286 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DB. STEINER. 



A RosicRuciAN Ideal. 

 Mrs. Mabel Collins contributes to the Occull 

 Review for March an interesting account of the teachings 

 of Dr. Steiner, the teacher of the new International 

 League for the Study of Occuhism. Baron Wallein, 

 president of the Steiner Lodge of Copenhagen, lectured 

 on the Rosicrucian ideal in London recently, and 

 from him Mabel Collins has taken her synopsis of 

 Steiner's teachings. 



WHAT THINKS HE OF CHRIST ? 



The fundamental idea of Dr. Steiner is that— 

 Since the coming of Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life 

 have been, and are, open to all. Before Christ only the hijh 

 initiates were able to get into touch with Divinity. The 

 Divinity was outside man, now He is within man and the whole 

 earth ; but " has to be awakened by man's own eft'ort without a 

 school of initiation." 



Jesus Christ, he teaches, was a reincarnation of 

 Zarathusthra. The reincarnation took place at the 

 baptism at Jordan, when Jesus of Nazareth withdrew 

 His ego, and in its place came the Cosmic Christ. 



THE MISSION OF THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 



Dr. Steiner teaches — 

 that the man in whom the Christ Spirit is awakened has to 

 transform matter into spirit, not to get away from matter. In 

 the lecture given on February I2th, Baron Wallein gave this 

 doctrine very definitely. As he expressed it (as nearly as I can 

 remember) he said that, " We have to take the evil in the 

 world and turn it into radiating, beautiful spirit, by the power 

 of Love." 



.A. man may not complain if another strikes him, because it is 

 he himself who first struck the blow and it has but returned to 

 him. So with all the bad things done by others to us. To 

 those who accept this teaching personal bitterness is of necessity 

 eliminated from life. None can complain whatever their lot 

 may be, for they themselves have created it. "There is no 

 bad Karma — Karma is always good, always gracious, and no 

 matter what the trials, the weight of a Karma can be carried as 

 a banner is carried, instead of as a burden undesired." These 

 are high words and enable the pupils of such a teacher to set 

 out upon the hardships of life with new courage. 



THE ACTIVITY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 



Dr. Steiner is against spiritualistic seances, holding 

 that the phenomena are purely astral, therefore mis- 

 leading, and sometimes quite false : — 



Dr. Steiner teaches that the duty of the ego during Devachan, 

 the state after death, is to change the character of the world and 

 help it in its evolution. This it does by meeting with the souls 

 who represent and rule groups of beings in a lower state of 

 consciousness than that of man, and influencing them, urging 

 them to le.id their groups upon the upward path. He says that, 

 for instance, all diamonds arc represented in this higher state by 

 one group-soul. He considers that the animals are likewise 

 represented by group-souls, and says that these arc very wise, 

 and that by contact with them man can help to evolve the 

 animal worlds. Thus it maybe said that it is our "dcid" 

 friends who are actually, when we have lost sight of them, 

 working upon the conditions of the earth. 



Yuan Shi-Kai's entire career is pronounced by the 

 Oriental Review for F"ebruary to he an evidence of what 

 a crafty man, devoid of conscience, may be able to 

 accomplish in the world. 



THE "SONG OF THE SANDS." 



A SINGULAR natural phenomenon is thus described 



by Mr. W. J. Harding King, as he narrates his travels 



in the Libyan Desert, in the February Geographical 



Journal. He says : — 



At a camp in the north-eastern corner of the plateau the 

 curious "song of the sands" was heard. This was on April 

 igth, igog. The week belore had been unusually hot, and this 

 was followed, on the 19th, by a cool, almost cold, day, with an 

 overcast sky and slight showers at intervals. Towards sunset 

 this was followed by a regular downpour, vvhich, however, 

 only lasted about a quarter of an hour. After sunset there was 

 frequent vivid summer lightning. The sound began about 

 7.30 p.m. and continued at intervals until about 8. The sound 

 was very faint ; in fact, two of my men were unable to hear it. 

 There were two distinct sounds ; the one somewhat resembled 

 the sighing of the wind in telegraph wires, and the other was a 

 deep throbbing sound that strongly reminded me of the after 

 reverberation of "Big Ben." The sky was about half overcast 

 at 7.30, but the clouds had practically all cleared ofl' by 8 

 o'clock. A few drops of rain fell between 7.50 and 7.55. The 

 aneroid at 8.20 read aS'Sj inches, the dry bulb thermometer 

 read 59'5 deg., and the wet 56'0 deg. It was very difficult 

 to determine , the direction from which the sound came, but 

 apparently it came from a place about a mile distant where the 

 sand poured over a low scarp. The sound was a distinctly 

 musical one, as opposed to a mere noise. Some of the dunes 

 we crossed, which happened to be covered with a hard crust, 

 gave out a hollow almost bell-like sound when trodden on, and 

 I have heard of a place on the top of the plateau, to the north 

 of Kasr Dakhl, that gives out a loud musical note when struck, 

 but I was never able to visit it. Much of the surface of the 

 plateau we crossed is covered with loose slabs of sandstone, and 

 in many places this produces a tinkling sound like broken glass 

 when kicked. 



DRY FARMING IN THE TRANSVAAL. 



In the Empire Revinu for February Mr. Henry 

 Samuel offers a very urgent plea for emigration from 

 the Mother Country in order to prevent South Africa 

 from becoming whoUv black. He says that the 

 capacity of South African lands is at least equal to the 

 arable lands of America and Australia :— 



On a piece of the poorest soil in one of the driest districts 

 in tile Transvaal a dry-tarming Government test was made, 

 all manures being purposely withheld. The work was entirely 

 done with hired while labour, and the yields realised were : 

 wheat twenty bushels per acre, giving a net profit ,^4 ; 

 potatoes four tons per acre, net profit £21 ; maize eight bags 

 per acre, net profit £1 5s. 4d. per acre. Only national 

 recognition is required to ensure that hundreds of thousands 

 of white children growing up in .South .-Vfrica and Britain shall, 

 within the next twenty years, be taught a highly interesting, 

 manly business, and settled in independence on their own 

 farms. The Closer Settlement Commission's report showed 

 that the country is in every way as suitable for compact 

 colonisation as Australia, Nesv Zealand, or Canada. .\li 

 that is needed is the immigration of the steady, industrious, 

 hard-working white settler, and he is the citizen whom South 

 Africa should welcome and encourage. 



Mrs. S. E. Abbott, in the same magazine, declares 

 that life in the tropics of the northern territory is quite 

 possible to white women. " White women can li\e 

 here, and if they leave the drugs and liquor alone, can 

 rear as healthy a brood of children as one could vvish 

 to see." 



