302 



The Review of Reviews. 



I 



March to, 1906. 



HOW TO STUDY OCCULTISM. 



Begin by Clairvoyance, and go on. 

 In Mr. Sinnetts Broad Views for Februar>^ there 

 is a useful and suggestive article on the study of 

 Occultism entitled '■ How do You Know ?" The 

 writer advises the student to begin by mastering the 

 fact, easily verifiable in the records, that •' claii- 

 voyance is a human faculty, even though at present 

 exercised by a minority of this generation, but a 

 faculty which is manifested by those who possess 

 it in a great variety of ways." 



VARIOUS KINDS OF CLAIRVOYANCE. 



Starting from the recognition of the fact that 

 clairvoyance is a reality, 



the inquirer would then be prepared to begin the claaaifi- 

 cation of clairvoyant faculties in their various depart- 

 ments. He would see that clairvoyance in regard to the 

 physical plane— the power, that is to say, of discerning 

 events in progress at a distance, of diagnosing the condi- 

 tion of diseased organs within a human body, of reading 

 the contents of sealed letters or closed books— belongs to 

 one variety of clairvoyant faculty. He would find that the 

 power of discerning events in the past, of recovering touch 

 with bygone conditions of the world, whether exercised with 

 the view of clearing up some doubtful question of history, 

 or penetrating much further back in time with the view of 

 solving geographical or geological problems, has to do with 

 another variety of clairvoyant faculty. And then he would 

 realise that a third variety quite different from the other 

 two has to do with the power of perceiving the phenomena 

 of what he would then begin to realise as the other planes 

 of nature, imperceptible to the senses concerned solely with 

 physical phenomena, and, finally, when elaborate a/tudy of 

 this kind had prepared him to comprehend the possibility 

 of ascertaining facts apparently quite beyond the region 

 of human understanding, he would begin to look into the 

 accumulated testimony of those exercising clairvoyance in 

 this manner without being troubled by the feeling which 

 governs the man in the street, to the effect that such know- 

 ledge is unobtainable. 



ASTRAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 



The ability to move about in astral independent 

 of your body is what most people p)ossess, but of 

 which few are conscious: — 



Illuminated, however, by the teaching embodied in 

 modern occult literature, a fairly considerable number of 

 those who have appreciated this teaching, and have zeal- 

 ously endeavoured to train themselves along the lines which 

 it suggests, have attained the condition of being fully con- 

 scious in the astral body, of acquiring in that embodiment 

 knowledge of great importance to be spoken of directly, 

 and in some cases again, amongst these, of so arranging 

 matters as to be able to remember when consciousness has 

 returned to its normal physical vehicle all that has trans 

 pired during its excursion on the astral plane. 



ABOVE THE ASTRAL SEMI-OMNISCIENCE. 



But even astral consciousness is but the stepping- 

 stone to the discovery of the higher realms of con- 

 sciousness where the soul acquires semi-omni- 

 science : — 



Quitti;ig the astral body in turn, and learning how to es- 

 talilish Ifis consciousness in a still finer vehicle, he may gain 

 access to a condition of exalted spiritual consciousness from 

 the point of view of which a comprehension of things 

 generally is possible, which no simple expression in words 

 can at once define. Even on the spiritual or " Manasic " 

 plane, to use the technical expression, the Ego is very far 

 from acquiring omniscience, but his range of perception in 

 all that concerns the natural design of human life is. so 

 extended both forward and backward that few of the pro- 

 blems naturally presenting themselves to ordinary intelli- 

 gence down liere would fail to meet with an instantaneous 

 and complete solution. From that plane of consciousness 

 the chain of lives through which the Ego has passed would 

 lie as clearly within the range of his perception as the es- 

 peiience of the last few days within the ordinary waking 

 consciousness. 



And so we come to know among other things 

 that Mr. Gladstone was a reincarnation of Cicero, 

 etc., etc. 



HOME RULE IN THE NEW PARLIAMENT. 



As I pointed out last month, the inconceivable 

 recklessness of Mr. Balfour in raising the Home 

 Rule question has had its inevitable result. Mr. 

 M. McD. Bodkin, writing in the Forimghtly Review 

 on " The Position of the Irish Party," seizes this 

 advantage, and makes the most of it : — 



Victory has been even more complete than friends hoped 

 or foes feared. The Liberal Government is now unquestion- 

 ably strong enough to grant Home Rule. I still believe it 

 is not strong enough to refuse it. It cannot indelinitely 

 resist a demand which all its leaders confess to be just and 

 urgent, and a combination of the Irish and the Labour 

 Parties in the House of Commons might at any time im- 

 peril its colossal majority. 



On the question of mandate, to the very laat Mr. 

 Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain insisted that Home Rule 

 WU6 the main issue at the election. They proclaimed that 

 every vote given for Campbell-B;innermaii was a vote given 

 for Home Rule. They cannot now refuse the judgment they 

 invited. Lord Rosebery, who raised the same issue, is 

 bound by the same verdict. 



Incidentally the elections justify the views I have ex- 

 pressed as to the danger of Lord Rosebery's friendship to 

 the Liberal Party. Under his leadership they suffered an 

 overwhelming defeat; upon his dissension they have 

 achieved a still more overwhelming victory. 



From the Irish standpoint it is quite plain that Irish 

 Nationalists cannot nor will not consent to the complete 

 shelving of Home Rule during the life of the present Par- 

 liament. For them it is the one question. 



The Irish Party ha\e done much to win the Liberal 

 victory; they are entitled to claim for their country a share 

 in the spoil. They might almost as well abandon Home 

 Rule altogether as consent to its abandonment for the next 

 Parliament, when the reaction against Unionism should 

 have at least partially 8|)ent itself, and the pendulum 

 again begun to swing. If there was to be no Home Hule 

 in this Parliament, what hope could there be of Home Rule 

 in the next? 



As against this statement of the case from the 



Irish point of view, take this much too emphatic 



disclaimer from Mr. Herbert Paul's paper in the 



yineteenth Century: — 



As a convinced Home Ruler of twenty years' standing, 

 who believes that if Gladstone had carried his Bill in 1886 

 Ireland would now be peaceful, prosperous, loyal, and con- 

 tent-ed, perhaps I may be allowed to say that it would, in 

 my opinion, be dishonourable and disgraceful to treat 

 the decision of the country as a decision in favour of Home 

 Rule. Thousands of Unionists voted for Liberal candidates 

 because they believed that Free Trade was the issue, and 

 Home Rule was not. I am sure that the Prime Minister, 

 against whom Mr. Balfour has made an unfounded charge, 

 would as soon think of picking a pocket as of deceiving 

 the Unionists who trusted him. 



STATE INSURANCE IN BELGIUM. 



The Arena of January says: — 



The Belgian Government does a general life insurance 

 business, issuing straight life policies as well as term or 

 endowment policies. It goes further, and contracts to pay 

 annuities to such of its citizens as desire them. This life 

 insurance and annuity business is grafted upon the go- 

 vernmental postal savings bank system. Almost identically 

 the same machinery operates all three. Under this singular 

 financial system the poorest individual in the little king- 

 dom can secure a moderate life insurance policy or an- 

 nuity by the payment of trifling annual premiums^, or de- 

 rive interest on his small deposits in the postal savings 

 bank. The system was adopted to encourage national 

 thrift, and has fully vindicated its purpose. There are 

 few or no beggars in Belgium. It worka smoothly, and is 

 apparently without a flaw. It has been in practice upward 

 of half-a-century. The balance-sheet of the Belgian Na- 

 tional Bank on December 31, 1903. the last report within 

 reach, showed deposits to the credit of the three institu- 

 tions of 45,992,768 dols. 



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