The Finding of the Third Eye by Vera Stanley Adler

INTRODUCTION

Are human beings potential gods, as they have been told, or are they merely the least of worms?

The world today is a seething mass of contradictions. Life does not become simpler with each new achievement, and the average man, kept busy with the urgent process of existing, has little time for thought.

Yet there are moments when, looking out upon a world which appears drab, cruel, confused, and very ugly in many ways, man wonders…….

If there are great heights for him to attain why does he seem to know so little about them? What has man been doing all these centuries? Why do disease, difficulties and dangers appear to have increased the more civilization ‘progresses’?

There comes a time in the lives of many people when they earnestly desire to find an answer to these questions. They would know why they are here, what it is all about, and if they can learn to master circumstances instead of continually being a prey to them. They begin to make an individual effort to find out for themselves if there is really any rhyme or reason, any justice in life, anything to hope for or to work for.

When a man arrives at this stage in his life it marks a very important crisis in his development. It is the moment at which he changes from a puppet into an individual and joins the honoured company of the seekers.

To his surprise he finds that the number of these seekers is increasing rapidly, and that, in fact, they are beginning to make their impact felt upon social consciousness.

He soon sees the significance of this. True socialism becomes possible when people recognize themselves as individual units of power, capability and thought; then there will inevitably follow a correspondingly important and congenial position in life for each one of them. There is an unfailing demand for either the competent worker or for those able to wield constructive influence, and all can fill one of these needs. There is no other way to individual happiness.

The general apathy and ignorance which has existed for so long has reduced living conditions to a chaos in which there has been undernourishment in the midst of plenty, barbaric wars and cruelties taking place under the wing of so-called religion, and a system of education which results neither in mental power, physical fitness, good looks nor happiness.

Now, however, humanity is waking up in a wonderful manner to a recognition of its own failures. Everywhere there is widespread effort and intensive seeking going on in manifold directions. This effort is to be found not only among the leaders and teachers of the people but among the people themselves. The public interest in health, diet, physical culture, spiritualism and hundreds of other cults and movements shows the beginning of a powerful wave of progress which may sweep humanity upwards to the peak of a new Renaissance of a kind the world has never known before.

There are many today already caught in the throes of the birth of this coming Renaissance. They are tormented by the desire to know more of the inner meaning of life and the hidden issues to which they are so swiftly moving. One after another they take up the challenge of Life’s Riddle, and join the ever-growing band of seekers.

It is significant that this seeking should press into the realms of ‘religious’, ‘psychic’, ‘spiritualistic’ and ‘occult’ thought – in other words, the inner unseen world of causes. Man realizes that ‘science’, which had dealt so successfully with physical phenomena, has not yet succeeded in giving humanity any measure of happiness or safety. So he is at last determined to try to find his happiness by getting in touch with causes instead of effects, by seeking for the laws or truths, if any, which may lie behind the reactions of living things. He begins to sense the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Knowledge is the result of an accumulation of facts, and its tendency is, through specializing, to isolate subjects one from another.

Wisdom is the deduction from these facts of useful laws, a process which can only take place by comparing the facts in one compartment with those in all the others, thus giving a vision of the whole.

When man becomes an individual seeker his first effort is to discover what he can of ‘facts’ connected with the fundamental truths of life. He wants proofs.

There are many people ready to admit him into the world of inner research. He is faced with a long and complicated pilgrimage. Wonderful promises are held out to him, he is assured of becoming a superman, with health, happiness, and power hitherto undreamt-of and hard for him to comprehend. He asks himself if all this can be true. If so, why is humanity still wallowing in such helplessness? In bewilderment he hesitates on the threshold of philosophy, Spiritualism, Christian Science or a dozen other cults and ‘isms’!

His inexperienced eyes are unable to detect the true from the false, and he is at the mercy of many people who seek to enlist him for their own pet cult, or who wish to make profit for themselves by trading upon his virgin curiosity and yearning. If he has a tendency to emotionalism or a love of the sensational, he will be an easy prey.

How, then, is he going to escape the many pitfalls and manage to keep upon the true path to an understanding and mastery of life?

These chapters have been written in an effort to provide the seeker with a simple guide-book for his pilgrimage to Truth, a concise and bird’s-eye view of the new universe which he is about to explore. It endeavours to help him to place each new discovery into its relevant position so that he, while gathering his store of knowledge, may develop wisdom, also, and learn those few essential secrets through which he may attain the poise, power and creativeness which will ultimately develop him into a superman.

The seekers who acquire and use this knowledge will be the builders of the new and promised Golden Age.

In this book an effort will be made to sort out, summarize and compare the ancient knowledge with modern science. Most of the statements made are capable of world-wide and extensive corroboration by trustworthy authorities, and can be verified by any reader who will care to give the time to it. He can satisfy himself by as many proofs as he has the patience and energy to seek and the intelligence to judge and sift.

The quest after Truth opens up an unimagined and wonderful new world to the seeker, so thrilling and so full of reward and interest that it is not within the power of human speech to portray it. Only the fringe of this absorbing search has been touched in these few pages, but even so this book contains the recipe for turning an ordinary human being into a superman, one who commands the means of success, happiness or personal fulfilment always within himself, and irrespective of all circumstances.

1938

Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox

Strange as it may seem to you, there exists a mystic power that is able to transform your life so thoroughly, so radically, so completely, that when the process is completed your own friends would hardly recognize you, and, in fact, you would scarcely be able to recognize yourself. You would sit down and ask yourself: "Can I really be the man or woman that I vaguely remember, who went about under my name six months or six years ago? Was I really that person? Could that person have possibly been me?" And the truth will be that while in one sense you are indeed the same person, yet in another sense you will be someone utterly different.

This mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin, misery, despair – and in the twinkling of an eye, as Paul said, solve your problems, smooth out your difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements, and place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity.

It can lift you out of an invalid’s bed, make you sound and well once more, and free to go out into the world to shape your life as you will. It can throw open the prison door and liberate the captive. It has a magical healing balm for the bruised or broken heart.

This mystic Power can teach you all things that you need to know, if only you are receptive and teachable. It can inspire you with new thoughts and ideas, so that your work may be truly original. It can impart new and wonderful kinds of knowledge as soon as you really want such knowledge – glorious knowledge – strange things not taught in schools or written in books. It can do for you that which is probably the most important thing of all in your present stage: it can find your true place in life for you, and put you into it too. It can find the right friends for you, kindred spirits who are interested in the same ideas and want the same things that you do. It can provide you with an ideal home. It can furnish you with the prosperity that means freedom, freedom to be and to do and to go as your soul calls.

This extraordinary Power, mystic though I have rightly called it, is nevertheless very real, no mere imaginary abstraction, but actually the most practical thing there is. The existence of this Power is already well known to thousands of people in the world today, and has been known to certain enlightened souls for tens of thousands of years. This Power is really no less than the primal Power of Being, and to discover that Power is the Divine birthright of all men. It is your right and your privilege to make your contact with this Power, and to allow it to work through your body, mind, and estate, so that you need no longer grovel upon the ground amid limitations and difficulties, but can soar up on wings like an eagle to the realm of dominion and joy.

But where, it will naturally be asked, is this wonderful, mystic Power to be contacted? Where may we find it? And how is it brought into action? The answer is perfectly simple – This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it. Right within your own mentality there lies a source of energy stronger than electricity, more potent than high explosive; unlimited and inexhaustible. You only need to make conscious contact with this Power to set it working in your affairs; and all the marvelous results enumerated can be yours. This is the real meaning of such sayings in the Bible as "The Kingdom of God is within you"; and "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all the rest shall be added."

This Indwelling Power, the Inner Light, or Spiritual Idea, is spoken of in the Bible as a child, and throughout the Scriptures the child symbolically always stands for this. Bible symbolism has its own beautiful logic, and just as the soul is always spoken of as a woman, so this, the Spiritual Idea that is born to the soul, is described as a child.

The conscious discovery by you that you have this Power within you, and your determination to make use of it, is the birth of the child. And it is easy to see how very apt the symbol is, for the infant that is born in consciousness is just such a weak, feeble entity as any new-born child, and it calls for the same careful nursing and guarding that any infant does in its earliest days. After a time, however, as the weeks go by, the child grows stronger and bigger, until a time comes when it can well take care of itself; and then it grows and grows in wisdom and stature until, no longer leaning on the mother’s care, the child, now arrived at man’s estate, turns the tables, and repays its debt by taking over the care of its mother. So your ability to contact the mystic Power within yourself, frail and feeble at first, will gradually develop until you find yourself permitting that Power to take your whole life into its care.

The life story of Jesus, the central figure of the Bible, perfectly dramatizes this truth. He is described as being born of a virgin, and in a poor stable, and we know how he grew up to be the Savior of the world. Now, in Bible symbolism, the virgin soul means the soul that looks to God alone, and it is this condition of soul in which the child, or Spiritual Idea, comes to birth. It is when we have reached that stage, the stage where, either through wisdom or because of suffering, we are prepared to put God really first, that the thing happens.

1932

The Unknown Reality, Volume 1

"In one way or another all mythology contains descriptions of other species existing on the earth In various forms. This includes stories of fairies and giants, for example. Mythology tells you about the archaeology of your race psychically as well as physically."

Session 689, Page 107

The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events

"Death is not an end, but a transformation of consciousness. Nature, with its changing seasons, constantly brings you that message."

Session 828, Page 138

The Master Key by L.W. de Laurence

Thought, our manner of thinking and self-control, or mental discipline are important factors in life's achievements. On these depend our power of concentration and the mental equilibrium that must be maintained by those who wish to advance.

It lies within the earnest scholar to create a world of thought wherein he or she may weather with calm fortitude the storms of mental life, for disappointment and sorrow pass no one by, and suffering is the loom in which character is made.

1938

The Economic Tendency of FreeThought (excerpt)

Now, let us take the deist upon his own ground and prove to him either that his God is limited as to wisdom, or limited as to justice, or limited as to power, or else there is no such thing as justice.

First, then, God, being all-just, wishes to do justice; being all-wise, knows what justice is; being all-powerful, can do justice. Why then injustice? Either your God can do justice and won't or doesn't know what justice is, or he can not do it. The immediate reply is: "What appears to be injustice in our eyes, in the sight of omniscience may be justice. God's ways are not our ways."

Oh, but if he is the all-wise pattern, they should be; what is good enough for God ought to be good enough for man; but what is too mean for man won't do in a God. Else there is no such thing as justice or injustice, and every murder, every robbery, every lie, every crime in the calendar is right and upon that one premise of supreme authority you upset every fact in existence.

What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it? Yet here, again, the Deist finds himself in a dilemma, for to suppose crime necessary to God's purpose is to impeach his wisdom or deny his omnipotence by limiting him as to means. The whole matter, then, hinges upon the one attribute of authority of the central idea of God.

But, you say, what has all this to do with the economic tendency of freethought? Everything. For upon that one idea of supreme authority is based every tyranny that was ever formulat- ed. Why? Because, if God is, no human being no thing that lives, ever had a right! He simply had a privilege, bestowed, granted, conferred, gifted to him, for such a length of time as God sees fit.

This is the logic of my textator, the logic of Catholicism, the only logic of Authoritarianism. The Catholic Church says: "You who are blind, be grateful that you can hear: God could have made you deaf as well. You who are starving, be thankful that you can breathe; God could deprive you of air as well as food. You who are sick, be grateful that you are not dead: God is very merciful to let you live at all. Under all times and circumstances take what you can get, and be thankful." These are the beneficences, the privileges, given by Authority.

Note the difference between a right and a privilege. A right, in the abstract, is a fact; it is not a thing to be given, established, or conferred; it is. Of the exercise of a right power may deprive me; of the right itself, never. Privilege, in the abstract, does not exist; there is no such thing. Rights recognized, privilege is destroyed.

But, in the practical, the moment you admit a supreme authority, you have denied rights. Practically the supremacy has all the rights, and no matter what the human race possesses, it does so merely at the caprice of that authority. The exercise of the respiratory function is not a right, but a privilege granted by God; the use of the soil is not a right, but a gracious allowance of Deity; the possession of product as the result of labor is not a right, but a boon bestowed. And the thievery of pure air, the withholding of land from use, the robbery of toil, are not wrongs (for if you have no rights, you cannot be wronged), but benign blessings bestowed by "the Giver of all Good" upon the air-thief, the landlord, and the labor-robber.

Hence the freethinker who recognizes the science of astronomy, the science of mathematics, and the equally positive and exact science of justice, is logically forced to the denial of supreme authority. For no human being who observes and reflects can admit a supreme tyrant and preserve his self-respect. No human mind can accept the dogma of divine despotism and the doctrine of eternal justice at the same time; they contradict each other, and it takes two brains to hold them. The cardinal is right: freethought does logically lead to atheism, if by atheism he means the denial of supreme authority.

I will now take his third statement, leaving the second for the present; freethought, he says, leads to the overthrow of government. I am sensible that the majority of you will be ready to indignantly deny the cardinal's asseveration; I know that the most of my professedly atheistic friends shrink sensitively from the slightest allusion that sounds like an attack on government; I am aware that there are many of you who could eagerly take this platform to speak upon "the glorious rights and privileges of American citizenship"; to expatiate upon that "noble bulwark of our liberties--the constitution"; to defend "that peaceful weapon of redress, the ballot"; to soar off rhapsodically about that "starry banner that floats 'over the land of the free and the home of the brave."' We are so free! and so brave! We don't hang Brunos at the stake any more for holding heretical opinions on religious subjects. No! But we imprison men for discussing the social question, and we hang men for discussing the economic question! We are so very free and so very brave in this country! "Ah"! we say in our nineteenth century freedom (?) and bravery (?), " it was a weak God, a poor God, a miserable, quaking God, whose authority had to be preserved by the tortuous death of a creature!" Aye! the religious question is dead, and the stake is no longer fashionable. But is it a strong State, a brave State, a conscience-proud State, whose authority demands the death of five creatures? Is the scaffold better than the faggot? Is it a very free mind which will read that infamous editorial in the Chicago "Herald": "It is not necessary to hold that Parsons was legally, rightfully, or wisely hanged: he was mightily hanged. The State, the sovereign, need give no reasons; the State need abide by no law; the State is the law!"--to read that and applaud, and set the Cain-like curse upon your forehead and the red "damned spot" upon your hand? Do you know what you do?--Craven, you worship the fiend, Authority, again! True, you have not the ghosts, the incantations, the paraphernalia and mummery of the Church. No: but you have the "precedents," the "be it enacteds," the red-tape, the official uniforms of the State; and you are just as bad a slave to statecraft as your Irish Catholic neighbor is to popecraft. Your Government becomes your God, from whom you accept privileges, and in whose hands all rights are vested. Once more the individual has no rights; once more intangible, irresponsible authority assumes the power of deciding what is right and what is wrong. Once more the race must labor under just such restricted conditions as the law--the voice of the Authority, the governmentalist's bible-shall dictate. Once more it says: "You who have not meat, be grateful that you have bread; many are not allowed even so much. You who work sixteen hours a day, be glad it is not twenty; many have not the privilege to work. You who have not fuel, be thankful that you have shelter; many walk the street! And you, street-walkers, be grateful that there are well-lighted dens of the city; in the country you might die upon the roadside. Goaded human race! Be thankful for your goad. Be submissive to the Lord, and kiss the hand that lashes you!" Once more misery is the diet of the many, while the few receive, in addition to their rights, those rights of their fellows which government has wrested from them. Once more the hypothesis is that the Government, or Authority, or God in his other form, owns all the rights, and grants privileges according to its sweet will.

The freethinker who should determine to question it would naturally suppose that one difficulty in the old investigation was removed. He would say, "at least this thing Government possesses the advantage of being of the earth,--earthy. This is something I can get hold of, argue, reason, discuss with. God was an indefinable, arbitrary, irresponsible something in the clouds, to whom I could not approach nearer than to his agent, the priest. But this dictator surely I shall be able to meet it on something like possible ground." Vain delusion! Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. Try it, if you don't believe it. Seek through the legislative halls of America and find, if you can, the Government. In the end you will be doomed to confer with the agent, as before. Why, you have the statutes! Yes, but the statutes are not the government; where is the power that made the statutes? Oh, the legislators! Yes, but the legislator, per se, has no more power to make a law for me than I for him. I want the power that gave him the power. I shall talk with him; I go to the White House; I say: "Mr. Harrison, are you the government?" "No, madam, I am its representative." "Well, where is the principal?-Who is the government?" "The people of the United States." "The whole people?" "The whole people." "You, then, are the representative of the people of the United States. May I see your certificate of authorization?" "Well, no; I have none. I was elected." "Elected by whom? the whole people?" "Oh, no. By some of the people,--some of the voters." (Mr. Harrison being a pious Presbyterian, he would probably add: "The majority vote of the whole was for another man, but I had the largest electoral vote.") "Then you are the representative of the electoral college, not of the whole people, nor the majority of the people, nor even a majority of the voters. But suppose the largest number of ballots cast had been for you: you would represent the majority of the voters, I suppose. But the majority, sir, is not a tangible thing; it is an unknown quantity. An agent is usually held accountable to his principals. If you do not know the individuals who voted for you, then you do not know for whom you are acting, nor to whom you are accountable. If any body of persons has delegated to you any authority, the disposal of any right or part of a right (supposing a right to be transferable), you must have received it from the individuals composing that body; and you must have some means of learning who those individuals are, or you cannot know for whom you act, and you are utterly irresponsible as an agent