and he draws ever nearer and nearer to the reality which lies behind them.

In this manner, and in this manner only, is communication possible between those who still live on earth and those who have passed into this celestial realm. A man's higher self may be informing his image in a friend's Devachan, and yet the living man here on earth may know nothing of it, and therefore remain quite unable to communicate with his departed friend; but if the living. man has evolved his consciousness to the point of unification, and can therefore use the powers of the ego while still in the physical body, he can enter at will and in full consciousness into that image of his, and can speak once more face to face with his friend, as of yore: so that in such a case the "devachanic dream" is no longer an illusion, but a living reality.

Is it said that on the devachanic plane a man takes his thoughts for real things? He is quite right; they are real things, and on this, the thought-plane, nothing but thought can be real. There we recognize that great fact—here we do not; on which plane, then, is the delusion greater? Those thoughts of the devachanee are indeed realities, and are capable of producing the most striking results upon living men-results which can never be otherwise than beneficial, because upon that high plane there can be none but loving thought.

Another point worth bearing in mind is that this system upon which nature has arranged the life after death is the only imaginable one which could fulfil its object of making every one happy to the fullest extent of his capacity for happiness. If the joy of heaven were of one particular type only, as it is according to the orthodox. Christian theory, there must always be some who would weary of it, some who would be incapable of participating in it, either from want of taste in that particular direction, or from lack of the necessary education--to say nothing of that other obvious fact, that if this condition of affairs were eternal the grossest injustice must be perpetrated by giving practically the same reward to all who enter, no matter what their respective deserts might be. Again, what other arrangement with regard to relatives and friends could possibly be equally satisfactory? If the departed were able to follow the fluctuating fortunes of their friends on earth, happiness

would be impossible for them; if, without knowing what was happening to them, they had to wait until the death of those friends. before meeting them, there would be a painful period of suspense, often extending over many years, while the friend would often arrive so much changed as to be no longer sympathetic. On the system so wisely provided for us by nature every one of these difficulties is avoided; a man decides for himself both the length and the character of his Devachan by the causes which he himself generates during his earth-life; therefore he cannot but have exactly the amount which he has deserved, and exactly that quality of joy which is best suited to his idiosyncrasies. Those whom he loves most he has ever with him, and always at their noblest and best; while no shadow of discord or change can ever come between them, since he receives from them all the time exactly what he wishes. In point of fact, as we might have expected, the arrangement really made by nature is infinitely superior to anything which the imagination of man has been able to offer us in its place.

(To be continued.)

C. W. LEADBEATER.

MADAME DE GUYON AND THE QUIETISTS.

DR. WELLS Contributes to the January issue of LUCIFER a most interesting criticism of Madame de Guyon and her school of Quietism, founded on an article by myself, on the same subject, in the November and December issues.

That the criticism is an extremely interesting one we shall all readily admit, whether we agree with or differ from Dr. Wells in the view he takes. More especially is it of interest when we consider that the views so ably set forth by him are precisely those most vigorously urged by the orthodox opponents of Madame de Guyon during her life, and that his arguments are identical with theirs.

Dr. Wells gives us great assistance towards the proper comprehension of the views of those who opposed the movement, and allows us a glimpse of it through orthodox spectacles.

Dr. Wells assumes that all occultists will be at one with him in condemning that which he describes as "Semi-Quietism," the movement associated with the names of Madame de Guyon and of Fénélon-and, indeed, if the views they sought to promulgate are correctly estimated by him and the result of their practices accurately described, not only would Dr. Wells have, I trust, every occultist at his back, but every healthy-minded, commonplace individual into the bargain, for surely the insight of an occultist is not necessary in order to apprehend the undesirability of practices which lead to such a goal.

The whole crux of the position lies in the question whether Dr Wells is correct in his diagnosis, and therefore we turn to his article to see what evidence he offers to support his view. What we find is a quotation of opinions ascribed to Molinos which were condemned by Innocent XI., but I venture to think this can hardly be accorded much weight as evidence against Madame de Guyon. We are told that Madame de Guyon's Quietism was not Quietism at all, but "Semi-Quietism." This name may serve as well as another to

mark one phase of the whole Quietist movement, but the name does not seem a matter of very great moment. Then we have a picture of St. Theresa in Samâdhi contrasted with one of a mediumistic, and I conclude, obsessed, Quietist. Madame de Guyon is then declared to have been a "woman and no saint," and is mildly reproved for being so obstinate and wrong-headed as to adhere to her views even after the evil of her ways had been so kindly and considerately explained to her by the gentle representations of the Church; and finally Madame de Guyon's life is thus in a few words summed up for us: "What, after all, is it to us of this later world, that two hundred years ago Madame de Guyon fluttered about the fashionable world of Paris and made a party for herself amongst the devout Court ladies?" That these words convey a ludicrously untrue picture of Madame de Guyon's life and career will be patent to anyone who has followed it. She was a woman whose life had been one of almost unceasing storm, who had passed her days in being driven from pillar to post, who had been a mark for every kind of persecution, and who, during this storm-tossed career, only enjoyed for a short space anything approaching peace as regards her outward circumstances-a brief interval of sunshine to be rapidly followed by renewed strife and stress; and to speak of the "fluttering about the fashionable world of Paris" as characteristic of such a career is nothing short of grotesque.

What we are chiefly concerned with, however, is the question whether the inward life, on the lines advocated by those described by Dr. Wells as Semi-Quietists, leads to mediumship. Does the indifference which is sought and which is described as the "holy indifference" mean, as Dr. Wells suggests, indifference to everything, even to the distinction between good and evil?

Is there no other possible interpretation of this "killing out of the will"?

If there is another possible reading, then what we wish to learn is which meaning Madame de Guyon and Fénélon attached to these terms when they made use of them. For answer we must turn to their writings, and in them we find it repeatedly stated, and the greatest possible stress laid on the fact, that the right interpretation of this indifference is indifference to anything out of God's will. This is nothing else than the cessation of desire, so often spoken of

in literature dealing with the Path of Occultism, which seems in reality to consist in the attainment of such a condition of balance that no outward attraction or repulsion can move the individual from the right course, the course decided in Christian mystic phraseology as being in accordance with "God's will."

Next, as to the killing out of the will, on which both Bossuet and Dr. Wells lay much stress. It seems clearly enough shown by the writings of Madame de Guyon and Fénélon that what they referred to was what we should perhaps now describe as the destruction of the lower personal will, or rather the unifying of the will, the making of the lower to act in harmony and unison with the higher-this higher will being called by them God's will, in contra-distinction to the lower or man's will.

Now success in this control of the lower personality, it is evident, must depend on the exercise of concentrated effort and inflexible determination to achieve success. If such training can be said to be training calculated to develope mediumship, then it seems clear that the term medium is being used in a sense precisely opposite to that in which it is usually employed.

Whether the above correctly represents, as I conceive it to do, the ideas of Madame de Guyon on these points, can only be decided by each individual after a study of her writings; as giving support to this view, instead of making any fresh quotations, I would merely refer to the quotations cited in the original article dealing especially with the points raised by Dr. Wells.

OTWAY CUFFE.