There is an unprecedented condition of fluidity among general conventions in religion, science, ethics, and, in fact, the whole philosophy of life and being. The very fact that opinions, systems, theories, and doctrines were never before so fluidized, is a positive indication that everything will all the more easily rise or fall to the point of its own specific gravity.
A formal, dogmatic, and ceremonial Christianity is giving place to vital spiritual unfoldment that is befitting to man's constitution and being. Faith is newly defined. It is brought from the realm of the dim, distant, and uncertain future, into present reality and positive manifestation. The soul-hunger of humanity is being newly diagnosed, and its satisfaction definitely and intelligently provided for.
There is so much to encourage seekers after truth, that each one should strive, not only to broaden his own horizon, but also to lead his brothers and sisters to higher and more inspiring outlooks. Having in the past regarded inspiration as finished and complete, men have been willing to supinely rest in conditions, mistakenly supposed to be normal, holding in view only some detached fragment of the great rounded Unity of Truth. Like the bone of an animal, or the branch of a tree, such fractional aspects are not only meaningless, but misleading, when out of general relation.
The powers, uses, and possibilities of the human mind, under new interpretations, comprise a new Revelation. It is incomparably more wonderful than the most extravagant accomplishments, and even dreams, of material progress.
For ages men have crowded their energies in the pursuit of new physical and intellectual achievements, anticipating that human satisfaction and felicity were to be found along these lines, if they were persistently followed. But they were mistaken. The spiritual motor of scientific idealism is transcendently greater in potency than if the material dreams had all been actualized.
But an earthy and sensuous realism will only yield, the ground inch by inch ; and there will be " wars and rumors of wars," and other active manifestations of animalism, before the human consciousness is generally developed upon the higher planes. The wonderful significance of the GREAT TRANSITION is yet but faintly imagined, but TRUTH is invincible. In the great upheavals of the present era, nothing that is real in religion, science, or humanity will be destroyed. But the false, the unreal, and the external will be sloughed off. Arrested development will only increase retributive friction.
The established order, which is Good, and which is anchored in Good, will forever remain unshaken. Man is " feeling after " and finding God, both within and around him. Divine revelations, no longer confined to one narrow channel, are being sought after and found in all directions. The more deeply that physical science penetrates in its studies of all phenomena, the more nearly does it come to the divine and spiritual basis of all things.
The rosy dawn of a new and higher evolutionary dispensation already welcomes the eyes of those who occupy the more elevated standpoints. The potential " kingdom of heaven " is within man. As this great truth brightens in human consciousness, there will be a general emancipation from all low and limited conditions. Such an IDEAL is to be held firmly in view until it comes into full actualization.
STUDIES IN THE THOUGHT WORLD PRACTICAL MIND ART BY HENRY WOOD 1896
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