64 THE THRESHOLD OF EVOLUTION 



us to perfect by their energy, efforts and experiences, our pre- 

 sent acts. And thus their souls are the mystic guardian 

 angels of the knowledge it cost them in the past so much 

 thought, trouble, and privation to acquire ; but the reward of 

 which it is permitted to them to share by their spirits aiding 

 and directing our minds and thoughts, and so to live in the 

 loves and lives of our children and our children's children, 

 in directing whom, they receive the rewards of success of 

 acts which their valiant struggle may have merited, and made 

 possible in the course of time, but which their lives were too 

 short to complete, and the enjoyment of which they were not 

 permitted to receive, until further virtue on the part of their 

 children should create a perfect soul worthy of the reward. 



Hence I am of the opinion that our thoughts are the 

 reflection of the lives and minds and souls of our ancestors 

 as a like re-occurrence of events to those under which they 

 lived arises. In this manner we have the power of recalling 

 their past experiences under like circumstances, provided that 

 we are likewise possessed of a brain similar to theirs, but not 

 those of our ancestors whose brain is of a different type from 

 our own. For instance, take a family whose ancestors had 

 a long line of military predecessors and a long line of political 

 ones. A member of the family who had a military brain could 

 recall the experiences in the lives of military ancestors, or 

 think their same line of thoughts corrected by their experi- 

 ences in military matters, and on such subjects as they had 

 experiences would most likely think correctly, but would be a 

 failure in political work. In the same way those who were 

 born with political talents would fail and blunder as soldiers 

 and would succeed as statesmen. Again, if another family 

 had a long line of maternal ancestors, gifted with creative or 

 inventive genius, a member of that family, if he had a com- 

 prehensive mind, would be likely to attain success as an 

 inventor, but would fail as a soldier or politician. Notice, I 

 say in this case, who have a long maternal ancestry, because 

 invention is an attribute of the female mind of God and conse- 

 quently hereditary on the female side. Some people have put 

 the question to me : In the case of a family of musicians, how 

 do you account for the fact that an early member of the family 

 is a musical genius, and that other members of later birth are 

 less brilliant? This is easily accounted for, because the 



