Strength and Value of Words.—The teacher said: "Thought is an act of the mind, and words are congealed thoughts. The uttered word can have an effect like a charm or an adjuration. There are men who are so sensitive that they are aware at a distance whether people are speaking well or ill of them. There are men who are not afraid of committing a crime, but are startled at the word which names it. Weak men cannot endure hard words; they make them ill. A word may kill. If I were a judge, I would always first ask the man-slayer, 'What did he say which made you strike him down?' And then I should allow for extenuating circumstances, or even acquit the man, if the deadly word caused the deadly blow as a reflex-action. If for fifty years I have cherished the memory of my parents, and my family, property, and honour is based on my relationship to them, and then someone comes and tells me I am not my father's son, he has killed me; the whole edifice of my emotional life collapses. He has paralysed my energy and willingness to sacrifice myself; he has imposed upon me the monstrous task of radically changing my views of the world and men; he has rooted-up my filial affection; with a single word he has annihilated my whole life. If he has lied, he is simply a murderer!"
The Black Illuminati.—The teacher said: "Everything serves, and error often helps forward truth. At the end of the last century, the materialists began to sniff about in the occult. One day they discovered the capacity of men, when in a hypnotic state, of seeing at a distance, of beholding the invisible, and of penetrating the future. Then they accomplished, curiously enough, the honourable task of establishing the truth of clairvoyance and prophecy, as well as the possibility of miracles. The theosophists, who really at a terrible period of the 'black illumination' sought to penetrate behind phenomena and dug up useful fragments of ancient wisdom, were however hostile to Christianity. They went so far as to send one of their prophets to India to warn the natives against the missionaries.
"But in course of time they began to investigate Christianity again; they were now provided with the proper means for understanding the mysteries of Christ's incarnation and atoning death, of sacraments and miracles. And see now! their latest prophetess has written a book to explain and defend Christianity! All roads seem to lead to Christ. No one has done such good service to Christianity as the materialistic occultists and the atheistic theosophists. Young France has been Christianised by the pagans. The last apostle of the rustic intelligence stands isolated there in his damnable infatuation, believing himself to be the only 'illuminated' one in the world. Let us hope that he is the last of the 'Illuminati.'"
"Yes, let us hope so."
Anthropomorphism.—"Man is inclined to make everything after his own likeness. When the heathen made themselves gods, the latter resembled their creators in all their defects and sins. That is called Anthropomorphism. The artist who paints a portrait, always puts something of his own into it. I know a sculptor who always used to model his own undersized figure with its two short legs, whether he was representing mountaineers, fauns, men of science, or kings. The plumper he became in course of time, the more rotund his figures grew. I know a photographer who always retouches his portraits of people till they resemble himself. He must admire his own exterior, and wish to have it taken as a standard-type. The critic when he describes an author, proceeds in a similar fashion. Every point in which the author resembles him is reckoned a merit; everyone in which he differs, a fault.
"When anyone says, 'This poet is the best I know; you must read him!' that means, 'This poet has my views; you must share them, for they are the best in the world.' Everyone would like to fashion humanity and the world in his own image. But if everyone had his way, what would the world look like?"
Fury-worship as a Penal Hallucination.—The teacher said: "Swedenborg describes, in his fashion, how the greatest tyrant arrived in Hades. He wished to stir up hell against heaven, and he was punished by having a terrible woman sent to rule him, whom he worshipped. She was a compendium of original sin, deliberate falsehood, wilful deceit, ugliness, uncleanness, destructiveness. But he was compelled to see in her the good, the beautiful, the lovable; he called her 'my angel.' All his adherents were obliged to worship her, or he called them 'woman-haters.' Whence Swedenborg derived his narratives, I know not, but his descriptions are like photographs of our everyday life. The modern worship of women does not come down from the Christian ages of chivalry, for those romanticists honoured womanhood in its virtues. Our new gyneolatry is derived from the heathen; it is a kind of fury-worship imposed on us as a penal hallucination. The sons of the Lord of Dung deify their furies, and praise their faults. In their view sin is virtue, wickedness is character, deceitfulness is a proof of intelligence, coarseness is strength. He who will not join in this devil-worship is called a woman-hater. Chaste wives and mothers are called old-fashioned and perverse. Euripides describes in the Hippolytus how this king's son dedicated his devotion to the chaste Diana and fled the demotic Venus. This impure goddess avenged herself by accusing the innocent Hippolytus of incest and then caused him to be put to death. Euripides on account of writing this tragedy was called a 'woman-hater,' and is said to have been tom in pieces by female dogs. That is a pretty legend!"
Amerigo or Columbus.—The teacher said: "Human greatness and the way of becoming great is something very remarkable. Often envious hatred of the deserving seems to be converted into immense love for the undeserving. The infatuation of hatred may go so far that when the deserving has done a good work, the undeserving gets the glory of it. But often also there are secret reasons for this abnormal result. Every schoolboy has asked why America was not named after Columbus, who discovered it. I also made that inquiry, and while I served the Lord of Dung I found it quite natural that the undeserving cartographer Vespucci should have the honour of the discovery.
"But when I recovered my reason (and men called me mad), I read the biography of Columbus again. There I found that, together with his merits, he had great faults. Like David, he sinned by pride, avarice, cruelty, and deceit. His pride was boundless. Before undertaking his doubtful voyage, he laid down as a condition that he was to be Viceroy (he, the weaver's son!) and receive a tithe of the revenues. Well, he never learnt that he had discovered a new quarter of the globe. He died and was forgotten.