Leading Articlei;. 



405 



THE SLEEPING GOD IN M*N. 



It wtli. Kege.neraie Humanitv. 



\\"f art- ali taniilhir with the time-honoured or- 

 thodox conventional phrases which tell us that the 

 Kingduni of Heaven is within us, and that every 

 huninii h ing is a temple of the Holy Ghost. The 

 Russian peasant's saying that there is in each of us 

 a spark of God, is very striking. But after all, do 

 we realK believe it? .Are we really pregnant with 

 the living God? Is God latent within us? And if 

 SM. how can we W'ake the sleeping deity? 



THE DOCTlilNE OF DR. OUACKENBOS. 

 1 u these questions a writer who is cursed with the 

 terrible name of Quackenbos makes serious reply 

 in an article on. " The Transliminal," which appears 

 in the North American Review for August. He as- 

 serts that Deit\ dwells in the transliminal region of 

 the niin 1 ; that for the most part when we are 

 awaki this divine part of us is asleep. When we 

 sleep it is awake. It is by bringing to bear upon 

 the conscious mind the omnipotent influence of the 

 transliminal, that character can be transformed and 

 hcm-iiitv regenerate 1. "God in us" is to be set 

 in motion bv autosuggestion to redeem mankind. 

 Not oiiK morality l>ut geiiivs can be evoked b> in- 

 voking this sli eping God : — 



G*niu3 is hut a name tor coincidence o£ action on the 

 part of p«;iche and pneiima ulon? tile lines of a discovered 

 objective oa.pacit,v— for effortless expression on the part of 

 liarmoniously operatintr fellow selfs. Two or three inspira- 

 tion;il appeals, t'iven ater mastering the spirit of the plays 

 and datisf.vin.ff myself of the personal fitness of the sub- 

 jects, have raided now well-known actresses from medi- 

 ocrity to fame. In these cases, dormant dramatic bent was 

 inBtant-ineouslj- awakened to activity, self-consciousness was 

 obliterated, genius in embryo was suddenly discovered and 

 matured. 



THE POWKIH OF THE TRAXjLIMIN AL ODD. 



Iir. Quackenbos says: — 



Man in his higher personality is adequate to tlie cxtir- 

 p.ition from his objective nature of any abnormal cravius^ 

 or passion, like the craze for intoxicants. The latter is 

 ainsularly responsive to treatment by suggestion. In the 

 transliminal sphere, we are capable of acting inde!)en- 

 dentiv of a visible corporeity; .and, as beings cast in the 

 image of God, we intuitively apprehend, we possess supei- 

 normal knowledge and wield supernormal power, we are 

 .-iuhiject to impression by other human personalit'.es, as well 

 as obnoxious t<, the touch of higher sp'ritual intelligences. 

 and we are gifted with a measure of prescience that on oc- 

 casion forecasts what is to be Of these unconscious agen- 

 cies and forces, few have any realisation. 



THE GOD WHO WAKES WHEN ^\^E SLEEP. 



It is in sleep that the Transliminal God exerts 

 His divine influence. Dr. Quackenbos says: — 



sleep, the familiar chapter of pneumatic lif?. is not a 

 state of spiritual torpor, but rather of intense transliminal 

 activity. It is the school of the soul, in which there is not 

 only spiritual development but probable access to stores 01 

 knowledge, to a wealth of facts and memory-images seem- 

 ingly res"istered in some incorporeal Chamber of Records 

 which the subjective self may explore at w;ll. The Xeo- 

 I'latonist was right in proclaiming "the iiighttiiiie nl the 

 body to be the davtime of the soul " But granted, durinsr 

 the hours of rest, symposiums of kindred transliminal 

 spirits, incarnate and excarnate, having interests in com- 

 mon and free to combine and interpenetrate: granted, on 

 such occasions, unrestricted access on the part of every 

 soul to the knowledge and experience and impulses and 

 ideals cherished bv every other soul, and thought im- 

 pression during states of sleep is rationally explained 



through creative commuu,c;ition. In the act of wakmg, as 

 the transliminal dissolves into the supraliminal conscious- 

 ness, the treasures detected or acquired during sleep are 

 paraded before the objective view. Ideas elaborated in 

 tr.ii.sliminal regions are appropriable spontaneously, wi.h- 

 oul expentliture of brain enerL'y. Thought is easy and 

 rapid; perplexities are disentangled in a flash of intuition; 

 and knowledge conserved in the higher self, but novel to 

 the objective mind, clamours for ut.erance. Everyone may 

 cultivate the lubit of lingering at the morning liour in 

 this borderland between the outer and the inner man, and 

 garnering the resources of the transliminal state for the 

 tietternieiu of his objective existence. 



HOW To YOKE THE (iOD Tu OUR CAR— 



Dr. Quackenbos tells us how to rouse the sleeping 

 God, and compel Him to transform our lives: — • 



Auto-suggestion is a simple means whei-eby simple men 

 ina.v bee me better, wiser, happier, more godlike. The life 

 beautiful is within the reach of all through this natural 

 means, for man's earth :\- constitution is not incompatible 

 wit.h the indwelling of the Divine. .\s one is about .yield- 

 ing to slumber for the night, let him siy to himself, for 

 instance, that he will no longer be .a slave of the impera- 

 tive conception or the evil habit that is crippling his best 

 expression— tlrat he will develop talent along specified lines 

 —that he will draw spontaneously upon the resources trea- 

 sured in his higher being for creative work in the normal 

 sphere. Lapse into sleep with the triinslimiiuil thus in- 

 voked to employ itself as instructed, all but equivalents 

 suggestion gi\en bj- another. The prerequisite is earnest, 

 intelligent, pers'stent application of the self-given sugges- 

 tions. 



—AND TO REGENERATE THE WORLD. 

 If each can do this for himself, what may not be 

 done bv a multitude bandeil together to secure a 

 common end. Dr. Quackenbos says: — 



Given i few thousind properly equipped, earnest persons 

 consecrated to 1 he wcirk of dissemiiuiting this creed of self- 

 help among the people of the earth — and given willingness 

 on the part of humanity to he uplifted and purified through 

 this instrumentality — and the regeneration of the world 

 within ten j-ears becomes an easy problem. 



THE litPtJRTjVXCE OF THIS DISCOVERY. 



Xo one can withhold a.ssent from Dr. Quacken- 

 bos's conclusion — provided that his doctrine be 

 true ; — 



The discovery of a new star or uhemical element or 

 micro-organism is of absorbing interest; but such interest 

 palts into triviality beside that evolved in opening t-he way 

 to a perfect comprehension of man's relationship to Deity. 

 to destiny, to his disembodied fellows, and to other spiritual 

 personalities tliat are not of this fold. Metaphysics seem 

 destined in the twentieth century to demonstrate immor- 

 tivlity on reputable scieritilic grounds, by establishing the 

 laws of telepathy and translating into the e:irtli life super- 

 sensuous i>erc6i>tions fclairvoyancei. to determine the pos- 

 sibility or impossibility of human communication with 

 discarnate souls (a question left unanswered by tlie New 

 Testament writers), to effect that adjustment with natural 

 law which will banish disease, and to give us eutlianasia 

 as the fitting close to every human life. 



SPELLING REFORM AT LAST. 



\\'uAT We are Coming To. 



liv the decree of President Roosevelt the official 

 ddcumeiits published in .America will conform to the 

 spellings of the amended word-list recommended bv 

 the Simiilified Spelling lioard, and in his own pri- 

 vate correspondence he will adojit the simplified 

 spellings thus oflScially recogni.sed. The New York 

 school authorities have decided to adopt in their 

 [irimers the simplified forms already alluded to. 

 'i"he publishers exi)ect a boon in new primers. 



