Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 1900)
2 THE TORCH OF REASON, SILVERTON, OREGON, JANUARY 25, 1900, Love, have been separated and are poetry be rose so far beyond ordin- 1. Very seldom can it be done rotating Paradise with infinity as a now quarrelling under the names ary mortals that, like Wagner in suddenly. Just as the missiona- future. The same evolution that of Materialism, Science, etc., op- music, it is difficult even now to ries have never succeeded in sud- ensures it to Humanity ensures an posed, or supposed to be opposed, to follow aud realize him. denly changing wild and innocent unlimited increase in the human the Spiritual, the ideal, the beautiful, Then what should be done? peoples to their “religions,” so even capacity to enjoy it. The old Bible “the heart,” etc., etc. The Spiritualists, the Idealists, our “civilized” peoples can not re firmament and “spiritual” heaven flow this separation came about, the lovers of the emotional must alize a new environment and hope was a triviality, not a tallow can by the progress which indued the learn to realize that the victory of until the convolutions of their dle to the sun in comparison! Our thoughts of man, we have above Science is won, and won for ever, brains are gradually built up to power to enjoy all of this future intimated; but repeat to recog- The fate of Santa Claus has over- realize the new’ conditions. This now by anticipation, depends upon nize, realize, appreciate and re- taken the whole of the supposed education must be the purpose of our changeof the egoistic enjoyments concile our differentiation? In supernatural existences. With the those who do get out into the new of the old Spiritualism to the altru times past the supernatural relig- discovery that life and all of its world, both for their own good and istic enjoyment by sympathy with ions shadowed and kept in confused changeful transformations are but the good of others. It must be done the future, that future which Sci darkness or twilight all of the properties of protoplasm and forms by education and example. The new ence ensures. A hope surely to be thoughts, and also all of the feel- or results of correlation, the spirit - hopes, purposes and joys of life realized can be discounted and en ings of man. He thought that both sou 1 receives its natural explana must be expressed and assimilated joyed by sympathy, especially when were alike under the control of tion and the process - sou I takes its by new symbols, images and art. it is a future of which our lives and supernatural beings or influences. place. What little remains to be We must have a system or habit of wills are,by their very existence,par The intellect, starting with Luther, done is the working out and classi Scientific Hermetics translating the tial creators. The old Heaven had has rebelled, and S cience , the veri fication of the details of this vic old religious concepts and ideals nothing but childish illusions to fied and classified knowledge of the tory of Science, which is final. into the new life and its require rest upon. The Coperuican astron knowable world is the result. But After a fact and a law of Science ments. omy, the law of correlation, and the the Love, the Heart, the emotions, has been discovered that is the end Thus, in order to reach the real scientific psychology has ended the imaginations, including Art and of that matter. It is useless to ization and expression of the new them. But the “Earthly Paradise’ Aesthetics, have not yet passed from kick against the pricks. It is de- emotions and hopes, the old creeds, is being revealed as a far more de under the shadow of the super moralizing to keep on pretending symbols and mythologies must fur sirable and a scientific reality. It natural. And now the worst of it that things are thus, and so when nish in themselves the materials is being realized more and more, is that the emancipation and ap they are not; and to keep up ignor for the bridge from the old to the year by year, in every worthy life, parent opposition of the intellect ance among the people in order to new. This results from the use of and is reflected back upon us even has made those by nature sympa continue the delusion or self-decep them not at all as truths, but as now with as much certainty as the thetic with the Love and Ideals, feel tion. Those who aresubjectto the in allegories. The mental, moral, es light of the sun itself! The old en that their cause is indissolubly troversion of the subjective feelings thetic aud spiritual truths are thus tity, material, gas or ghost soul, married to their remnant of the into objective vision; or of trances used to excite and retain aud com even if it could exist (which it can supernatural, and that if Science into self, or other hypnotism; or municate the ideal, much as the not), could have no part in this banishes that “spirit-entity” from who experience the results of nerv theater, canvas, paints and forms earthly heaven. The soul discovered the knowable world, then all of the ous discharges, and unconscious are used in the aesthetic arts. It is bvscience is a process which in every old emotions, soul comforts, hopes, cerebration; should no longer talk well known how the mythologies of individual is a wave of life, love, and sweet Humanities will go with about casting out“spirits”to be pass Greece and Rome have been used in joy and glory sweeping onward to it. It is this fearful illusion, to ed into swine, as did the people o this way. They have been trans that grandest consummation con gether with “vested interests,” old, but should betake themselves to formed into a symbolism of ideals, ceivable. The imagination of Mil- which keep up the terrible opposi healthier diet, exercise and nerve so that like Greek art, or indeed ton is trivial in comparison. The tion to the practical acceptance and and cerebral hygiene. No longer with that art, they have become the w’ords Soul, Spirit and Spiritual application of Scientific truth and should they advertise or boast of foundation of all art. In a similar were accordingly wisely reserved Liberalism, and which is the chief these infirmities, or use them as a way the forms and expressions of for good and religious symbolic cause of the ignorance, superstition, means of imposition upon others, the old spiritualistic religions may uses by Goethe. For the old ghost selfishness and misery in the world. for the sake of gain to themselves. be brought to support the Religion illusion he used the w’ord “spuk”, But is it true that if the Scientific The physical, physiological and of the Future, the Religion of Sci spook, especially in Fifth Act of solution of the world is known and psychic laws of correlation and as ence and Humanity—the R eligion Faust, where he had to meet and accepted that all or any of those sociation make the existence of a of the N oble . The old religion of solve this issue of the old and new. heart-desolating consequences will spirit-entity an impossibility, and Christianity, with its ghosts and Nor does he hesitate to use all of follow? By no means! Just the has left us a “process” in its place. spirits, may by natural evolution he imagery of the old to lead us contrary. The only true, complete Now’, this being so, the Scientists pass into a symbolism, that will into the new, in that most won and effective basis for the emotion and Realists have, if possible,a still lead to the higher conceptions of drous “vision” the heart and soul al and spiritual, the ideal and re more important duty to recognize the awfully enlarged heaven and of man has ever yet conceived of ligious concepts and life of modern aud perform. They have to appre earth that science has revealed to his destiny. mankind is the T ruth . For in ciate that the great emotions and us. Did not Goethe tell us that The above suggestions can not be stance, it is false and cruel to even purposes of life have not only lost symbols were the language of Hea I carried further now. They are in permit children to believe that hu their old foundation, but in their ven? His use of them in the sec tended to call attention to the relig man love is gone because “Santa very selves have to undergo great ond part of Faust, from both Poly ious discoveries of modern Science. Claus” 1 r and was a myth. Tell change, a new transformation into theistic and Christian sources, is one Are they not sufficient to show that the truth and thus, as ever, “shame “something wonderful and strange”. of the reasons why the great poetic the true Liberal, with his “process- the devil.” Tell the youngsters This is one of the most important, reconstruction of the future should soul,” is not only the true scientist, that old “Santa Claus,” once a difficult and delicate problems of ie made a continuous evolutional but the true aud grander Spiritual myth, is now a play-symbol and our age. It is more than sustain- outgrowth of its immediate relig ist of our day? Is not the old “en thus an excellent means of repre- ing a vast temple or old cathedral ious and artistic past. In the high tity Spiritualist,” with his “spook- senting and expressing parental, by mechanical screws and supports est as well as the lowest, the natural ghost,” in fact only a belated mate family and human love. Aud so while an entirely new foundation growth is not by leaps, but by as rialist, lost in a lot of old illusions trust the true. As Goethe says it, is being constructed and placed un- similation and transformation of, wholly behind our age, and which, der it. It is not a problem of me- he old to meet a new’ environment. if not outgrown, will certainly pre ‘‘Painful truth prefer I to pleasant error, chanics, or even of biology or vivi- Artificial and temporary devices vent our race from rising to and For Truth ever heals the wounds she ’ u,ulu©y vivi makes.* section. It is the transfer of the are well hut insufficient to lift the realizing the unselfish and vaster In these lines the greatest poet of soul of man into a new world, new Humanity to the realities of hopes and joys of an actual heaven modern times places on record his a new environment, as di fferent, in its new environment, its new Heaven on earth, of which it is the chief own experience and example. He deed far more different from the and Earth, and its infinite Future triumph of Science to become the was the great artificer of both the old than would be the transfer of ou Earth. People have hardly as yet foundation? Real and the Ideal, building his the human race to the planet Mars began to think about that. The How can we teach a Science of soul-home upon the oue in order to — if it have the conditions of life, diameter of our Earth-Heaven or Sociology when a “Day of Judg rise ever higher in the other. Oue How can this transfer be made with bit is 196 millions of miles, with an ment” may come to end us “like a of the great scientists of his day, in ¡the least loss and pain? orbit of 558 millions. Ourearth is a thief in the night?” How make