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SYDNEY T. KLEIN, E.L.S., F.R.A.S., ON THE 



have been able to grasp its meanin<2: will now have attained to 

 wliat may be called a state of self -for getting, the silencing or 

 quieting down of the Physical Ego ; Sight and Sound perceptions 

 have been put in the background of Consciousness and it 

 becomes possible to worship or love the very essence of beauty 

 without the distraction of sense analysis and synthesis or 

 temptation to form intellectual conceptions. We are now pre- 

 pared to attempt the last and most difficult aspect of our 

 investigation, namely, the description of wdiat is experienced 

 when the physical mists have been evaporated by the Mystical 

 Sense ; again we find that no direct description is possible, 

 language is absolutely inadequate to describe the unspeakable, 

 communications have to be physically transmitted in wT)i'ds to 

 which finite physical meaniugs have been allocated : the still 

 small voice which may, at times of Eapture, be momentarily 

 experienced in Music, is something much more wonderful than 

 can be formed by sounds and this perhaps comes nearest to the 

 expression necessary for depicting the vision of the soul, but it 

 cannot be held or described, it is quickly drowned by the 

 physical sense of audition. As the Glamour of Symbolism can 

 only be transmitted to one who has passed the portal of Symbolic 

 Thought, the Eapture of Music can ouly be truly understood by 

 one who has already experienced it and the Ideal of Art requires 

 a true artistic temperament to comprehend it, so it is, I believe, 

 impossible to describe, with any chance of success, this wonderful 

 experience to any one but those whom Mr. A. C. Benson, in his 

 " Secret" of the Thread of Gold, very aptly describes as having 

 already entered the " Shrine." Those who have been there will 

 know that it is not at all equivalent to a vision, it is not anything 

 which can be seen or heard or felt by touch ; it is entirely 

 independent of the Physical Senses ; it is not Giving or 

 Eeceiving, it is not even a receiving of sonje new knowledge 

 from the Eeality ; it has nothing to do with Thought or Intel- 

 lectual gymnastics, all such are seen to be but mist ; the 

 nearest description I can formulate is : — A wondrous feeling of 

 perfect peace : — absolute rest from physical interference — true 

 contentment — the sense of " Being " one-with-the-Eeality, 

 carrying with it a knowledge that the Eeality or Spiritual is 

 nearer to us and has much more to do with us than the Physical 

 has, if we could only see the truth and recognize its presence ; — 

 that there is no real death ; — no finiteness and yet no Infinity ; — 

 that the Great Spirit cannot be localized or said to be anywhere 

 but that everywhere is God ; — that the whole of what we call 

 Creation is an instantaneous Thought of the Eeality ; — that it 



