The Dore Lectures on Mental Sciencel

Thomas Troward

The Dore Lectures on Mental Sciencel

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The Dore Lectures on Mental Science

FOREWORD.

THE DORE LECTURES ENTERING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT.

INDIVIDUALITY.

THE NEW THOUGHT AND THE NEW ORDER.

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT.

ALPHA AND OMEGA.

THE CREATIVE POWER OF THOUGHT.

CHRIST THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW.

THE STORY OF EDEN.

THE WORSHIP OF ISHI.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE STONE.

SALVATION IS OF THE JEWS.

Impressum neobooks

The Dore Lectures on Mental Science

The Dore Lectures on Mental Science

by Thomas Troward

ENTERING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT

INDIVIDUALITY

THE NEW THOUGHT AND THE NEW ORDER

THE LIPS OF THE SPIRIT

ALPHA AND OMEGA

THE CREATIVE POWER OF THOUGHT

THE GREAT AFFIRMATIVE

CHRIST THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW

THE STORY OF EDEN

THE WORSHIP OF ISHI

THE SHEPHERD AND THE STONE

SALVATION IS OF THE JEWS

FOREWORD.

The addresses contained in this volume were delivered by me at

the Dore Gallery, Bond Street, London, on the Sundays of the

first three months of the present year, and are now published at

the kind request of many of my hearers, hence their title of "The

Dore Lectures." A number of separate discourses on a variety of

subjects necessarily labours under the disadvantage of want of

continuity, and also under that of a liability to the frequent

repetition of similar ideas and expressions, and the reader will,

I trust, pardon these defects as inherent in the circumstances of

the work. At the same time it will be found that, although not

specially so designed, there is a certain progressive development

of thought through the dozen lectures which compose this volume,

the reason for which is that they all aim at expressing the same

fundamental idea, namely that, though the laws of the universe

can never be broken, they can be made to work under special

conditions which will produce results that could not be produced

under the conditions spontaneously provided by nature. This is a

simple scientific principle and it shows us the place which is

occupied by the personal factor, that, namely, of an intelligence

which sees beyond the present limited manifestation of the Law

into its real essence, and which thus constitutes the

instru-mentality by which the infinite possibilities of the Law

can be evoked into forms of power, usefulness, and beauty.

The more perfect, therefore, the working of the personal factor,

the greater will be the results developed from the Universal Law;

and hence our lines of study should be two-fold--on the one hand

the theoretical study of the action of Universal Law, and on the

other the practical fitting of ourselves to make use of it; and

if the present volume should assist any reader in this two-fold

quest, it will have answered its purpose.

The different subjects have necessarily been treated very

briefly, and the addresses can only be considered as suggestions

for lines of thought which the reader will be able to work out

for himself, and he must therefore not expect that careful

elabora-tion of detail which I would gladly have bestowed had I

been writing on one of these subjects exclusively. This little

book must be taken only for what it is, the record of somewhat

fragmentary talks with a very indulgent audience, to whom I

gratefully dedicate the volume.

JUNE 5, 1909.

T.T.

THE DORE LECTURES ENTERING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT.

We all know the meaning of this phrase in our everyday life. The

Spirit is that which gives life and movement to anything, in fact

it is that which causes it to exist at all. The thought of the

author, the impression of the painter, the feeling of the

musician, is that without which their works could never have come

into being, and so it is only as we enter into the IDEA which

gives rise to the work, that we can derive all the enjoyment and

benefit from it which it is able to bestow. If we cannot enter

into the Spirit of it, the book, the picture, the music, are

meaningless to us: to appreciate them we must share the mental

attitude of their creator. This is a universal principle; if we

do not enter into the Spirit of a thing, it is dead so far as we

are concerned; but if we do enter into it we reproduce in

ourselves the same quality of life which called that thing into

existence.

Now if this is a general principle, why can we not carry it to a

higher range of things? Why not to the highest point of all? May

we not enter into the originating Spirit of Life itself, and so

reproduce it in ourselves as a perennial spring of livingness?

This, surely, is a question worthy of our careful consideration.

The spirit of a thing is that which is the source of its inherent

movement, and therefore the question before us is, what is the

nature of the primal moving power, which is at the back of the

endless array of life which we see around us, our own life

included? Science gives us ample ground for saying that it is not

material, for science has now, at least theoretically, reduced

all material things to a primary ether, universally distributed,

whose innumerable particles are in absolute equilibrium; whence

it follows on mathematical grounds alone that the initial

movement which began to concentrate the world and all material

substances out of the particles of the dispersed ether, could not

have originated in the particles themselves. Thus by a necessary

deduction from the conclusions of physical science, we are

compelled to realize the presence of some immaterial power

capable of separating off certain specific areas for the display

of cosmic activity, and then building up a material universe with

all its inhabitants by an orderly sequence of evolution, in which

each stage lays the foundation for the development of the stage,

which is to follow--in a word we find ourselves brought face to

face with a power which exhibits on a stupendous scale, the

faculties of selection and adaptation of means to ends, and thus

distributes energy and life in accordance with a recognizable

scheme of cosmic progression. It is therefore not only Life, but

also Intelligence, and Life guided by Intelligence becomes

Volition. It is this primary originating power which we mean when

we speak of "The Spirit," and it is into this Spirit of the whole

universe that we must enter if we would reproduce it as a spring

of Original Life in ourselves.

Now in the case of the productions of artistic genius we know

that we must enter into the movement of the creative mind of the

artist, before we can realize the principle which gives rise to

his work. We must learn to partake of the feeling, to find

expression for which is the motive of his creative activity. May

we not apply the same principle to the Greater Creative Mind with

which we are seeking to deal? There is something in the work of

the artist which is akin to that of original creation. His work,

literary, musical, or graphic is original creation on a miniature

scale, and in this it differs from that of the engineer, which is

constructive, or that of the scientist which is analytical; for

the artist in a sense creates something out of nothing, and

therefore starts from the stand-point of simple feeling, and not

from that of a pre-existing necessity. This, by the hypothesis of

the case, is true also of the Parent Mind, for at the stage where

the initial movement of creation takes place, there are no

existing conditions to compel action in one direction more than

another. Consequently the direction taken by the creative impulse

is not dictated by outward circumstances, and the primary

movement must therefore be entirely due to the action of the

Original Mind upon itself; it is the reaching out of this Mind

for realization of all that it feels itself to be.

The creative process thus in the first instance is purely a

matter of feeling--exactly what we speak of as "motif" in a work

of art.

Now it is this original feeling that we need to enter into,

because it is the fons et origo of the whole chain of causation

which subsequently follows. What then can this original feeling

of the Spirit be? Since the Spirit is Life-in-itself, its feeling

can only be for the fuller expression of Life--any other sort of

feeling would be self-destructive and is therefore inconceivable.

Then the full expression of Life implies Happiness, and Happiness

implies Harmony, and Harmony implies Order, and Order implies

Proportion, and Proportion implies Beauty; so that in recognizing

the inherent tendency of the Spirit towards the production of

Life, we can recognise a similar inherent tendency to the

production of these other qualities also; and since the desire to

bestow the greater fulness of joyous life can only be described

as Love, we can sum up the whole of the feeling which is the

original moving impulse in the Spirit as Love and Beauty--the

Spirit finding expression through forms of beauty in centres of

life, in harmonious reciprocal relation to itself. This is a

generalized statement of the broad principle by which Spirit

expands from the innermost to the outermost, in accordance with a

Law of tendency inherent in itself.

It sees itself, as it were, reflected in various centres of life

and energy, each with its appropriate form; but in the first

instance these reflections can have no existence except within

the originating Mind. They have their first beginning as mental

images, so that in addition to the powers of Intelligence and

Selection, we must also realise that of Imagination as belonging

to the Divine Mind; and we must picture these powers as working

from the initial motive of Love and Beauty.

Now this is the Spirit that we need to enter into, and the method

of doing so is a perfectly logical one. It is the same method by

which all scientific advance is made. It consists in first

observing how a certain law works under the conditions

spontaneously provided by nature, next in carefully considering

what principle this spontaneous working indicates, and lastly

deducing from this how the same principle would act under

specially selected conditions, not spontaneously provided by

nature.

The progress of shipbuilding affords a good example of what I

mean. Formerly wood was employed instead of iron, because wood

floats in water and iron sinks; yet now the navies of the world

are built of iron; careful thought showed the law of floatation

to be that anything could float which, bulk for bulk, is lighter

than the mass of liquid displaced by it; and so we now make iron

float by the very same law by which it sinks, because by the

introduction of the PERSONAL factor, we provide conditions which

do not occur spontaneously--according to the esoteric maxim that

"Nature unaided fails." Now we want to apply the same process of

specializing a generic Law to the first of all Laws, that of the

generic life-giving tendency of Spirit itself. Without the

element of INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY the Spirit can only work

cosmically by a GENERIC Law; but this law admits of far higher

specialization, and this specialization can only be attained

through the introduction of the personal factor. But to introduce

this factor the individual must be fully aware of the PRINCIPLE

which underlies the spontaneous or cosmic action of the law.

Where, then, will he find this principle of Life? Certainly not

by contemplating Death. In order to get a principle to work in

the way we require it to, we must observe its action when it is

working spon" taneously in this particular direction. We must ask

why it goes in the right direction as far as it does--and having

learnt this we shall then be able to make it go further. The law

of floatation was not discovered by contemplating the sinking of

things, but by contemplating the floating of things which floated

naturally, and then intelligently asking why they did so.

The knowledge of a principle is to be gained by the study of its

affirmative action; when we understand THAT we are in a position

to correct the negative conditions which tend to prevent that

action.

Now Death is the absence of Life, and disease is the absence of

health, so to enter into the Spirit of Life we require to

contemplate it, where it is to be found, and not where it is not-

-we are met with the old question, "Why seek ye the living among

the dead?" This is why we start our studies by considering the

cosmic creation, for it is there that we find the Life Spirit

working through untold ages, not merely as deathless energy, but

with a perpetual advance into higher degrees of Life. If we could

only so enter into the Spirit as to make it personally IN

OURSELVES what it evidently is in ITSELF, the magnum opus would

be accomplished. This means realizing our life as drawn direct

from the Originating Spirit; and if we now understand that the

Thought or Imagination of the Spirit is the great reality of

Being, and that all material facts are only correspondences, then

it logically follows that what we have to do is to maintain our

individual place in the Thought of the Parent Mind.

We have seen that the action of the Originating Mind must needs

be GENERIC, that is according to types which include multitudes

of individuals. This type is the reflection of the Creative Mind

at the level of that particular GENIUS; and at the human level it

is Man, not as associated with particular circumstances, but as

existing in the absolute ideal.

In proportion then as we learn to dissociate our conception of

ourselves from particular circumstances, and to rest upon our

ABSOLUTE nature, as reflections of the Divine ideal, we, in our

turn, reflect back into the Divine Imagination its original

conception of itself as expressed in generic or typical Man, and

so by a natural law of cause and effect, the individual who

realizes this mental attitude enters permanently into the Spirit

of Life, and it becomes a perennial fountain of Life springing up

spontaneously within him.

He then finds himself to be as the Bible says, "the image and

likeness of God." He has reached the level at which he affords a

new starting point for the creative process, and the Spirit,

finding a personal centre in him, begins its work de nova, having

thus solved the great problem of how to enable the Universal to

act directly upon the plane of the Particular.

It is in this sense, as affording the requisite centre for a new

departure of the creative Spirit, that man is said to be a

"microcosm," or universe in miniature; and this is also what is

meant by the esoteric doctrine of the Octave, of which I may be

able to speak more fully on some other occasion.

If the principles here stated are carefully considered, they will

be found to throw light on much that would otherwise be obscure,

and they will also afford the key to the succeeding essays.

The reader is therefore asked to think them out carefully for

himself, and to note their connection with the subject of the

next article.

INDIVIDUALITY.

Individuality is the necessary complement of the Universal

Spirit, which was the subject of our consideration last Sunday.

The whole problem of life consists in finding the true relation

of the individual to the Universal Originating Spirit; and the

first step towards ascertaining this is to realize what the

Universal Spirit must be in itself. We have already done this to

some extent, and the conclusions we have arrived at are:--

That the essence of the Spirit is Life, Love, and Beauty.

That its Motive, or primary moving impulse, is to express the

Life, Love and Beauty which it feels itself to be.

That the Universal cannot act on the plane of the Particular

except by becoming the particular, that is by expression through

the individual.

If these three axioms are clearly grasped, we have got a solid

foundation from which to start our consideration of the subject

for to-day.

The first question that naturally presents itself is,

If these things be so, why does not every individual express the

life, love, and beauty of the Universal Spirit? The answer to

this question is to be found in the Law of Consciousness. We

cannot be conscious of anything except by realizing a certain

relation between it and ourselves. It must affect us in some way,

otherwise we are not conscious of its existence; and according to

the way in which it affects us we recognize ourselves as standing

related to it. It is this self-recognition on our own part

carried out to the sum total of all our relations, whether

spiritual, intellectual, or physical, that constitutes our

realization of life. On this principle, then, for the REALIZATION

of its own Livingness, the production of centres of life, through

its relation to which this conscious realization can be attained,

becomes a necessity for the Originating Mind. Then it follows

that this realization can only be complete where the individual

has perfect liberty to withhold it; for otherwise no true

realization could have taken place. For instance, let us consider

the working of Love. Love must be spontaneous, or it has no

existence at all. We cannot imagine such a thing as mechanically

induced love. But anything which is formed so as to automatically

produce an effect without any volition of its own, is.nothing but

a piece of mechanism. Hence if the Originating Mind is to realize

the reality of Love, it can Only be by relation to some being

which has the power to withhold love. The same applies to the

realization of all the other modes of livingness; so that it is

only in proportion, as the individual life is an independent

centre of action, with the option of acting either positively or

negatively, that any real life has been produced at all. The

further the created thing is from being a merely mechanical

arrangement, the higher is the grade of creation. The solar

system is a perfect work of mechanical creation, but to

constitute centres which can reciprocate the highest nature of

the Divine Mind, requires not a mechanism, however perfect, but a

mental centre which is, in itself, an independent source of

action. Hence by the requirements of the case man should be

capable of placing himself either in a positive or a negative

relation to the Parent Mind, from which he originates; otherwise

he would be nothing more than a clockwork figure.

In this necessity of the case, then, we find the reason why the

life, love, and beauty of the Spirit are not visibly reproduced

in every human being. They ARE reproduced in the world of nature,

so far as a mechanical and automatic action can represent them,

but their perfect reproduction can only take place on the basis

of a liberty akin to that of the Originating Spirit itself, which

therefore implies the liberty of negation as well as of

affirmation.

Why, then, does the individual make a negative choice? Because he

does not understand the law of his own individuality, and

believes it to be a law of limitation, instead of a Law of

Liberty. He does not expect to find the starting point of the

Creative Process reproduced within himself, and so he looks to

the mechanical side of things for the basis of his reasoning

about life. Consequently his reasoning lands him in the

conclusion that life is limited, because he has assumed

limitation in his premises, and so-logically cannot escape from

it in his conclusion. Then he thinks that this is the law and so

ridicules the idea of transcending it. He points to the sequence

of cause and effect, by which death, disease, and disaster, hold

their sway over the individual, and says that sequence is law.

And he is perfectly right so far as he goes--it is a law; but not

THE Law. When we have only reached this stage of comprehension,

we have yet to learn that a higher law can include a lower one so

completely as entirely to swallow it up.

The fallacy involved in this negative argument, is the assumption

that the law of limitation is essential in all grades of being.

It is the fallacy of the old shipbuilders as to the impossibility

of building iron ships. What is required is to get at the

PRINCIPLE which is at the back of the Law in its affirmative

working, and specialize it under higher conditions than are

spontaneously presented by nature, and this can only be done by

the introduction of the personal element, that is to say an

individual intelligence capable of comprehending the principle.

The question, then, is, what is the principle by which we came

into being? and this is only a personal application of the

general question, How did anything come into being? Now, as I

pointed out in the preceding article, the ultimate deduction from

physical science is that the originating movement takes place in

the Universal Mind, and is analogous to that of our own

imagination; and as we have just seen, the perfect ideal can only

be that of a being capable of reciprocating ALL the qualities of

the Originating Mind. Consequently man, in his inmost nature, is

the product of the Divine Mind imaging forth an image of itself

on the plane of the relative as the complementary to its own

sphere of the absolute.

If we will therefore go to the INMOST principle in ourselves,

which philosophy and Scripture alike declare to be made in the

image and likeness of God, instead of to the outer vehicles which

it externalizes as instruments through which to function on the

various planes of being, we shall find that we have reached a

principle in ourselves which stands in loco dei towards all our

vehicles and also towards our environment. It is above them all,

and creates them, however unaware we may be of the fact, and

relatively to them it occupies the place of first cause. The

recognition of this is the discovery of our own relation to the

whole world of the relative. On the other hand this must not lead

us into the mistake of supposing that there is nothing higher,

for, as we have already seen, this inmost principle or ego is

itself the effect of an antecedent cause, for it proceeds from

the imaging process in the Divine Mind.

We thus find ourselves holding an intermediate position between

true First Cause, on the one hand, and the world of secondary

causes on the other, and in order to understand the nature of

this position, we must fall back on the axiom that the Universal

can only work on the plane of the Particular through the

individual. Then we see that the function of the individual is to

DIFFERENTIATE the undistributed flow of the Universal into

suitable directions for starting different trains of secondary

causation.

Man's place in the cosmic order is that of a distributor of the

Divine power, subject, however, to the inherent Law of the power

which he distributes. We see one instance of this in ordinary

science, in the fact that we never create force; all we can do is

to distribute it. The very word Man means distributor or

measurer, as in common with all words derived from the Sanderit

root MN., it implies the idea of measurement, just as in the

words moon, month, mens, mind, and "man," the Indian weight of 80

1bs.; and it is for this reason that man is spoken of in

Scripture as a "steward," or dispenser of the Divine gifts. As

our minds become open to the full meaning of this position, the

immense possibilities and also the responsibility contained in it

will become apparent.

It means that the individual is the creative centre of his own

world. Our past experience affords no evidence against this, but

on the contrary, is evidence for it. Our true nature is always

present, only we have hitherto taken the lower and mechanical

side of things for our starting point, and so have created

limitation instead of expansion. And even with the knowledge of

the Creative Law which we have now attained, we shall continue to

do this, if we seek our starting point in the things which are

below us and not in the only thing which is above us, namely the

Divine Mind, because it is only there that we can find

illimitable Creative Power. Life is BEING, it is the experience