Throwing himself upon the moss, he begins watching the play of the water until it becomes “alive with forms of the most singular shape,” with super-mundane beings dancing in the spray, “shaking their heads in the sunshine and throwing off showers of liquid silver from their waving locks.”...
“Their laughter sounded like that of the Falls of Minnehaha, and from the crevices of the rocks peeped the ugly faces of gnomes and kobolds, watching slyly the fairies.”
Then the dreamer asks himself a variety of questions of the most perplexing nature, except, perhaps, to the materialist, who cuts every psychological problem as Alexander cleft the Gordian knot....
“What is the reason that we imagine such things?” he inquires.
“Why do we endow ‘dead’ things with human consciousness and with sensation?... Is our consciousness merely a product of the organic activity of our physical body, or is it a function of the universal life ... within the body? Is our personal consciousness dependent for its existence on the existence of the physical body, and does it die with it; or is there a spiritual consciousness, belonging to a higher, immortal, and invisible self of man, temporarily connected with the organism, but which may exist independently of the latter? If such is the case, if our physical organism is merely an instrument through which our consciousness acts, then this instrument is not our real self. If this is true, then our real self is there where our consciousness exists, and may exist independently of the latter.... Can there be any dead matter in the Universe? Is not even a stone held together by the ‘cohesion’ of its particles, and attracted to the earth by ‘gravitation’? But what else is this ‘cohesion’ and ‘gravitation’ but energy, and what is ‘energy’ but the soul, an interior principle called force, which produces an outward manifestation called matter?... All things possess life, all things possess soul, and there may be soul-beings ... invisible to our physical senses, but which may be perceived by our soul.” (p. 19.)
The arch-druid of modern Hylo-Idealism, Dr. Lewins, failing to appear to rudely shake our philosopher out of his unscientific thoughts, a dwarf appears in his stead. The creature, however, does not warn the dreamer, as that too-learned Idealist would. He does not tell him that he transcends “the limits of the anatomy of his conscious Ego,” since “psychosis is now diagnosed by medico-psychological symptomatology as vesiculo-neurosis in activity,”[[30]] and—as quoth the raven—“merely this, and nothing more.” But being a cretin, he laughingly invites him to his “Master.”
The hero follows, and finds he is brought to a “theosophical monastery,” in a hidden valley of the most gorgeous description. Therein he meets, to his surprise, with adepts of both sexes; for, as he learns later:—
“What has intelligence to do with the sex of the body? Where the sexual instincts end, there ends the influence of the sex.”
Meanwhile, he is brought into the presence of a male adept of majestic appearance, who welcomes and informs him that he is among “The Brothers of the Golden and Rosy Cross.” He is invited to remain with them for some time, and see how they live. His permanent residence with them is, however, objected to. The reasons given for it are as follow:—
“There are still too many of the lower and animal elements adhering to your constitution.... They could not resist long the destructive influence of the pure and spiritual air of this place; and, as you have not yet a sufficient amount of truly spiritual elements in your organism to render it firm and strong, you would, by remaining here, soon become weak and waste away, like a person in consumption; you would become miserable instead of being happy, and you would die.”