H. T., $1 per month; J. M. G. W., $2 per month; J. D. B., J. F. McE., C. T., and G. E. H., $3, C. H. L., $10 per month.

I should like to feel that we could fill the following classes during the next twelve months, and urge upon every Fellow to do anything he can to aid the work.

100 persons who would pledge 10c. per month.

100 do. 25 c.

100 do. 50c. 75 do. $1. 50 do. $2. 50 do. $3. 40 do. $4. 30 do. $6. 20 do. $8. Io do $10. Please bear in mind that it is not the size of the contribution that has weight with me. Subscriptions of one dime, provided. they come from the heart and represent some sacrifice made for the cause, are just as welcome as those a thousand times as great. Contributions and communications upon this subject may be addressed to me, care the PATH. The latch-string is out.

G. E. H.

A

TEA TABLE TAJK.

CURIOUS circumstance was told to me recently, the actors in which shall tell their story here precisely as it was reported

to me.

These actors were a doctor and his suddenly fallen into an apparent faint. much, each must be separately told.

patient, the latter having But as their tales vary so

THE DOCTOR'S TALE.

I was standing near my patient, who all at once said in a quick, suppressed kind of voice: "I am going to faint". I felt the pulse: it was as strong as I had ever felt it, the patient having usually a strong, steady pulse. While I so held it, all at once there was a drop, a flicker; the pulse wavered indescribably, and to my horror the patient seemed to be dying. The pulse disappeared; the body straightened and stiffened itself; the jaw dropped; the breath was forcibly expelled; the features became set; the pulse was now extinct; the body continued cold as death; all signs of life had disappeared. Strangest of all, perhaps, my patient, who was outwardly a woman of the most feminine type, now in death seemed to wear the guise of a man, and one much younger than she actually was. I tried in vain means of resuscitation; life had quitted the form. So I said to myself on the evidence before me. Yet a sense above and beyond such proof made me still stand there watching, waiting for I knew not what. Great was my surprise soon to see an imperceptible tremor, a shadow, flit over the face. Quickly I placed my hand again upon the heart. At first it gave no response; what lay there was

a dead thing. Then I had a genuine shock; the heart quivered, stirred, leaped under my hand. All the torrents of life came pouring back. My feelings of relief are not to be described; at the same time I must confess to a decided feeling of curiosity. The patient opened her eyes and tried to speak, but her effort was in vain. I found the reason for this later on; her tongue was swollen and black, filling her mouth. In about an hour's time large black circles surrounded her eyes. These were black with the blackness of a bruise, and so remained for some days, fading gradually out through all the various shades of violet known to be distinctive of bruises. Altogether a most peculiar incident. What had happened to my patient, and how?

THE PATIENT'S TALE

Like the doctor, I do not know what happened to my body. I know what happened to ME!

I ought to premise by saying that, all my life, the fact of life itself has been represented to me by a small purplish flame burning at the very centre of my heart. By this I mean that I always saw this flame there, as if with internal eyes. I have thus watched it burning more or less brightly; now lower, as in ill health, now brighter as my form regained and retained more life. On this occasion therefore, as I said, I felt faint, and not only all at once, but also my inner sense shared the faintness of my body and the heart throes were exquisitely painful. I therefore at once reverted to my usual custom of regarding my heart, and quickly saw that something was wrong there. The purple flame burned low. It then set up a process of paling and flickering at the same time. And now a strange thing took place. Call it a change in consciousness. For the sense of personality, which is usually in the brain, I had received, as it were in exchange, a similar sense, but one situate in the breath within. That is to say, I seemed to identify myself with an inner breath. This breath gathered itself round about the heart and watched that heart's central flame. The breath saw the flame wax dim; saw it disappear (do not ask me with what eyes). From this point of my tale I must speak of the breath as "I"; my consciousness was wholly situate in this breath. "I", then, began to vibrate rapidly, to surge about, and soon felt myself floating upward (as conscious breath, remember) through a passage up the middle of my spine. I went up in a spiral; just as I arrived at a point opposite the mouth I felt another breath pass me on its outward way, and it rushed out of a cavity which I now know for the mouth with a loud rushing sound, as of a breath violently expelled. I-that other and conscious breath-went up into a circular space (the head?) and issued forth from thence-after one tremendous throb of separation, of rending-with a joy, an elation not to be conceived by those who have never experienced the same. For I was free, and with a freedom not before known. As the conscious breath leaped from the head it took form, a form of radiant light, and in this guise I shot forth into the open air. Above the buildings I soared, and soon no longer observed them; how could I? I was met up there by one

I knew and know well, one who began to give certain messages to me. About us were many sleeping spheres, and he bade me observe these. There were other forms and messengers coming and going; the atmosphere was all luminous; orbs of electricity sped about in all directions. There was, too, an ordered movement as of departing and returning rays. The sense of freedom, knowledge, and power was magnificent. Then I felt a slight pull upon me, and saw that a shadowy thread (one of less radiant matter) extended from me down through the air and into an open aperture. It was as if this pull had altered all my vibrations and changed my state of consciousness, for I now ceased to see the wonders about me, and saw instead the buildings and sunshine on the snow far beneath me. Yes, I had returned to a lower order of matter (as I now reason on what then occurred), for I felt myself drawn rapidly downward and backward, always by the ethereal thread, until I was drawn through a window and into a room. All I noticed there was a young man, lying stiff, cold, and half-naked on a couch. He seemed to be dead. A vortex of air (?) sucked me in towards him. Again that deep rending throb, and I was drawn into the head of this horrible object; oh how thin and fine I was drawn, my radiant form spun out into a smoky thread, a breath! Yes, I was again a conscious breath, traveling rapidly down a long, narrow, spiral descent on the right of the body. Again I gathered myself about a center, a dark but pulsing ocean, in whose depths I looked for a light, a glow. There was nothing. The breath that was I concentrated itself and waited. A something scintillated below those moving waves. So soon as it appeared, another sudden change of consciousness occurred. For now the feeling of identity with that inner heart disappeared. The brain consciousness was again mine. It was plain that the dark ocean was my heart, and the brain thought came at once: "I am dead, for I see no light". An emotion, as of terror, was superseded by the thought: "I must send a message to X. of my death". I tried to speak, but the brain consciousness had no tongue. I was not yet coördinated with the body. Calming myself, I watched the heart closely and saw the scintillant point was rising out of the dark center, slowly, gradually, to burn at last a violet flame. When this lamp burned clear at last, I felt myself all at once to be coördinate with the body, identical with my everyday self. I opened my eyes, to see my doctor bending over me with a most singular expression, half wonder, half pain, on his face. I tried to speak, but could not. He has told you why. It only remains for me to say that what I was told when out of the body has since all been fulfilled. Also it seems that I was removed (I myself) from a crisis of the physical heart.

Especially note, in this last narrative, the various changes and states of consciousness and the sense of "I" in each. This proves that the universal, the state of the Higher Self, was not reached. Note also the two states of Prana, and other hints. I can vouch for these narratives as fact. JULIUS.

JITERARY NOTES.

THE THEOSOPHIC THINKER announces itself as "the cheapest weekly journal in all India published under the auspices of the Indian Section", and "the only weekly English journal of the kind in all the world", and the price is, in fact, but two rupees a year, postage extra to foreigners. It has 4 pages. An unauthorized address for American subscriptions is given, but direct communication may be had with the Manager, T. A. Swaminatha Aiyar, Bellary, Madras Presidency, India.

THE LOS ANGELES "HERALD" published in March a letter from Dr Joseph Rodes Buchanan again pouring venom upon H. P. B. and calling her "impostor", "crazy", "humbug", "liar", etc. As proof of his own sagacious verity the Doctor quotes as an "impudent fiction" H. P. B.'s recital of the famous rope-trick, a trick certified to by various travellers in India and other witnesses both before and since her visit there. The stinging rebuke of the PATH in September, 1891, could hardly be expected to reform a libeller so old in years and practice as Dr. B., any more than removal across the Continent could secure success to a life otherwise lacking it, but it seems not even to have shown him one reason for the meagre results of his long career. Calumnious speech is not always in America followed by disaster to the young or middleaged, but there does seem to exist some popular opprobrium for men of So with pens deep in falsehood and hate.-[A. F.]

DR. FRANZ HARTMANN has brought out in German a popular version of the Bhagavad-Gita. It abounds with explanatory foot-notes in the form of corresponding extracts from distinguished German mystics. It is bound in paper, price 1 mark 50 pf., and may be had from C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, Braunschweig.

REV. ALFRED W. MARTIN of Tacoma has published Ideals of Life, Selections from the Sacred Scriptures of Antiquity, and under 24 heads gives aphorisms from the holy books of many religions. With most catholic spirit the selection is made. All such works help to illustrate the oneness of humanity, and establish one's hope for its progressive future.

DR. WM. TEBB OF ENGLAND prints Leprosy and Vaccination, a careful and statistical examination as to the connection of vaccination with the known increase of leprosy in late years. There is an increasing distrust of vaccination in the learned world, and a growing conviction that it but spreads disease of most serious type. Dr. Tebb's facts and figures support this view.

THE DAILY SURF of Santa Cruz, Calif., publishes weekly an article on Theosophy, sometimes an abstract of a paper read before the Bandhu T. S. The Daily Evening Record and the Surf recently printed such upon "The Masters". This shows two things,-that the public press is still further warming towards Theosophy, and that this particular Branch remembers what Masters have Themselves said as to the good done by making Their existence and work better known. If other Branches would exert themselves to secure such arti

cles in the local papers, the gradual public acceptance of the fact of Masters would lead to further acceptance of the two vital truths They teach,Karma and Reincarnation.

APRIL LUCIFER is peculiarly fine. H. P. B.'s "Negators of Science" is in her best vein, frankly honoring learning and research, and only condemning one-sidedness and prejudice. An Interesting Letter" is specially so to those who will re-read PATH for August, 1891. Mrs. Besant in "Speeding the Message" narrates graphically her American tour, and Mr. Mead's great learning again illuminates the matter of Nirvana. "The Forging of the Blades" is a clearly-told vision, but weakened by the omission of names evidently essential. In " Death-and After?" Mrs. Besant reaches the subject of Devachan, and never perhaps in any of her masterly expositions of Theosophy has she been more clear and judicious, more felicitous and delightful, than in this. The thought in the first and third paragraphs, especially the illustration of the diver, the refutal of the notion that Devachan is wasted time, and the last paragraph of the whole paper are examples. "India; a Trumpet-Call at a Crisis' should be digested by every Theosophist. W. W. Westcott's "Further Glance at the Kabalah" is both interesting and factful, and the two sections of the Mahabharata upon “Self-Control and Truth" show what may really be found in Indian Sacred Books when sound judgment directs the search. Mr. Sinnett is delivering a course of lectures before the London Lodge, and these should surely be published, when complete, for the benefit of the Theosophic world. The embellishments on the cover of Lucifer, particularly the ink-spot, may not excite artistic delight, but they do not spoil the contents.—[A. F.]

APRIL THEOSOPHIST. "Old Dairy Leaves xiii" begins the story of how Isis Unveiled was written. It had no original purpose save obedience, no method, and no plan. With fewer than one hundred books, H. P. B. quoted profusely from multitudes. Col. Olcott depicts her as she stopped her personal composition, looked vacantly out into space, and then copied from the Astral Light the needed paragraphs. On two occasions she "materialized" for him the books thus seen, both in French, and neither, to his certain knowledge, ever in the house. H. P. B. had four distinct styles of penmanship, and each was different in its quality of English. Some MSS. were written by an unseen hand and deposited while she was asleep,—in one case, thirty or forty beautiful pages which, unlike her own, went to the printer without revision. A vivid description of her interior vision of historical events is quoted by Col. O. from a letter by H. P. B. to her sister. The next "Leaf" will be an analysis of her mental state during the composition of Isis, and will doubtless be as absorbingly interesting as is every line of the present. Chapter ii of Mr. Innes's "Hermetic Philosophy" is as good as the first; "Reincarnation in Earnest" is a strange case duly attested; Modern Indian Magic and Magicians" illustrates its title; "Traces of H. P. B." by Col Olcott narrates certain of her early failures to enter Tibet, and the portents of her illness and death given to her family. That about the ring is especially remarkable.—[A. F.]

TRANSACTIONS OF THE LONDON LODGE, No. 17, February, 1893, gives a paper by Mr. W. Scott Elliot upon "The Evolution of Humanity". For long time the London Lodge has apparently been quiescent, Mr. Sinnett's rich lectures ceasing to delight the Theosophic world, but a new and worthy revival is in the present noble issue. It is beautifully clear and intelligible, with language choice and melodious, full of thought and fact in graceful form. The first