Mr. Leadbeater continues:—
"Still more pregnant of results for good or evil are a man's thought about other people, for in that case they hover not about the thinker, but about the object of the thought. A kindly thought about any person or any earnest wish for his good will form and project toward him a friendly artificial elemental; if the wish be a definite one, as, for example, that he may recover from some sickness, then the elemental will be a force ever hovering over him to promote his recovery, or to ward off any influence that might tend to hinder it, and in doing this it will display what appears like a very considerable amount of intelligence and adaptability, though really it is simply a force acting along the line of the least resistance—pressing steadily in one direction all the time, and taking advantage of any channel that it can find, just as the water in a cistern would in a moment find the one open pipe among a dozen closed ones, and proceed to empty itself through that."
This train of speculation, which if one is to reject he must first confront, is demoralizing. It leads nowhere save into mental quagmires and quicksands. It leads into materiality and not into spirituality. Of course with all this the one question is as to whether such conceptions are true; but judged by intuition, which is the Roentgen-ray of spirit—judged by the data reached by scholars and thinkers, by psychologists and scientists—it has no claim to recognition. That thought is the most intense form of energy, its potency far exceeding that of even electricity, is certainly true, and that one can think himself—or another person—into new and different outward phases and circumstances is most true.
Tesla, in a paper discussing the problem of how to increase the sum of human energy, considers the possibility of the existence of organized beings under conditions impossible for us. "We cannot even positively assert that some are not present in this, our world, in the very midst of us," he says, "for their constitution and life manifestation may be such that we are unable to perceive them."
This speculative possibility opens the gate to the scientific recognition of the truth that "all the company of heaven" may companion us, here and now, in the terrestrial life, invisible, intangible, inaudible to the perceptions of sense. It may largely be through their ministry and mediation that the unforeseen and unexpected opportunities, privileges, gifts fall upon man,—gifts that the gods provide.
Dreams, visions, and ideals are given that they may be realized. The vision is projected from the higher spiritual realm as the working model, the pattern of the life here. A dream is something to be carried out; not put aside and neglected and lost in over-lying and ever-accumulating stratas of experience. The dream, once clearly recognized, becomes a personal responsibility. It has been revealed for a purpose. It is the Divine revelation to the individual life, and these visions are given to the individual as well as to humanity, and they are the most significant occurrences in the entire experience of life. To once clearly recognize this divine ideal, this glorious vision of possibilities that shines once and for all upon the individual, and then to turn away from it and leave it unrealized in the outward life: to put it by, because the effort to transform the vision into external and visible conditions is surrounded with difficulties and invested with perplexities, is to wander into the maze of confusion. Difficulties are merely incidental. They are neither here nor there. If God give the dream He will lead the way. If He gives it, He means something by it, and its significance should be appreciated and taken into life as a working energy. It is the will of the Lord, and to pray sincerely that the Divine will be done, is also to accept the obligation of entering into the doing of it. Indeed, difficulties and perplexities in the way do not count and should not. Briars and brambles there will always be, but one's path lies onward all the same. Who would relinquish a right purpose because its achievement were hard? All the more should he press on and gain the strength of the obstacles that he overcomes.
Doctor William T. Harris says, "Realize your ideals quickly." That is, an ideal is a responsibility; it is the working model that God has set before the individual; the pattern after which and by which he shall shape his life. If he accept and follow it with fidelity and energy; with that energy born of absolute faith in the Divine leading,—he will find himself miraculously led; he will find that the obstacle which appears so insurmountable in perspective vanishes as he comes near; that a way is made, a path appears.
It chanced to the writer of these papers to take a long day's stage drive one summer through the Colorado mountain region. For a distance of forty-five miles the solitary road wound on and on, ever ascending through the dreamy, purple mountains. The entire route was a series of vistas that apparently came to an abrupt end at the base of an insurmountable height. The mountain wall seemed to utterly arrest progress, as it rose across the ascending valley through which the driver urged his "four-in-hand," and no way to pass beyond the next mountain ahead could possibly be discerned. But as the stage drew near, a way, unseen before, revealed itself, and the winding road found its outlet and onward course in another valley opening by a natural pass between the hills, and one that apparently in its turn was as inevitably blocked at its end by another mountain range. It was a constant interest to watch the changing landscape and discover the new ways that constantly came in sight as fast as the need for them came. That day amid the dreamy purple of the Colorado mountains was one to translate itself into renewed trust in the Divine guidance on the journey of life. Some wonderful words of Phillips Brooks seemed to write themselves on the air:—
"Look up, poor soul, out of the valley and know that on the top of yonder shining mountain lies folded safe the secret of your life, the oracle which would, if you could read it, solve all your mysteries and tell you just exactly how you ought to live. Look up out of the valley and know that it is there; and then turn back again into the valley, for in the valley is the home where you must live, and you can never read the oracle which you know is there upon the mountain top."
That day, alone with the mountains and with God, was one to leave its impress forever upon life. It was a day of solutions as well as of impressions—of solutions of the problem of living. One has but to follow the path that God has revealed to him, and however insurmountable the difficulties that seem to hedge him in and to limit his progress, they vanish as they are drawn near, and a way is revealed.