present, to all outward seeming, the evolution of the beast is consummated, there is a something that flatly contradicts this apparent certainty. That something is man"s subconsciousness, and the Divinity it enshrouds, and which fiercely and irrevocably is set against the b.e.s.t.i.a.lity into which he is plunged. War has never been so universally hated as it now is. It is in this vital fact, which cannot be too strongly emphasized, that our future hope lies.
I believe this vital fact to be so strong that entire regeneration is a certainty. Where hitherto this force has lain dormant or been dispersed, disunited and weak in spiritual utterance, it is now a collective force concentrated in millions of lives. All over the earth it is now gathered _en ma.s.se_, and that stupendous aggregate, vivified, sharpened, and intensely accentuated by untold suffering will revolutionize all former weak and fatalistic acquiescence in the inevitability of war. Millions of men have descended into h.e.l.l, they are there now, but they will arise again from amongst the dead, and ascend one day into the Heaven of peace, and thence they will judge the quick and the dead by a new standard. The standard of the G.o.d within, whose voice has been heard at last from out the din of battle. It is the same G.o.d who has said to the East:--
"Have perseverance as one who dost forever more endure. Thy shadows (physical bodies) live and vanish, that which is in thee shall live forever, that which in thee knows is not of fleeting life, it is the man that was, that is, that will be, for whom the hour shall never strike."
To-day we all use, in some cases automatically, the powers and apt.i.tudes developed in us in the long and painful evolution of the physical form.
As evolution proceeds we will gain a vastly greater control over the subconsciousness, and in aeons to come "in the flight of the alone to the alone" union will be achieved. The two will be merged in one.
The Lord Buddha has said that to enter Nirvana is to become fully conscious of our fundamental oneness with the universal life.
"I and my Father are one." Christ"s sense of oneness with the Father was essentially Nirvanic.
We have not yet accustomed ourselves to think of evolution in any terms but the material, as a power inherent in matter, Darwin"s physical evolution stood for pure materialism. Bergson now carries us a step farther. He introduces us to a spiritual principle. His creative evolution is a spiritual activity seeking freedom of expression in matter. Darwin"s struggle for existence is by Bergson trans.m.u.ted into life, expressing itself through material forms, and life and matter are in constant conflict. Again he points out that the spiritual principle, life, has not "had it all its own way." It has experienced checks, but in two modes of activity it has succeeded, in instinct and intelligence.
Thus he draws for us the grandiose upward sweep of a Divine activity.
Curbed, it is true, by the crust of matter, but finding ever higher capacities, and higher expression towards that ultimate reality which is creative life and to me is union with that higher self lying in the subconsciousness of all men.
CHAPTER XII
PEAc.o.c.k"S FEATHERS--THE SKELETON HAND AT MONTE CARLO
A sea voyage once provided me with a wonderfully lucky experience, inasmuch as it saved me from an extremely bad accident.
I was returning quite alone from the East in a ship crammed full of women and children, most of them soldiers" wives and families going home to escape the hot weather. Many of them were attended by ayahs.
Two days out we ran into a raging storm, and everything was battened down. Owing to the weather, and the excessive crowding, the conditions below soon became very unpleasant, and I asked the captain if I might take possession of the ladies" summer drawing-room on the upper deck and close to the bridge. Seeing that it would not be used by any one else for some time to come he kindly agreed, and I at once settled myself in my eyrie with a few books, and prepared for some days of solitude.
But as the storm did not abate the suffering women and children below claimed my attention. They were confined in an atmosphere which was appalling, they were all terribly ill and utterly helpless. The mothers were unable to attend to their children, most of whom were infants, and the ayahs suffered horribly. Having no cabins they lay groaning on the floors of the corridors, drenched with water as the ship was awash from stem to stern, and tossed hither and thither as she rolled heavily.
It was never easy to descend from my perch aloft, but the sufferers had to be aided, and day after day I never knew a dry moment till I lay down at night. So far the summer drawing-room remained fairly water-tight in spite of being swept continually by heavy seas, but the noise of the elements was absolutely deafening, and when the captain called upon me we had to shout in each other"s ears.
With his connivance I got a shelter rigged up on what appeared to be the only dry spot on board. It was about twelve feet square and walled in with sailcloth, and there the sailors helped to carry a number of tiny children. They were to remain there during the best hours of the day, until their mothers and nurses were capable of attending to them once more.
I took charge at first and found my task no light one. The babies did not seem to appreciate my blandishments. They cried persistently, but luckily their voices were drowned in the roaring of the wind.
At last a cabin boy chanced to look in, and at once sized up the situation. He signaled to me that he knew of something that would ease the tension and then he disappeared. In five minutes he was back brandishing a large bunch of peac.o.c.k"s feathers. These he shook in the face of each infant in turn, at the same time making the most hideous grimaces at them. It was an anxious moment for me, but luckily the effect was electrical. The babies suddenly forgot to yell, they stiffly maintained their equilibrium and stared in a sort of indignant amazement. Then, gradually, as the boy kept going round the circle repeating the process, smiles and dimples began to appear, and in five minutes more the whole creche was laughing.
I applied for permission to annex that boy; he was indeed a treasure, and the joy in the peac.o.c.k"s feathers never palled. His gutta-percha face had an infinite variety of expression, which he could instantly turn on to suit all occasions. It was a fascinating sight to see him going round the group feeding each baby out of the same bottle, one of the old-fashioned horrors with a long indiarubber tube and teat. Those infants who had contemptuously rejected all my offers of nourishment now sat expectantly agape waiting their turn. The scene always reminded me of the artificial feeding of fowls, by the man who goes round the pens squirting liquid down each gaping throat.
When we landed at Ma.r.s.eilles there was a wonderful parting between the babies and the cabin boy. They clung to him to the last, and howled dismally when they were carried off by their haggard mothers.
One night, during the height of the storm I was asleep on the fixed red velvet seat running round the walls of the summer drawing-room. I lay just under a porthole, to which was attached a rope. The other end of the rope was tied round my arm to prevent my being thrown to the floor by the rolling of the ship.
At five o"clock in the morning I was suddenly awakened by hearing my husband"s voice shouting in my ear. (My husband not being on board, but in our home in the North of Scotland.)
"Sit up! Sit up!" shouted his voice commandingly.
Considerably startled I threw myself into a sitting position, and as I did so a gigantic wave shattered the porthole, and the heavy fragments of gla.s.s fell on to the pillow where a second before my face had lain.
Of course, the water poured in and over me in volumes, and stopped my wrist watch at five a. m., but I had got used to salt water, and in a few minutes the weary captain had waded in, and was disentangling me from my rope and congratulating me on my lucky escape.
I told him how it was that I had escaped, and he was not in the least skeptical. On the contrary, he said that he had known some curious things happen in his time, for which there was no accounting; but he always kept a black cat on board.
Had the safety of his ship not claimed his whole attention I believe he would have told me some of his experiences, but when, at last, the weather abated he was too much in need of rest to be bothered by any one.
My husband had no knowledge of the service he had rendered me. At five a. m. that morning he was asleep at home, and had no premonition of danger, or any recollection on waking of the role his astral counterpart had undoubtedly played.
What is this astral counterpart of man? His soul and spirit dwells in a shroud of flesh, and the feat of getting out of that shroud of flesh at will is the aim of all occultists. It is to the astral world they go, soul and spirit encased in the astral sheath we term the astral body.
During sleep, or in trance, when the normal physical senses are in abeyance, when the body is unconscious in sleep, the mind continues to act in the realm corresponding to the suggestions given when awake. The world at large is open to the highly developed man, and he will sometimes bring back from his astral plane expeditions memories of what he has seen and heard.
In deep slumber the physical body in healthful repose remains where it has lain down to rest, but the man"s higher principles, the astral body encasing the soul and spirit, is invariably withdrawn, and in underdeveloped persons hovers in the immediate neighborhood. In such cases the higher principles, the astral body, soul and spirit of St.
Paul"s Gospel, are not sufficiently developed to roam, and remain near the physical body in a brooding sleep. All cultured persons in the present day have their astral senses fairly well developed, and have the power during sleep to go where they will, but as yet few have the power to retain the memory of it when returning to the body.
In some cases the astral man during sleep is specially attracted to some one point, and he invariably travels towards it; in other cases he will drift aimlessly about on the astral currents, meeting with experience of all sorts and with people in a similar condition whom he knows. Is there anything very extraordinary in all this, and is not the condition of deep unconscious sleep a demonstration in itself that the physical consciousness has departed elsewhere? As it is no longer functioning on the Physical plane clearly it has found another realm in which it can temporarily exercise its activities.
My husband once had a rather interesting experience of his own, on the Astral plane. He was in bed and asleep on the Physical plane, and he believes that the time must have been between eleven p. m. and twelve a.
m. He simply became aware that he was functioning consciously on the Astral plane, and was intensely interested.
He found himself in a strange house of medium size, and he was floating at the top of a flight of stairs leading to an ordinary entrance hall below. At the foot of the stairs hung a lighted lamp, and below the lamp stood a man and woman, who were apparently exchanging a word or two before bidding each other good-night.
My husband instantly conceived the idea of testing and proving his belief, that he was consciously afloat on the Astral plane. If this belief was true, then he ought to be able to pa.s.s through the couple standing below, without their being in the least aware of his presence.
In a flash he was downstairs, and his belief stood the test. His imponderable astral body pa.s.sed without feeling or shock through two ponderable bodies of flesh and blood, and he was out on the other side.
The excitement of the adventure awakened him, and he brought back to the Physical plane a clear recollection of all that had happened.
When one thinks of it, the possible presence of total strangers in one"s house is rather alarming. Luckily for us such wanderers rarely bring back to waking consciousness the memory of their nocturnal escapades.
When we are more advanced in "other side" knowledge we will doubtless refrain from intruding upon the privacy of our neighbors" dwellings, and confine our attentions to realms which are free to all.