Thus we see that ideas are embryonic thoughts, nuclei of
spirit-substance from the Region of abstract Thought. Improperly conceived in a diseased
mind they become vagaries and delusions, but when gestated in a sound mind and formed into
rational thoughts they are the basis of all material, moral and[pg 114]mental progress, and the closer our touch with Chaos, the better will be
our Cosmos, for in that realm of abstract realities truth is not obscured by matter, it is
self-evident.
Pilate was asked “what is Truth,”
but no answer is recorded. We are incapable of cognizing truth in the abstract while we live
in the phenomenal world, for the inherent nature of matter is illusion and delusion, and we
are constantly making allowances and corrections whether we are conscious of the fact or
not. The sunbeam which proceeds for 90 millions of miles in a straight line, is refracted or
bent as soon as it strikes our dense atmosphere, and according to the angle of its
refraction, it appears
to have one color or another. The straightest stick appears crooked when partly immersed in
water, and the truths which are so self-evident in the Higher worlds are likewise obscured,
refracted or twisted out of all semblance under the illusory conditions of this material
world.
“The truth shall set you free,”
said Christ, and the more we turn our aspirations from material acquisitiveness and seek to
lay up treasure above, the more we aim to rise, the oftener we “get
in the spirit,” the more readily we “shall know truth”
and reach liberation[pg 115]from the fetter of flesh which binds us to a limited environment, and
attain to a sphere of greater usefulness.
Study of philosophy and science has a tendency to further
perception of truth, and as science has progressed it has gradually receded from its
erstwhile crude materialism. The day is not far off when it will be more reverently
religious than the church itself. Mathematics is said to be “dry,” for it doesn't stir the emotions. When it is taught that
“the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees,” the
dictum is at once accepted, because its truth is self-evident and no feeling is involved in
the matter. But when a doctrine such as the Immaculate Conception is promulgated and our
emotions are stirred, bloody war, or heated argument, may result, and still leave the matter
in doubt. Pythagoras demanded that his pupils study mathematics, because he knew the
elevating effect of raising their minds above the sphere of feeling, where it is subject to
delusion, and elevating it towards the Region of abstract Thought which is the prime
reality.
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