The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

THE BIG STICK (or Mrs or Miss ?( Evelyn Underhill does the same thing when he abuses the Magi by attributing to them the doctrines and practices of sorcerers. And we think that his sense of awe misleads him in one respect. The Buddha, the Christ, and He whom some of us know as Frater Perdurabo, were all men before they became lost in the Infinity of what some call the One, others the All, others the Naught; and their documents are accessible. These documents are of immeasurably greater value than the lesser writings of the mediæval saints. In fact, this word mediveval is of use to us in describing Evelyn Underhill's state of mind. He, she, or it is rather narrow, vastly learned and curiously ignorant, capable of seeing far from within, utterly incapable of seeing an inch from without, a bit of a heresy-hunter and so on, It is clear that the mystic vision even is not his, or how could he remain sectarian? Had he only enough imagination to think of the earth as seen from Cor Scorpionis, all such diatribes would seem infinitely petty. We may splutter about with our little verbal fireworks, as 1 am doing now; but to take it seriously! " There's nothing serious in mortality;” God is All in All. The Universe is but a mote playing in that sunbeam ; why bother to fill 600 dull pages? Nothing 15 worth writing but literature. Art is the expression of divine Truth; Mr Underhill, being no artist, expresses only human error. CANDLESTICK. DEATH. HEREWARD CARRINGTON and JOHN R. ΜΕΑυΕκ. Wm. Rider & Son. S:. 64’. net. A most interesting and fairly able book. Mr Carrington’s hysteria is thoroughly diluted by Mr Meader, or else he has taken a little nourishment and feels better. The Vitality book was the scream of a. schoolgirl. The “ theories " of these writers are, however, too comic to discuss seriously. One believes in “Life,” a mystical entity flowing through one like a grease-spot through a greenback ; the other believes that Death is caused by a man’s hypnotising himself into the belief that it must come ! Big as is the present volume, it is necessarily far from complete Yet I am compelled to admit much against my will that he makes out a very strong case for the persistence of personality after death, and its manifestation through certain mediums. Yet I think that the " coincidence” argument is a little better than is supposed. The point is that the failures are unrecorded. Take “pure chance ” roulette for example. Scientifically, any given run (say 500 on the red) is no more and no less remarkable than any other given run, say R B B R R B B B R R R Β Β Β B, etc., to 500 coups. But the one is acclaimed as a miracle, the other goes unremarked. VI L 161