| PEOPLE
usually wish that their friends shall have a happy
new year, and sometimes "prosperous" is
added to "happy." lt. is not likely that
much happiness or prosperity can come to those who
are living for the truth under such a dark number
as 1888; but still the year is heralded by the glorious
star Venus-Lucifer, shining so resplendently that
it has been mistaken for that still rarer visitor,
the star of Bethlehem. This too, is at hand; and
surely something of the Christos spirit must be
born upon earth under such conditions. Even if happiness
and prosperity are absent, it is possible to find
something greater than either in this coming year.
Venus-Lucifer is the sponsor of our magazine, and
as we chose to come to light under its auspices
so do we desire to touch on its nobility. This is
possible for us all personally, and instead of wishing
our readers a happy or prosperous New Year, we feel
more in the vein to pray them to make it one worthy
of its brilliant herald. This can be effected by
those who are courageous and resolute. Thoreau pointed
out that there are artists in life, persons who
can change the colour of a day and make it beautiful
to those with whom they come in contact. We claim
that there are adepts, masters in life who make
it divine, as in all other arts. Is it not the greatest
art of all, this which affects the very atmosphere
in which we live? That it is the most important
is seen at once, when we remember that every person
who draws the breath of life affects the mental
and moral atmosphere of the world, and helps to
colour the day for those about him. Those who do
not help to elevate the thoughts and lives of others
must of necessity either paralyse them by indifference,
or actively drag them down. When this point is reached,
then the art of life is converted into the science
of death; we see the black magician at work. And
no one can be quite inactive. Although many bad
books and pictures are produced, still not everyone
who is incapable of writing or painting well insists
on doing so badly. Imagine the result if they were
to! Yet so it is in life. Everyone lives, and thinks,
and speaks. If all our readers who have any sympathy
with LUCIFER endeavoured to learn the art of making
life not only beautiful but divine, and vowed no
longer to be hampered by disbelief in the possibility
of this miracle, but to commence the Herculean task
at once, then 1888, however unlucky a year, would
have been fitly ushered in by the gleaming star.
Neither happiness nor prosperity are always the
best of bedfellows for such undeveloped mortals
as most of us are; they seldom bring with them peace,
which is the only permanent joy. The idea of peace
is usually connected with the close of life and
a religious state of mind. That kind of peace will
however generally be found to contain the element
of expectation. The pleasures of this world have
been surrendered, and the soul waits contentedly
in expectation of the pleasures of the next. The
peace of the philosophic mind is very different
from this and can be attained to early in life when
pleasure has scarcely been tasted, as well as when
it has been fully drunk of. The American Transcendentalists
discovered that life could be made a sublime thing
without any assistance from circumstances or outside
sources of pleasure and prosperity. Of course this
had been discovered many times before, and Emerson
only took up again the cry raised by Epictetus.
But every man has to discover this fact freshly
for himself, and when once he realised it he knows
that he would be a wretch if he did not endeavour
to make the possibility a reality in his own life.
The stoic became sublime because he recognised his
own absolute responsibility and did not try to evade
it; the Transcendentalist was even more, because
he had faith in the unknown and untried possibilities
which lay within himself. The occultist fully recognises
the responsibility and claims his title by having
both tried and acquired knowledge of his own possibilities.
The Theosophist who is at all in earnest,
sees his responsibility and endeavours to find knowledge, living, in the
meantime, up to the highest standard of which he is aware. To all such,
Lucifer gives greeting! Man's life is in his own hands, his fate
is ordered by himself. Why then should not 1888 be a year of greater spiritual
development than any we have lived through? It depends on ourselves to
make it so. This is an actual fact, not a religious sentiment. In a garden
of sunflowers every flower turns towards the light. Why not so with us?
And let no one imagine that it is a mere
fancy, the attaching of importance to the birth of the year. The earth
passes through its definite phases and man with it; and as a day can be
coloured so can a year. The astral life of the earth is young and strong
between Christmas and Easter. Those who form their wishes now will have
added strength to fulfill them consistently.
Lucifer, January, 1888
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