We invite impressions by rendering ourselves receptive to them. We may attune our thought to respond to the vibrations of low, coarse, material influences, or to those that are high, fine, spiritual. If to the former, a world of materiality, selfishness, sensuality, brutality, suffering and disease will dominate us and stand out as the one evident reality. But all material conditions are of comparatively short duration. The coarser vibrations that give rise to clashing discords and jarring dissensions are soon spent and neutralized; while the finer, spiritual ones continue unaffected…

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In philosophy the majority of people still hold ideas of externalism, materialism. Ever since man began to think logically, he has tried to solve the problem of an outer, objective world of phenomena—matter. Considered solely with the understanding, that world seems, in its essential nature, very far removed from the inner, subjective realm of thoughts, ideas and principles. Apparently two worlds exist, interrelated and inseparable, yet distinct in quality and essence. Formerly the natural world of forms, colors and objects, was regarded as the finished work of Deity, who summoned…

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Matter is the negative through which truth is revealed in perfect pictures. But men often err by looking for the picture on the plate itself. It is not there; we must go a step further and allow the light to shine through the negative so as to produce impressions on our highly sensitized spiritual nature. Those impressions prove to be precisely the reverse of the image registered on the material plate. As we look backward from the deck of a moving boat, the shore seems to move. The image of…

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To illustrate: Our attention is attracted by some character which seems to us a perfect expression of goodness; i. e., the Absolute Principle discerned through that character, appears to us as goodness, for that Principle, shining through it, radiates in goodness. The same Absolute Principle, discerned through some external form, appears to us as beauty; discerned through some inward thought, it appears to us as truth. In a masterpiece of music it is revealed to us as harmony. Any medium through which we see the Absolute, becomes idealized for us.…

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Agnosticism and skepticism have dealt some heroic blows at lingering, decaying forms from which the Spirit had departed, lopping off and pruning away the dead wood of dogmatism to make way for fresh expressions of a vital character. Honest skepticism is like fire, consuming the dross, and leaving only the genuine substance of truth unscathed. A positive, vital faith is impervious to the thrusts of such negative weapons as doubt and unbelief. They can only prevail where faith is in decadence and the dry rot of conventionality has set in.…

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