Books: AE in the Irish Theosophist
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George William Russell >> AE in the Irish Theosophist
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Passing beyond the turning point of evolution, where the delusion
of separateness is complete, and moving on the that future awaiting
us in infinite distances, when the Great Breath shall cease its
outward motion and we shall merge into the One--on this uphill
journey in groups and clusters men will first draw closer together,
entering in spirit their own parent rays before being united in
the source of all light and life. Such a brotherhood of men and
women we may expect will arise, conscious in unity, thinking from
one mind and acting from one soul. All such great achievements
of the race are heralded long before by signs which those who study
the lives of men may know. There is a gestation in the darkness
of the womb before the living being appears. Ideals first exist
in thought, and from thought they are outrealized into objective
existence. The Theosophical Society was started to form the
nucleus of a universal brotherhood of humanity, and its trend is
towards this ideal. May we not justifiably suppose that we are
witnessing to-day in this movement the birth of a new race
corresponding to the divine Initiators of the Third; a race which
shall in its inner life be truly a "Wondrous Being." I think we
will perform our truest service to the Society by regarding it in
this way as an actual entity whose baby years and mystical childhood
we should foster. There are many people who know that it is possible
by certain methods to participate in the soul-life of a co-worker,
and if it is possible to do this even momentarily with one comrade,
it is possible so to participate in the vaster life of great
movements. There will come a time to all who have devoted themselves
to this idea, as H.P. Blavatsky and some others have done, when
they will enter into the inner life of this great Being, and share
the hopes, the aspirations, the heroism, and the failures which
must be brought about when so many men and women are working together.
To achieve this we should continually keep in mind this sense of
unity; striving also to rise in meditation until we sense in the
vastness the beating of these innumerable hearts glowing with heroic
purpose: we should try to humanize our mysticism; "We can only
reach the Universal Mind through the minds of humanity," and we
can penetrate into their minds by continual concentration,
endeavouring to realise their thoughts and feelings, until we
carry always about with us in imagination, as [wrote] Walt Whitman,
"those delicious burdens, men and women."
--November 15, 1893
The Mystic Nights' Entertainment
We went forth gay in the twilight's cover;
The dragon Day with his ruddy crest
Blazed on the shadowy hills hung over
The still grey fields in their dewy rest.
We went forth gay, for all ancient stories
Were told again in our hearts as we trod;
Above were the mountain's dawn-white glories;
We climbed to it as the throne of God.
We pitched our tents in a sheltered nook on the mountain side. We
were great with glee during the day, forecasting happy holidays
remote from the crowded city. But now as we sat round the camp
fire at dusk silence fell upon us. What were we to do in the long
evenings? I could see Willie's jolly face on the other side of
the fire trying to smother a yawn as he refilled his pipe. Bryan
was watching the stars dropping into their places one by one. I
turned to Robert and directed the general attention to him as a
proper object for scorn. He had drawn a pamphlet on some scientific
subject from his breast-pocket and was trying to read it by the
flickering light.
"Did you come up to the mountains for this," I asked, "to increase
your knowledge of the Eocene age? Put it by, or--we will send it
up as a burnt offering to the stars."
"Well," he said, looking rather ashamed, "one must do something,
you know. Willie has his pipe, Bryan is holding some mysterious
intercourse with the planets, and you have the fire to take care of.
What is one to do?"
This went to the root of the matter. I pondered over it awhile,
until an idea struck me.
"There is Bryan. Let him tell us a story. He was flung into life
with a bundle of old legends. He knows all mystery and enchantment
since the days of the Rishees, and has imagined more behind them.
He has tales of a thousand incarnations hidden away in secretness.
He believes that everything that happened lives still in the memory
of Nature, and that he can call up out of the cycles of the past
heroic figures and forgotten history, simply by his will, as a
magician draws the elemental hordes together."
"Have a dragon and a princess in it," said Willie, settling himself
into an attitude of listening.
"Or authentic information about Eocene man," suggested Robert.
"I could not tell a story that way," said Bryan simply. "I could
never invent a story, though all the characters, heroes and princess,
were to come and sit beside me so that I could describe them as
they really were. My stories come like living creatures into my mind;
and I can only tell them as they tell themselves to me. Today,
as I lay in the sunlight with closed eyes, I saw a haze of golden
light, then twilight trees appeared and moving figures and voices
speaking; it shaped itself into what is hardly a story, but only
an evening in some legendary existence."
We waited while Bryan tried to recall his misty figures. We were
already in sympathy with his phantasmal world, for the valleys
below us were dim-coloured and quiet, and we heard but rarely and
far away the noises of the village; the creatures of the mountain
moved about in secretness, seeking their own peculiar joys in
stillness amid dews and darkness. After a little Bryan began.
The Gardens of Twilight
I saw in my vision one of the heroes of the antique world. He
rode for many, many days, yet saw no kindly human face. After
long wanderings and toils he came to the Gardens of Twilight, the
rich and rare gardens of the primeval world, known by rumour to
the ancient Greeks as the Hesperides. He looked around with wonder;
the place was all a misty dazzle with light, a level light as of
evening that flowed everywhere about; the air was rich with the
scent of many blossoms; from each flower rose an odour that hovered
about it as a delicate vapour. While he gazed, one of the spirits
of the garden came nigh him in the guise of a beautiful human child.
"How came you here?"
"I wandered for many years," he said, "I fought with the dragons
that lie coiled in citron scales on the highways; I warred against
oppression; I made justice to prevail, and now that peace is on
the land I might have rested with peace in mine own heart, but I
could not yet. So I left behind the happy hearths and homes of
men and rode onward, a secret fire burning ceaselessly within me;
I know not in what strange home it will be still. But what gardens
are these?"
"They are the Gardens of Twilight," answered the child.
"How beautiful then must be the Gardens of Day! How like a faint
fine dust of amethyst and gold the mist arises from the enchanted
odorous flowers! Surely some spirit things must dwell within the
air that breaks so perpetually into hues of pearl and shell!"
"They are the servants of Zeus," the child said. "They live within
these wandering airs; they go forth into the world and make mystery
in the hearts of men."
"Was it one such guided me thither?"
"I do not know; but this I know, whether led by the wandering
spirits or guided by their own hearts, none can remain here safely
and look upon the flowers save those who understand their mystery
or those who can create an equal beauty. For all others deadly
is the scent of the blossoms; stricken with madness, they are
whirled away into the outer world in fever, passion and unending
hunger and torment."
"I do not care if I pass from them," said the wanderer. "It is
not here my heart could be still and its desire cease, but in the
first Fount."
They passed on and went deeper into the Gardens of Twilight, which
were ever-changing, opalescent, ever-blushing with new and momentary
beauty, ever-vanishing before the steady gaze to reveal beneath
more silent worlds of mystic being. Like vapour, now gorgeous and
now delicate, they wavered, or as the giant weeds are shadowing
around the diver in the Indian wave sun-drenched through all its
deeps of green. Sometimes a path would unfold, with a million
shining flowers of blue, twinkling like stars in the Wilky Way,
beneath their feet, and would wind away delicately into the
faery distances.
"Let us rest," said the child, leaning against a tree. She began
swaying a hand to and fro among the flowers; as her fingers touched
the bell-like blooms of burning amethyst they became stained with
the rich colour; she seemed to lose herself in dreams as one who
toils not for delight, living ever amid rich joys. He wondered
if she was as unreal as the gardens, and remembering her words,
they seemed familiar as if they were but echoes of the unuttered
thoughts that welled up as he moved about. While he watched the
flitting phantasmagoria with a sense expectant of music which never
came, phantasmagoria with a sense expectant of music which never
came, there arose before him images of peace, vanishing faster
than passion, and forms of steadfast purity came nigh, attired,
priestess-like, in white and gold; they laid their heads against
his breast; as he looked down, their eyes, eager and flamelike,
grew passionate and full of desire. He stretched out his hand to
pluck blossoms and twine wreaths for their beautiful heads.
"Do not! Do not!" cried the child. "See how every blossom has
its guardian!"
There were serpents coiling about the roots of every flower, or
amid the leaves, waiting with undulating head and forked tongue to
strike the uncautious hand. He shook off the drowsy influence of
the scents and o'er-burdened air; the forms vanished. He remembered
the child's words: "None can remain in safety an equal beauty."
He began to ponder over the meaning of the gardens.
"While we sit here, late lingerers in the glory of twilight, I will
tell you a story which my fancy brings me," he said. "I thought
one came here long ago and built himself a mighty world in a dream
of many hundred years."
"He had lived with kings and counselors; he had wrought in magical
arts, and the great and wise of the earth were his fellows. When
a time came for him to depart he turned away sadly from the towers
of men. He passed, without knowing it, through the strange defiles
which lead to these gardens; but the light did not break upon him
in iridescent waves foamy with flowers and sparkling with vanishing
forms; the light was hidden in the bosom of the twilight; it was
all-pervading but invisible; the essence of the light bathed his soul;
the light was living; the light was exhaustless; by it everything
was born; touched by it everything went forth in ecstasy, blind,
seeking for realization.
"The magician brought with him the seeds of human desire and wisdom
and aspiration. The light broke into his moody forgetfulness and
kindled long-forgotten fires. He awoke from his darkness and saw
before him in happiest vistas the island city of his lounging.
Around him were the men and women he knew; acting on his secret
wishes the multitudes hailed him as king, they bowed before him
as wise, they worshiped him as all-powerful.. It was not strange
to him, and rapt in royal imaginations for countless years he held
sway over the island city. He dreamed of it as a poet, and there
was no more beautiful city than this city of his dream. There
were places that shot up, pinnacle upon pinnacle, amid the jewel-
light of the stars; there were courts and porticoes full of
mysterious glory and gloom, magnificence and darkness; there were
fountains that jetted their pearly mists into the light; around
them with summer in their hearts lay the island inhabitants, each
one an angel for beauty. As the dream of the magician deepened
in rapture, the city wavered and changed more continually; its
towers pierced more daringly into the way of the stars; for the
darkness below he summoned birds of fire from the aerial deeps;
they circled the palaces with flaming wings; they stained the air
with richest dyes and rained forth emerald and blue and gold on
the streets and sculptured walls and the inhabitants in their
strange joys.
"His dream changed; he went forth no more but shut himself up in
his palace with his wisest princes, and as he took counsel with them,
the phantasmal and brilliant towers without faded and fell away
as a butterfly droops its wings. For countless years he lived in
the intoxication of thought; around him were sages who propounded
wisest laws, and poets who sang of love, humanity and destiny. As
his dream deepened still more in its rapture, they sang of mightier
themes; there was continual music and light; there was no limit
of glory or dominion which the human soul might not aspire to;
his warriors stepped from star to star in dreams of conquest, and
would have stayed the seraph princess of the wind and wave and fire,
to make more radiant the retinue of this magician of the Beautiful.
"Again his desire changed. He sought to hold no further sway over
these wide realms beyond him; he shut himself up in an inner chamber
in lonely meditation, and as he entered into a deeper being the
sages and poets, who were with him at his royal feasts, vanished
and were no more. He, the wise mind, pondered within himself,
finding joy in the continual inward birth of thought following
thought, as in lonely seas wave rolls upon wave. From all things
he had known or experienced he drew forth their essence and hidden
meaning, and he found that he had been no less a king in his old
unconsciousness than he now was, and that at all times nature had
been obeisant and whatever had happened had still been by his own
will. Through the light, thin fretted by the fire of his aspirations,
he sometimes seemed to see the shining Law in all things and the
movement through the thought-swept fields of heaven of the universal
imagination. He saw that this, too, had been a minister to him.
He drew nigh to himself--divinity. The last rapture of his soul
was his radiant self-conception. Save for this vesture the light
of illusion fell from him. He was now in a circle of whitest fire,
that girdled and looked in upon the movements of worlds within its
breast. He tried to expand and enter this flaming circle; myriads
of beings on its verges watched him with pity; I felt their thought
thrilling within me.
"He will never attain it!"
"Ah, the Beautiful Bird, his plumage is stained!"
"His glory will drag him down!"
"Only in invisible whiteness can he pass!"
"How he floats upwards, the Beautiful Bird!"
"These voices of universal compassion did not reach him, rapt in
aspiration and imperious will. For an instant--an eternity--the
infinitudes thrilled him, those infinitudes which in that instant
he knew he could never enter but as one with all on the days of
the great return. All that longed, all that aspired and dared,
all but the immortal were in that movement destroyed, and hurled
downwards from the highest heaven of life, the pilgrim spark began
once more as a child to live over again the round of human days."
"The spirit of the place o'ermastered you," said the child. "Here
may come and dream; and their dream of joy ended, out of each
dreaming sphere comes forth again in pain the infant spirit of man."
"But beyond this illusive light and these ever-changing vistas--
what lies? I am weary of their vanishing glories. I would not
wish to mount up through dreams to behold the true and fall away
powerlessly, but would rather return to earth, though in pain,
still eager to take up and renew the cyclic labours."
"I belong to the gardens," said the child; "I do not know what
lies beyond. But there are many paths leading far away."
Before them where they stood branched out paths of rich flowers.
Here a region of pinks lured on to vistas of delicate glory;
there ideal violet hues led to a more solemn beauty; here the
eyes were dazzled by avenues of rich, radiant, and sunny green;
another in beautiful golden colours seemed to invite to the land
of the sun, and yet another winded away through soft and shadowy
blues to remote spiritual distances. There was one, a path of
white flowers ending in light no eye could pierce.
"I will choose this--the path of white flower," he said, waving
farewell to the child. I watched the antique hero in my vision as
he passed into the light; he seemed to shine, to grow larger; as
he vanished from my eyes he was transfigured, entering as a god the
region of gods."
"Did you really dream all that?" said Willie. "How jolly it must be!
It is like stepping from sphere to sphere. Before the night of one
day you are in the morning of another. I suppose you have some
theory about it all--as wonderful as your gardens?"
"Yes!" said our sceptic, "I had an uneasy consciousness it was not
all pure story. I felt an allegory hiding its leanness somewhere
beneath the glow and colour."
"What I want to know is how these things enter the imagination at all!"
"With what a dreadfully scientific spirit you dissect a fantasy!
Perhaps you might understand if you recall what sometimes happens
before sleep. At first you see pictures of things, landscapes,
people you know; after a time people and places unknown before
begin to mingle with them in an ever-widening circle of visions;
the light on which these things are pictured is universal, though
everyone has around himself his own special sphere of light;
this is the mirror of himself--his memory; but as we go deeper
into ourselves in introspection we see beyond our special sphere
into the great of universal light, the memorial tablet of nature;
there lie hidden the secrets of the past; and so, as Felix said
a little while ago, we can call up and renew the life of legend
and tradition. This is the Astral Light of the mystics. Its
deeper and more living aspect seems to inflame the principle of
desire in us. All the sweet, seductive, bewitching temptations
of sense are inspired by it. After death the soul passing into
this living light goes on thinking, thinking, goes on aspiring,
aspiring, creating unconsciously around itself its own circumstance
in which all sweetest desires are self-fulfilled. When this dream-
power is exhausted the soul returns again to earth. With some
this return is due to the thirst for existence; with some to a
perception of the real needs of soul."
"Do you really believe all that?"
"Oh, yes! But that is only a general statement."
"I wonder at your capacity for believing in these invisible spheres.
As for me I cannot go beyond the world I live in. When I think of
these things some dreadful necessity seems heaped upon me to continue
here--or, as you might put it, an angel with a flaming sword keeps
everywhere the avenues to the Tree of Life."
"Oh!" said Willie, "it seems to me a most reasonable theory. After
all, what else could the soul do after death but think itself out?
It has no body to move about in. I am going to dream over it now.
Good-night!"
He turned into the tent and Robert followed him. "Well, I cannot
rest yet," said Bryan, "I am going up for a little to the top of
the hill. Come, Felix, these drowsy fellows are going to hide
themselves from the face of night." We went up, and leaning on a
boulder of rock looked out together. Away upon the dream-built
margin of space a thousand tremors fled and chased each other all
along the shadowy night. The human traditions, memories of pain,
struggle, hope and desire floated away and melted in the quietude
until at last only the elemental consciousness remained at gaze.
I felt chilled by the vacancies. I wondered what this void was
to Bryan. I wished to see with his eyes. His arm was around my
shoulder. How I loved him--my nearest--my brother! The fierce
and tender flame, comrade to his spirit, glowed in my heart. I
felt a commingling of nature, something moved before my eyes.
"Look, Bryan!" I whispered, "this is faery!" A slight upright
figure, a child, stood a little apart shedding a delicate radiance
upon the dusky air. Curiously innocent, primeval, she moved,
withdrawn in a world only half-perceived of gorgeous blossoms and
mystic shadows. Through her hair of feathery brown drifting about
her the gleam of dust of gold and of rich colour seemed to come
from her dress. She raised her finger-tips from the flowers and
dashed the bright dew aside. I felt something vaguely familiar
about the gesture. Then Bryan said, "It is one of the Children
of Twilight." It was a revelation of his mind. I had entered
into the forms of his imagination.
"This is wonderful Bryan! If I can thus share in the thought of one,
there can be no limit to the extension of this faculty. It seems
at the moment as if I could hope to finally enter the mind of
humanity and gaze upon soul, not substance."
"It would be a great but terrible power. As often as not we imagine
ourselves into demons. Space is thronged with these dragon-like
forms, chimaeras of the fearful mind. Every thought is an entity.
Some time or other I think we will have to slay this brood we have
brought forth."
But as we turned backwards I had no dread or thought of this future
contest. I felt only gay hopes, saw only ever-widening vistas.
The dreams of the Golden Age, of far-off happy times grew full of
meaning. I people all the future with their splendour. The air
was thronged with bright supernatural beings, they moved in air,
in light; and they and we and all together were sustained and
thrilled by the breath of the Unknown God.
As we drew nigh to the tent, the light of the fire still flickering
revealed Robert's face within. He was sleeping. the warmth of the
sun had not yet charmed away the signs of study and anxious thought.
"Do you know the old tradition that in the deepest sleep of the
body the soul goes into itself. I believe he now knows the truth
he feared to face. A little while ago he was here; he was in doubt;
now he is gone unto all ancient things. He was in prison; now
the Bird of Paradise has wings. We cannot call him by any name,
for we do not know what he is. We might indeed cry aloud to his
glory, as of old the Indian sage cried to a sleeper, 'Thou great one,
clad in raiment; Soma: King!" But who thinking what he is would
call back the titan to this strange and pitiful dream of life?
Let us breath softly to do him reverence. It is now the Hour of
the King,
"Who would think this quite breather
From the world had taken flight?
Yet within the form we see there
Wakes the Golden King to-night.
"Out upon the face of faces
He looked forth before his sleep;
Now he knows the starry races
Haunters of the ancient deep;
"On the Bird of Diamond Glory
Floats in mystic floods of song;
As he lists, Time's triple story
Seems but as a day is long.
"When he wakes--the dreamy-hearted--
He will know not whence he came,
And the light from which he parted
Be the seraph's sword of flame;
"And behind its host supernal
Guarding the lost Paradise,
And the Tree of Life eternal
From the weeping human eyes."
"You are an enchanter, Bryan. As you speak I half imagine the
darkness sparkles with images, with heroes and ancient kings who
pass, and jeweled seraphs who move in flame. I feel mad. The
distance rushes at me. The night and stars are living, and--speak
unknown things! You have made me so restless I will never sleep."
I lay down. The burden of the wonder and mystery of existence was
upon me. Through the opening of the tent the warm night air flowed in;
the stars seemed to come near--nearer--full of kindly intent--with
familiar whispering; until at last I sank back into the great deep
of sleep with a mysterious radiance of dream showering all about me.
Night The Second
The skies were dim and vast and deep
Above the vales of rest;
They seemed to rock the stars asleep
Beyond the mountain's crest.
Oh, vale and stars and rocks and trees,
He gives to you his rest,
But holds afar from you the peace
Whose home is in His breast!
The massy night, brilliant with golden lights enfolded us. All
things were at rest. After a long day's ramble among the hills,
we sat down again before our fire. I felt, perhaps we all felt,
a mystic unquiet rebelling against the slumbrous mood of nature
rolled round her hills and valleys.
"You must explain to us, Bryan, why it is we can never attain a
real quiet, even here where all things seem at peace."
"We are aliens here, and do not know ourselves. We are always
dreaming of some other life. These dreams, if we could only rightly
interpret them, would be the doors through which we might pass into
a real knowledge of ourselves."
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