CHAPTER II.

THE SECRET POWER.

Materialists hold that matter in small particles is all that exists, and that by a peculiar arrangement these small particles "organize" into flesh and blood. They do not believe in "INFLUENCES," good or bad. They do not believe that Christ "cast out" devils, or now can; and yet they believe that these infinitely small invisible particles, called electrons, know where to go, and by the force of their own knowledge and will, form themselves into atoms also so small as to be invisible, of various different substances. They say, "nothing exists but electrons." Then, they say, those atoms of various substances, combine in various proportions to make "molecules" and that thousands of molecules make a simple cell, and that such cells form muscle, blood

and brain. None of them have ever seen, in the strongest microscope, an electron, an atom, a molecule, or such a cell. But because they consider some material theory necessary, they say those invisible things make up the universe.

As to the question of how thought may be produced, the scientists were formerly divided. Many owned they were puzzled on this point, but they now all agree that those invisible entities which they call electrons are able, in some mysterious way, to segregate themselves; then, seeming to know where to go, these electrons form combinations in our bodies which produce thought, will, idealism and even love.

An invisible entity that knows where to go, and produces thought by its combinations in our bodies, is the present belief of materialists, and is the modern successor of the ancient belief that "a million devils could dance on the point of a needle."

Materialists admit that sometimes these electrons, or ions, start going the wrong way, bringing all kinds of trouble. Their problem

then is how to get rid of them. They say that if a finer, stronger, electrical force could be brought to bear, the electrons which had determined to go the wrong way, could be driven out of the system, curing all ills, mental and physical.

A little thought, and we will discover that these are precisely the same impressions as others receive, but under different names.

Let the scientists conceive of those INFLUENCES which they feel, as invisible "ions, running riot of their own perverted will, within them. They are then in exactly the same helpless fix as if they conceived them to be "demons' until that superior POWER is invoked which can conquer.

In other words, it makes no difference, either in the suffering, or the remedy, whether they name the INFLUENCES "ions" or "demons, or what they name the POWER that saves them.

All peoples, nations, churches and schools, are converging toward a common understanding of the INFLUENCES that affect the lives of Whether they are called electrons,

men.

ions, manias, demons, or spirits, there is a common knowledge of their inferior power, and a common instinct that somewhere there is a SUPERIOR POWER which can cast them out.

"INFLUENCES," we will see, are living, invisible beings. In all races their power has early been felt, and they are now recognized universally under various names, such as "obsessions," "guides," "spirit forces, "Elementals," "Earth spirits," and under other names and disguises, as explained elsewhere.

Man has always been in slavery to these "INFLUENCES," and it will be well to consider not only the universal experience of mankind in ages past but also the present feeling of every tribe and nation of primitive people, where such feeling seems to have come spontaneously and identically to far separated nations, indicating that there is something, whatever we may call it some INFLUENCE, which those peoples actually feel. So it was from the earliest dawn of history. INFLUENCES have always been felt.

Even before the ancient Aryan migration the primitive people of the East called them “demons.”

"In the beginning there was, saith an ancient writing, "but one man, and there came to tempt him, one demon. Men died,

but demons did not die, and each generation was oppressed, not only by its own demons, but by those of the generations which went before."*

Allatu was the name given the Queen of Hell by the Babylonians, and Namtar was the name given the plague demon who brought sickness and disease. Their secret names were engraved on certain tablets of destiny, which, it was believed, would thereafter come into the possession of ONE who would have power over Allatu and Namtar, by virtue of the knowledge of that secret name, and of the secret name of Ea or God. Tiamet was another name for the Queen of Demons, who was also the foster mother of

*Attributed, perhaps erroneously, to Hecataeus, who was accorded by Herodotus the honor of being the first historian.