All this
new science of metaphysics or of the investigation of our
subconsciousness and of unknown powers, which has scarcely begun
to unveil its first mysteries, thus finds landmarks and defaced
but recognizable traces in the old religions, the most
inexplicible traditions and the most ancient history. Besides,
the probability of a thing does not depend upon undeniably
established precedents. While it is almost certain that there is
nothing new under the sun or in the eternity preceding the suns,
it is quite possible that the same forces do not always act with
the same energy. As I observed, nearly twenty years ago, in The
Treasure of the Humble, at a time when I hardly knew at all what
I know so imperfectly to-day:
"A spiritual"--I should have said, a psychic-"epoch is perhaps
upon us, an epoch to which a certain number of analogies are
found in history. For there are periods recorded when the soul,
in obedience to unknown laws, seemed to rise to the very surface
of humanity, whence it gave clearest evidence of its existence
and of its power. . . . It would seem, at moments such as these,
as though humanity," --and, I would add to-day, all that lives
with it on this earth--"were on the point of struggling from
beneath the crushing burden of matter that weighs it down."
One might in fact believe that a shudder which we have not yet
experienced is passing over everything that breathes; that a new
activity, a new restlessness is permeating the spiritual
atmosphere which surrounds our globe; and that the very animals
have felt its thrill.
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