Chapter 22: The Goddess Learns the Story of the Outer World

Her holiness was pleased to say how honored she was by receiving us. Our advent in Atvatabar had created a profound impression upon the people, and she was no less curious to see us and learn from our own lips the story of the outer world. She was greatly interested in comparing the stalwart figures of our sailors with the less vigorous frames of the Atvatabarese. It could not be expected that men who handled objects and carried themselves in a land where gravity was reduced to a minimum could be so vigorous as men who belonged to a land of enormous gravity, whose resistance to human activity developed great strength of bone and muscle.

I informed her holiness regarding the geography, climate and peoples of the outer sphere. I gave her an account of the chief nations of the world from Japan to the United States. I spoke of Africa, Australia, and the Pacific islands. I spoke of Adam and Eve, of the Deluge, of Assyria and Egypt. Then I described the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome. I spoke of Caesar and Hannibal, Cleopatra and Antony. I spoke of Columbus, Galileo, Michael Angelo, Faraday, Dante, and Shakespeare. I described how art reigned in one kingdom or country and invention in another, and that the soul or spiritual nature was as yet a rare development.

“You tell me,” said the goddess, “that Greece could chisel a statue, but could not invent a magnic engine, and that your own country, rich in machinery, is barren in art. This tells me the outer world is yet in a state of chaos and has not yet reached the development of Atvatabar. We have passed through all those stages. At first we were barbarous, then, as time produced order, art began to flourish. The artist, in his desire to glorify the few, lost sight of the misery of the many. Then came the reign of invention, of science, giving power to the meanest citizen. As democracy triumphed art was despised, and a ribald press jeered at the sacred names of poet and priest. By degrees, as the pride and power of the wealthy few were curbed and the condition of the masses raised to a more uniform and juster level, universal prosperity, growing rapidly richer, produced a fusion of art and progress. The physical man made powerful by science and the soul developed by art naturally produced the result of spiritual freedom. The enfranchised soul became free to explore the mysteries of nature and obtain a mastery over the occult forces residing therein.”

“In the outer sphere,” I informed the goddess, “there has also existed in all ages an ardent longing for spiritual power over matter. But this power, which in many periods of history was really obtained, had been purchased by putting in practice the severest austerities of the body. Force of soul was the price of subjugation of passion and the various appetites of the body. The fakirs, yogis, jugglers, and adepts of India; the magicians, sorcerers and astrologers of Mesopotamia and Egypt; the alchemists, cabalists, and wizards of the middle ages, and the theosophists, spiritualists, clairvoyants, and mesmerists of the present time, were members of the same fraternity who have obtained their psychological powers from a study and practice of mystic philosophy or magic.”