WE ARE now ready to enter into the direct work for which this club is organized. All that has preceded is vitally important in the plan of prog­ress. It would be folly to omit any part of it. If the reader of this volume will get the mind deeply interested in the subject the results will be very rapid add very satisfactory. When the mental faculties are in the dark, when the purpose and mode of procedure are not under­stood, then the common exercises are valueless.

This law of development is universal. A pupil at the piano who does not know the nature of the practice, or who, knowing it, does not keep the mind upon the exercise, will make no progress whatever. There are too many such cases in homes where hours of compulsory practice are daily in­flicted upon indifferent pupils. Knowledge creates interest, begets zeal and stimulates action. It is necessary that you should read and graduate from the two stages which precede this in the present book.

Magnetism and electricity are inseparable forces. Elec­tricity furnishes the basis for magnetic action. It is not advisable to seek the development and use of any force, when the nature of that force is a mystery to you. Therefore we will present certain propositions concerning electricity and magnetism.

FIFTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Electricity is an influence that is generated in and from matter.

Under this, the law is laid down that electricity is an influence that is generated in and from matter. If there is anything that is devoid of this energy, man has not yet discovered it. The fact that it is latent and unemployed is of no more consequence than the fact that heat is allowed to run to waste. Nature is full of power; the most common of which is the electrical force; and it is only in recent decades that humanity has attempted to put it to an intelligent use.

SIXTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Mechanical electricity is generated from inorganic matter.

We all recognize the difference between that force which is employed to produce light, run engines, draw cars, and speed the shock, known as mechanical electricity; and a similar power with other purposes, known as human electricity. While all electricity originates from matter and from the ma­terial part of life, it is different in its uses. Some claim that it is all the same whether it is found in the mechanical, natural or vital world. From one point of view this is correct. It is not easy, however, to understand its various uses if we do not separate it by some kind of classification.

For the purpose of making the study clear we speak of mechanical electricity as that which is used in the mechanical world, and it is generated from inorganic matter. We do not believe that vital electricity could be used for directing ma­chinery, and we know that the energy that drives the car cannot stimulate the mind or the impulses of the soul. The power that can be stored in jars or batteries may serve to produce light or give motion to the engine, but it is valueless to life, it adds nothing to the vitality of the animal or the vegetable.

If a person walks across a carpet when the conditions are right, a very thin, fine coating of mechanical electricity is collected on the surface of the body. It escapes on the first contact. This is not natural or vital electricity. Many a time have we seen the spark from the end of a finger light the gas. It is done in this way: A person with dry shoes and dry clothing walks across a dry carpet, generally in cold weather when the air is dry. Another person stands by the gas jet and opens it just as the experimenter comes to it with raised hand. If the finger approaches the metal where the gas is flowing out, and a sufficient spark is produced, the gas will be lighted. We have seen this done successfully thousands of times. The supposition that such electricity is personal magnetism, or that it indicates power, is erroneous.

SEVENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Mechanical electricity is in no way connected with personal magnetism.

We often meet persons who think themselves endowed with this special gift; and on inquiry we learn that they base their opinion on the fact that the hair bristles with sparks when combed in a dark room, or crackles when stirred, or the fingers throw off a tiny flash at times. They do not know that all these things may happen in the absence of life. The hair of a wig can be electrified by the friction of a comb. This is a very weak kind of mechanical species. It does not depend on a living organism, but is obtainable from the parts of the body as independent agencies. The man whose shoes have collected some of the fluid by rapidly moving over the carpet, may imagine himself an endowed being; when, in fact, the shoes without the man might collect just as much of the same fluid if made to pass over the carpet and create friction.

EIGHTH GRAND PRINCIPLE Natural electricity is generated in a state of nature.

By a state of nature we mean the elemental conditions of broad outdoor operations. They must not be mistaken for animal or vegetable electricity, as the causes and results are different. When the clouds of two temperatures in the at­mosphere come in conflict, a severe friction is produced.

This may be called a reduction of the general natural condition into a fluid akin to the mechanical species. When, prior to a cloud-battle, the air is close oppressed with a deadening in­fluence, humanity suffers from a lack of natural electricity. The lungs get but little satisfaction; the heart wants for vital stimulus; the nerves are hungry for food; and the head throbs with a dullness that is not pain yet is distressing. It seems just as though the clouds above had drawn all the en­ergy to themselves, and that life below had been neglected. How refreshing is the change! When the storm has passed, a clearing of the atmosphere brings new vigor; the equilibrium is restored; the heart leaps with a joy peculiar to itself; the satisfaction of breathing a deep, rich inspiration makes the blood glad as it courses through the veins with the burden of health; and the nerves neither cry nor hunger after life, for they are stored with their full measure of it now.

We dwell in an ocean of electricity. All things live in oceans. The fish swims in water; the birds sail in air; and man is enveloped with the same atmosphere; but in and through them all, above and around them all, is the vital ocean of electricity. Air may be made of oxygen and nitro­gen; but in the absence of electricity all things would perish. The experience of a few close days in summer when this fluid is drawn away from us, shows how mean and depressed we feel in that brief hour; and from this much we can estimate the degree of helplessness that would follow a longer with­drawal of the life-supporting energy. NINTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

The absence of natural electricity would bring instant death.

We wish to deeply impress the fact that we live in a sea of natural electricity. When we breathe air we take something else also into the lungs. The same chemical composition of oxygen and nitrogen if inhaled from the chemist's receiver would lead to death. It is not the oxygen and nitrogen that we breathe that give health or that supply the demands of the lungs; but it is the oxygen and nitrogen charged with natural electricity that produce the beneficial results.

TENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Rain is a common vehicle of natural electricity.

We are not preparing to advise our students to go out in the rain to get charged with natural electricity; for this from of life is not the source of magnetism, although it aids it materially. All we now seek to do is to state a well-estab­lished law.

Rain is water condensed from floating vapors called clouds. The higher up in the air the clouds are when it rains the more vitalizing is the rain, both to the general body and as a means of assuaging the thirst. The lower the clouds the less valuable is the rain. The condensation passing down through the long distance of air, draws more natural elec­tricity as it passes. Take a given quantity of rain water, and the same of distilled water; each capable of analyzing the same in every respect; and drink one upon one occasion, and the other upon another. Or drink rain water fresh from the clouds during the space of a year; then drink pure water direct from a still for another year. In the case of the former the health will wonderfully improve, all things being equal. In the case of the latter the vitality of the body will have lowered considerably.

ELEVENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Natural electricity is the source of health.

One of the quickest methods of absorbing the valuable fluid is to go out into the falling rain when it is coming down from high clouds. It is necessary to be dressed so that no dampness can reach the skin.

We all know that the air is full of this fluid known as natural electricity. Nothing is more thoroughly recognized in personal experience than the fact that, prior to electrical storms, when the energy of nature seems to have been drawn upward to the clouds, the absence of this fluid in the air about us causes a feeling of distress and nervous unrest. There are other times, especially following long periods of the sun's withdrawal as in the dark weeks of the year when we pant for natural electricity as the fish pants for water, or the bird for air.

The practice of generating this energy, called electrical, is and always has been the shortest and the most satisfactory way of acquiring health. Disease deprives the body of its vitality, and the latter is nothing more or less than a cer­tain form of electricity. We do not present this course of training for the purpose of bringing health to our members; but we wish to state an important fact. Health is the vigor of life, the exuberance of living. It is always accompanied by the good tone of the system, while its absence is marked by depression of spirits and lack of buoyancy. These indicate that there is something in the body that is not to be described as material. It is not the spirit, the mind or the soul; for depression is not supposed to reduce either to a state of partial non-existence.

TWELFTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Mechanical electricity has no relation to the health of the body.

When we come to examine it we find great importance attached to the law on which it is based. That form of vi­tality which is the source and ever-present supply of good health is undoubtedly natural electricity; or the living energy that occupies all nature and flows like a sea through the opera­tions of life. It is that vigor which nature throws around its young life and thus equips it with the power of buffeting the influences that prey upon its existence.

It is a well proved fact that mechanical electricity is incapable of either supporting life or bringing health. It has none of the attributes of the natural. It cannot bring health. It cannot induce vitality. It cannot cure disease. By mechanical electricity we mean that which is pro­duced by chemistry or by machinery. All persons under­stand to what we refer. A discharge of this fluid may con-tract muscles and move limbs, just as heat, cold, friction or blows may do the same thing or something just as note­worthy; but electricity of this kind affects the material only and does not touch the life; it startles the dead frog with just the same effect that would be produced upon one alive. It is mechanical electricity working upon matter; not life buoying up life.

The proof that an electrical current produces activity in muscles, nerves and flesh is not warrant for the claim that such current gives, adds or aids any life therein.

THIRTEENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Mechanical electricity supplants natural vitality.

What is meant by mechanical electricity must be fully understood; therefore, the last few pages should be reviewed. Because the semblance of life has been produced by such a fluid, a vast deal of harm has resulted; yet the semblance of life is merely the commonest kind of electrical activity; and ac­tivity is not necessarily life.

By false conclusions many concerns have deluded the public into the belief that mechanical electricity is capable of imparting health, and to make the delusion more effective, they have published testimonials of cures. All sorts of treat­ments are prescribed called electric or electrical. In many in­stances, when apparatus is worn upon the body, no electricity whatever is generated; while a faint current is aroused in other cases, although it is a ludicrous apology for an electrical current; and all this has been exposed by the magazines devoted to the study of electricity. The editors arc in position to know the value of belts, pads and other attachments to be worn upon the body, and they do not hesitate to hold them up to scientific ridicule.

Even when electricity is actually poured into the body and all doubt is removed as to the presence of the fluid, the results are either worthless or hurtful. If the strength of the current is kept within a certain limit the use of it is valueless; and if it exceeds the limit, it destroys vitality and even anni­hilates the life-cells of the body as far as it is able to reach them. Let the strength of the current exceed another limit and it will kill the body itself. This is true of that which is chemically generated as well as of that which the engine pro­duces. Live wires kill thousands of men every year.

There is another phase of this subject to be considered. Not only does the fluid destroy life when strong, and destroy cells of the body when it is lessened in intensity, but it sup­plants or takes the place of the healthful and wholesome vitality. Now comes the claim that natural animal and me­chanical electricity are the same; but this claim is not wholly true. They are the same in the same sense that body heat and coal heat are the same; but these are widely different in fact, as well as in uses.

No one pretends that a temperature of 98° in the flesh is the result of the same immediate source as the same tem­perature in water, coal, sun heat, or other forms of warmth. The heat of the body comes from its own action, its own burning of food and tissue; and the fire is of a chemical nature. The heat contains a vitality that cannot be obtained from mechanical fire. When we wear heavy clothing in win­ter it is done not to warm the body, for there is no source of warmth in the clothes, but to prevent the escape of the body's heat. The purpose is to keep the latter in the flesh; otherwise it would pass off faster than the body generated it. The heat that is applied to a cold body serves to hold back that which is generated, so that the latter may be devoted to its functional work; but outside heat cannot and never does perform the duties of body heat.

Now comes a law that is exactly the same in its operation as the law of electrical substitution. A human body, or that of any animal, that is not able to generate its own heat, will soon become sick, and in the same degree that outer heat is substituted the inner heat will cease to be generated.

It is never good for the health to supply any more outer heat than is necessary to hold the inner heat in the body's control. It will at once be seen that heavy clothing is much better than a heated room, provided the pores of the skin are kept clean and active. No matter how much clothing is worn there can be no heat substitution, for the warmth is from within the body. On the other hand too much clothing tends to weaken the skin and to hold the effete matter within the blood; and, therefore, external heat as from a stove must be employed. The habit of toasting the feet before a fire or at an oven makes the feet colder when not thus favored; for the mechanical heat prevents the natural generation of the body heat within the feet, and they have nothing to depend upon but the artificial.

The use of mechanical electricity upon the body lessens the generation of the life within. It is conceded that one may supplant the other by the law of substitution. When the outer current is too weak to be of any service, it is counteracted and overcome to some extent by the natural electricity of the body; but when its shock is felt it suppresses the latter; and, if continued long enough or given frequently enough, it acts upon the natural vitality just as outer heat will lessen the generation of natural heat. The lesson is plain that little hope of an increased stock of body electricity can be entertained as long as the artificial force is applied. No matter what claims, what testimonials, what apparently convincing proofs are offered, the fact remains the same, that the best electricity for the body is that which the natural processes of the body themselves develop. Life is a circuit of self-dependent forces, one giving vigor to another and being invigorated in turn.

Never allow mechanical electricity to be applied to the body. If good has ever come of it the benefit is due to some associated exercise or habit, as when the doctor said: "My battery will cure you, but you must get fresh air, good food and some exercise." One of the electrical belts is known to produce no electricity whatever; but its sale is accompanied by directions which call for certain diet and exercise. Since disease is oftenest cured by common sense advice; and since a little judgment in the selection of foods will go a long way toward the restoration of health, it is no wonder that testi­monials are obtained upon the slightest provocation. Human­ity likes its common sense in almost any shape except the plainest and simplest.

FOURTEENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE Vegetable electricity is generated in plant life.

Let this be reduced or checked from any cause and the plant begins to droop and die. Water will not save it. Sun­shine has no longer its influence over it. Not only is this seen after transplanting a perfect tree, shrub, vine or plant; but it is apparent when any specimen of the vegetable kingdom begins to fade away, even though not transplanted. Once in a while something that has lived in vigor for a year or more will show signs of lessened vitality. It will defy every effort to save it. Insect attack, or the aggression of some enemy is not the cause; the real truth is the tree,' or plant is dying because it has not the power to generate within itself the prin­ciple of life.

Perhaps this vital principle is called by some other name. Let it be known by any term, it is that to which we refer. If it is health, vigor, the spark of life, or just vitality, that is sufficient. Whatever name is selected will be accepted and it suits the case. We call it vegetable electricity as that most clearly expresses what we have in mind,

FIFTEENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

All kinds of electricity are derived from a common source.

The source is the sun; although back of that orb is the commanding energy of the Creator. The solar system is isolated from the rest of the universe; no strings of influence reach across the deep abysses of the sky to hold this collection ofmatter in check or to supply it with continued life. The sun bows to no other sun nor seeks energy from other matter than its own. When it was launched into space and given its mandates, it became a separated and independent orb.

Yet the same independence is not enjoyed by the planets.

Everyone is actually tied to the sun by a cord of influence that must be kept unbroken or the planet's life will instantly perish. No more helpless are the nursing babes of the forest thanthese members of the solar group. The sun feeds the earth every minute of the day and night. When so small a period as that during which the moon eclipses the great father, deprives the earth of that flowing stream of life, we feelthe electrical depression in a marked decrease of vitality.

It is probable that a few hours of the sun's complete obscurity would end all existence here; for without its electrical energy we could not yield a heartbeat to our bodies.

By a special Providence the cloudy days are turned to some account, and the rainy days to a better. The moon is anopaque body capable of shutting all direct light from the earth.The clouds are porous and admit of some passage through them. Dampness and water are absorbents of every kind of electricity. Absolutely pure water, such as the vapor of the clouds, will so absorb electricity and become so charged withit that, unless drawn off by excessive cold, it rolls itself into thunder bolts.

On the darkest day when the clouds obscure the land, if we were to get above them we would see, instead of a sombre green, a white and silvery sheen of richest brilliance; nodarkness, no gloom, no shadow, but all brightness. This pouring of the sun's energy into the rolling masses of the clouds reaches the earth through them; so that all life below is maintained. Things grow on cloudy days. But in a rain that falls from high vapors, the condensation occurs in the upper stratum of clouds, as it is at that part that the colder currents of air strike them and turn the moisture into water. When the water has formed from the condensation it is heavier than the cloud-vapor; the upper stratum charged with the energy of the sunlight falls through the mass and comes to earth. Fresh rain, or that which is falling upon us, is one of the best sources of electricity.

The foregoing instance is cited to prove that cloudy days and rainy days are not as depressing to people out of doors as they are to those in the house. A rain is full of life. See how things grow in the cloudy, rainy days. You say it is due to the wet. Of course everything needs water. But try to carry a garden of vital things, like vegetables, through a period of artificial watering, and note the difference in results.

SIXTEENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE Vitality and electricity are associates.

There is no vitality where electricity is not present. By the latter term we do not mean the fluid that runs in currents as a mechanical force; but that vital form of it that associates with life and expresses itself as a part of existence.

When the arm or leg is amputated the shock to the sys­tem often prevents the rally that is needed in order to save the victim from death. This shock is to the nerves; and they have no life that is not dependent upon electricity, for they are wires and batteries that are built and used for electrical purposes. Sometimes the loss of blood causes a fatal termi­nation of such a case; but there are many instances where no serious loss has occurred, yet the shock of a blow, a fall, a fright or amputation has sapped the system of its electricity and ended in death.

Sickness is the result of a low vitality in over ninety per cent of all cases. When the energy of the nervous system is weak, the assaults on life by germs and the faint operations ofall functions lead to an inability to repel the merest approach of illness. This is seen in the darker season of the year, especially in December, when the sun's rays come so slantingly to our part of the planet that all things are depressed.The electrical energy is weak, and a month longer of the season beyond the length of the usual period, would produce a general collapse of health. It is easier to catch cold in December, and in the weeks from the twentieth to the final day of the month than in any other season of the year.La grippe claims ninety per cent of all its victims in thisperiod.

SEVENTEENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Like forms of energy are associated.

By energy we here refer to electrical force. We divide thisinto two kinds; the mechanical and the vital. The former is, in brief parlance, the result of chemical processes and also of the engine or the machine. The latter or vital kind is generated in the following classes:

1. Natural.

2. Animal.

3. Vegetable.

All these three are vital, and, belonging to the same from, are natural associates. This law is of the utmost importance. It tells us to avoid all uses of mechanical electricity if we wish to sustain and increase personal power in all our faculties, whether in the attainment of health or the development of the will. Lightning kills, the live wire slays its thousands, the execution chair employs the same energy to punish themurderer, and this agent of man's genius shows itself always his enemy when it comes in contact with his own body, just as steam is inimical to him in this sense while serving him as a slave.

Not so with vital forms of electricity. Like kinds associate. The chemical product is mechanical, and is in harmony with that which is generated by the engine. The vital forms are the natural, the animal and the vegetable. The natural is generated in free nature, as in sky, earth, air, and water. The animal is generated in organic life. The vegetable is the product of the plant.

EIGHTEENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE Animal electricity is the climax of all energies.

This principle conveys the lesson that the animal kingdom is the brightest and most important existence on this planet. It feeds upon the vitalities of free nature and of the vegetable kingdom. The animal is dependent upon vegetation and upon free vitality; while neither of these is dependent upon the animal.

In the study of magnetism these facts soon play an im­portant part. It is supposable that all energies come to man, from out of all the realms about him. He cannot take much direct from the hand of crude nature. The steps from a raw state to that which suits his wants are graded from necessity. Once the earth was a bald, empty rock. Then there was but one kind of electricity and it was superabundant. No animal could have lived in it, nor could any species of the animal kingdom have preceded vegetation. The energies of nature must pass through that realm in order to be fit for the higher forms of life.

NINETEENTH GRAND PRINCIPLE Man lives upon the vitality of the vegetable kingdom.

It is claimed that animal life may exist upon no other diet than animal life. If true, what does the prey live upon? Meat-eating animals are poison to all life; and this is the eternal decree of nature ; for never has an animal thrived upon a diet of flesh that was composed of other flesh.

In the study of magnetism experiments show that heavy meat eaters are not the most magnetic persons. On the other hand the sudden change from habits of meat-eating to a strictly non-meat diet, so injures the system that the results areunsatisfactory as well as detrimental to health. If the in­dividual had been brought up to a vegetable and grain diet, especially the latter, the chances would be decidedly in his favor for a speedier development of magnetism than could be obtained by shifting from a mixed to a non-meat habit.

Of course what is eaten could not produce the power of which we speak, unless other things were done to generate it; but, on the other hand, the diet may drive away the power as fast as it can be developed. The practice of a certain regime in eating is one of the most powerful allies in this study. Pain is a destroyer of electrical energy. This is be­cause it saps the nerves of their buoyant life, and they are the electric wires of the body. Irritation is so sure to annihi­late all magnetism that its presence in any form cannot for a moment be permitted.

A wrong diet produces both pain and irritation. It puts the digestive system out of order; and, while nature kindly conceals its havoc to our sensibilities in the hope that re­covery may smooth over the injury, the sapping of our best vitality is always going on when wrong foods are eaten. This must never be forgotten. Disorder, distress, indigestion and internal disarrangement are just as likely to drive the buoyant vitality out of the body as is the toothache; and the latter is a foe to all the sprightliness of life.

On other grounds than those of pain and irritation, a meat diet is injurious to the development of vitality. It is second-hand food. It is half-decayed food. To live is to change. The grains that may be kept in barns for years and years and never lose their vital force nor show signs of disintegration, when they become flesh in the body are incapable of holding life long. Meat in the same barns would be rotten in two days. The animal, or the human being that is alive to-day and is dead to-morrow, would yield to the laws of dissolution the day after. This is true of the meat that is eaten.

New, fresh life from which the living principle is escaping or has just departed, is quite different from the same flesh a few hours later when the animal heat has gone out of it; yet, at its best, it never has the vitalizing effect of grains.

The best plan is that which passes the food from the vegetable at once over to the human body; that is, that does not wait for it to enter other animal life. The next best plan is to take meat in small proportion with products of the vegetable kingdom, and get the meat directly from the ani­mal's life. To wait until rigidity has set in is to lose ninety per cent of its value. All animals that prey upon others, know this law by instinct. But despite the fact that a non-meat diet is the best, a change to that would be disastrous. It always has been so. A man who, to get thin, shifted to an unusual proportion of meat daily, although he ate less than usual in total weight, found that he had suddenly developed, stone in the kidneys and uric acid in the system from which he died in ten months. The dropping of meat is never so serious; but nature has created man's digestive organs for both kinds of diet in cases of necessity; and, above all, she decrees that a change should be gradual. If one were to give up meat-eating, we would advise that it be done through a gradation of at least three years. We think, however, that the better way is to take from one to three ounces of fresh beef, lamb or fowl daily, depending upon previous habits.

TWENTIETH GRAND PRINCIPLE

Animal magnetism is a combination of all the vital kinds of electricity.

We live in a sea of energy. The air about is full of it. The water is full of it. Out of the sun's influence mechanical electricity is obtained. Out of the same influence the whole realm of free nature secures its great fund of natural elec­tricity which teems in all the life it surrounds. Out of the same fund vegetation creates its vital force, and combines the two to produce its fruits and seeds. Animal life draws strength from the same inexhaustible supply, and, as the plant depends upon two kinds, the higher kingdom depends upon three. Matter has but one; vegetation two; the animal three.

Matter is brainless; the plant is intelligent, or it would not lay its cells in order; the animal feels and thinks; man reasons.

If the animal's vitality is no more than that which is required to maintain its organic existence, it will live, thrive and grow as flesh. This condition is seen in young children whose chief purpose in life seems to be that of living. It is found in those mature human carcasses that eat, loaf and sit by day, and sleep at night; they toil not neither do they spin; they have animal electricity but no magnetism.

To become magnetic as a product of nature, without magnetic exercises, one should live as close to nature as pos­sible. To be a growing animal is not enough. To eat, drink, toil, rest and sleep, are not enough. These are only exhibi­tions of animal electricity, and then without increase or sur­plus. If a person were overstocked with this kind of energy, he might be no more than a very vital animal. To be mag­netic is to hold full power over self and to possess some degreeof power over others. We are not in the world to be subjects all. Some must lead and command; they possess personal magnetism. Others follow and obey; they have ani­mal magnetism.

We are satisfied that all persons of average intelligence to understand, may turn their animal magnetism into per­sonal magnetism; may increase the former and the latter; and become persons of influence over others. We exclude no one unless below what is called average intelligence. The common, ignorant and the grossly ignorant are not able to understand the force of lessons in any line of culture.

We must put these laws into practical use.