War Letters from a Living Dead Man by Elsa Barker

THE SIXTH RACE

Have you thought about the United States after this war? A new race is being prepared for in the United States. That is why you had to be born there—you through whom I write. That is why I am trying to use you in my work for Universal Brotherhood.

No, you need not remain in the United States. It is better that you should continue to mingle with other races in their old habitations.

The Theosophical Society could not have been born anywhere else. Spiritualism could not have been born anywhere else. In the United States is a readiness for new things, a reaching out for the untried, a welcome for things because they are new.

Of course this tendency may be and is abused. Almost any faker can find followers in the United States; but without that hospitable spirit towards the New, the great new race could not come into existence there.

This race is not made of new souls, but of the oldest and most experienced souls, experienced in other lives of the past. The ingenuousness and the childlike quality of Americans are the results of spiritual maturity. The race, as a race, is in its youth; but the souls are old as time.

After they have taken a much needed rest, many or most of the souls that go out by death in this war will find rebirth in the United States. Oh, that land will be a very wonderful place in seventy-five or a hundred years!

You will not be here then, unless you discover the fountain of immortal youth, or unless you come back soon, renouncing the rest in heaven.

Ponce de Leon was inspired when he sought the fountain in the New World. It is there if anywhere; but Australia and Russia will run you a keen race for the future.

No, I shall not tell you about the Seventh Race. It will come in good time; but now I want to talk to you about the Sixth, one of whose pioneers you are.

Do not cut this out of my book because an enemy once said that you were egotistical. Our enemies always see and hate their own qualities in us. Develop some quality an enemy has not, and he (or she) will love you for it. The horseman is not jealous of the musician in his quality as musician. It is the musician who is jealous of the musician, the egotist who sees and hates another’s egotism. If Germany were a weak nation she could not so hate England for her greater power.

When the Sixth Race is fully incarnate, all men and women of real development will be able to see in the astral world, and to hear unspoken words, and to read the thoughts of others. Of course there will be people of all grades of development in that new race. Equality of development is a pretty dream, you Socialists. Have you not also your superior ones, your leaders? The less developed souls who come into incarnation with the Sixth race are those who have earned in the past the right to be open to the quickening influences of that race. How have they earned that right? By their willingness to change and to grow.

Go out on the hillside and watch the growing things. Take a leaf from the book of Nature.

You wonder about the future of England. Old England is provided for. Has she not given birth to the civilization you enjoy? Other races were present, of course; but language tells the story.

As I said before, England has been an instrument in the hands of these Great Ones who wished to make possible the fraternity of races. She has carried the torch round the world. She has tied continents together, and woven the chain which will bind men to each other in days that are to come. Honor her, for she deserves honor.

Honor all nations, as aggregates of souls, your brother-souls; but honor most those nations that have worked with the Law and not against it.

Those who aspired to see Germany the cradle of the new race should have made less noise in the birth-chamber. They have scared the angel visitor away.

There are four races in Europe that are cruel races. They cannot rock the cradle of the divine infant. They would not remove the pin that stuck in its back, lest if it did not suffer and cry its lungs would lack air. I need not name these races.

The Sixth Race is a sensitive infant and learns more through love than through discipline. The Sixth Race will apply the discipline to itself when it feels the need of it. Its schoolmaster will be curiosity, and its play will be the sciences and arts of peace. Its cradle-song will be a chant of Brotherhood. No, it could not be rocked in a German cradle; but many a German-American will help to rock it. They make lovely cradle-songs, the Germans, when they forget the superiority of being grown-ups and go back to the fancies of childhood, the myth-making fancies.

We want to see more and more Frenchmen in the United States, for France has more to teach the new race than has any other nation—France, the inspired prophet, and most of all France the critic. Americans are not critical enough, not analytical enough, not subtle enough. America needs France, and the men and women of France. You have heard the old saying, “Every man has two countries, his own and France.” I may be misquoting, but the idea is there.

You wonder how anyone born to the glory and charm of France should ever come to the New World? But many will come, and more will follow, both by the path of the ocean and by the path of rebirth. You came that way yourself, if you but knew it.

Recover the memory of past births, you pioneers of the Sixth Race! You can do it. It is part of the heritage of that race.

America, the “melting-pot” of nations! You were not made to rule an outside empire. When the time comes make over the Philippine Islands to a nation that can be trusted with them. Your empire is within your own body, you race of a score of races, you inheritor of a score of fathers, you mother of the one new race!

Increase your army and navy so long as you are nervous. Put lightning-rods on your house and burglar-alarms on the doors and windows. Feel secure. Then dream about brotherhood—when you can trust in it.

Sit by the fire of your own coal dug from the ground by Dutchmen, as it burns in a chimney of your own bricks made by the hands of Irishmen, read your own newspaper printed in the language of Englishmen, by the light of your own lamp made by a German, on your own hearth-rug made by a Turk or an Armenian, enjoy the feel of your own muscles trained by a Swede, in your own linen washed by a Chinaman, listen to your daughter playing on your own piano the music of a Russian, an Italian, a Pole or a Frenchman, see all over your own room things made by the sons of a dozen other races, your neighbors, your fellow-citizens, your fellow-Americans, then tell me whether you dare not to believe in Universal Brotherhood, and in the new race, the synthesis of all races!

1915