William Atkinson - The Complete Works of William Walker Atkinson

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THE THOUGHT of the twentieth century has drawn boldly upon the past centuries for its stores of wisdom and philosophy, and has appropriated the same boldly, and often without giving due credit. New sects, schools and cults have arisen, all exerting a certain influence upon the general thought of the day. Theosophy has acted as a leaven in the direction of popularizing the Hindu conceptions, particularly in the matter of the doctrine of reincarnation and rebirth. Christian Science has exerted an influence in the direction of idealism, recalling in some respects (independent of its features of healing) the idealistic teachings of the Vedanta and of the Grecian philosophers. Unitarianism has exerted a powerful influence among the churches, and its effects are seen even in the pulpits which revile it. The higher criticism in the churches, has tended to lead the public away from the old ideas to which they once were wedded. In the large cities, mention from the pulpit of eternal punishment, hell­fire, or the personal devil, evoke smiles and shrugs. To an unprejudiced observer it would appear that many of the old teachings have been left behind, never to return. But who knows, after all? Even their turn may come again.

Twenty-five years ago a close observer of the times would have felt perfectly safe in predicting that out of the bubbling pot of that day there must emerge the new teachings of materialism, which at that time seemed destined to carry the day. But alas for human prescience, the very reverse has happened. Materialism has been shown the door, for the time being, and, wonder upon wonders, advanced idealism has taken the center of the field of human philosophical thought. Yes, not only advanced idealism, but even a rarefied pantheism, under other names. The predictions of twenty-five years ago have proven false, and the tables have been turned on the prophets of that time. Materialism has been eliminated and its direct antithesis, idealistic pantheism, has been given the seat of honor. Not the crude materialistic pantheism which insists that Deity is but the total of natural objects and forces—but the spiritual phase of pantheism which insists that Deity is manifested in all natural things—the doctrine of the Immanent Spirit. And this even in its most idealistic sense, for the advance wave of modern philosophical thought certainly holds to the idea that the universe is in reality an idea or series of ideas in the universal mind. The most radical branch of the great Vedanta school of the Hindus, the Advaitists, have never dared to go farther in this direction than the most advanced adherents of the twentieth century idealism, which is exerting so powerful an influence on the public thought of to-day.

Some who have not as yet dared to go to the full length of this extreme idealism do not hesitate to teach and preach the full doctrine of the immanent Deity, which they hold is also taught by the Biblical teacher who said that “In Him we live and move and have our being.” This surely is a most radical departure from the old teaching of the Deity who ever dwelt apart from His creation, and who made the universe from nothing. And surely, the standard built upon this new teaching must differ materially from those erected upon the old. It is this marked shifting of the foundation conception of the fundamental principles that has disturbed the edifice of thought, life and action to-day.

Have we discarded the solid rock for the sinking sand, or vice versa? Each must answer according to his own views and conceptions. The newer school claims that it has found solid rock at last; while the older school insists that its opponents are blasting at the Rock of Ages. Which is right—and “what shall the harvest be?” Time alone can answer. Each must be judged by its works. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” And time is required for the fruits and works of the new. Perhaps from the old and the new, a still newer something may arise, better and nobler than either. Time must answer. Like the Sphinx, Time crouches on her haunches, and with pensive, undisturbed eyes gazes out into the eternity of the future. What does she see there—what does she see? Ah, if we could only know!

Those who may imagine that I have laid too much stress upon the popularity of the conceptions of the immanent Deity, or the Oneness of All, which is a distinctive feature of the newer thought of the day, I refer to the news columns of the papers of any large city in the land, containing the reports of the sermons delivered in the leading pulpits. Let them refer to the utterances of the great theological teachers of the day. Let them refer to the teachings of the following representative men of the great universities of the land, as reported in the daily press and magazines of the day. Surely these tell the tale in no uncertain tones.

Harold Bolce, in a recent article in the Cosmopolitan Magazine , entitled “Avatars of the Almighty,” gives a number of instances in which college professors are teaching this new conception of fundamental principles—the conception of the indwelling Deity—of the immanent God. In conclusion, he states:

“And now that man has discovered that there resides in his nature a spirit or energy that is divine, the colleges say, and that he can summon it to work his will, the potency and future operation of this psychic force no man can compute. Science has found a way through psychology to God; the opportunities for the race, through invoking in the human consciousness the brooding spirit that fills all space, are absolutely infinite. Science, therefore, is demonstrating along new lines, or at least is claiming to demonstrate, that man is God made manifest . And modern philosophy, as set forth in American universities, holds this incarnation not as a fanciful and merely beautiful ideal, but as a working and understandable principle in the soul of humanity. The professors, therefore, who are digging what they believe to be the graves for dead dogmas, stand as exponents of the teaching that man is the embodiment and, conscious expression of the force that guides all life and holds all matter in its course . Man has begun the cycle of that triumphal daring prophesied by ancient seers, and which appealed so potently to the imagination of Poe. Not merely in religious rhetoric, but in reality, the school men say, is man the avatar of God . The reference to Poe is accompanied by the following quotation from that poet: “Think that the sense of individual identity will be gradually merged in the general consciousness—that man, for example, ceasing imperceptibly to feel himself man, will at length attain that awfully triumphant epoch, when he shall recognize his existence as that of Jehovah .”

The editor of the Cosmopolitan , in commenting on the article in question, says:

“The college professors, in some cases, express doubt as to the practicability and judgment of their teachings. Will their propaganda cause a rejection of all solemn and religious authority, create a Robespierre, and erect a guillotine, with its concomitant tumbrels and blood-atonement? The professors say no. They assert that in this, the sanest of all ages, man thinks for himself, and the path they blaze for him leads to the realization that he himself is an avatar, and incarnation, of God.…The conflict between the colleges and the church discloses a movement of thought more significant, perhaps, to civilization than even the Renaissance. In its revolutionary character, and in its importance to mankind, the only world-wide movement that can be compared with it was that upheaval in the eighteenth century which led, through bloodshed, to democracy.…The claim of the colleges is that they are teaching a higher form of truth. They hold that ‘ the orthodox God has had his day .’ They say that when the God of theology is utterly banished from human thought the reign of man will begin.…They say, as indicated, that this spiritual revolution will not end in a saturnalia of tumbrels and guillotines, for this is not an atheistic banishment of God and his holy angels, but is, on the contrary, the enthronement of a new Jehovah— a God that has become conscious and potent in the human mind .”