BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sumner, Charles            Folkways

Kilpatrick, W. H.          Source Book in the Philosophy of Education

Ross, F. A.               Social Psychology

Corrie, Jean              A.B.C. of Jung’s Philosophy

Dewey, J.                 Freedom and Culture

Bogardus, E. S.            History of Social Thought

Conway                    Crowd in War and Peace

Dewey, J.                 Democracy and Education

Childs, J. L.             Education and the Philosophy of Experimentalism

Mayer, M. B.              A Primary Glossary of Psychological and Philosophical Terms

Mayer, M. B.              Lecture Notes  “The Ladders”

Martin, E. D.   The Behavior of Crowds

SOME CRITERIA

The Evolving Soul vs Crowd Psychology

Values from the Crowd

After all that has been said in this series about the characteristics of crowd behavior and crowd ideology, surely no one interested in the higher development of the soul in earth will wish to remain fixed under the influences of crowd psychology.  We have tried in all our papers to look with a just and objective eye on those typical acts and attitudes; have considered many kinds, of crowds, from the least organized and the most violent to the best organized and best led, and we have found in them much that has contributed to growth and education, – in the long range sense of the word.  But we have also seen that such contributions have definite limits are, for the individuality and the evolution of the soul, and I will try to indicate where they are most dangerous to the higher evolution and the forward movement of the life force; also some means of transcending these barriers.

But first I want to discuss briefly the benefits to the soul from its participation, through its human vehicle, in crowd activity.  And this, not only in an attempt to be fair, but to give something of the larger pattern, the philosophic perspective, in which all life is sacred, or is capable of being made sacred — transformed into eternal values.

Some lowest level values

We might as well begin with some of the crudest crowd behaviors, and see what or if they have anything to contribute.  For modern, civilized man, with some degree of culture, the fury of the mob, its cruelty and lawlessness, are of course a regression, as our papers in the psychological part of the series have shown.  We who have begun the work of conscious evolution are not so much threatened by the contamination of outburst of this kind, but we must remember that these expressions are a means of release of repressed sensation and feeling, on the lowest levels perhaps, and from the least conscious motivation of the collective unconscious, and that even such release serves a purpose, under the natural law.  We have, each one of us, much psychenergy that has not found a channel in useful release, or been transformed and oriented in other directions, and for this life a way out is necessary and desirable, though under the human, or mind, law it will take a higher form.  For this consciousness is needed, and of consciousness more later.  He who has entered upon the ordering of his household, who has begun to move from the rulership of the unconscious toward conscious control, may at first vent his angers and frustrations in the breaking of crockery in his private room; but a little later he may use the group, to “let off steam”, for by this time his growing mind, and the work upon himself will have “aired out” most of the hurt and poison, and the fellowhship and understanding that should come with it, will help him over the rest. Nowhere throughout the human evolution does man live unto himself alone, and to seek to do so is practically always egoism and foolish presumption, based on lack of understanding of what is to be gained through close and steady contact with others.  The higher the level of the contact, philosophically speaking, the better of course, but it is a question whether even the gregarious instinct of the “man on the street”, seeking the physical companionship of his fellows, is not really a worthier behavior, more in accordance with the rules of the Training School of Earth, than the aloofness of the introvert, and fear of the recluse, who imagine, as it were, that they have graduated from the Training School, often before they have learned some of its elementary lessons.

Withdrawals of this kind are made in weakness.  Those who make them have not partaken sufficiently to have obtained the enrichment of partaking, and the soul will suffer from these deficiencies until they are made up.  There is such a thing as withdrawal in strength, and under law, but we will come to that later.   In any case, the strength comes only after participation.

Meanwhile note how, even in it humblest capacity, release of feeling, the sharing with others, help the individual, and points the road toward a great and permanent good – fellowship.  We must learn to make our peace with the crowd, – to find a place of our growing individuality in the rough sea of it’s life; for the duality of the crowd, or rather the group, and the individual extend far beyond the Training School into Life itself – the life of higher plane.  Only in higher planes the collectivity is not that of the unconsciously motivated crowd, but that of the well organized, purposive group of individuals.  In slight measure we see this progression in the labor and professional groups in the world, where the whole group benefits through each, and each benefits through the whole.  The aims may still be practical and material, all for the lesser self, but mind has entered, earth-mind at this stage, and a permanent element of association has come into the picture.

Fixations in the Crowd – positive and negative.

To become fixed in either opposite – the self or the group – is to become lost.  The way between, which is the way up, requires the exercise of both, the halting by neither.  The danger of absorption in the self means loss of touch with reality, – on all planes.  Remember the menace of passive introversion, as brought out in your study of the Rosicrucian parable.

The danger of becoming lost in the crowd, or in crowd psychology, is the danger of identification, of becoming the “Massenmench”, who excepts crowd leadership and the dominance of a mass attitudes in the chief concerns of his life.  This is the negation of mind, and it’s forerunners – inquiry, understanding, intelligence.  Both types of “standpatters” are barred from the higher evolution, until they have dissolved their fixations, cast off the bonds that crush the life of the soul.  The one “renders all unto Caesar”, and remains in debt to the other side of life which leads toward God.  The other, trying prematurely to reach God, or the higher conditions of life, flies with the wings of Icarus only, and falls into the waters of feeling, – which in fact he has never really left.  The one is swallowed up by the crowd, the other by his human, all too human, preferences.  Neither has made wise use of human contact, and of the soul contact to which it should lead.

The Two Primal Instincts.  Their right use.

Clearly the pattern demands, for the evolving soul, increasingly active exercise of both the basic instincts – the ego, or “getting” instinct, in ever higher types of acquisition; and the “pleasure” instinct, or “spending” side, in ever higher forms of outgiving.  Without the training ground of the environment, beginning with the family group into which we are born, we could not wholesomely develop even such relatively early, but very necessary expressions, as play, sympathy and the ability to cooperate.  (use chart of the basic instincts.)  Note some of the developments on the pleasure side – reproduction, sex, friendship, later altruism, devotion – all things which, quite as much as practical activity in the economic field, make the world go round.  Reciprocally, the experience gained in the exercise “outward” brings back resource and power to the self, and, in its essence, to the soul; and if that experience were lacking, or unduly restricted, there could not be the “bread” which must be eaten and assimilated by the ego if it is to reach the higher avenues of functioning on the “getting” side.

Here is where the East often makes a mistake.  And its eager pursuit of the treasures it knows are to be gained only through the self, it withdraws too soon from the Training School – the crowd and the struggles and contacts it affords, and so loses some of the very substance that would advance the more ultimate interests of the Self.  We must have much experience of the opposites, including those which reach out into humanity and the material environment, before we can be truly “seeded between them” – the ideal, but remote, condition.  Much of what we mean by the term “putting into practice”, living, applying, doing, requires accomplishment in the world of people, whether in the circle immediately about us, or, as we grow stronger, the larger circle.

The beginning of the “way between” the opposite is indicated by what we are taught here to the effect that we must not “over-due” – spell, repeat, waste – the tendency of the extrovert, enamored of the world; but neither must we “not do” – the evasion, repression, immature development, of the introvert.

Adaptation.

The key to the “way between” is adaptation, and that implies increasing consciousness of next steps, and the way toward them, gradual detachment from the habit paths of one side or the other.  With it comes the ability to participate, without fear and without enslavement, with judgment and without compulsion; with kindliness, discrimination, and with our orientation to the Larger.  To fail to carry on with the crowd, and then with the group in which circumstances have placed us, is not really to cease “rendering unto Caesar”, but more likely to come under a negative and therefore more subtle bondage to him.

The danger of “identification”, or being swallowed up by the crowd, is less threatening to those who have awakened to the perspective of the soul’s evolution, in the matter of the grosser and blinder mass behaviors, than in the more sentimental, conventional, and acceptable to the mores of the environment.  We are not so likely to fall victim to the race hatreds of the rabble, the childish faith in the high sounding slogans of emotionally charged content.

The subtler holds of sentiment.

The greater barriers to individuation and the soul’s progress are rather to be found in the habits, traditions, good old “nice” ways, so dear to our circle, and that in us which is identified with that circle.  All these associations are the arc of environment that surrounds us, moulds our personality, and would imprison the life force if it were permitted to do so.

What the modern, analytic school says of the dangers of hypnotism, through “identification with the love object”, has extensive ramifications.  We may be as slavishly “in love” with the ideas and the sentiments of father and mother, the politics of Uncle John, the provincial loyalties to clan, or race, or state, with which a number of our recent papers were concerned.

Or we may be doing yeoman service in a profession, perhaps belong to an active, well-organized group engaged in raising standards, bringing about better conditions in the world.  Does that loosen us from the grip of crowd psychology and forward our individuation?  Hardly, though it may actually be successful in improving a bit the schoolroom in earth and its physical equipment.  No, though it may give us a power in earth, and enhance desirable qualities of mind and heart, and add a plus to the sum total which is the ego, or statue of the self to which we have built it up at any given time.

This, or any other work in the material world – say the mastery of a skill or proficiency in an art, – does accomplish differentiation, to an extent, out of potentials into potencies; out of raw stuff into the structure of an edifice.  And to that extent it partakes of individuation.  It is true, we have to be both conscious and active while we are doing it.  But all this work is still in the service of the personality, and its setting, the crowd; it is still on the horizontal.

The same is true of duty, and indeed of the upper rungs in the lower half of all the ladders of the faculties.  What we mean by individuation is in the direction of the soul’s evolution – an opposite direction.  Though qualities are developed in the struggle with, and increasing mastery of, the earth experience, eaten in the company of the group and the environment, and though the values of this experience are assimilatedto heritage — their ultimate purpose — yet the less there is of consciousness, of purpose, the less there is of gain.c There is also the danger of being caught in theapplause, the acceptance by earth – perhaps by fame – -and bringing to the soul minimums instead of maximums.

Idealism

Even more alluring and hard to resist than duty is, for many young and ardent types, the call of idealism.  That call is understandable, and is one of the finer impulses out of the unconscious motivation of crowd behavior, – one nearer that deep buried source, and beyond the interests of the personality.  Idealism may bring into play great personal bravery in a cause, willingness and endurance to suffer great hardship over a long period, even to the sacrifice of the physical vehicle.

For him who accomplishes the “works” of this attitude, there is indeed a gain to the soul, whether the crowd applauds or not; whether it even knows or not.  It is the power and quality which comes from subordinating the lesser self to something larger than itself, notwithstanding that that larger is more often than not an illusion.  Such experience counts toward the evolution of the higher self.  Its weakness is that it rests upon unconscious drives, – personal, racial, karmic, – young and fiery urges, incorrectly called spirit, but perhaps as near to spirit as unconscious impulses may be.

Idealism, so-called, is still unschooled in the knowledge of its own nature, and of human nature in general, its stages of development, its valid next steps, its true aims and goals.  The work of the mind has still to be done; the sacrifice of the lesser for the larger still to be made, in knowing, and on behalf of ends above ethics, duty, and the highest of earth.

Of course, much idealism, so-called, is pseudo.  It may be protest against ease, inertia, or other crowd ways, but it is likely to be in terms of its own preferences, – that is, of the crowd in the self, – and it is typical of many crowd leaders.  It is incapable of the work and sacrifice of the greater crowd leaders, as described in our seminar paper on Leadership.

What is Individuation?

What then is individuation?  It is the differentiation out of the mass, and out of the potentials in the self, in the forward direction of evolution.

The more the development takes place under the aegis of the mind, the more conscious the evolution, the greater its economy, its directness, its speed.  Evolution proceeds at a snail’s pace under crowd dominance and group psychology.  Do not let us be fooled by material progress.  It has taken long ages for the race to advance from the dominance of sensation to that of feeling.  The steps ahead are toward mind.  The individual can hasten his evolution – does not have to wait upon the crowd.  But that means the use of the four factors to which MBM referred in her talk to this group two weeks ago.  I am very glad to have the opportunity to discuss them a little further.  They lie for the most part outside the domain of crowd psychology, and without them true differentiation and evolution cannot be accomplished.

The Four Factors in the higher evolution

These four, let me repeat, are CONSCIOUSNESS, KNOWLEDGE, WILL (or rather, at this stage DETERMINATION), and DISCRIMINATION.  Note, that a humbler correspondent to these four is necessary for any real advancement in earth, as, for instance, in the inventor, the leaders of political movements, – even in our own acquisition of a new language.  For the soul’s evolution they are still more necessary, and in both profounder and subtler exercise.  Please note too that all four are powers and qualities of the mind, which must be the leader under which any genuine upward movement of the soul is achieved.  They are therefore in the direction opposed to that of the two great pulls backward, also described by MBM, and so typical of crowd motivation.

Knowledge

Knowledge as we are considering it in this process is the possession of facts — the organized possession of facts, based on long observation, and on its way to understanding, – that is, to standing – under the laws.  The laws are behind the facts.  Moreover, it must be a knowledge not only of the surface facts concerning the self, but of the profounder – in other words, not only about the earth and water in us, thepersonality and the personal memories or subconscious known to the modern psychology, but also the fire and air, the forecourts and the courts of the soul’s influence. The more it is experience, and not mere theory, the more it is really our own and the more powerful it is in aiding the individuation.  Really the first division of knowledge, that relating to the personality and the first areas of the subconscious, pertains to the inheritance; the second to the heritage.  The mass experiences the first division in those drives from the unconscious which build up its conservatism, its traditions, its fears of the new except in small matters, and of anything which interferes with its habits and mores.  It experiences the second division in the distorted forms that make for blind faith, childish, rosy creeds, or equally stupid superstitions and prejudices.  That is to say, the crowd can have no real knowledge in these deeper areas, however great the subconscious pull from them.  The crowd has only feeling concerning them, a sort of dim perception, which is sub-knowledge, dull and confusing, though it my be strong in its influence on behavior.

Can we honestly say that either the church, or education, as we ordinarily consider it, penetrates through these areas of feeling, convention, taboo, or the pull of gravity in materialism, inertia, the pseudo-security of the old, the provincial, the partisan; or that they give us more than the smoky fire which reaches, erratically, toward the heavens, and may obscure even the clear view of earth.

Toward higher authorities

The multitude are, and must remain, under these authorities till they, as individuals, seek their freedom through mind; or until enough have done so to provide the leaven that shall raise the loaf.  And leaven, you know, is associated with air – with the counter-force to the gravity of earth and water.

Consciousness

So we come to the second factor, consciousness.  And I mean, of course, human consciousness, at the mental level (for even a plant has consciousness of a sort.)

This consciousness, you will remember, is a power in the self, which, like a lamp, illuminates for the bearer the field on which its rays fall.  It implies the I principle, the field of awareness, and the relationship between them — that peculiarly living thing, which is called consciousness.  Like a lamp, too, it can be turned in any directions, is of varying degrees of penetrating power; also varying degrees of the steadiness and the quality of the light which it gives.

Most people are conscious only of their practical daily interests, needs, affections, pride and disappointment, – their likes and dislikes, – all conditioned, for the most part, from sources in the personal unconscious, by the personal memories, by habits, and the “dragons” which rule the lower rungs of the three ladders of the human faculties.  That is, crowd influence, crowd ideals, crowd motivation, – or the family group modification of these.

From the binding effects of those attachments we must move consciously.  We must differentiate purposefully, if we are to do much for the evolution of the soul, or, the fulfillment of its potentials into potencies.  How consciously we shall do it, depends largely on the knowledge we have of other than crowd areas and capacities in the self.  It is knowledge which conditions the grade and quality of the consciousness.  Of two people looking about in a physical laboratory, for instance, the consciousness of the one who is ignorant of physics will be of a distinctly lower grade, other circumstances being similar, than that of his companion who, let us say, has made a fairly deep study of physics and done considerable work in a laboratory himself.  Like is known to like alone, and knowledge is one of the most important elements in helping us to become “like” unto the state or condition to which we aspire.

In the greater laboratory of the self, like is known to like alone both in the world of the self and the objective worlds to be contacted through its higher powers.  The crowd man cannot attain these powers, because the fixation in earth-water and the interests of the personality consume the psychenergy, so that none is free for the development of theindividuality.  There is no knowledge of other than crowd interests and authorities, or the mere feeling protest against them, which is negative attachment, so the lamp of consciousness is turned in but one direction — out to the world.  Consciousevolution must wait — the accelerated, economic way, the way of the mind, while we partake of the minimum, slow movement forward – the wasteful way of trial and error, the tragically needless repetition through fixation.

The Soul Influence points the way forward

Actually the way of evolution is pointed out by the influences from the soul itself, as we come to know them.  As we come to know something of the deeper self, the fire and air in us — not merely experience vagux pulls and drives from it – the paths of our true development light up.  This is the valid way out of crowd.psychology.  Like the lines of force about a magnet, the path of our progress emerges before us, becoming over clearer as we trace it, or as we develop (differentiate) “four square according to the nature of the soul.”  Differentiate and develop, this is, each in its own place, all our faculties – the weak and submerged to become strong and active; the strong to become integrated into the service of the whole organism and its good, – not only the personality and the human aspects of our constitution.

Why has the soul this guiding power?  Because its nucleus is spirit – the seed of the whole development.  As we bring to greater maturity, through exercise, work, discipline, the streams of energy from the soul, we are working on the Twelve Labors, toward that completion whose fruit is mind, the true vehicle of spirit.  This is the way forward to our Home, the way toward finding it in fullness, toward functioning in it consciously, the way toward the state of the thirteenth man.  That way is barred to the crowd man, in crowd functioning, for he knows, and lives in, only two of the four great streams of life from the “Garden of Eden”.  These make for unbalance, not fulfillment.  The pull from the two others — fire and air — is subconscious, therefore regressive, remaining undifferentiated — the way backward to source, barred by the Angel with the Flaming Sword.

Higher Authorities

He who detaches himself from crowd fixations moves, and moves validly, toward those higher authorities — God, spirit, whatever they may be called — of which the crowd speaks, all too glibly, and senses, all too dimly, but which only the higher self can contact in any degree of real experience.  These authorities are beyond convention and taboo, beyond mores and the man-made laws supporting them; beyond conscience and its requirements.  Those authorities are more exigent, for they are in the direction of that maxim for the future expressed by Kant in his doctrine that we should always so act that our maxim might be one that we should be satisfied to see adopted as the way of thefuture.  We always come under authority, under law.  Which law shall it be?

Help from the Transliminal

Obviously, the work with the transliminal, to those who have done any of it, is the shortest cut to the realization of the higher self, to the wider knowledge of the whole being, so essential to the consciousness we must carry as our lamp in accomplishing the processes of the soul’s evolution.  This knowledge and this consciousness aid us powerfully in differentiating the raw, potential stuff of our being, developing the faculties of the “twin” in us, and transforming what would otherwise be subconscious, backward pulls toward the larger into consciously directed, controlled powers of heart and mind — the actual higher rungs of the three ladders instead of their dark, distorted reflections which harry and retard the crowd man.  “To the unsubdued self the Self becomes verily hostile as an enemy.”

The admonitions from the soul are wise.  They may hint of ultimates, but they press upon us the necessity of doing “next steps”; point out where our “tail” is holding us as well as lure us on in the direction in which we should be making progress.  If we have not paid our obligation to Caesar, the requirements of the world, the training school, we are reminded that these will bar us from the higher development and bidden to get to work on the weak spots.  But even if this means of further or more intensive outward movement, for a time, it need not be of the crowd, because it then has the sanction of the mind, not merely the drag of gravity.  “Man if thou knowest what thou doest…”  As we seek and accept the guidance of the once latent, neglected aspects, we not only come to “know what we do” as never before, but know it now in reference to a larger picture and a larger career than we could ever have gleaned from the authorities of the outer world, whether these be academic or religious.  Because through the transliminal we come to know through experience, which is always the best teacher, and should be employed for more than the practical concerns of the personality in the material world.  Paradoxically, these “higher authorities” become at once more exigent in their demands upon us and give us greater freedom.  The demands are those we must meet for the sake of the higher man; the freedom is that of release from crowd and group domination in the world, and from its correspondents in the self.

Next steps.

Among the first of the “next steps” usually illuminated as we break through the shackles of the personality and begin to touch something deeper, are the trends that counterbalance the “loss of the self” in the crowd.  That “loss” may be through attachment to any of the lower rungs of the three ladders.  And remember, it may be just as bad if it is negative as if it is positive.  Neither has done the work, or the lessons, of these particular stages sufficiently to be ready to leave them, which is to be unattached to them.

Which of us who has done work with the transliminal beyond the reflective areas has failed tp meet with such symbols of crowd association and ideology as the hotel, the department store, the tea, with many people coming and going?  Which of us has failed to  rejoice when, as the process of individuation went on, loosening us from personality fixations, the I principle serving the interest dominant in us at the time, moved away from that which represented its old attachments – even into new adventures and experiences at first strange and cold and uncomfortable.

Such movement is out of the arms of the “other dragon” of inertia, habit that holds, the good old ways.  At the same time it is pushing against the “father dragon” of the narrow taboos and conventions of the crowd, the family, the environment.  Ease, drift are over, duty (as a barrier) faith unsupported by knowledge; the unchallenged role of tradition, on the one hand, and of personal likes and dislikes, on the other.  Rebellion and self-will fade out before the laws, when we come to understand them and see their beneficent working.

Determination

The third factor in the process of conscious evolution is determination.  It too, like knowledge, has much to do with the quality of the consciousness – in particular with it steadiness and control.  Determination is will in the making, and is based on choice – on many previous choices in the direction in which determination has been built up.  Now the making of choices is not a favorite exercise, with the objective crowd.  That is one reason why it follows leaders who symbolize its likes and habit trends, or conventional ideas.  It avoids the disagreeable necessity of making choices.

But for individuation, choice, painful as it may be, is essential.  As we make ever wiser choices, – for the better as against the less good, and as we remain loyal to these choices, we strengthen that which will ultimately become will – that much later developed power of the mind, which maintains the polarization in the larger, and subordinates the lesser, while yet, in wisdom, giving all their place.  It has little in common with will-power.

So again, with determination, we are dealing with a mental quality, – a differentiating power, toward that leadership in the self under whose banner it can alone move forward.  That this leadership is not undisputed, that it has, indeed, a multitude of rebellions to meet, is the experience of all doing progressive work in the household and laboratory of the self.  The rebellions signalize the state of “civil War”.  Of course it is the crowd influence – fickle, pleasure-loving, subconsciously motivated, that betrays; that requires constant counteraction and diminution.  As we dissolve the bonds of wishes, sentiments, habit paths, old ideologies, to which we must die before the new state can be born, we make these choices which advance us toward free will.  Free will is an impossibility to the prisoner of the lower, or the crowd self.

Discrimination

The fourth factor, discrimination, is mind and power too, evolved as we make progressive choices, maintain consciousness and polarization, and act increasingly in accord with what we come to appreciate as the greater good, to which the lesser is to be subordinated.  Discrimination, like the others is evolved through the struggles with the crowd influences, subjective and objective, and it marks the advancement from crowd to mind leadership.  It requires, as do the others, the supporting power of the heart, theaspirational nature, but in itself it is a peculiarly masculine power, – that of the sword, which cuts its way through resistance, or cuts away that which does not belong to the purpose in view.  We develop it by use, and in degree.  Discrimination belongs to the fighter in us in the battle for the larger life.  We need it also as an operative agent in the lower planes, for it matches the deed of the arm with the understanding of the mind.  As consciousness without knowledge is low grade, without determination is fluctuating, so, without discrimination it is shorn of the power to travel intelligently and to transform.

Group life for the individuating soul.

Just as crowd psychology, like a sort of earth mother, nourishes the lower self, so another type of group life can help equally, or more than equally, in advancing the interests of the deeper self, the soul, the higher man, or whatever name we give the higher evolution.  Man never lives unto himself alone.  To try to do so is wasteful, stultifying to the real growth of heart and mind, though for a while it may feed the ego-feeling.

The Lotus Chart will clarify our understanding of the aid to the soul through its contribution to the life of a group.  But here the group is very different from that of the early stages, for it is composed of members becoming increasingly conscious, and more and more integrated in their pursuit of goals in fire and air.  In such a group the individuality must no more be submerged as in the crowd groups, if progress is to continue.  But one of the very differences in such a group is that individuation is fostered, not frowned upon; accelerated by participation in the group life, not hampered by the taboos and inertia of the environment.  The self becomes truly part of a machine, – but an active, glad, interested and living part of an organism which is a forerunner of the type of group life which is characteristic of higher planes, where organization, knowledge, and the other faculties of the mind are far beyond anything we may know in this plane, or in the psychic planes.  The heart is still a warming and supporting power, but now used to great ends, instead of to the dismembering and distracting little ones characteristic of groups ordinarily in this dimension.

Through sharing, with and contributing to, a group oriented to fire and air, the qualities of the individual are enabled to become perfected, as they could be in no other way.  As MBM has said, the group is our means.  There is both a “getting” from the group experience and a “giving”, and an increasing satisfaction in both.  Crowd participation can give at best gratification.  He who has not experienced the difference can not speak of it.

It is toward this higher type of association that the soul, the monad, moves after it has passed the narrow gate of individuation.  This, incidentally, it passes in degree, for it is not a gate of the third dimension.  The crowd man neither seeks nor finds this gate.  The soul which has begun its conscious evolution benefits as much from this association, based on comunity of interest in larger objectives, as does the crowd man in his earth evolution through the training school.  Group and individual grow together, each gaining from the experiences of the other.  The valve or the screw, representing the powers and qualities already in the course of development in the individual, have the opportunity they need for expression, for perfection, in the life of the machine, or organism.  Without such functioning those qualities would remain largely potential, latent.  An important reason for the group life at Whiting Arches is that it affords many opportunities for the contact and sharing in ways that could not so easily be provided in the city.

As MBM said to us two weeks ago, it is the work of years for a trainee to find how far he can safely participate in the interests of the world — crowd psychology – without becoming “wet”. He has still to preserve the place of the self, – to cultivate his individual plot in the greater garden, when he is associated with a more purposefully functioning group.  That is why such a group will insure ample time and place for work upon the self.  That is part of fellowship and the understanding that goes with the genuine quality.  Respect for law – here the law of rhythm, – requires a balance in the direction of the psychenergy.  It is again one of the many differences between the.world group and that of a higher type.  Basically the world-group is lawless, however slavishly it adheres to mores.  Perhaps this is the fundamental reason for the need of ultimately moving from its domination toward the state of lawfulness – the law of the universal pattern of evolution, as Wisdom-lore has always known and taught it.

A CROWD PSYCHOLOGY AND THE EVOLVING SOUL

Some important points to be kept in mind by those

preparing papers for the Monday evening series.