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Universal Spirit, and these become the seats for the manifestation of divine attributes. Individualisation has a beginning, but, as its object is to realise and manifest God's attributes, it will never end.

Other Contents: On the Watch-Tower: The Tree of Life, E. R. Innes; Modernism, by A.A. Wells; The Child's Sight, Michael Wood; The Mandean Book of John the Baptist, A. L. Beatrice Hardcastte; Mystic Cosmogony, G. R, S. Mead; To the Mother of the Worlds; Magic-White and Black, Lucy Bartlett; Some Notes on Shelley's "Witch of Atlas," L. N. Duddington: The Day of Small Things; The Quest, M.M. Culpeper Pollard; Hermes : God of Wisdom, H.S. Green; Flotsam and Jetsam ; Queries and Notes; Correspondence; Reviews and Notices.

THE METAPHYSICAL MAGAZINE.* (September.)

Dr. Alexander Wilder writes on "The City of Mind," telling how a festival was being celebrated in Athens, and Socrates, after his wont, began to ask questions, and the discussion turned on an ideal City; education for the future citizens is of supreme importance, and education should bring out the inborn faculties so as to fit each for his best work hereafter; the after-death life should be praised, and noisy lamentations in grief and boisterous laughing in joy should be checked, as unbecoming for a man. Reading should be carefully selected for the young, and noble examples should encourage imitation. Sensual pleasures and undesirable practices connected therewith should be avoided, the body should be trained, and diet should be plain and simple. Lawyers and doctors should be rarely needed, for to evade justice is disgraceful, and the body is cured by the soul. The rulers should be the elder citizens, who had received a liberal education; the younger and less educated should obey. There should be four great classes: the learned, the guardians of public order and defence, the merchants, the proletariat. Each should take his place in the class for which he is fitted by nature. The just man is like the perfect city, right reason being the ruler, whereas in lower types the inferior principles usurp rule.

Other Contents: The Poetry of Byron, C. G. Oyston; The Pathway House, B. McLean; Joy, A. B. Mc.Gill; Dept. of Psychic Phenomena; Dept. of Metaphysics; The World of Thought; Reviews.

THE MODERN REVIEW. † (November).

In "Buddhism in Bengal," Mr. Akohay Kumar Maitra disposes of the idea that " Buddhism was expelled from eastern India by fire and

*

Metaphysical Publishing Co. 500, Fifth Avenue, New York, U.S.A.

+ Modern Review Office, 210-3-1, Cornwallis Street, Calcutta.

sword." Bengal was a nursery of the Mahāyāna School, and for a while was ruled by Buddhist Kings. When they were supplanted by the Sena dynasty, the chief of whom was Lakshmana, he favored a great Buddhist scholar, and a grant of his is still extant which speaks of free land" given to the God Buddha-Bihari." Buddhist images, Chaityas and Stupas are found throughout north Bengal without any marks of injury, and it appears that Buddhism was assimilated by the Hindu revival, the Buddha being accepted as an Avaṭāra.

Other Contents: National Literature and Art, C. F. Andrews; Color Line in the U.S.A., Saint Nihal Sing; The Yellow God, H. Rider Haggard; King Edward's French Ancestress, Barbara de Courson; Political Issues in the Presidential Election, U.S.A., D. Datta; How shall we meet the policy of Government? R. G. Pradhan; etc.

SUNSET ON THE ADYAR RIVER.

What golden glory from the heaven is shed!
And thou, O Adyar ! in thy quiet bower
Dost hold it gleaming for one peaceful hour,
Where trees and lawns give it a balmy bed.
How Sunset runs in colors gold and red,

And pours them down on earth in such a shower
That gives the river and the sea a power
To look one with the skies that shine o'erhead!
How heaven and earth this rare Tranquillity
Share like twin-sisters, one in Nature's Car!
And Adyar dreams that calm Eternity

With her surrounding landscape like a star:
The night comes down : O Sunset ! if it be,
Can brilliant morn be waiting then so far?

A. F. KHABARDAR.

REVIEW S.

THE LIFE OF JOHN DEE,

One of the oldest Members of the T.S., the Rev. W. A. Ayton, has translated from the Latin of Dr. Thomas Smith this life of the remarkable and learned man, who has left behind him so strange a record. Of Dr. Dee's eminence in Mathematics, Astronomy and literary knowledge there is no doubt; but his researches into the occult side of nature, into Astrology and Alchemy, and his dealings with Elementals, brought him into great disrepute among the orthodox of the sixteenth century, and that disrepute is reproduced in Dr. Smith's account. His splendid Library and Laboratory were pillaged by a furious mob-as were Dr. Priestley's later-and he fell under the ban of sorcery. He was, by the confession of his enemies, a man of noble life and gentle manners, just and wise; the only thing alleged against him, outside sorcery,' is an immoral relation, commanded by the 'spirits' and strenuously refused by him until, at last, he yielded, believing it to be divinely commanded. John Dee may fairly be regarded as one of the wise of the past, living amid a superstitious and bigoted generation, and hated because he was ahead of his contemporaries. Posterity will do him justice.

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THE WEDDING SONG OF WISDOM. †

A. B.

This is another of the delightful series of "Echoes from the Gnosis" with which Mr. Mead is enriching the theosophical world. It deals with the Mystery of the Sacred Marriage, the mystical union between God and the Soul, whether the world-soul, or the man-soul, between Reason and Intelligence. The Wedding Song itself is very beautiful, commencing:

The Maiden is Light's Daughter;
On her the King's Radiance resteth.
Stately her Look, and delightsome,
With radiant beauty forthshining.

Most ancient of Myths, and yet ever new in realisation, is this mystery of the Marriage supernal, which makes even its earthly reflexion a sacrament.

A. B.

By Dr. Thomas Smith, trans. by W. A. Ayton. Theosophical Publishing Society, London and Benares.

+ By G. R. S. Mead. Theosophical Publishing Society, London and Benares.

TWO BOOKS ON SPIRITUALISM.

An Occultist's Travels is too sketchy and scrappy to be pleasant reading. One feels as though Herr Reichel had merely dotted down notes from a diary, and had not taken the trouble to amplify and recast. There is the material for an interesting book, rather than the book itself.

Dark Cornerst is a story written to discredit Spiritualism. A remarried widow thinks that she meets the spirit of her deceased husband at a séance, and the effect of repeated meetings arouses distaste for her second lord. An accident happens to the latter, and his remorseful spouse nurses him back to health, and travels with him to India. Here the husband gets into the toils of an Indian sorcerer, and various strange, but not incredible, things happen. Finally the husband is murdered by a disreputable Indian running amok, who had been driven mad by the sorcerer, and the original deceased husband turns up, not deceased, and remarries his own and the other man's widow.

A. B.

SPIRITUALISM. I

This is a very interesting narrative told simply and well, and is honest and outspoken. The book, neatly got out, is worth a perusal and the ring of candor and earnestness running throughout enhances its worth. It embodies the personal observations and experiences of the writer in the domain of Spiritualism, and as he has been in touch with it for 30 years, his pronouncements carry a certain weight. "Educated in the school of senses, rather than in the school of imagination," Mr. Robertson" wandered for years, without finding a permanent home where faith and reason might lie down together in unity," till he came to Spiritualism, in which he remains to this day. To him it is the summa summaram of knowledge, satisfying head and heart.

Spiritualism has a certain amount of truth, no one can deny, Theosophists know, what perhaps most of the Spiritualists are not aware of, that it originated from a source worthy of respect, and if Mr. Robertson would strenuously seek the real identities of some particular members of the "Indian band to whom we were introduced in Glasgow,

* By Willy Reichel. G. A. Natesan & Co., Madras.
† By K. E. Penny. G. A. Natesan & Co., Madras.
By James Robertson. L. N. Fowler & Co, London.

and who produced such wonderful phenomena as he records on pp. 21-24, he perchance will get some clue, provided he is intuitional enough and shows the courage of putting aside the preconceptions and prejudices he has for Theosophy, and rises above "the old spirit which ruled the enemies of Galileo and Bruno " he speaks about. He protests against" the dogmatism of priestcraft" and "the dogmatism of materialism", but if he conquers his peculiar dogmatism of Spiritualism and goes in search of Truth, he might yet succeed in recognising "the oriental and historical people" and "some of those Indians who seem to have a mission."

Spiritualism, like every fighter for Truth, has a romantic story and the chapter on" Storm and Peace" gives us a glimpse thereof. It had to do a certain work in the world, viz., to become one of the factors in giving a death-blow to materialism, and this was done. Its present function is not exactly the same. It is more to convince the scientific world of deeper problems of psychology, and make way for an authentic science of the borderland. In the fitness of things, therefore, a new phase was introduced, and we cannot agree with the author in his effort at lowering the value of psychical research. Investigations in Spiritualism are only justified for the sake of gaining fresh knowledge of nature's laws carried on by experts with care and precision; and the less the generality of people rush in to the dangerous domain of mediumship and spirit-invocation, the better it would be. We cannot sympathise with the Spiritualism that seeks to demonstrate the facts that spirits" by utilising the forces at their command, have been able through the tiltings of a table, or rappings on a solid surface, to convey messages to the earth-dwellers. When other conditions are presented, they can use the organism of the person in the body to tell out their story-a story so complete and authentic that only those whose mentality is befogged can read in it anything else than spirit action." The phenomena of psychical researchers explained and expounded upon the basis of true philosophy is what is necessary, and we are one with Mr. Robertson when he says: "Phenomena without a rich philosophical setting would soon pall." Spiritualists would serve their cause better if more books of the type of Nature's Divine Revelation by Andrew Jackson Davis were brought out. When true philosophy finds a home amongst them then, remarks such as the following will cease to appear: "Look where we may, it is hard to find evidence of any revelation to man other than that which is in our midst to-day. We do not belong to the dotage and decay of the

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