ZONES OF THE SPIRIT

A BOOK OF THOUGHTS

BY

AUGUST STRINDBERG

AUTHOR OF "THE INFERNO," "THE SON OF A SERVANT," ETC.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

ARTHUR BABILLOTTE

TRANSLATED BY

CLAUD FIELD, M.A.

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker press

1913

[INTRODUCTION]

Seldom has a man gone through such profound religious changes as this Swede, who died last May. The demonic element in him, which spurred him on restlessly, made him scale heaven and fathom hell, gave him glimpses of bliss and damnation. He bore the Cain's mark on his brow: "A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be."

He was fundamentally religious, for everyone who searches after God is so,—a commonplace truth certainly, but one which needs to be constantly reiterated. And Strindberg's search was more painful, exact, and persevering than that of most people. He was never content with superficial formulas, but pressed to the heart of the matter, and followed each winding of the labyrinthine problem with endless patience. Too often the Divinity which he thought he had discovered turned out a delusion, to be scornfully rejected the moment afterwards. Until he found the God, whom he worshipped to the end of his days, and whose existence he resolutely maintained against deniers.

As a child he had been brought up in devout belief in God, in submission to the injustice of life, and in faith in a better hereafter. He regarded God as a Father, to Whom he made known his little wants and anxieties. But a youth with hard experiences followed his childhood. The struggle for daily bread began, and his heavenly Father seemed to fail him. He appeared to regard unmoved, from some Olympian height, the desperate struggles of humanity below. Then the defiant element which slumbered in Strindberg wrathfully awoke, and he gradually developed into a free-thinker. It fared with him as it often does with young and independent characters who think. Beginning with dissent from this and that ecclesiastical dogma, his criticism embraced an ever-widening range, and became keener and more unsparing. At last every barrier of respect and reverence fell, the defiant spirit of youth broke like a flood over all religious dogmas, swept them away, and did not stop short of criticising God Himself.

Meanwhile his daily life, with its hard experiences, went on. Books written from every conceivable point of view came into his hands. Greedy for knowledge as he was, he read them all. Those of the free-thinkers supported his freshly aroused incredulity, which as yet needed support. His study of philosophical and scientific works made a clean sweep of what relics of faith remained. Anxiety about his daily bread, attacks from all sides, the alienation of his friends, all contributed towards making the free-thinker into an atheist. How can there be a God when the world is so full of ugliness, of deceit, of dishonour, of vulgarity? This question was bound to be raised at last. About this time he wrote the New Kingdom, full of sharp criticisms of society and Christianity.

As an atheist Strindberg made various attempts to come to terms with the existing state of things. But being a genius out of harmony with his contemporaries, and always longing for some vaster, fairer future, this was impossible for him. When he found that he came to no goal, a perpetual unrest tortured him. His earlier autobiographic writings appeared, marked by a strong misanthropy, and composed with an obscure consciousness of the curse: "A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be."

At last his consciousness becomes clear and defined. He recognises that he is a lost soul in hell already, though outwardly on earth. This was the most extraordinary period in Strindberg's life. He lived in the Quartier Latin in Paris, in a barely furnished room, with retorts and chemical apparatus, like a second Faust at the end of the nineteenth century. By experiments he discovered the presence of carbon in sulphur, and considered that by doing so he "had solved a great problem, upset the ruling systems of chemistry, and gained for himself the only immortality allowed to mortals." He came to the conclusion that the reason why he had gradually become an atheist was that "the Unknown Powers had left the world so long without a sign of themselves." The discovery made him thankful, and he lamented that he had no one to thank. From that time the belief in "unknown powers" grew stronger and stronger in him. It seems to have been the result of an almost complete, long, and painful solitude.

At this time his brain worked more feverishly, and his nerves were more sensitive than usual. At last he reached the (for an atheist) astounding conclusion: "When I think over my lot, I recognise that invisible Hand which disciplines and chastens me, without my knowing its purpose. Must I be humbled in order to be lifted up, lowered in order to be raised? The thought continually recurs to me, 'Providence is planning something with thee, and this is the beginning of thy education.'"[1]

Soon after this he gave up his chemical experiments and took up alchemy, with a conviction, almost pathetic in its intensity, that he would succeed in making gold. Although his dramas had already been performed in Paris, a success which had fallen to the lot of no other Swedish dramatist, he forgot all his successes as an author, and devoted himself solely to this new pursuit, to meet again with disappointment.

On March 29, 1897, he began the study of Swedenborg, the Northern Seer. A feeling of home-sickness after heaven laid hold of him, and he began to believe that he was being prepared for a higher existence. "I despise the earth," he writes, "this unclean world, these men and their works. I seem to myself a righteous man, like Job, whom the Eternal is putting to the test, and whom the purgatorial fires of this world will soon make worthy of a speedy deliverance."

More and more he seemed to approach Catholicism. One day he, the former socialist and atheist, bought a rosary. "It is pretty," he said, "and the evil spirits fear the cross." At the same time, it must be confessed that this transition to the Christian point of view did not subdue his egotism and independence of character. "It is my duty," he said, "to fight for the maintenance of my ego against all influences which a sect or party, from love of proselytising, might bring to bear upon it. The conscience, which the grace of my Divine protector has given me, tells me that." And then comes a sentence full of joy and sorrow alike, which seems to obliterate his whole past. "Born with a home-sick longing after heaven, as a child I wept over the squalor of existence and felt myself strange and homeless among men. From childhood upwards I have looked for God and found the Devil." He becomes actually humble, and recognises that God, on account of his pride, his conceit, his ὕβρις, had sent him for a time to hell. "Happy is he whom God punishes."

The return to Christ is complete. All his faith, all his hope now rest solely on the Crucified, whom he had once demoniacally hated.

He now devoted himself entirely to the study of Swedenborg. He felt that in some way the life of this strange man had foreshadowed his own. Just as Swedenborg (1688-1772) had passed from the profession of a mathematician to that of a theologian, a mystic, and finally a ghost-seer and theosoph, so Strindberg passed from the worldly calling of a romance-writer to that of a preacher of Christian patience and reconciliation. He had occasional relapses into his old perverse moods, but the attacks of the rebellious spirit were weaker and weaker. He told a friend who asked his opinion regarding the theosophical concept of Karma, that it was impossible for him to belong to a party which denied a personal God, "Who alone could satisfy his religious needs." In a life so full of intellectual activity as his had been, Strindberg had amassed an enormous amount of miscellaneous knowledge. When he was nearly sixty he began to collect and arrange all his experiences and investigations from the point of view he had then attained. Thus was composed his last important work, Das Blau Buch, a book of amazing copiousness and originality. Regarding it, the Norwegian author Nils Kjaer writes in the periodical Verdens Gang: "More comprehensive than any modern collection of aphorisms, chaotic as the Koran, wrathful as Isaiah, as full of occult things as the Bible, more entertaining than any romance, keener-edged than most pamphlets, mystical as the Cabbala, subtle as the scholastic theology, sincere as Rousseau's confession, stamped with the impress of incomparable originality, every sentence shining like luminous letters in the darkness—such is this book in which the remarkable writer makes a final reckoning with his time and proclaims his faith, as pugnaciously as though he were a descendant of the hero of Lutzen." The book, in truth, forms a world apart, from which all lying, hypocrisy, and conventional contentment is banished; in it is heard the stormy laughter of a genius who has freed himself from the fetters of earth, the proclamation of the creed of a strange Christian who interprets and reveres Christ in his own fashion, the challenge of an original and creative mind which believes in its own continuance, the expression of the yearning of a lonely soul to place itself in harmonious relations with the universe.

An especially interesting feature of the Blau Buch is the expression of Strindberg's views regarding the great poets, artists, and thinkers of the past and present. He speaks of Wagner and Nietzsche, the two antipodes; of Horace, who, after many wanderings, recognised the hand of God; of Shakespeare, who had lived through the experience of every character he created; of Goethe, regarding whom he remarks, with evident satisfaction, "In old age, when he grew wise, he became a mystic, i.e. he recognised that there are things in heaven and earth of which the Philistines never dream." Of Maeterlinck, he says, "He knows how to caricature his own fairest creations"; and accuses Oscar Wilde of want of originality. Regarding Hegel, he notes with pleasure that at the end of his life he returned to Christianity. With deep satisfaction he writes, "Hegel, after having gone very roundabout ways, died in 1831, of cholera, as a simple, believing Christian, putting aside all philosophy and praying penitential psalms." In Rousseau he recognises a kindred spirit, in so far as the Frenchman, like himself, hated all that was unnatural. "One can agree with Rousseau when he says, 'All that comes from the Creator's hand is perfect, but when it falls into the hands of man it is spoilt.'"

The Blau Buch marks the summit of Strindberg's chequered sixty years' pilgrimage. Beneath him lies the varicoloured landscape of his past life, now lit up with gleams of sunshine, now draped in dark mists, now drowned in storms of rain. But Strindberg, the poet and thinker, has escaped from both dark and bright days alike; he stands peacefully on the summit, above the trivialities, the cares, and bitternesses of life, a free man. He is like Prometheus, fettered to the rock for having bestowed on men the gift of fire, but liberated after he has learnt his lesson. In his calm is something resembling the dignity of Goethe's old age. As the latter sat on the Kickelhahn, looking down on Thuringia, and saw the panorama of his life pass before him, so Strindberg takes a retrospect in his Blau Buch. It is the canticle of his life, a hymn of thankfulness for the recovered faith in which he has found peace. At its conclusion he thus sums up:

"Rousseau's early doctrine regarding the curse of mere learning should be repondered."

"A new Descartes should arise and teach the men to doubt the untruths of the sciences."

"Another Kant should write a new Critique of Pure Reason and re-establish the doctrine of the Categorical Imperative, which, however, is already to be found in the Ten Commandments and the Gospels."

"A prophet should be born to teach men the simple meaning of life in a few words. It has already been so well summed up: 'Fear God, and keep His commandments,' or 'Pray and work.'"

"All the errors and mistakes which we have made should serve to instil into us a lively hatred of evil, and to impart a fresh impulse to good; these we can take with us to the other side, where they will bloom and bear fruit. That is the true meaning of life, at which the obstinate and impenitent cavil, in order to save themselves trouble."

"Pray, but work; suffer, but hope; keeping both the earth and the stars in view. Do not try and settle permanently, for it is a place of pilgrimage; not a home, but a halting-place. Seek the truth, for it is to be found, but only in one place, with the One who Himself is the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

ARTHUR BABILLOTTE.

[1] Strindberg's Inferno.

[CONTENTS]

[THE HISTORY OF THE BLUE BOOK]

[A BLUE BOOK—]

[The Thirteenth Axiom]
[The Rustic Intelligence of the "Beans"]
[The Hoopoo, or An Unusual Occurrence]
[Bad Digestion]
[The Song of the Sawyers]
[Al Mansur in the Gymnasium]
[The Nightingale in the Vineyard]
[The Miracle of the Corn-crakes]
[Corollaries]
[Phantasms which are Real]
[Crex, Crex!]
[The Electric Battery and the Earth Circuit]
[Improper and Unanswerable Questions]
[Superstition and Non-Superstition]
[Through Faith to Knowledge]
[The Enchanted Room]
[Concerning Correspondences]
[The Green Island]
[Swedenborg's Hell]
[Preliminary Knowledge Necessary]
[Perverse Science]
[Truth in Error]
[Accumulators]
[Eternal Punishment]
["Desolation"]
[A World of Delusion]
[The Conversion of the Cheerful Pagan, Horace]
[Cheerful Paganism and its Doctrine of Hell]
[Faith the Chief Thing]
[Penitents]
[Paying for Others]
[The Lice-King]
[The Art of Life]
[The Mitigation of Destiny]
[The Good and the Evil]
[Modesty and the Sense of Justice]
[Derelicts]
[Human Fate]
[Dark Rays]
[Blind and Deaf]
[The Disrobing Chamber]
[The Character Mask]
[Youth and Folly]
[When I was Young and Stupid]
[Constant Illusions]
[The Merits of the Multiplication-Table]
[Under the Prince of this World]
[The Idea of Hell]
[Self-Knowledge]
[Somnambulism and Clairvoyance in Everyday Life]
[Practical Measures against Enemies]
[The Goddess of Reason]
[Stars Seen by Daylight]
[The Right to Remorse]
[A Religious Theatre]
[Through Constraint to Freedom]
[The Praise of Folly]
[The Inevitable]
[The Poet's Sacrifice]
[The Function of the Philistines]
[World-Religion]
[The Return of Christ]
[Correspondences]
[Good Words]
[Severe and not Severe]
[Yeast and Bread]
[The Man of Development]
[Sins of Thought]
[Sins of Will]
[The Study of Mankind]
[Friend Zero]
[Affable Men]
[Cringing before the Beast]
[Ecclesia Triumphans]
[Logic in Neurasthenia]
[My Caricature]
[The Inexplicable]
[Old-time Religion]
[The Seduced become Seducers]
[Large-hearted Christianity]
[Reconnection with the Aërial Wire]
[The Art of Conversion]
[The Superman]
[To be a Christian is not to be a Pietist]
[Strength and Value of Words]
[The Black Illuminati]
[Anthropomorphism]
[Fury-worship as a Penal Hallucination]
[Amerigo or Columbus]
[A Circumnavigator of the Globe]
[The Poet's Children]
[Faithful in Little Things]
[The Unpracticalness of Husk-eating]
[A Youthful Dream for Seven Shillings]
[Envy Nobody!]
[The Galley-slaves of Ambition]
[Hard to Disentangle]
[The Art of Settling Accounts]
[Growing Old Gracefully]
[The Eight Wild Beasts]
[Deaf and Blind]
[Recollections]
[Children are Wonder-Children]
[Men-resembling Men]
[Christ is Risen]
[Revolution-Sheep]
["Life Woven of the Same Stuff as our Dreams"]
[The Gospel of the Pagans]
[Punished by the Imagination]
[Bankruptcy of Philosophy]
[A Whole Life in an Hour]
[The After-Odour]
[Peaches and Turnips]
[The Web of Lies]
[Lethe]
[A Suffering God]
[The Atonement]
[When Nations Go Mad]
[The Poison of Lies]
[Murderous Lies]
[Innocent Guilt]
[The Charm of Old Age]
[The Ring-System]
[Lust, Hate, and Fear, or the Religion of the Heathen]
["Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy"]
[The Slavery of the Prophet]
[Absurd Problems]
[The Crooked Rib]
[White Slavery]
[Noodles]
[Inextricable Confusion]
[Phantoms]
[Mirage Pictures]
[Trifle not with Love]
[A "Taking" Religion]
[The Sixth Sense]
[Exteriorisation of Sensibility]
[Telepathic Perception]
[Morse Telepathy]
[Nisus Formativus, or Unconscious Sculpture]
[Projections]
[Apparitions]
[The Reactionary Type]
[The Hate of Parasites]
[A Letter from the Dead]
[A Letter from Hell]
[An Unconscious Medium]
[The Revenant]
[The Meeting in the Convent]
[Correspondences]
[Portents]
[The Difficult Art of Lying]
[Religion and Scientific Intuition]
[The Freed Thinker]
[Primus inter pares]
[Heathen Imaginations]
[Thought Bound by Law]
[Credo quia (et-si) absurdum]
[The Fear of Heaven]
[The Goat-god Pan and the Fear of the Pan-pipe]
[Their Gospel]
[The Deposition of the Apes]
[The Secret of the Cross]
[Examination and Summer Holidays]
[Veering and Tacking]
[Attraction and Repulsion]
[The Double]
[Paw or Hand]
[The Thousand-Years' Night of the Apes]
[The Favourite]
[Scientific Villainies]
[Necrobiosis, i.e. Death and Resurrection]
[Secret Judgment]
[Hammurabi's Inspired Laws Received from the Sun-God]
[Strauss's Life of Christ]
[Christianity and Radicalism]
[Where are We?]
[Hegel's Christianity]
["Men of God's Hand"]
[Night-Owls]
[Apotheosis]
[Painting Things Black]
[The Thorn in the Flesh]
[Despair and Grace]
[The Last Act]
[Consequences of Learning]
[Rousseau]
[Rousseau Again]
[Materialised Apparitions]
[The Art of Dying]
[Can Philosophy Bring any Blessing to Mankind?]
[Goethe on the Bible]
["Now we Can Fly Too! Hurrah"]
[The Fall and Original Sin]
[The Gospel]
[Religious Heathen]
[The Pleasure-Garden]
[The Happiness of Love]
[Our Best Feelings]
[Blood-Fraternity]
[The Power of Love]
[The Box on the Ear]
[Saul, afterwards Called Paul]
[A Scene from Hell]
[The Jewel-Casket or his Better Half]
[The Mummy-Coffin]
[In the Attic]
[The Sculptor]
[On the Threshold at Five Years of Age]
[Goethe on Christianity and Science]
[Summa Summarum]

Zones of the Spirit

[THE HISTORY OF THE BLUE BOOK]

(Prefixed to the Third Swedish Edition)

I had read how Goethe had once intended to write a Breviarium Universale, a book of edification for the adherents of all religions. In my Historical Miniatures I have attempted to trace God's ways in the history of the world; I included Christianity in my survey by commencing with Israel, but perhaps I made the mistake of ranging other religions by the side of Christianity, while they ought to have stood below it.

A year passed. I felt myself constrained by inward impulses to write a fairly unsectarian breviary; a word of wisdom for each day in the year. For that purpose I collected the sacred books of all religions, in order to extract from them "sayings" on which to write. But the books did not open themselves to me! The Vedas and Zend-Avesta were sealed, and did not yield a single saying; only the Koran gave one, but that was a lion! ([page 45]). Then I determined to alter my design. I formed the plan of writing apothegms of simply worldly wisdom regarding men, and of calling the book Herbarium Humane. But I postponed the work since I trembled at the greatness of the task and the crudity of my plan. Then came June 15, 1906. As I took my morning walk, the first thing I saw was a tramcar with the number 365. I was struck by this number, and thought of the 365 pages which I intended to write.

As I went on, I entered a narrow street. A cart went along by my side carrying a red flag; it was a powder-flag. The cart kept parallel with me and began to disturb me. In order to escape the sight of the powder-flag, I looked up in the air, and there an enormous red flag (the English one) flaunted conspicuously before my eyes. I looked down again, and a lady dressed in black, with a fiery-red hat, was crossing the street in a slanting direction.

I hastened my steps. Immediately my eyes fell on the window of a stationer's shop; in it a piece of cardboard was displayed, bearing the word "Herbarium."

It was natural that all this should make an impression on me. My resolution was now taken; I laid down the plan of my powder-chamber, which was to become the Blue Book. A year passed, slowly, painfully. The most remarkable thing that happened was this. They began to rehearse my drama, the Dream Play, in the theatre; simultaneously, a change took place in my daily life. My servant left me; my domestic arrangements were upset; within forty days I had six changes of servants—one worse than the other. At last I had to serve myself, lay the table and light the stove. I ate black broken victuals out of a basket. In short, I had to taste the whole bitterness of life without knowing why.

One morning during this fasting period I passed by a shop window in which I saw a piece of tapestry which attracted and delighted me. I thought I saw my dream-play in the design woven on the tapestry. Above was the "growing castle," and underneath the green island over-arched by a rainbow, and with Alpine summits illumined by the sun. Round it was the sea reflecting the stars and a great green sea-snake partly visible; low down in the border was a row of fylfots—the symbol Swastika, signifying good-luck. That was, at any rate, my meaning; the artist had intended something else which does not belong here.

Then came the dress-rehearsal of the Dream Play. This drama I wrote seven years ago, after a period of forty days' suffering which were among the worst which I had ever undergone. And now again exactly forty days of fasting and pain had passed. There seems, therefore, to be a secret legislature which promulgates clearly defined sentences. I thought of the forty days of the flood, the forty years of wandering in the desert, the forty days' fast kept by Moses, Elijah, and Christ.

My journal thus records my impressions:

"The sun shines. A certain quiet resigned uncertainty reigns within me. I ask myself whether a catastrophe will not prevent the performance of the piece, which perhaps ought not to be played. In it I have, at any rate, spoken men fair, but to advise the Ruler of the Universe is presumption, perhaps blasphemy. The fact that I have laid bare the comparative nothingness of life (with Buddhism), its irrational contradictions, its wickedness and lawlessness, may be praiseworthy if it teaches men resignation. That I have shown the comparative innocence of men in this life, which of itself involves guilt, is not indeed wrong, but...."

Just now comes a telephone message from the theatre: "The result of this is in God's hand." "Exactly what I think," I answer, and ask myself again whether the piece ought to be played. (I believe it is already determined by the higher powers what the issue of the first performance will prove.)

I feel as though it were Sunday. The "White Shape" appears outside on the balcony of the "growing castle."

My thoughts have lately been occupied with death and with the life after this. Yesterday I read Plato's Timæus and Phædo. At present I write a work called The Island of the Dead. In it I describe the awakening after death, and what follows. But I hesitate, for I am frightened at the boundless misery of mere life. Lately I burned a drama; it was so sincere, that I shuddered at it. What I do not understand is this: ought one to hide the misery, and flatter men? I wish to write cheerfully and beautifully, but ought not, and cannot. I conceive it as a terrible duty to be truthful, and life is indescribably hideous.

Now the clock strikes eleven, and at twelve o'clock is the rehearsal.

The same day at 8 P.M. I have seen the rehearsal of the Dream Play, and suffered greatly. I received the impression that this piece ought not to be played. It is presumptuous, and certainly blasphemous (?). I am disturbed and alarmed.

I have had no midday meal; at seven o'clock I ate some cold food out of the basket in the kitchen.

During the religious broodings of my last forty days I read the Book of Job, saying to myself certainly at the same time that I was no righteous man like him. Then I came to the 22nd chapter, in which Eliphaz the Temanite unmasks Job: "Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing; thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. ... Is not thy wickedness great and thine iniquities infinite?"

Then the whole comfort of the Book of Job vanished, and I stood again forlorn and irresolute. What shall a poor man hold on to? What shall I believe? How can he help thinking perversely?

Yesterday I read Plato's Timæus and Phædo. There I found so much self-contradictory wisdom, that in the evening I threw my devotional books away and prayed to God out of a full heart. "What will happen now? God help me! Amen."

The stage-manager visited me yesterday evening. We both felt, in despair.... The night was quiet.

April 16, 1907.—Read the proof of the Black Flags,[1] which I wrote in 1904. I asked myself whether the book was a crime, and whether it ought to be published. I opened the Bible, and came on the prophet Jonah, who was compelled to prophesy although he hid himself. That quieted me. But it is a terrible book!

April 17.—To-day the Dream Play will be performed for the first time. A gentle fall of snow in the morning. Read the last chapter of Job: God punishes Job because he presumed to wish to understand His work. Job prays for pardon, and is forgiven.

Quiet grey weather till 3 P.M. Then G. came with a piece of good news.

Spent the evening alone at home. At eight o'clock there was a ring at the door. A messenger brought a laurel-wreath with the inscription: "Truth, Light, Liberation." I took the wreath at once to the bust of Beethoven on the tiled stove and placed it on his head, since I had so much to thank him for, especially just now for the music accompanying my drama.

At eleven o'clock a telephone from the theatre announces that everything has gone well.

May 29.—The Black Flags come out to-day. I make very satisfactory terms with the publisher regarding the Blue Book (and I had thought it would not be printed at all). So I determined to remain in my house, which I had determined to leave on account of poverty.

August 20.—I read this evening the proofs of the Blue Book. Then the sky grew coal-black with towering dark clouds. A storm of rain fell; then it cleared up, and a great rainbow stood round the church, which was lit up by the sun.

August 22.—I am reading now the proofs of the Blue Book, and I feel now as though my mission in life were ended. I have been able to say all I had to say.

I dreamt that I was in the home of my childhood at Sabbatsberg, and saw that the great pond was dried up. This pond had always been dangerous to children because it was surrounded by a swamp; it had an evil smell, and was full of frogs, hedgehogs, and lizards. Now in my dream I walked about on the dry ground, and was astonished to find it so clean. I thought now that I have broken with the Black Flags the frog-swamp is done with.

September 1.—Read the last proofs of the Blue Book.

September 2.—Came across tramcar 365, which I had not seen since I began to write the Blue Book on June 15, 1906.

September 12.—The Blue Book appears to-day. It is the first clear day in summer. I dreamt I found myself in a stone-quarry, and could neither go up nor down. I thought quite quietly, "Well, I must cry for help!"

The German motto to-day on the tear-off calendar is: "What is to be clarified must first ferment."

To-day I got new clothes which fitted. My old ones had been too tight to the point of torture.

My little daughter visited me. I took her home again in a chaise.

September 14.—The whole day clear. Towards evening, however, about a quarter to six, the sky became covered with most portentous-looking clouds, with black outlines like obliquely hanging theatre-flies. Afterwards these were driven out by a storm over the sea.

This evening my Crown Bride was performed. Thus, then, the Blue Book had appeared. It looked well with its blue and red binding, which resembled that of my first book, the Red Room, but in its contents differed as much from it as red from blue. In the first I had, like Jeremiah, to pluck up, break down, and destroy; but in this book I was able to build and to plant. And I will conclude with Hezekiah's song of praise:

"I said, in the noontide of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave:

"My age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent:

"I have rolled up like a weaver my life; he will cut me off from the loom.

"From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

"Like a swallow or a crane, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward.

"Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

"What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it.

"Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness;

"Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption.

"The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day.

"The father to the children shall make known thy truth."

I saw beforehand what awaited me if I broke with the Black Flags. But I placed my soul in God's hands, and went forwards. I affix as a motto to the following book, "He who departeth from evil, maketh himself a prey."

The strangest thing, however, is that from this moment my own Karma began to complete itself. I was protected, things went well with me, I found better friends than those I had lost. Now I am inclined to ascribe all my former mischances to the fact that I served the Black Flags. There was no blessing with them!

[1] A roman à clef in which Strindberg fiercely attacks the Bohemians and emancipated women of Stockholm.

[A BLUE BOOK]

The Thirteenth Axiom.—Euclid's twelfth axiom, as is well known, runs thus: When one straight line cuts two other straight lines so that the interior angles on the same side are together less than two right angles, these two lines, being produced, will at length meet on that side on which are the two angles, which are together less than two right angles.

If that is a self-evident proposition, which can neither be proved, nor needs to be proved, how much clearer is the axiom of the existence of God!

Anyone who tries to prove an axiom, loses himself in absurdity; therefore, we should not attempt to prove the existence of God. He who cannot understand what is self-evident in an axiom belongs to the class of people of a lower degree of intelligence. One should be sorry for such dullards, but not blame them.

The first point in the definition of God, is that He is Almighty. Thence it follows that He can abrogate His own laws. But since we do not know all His laws, we do not know when He employs a law which is unknown to us, or suspends a law which is known to us.

What we call miracles, may happen according to strict laws which we do not know. We must therefore take care, when confronted by unusual or inexplicable occurrences, to see that we make no mistakes. These draw down upon us the contempt of our fellow-mortals who are gifted with keener intelligence.

The Rustic Intelligence of the "Beans."—The miller turns his mill and the seaman trims his sails according to the force and direction of the wind. They do not see the wind, but they believe in its existence, since they observe the results produced by it. They are wise people who use their intelligence.

Intelligence ("ratio"), or rustic intelligence, is an excellent faculty whereby to grasp what is perceptible by the senses, even when it is invisible. Reason is a higher faculty wherewith one may grasp what is not perceptible by sense. But when the rationalists try to comprehend the highest things with their rustic intelligence, then they see light as darkness, good as evil, the eternal as temporal. In a word, they see distortedly, for they see by the light of nature. Just as the rustic intelligence is indispensable when one goes to market, deals with coffee and sugar, or draws up promissory-notes, even so is the use of reason necessary when one wishes to approach what is above nature.

Voltaire and Heine are counted among the greatest rationalists because they judged of spiritual things by rustic intelligence. Their arguments are therefore interesting, but worthless.

And the most interesting fact about both these men is, that they discovered their errors, declared themselves bankrupt, and finally used their reason. But there the "Beans" can no longer follow them.

"Beans" is a classical name for the Philistines who worshipped Dagon, the fish-god, and Beelzebub, the god of dung.

The Hoopoo, or An Unusual Occurrence.—Johann was one day on his travels, and came to a wood. In an old tree he found a bird's nest with seven eggs, which resembled the eggs of the common swift. But the latter bird only lays three eggs, so the nest could not belong to it. Since Johann was a great connoisseur in eggs, he soon perceived that they were the eggs of the hoopoo. Accordingly, he said to himself, "There must be a hoopoo somewhere in the neighbourhood, although the natural history books assert that it does not appear here."

After a time he heard quite distinctly the well-known cry of the hoopoo. Then he knew that the bird was there. He hid himself behind a rock, and he soon saw the speckled bird with its yellow comb. When Johann returned home after three days, he told his teacher that he had seen the hoopoo on the island. His teacher did not believe it, but demanded proof.

"Proof!" said Johann. "Do you mean two witnesses?"

"Yes!"

"Good! I have twice two witnesses, and they all agree: my two ears heard it, and my two eyes saw it."

"Maybe. But I have not seen it," answered the teacher.

Johann was called a liar because he could not prove that he had seen the hoopoo in such and such a spot. However, it was a fact that the hoopoo appeared there, although it was an unusual occurrence in this neighbourhood.

Bad Digestion.—When one adds up several large numbers, one owes it to oneself to doubt the correctness of the calculation. In order to test it, one generally adds the figures up again, but from the bottom to the top. That is wholesome doubt.

But there is an unwholesome kind of doubt, which consists in denying everything which one has not seen and heard oneself. To treat one's fellow-men as liars is not humane, and diminishes our knowledge to a considerable degree.

There is a morbid kind of doubt, which resembles a weak stomach. Everything is swallowed, but nothing retained; everything is received, but nothing digested. The consequence is emaciation, exhaustion, consumption, and premature death.

Johann Damascenus[1] had passed through several years of wholesome doubt, proving the truths of faith by systematic denial. But when, after minutely checking his calculation, he had become sure of their asserted values, he believed. Since then, neither fear of men, love of gain, contempt, or threats could cause him to abandon his dearly purchased faith. And in that he was right.

The Song of the Sawyers.—As Damascenus wandered in Qualheim, he came to a saw-mill. Outside it, on the edge of a stream, sat two men, and sawed a steel rail with a double saw. They accompanied their sawing with a rhythmic chant in two voices, and somewhat resembled two drinkers quarrelling.

"What are you singing about?" asked Damascenus.

"About faith and knowledge," answered one. And then they recommenced. "What I know, that I believe; therefore knowledge is under faith, and faith stands above it."

"What do you know then? What you have seen with your eye?"

"My eye sees nothing of itself. If you were to take it out, and lay it down here, it would see nothing. Therefore, it is my inner eye which sees."

"Can I then see your inner eye?"

"It is not to be seen. But you see with that which is itself invisible. Therefore, you must believe on the invisible! Now you know."

"Yes, yes, yes, but, but, but.... Have you seen God?"

"Yes, with my inner eye. Therefore, I believe on Him. But it is not necessary for you to see Him, in order for me to believe on Him."

"But knowledge is the highest."

"Yes, but faith is the highest of all."

"Do you know what you believe?"

"Yes, although you don't know it."

"Prove it."

"By two concurring witnesses? Here in this district alone I can collect two million witnesses. That must be sufficient proof for you."

"But, but, but, but" ... And so on.

[1] Strindberg gives himself this name, probably in allusion to his mystery-play, To Damascus (1900).

Al Mansur in the Gymnasium.—Damascenus came into a large gymnasium, which at first he thought was empty. But presently he noticed that men stood along the walls with their backs turned towards him, so that he only saw their perukes and red ears. "Why do they stand and look at the wall, and why do they have such red ears?" he asked his teacher.

"They are ashamed of themselves," answered the teacher. "During their lifetime they were regarded as very clever fellows, but now they have discovered their stupidity."

"What is stupidity?"

"He is stupid, in the first place, who is unpractical. These have practised gymnastics all their lives, but never used the strength which they have gained. Furthermore, he is stupid who finds it difficult to comprehend simple propositions, self-evident propositions or axioms; for instance, the axiom of the existence of God. He is also stupid who cannot understand a logical proof; he who cannot accept reasonable premises, can draw no correct inferences. But the height of stupidity is, not to be able to accept an explanation founded on fact. When the Apostles told Thomas that Christ, the Son of God, was risen from the dead, he could not receive the new truth, because it was beyond his horizon. Such a man is usually called thick-headed, is he not?"

Damascenus did not answer, but his ears grew red, for he saw behind on the spring-board a man whom he thought he recognised by his broad neck and small ears.

"What are you looking at?" asked the teacher.

"Who is the man there?"

"He was, or was called Al Mansur, the Victorious, because he lost all battles but one—the battle with himself. By the Greeks he is called Chrysoroas, or 'Golden Stream'; by the Romans, John of Damascus."

The Nightingale in the Vineyard.—Johann went with his teacher through a vineyard, at the season when the vines were flourishing and exhaling their delicious perfume, which resembles that of the mignonette. "Do you notice the fine scent?" asked the teacher. "Oh yes; it is the scent of the vines." "Can you see it?" "No, it is invisible." "Then you can believe in what is invisible, as well as enjoy it. You are, then, on the way."

A nightingale was singing in a pomegranate tree. "Can you see her notes?" asked the teacher. "But you are delighted by them. Similarly, I delight in the invisible God through His way of revealing Himself in beauty, goodness, and righteousness. Do you think God cannot reveal Himself, like the nightingale, by invisible but audible tones?" "Yes, certainly." "Then you believe in revelations?" "Yes, I am obliged to." "You believe that God is a Spirit?" "Yes." "Then you believe in spirits?" "That is an incorrect inference. I believe in one Spirit." "Have not men spirits or souls in their bodies?" "Certainly." "Then you believe in spirits, i.e. in the existence of spirits?" "You are right; I believe in spirits." "Don't forget that the next time one asks you. And don't be afraid when the Lord of Dung comes and threatens you with the loss of bread, honour, wife, and child."

The Miracle of the Corn-crakes.—One summer evening the teacher went with Johann through the clover-fields. There they heard a sound, "Crex! crex!" "What is that?" asked the teacher. "The corn-crake, of course." "Have you seen the corn-crake?" "No." "Do you know a man who has seen it?" "No." "How do you know, then, that it is it?" "Everyone says so." "Look! If I throw a stone at it, will it fly up?" "No, for it cannot fly, or flies very badly." "But in autumn, it always flies to Italy! How does that happen?" "I don't know." "What do the zoologists say?" "Nothing." "Do you believe that it flies over the Sound, runs through Germany, and wanders over the Alps or through the St. Gothard Tunnel?" "They say nothing about it." "Well! Brehm calculates there are a pair of larks to every acre of field and meadow; if we reckon that there are a pair of corn-crakes to every two acres, then there are in our country in spring five million corn-crakes. The female lays from seven to twelve eggs during the summer, so that in autumn in our country there are five-and-thirty million corn-crakes. Ought they not to be visible when they fly over the Sound?" "I cannot explain it. A bad flyer cannot fly over the Sound. Is it possible that they go round by the Gulf of Bothnia?" "No, for they have rivers to cross, and one would see their flight like that of the lemmings. Besides, in England there are seventy million corn-crakes every autumn, and they cannot go by land." "Then a miracle happens." "What is a miracle?" "What one cannot explain, but has no right to deny." "Then the flight of the corn-crakes is a miracle; it must take place according to unknown natural laws or be supernatural?"

Corollaries.—The teacher said: "The bee is a little creature, but gives plenty of honey. The corn-crake is a little bird, but it has shown us that some of the most ordinary natural occurrences cannot be explained by known natural laws, and must therefore be regarded, for the present, as supernatural, and for the rest, be taken on faith.

"You have never seen the corn-crake in fields or meadows, but you believe that it is there. If now a sportsman came, who had shot the bird, you would be more quickly convinced that the bird does appear in the district, even though the sportsman were a liar.

"But the fact that millions of birds not accustomed to flying cannot fly over great spaces of water or Alpine glaciers, does not explain the autumn flight of the corn-crakes.

"Since this cannot be explained on natural grounds, it is supernatural. We must accordingly admit that we believe sometimes on the supernatural, or on miracles.

"From this proved thesis you can deduce the corollaries for yourself if you possess the faculty of drawing inferences."

Phantasms which Are Real.—The teacher asked: "Can one see a phantasm?"

"What is a phantasm?"

"There are in optics real images which can be caught on a screen. An image reflected in a flat mirror cannot be caught upon a screen, and is therefore a phantasm. Can you see your image in a flat mirror?"

"Yes."

"Then you can see a phantasm, or an unreal image. The eye, therefore, is a skilful instrument, which can make the unreal real. One might thus be tempted to believe in ghosts."

"What are ghosts?"

"They are phantasms, or unreal images which the eye can take in at certain distances. Great and credible men, such as Luther, Swedenborg, and Goethe, have seen ghosts."

"Goethe?"

"Yes; in the eleventh book of Aus meinem Leben he relates how he met the image of himself upon a country road. 'I saw, that is to say, not with the eye of the body, but of the spirit,' he adds. Do you consider Goethe's testimony credible?"

"Yes."

"Well, such sights are not seen every day, just as the hoopoo is not seen every day. But that does not give one any right to doubt that they are seen."

Crex, crex!—The pupil asked: "What is chance?"

"It means something accidental, irregular, illogical in the occurrence of an event. But the word is often misused by those who see, but do not understand. For instance, if after an evil deed you are systematically persecuted by misfortune, that is no chance. Firstly, because the misfortunes appear regularly, but chance is irregular. Secondly, because the punishment follows logically on the evil deed, and chance is illogical. It is therefore something else."

"Yes, it must be so. But what is it that causes me to fail in all my undertakings, to meet in the streets only enemies, to be cheated in all the shops, to get the worst eatables in the market, to read only of wickedness in the papers, not to receive pleasant letters though they have been posted, to miss my train, to see the last cab engaged under my nose, to be given the only room in the hotel where a suicide has been committed, not to meet the person I have taken a special journey to see; to have the money I earn immediately snatched away, to have to remain in a strange town from which all my acquaintances have gone? Then at last, when I have no food, and am on the point of drowning myself, I find a shilling in the street. That cannot be chance? What is it then?"

"It is something else, but how it happens we don't know, since we know so little about the most ordinary phenomena."

"That's only twaddle."

"Crex, crex!"

"That's the corn-crake."

"Yes, it is."

The Electric Battery and the Earth Circuit.—The pupil feigned ignorance, and asked: "What is religion?"

"If you do not know from experience or intuition, I cannot explain it to you; in that case it would only seem to you folly. But if you know beforehand, you will be able to receive my explanations, which are many. Religion is connected with the Source or the head station. But in order to carry on a conversation one must have an earth-current."

"What is that?"

"That is the draining off of superfluous earthliness to the earth. As one advances in technical knowledge, one learns to speak without a wire. But for that there are necessary strong streams of electricity, clean instruments, and clear air. The electric battery is Faith, which is not merely credence, but an apparatus for receiving and arousing the divine electricity. Unless you believe in the possibility of success in an undertaking, you will not set to work, and accordingly you acquire no energy. With faith and a good will all is possible."

"But Faith is a gift for all that."

"Yes; but if, from pride or obstinacy, you refuse to receive it, it is no gift for you. Is that clear?"

Improper and Unanswerable Questions.—The pupil asked: "If God is one, why are there several religions?"

"Since the existence of God is an axiom, you should say, 'Since God is one, why are there several religions?' I answer: I do not know, and, strictly speaking, it does not concern me. All agree in the chief point—that there is a God, and that the soul is immortal."

"If the soul is immortal, how is it that there are men who regard their souls as mortal, and speak of the present life as their only one?"

"Their feelings may be perverted, like a man's who believes he has a snake in his stomach. Perhaps they have committed soul-suicide. Perhaps they think the doctrine of immortality foolish, or their souls are really so rudimentary that they can be buried and dissolved. If that is the case, one cannot argue with them, for they are right as regards themselves. Either theirs is an abnormal case, or their perceptions are perverse; I cannot say which. I am inclined to regard the question as among those which are unanswerable, or which have not yet been answered, or which should not be asked."

Superstition and Non-Superstition.—The pupil asked: "What is superstition?"

"I don't know; but a sterile intellect calls the highest axioms superstitions, e.g. God, the religious life, conscience. The believing fertile intelligence, on the other hand, calls it superstition when an unbeliever avoids a squirrel, spits when he sees an old woman or when one wishes him luck, or dares not begin a journey on the thirteenth of the month."

"What is witchcraft?"

"When bad men misemploy their psychic forces on weaker minds, dazzle them, or torment them from a distance, and so on. You have seen all this at hypnotic seances. In them, for example, the medium's eyesight can be so perverted as to take a raw potato for an apple."

"Are there then witches?"

"Yes; certainly there are. An ugly and evil woman, who so dazzles the eyes of a man that he sees her as the most beautiful and best, is a witch."

"Should she be burnt?"

"No, for she burns herself through her wickedness when she meets a man who is mail-clad with the love of God. Then the missiles of the witch rebound and strike herself. But one should not talk of such. He who touches pitch is defiled."

Through Faith to Knowledge.—The pupil asked: "How shall I know that I believe rightly?" "I will tell you. Doubt the regular denials of your everyday intelligence. Go out of yourself if you can, and place yourself at the believer's standpoint. Act as though you believed, and then test the belief, and see whether it agrees with your experiences. If it does, then you have gained in wisdom, and no one can shake your belief. When I for the first time obtained Swedenborg's Arcana Cœlestia, and looked through the ten thousand pages, it appeared to me all nonsense. And yet I could not help wondering, since the man was so extraordinarily learned in all the natural sciences, as well as in mathematics, philosophy, and political economy. Amid the apparent foolishness of the book were some details which remained riveted in my memory.

"Some time later, in my ordinary life, there happened something inexplicable. Subsequently light was thrown upon this by an experience which Swedenborg refers to his so-called heaven and his so-called angels. Then I began to search and to compare, to make experiments and to find explanations. I come to the conclusion that Swedenborg has had experiences which resemble those of earthly life, but are not the same. This he brings out in his theory of correspondences and agreements. The theosophists have expressed it thus: parallel with the earth-life we live another life on the astral plane, but unconsciously to ourselves."

The Enchanted Room.—The pupil became curious and asked: "What opened your eyes as regards Swedenborg?"

"It is difficult to say, but I will try to do so. In my lonely dwelling there was a room which I considered the most beautiful in the world. It had not been so beautiful at first, but great and important events had taken place there. A child had been born in it, and in it a man had died. Finally I fitted it up as a temple of memory, and never showed it to anyone.

"One day, however, the demon of pride and ostentation took possession of me, and I took a guest into it. He happened to be a 'black man,' a hopeless despairer, who only believed in physical force and in wickedness, and called himself 'a load of earth.' As I admitted him I said, 'Now you will see the most beautiful room in the country.' I turned on the electric light, which generally poured down from the ceiling such a blaze that not a dark corner was left in the room. The man stood in the middle of the room, looked round, grumbled to himself, and said 'I can't see that.'

"As he spoke, the room darkened, the walls contracted, the floor shrank in size. My splendid temple was metamorphosed before my eyes. It seemed to me like a room in a hospital, with coarse wall-papers; the beautiful flowered curtains looked dirty; the white surface of the little writing-table showed spots; the gilding was blackened; the brass fittings of the tiled oven were tarnished. The whole room was altered, and I was ashamed. It had been enchanted.

Concerning Correspondences.—"Now comes Swedenborg, but his explanation is somewhat difficult. I must make a prefatory remark, in order that you may not think I regard myself as an angel. By 'angel' Swedenborg means a deceased mortal, who by death has been released from the prison of the body, and by suffering in faith has recovered the highest faculties of his soul. It is necessary to bear this definition of Swedenborg's in mind, and to remember that it does not apply to my guest or myself.

"Swedenborg further remarks regarding these dematerialised beings: 'All which appears and exists around them seems to be produced and created by them. The fact that their surroundings are, as it were, produced and created by them is evident, because when they are no longer there the surroundings are altered. A change in the surroundings is also apparent, when other beings come in their place. Elysian plains change into their trees and fruits; gardens change into their roses and plants, and fields into their herbs and grasses. The reason for the appearance and alteration of such objects is that they are produced by the wishes of these angel beings and the currents of thought set in motion thereby.'

"Is not this a subtle observation of Swedenborg's, and have not the facts he alleges something corresponding to them in our lower sphere? Does it not resemble my adventure in the 'enchanted room?' Perhaps you have had a similar experience?"

The Green Island.—The pupil answered: "I have certainly had strange experiences, but did not understand them because I thought with the flesh. As I just heard you say that our experiences can receive a symbolical interpretation, I remembered an incident which resembled that which you have just related and compared with an observation of Swedenborg's. After a youth spent under intolerable pressure and too much work, a friend gave me a sum of money that I might spend the summer on the sea in literary recreation. When I saw the 'Green Island' with its carpets of flowers, beds of reeds, banks of willows, oak coppices, and hazel woods, I thought that I beheld Paradise. Together with three other young poets I passed the summer in a state of happiness which I have never experienced since. We were fairly religious, although we did not literally believe in the gods of the state, and we lived, as a rule, innocently enough, with simple pleasures such as bathing, sailing, and fishing.

"But there was an evil man among us. He was overbearing, and regarded mankind as his enemies; denied all goodness; spied after others' faults; rejoiced in others' misfortunes. Every time he left us to go to the town, the island seemed to me more beautiful; it seemed like Sunday. I was always the object of his gibes, but did not understand his malice. My friends wondered that I was not angry with him, as I was generally so passionate. I do not myself understand it, but I was as though protected, and noticed nothing, whatever the cause may have been. Perhaps you ask whether the island really was so wonderful. I answer: I found it so, but perhaps the beauty was in my way of looking at it."

Swedenborg's Hell.—The pupil continued: "The next summer I came again, but this time with other companions, and I was another man. The bitterness of life, the spirit of the time, new teachings, evil companionship made me doubt the beneficence of Providence, and finally deny its existence. We led a dreadful life together. We slandered each other, suspected each other even of theft. All wished to dominate, nobody would follow another to the best bathing-place, but each went to his own. We could not sail, for everyone wished to steer. We quarrelled from morning till night. We drank also, and half of us were treating themselves for incurable diseases. My 'Green Island,' the first paradise of my youth, became ugly and repulsive to me. I could see no more beauty in nature, although at that time I worshipped nature. But wait a minute, and see how it agreed with what Swedenborg says! The beautiful weed-fringed bay began to exhale such miasmas, that I got malarial fever. The gnats plagued us the whole night and stung through the thickest veil. If I wandered in the wood, and wished to pluck a flower, I saw an adder rear its head. One day, when I took some moss from a rock, I saw immediately a black snake zigzagging away. It was inexplicable. The peaceable inhabitants must have been infected by our wickedness, for they became malicious, ugly, quarrelsome, and enacted domestic tragedies. It was hell! When I became ill, my companions scoffed at me, and were angry, because I had to have a room to myself. They borrowed money from me, which was not my own, and behaved brutally. When I wanted a doctor, they would not fetch him."

The teacher broke in: "That is how Swedenborg describes hell."

Preliminary Knowledge Necessary.—The pupil asked: "Is there a hell?"

"You ask that, when you have been in it?"

"I mean, another one."

"What do you mean by another one? Has your experience not sufficed to convince you that there is one?"

"But what does Swedenborg think?"

"I don't know. It is possible that he does not mean a place, but a condition of mind. But as his descriptions of another side agree with our experiences on this side in this point, that whenever a man breaks the connection with the higher sphere, which is Love and Wisdom, a hell ensues, it does not matter whether it is here or there. He uses parables and allegories, as Christ did in order to be understood.

"Emerson in his Representative Men regards Swedenborg's genius as the greatest among modern thinkers, but he warns us against stereo-typing his forms of thought. True as transitional forms, they are false if one tries to fix them fast. He calls these descriptions a transitory embodiment of the truth, not the truth itself."

"But I do not yet understand Swedenborg."

"No, because you have not the necessary preliminary knowledge. Just like the peasant who came to a chemical lecture and only heard about letters and numbers. He considered it the most stupid stuff he had ever heard: 'They could only spell, but could not put the letters together.' He lacked the necessary preliminary knowledge. Still, when you read Swedenborg, read Emerson along with him."

Perverse Science.—The teacher continued: "Swedenborg never found a contradiction between science and religion, because he beheld the harmony in all, correspondences in the higher sphere to the lower, and the unity underlying opposites. Like Pythagoras, he saw the Law-giver in His laws, the Creator in His work, God in nature, history and the life of men. Modern degenerate science sees nothing, although it has obtained the telescope and microscope.

"Newton, Leibnitz, Kepler, Swedenborg, Linnæus, the greatest scientists were religious God-fearing men. Newton wrote also an Exposition of the Apocalypse. Kepler was a mystic in the truest sense of the word. It was his mysticism which led to his discovery of the laws regulating the courses of the planets. Humble and pure-hearted, those men could see God while our decadents only see an ape infested by vermin.

"The fact that our science has fallen into disharmony with God, shows that it is perverse, and derives its light from the Lord of Dung."

Truth in Error.—The teacher continued: "Let us return for a moment to your green island. There you discovered that the world is a reflection of your interior state, and of the interior state of others. It is therefore probable that each carries his own heaven and hell within him. Thus we come to the conclusion that religion is something subjective, and therefore outside the reach of discussion.

"The believer is therefore right when he receives spiritual edification from the consecrated Bread and Wine. And the unbeliever is also not wrong when he maintains that for him it is only bread and wine. But if he asserts that it is the same with the believer, he is wrong. One ought not to punish him for it; one must only lament his want of intelligence. By calling religion subjective, I have not thereby diminished its power. The subjective is the highest for personality, which is an end in itself, inasmuch as the education of man to superman is the meaning of existence.

"But when many individuals combine in one belief, there results an objective force of tremendous intensity, which can remove mountains and overthrow the walls of Jericho.

Accumulators.—"When a race of wild men begin to worship a meteoric stone, and this stone is subsequently venerated by a nation for centuries, it accumulates psychic force, i.e. becomes a sacred object which can bestow strength on those who possess the receptive apparatus of faith. It can accordingly work miracles which are quite incomprehensible to unbelievers.

"Such a sacred object is called an amulet, and is not really more remarkable than an electric pocket-lamp. But the lamp gives light only on two conditions—that it is charged with electricity and that one presses the knob. Amulets also only operate under certain conditions.

"The same holds good of sacred places, sacred pictures and objects, and also of sacred rites which are called sacraments.

"But it may be dangerous for an unbeliever to approach too near to an accumulator. The faith-batteries of others can produce an effect on them, and they may be killed thereby, if they possess not the earth-circuit to carry off the coarser earthly elements.

"The electric car proceeds securely and evenly as long as it is in contact with the overhead wire and also connected with the earth. If the former contact is interrupted, the car stands still. If the earth-circuit is blocked, an electric storm is the result, as was the case with St. Paul on the way to Damascus."

Eternal Punishment.—The pupil asked: "What is your belief regarding eternal punishments?"

"Let me answer evasively, so to speak: since wickedness is its own punishment, and a wicked man cannot be happy, and the will is free, an evil man may be perpetually tormented with his own wickedness, and his punishment accordingly have no end.

"But we will hope that the wicked will not adhere to his evil will for ever. A wicked man often experiences a change of nature when he sees something good. Therefore, it is our duty to show him what is good. The consciousness of fatality and being damned comes to everyone, even to the incredulous. That proves that there is an inborn sense of justice, a need to punish oneself, and that quite independent of dogmas. Moreover, it is a gross falsehood that the doctrine of hell was invented by Christianity. Greeks and Romans knew Hades and Tartarus with their refined tortures; the Jews had their Sheol and Gehenna; the cheerful Japanese rival Dante with their Inferno. It is therefore thoughtless nonsense to make Christian theology solely responsible for the doctrine of hell. It would be just as fair to trace it to the cheerful view of life of the Greeks and Romans, who first came upon the idea."

"Desolation."—The teacher continued: "When this feeling of fatality strikes an unbeliever, it often appears as the so-called persecution-mania. He believes himself, for example, persecuted by men who wish to poison him. Since his intelligence is so low that he cannot rise to the idea of God, his evil conscience makes him conjure up evil men as his persecutors. Thus he does not understand that it is God who is pursuing him, and therefore he dies or goes mad.

"But he who has strength enough to bow himself, or intelligence enough to guess at a method in this madness, cries to God for help and grace, and escapes the madhouse. After a season of self-chastisement, life begins to grow lighter; peace returns; he succeeds in his undertakings; his 'Green Island' again blooms with spring. This feeling of woebegoneness often occurs about the fortieth or fiftieth year. It is the balancing of books at the solstice. The whole past is summed up, and the debit-side shows a plus which makes one despair. Scenes of earlier life pass by like a panorama, seen in a new light; long-forgotten incidents reappear even in their smallest details. The opening of the sealed Book of Life, spoken of in the Revelation, is a veritable reality. It is the day of judgment. The children of the Lord of Dung who have lost their intelligence understand nothing, but buy bromkali at the chemist's and take sick-leave because of 'neurasthenia.' That is a Greek word, which serves them as an amulet.

"Swedenborg calls this natural process 'the desolation' of the wicked. The pietists call it the 'awakening' before conversion."

A World of Delusion.—"Swedenborg writes: 'The angels are troubled concerning the darkness on earth. They say that they can see hardly any light anywhere, that men live and strengthen themselves in lying and deceit, and so heap up falsity upon falsity. In order to ratify these, they manage to extract, by way of inference, such true propositions from false premises, as, on account of the darknesses which conceal the true sources, and because the real state of the case is unknown, cannot be refuted.'

"This agrees with what every thinking man observes, that lying and deceit are universal. The whole of life—politics, society, marriage, the family—is counterfeit. Views which universally prevail are based upon false history; scientific theories are founded on error; the truth of to-day is discovered to be a lie to-morrow; the hero turns out to be a coward, the martyr a hypocrite. Te Deums are sung over a silver wedding, and the wedded pair, still secretly leading immoral lives, thank God that they have lived together happily for five-and-twenty years. The whole populace assembles once in a year to celebrate the memory of the 'Destroyer of the Country.' He who says the most foolish thing possible, receives a prize in money and a gold medal. At the annual asses' festival, the worst is crowned the asses' king.

"A mad world, my masters! If Hamlet plays the madman, he sees how mad the world is. But the spectator believes himself to be the only reasonable person, therefore He gives Hamlet his sympathy."

The Conversion of the Cheerful Pagan, Horace.—"Among the conventional falsehoods of the apes,[1] one of the best known is that conversion from irreligion is a purely Christian doctrine. By looking into Kumlin's Swedish translation of Horace, even a schoolboy can find this heading to the thirty-fourth ode of the first book, 'The Religious Conversion of the Poet.'

"Horace belonged to the Epicurean sect who only believed in phantom gods, because they held that the divinities did not trouble themselves with the course of the world or of events, but enjoyed a careless life of continual ease. Horace accordingly had not been remarkably zealous in his religious duties. But a sudden flash of lightning and a heavy peal of thunder from a clear sky taught him at last that it was no blind unconscious force of nature, but the hand of a God, which hurled the lightning. Thereby he was awoken to reflection, and tried to warn and sober his frivolous countrymen by dwelling on the power of Jupiter. 'God can change the lowest with the highest; He puts down the exalted and uplifts the obscure.'

"After this Horace preached like a Jeremiah against the corruption of religion and morals. A modern 'ape' might feel justified in calling him a pietist since he was converted!

Cheerful Paganism and its Doctrine of Hell.—"Origen against Celsus is the title of the first refutation of the lying accusations which the pagans have brought against Christianity. Who will write a second? Who will show that the hell of the pagans was seven times worse than that of the Christians? In some Christian countries the Christian religion may not be taught in the schools, but boys are obliged to read Virgil's Sixth Æneid, which describes the terrors of the underworld.

"There is the Lernæan Hydra, the Chimæra, Gorgons, and Harpies. On the banks of Cocytus roam crowds of the unburied; there they must roam for centuries because they have never found a grave. Is that humane? Then there are the poor suicides everlastingly immersed in the Styx. And the field of mourning where unhappy lovers hide themselves. 'Even after death their pangs are not ended.'

"But these were comparatively innocent. Criminals, however, are punished first by the fury Tisiphone. She seizes the damned, mocks them with hellish laughter, and threatens them with snakes. A Hydra opens fifty black jaws.... And so on till we come to the sieve of the Danaids, the wheel of Ixion, the thirst of Tantalus.

"Let us remember, however, that the men of the Renaissance, Dante and Michael Angelo, have depicted the most extreme torments, as though they believed in them. Anyone who wants to see how the cheerful Japanese describe hell, can look at the pictures which Riotor and Leofanti published in Paris, 1895, in the Enfers Bouddhiques."

[1] Materialistic evolutionists.

Faith the Chief Thing.—The teacher continued: "Pietism is a condition of repentance, which men pass through like a purifying bath and gain a consciousness of inward cleanliness. It is therefore no hypocrisy, as the children of the Lord of Dung suppose. He who is severe towards himself may easily appear malicious to the unintelligent; and he who has suffered for his wickednesses feels himself freed from the past. This feeling the unbelievers call 'self-satisfaction.'

"A penitent never attains perfection, but ceaselessly relapses into the desires of the flesh. This may easily cause him to appear a hypocrite. Luther quickly saw that it is impossible to make one's acts correspond to one's belief. Therefore he laid stress on faith, let acts go, and adduced as his authority St. Paul's solution of the paradox: 'So I obey the law of God with the spirit, but with the flesh the law of sin.'

"Faith, Hope, and Love: that is the essence and kernel of religion. One's acts never come up to one's faith, and often lag far behind it. But there are some pious souls who persist in remaining in the condition of penance, and it may easily seem as though they wished to gain heaven in advance of the rest. But we should not blame them for it. There may be secret reasons which we do not know, and have never experienced.

"Socrates regarded the sense of shame and conscience as what distinguished man from the beasts. To these two Christ added pity."

Penitents.—The teacher continued: "Muhammed early traversed the stage of desolation and became a pietist, when he believed himself persecuted by devils. Set free finally by suffering and prayer, he exclaims in the 93rd Sura: 'By the forenoon, and the night when it darkens, thy Lord has not forsaken thee or hated thee, and surely the future for thee will be better than the past. And thy Lord will give thee sufficient, and thou shalt be satisfied. Did He not find thee an orphan and give thee shelter? and find thee erring and guide thee? and find thee poor with a family and nourish thee? But as for the orphan, oppress him not; and as for the beggar, drive him not away; and as for the favour of thy Lord, discourse thereof!' When Buddha left his father's palace and saw the sufferings of men and the instability of life, he became a penitent, left wife and child, went into the wilderness, and chastened himself by fasting and renunciation. But after he had undergone the severest penances, he cautiously returned to ordinary life, and allowed himself moderate enjoyments in order not to devastate his soul. Some of his disciples deserted him and called him a recreant, but that did not trouble him.

"Goethe himself passed through religious crises, and was at one period intimate with the Hermhuters, the pietists of that time. In his old age, when he grew wise, he became a mystic, i.e. he discovered that there are things between heaven and earth of which the 'Beans' have never let themselves dream."

Paying for Others.—The pupil said: "I must confess that I do not understand the Atonement." "You mean, understand it with everyday intelligence. No one can. The highest questions cannot be solved by us, just as little as problems of the fourth dimension. But the solution is given to us, if we ask for it in a proper way.

"As regards the redemptive work of Christ, you can comprehend it by an analogy. You remember, when you owed so many debts, that there were knocks at your door all day long, that you had to go out early in the morning in order to borrow, or to escape your creditors. Finally you feared your room so, that you dared not go home to sleep. You sat on a seat in the park, and said to yourself, 'It is hell!' Then there came a man who knew you; he paid your debts; you called him your saviour. Do you not see that one can pay for another, and deliver him?"

"Yes, but one cannot make an evil deed undone."

"No, but the Almighty can obliterate it from our memory, and from the memory of others. But mark this well: every time that you rummage in the past of another, although it has been atoned for, the memory of your own evil deeds starts up. Just like a badly washed stain which goes through the stuff and appears on the other side. All miracles are conditional, just as vows are."

The Lice-King.—As the teacher roamed one day in Qualheim he came into a wood under whose shadow many decaying funguses grew. On a footpath he saw what he thought at first was a snake writhing about. It was no snake, however, but a mass of grubs clotted together. The teacher asked his guide: "What is the meaning of that?"

"Ask first what it is; then I will tell you the meaning of it."

"Well?"

"These are the larvæ of the snake-worm, which are obliged, like clay and wadded straw, to hold together in order not to perish. They love poisonous funguses, and cannot bear the light. They maintain their existence by a mutual interchange of slime, without which they become dead and dry. But they call darkness light, because the sun would kill them. They feed on the poisonous funguses. They hate each other, but must keep together. Do you understand now, or not?"

"What is the name of the creature?"

"It is called the snake-worm or lice-king, appears once in every generation, and is a herald of evil times."

"What does it mean then?"

"It is a symbol of the men who talk with their faces turned backwards, and therefore see everything distorted; who call evil good, and good evil. Because they live in pride and self-love they cannot see God, but elect one of the mass to be their king, and believe that they are, collectively, God. By 'freedom,' they mean freedom to do evil. Often an ox or cow comes by and treads upon the motely mass. Then, of course, it is obliterated in slime, but another soon takes it place."

"It seems to be as eternal as evil."

The Art of Life.—The teacher said: "Life is hard to live, and the destinies of men appear very different. Some have brighter days, others darker ones. It is therefore difficult to know how one should behave in life, what one should believe, what views one should adopt, or to which party one should adhere. This destiny is not the inevitable blind fate of the ancients, but the commission which each one has received, the task he must perform. The theosophists call it Karma, and believe it is connected with a past which we only dimly remember. He who has early discovered his destiny, and keeps closely to it, without comparing his with others, or envying others their easier lot, has discovered himself, and will find life easier. But at periods when all wish to have a similar lot, one often engages in a fruitless struggle to make one's own harder destiny resemble the lot of those to whom an easier one has been assigned. Thence result disharmony and friction. Even up to old age, many men seek to conquer their destiny, and make it resemble that of others."

The pupil asked: "If it is so, why is not one informed of one's Karma from the beginning?"

The teacher answered: "That is pure pity for us. No man could endure life, if he knew what lay before him. Moreover, man must have a certain measure of freedom; without that, he would only be a puppet. Also the wise think that the voyage of discovery we make to discover our destiny is instructive for us. 'Let My Grace be sufficient for thee; My strength is made perfect in weakness.'"

The Mitigation of Destiny.—The teacher continued: "Some appear to be destined to honour and wealth, others only to honour, and others only to wealth. Many seem to be born to humiliations, poverty, and sickness—'struck like a coin in the mint,' as the saying is. Everyone can mitigate his destiny by submitting and adapting himself to it—by resignation, in a word. The inward happiness which one gains thereby, excels all outward prosperity. All things work for good to him who serves God. The man who does not strive after honour and wealth is impregnable; in a certain sense, all-powerful.

"The hardest thing is to see the injustice in the world; but even that can be overcome by taking it as a trial. If the wicked prospers, let him; we have nothing to do with it. Besides, his happiness is not so great when one looks closer at it.

"When you are persecuted by misfortune, and your conscience cannot call it deserved, take it quietly. Regard the endurance of the ordeal as an honour. There will come a day when everything will improve. Then perhaps you will discover that the misfortunes were benefits, or, at any rate, afforded opportunity for exercising endurance. Envy no man; you know not what his envied lot might conceal, if it actually came to changing places."

The Good and the Evil.—The pupil asked: "Is there really such a great difference between men?"

The teacher answered: "Yes and No! But a sure mark of the evil man is, he does evil for evil's sake. That is the bad man—the sarcastic schoolmaster, the domestic tyrant. That is the child, which torments its mother by finding out everything she dislikes. That is the bad wife, the fury, who enjoys torturing and humiliating a man who only wishes her good.

"In the battles of life it is quite human to rejoice when a foe is defeated. On all battlefields God has been thanked for the victory. That is something different.

"When one sees the insolent struck by misfortune, one rejoices that there is justice. When one sees the wicked punished, one feels satisfaction at seeing the balance of equity restored. That is something different.

"But he who rejoices over every evil deed which he himself has been under no necessity of committing; he who rejoices when the criminal escapes his punishment; he who gloats over the misfortune of a good man; he who suffers when goodness and merit are rewarded—that is the evil man. Such were those who clamoured for the murderer Barabbas's release and perhaps gave a feast in his honour."

Modesty and the Sense of Justice.—The teacher continued: "Properly speaking, the question you should have asked just now is, 'What men are good?' Socrates, according to Plato, said, 'Those who possess modesty and a sense of justice. Those are the religious men.'

"He, on the other hand, who has neither faith nor hope, can assume the outward aspect of an honourable man. But when his worldly interests or advantages are concerned, he lets honour drop. Similarly, when it is a question of saving one of his associates from punishment. Then he can bear false witness, and believe it is a good act. He does not stick at helping forward an unworthy friend or relative. He will swear falsely in order to attack a believer. He thinks everything lawful, i.e. on his side against others, and he never repents anything, saying to himself, 'He who lets himself be misled must pay for it.'

"When a religious man makes a slip, he is wont to feel ashamed, and to reproach himself. Often he is naïve enough to confess his fault or his mis-doing. Then the Lice-King shouts 'Hurrah!' For he would never be so simple. Still, though a believer fall seventy times and seven, he rises again and confesses his fault. That is the difference."

Derelicts.—The pupil asked: "How is one to judge of the men who are overthrown in the battle of life without being armed for the conflict? You remember such characters at school; they could not learn, could not attend; they were not ashamed, however, but regarded themselves as a kind of victims. They left school, went out into life, and collapsed. It was not the fault of their domestic surroundings, for they came of good families, who supported them. They were not bad, possessed talents, were clever, but had no knowledge and no interests in life. 'What is the object of it?' they were in the habit of saying. They could not bring themselves to work, but dozed at their desks. They seemed to be born to do nothing, which is a punishment for the active. Explain to me their destiny!"

"That I cannot."

"Some have died young in poverty; others begged their way through to their sixtieth year, while they saw former school-fellows who had been worse than they, prosper and flourish."

"I have seen and lamented them, but I cannot explain their destiny."

"Then they are not to blame, and yet live such lives of shame and poverty; that is cruel."

"Hush! Criticise not Providence! What is now inexplicable may some day be explained! And remember that life is not paradise. Two shall be grinding at one mill; one shall be taken, and the other left!"

Human Fate.—The teacher said: "The destinies of men are obscure; therefore one should be extremely careful in judging. The Tower of Siloam was ready to fall, and fell on good and evil alike. The disciples asked Christ what sin the man born blind had committed. Christ answered that neither he nor his parents had committed any special sin. When we see how some are born crippled, blind, deaf, and dumb, we had best be silent. To lament their lot may annoy them, for they seem to be protected in a mysterious way. They are objects of pity, and seldom fall into abject poverty. They are good-humoured through life, and hardly seem to suffer under their ailments. But woe to the man who ridicules anyone marked out by such a fate! If he is persistently pursued by calamity, or struck himself by a greater misfortune, one can hardly ignore it by using the formula 'chance.' A person who had scoffed at a blind man was struck in the eye by a stone which was thrown into a tramcar. At first he was alarmed, and thought of Nemesis. But when he heard that the stone had been so hurled as the result of some blasting operations he became cheerful, i.e. more ignorant, and said it was a chance. He saw the phenomenon, but nothing behind it; the effect, but not the cause.

"The 'Beans' cannot see beyond their noses. Sometimes, when they have long noses, they see somewhat further. The supernatural in nature is incomprehensible to their intelligence. Indeed, all which passes their limited understanding is for them supernatural. That is logical, but these rustics regard it as illogical."

Dark Rays.—As the teacher wandered through his Inferno, he came to a temple of black granite, which was quite dark inside. Within it something was going on, but he could not distinguish what.

"What is it?" he asked a white-robed figure, which wore a laurel-wreath, but had a green face spotted blue like a corpse. "That is a temple of light," it answered; "but the initiated cannot see our black rays until he receives the white arsenic-kiss from the ultra-violet priestess."