Then follows a philosophical conversation on Will, in which the latter, in individual man, is said to become the stronger if it only uses the universal Will-Power in Nature, itself remaining passive in the Law. This sentence has to be well understood, lest it should lead the reader into the error of accepting pure mediumistic passivity as the best thing for spiritual and occult development. A phenomenon is produced on a passing cloud, into which apparent life is infused by the Master’s hand, stretched towards it; this is again explained by showing that Life is universal and identical with Will. Other phenomena still more wonderful follow; and they are all explained as being produced through natural laws, in which science will not believe. The thoughts of the student are read and answered as though his mind were an opened book. A lovely garden, full of exotic plants and luxurious palm-trees, into which he is taken, striking him as something unnatural in the Tyrolean Alps; so much luxury, moreover, seeming to him to disagree with the ascetic views just expressed by the adept, he is told forthwith, in answer to his unexpressed thoughts, that the garden had been erected to make his visit an agreeable one; and that it was an illusion. “All these trees and plants ... require no gardeners, ... they cost us nothing but an effort of our imagination”—he learns.
“Surely,” he said, “this rose cannot be an illusion ... or an effect of my imagination?”
“No,” answered the adept ... “but it is a product of the imagination of Nature, whose processes can be guided by the will of the adept. The whole world ... is nothing else but a world of the imagination of the Universal Mind, which is the Creator of forms....”
To exemplify the teaching, a Magnolia Tree in full blossom sixty feet high, standing at a distance, is made to look less and less dense. The green foliage fades into gray, becomes “more and more shadowy and transparent,” until “it seemed to be merely the ghost of a tree, and finally disappeared entirely from view.”
“Thus” continued the adept, “you see that tree stood in the sphere of my mind as it stood in yours. We are all living within the sphere of each other’s mind.... The Adept creates his own images; the ordinary mortal lives in the products of the imagination of others, or the imagination of nature. We live in the paradise of our own soul ... but the spheres of our souls are not narrow. They have expanded far beyond the limits of the visible bodies, and will continue to expand until they become one with the universal Soul....”
“The power of the imagination is yet too little known to mankind, else they would better beware of what they think. If a man thinks a good or an evil thought, that thought calls into existence a corresponding form or power ... which may assume density and become living ... and live long after the physical body of the man who created it has died. It will accompany his soul after death, because the creations are attracted to their creator.” (p. 83.)
Scattered hither and thither, through this little volume are pearls of wisdom.[wisdom.] For that which is rendered in the shape of dialogue and monologue is the fruit gathered by the author during a long research in old forgotten and mouldy, MSS. of the Rosicrucians[Rosicrucians], or mediæval alchemists, and in the worm-eaten infoglios of unrecognized, yet great adepts of every age.
Thus when the author approaches the subject of theosophical retreats or communities—a dream cherished by many a theosophist—he is answered by the “Adept” that “the true ascetic is he who lives in the world, surrounded by its temptations; he in whose soul the animal elements are still active, craving for, the gratification of their desires and possessing the means for such gratification, but who by the superior power of his will conquers his animal self. Having attained that state he may retire from the world.... He expects no future reward in heaven; for what could heaven offer him except happiness which he already possesses? He desires no other good, but to create good for the world.”... Saith the Adept.
“If you could establish theosophical monasteries, where intellectual and spiritual development would go hand-in-hand, where a new science could be taught, based upon a true knowledge of the fundamental laws of the universe, and when, at the same time man would be taught how to obtain a mastery over himself, you would confer the greatest possible benefit upon the world. Such a convent would afford immense advantage for the advancement of intellectual research.... These convents would become centres of intelligence....”
Then, reading the student’s thoughts: