- The Philosophy of Sympathy -
Dedicated
To
AS A TOKEN OF SINCERE GRATITUDE
FOR HER
DEEPLY APPRECIATED SYMPATHY AND FREINDSHIP
By the same author:
A NEW CREED
(Human and Humane)
A New Creed the book
LUX NATURAE
Whose axioms are: All men suffer - All men worship - All men believe "Union is Strength."
"To satisfactorily explain 'sympathetic communication,' whether between God and man or between human beings themselves, is far from an easy matter; but the author grapples with his abstruse theory clearly and earnestly... We cannot miss being interested in a treatise dealing mainly with a hidden force of Nature, of which we are undoubtedly very ignorant, and the knowledge of what would probably make a life happier and place our social relations on a better footing." [Public Opinion]
VERA VITA
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SYMPATHY
Discovery of a New Element and its Connection with Real Life
PRACTICALLY DEMONSTRATED IN KEELY'S RESEARCHING EXPERIMENTS
BY
DAVID SINCLAIR
AUTHOR OF "A NEW CREED", ETC.
Ether rays proceed from God, the source of all life, as
the sun's rays proceed from the sun; and these rays, are
composed of vibratory forces whose resultant is sympathy,
ranging from the highest to the lowest sympathy.
This sixth sense that dwells in us is the one by which
we discern and appreciate sympathy in the same way that the
ear discerns sound.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY
DIGBY, LONG & CO. Publishers
LONDON
18 BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, E.C.
COPYRIGHT, 1892
Republished 2011 by
Pond Science Institute
921 Santa Fe Avenue
La Junta, Colorado 81050
http://www.svpwiki.com
PREFACE
"The publication of my book, "A New Creed", it was the means of first calling my attention to the existence and discoveries of Mr. Keely, Philadelphia. I have not read sufficient about him to know that he has made wonderful physical discoveries bearing on the laws of Nature, although I am unable to grasp his verbal accounts with the lucidity which would justify me in saying that I thoroughly understand and appreciate what I certainly know to be extraordinary work. What he has discovered in physics I am in some measure credited with discovering in metaphysics; this is nothing strange according to this philosophy, which shows that many people may divine the same original truths at the same time by means of the etheric chords that connect the Diety, the source of all truth, with all His creatures." David Sinclair
by the editor, Dale Pond, 1984
All pioneers have suffered from those of lesser character. That he was perhaps the greatest mechanical engineer and discoverer of physical science since Pythagoras there can be little doubt. A careful reading of Mrs. Clara Bloomfield-Moore's "Keely and His Discoveries" will reveal the many accomplishments Keely succeeded in bringing about. An up to date comparison with "modern" science will reveal that he predated near every major scientific revelation by years. A list of these discoveries are being compiled in the SVPwiki.com, see Keelys Accomplishments.
Throughout Keely's work runs a thread too singular of nature and broad in scope that one cannot fail to be moved by it. As he proceeded with his researches uncovering truths then unraveling how these truths interwove with the other truths already laid bare by his genius, Keely began to piece together an incredible spectacle of the universe. Not content with just a motor to power lights, he wanted to know WHY? and HOW? and WHO? are we? Discovering and developing the long lost arts of the ancients he found the true nature of all Being. That discovery was Sympathetic Vibration. "Modern" quantum mechanics teaches us that all, that everything, in the universe; the planets, stars, minerals even life itself is none other than vibration. All is energy, they tell us and all energy vibrates. This being the case then Keely's "Sympathetic Vibratory Physics" with its difficult glossary truly foreshadowed even these "ultra-modern" revelations of lesser men.
That we know and recognize the true nature of nature as vibratory is quite acceptable today. What we don't understand today, but Keely proved he did, is how these different vibratory rates inter-relate with one another. Even today science is still trying to convert "matter" into "energy" and vice versa when on the other hand science also says these same two things are none other than conglomerations of vibrating ether (quantum substance). Keely told us this over one hundred years ago. But who was there to understand and listen?
Having established a philosophy of science that was all pervading and all answerable to the ultimate source, Keely sets forth an arena to which Mr. Sinclair boldly strides. Caught up in throws of Keely's vast discoveries, Sinclair gives us the HOW and WHAT of man's relations to himself, his neighbors and his universe. Explained in clear terms, unpolluted by religious dogma or inane materialism, we can finally come to grips with our inner natures and not be repulsed by superstitious contrivances of confused thinking. At last we have an explanation of the law of karma, the Biblical phrase "as ye sew so shall ye reap" and Edgar Cayce's ever present commandment "Love thy neighbor as thy self." Here, it is not required these be taken on faith of the preacher or teacher, but are explained as to their true nature and how it and we inter-relate. What is the cause of pain, joy, love and hate - then the how these are caused in themselves and the means by which we are affected. Mr. Sinclair wrote this volume in 1892, it is enlightening to look back over the years for verification of his philosophy and those ideas herein expressed. Perhaps the single most dramatic event foretold by him is the so-called "hippy" revolution, which was in fact a revolution of consciousness. An awakening to man's responsibility to man. Forced to subordinate responsibility to authority unquestioning, these people as have all peoples in the past, grew restless and began to ask why? The sixth sense of man must express itself - it is the nature of God and the universe to BE! And change is a part of it. That part of man which is Divine must have expression and will not be enslaved as it cannot be contrary to its own nature.
This is the basis of Sympathetic Vibratory Physics. All vibrates, all has motion - nothing can remain static. The Universal Forces will move and everything sympathetically connected will move with it. It is here we either cause pain and suffering or joy and at-one-ment. We can use our free wills and move with these currents as they undulate throughout the heavens or we can be rigid or negative in our thinking and attitude towards this Universal Mind Force and try to deny its existence by going our own selfish and willful way.
This philosophy does not deny free will but encourages its development and proper use. Neither does it deny the existence of forces outside of free will. But it does grapple with the "how do we associate the two"? How is the balance struck that will allow man to be the Co-Creator he is meant to be? Man was not cast upon a rock drifting through unlimited space without rhyme or reason. Planets don't crash into each other, neither do plants grow strange from their appointed manner of growth. To deny that which maintains this harmonious activity throughout the vastness of the universe is to deny the Unlimited Mind Keely strove so arduously to prove exists. Lastly, we cannot overlook the use of the word "chord" by Mr. Sinclair. Again and again he uses the term in reference to that which connects all things, i.e., an "etheric chord". Current terminology however, uses another spelling which gives a false understanding to what is envolved. Perhaps beginning with Lobsang Rampa's use of the word "cord" as in "silver cord". Meaning man is connected to the higher realms through or by this "silver cord". We know from studies done most notably by Sir James Jeans, Dayton Miller et al, that vibrations as in music cannot exist by and of themselves, but as "chords" or a conglomeration of notes which are nothing other than differing rates of vibrations. These chords are mathematically derived and do not of their own accord deviate from that mathematical pattern once initiated. Keely of course, knew this, being first a musician, then a mathematician and finally a physicist. His triple flows allude to a chord having a pattern of three notes or sequences of notes. (Notes herein refers to a rate of vibration.) Hence, all the universe vibrates and all these vibrations relate one to another in accordance to number, as Pythagoras was so fond of saying. Taking this and other matters into consideration then leads us to the idea that a person, thing or event is nothing other than a "chord of related vibrations" mathematically derived and established. If all "notes" are within their correct number then the "chord" will be in harmony, if not then there is "disharmony" or as Keely used to say "enharmonic discordance" or put another way - disease. Dale Pond
THE CONTENTIONS OF THIS PHILOSOPHY OF REAL LIFE ARE:-
1. Ether rays proceed from the Deity, the source of all life, to all life.
2. These ether rays can be vibrated by will force.
3. Man has the will force as well as the Deity.
4. Man's will force is a free will force.
5. Sympathy is the mystic motive power of life.
6. Every sympathy is some series of vibrations of these ether chords.
7. Instinct is a grade of sympathy or a vibratory force.
8. All traits of character are sympathies or vibratory forces.
9. Men have a sixth sense, whose function is to distinguish sympathy.
For the sake of being popularly understood, SYMPATHY as a force is here, in a general sense, sometimes spoken of in a kind of figurative way as a message on the telegraph wire, etc. In a more particular way it will now be scientifically explained as a force, as material as sound, light and heat. We speak of the sun's rays as if each ray were some simple element, and yet easily carry in our minds the fact that each ray is composed of light and heat; so this philosophy speaks of this ether as a mere lineal connecting-rod between the creature and Creator. If the analogy between the sun's rays and the ether be closely followed, it will be seen that wisdom, truth, and sympathy are the same thing, and travel on the ether lines exactly as light and heat do on the sun's rays. This is a bold statement, but simple truth, that might more appropriately be considered in the field of physics than that of metaphysics. The sun's rays are vibrations, and so in like manner is all sympathy on the lines of ether. There is no end to the possible number of vibrations to be made on this ether in a second of time. All sounds are the resultant of vibrations; so light is the resultant of a fixed rate of vibrations, and so heat is produced by a rate of vibrations differing from all other rates. The number of vibrations that produces sound is not the number that produces heat, nor anything but sound. To change the number of vibrations in a second is to change the resultant. It is an easy thing for a man to make a machine that will produce the different variations that make musical sounds, yet there are variations and velocities of vibrations that man has never attempted to make. Even if man's power were, in this respect, limited to the making of vibrations that produce the ordinary musical sounds, he would be a weak man who argued (because man cannot make them) that therefore no further sounds by vibrations are possible. Sounds are vibrations, but vibrations produce more than sounds, they produce heat. As in sound, so in heat; there are degrees. So, too, light is the resultant of vibrations; and, as in heat and sound, so in light, there are degrees caused by the different numbers of vibrations per second. These and other resultants of vibrations are known and acknowledged. All that is known is not all that is knowable. The laws of Nature are not limited to our little sphere, but are boundless as space, and binding everywhere. The day is not far distant when many powers that now seem mystic will be demonstrated to be vibratory in their origin. The ether wave is one of the most important vibratory elements; and as the sun's ray carry with them the vibrating forces, light and heat, so the ether ray conducts the vibratory force sympathy. The violinist, by drawing his bow across his strings, can produce a sound to make the heart leap for joy, and yet that sound is merely so many vibrations per second; so, on a higher scale, so many vibrations of the etheric chord will produce sympathy that will thrill the life with which the chord is connected. This very sympathy, like sound, light, heat, and all other resultants of vibrations, has degrees of intensity, or differences in variation, according to the number of vibrations. The difference of vibrations makes the sympathy different. What are called psychological secrets are different forms of sympathies. If a man knew the required number of vibrations for some particular psychological effect, and had the power to produce them, he could produce the said psychological secret as unerringly as he could the commonest musical notes. Yet these sympathies, messages, or whatever they are variously called in this book with the intention of making them easily understood, are but the servants of the Lord. The etheric ray is His simple means of communications. As a vibrating pitchfork placed on a solid body will not give the same volume of sound as when placed on an empty box, so these vibrating sympathies will be more effective on some receptive lives than on others. Again, sympathy is affinity. Perfect sympathy is a feeling that entirely coincides with another feeling. When one being is exactly the counterpart of another, these two are in perfect sympathy. It is with them as when one of two musical instruments set exactly to the same note is sounded; then the other, without being physically touched, sounds too. Where the sympathies or vibrations from the Creator to the creature, by means of the etheric chord, exactly harmonise with the receptive sympathies in the creature, there the Creator and the creature are in perfect accord, sympathy, or harmony. The range of sympathy is very wide, and its intensity is entirely dependent on the number of vibrations. Hundreds of millions of vibrations per second have actually and definitely been measured, while others are so vast as only to be measured by color. The resultant of ten vibrations per second must be very different from the resultant of ten million vibrations. Yet all the resultants produced by the variations of vibrations are controlled by the same law of Nature. Sympathy in its widest sense is the resultant of the various vibrations from the minimum to the maximum within the limits within which all sympathy-producing vibrations lie. Sympathy is produced exactly as heat and light are produced, only by a different number of vibrations. It is composed of exactly the same material, so to speak, and acts in accordance with exactly the same laws of Nature. The degrees of sympathy are as great as the degrees of heat; and, as heat affects different materials at different degrees, so the different degrees of sympathy affect different degrees of life, from the lowest vegetable life to the highest spiritual.
This is not the religion of materialism. Far from it. The Deity has made His laws His servants. This law of vibratory forces is a universal one. By it, through light and heat, He feeds the material life of the earth. Why should He not, by the self-same law, nourish with sympathy, the motive power of life, the life of the soul and spirit in all its grades? It is an utter impossibility that He, a person, can literally take us in His arms and sympathize with us as a parent does. The same end can be better attained by communicating directly with our soul-life by means of this law-established, etheric vibratory power. Thus, this philosophy asserts that ether rays proceed from God, the source of all life, to all life, as the sun's rays proceed from the sun, and that these rays, like the sun's rays, are composed of vibratory forces whose resultant is sympathy - ranging from the lowest to the highest sympathy.
Vibrations must have a cause. The ether is a material connecting mind and matter, whose constituent parts can be vibrated with different variations by some force. What is this force? Does it exist in man? Does it exist in God? It exists in both, but is greater in God than in man. Man has the power to develop sympathy by creating vibrations in common with the Deity, but in a less degree. God is life that includes sympathy, and into man He puts the same life and sympathy, and by the etheric chord they must forever remain connected. The force that generates this vibration is will force. Man's will is free will, and with his will force he can generate this vibratory force to any degree; that is, he can govern his life as he chooses, for this sympathy is the motive power of life which is resident in God and transmissible to man by the connecting-rod of ether appointed for the express purpose. Can this sympathy, philosophically, be disintegrated? Yes, and by analogy the proof evidence is clear. The sun's rays communicate heat, but they are, although vibrations, the essence or quality of the sun. The ether conveys sympathy from the Deity, and amongst His qualities are wisdom and truth, and so wisdom and truth and the other communicable qualities of the Deity are the disintegrations of sympathy. So all gifts from God are sympathies, and all sympathies are ether vibrations.
The molecules or atoms of this ether, which, according to Keely of Philadelphia, can still further be divided and subdivided, are so sympathetically attached as to form one line, ray, or rod, which can be vibrated by will force at extraordinary rates of velocity. From the minimum to the maximum of vibrations that produce sympathy there is a vast range, including every grade and shade of sympathy. Every quality or trait of character in man is some grade of sympathy. Every gift of God or Nature, the highest aspirations of the poet, the greatest ambitions of the conqueror, the ardent affection of the lover, the perseverance of the discoverer, the ingenuity of the inventor, the tyranny of the tyrant, the cowardice of the coward, the zeal of the zealot, the cunning of the thief, all hope and fear, all love and hatred, are shades of sympathy caused by different rates of vibrations of the etheric chord. So the safety of the lucky man and the hero, the wisdom of the sage, the goodness of the religionist, all eccentricities and pecularities, come within the wide range of sympathy, and all sympathy is vibration of the etheric chord which connects mind and matter, soul and soul, man and God.
Keely writes: "The highest range of vibration I ever induced was in the one experiment that I made in liberating ozone by molecular percussion, which induced luminosity, and registered on a lever constructed for the purpose. The vibrations induced by this experiment reached over 700,000,000 per second." Hertz has produced vibrations about one meter long, vibrating more than one hundred million times per second. Keely defines electricity as a certain form of atomic vibration. He estimates that after giving the introductory impulse the increase
| of | Molecular Vibration is to | 100,000,000 | per second |
| of | Intermolecular is to | 300,000,000 | per second |
| of | Atomic is to | 900,000,000 | per second |
| of | InterAtomic is to | 2,700,000,000 | per second |
| of | Etheric is to | 8,100,000,000 | per second |
| of | Interetheric is to | 24,000,000,000 | per second |
(Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore)
What is sympathy? Something that is true to the one experiencing it. Sympathy is fellow-feeling. When the sympathetic vibrations of one person are met by their exact duplicates from another, these persons feel an entire coincidence in their condition, and practically say, "these vibrations communicated to me are true to the vibrations in me." So with all sympathy the giver is true to the receiver in particular chords of vibration, and such an acknowledgement of existing harmony at once creates confidence, and if all the etheric chords connecting these particular persons were in like accord then the one person would be entirely sympathetic or true to the other. The vibratory communication to each other is to them truth. All sympathy is in this sense simply truth. All that is in sympathetic agreement with our true constitution is truth. The motive power of life, which is sympathy and which lies in God, is in sympathetic agreement with our true constitution, and therefore all sympathy is truth. But all sympathy is some series of vibrations, therefore all truth, or the intelligible communication of all truth, is some series of vibrations. Truth is wisdom, therefore all wisdom is some series of vibrations, intelligible although perhaps misunderstood, and a fact although unknown. The source of all wisdom, truth, and sympathy is the Deity; with Him we are in constant, MATERIAL communication, by ether rays. The vibratory action of these rays is sympathy, and we can command knowledge, wisdom, sympathy, truth. It follows from this that a man's character, mental and moral ability, depend on his sympathetic vibrations. The power of causing these vibrations is greatly, not chiefly, in his control. This is what this philosophy considers the true doctrine of free will. Man can make his own character, just as the composer can discourse his own music on the instrument at his command. If he wills not to use the instrument that is no fault of the instrument which is irrevocably attached to him.
Every man has a character of some kind, although it is sometimes difficult to percieve in him the exact pecularities that constitute his character. Numerous ether rays are attached to all, everyone of which has, whether man wishes it or not, by the will power of the Deity whose force is the highest etheric operator, sympathetic vibrations for his motive power in life. If by circumstances, associations, or inclinations he constantly exercises one particular chord with the same series of vibrations he will cultivate the sympathy produced to an abnormal extent. Sympathies in sympathy with that abnormally-cultivated sympathy will, in all likelihood, be cultivated. Such particular sympathy, wisdom, or truth will distinctly affect the man's actions and thoughts, and the pecularity begotten is his characteristic. Men of distinctly great character have been men of distinctly great will force, sufficiently powerful even, in most cases, to set at nought the opinion of the world, and to show indomitable perseverance against all opposition. If this strong will force engine were worked on all a man's etheric chords he would be the highest specimen of human wisdom. All great attainments are the result of strong will. Men of experience know that there are few people with strong will power. The man who has little or no will power is a feeble character, fit only to be the tool of others. Men of mediocrity have small wills. Let the intelligent reader recall the will force of conquerors, discoverers, inventors, poets, statesmen, merchant princes, leaders of men, heroes, and even as low down as successful politicians. The first characteristic of all successful men is will force, and yet this will force is only the engine by which they generated the sympathies or powers which distinguished them. The qualities that distinguish a man are thus sympathies or vibratory forces induced by the ether fixed in him by Nature, and generated by himself by means of his innate free will.
It is an easy thing to imagine a musician of great ability sitting beside an excellant instrument on which he can discourse with ease but who will not touch the instrument; it is easy to imagine his complaining that this is a dull world in which there is no music; yet the complaint is unreasonable, for the music is in himself and the instrument, but he will not play. He himself is entirely to blame for the dullness, the annui, and the legion of disturbing thoughts that crowd upon his mind. It is exactly the same thing with the growlers about this beautiful and good world which I, for one, love with deep devotion.
Everything that could possibly make a man's life happy is at his hand - is in himself, but he will not use the instrument. In deep melancholy and dismay he throws himself, in despair, above the etheric strings themselves, as a foolish bard would upon his harp, and laments that there is no music. How can a fanatic expect music when, in his blind fanaticism, he merely turns his back on the keyboard of his organ and listens? Sympathy is a mechanical resultant subordinate to the will force of man, acting on the ether with certain vibrations, and, therefore, there can be no sympathy to or from the man who merely waits expectingly for it.
All men of distinguished character or ability have been men of great will force, but it does not follow that all men of great will force will be men of distinction, because the will force may be frittered away on matters, or selfish sympathies, of no importance. If abnormal will power be not applied to inducing sympathies - which include all grades of qualities, abilities, and charateristics - the owner cannot be distinguished for any greatness. Such ill-used abnormal will force generally settles down into mere stubborn, empty conceit, that has no sympathy with anybody or anything.
All the great nations that have had their day and passed away have had characteristics which can be correctly accounted for by the same theory. The majority of the individuals of each community by their will force induced the same sympathy from selfish ends, patriotic motives, or otherwise. All the individual chords, being similarly affected, attracted each other and so made the common sympathy the distinct trait of national character. United in counsel, their physical powers were banded together in common sympathy. The community subordinated themselves to the individual of highest sympathy, and swearing allegiance to him, simply clung to their own sympathy. When the general and his army are not of one mind disaster comes because of the dissimilar sympathies. Every man in the army of the first Napoleon was in full sympathy with him, and, fighting like one man, for a long time they carried everything before them.
So an individual's character is formed. By his own free will he vibrates some etheric chord in him at a sufficient rate to generate some sympathy which gives him pleasure, whether that be the lowest carnal enjoyment or the highest sense of duty. He continues assiduously to cultivate the same feeling or sentiment until he does it almost unconsciously, just as the quickest reader spells every word as he reads without thinking of it. When he has reached this stage of cultivating this particular vibrating force the sympathy induced becomes habitual to him and so is called his characteristic. The cultivation is purely a free will action. How does a man know how many vibrations are required to induce any particular sympathy? If he must grope for this intelligence as men now grope for truth, he may, as by chance, find it out once and immediately forget how to repeat the vibration. If this be the case it is easy to imagine a man wasting his life in trying to find out how to induce some particular power or sympathy in him. The doubter, thinking he has here a strong point, again puts his puzzling question: "How does a man know how many vibrations are required to induce any particular sympathy?" I will also ask him one question; yea, five of the same nature I could put. How does a man distinguish color? By his God-given sense of sight, of course. How does a man distinguish sound? By his God-given sense of hearing, of course. And so on with all the five senses, My answer to the doubter's question is: "By the God-given sixth sense (discussed in another part of this treatise) he discerns sympathy."
Christ perceived that virtue had gone out of Him when the woman, in the press of people, touched the hem of His garment. There could be no better illustration of the transmission of sympathy from one to another, for this virtue was a grade of sympathy. The chord of ether existing between Christ and the woman was mutually vibrated by the will force of both, and hence the extraordinary result of a sympathetic cure of a bodily infirmity. Sympathy simply acted on this ether ray in accordance with the selfsame law by which the sympathetic vibration is conveyed from the source of all sympathy to all beings whose life-motive power is this sympathy, supplies of which can alone, and easily, be obtained direct from the Deity. The established lines of communication are everlasting and indestructible, and can be vibrated in the highest degree by the will force of the Deity; in a secondary, and yet extraordinary, degree, they can be vibrated by the will of man; and in a tertiary, and yet wonderful, manner, the vibrations can be caused by the will of our neighbors. Of course other beings, and even Nature herself, can be the direct or indirect means of inducing these vibrations. As in the case of Christ and the woman, all beings are in touch (etheric) with God, and so virtue constantly goes out of Him, and is transmitted by the ether lines to every individual station on these lines. One individual, or even one nation, may be more in touch with the Deity than the general press of the world, and so to such more sympathy or virtue will pass. There is nothing more astonishing in Nature than the simplicity of her laws, just as by an infinitely distant comparison, there is nothing more remarkable about man's greatest deeds or writings than their simplicity. This universal law of sympathy, that affects all and controls all life, unites all creatures in one bond of virtue, brings them into practically immediate touch with God, and keeps them ever in His presence, is the simplest of all the known wonderful agents of the Almighty.
The exercise of this free will force does not necessarily cause contortions of the body, but in public speaking as well as in private persuasion people earnest in the advocacy of some cause they have at heart put their limbs to great exertion. This is a mere outward or visible sign that the will force within is making a special effort to vibrate the intervening ether with the velocity required to establish or induce enthusiasm, which is simply a grade of sympathy. Simulated effort of will force has no effect on the ether, for Nature cannot be deceived nor can her laws be administered by usurpers. The will power must actually work, and not merely seem to do so. The man who beats the air for the mere purpose of seeming earnest wastes his energy. Such a man could no more win over an unbeliever than he could fly. One might as well try to produce a hurricane by blowing his breath hard, as to try to produce enthusiasm by a mere semblance of earnestness. Even an actor is a failure when he cannot persuade his audience that for the time being he is real. The genuine work of the will force will gain the respectful attention of the most bigoted adverse audience even when all appearance of oratory is wanting. The eyes and ears may be riveted on the demonstrative actions and eloquent language of a speaker, but the soul is attracted by the vibration of the ether alone, which vibration can only be induced by will force. If the will force be honestly applied to vibrate the ether, these outward demonstrations will be important auxiliaries in creating sympathetic attention from the hearers. Clamouring and beating the air may deceive, but it cannot enthuse. Earnestness is therefore one of the chief factors in working successfully this free will engine with which man is gifted.
If a person, blindfolded in order to be uninfluenced by looks or signs, be brought into a room where several people are silently assembled, he will be able to discover any definite, pre-arranged thought they may have unanimously agreed to earnestly occupy their minds for the time. This thought reading is a common experience. The company by united silent will force vibrate the invisible, connecting ether at the required rate, and the blindfolded individual ceases for the moment to vibrate any etheric chord attached to him, and permits the combined vibratory chord of the others attractively to attach itself by vibration to a similar chord in him with a similar series of vibrations, and thereby to produce the same thought. The active vibrations of the company's chord are communicated to the dormant chords of the blindfolded individual. The same result can be produced by exactly the same law if one of two pitchforks of equal note be struck; the untouched one will vibrate in sympathy. Here, too, united earnestness of definite purpose is requisite to cause the required vibration or sympathy. At the same time it is most distinctly a matter of free will, and, in the same way, every action of man is the result of free will force.
All the superior powers of other worlds are united with the Deity, the origin of the life force sympathy, and with all terrestrial life by this universal etheriform element. They are uninfluenced by terrestrial schemings on their part, and therefore their sympathies are pure and nobler than those of man. So, too, if there be inferior powers they will be more antipathetic under the same law. Communications by guardian angels are, by their will force, induced on the ether chords passing through them and man. Whether they, too, have free will, or are the compulsory agents of the Deity for communicating sympathy, I cannot tell.
No idle superfluities have been made by Divine wisdom. Even the qualities, as well as the substances themselves, must do work in Nature. To work is no curse on man, but the common lot of all that is made. Where is the scientist who can tell all the uses of air, or the compulsory work of its ingredients? Who could write down the prescribed work of water, or tabulate the duties of the soil? Many are the known uses of the vibratory rays of the sun. Nothing has been made that has not been made with, and for, a purpose; therefore the universal etheriform element has also its purpose. When the established laws or works of the Supreme Engineer of the universe can be used as His servants, He uses them without making duplicates or resemblances. No auxiliary force is added to complicate the machinery when the engine already constructed is sufficient. Never does the Deity work a miracle when the service of some established power can do it. This universal ether is, of all things, no idle superfluity, for it has to accomplish all the work necessary to be done by the agent connecting mind and matter, God and man. That it proceeds in rays or lines is no mere accident, but a most important condition that, like all conditions, is bound to do work in the wonderful universe. All lines can be vibrated, and God does not permit even an idle or designless vibration, and these vibrations of the ether are the life of the soul, just as the vibrations of the sun's rays are the life of the earth. Of course, they have other contingent or collateral uses; in fact, one law of Nature does everything it is possible for it to do. Two laws are never used when one is enough. Simplicity is Nature's grandest law; she seems to abhor complexity.
There is not a law of Nature for sublime, and another for insignificant things. A law of Nature does not act in great matters only, but is true and active in the most minute details, as if atoms were as important as worlds. The production of sympathy by the vibrations of the etheric chords that join the Creator and creature is the same in law, principle, and fact as that which causes two or more persons connected by the same etheric chord to yawn in sympathy. When one of several persons in a room yawns others may at once do the same involuntarily, apparently; but all present will not do it unless they are all in sympathetic connection. Moreover, Nature cannot be deceived, for, while sympathetic subjects irresistibly yawn, as by infection, a sham yawn will not produce the desire to yawn in another. Nothing but genuine sympathy or a true vibration can produce in others genuine, infectious sympathy; and only real sympathy can be truely felt as sympathy.
The mystic motive power of life is sympathy, without which life is, indeed, not worth living. Sympathy is the God-begotten beat of the great clockwork of human life. Its impassioned touch makes not only the world but the whole universe feel kin. God and humanity are in one bond, and their sympathies are common. Each touches the other through the great etheric chords. The chord clasps the hands of the finite and the infinite, and so commingles the life of heaven and earth. A sun that gave neither heat nor light might imaginably be tolerated, but a life without sympathy is an impossibility. Cessation of sympathy is the necessary consequence of a will that has ceased to exist either in or towards the object where sympathy or life formerly dwelt. There is death where there is no sympathy; there is no sympathy in death; death is the extinction of sympathy. The final dissolution of soul and body is the parting of sympathy from life. Sympathy is that subtle, charming potency that brings sunshine to the soul, warmth to the heart, and brightness to the face. It wins the confidence, secures the love, binds the interests of fellow-creatures, and gives a semblance of true life even to conventionalism. Its sphere of labor far outreaches the solar system, and has no day nor night in its time. Its pulsations are as everlasting as Nature's laws, and will force of God or man will never fail to generate it or keep it alive. The sun, moon, and stars, and all the solar system may give way, yea, the firmament itself be rolled up like a parchment and cast into oblivion, but sympathy between the Creator and His beings of eternal life will never cease to beat in unison while the eternal will of the Almighty exists. Its life is co-equal with the eternal, and everyone is in direct material connection with this eternal force, and its services are at man's will.
Ether rays proceed from the Deity, the source of all life, to all life. These ether rays can be vibrated by will force. Man has this will force as well as the Deity. Man’s will force is a free will force. Sympathy is the mystic motive power of life. Every sympathy is some series of vibrations on this etheric chord. Instinct is a grade of sympathy or a vibratory force. All traits of character are sympathies or vibratory forces. Men have a sixth sense, whose function is to distinguish sympathy.
That sympathy is the result of a will force is daily verified in all men's lives. We only sympathise where we will, either with of without a motive, or as the result of reasoning. When a man comes to grief some of his friends sympathise with him, while another says, "I have no pity on him; he deserved it all." Both the giving and the withholding sympathy are the results of will force, and that of free will force. Every man knows from his own personal experience such proofs of will force producing sympathy. Yet this is presumably when the need for sympathy - the grief of a friend - is seen and recognised, but by look alone we divine, as it were, the necessity for sympathy in another and give it; this very divining is the working of the vibratory ether between the two persons and the recognition of it by the sixth sense, as well as the generation of sympathy by the will force.
There are many wonderful physical results of will force, among which may be cited the fact that any man, however heavy, may be lifted into the air solely by awill force that evidently neutralises or overcomes gravity. The heavy person, standing erect, may be lifted and thrown to the ceiling without any application of power or pressure by two other persons placing their little fingers beneath the raised toes and heels of the heavy one to be lifted. All must breathe in sympathy and will to act.
True human love justly takes a high position among the sympathies. If two persons meet who have cultivated the same sympathies to an equal extent, their ether chords will be mutually attractive and assimilative. Two such persons will at once be drawn together by a kind of equally irresistable magnetic influence. It is not really magnetism, but co-ordinate sympathy that seeks affinity, as magnetism would. Such similar sympathies produce love at first sight; but it is rarely that two such individuals meet. Where there is no sympathy there can be no love, for love is sympathy. Two persons who ultimately love each other have, at least, one sympathy in common. It is this common sympathy that attracts in the first instance. By will force each cultivates that assimilative quality, and then other vibrating chords connecting them are acted on in such a way as to attract or please the already established sympathy. Thus sympathy begets love or co-ordinate sympathy by a mechanical application of will force to the medium of ether. Love is not compulsory, for will force is free will.
In the same way antipathetic feelings may be induced to such an extent that two persons by will force may hate each other to a degree that may be known to each without word, look, or act. Two persons that utterly hate, or overwhelmingly love, each other, would be a rare phenomenon; for, in all likelihood, some of the multitude of connecting etheric chords would vibrate attractively. There is no person completely unsympathetic or utterly bad. There cannot be two persons completely indifferent to each other. There must be antipathy of sympathy in some degree on some of their connecting lines. There may be sympathy in one or more lines and antipathy on others.
It is impossible to pass in utter silence our domestic pets. The sympathy between a child and a pet animal is far greater than the sympathy between a man and a pet animal. The child's true life is still unpoisoned by the illogical reason of the world, so Nature's true co-ordinate sympathy alone attracts in child and pet. There is no deceit, no fear in either. Nature teaches us to be true; the world teaches us to be cunning, and therefore false; no child is cunning (deceitful) by nature. There is a very distinct effort of will force required to induce sympathetic vibrations towards the domestic pet. Very demonstrable efforts are made to show kindness to it - efforts that could not be made without the assisstance of the will force, just as any work whatever, unwillingly done, is always of an inferior stamp, and especially is it so with mental work, which the generation of sympathy is. Each man has a special liking for some animal or other. He looks into its eyes and there he sees, what he unhesitatingly believes he to be, an intelligible comprehension of his feelings towards it; more than that, he sees the flashing, instantaneous look of reciprocation. There and then the co-ordinate attractive sympathies blend, and, for the time, the same emotion pervades both. No words are needed; the vibrations convey the knowledge which the outward fondlings only confirm.
The modern marvelous revelations of science are the mere exponents of natural powers. Man has contrived wonderful machines on which to utilise simple laws, or to do work that Nature does more simply. Yet man's machines, when understood, are far more complicated than Nature's simpler ways. Moreover, science has clearly demonstrated many possibilities that mechanical engineering cannot imitate. The phonograph and its allied inventions are simple and wonderful; but the methods of Nature for such transmissions are simpler still. The conveyance of intelligible sound to distant places without the medium of wire is a theoretical possibility, with all the practical pecularities of the telephone added. It is within the beliefs of this philosophy that sound can be conveyed by means of this etheriform element which connects the celestial with the terrestrial world, (editor's note: This book was written in 1892 - nine years before Marconi's first “wireless transmissionâ€) and which annihilates time and space as we understand them. In this way it may be no delusion when we feel sure that some familiar voice of a departed friend seems within our very hearing. There is nothing supernatural or inhuman about the idea. Moreover, images may be conveyed by the self-same medium; and thus, when people honestly affirm they have seen the dead, they may, in all possibility, have seen the images as like as life. The picture may be conveyed by the ether and be developed before the human eyes; but it is never more than the image, for in no asserted case has the figure been tangible. In this way the higher doctrines of spiritualism are certainly within the range of possibility. (I am no believer in spiritualism, popularly so called.)
As civilization advances agreeableness among the people increases, but primitive contentment gives places to a luxury that is always deteriorating to the breed. The spirit of speculation grows, with its manifold accompanying evils, with civilization, because the amassing of wealth is the only road to providing ostentatious luxury which is falsely considered happiness. The people are not satisfied to live in that frugality which is conducive to health and long life. Public diseases and private diseases increase enormously. Such grave evil are the natural sequence of the adopted philosophies that practically teach a false hypothesis of life. The doctrines of chance and utilitarianism are now the real fundamental principles of life, although men declare with a kind of poetical licence that is mythical that they trust in Providence with a vague faith which they cannot understand. Religious rites are adhered to because it is the right thing to do - because it is fashionable. Here is a philosophy that does not bar the door with science, but which rather makes a warden of the church, reverencing her ceremonies, protecting her principles, advocating her mission, trusting her creed, and heartily taking part in her work although not recognising her usurping dogmas. She recognises the church's beautiful figures of speech without accepting their literal translation. To her the Deity is a Person - the Father of all mankind - and as such cannot be present in more than one place, although by means of this etheriform element, in which time and space as we understand them are annihilated, He sees and knows all things, and so is practically everywhere. He is to her the Great Shepherd, and as such by means of etheric chords is in constant touch and sympathy with all. There is constant and instantaneous telepathy between the Creator and the creature by means of this telephonic ether.
God made the world and found everything that He made good; man re-fashioned the world, and now finds that it is all very bad. He blames the original make, not the re-fashion. Engines are driven by steam; steam is treasured up in snow, but engines cannot be driven by unmelted snow. Man has been trying the wrong way to conduct human nature without a true knowledge of the real motive power of life; life is consequently, as far as man is concerned, a failure, and he is amazed at it. If it were not for Nature the machinery would not go at all. Man's only effort to set things right has been a brake on the human locomotive, and a brake whose principles he does not understand. In fact, he is constantly experimenting with this poor human engine, and although he sees it has wonderful capacities and capabilities, the whole thing is to him a puzzle which he is daily making more complex, although, good honest creature, he thinks he is simplifying simple Nature. Everything, everywhere, is simple in Nature. It is illogical reasoning and action of man that make obscurity. He looks at everything through colored glasses, expecting difficulties, intricacies, and problems of life, and so finds them where they never existed by Nature. Nature is as plain as common sense, and man himself makes all the difficulties and puzzles. He seems to think it incompatible with omniscience that things should be simple, even although the fact stares him in the face that all great inventions of man himself are very, very simple when understood.
In order to avoid confusing language, sympathy will not again be referred to in this treatise as a vibratory force, but it is always to be understood that it is so, just as one speaks of the sun's rays without mentioning or thinking of the vibrations of light and heat. When an etheric chord is spoken of as some particular one charged with some special magnetic power, the reader is expected to infer that that particular chord is vibrated with the velocity required to produce the particular quality or sympathy specially spoken of at that particular time. All the influences spoken of hereafter, this philosophy maintains, are vibrations of the etheric chords, and they are expressed as they are, simply because the author believes the style adopted of recording the facts will be more impressive on the many.
By belief in this philosophy all the doubts and difficulties about religion are done away with; the scientist is satisfied, the superficial doubter is placed on a firm basis, and those endangered by a "little knowledge" are enlightened. Science has its difficulties and so has philosophy. Philosophy may be enticing in its appearance, persuasive in its language, true in its theories, and yet impracticable in its facts. This is one of the most practical philosophies ever placed before enlightened men, and in no age was it ever so practicable as in the present; in fact, the present age demands such a philosophy.
All material life rquires nourishment. All material life is nourished by the like material with which it is made. All material life has appended to it the requirements for obtaining that nourishment. All material life knows what is its natural nourishment. These are facts that do not stop short at material life, but are true of all life including the soul or spirit of man. The soul or real life of man requires nourishment, is nourished by the same MATERIAL by which it is itself made, has appended to it the requirements for obtaining that nourishment, and knows what its natural nourishment is. It is not, unlike all other life, left out in utter darkness as to its own position in this life. In the Creator, the source of all life and knowledge, is that sympathy which the creature, by created means made known to him, must imbibe as the requisite motive life-power for producing true human happiness to himself and glory to God. This created means is the etheriform element referred to in this article.
People who have no understanding whatever about telephones believe in them, and it is so with a thousand things in every-day life, in which they know or see the facts without further understanding. I shall give many proofs of the working of this element in life - proofs that are in themselves self-evident to everybody, and not cabalistically expressed facts that want further proof and explanation. If what I say be true, let it be believed. Let there be neither public denouncement nor private, silent contempt when it is clear the facts are incontrovertible. This is demanding no favor, but begging a right.
Time creates her own heros. An invention is always required before it is invented; the necessity for an article preceded its discovery. Troublous times produce the required man, who stands head and shoulders above his fellows. In history, discover, and Nature, necessity produces her own antidote, and, humanly speaking, never is that antidote otherwise produced. The necessity of darkness now demands light. Above all the many important questions of the day the necessity for an answer to the question, "What is Truth?" stands preeminent. In over populated countries people have been driven to such - clearly questionable - resources to maintain life as to cause men to doubt the most serious questions of life, and to bring about the necessity for clearly defining and explaining the origin, use, and end of life on such a basis that educated and scientific men can, as reasonable beings, be asked to accept as truth. The necessity for a reasonable explanation has, by the advanced civilisation of society, been for the first time forced to the front, and this necessity has produced the solution, viz., the scientific solution of the philosophy of life and the origin of truth. Ether rays proceeding from the source of life - as the sun's rays convey light and heat - convey all life force, especially the life force of man, who is the image of Him who is the source of life. These ether rays are universal, and are the mediums of life and intelligence, in the same way that telephone wires conduct sound, or as telegraph wires convey the electric message. The heart's desires (unuttered and unexpressed), thoughts and motives of the mind, and all the secrets of psychology are conveyed by them, not only from the Deity to man, but from man to man and all beings capable of sympathy.
A great idea is not necessarily, in the first place, the production of anyone individual. People seperated by continents have often the same ideas and make the same discoveries without having the remotest knowledge of each other. This has often been proved in the progress of science and works of genius. Whence comes this similar conception? Not, assuredly, from the similarity of their surroundings, for these are frequently utterly different. The idea is justly said to be original, inasmuch as it was never heard of, known, or entertained before. It if be original, whence its origin? Has it more than one origin? It is simply the truth from the source of truth conveyed in the etheric line which passes through the discoverers. Yet the same line passes through many, but the truth is unintelligible to them or disregarded by them; and such people are those who after the publication of a discovery, "Why, I have often thought that myself.†There never was an invention patented yet but many people have virtually said; “I have often thought of taking out a patent for the very same thing." In this idea they are not deluded, for they, too, by the self-same means, had the same truth conveyed to them, but not being quick of apprehension, they did not seize their opportunity. There are thousands of people at this very moment, entirely unknown to each other, working out the self-same original ideas. If men were to proceed on the scholastic idea that truth is only taught from the acquired knowledge of their human teachers, civilization would go backwards instead of forward, as it does by the superhuman influence constantly flowing into man's intelligence through the etheric connecting-rod that joins the Creator and the creature.
Truth is ever true, and yet its conveyance may seem to be intermittent, but it is constant, even although it may seem to be revealed to only a few and at widely different times. The connecting-rods of conveyance are both universal and everlasting. The |etheric connecting links that have passed through distinguished authors who have revealed the truth are as they were both in fact and effect. Taking the poets, for instance. Man have written the same ideas, and almost the same language, as geniuses whom the world has commemorated in song and stone, and yet have been despised as mere imitators of their enthroned forerunners, although they have never heard their names nor read a word of their works. A man who now proclaimed the truths as Shakespeare, in similar language, would not be tolerated because of being second in the field, and yet he might be quite as great a genius and quite as original; and this is just what would take place were an equally observing man's lot to be cast on the same etheric chords as Shakespeare's was. By this very same method, too, history repeats itself, but while there is no necessity for men to recognise the poet and his secondhand truth, yet men's lives are a part of history, and it is compulsory for them to share it.
This knowledge of etheric connection between the Creator and creature is innate, yet the adult acts as if he did not know it. Why? The explanation is simple. As the antagonistic wisdom of the world is adopted by the young, inexperienced, free will human nature, the innate knowledge droops, just as one who is accomplished on a musical instrument will lose the power of playing it altogether if he cease to practise. That children have quick understanding, although wanting in expression, will not be denied by an observer of children's ways. Wisdom does not begin with fluency of speech. Although knowledge grows with the acquirement of language, it is not the acquirement of language that begets knowledge. If it were so, the mute must remain ignorant. The views and opinions of children - say people under twenty-one - become very much altered with maturer years. Life and its prospects are all poetry in youth, but as years advance the aim and end of life become dull prose. This change is clearly caused by the adoption, in maturing years, of the world's adopted and adapted opinions, which are entirely different from the prospective ones of uninfluenced, natural life of free and happy youth. The knowledge that looks for bright and happy life comes by nature, while the knowledge that teaches “man was made to mourn" is acquired. The former and true knowledge is conveyed by the etheric chords, and if the child, so receiving that knowledge, could express himself, it would be with feelings of hope, joy, and confidence of a happy world such as life ought to give. Such expressed feelings would naturally and truthfully show that a man loves his father's estate without any wish to be master of it. The views of life in youth with all its poetic hopes are correct views, which, if carried out by all, would lead to the natural love and use of the world. Life's poetry is mutilated by the illogical reasoning of man gone astray from the innate instructions which, attended to by youth, lead that youth into the true groove of life. The easy pliability with which this radical change from the beliefs of youth is made is very practically recognized by zealots for creeds or sects, who invariably seek proselytes among the young.
This element is the medium of all psychic forces. Similarly sympathetic minds are attracted and bound by it, and those of enemies are so repelled. By it comes the ever increasing influx of truth to mortals; by it the genius knows his power and the hero his safety. This is the means by which "coming events cast their shadows before." Illusions are its misunderstood communications, visions are pictures actually presented to the mind, dreams are whispers from the sympathetic connections, and thought reading is etheric telepathy. It is a volatile and spiritual-like substance, prevading the realms of soul and body, and is highly sensitive to every emotion and thought - a latent force in which lurk all the psychological secrets of Nature. It is not sympathy itself, but that element in which sympathy can alone act. As air is the medium of sound, light, and heat, so this element is a medium of great subtilty, conveying even the unexpressed emotions of the mind, and transmitting instantaneously the pulsations of one soul to another. The vibrations of a nation's feelings are thrilled upon it like telegrams over the wire, and by it the prayers of silent worshipers are immediately placed at the throne of grace. It is the immediate environment of all, and beyond it no life can get. Through it the lower animals give their confidences and affections to mankind, and by it the soul communes with God. The doubts and irresolutions that wreck so many lives could rarely originate if this element and its uses were acknowledged. The problems of life and futurity would be solved as soon as created; the mind would be hampered with fewer perplexities; futurity would be less obscured with misgivings; anticipations of fears and joys would be more reasonable; friendships would be more real and life more natural were this link between mind and matter understood, for it proves science, philosophy, and religion to be most amicably allied. (see "A New Creed")