If we were asked to name a basic cause, we would not hesitate to say the abandonment of reason in the conduct of national development, and the utter disregard for science, and natural law. Add to these, too much class legislation, too many criminal laws and too much taxation. Civilization is commercialized and over capitalized.

We do not hesitate one moment in declaring that statutory law has been a curse to mankind, and that it was inspired with this understanding; common law was the natural law of justice.

After all, science is but the exercise of the dogma of analogies, therefore, no ground for excuses for world conditions exist. History is replete with effects from identical causes. Men are responsible, not mankind.

The effects of evil living and evil doing are plainly written upon the faces and in the mien of men. A community or nation is but a composite man, and his face and mien will equally depict the national faults.

The destiny of the nation may be foretold by an analysis of its average citizen. A single act may be the precedent for a series of drawbacks for man or nation, to make or break either. One piece of misfortune may introduce a series of calamities. This is just as true of nations as it is of men. These all fall under the dogma of analogy, and it is the function of science to reason out the causes for evil effects, and provide means for evading misfortune and calamity before they overtake us. Eliminate the cause and there can be no effect.

The practice of governments deliberately and intentionally has been guided towards perverse and irrational theories which make a commerce of the effects which should have been eliminated by suspending the causes.

The miseries of the world, and no one denies they exist, are wholly without reason. The causes to which they are due may be traced to the false doctrines of men. It is sufficient that evil effects have resulted without accusing them of design or duplicity. Nevertheless, had the masses been permitted to do independent thinking, or had they been taught to reason, science would have deprived questionable powers of the privi

lege of applying illogical experimentation to the development of nations of people.

A reasonable pantology is not illogical as a national foundation. Is there a choice between a universal knowledge and national ignorance? Yes, undoubtedly. Then why choose universal ignorance?

There are 20,000,000 illiterate people in the United States today.

Referring to the masses at large, we have universal ignorance with consequent evils. Having made our choice there is no means by which this horrible error may be corrected.

The world must bear its burden to the end. Humanity has lost. The end of civilization is not far distant.

The ecclesiasts, learning from the Gnostic science that equilibrium is a universal law, due to the opposition of two equal forces, attempted to adopt this philosophy to the adjustment of its unbalanced conception of a universal political religion with curious consequences. Their god is a being of severity and mercy. Why the severity if mercy is to be the balm? Why make a wound merely for the sake of healing it? Why attribute to their god attributes which would necessitate future acts for their exercise? On what did they base this anticipation?

On the doctrine of original sin, of course. A pure fabrication, a mean slander, and a dishonest attitude toward strugling humanity.

If this doctrine is scientifically wrong, the evil results are accomplished, therefore, they cannot be corrected, hence the necessity for the doctrine of infallibility.

If the doctrine of original sin is correct, then evil must be considered a part of God's inheritance to mankind, for "God is all and in all."

In his innocent state man knew no wrong, who taught him wrong, and for what purpose?

It is quite sufficient to say that, that which is evil in man is evil in God, and were there no evil, there would be no justification for the church; there would be no need for a media

tor, nor would a burdensome priesthood be astraddle of humanity and in control of legislation.

There are two things conspicuous in the world today: the limited number of persons who may be named as profound philosophers and scientists, and the slowness with which great inventions, useful to humanity, are brought into service. The latter is acknowledged to be due to monopolistic reasons, and all great inventions are soon monopolized by that evil dogma of the mediator or middle man.

That damnable doctrine of the Ecclesiasts, that humanity must not be permitted to realize personal comforts too rapidly, is responsible for the opportunities to monopolists, and the habits formed by governments. They know that, in the last analysis, the government is, theoretically, the consensus of opinion of the people, therefore the necessity for inspired ignorance in the masses, that public opinion may be easily moulded by designing men and institutions.

That is the very life essence of world politics.

This is not intended as a lecture on morals; it is the plain truth which should go home to all men, whether pleasing or not. To many, our whole work will be anything but pleasing. We are not catering to the whims or tender feelings of anyone. If anyone is hurt by anything we have written, they may at once be put down as enemies to mankind, or the willing dupes or agents of institutions which do not have the best interests of the masses of humanity at heart.

Ridicule will only exaggerate the importance of this book. We invite it.

These words have been spoken and no power on earth can suppress them. Seize them, burn them among the smouldering fires of the inquisition, and they will arise to smother those who attempt to destroy them. Gnosticism is a living thing; it has come to life; its resurrection is at hand, and humanity will see and hear, and wonder why reason has so long slumbered. The answer is because reason has been chained to a blank wall in prison, by the powers which once exploited the murderous inquisition.

PART XIV

MIND AND MAN

(“Man that is a worm, and the son of man, which is a worm.")

The purpose to which the fruit is put explains the reason for its creation. Every system produces something useful. If it is a reproductive system, it produces a dead excrement and a living excrement; for example: the dead leaves, and the living fruit of the tree. One represents the elimination of the waste of a digestive process, and the other represents the true purpose of the tree, to supply food for other beings and to perpetuate the species, evidently to perpetuate the supply. That is the highest aspiration and purpose of vegetation. Is there visible evil in this? It is essential to evolution.

Man is no exception to this rule; his excrements perform similar functions. The deposits of his material body represent the waste due to destructive assimilation, and they are returned to the earth to be distributed to the elements which originally contributed them; solid to solid, fluid to fluid, gaseous to gaseous, and vbratory to vibratory, all to be purified and re-energized for future use. Not one atom is lost in the end.

It is most significant that we find each plane absorbing its own proportion. For instance the breath we exhale into the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, and is promptly inhaled by the vegetation. This is the direct reciprocation between vegetation and animal life, for we breathe the oxygen released by vegetation.

Evil is a comparative thing, and may only be applied as between individuals. There is no such thing as evil in nature; even the Bible admits this. "God is all and in all." If evil exists God is evil.

These simple truths open up a tremendous field for speculative thought.

Let us delve deeper into this system of reciprocity, for it has to do with respiration, the most vital function in physical being.

"And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.'" (Gen. 1:29.) "The earth bringeth forth bread." (Job. 28:5.)

We are going to prove that the god of nature gives substantial things for spiritual things, whereas the Christian God gives spiritual things for the substantial, and this is identically the difference between the real Gnosticism and the imitative Christianity.

"If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing that we shall reap your carnal things?" (I Cor. 9:11.) The man surrenders his solid excrements to the earth, which symbolizes man.

"The earth bringeth forth bread."

He surrenders his fluid excrement to the waters which "nourisheth vegetation."

He surrenders his gaseous breath to vegetation, and receives its solid fruits and the vital element for his own breath. He surrenders his thoughts to the vibratory God of nature in thankful recognition of material things.

We believe that, like the other elements, the vibratory also yields up its potential wisdom and returns it to man, the whole planetary system following this law.

The contempt in which mankind is held by the Ecclesiasts is the strongest evidence of premeditated persecuton of men. Men revile that upon which they have evil designs to appease their conscience.

"Vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt." (Job 11:12.)

"Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble." (Job 14:1.)

"What is man that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" (Job 15:14.)