There, still she sits in emblematic guise, "Man know thyself!" thou needst nought else to know For bliss above, and happiness below, For joy, and health, and peace, or if for gold Thy thirst, and power, I promise power and gold. Know but thyself! within, within thou❜lt find The pure light, outwardly like me be blind! These three short words, all blank to learning's scowl, And scoffing, loud, loud! louder, speak, my Owl. Thou musing, moping, melancholy bird, Of all that fly the mockery and the maze. Thou would'st not climb, but in thy humbler sphere Thou wert not happy, and what art thou here? Wouldst thou aspire thus bodily to stray, High as the Polar star or milky way? Thou art too earthy, and too gross thy plume; Freed from thy bonds, thou well may'st here aspire With drooping wing, and silent as the snow, Thou owe'st the penance of thy birth, like all Soars high and boundless over sense, and dare All loose from body, lift the immortal soul From the snake's coil, to join the perfect whole, With the new light confirm the High Decree, ་་ The subsequent pages are addressed to those who, not only having seen, are already believers in Magnetism, but especially to those believers who experiencing the wonders of the trance, and with minds starting as it were from slumber at that morning light, have been awakened and aroused from the long lethargy of ages: from darkness, and from dreams, and from delusions; to wonder and to pause, and meditate: to stir new energies within them, to hail a new existence, to see all glorious day brightening before them, to beat well without the expansive fields of eastern lore, to trace the modern speculations, to read, hear, and see, and to shut every sense and look within. And having raised the mind by deep soliloquy and meditation high into the intellectual spheres, and (if worthy) catching holy light, with new born awe and reverence have bowed, and from mercy drawn the inspiration, worshipping that shrine of which belike they had scant knowledge heretofore. Some such (many may they be!) there are, and on them now we strike the deep responding chords. My wish and hope are to awaken the public mind up to a higher faith, a holier view of Magnetism, to approach it reverentially as the wise and good of old; with pure hearts and suppli |