‘Hanwell,’ interrupted the angry man.
‘——each and every part of it must be alive too. And you can’t leave out the planets, stars, and suns, the most magnificent bodies, called the ‘eavenly bodies, as you know. They’re all living bodies. They’re the bodies of beings, living beings, but beings far higher than wot we are. And the Zodiacal Signs are ‘igher still. They represent functions of the universe, as the ancients knew quite well. They’re a kind of intelligence we may call per’aps a Group Intelligence.’
Again he paused a moment. Then, as no interruption came, he went on with greater emphasis than before:
‘Now, each of these Zodiacal Intelligences—as the sun, with our little earth alongside, passes through it—rules over its partickler period. With every period we enter a new current of forces. Each period, therefore, of about 2000 years has new Gods, new characteristics, new types of ‘uman beings with new tendencies and powers and possibilities in them—a new point of view, if you like to call it so, or, as we Aquarians call it, a new consciousness. Well, the Aquarius Sign just beginning, is an Air Sign. We’re getting our new powers, our new point of view and hattitude, our new consciousness—from the air.’
In his excitement and deep belief the word ‘air’ was dangerously near ‘hair,’ but no one smiled. Perhaps even the critic experienced similar difficulties in his home circle that prevented his noticing it, or caring to take advantage of it if he did.
‘I’ve already referred,’ the speaker continued, ‘to its effect on the physical plane, new inventions and the like, and ‘ow men now navigate the air as fish do the sea, and send their thoughts spinning round the world with the speed of lightning. That’s easy enough. I mean, you can all see it for yourselves. The areoplane’s a fac’ nobody can’t get away from, whichever way you take it. But the effect on the spiritual plane is not so simple. It’s not so easy to describe—far from it, I admit. When a new mode of consciousness begins to hoperate in men and women, they find difficulty in expressing it. They’re puzzled a bit. They don’t know where they are with it quite. Those ‘oo get it first are called quacks and charlituns, and maybe swindlers too. The slower ones regard them with suspicion, and they may think themselves lucky if they ‘ain’t stoned or burned alive or crucified as they once was.’
He smiled, and the audience smiled deprecating with him.
‘And the chief reason for their difficulty,’ he went on, ‘is simply this: They ‘aven’t got the language. Nor the words. That’s it. The words describe the experiences of a new type of consciousness don’t exist at first. They come later, slowly, gradually. They evolve as the new powers in the race evolve.’
He took his glasses off and wiped them carefully.
‘So wot’s the result?’ he asked. ‘Why, this. There’s only feeling left. The people that first get the new consciousness feel it in them. But they can’t prove it to others because their power is small. And they can’t explain it in words, because the words don’t exist. So there you are. Only the truth is there too jest the same.’
The challenge in his tone was unmistakable, but no one took it up. The critic was making notes on his cuff and probably had not heard it. Some one coughed, however, and feet shuffled here and there.
‘I know it’s true, and some of you ‘ere in front of me know it’s true,’ the speaker resumed quickly, his eyes alight and intense conviction in his tone and manner, ‘but we can’t do more at first than feel it and be glad. All we can do is to show it in our lives. We can live it. We can feel the joy and speed and lightness of the air, and we can live it, show it. We can express it that way, leaving the words to follow in good time. And that’s a lot, for example guides the world.’
A murmur of applause greeted the emphatic statement, and Wimble, for one, was tempted to rise on his toes with waving hands and give his confession of faith in no uncertain voice. This railway guard, half quack, half prophet, this man of the people whose knowledge was as faulty as his grammar, had offered the first explanation he had yet heard of his own strange attitude to life and of his experiences since boyhood. This man, similarly, had caught his secret from the air. His exposition might be as exaggerated and wild as the critic suggested, yet it was somewhere true, he felt. The man, owing to his very ignorance perchance, had caught at the skirts of a new and mighty truth that in a century would have become a commonplace, but that at the present moment caused others with better education than himself to talk of Hanwell. Wimble felt this excitement in him—to get up before them all and say that he, too, had felt and tried to live this light, new, swift and spontaneous airy consciousness. The impulse, the generous desire to help, caught at him. Another minute and he might have been on his toes, bearing stammering witness to the truth that was in him. The lecturer himself, however, prevented.
‘We stand to-day,’ he said, using his notes again, ‘upon the cusp of the Aquarian Age. The Piscean Age lies behind us. The Zodiacal Intelligences of that Piscean Age were watery powers and water was its keynote and its symbol. It was the Age of Jesus. Now, listen, please, listen closely, for ‘istory bears me out.’
He moved nearer to the edge of the platform, and heads were craned forward to lose no word.
‘The sun,’ he said, in a lowered tone, ‘entered the sign of Taurus in the days of our pre’istoric Adam. That was the Taurian Age. Next came the Arian Age—about the time that Abra’am lived, and with Aries the ram replaced the bull. With the rise of the Roman Empire the sun entered the sign of Pisces, and the Piscean Age began. It took the fish for its symbol. That was the Christian Dispensation with its new outlook and attitude, its new powers, its new type of consciousness. Jesus introduced water baptism, and water became the symbol of purification. It was a watery sign, as I told you. While it lasted, as you’ll notice—the last 2000 years—this Piscean Age, with a fish for its symbol, ‘as certainly been one of water, and the many uses of that element ‘ave been emphasised, and sea and lake and river navigation have been brought to a ‘igh degree of efficiency.’
He waited for the impression this was bound to produce. It was evidenced by deep silence, broken only by the rustle of paper and soft garments.
‘Jesus Himself referred to the beginning of this Aquarian Age in these words,’ he continued solemnly and reverently, ‘as you’ll find in one of Wisdom Books they don’t include in our own Bible:
‘And then the man who bears the pitcher will walk forth across an arc of ‘eaven; the sign and signet of the Son of Man will stand forth in the Eastern sky. The wise will then lift up their heads and know that the redemption of the earth is near.’
He paused significantly. Then he added, his hands raised aloft and his eyes turned toward the ceiling:
‘We’re already in it, the new Dispensation, the New Age—air.’
‘Compressed air,’ added the critic, after his long silence.
‘Bravo! bravo!’ exclaimed Wimble, unable to suppress himself.
‘But surely a new Age can only begin in each person individually, and not in any other sense,’ put in the thin voice that had spoken once before.
Unperturbed, the speaker repeated with deep emphasis, his eyes and hands still raised aloft:
‘And air means spiritual. The Aquarian Age is pre-eminently a spiritual age; and its meaning may now be apprehended by multitudes of people, ‘ungry for truth, who will now come—are already coming—into an advanced spiritual consciousness. Our air-bodies is being quickened.’
The last few words seemed to produce a strange effect upon the chief critic. Apparently they enraged him. He fidgeted, half rising from his chair as though about to make a violent speech in reply. In the end, however, he did nothing beyond shrugging his shoulders, with a muttered ‘Consciousness indeed! Why, you don’t even know the meaning of the word!’ He leaned back in his seat, unwilling to stay, yet too annoyed to leave; he resigned himself, keeping his great onslaught perhaps for the close of the meeting. Then, suddenly changing his mind, he leaped to his feet. But the
lecturer was before him. In a ringing voice that held his audience and drowned the interruption, he dominated the room. He was about to satisfy the anticipation raised some ten minutes earlier. He took his listeners into his confidence.
‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,’ he cried, ‘or brothers and sisters, as I’d prefer to call you if you’ve no objection, wot is it we Aquarians means when we talk of air, when we speak of air as the sign of the New Age? We call it spiritual. Wot do we reely mean by that? ‘Ow can we show it in our lives? Let us come down to plain words, the language of the street.’
There was again a rustle, as pencils and paper were prepared anew for taking notes.
‘It means this—to put it quite plainly, simply: It means living lightly, carelessly, spontaneously, as a bird does, so to speak, ‘oose ‘ome is air and ‘oo works ‘ard without taking too much thought. It means living by faith and that means—’ he uttered the next words with great emphasis— ‘living by the subconsciousness—by intuition.’
‘A bird’s heart,’ he cried, ‘lies in the centre of its body. We must live from the centre too.
‘That’s the secret, and that’s the first sign that you’re getting it. There you get the first ‘int of this new Aquarian Age, and from the moment we entered it—not so long ago, forty years or so—this idea of the Subconsciousness ‘as showed itself as the key-word of the day. It’s everywhere already. Even the scientific men ‘as got it. Bergson began with ‘is intuition, and professors like Frood of Vienna and Young of Zurich caught on like lightning. William James too, and a ‘undred others. Why, it’s got down into our poietry and novels, and even the pore old dying pulpits ‘ave a smack at it just to try and keep their heads above water.
‘To live by your subconscious knowledge, instead of by your slow old calculating reason, means a new, airy way of living. And it’s spiritual, I say, because it stands for the beginning of a new knowledge and understanding, and therefore a new sympathy with each other. With everybody! All sorts of powers lie in our subconsciousness, powers of the ‘ole race, powers forgotten and powers to come, and it’s in touch with greater powers still that so far ‘ave been beyond us as a race. All knowledge ‘ides there—God.
‘And if you rely upon it, it will guide you—and guide you quickly, surely, in a flash. Nor you won’t go wrong either, for in your subconsciousness you touch everybody else; we all join on down there—within—and that’s where the Kingdom of ‘eaven lies—and if you rely upon the Kingdom of ‘eaven it will guide you right. We all touch ‘ands if you go deep enough, and that means brotherhood, don’t it? For it means sympathy, understanding, love. The ‘ottentot’s your neighbour.’
He stepped back, squaring his shoulders and drawing a deep breath as he surveyed his audience.
‘Well, it’s only just beginning. Some of us, many of us likely, don’t know about it yet, don’t feel it. We’re only ankle-deep as yet. And those ‘oo ain’t aware of this great subconscious life, no amount of argument or explanation won’t put it into them. A new Age touches individuals first, one ‘ere, one there. The end of the world, as some call it, ‘appens to each heart alone, as somebody said just now. But it’ll come to all in the end. It’s coming now. We’re in Aquarius, and sooner or later we’ll all get into the air and know it. And the new inventions, the new tricks everywhere, as I told you, are paving the way already on the physical plane so that even the hintellectuals and materialists are bound to feel its bigger side before long.
‘Air! Why, think of it, and wot a lovely symbol it is! It’s everywhere. It flows. Nothing belonging to the sky is stationary. It all moves. Light grows and wanes, wind falls and rises, clouds, birds pass rapidly across it. It ‘as nothing rigid about it anywhere. Breath is the first sign of life in your body when you’re born, and the breath of the spirit is the first sign of life in your soul when you are born again. And the bird, remember, the natural in’abitant of air, ‘as its heart in the centre of its body!
‘The subconscious powers, the subconscious life—yes, that’s the secret. To rely upon it, live and act by it, means to act with the ‘ole world at once and know the ‘appiness of brother’ood and love. It means to lose yourself—your little conscious, surface, limited self—in the bigger ocean of the air. ‘Itherto it’s been called living by faith and prayer. That’s all right enough, but it ain’t enough. That means touching the subconscious at moments only. We want to touch it always and every minute. In this new Aquarian Age it will be at our fingers’ ends, so to speak. The “sub” will disappear. The subconscious will become the conscious. We shall know everything, and everything at once; we shall be everywhere, and everywhere at once.’ He raised his voice. ‘We shall be ONE, and know that we are ONE. We shall ‘ave spiritual consciousness.’
The noise of an overturned chair was heard. Outside the shrill blast of distant factory whistles suggested lunch and food. The critic, pushing hastily past the hushed sitters near him, made his way to the door. As he reached the passage he turned. ‘That’s the best recipe for hysteria I ever heard,’ he cried back, ‘and the sooner you’re safe in Hanwell, the better for the world!’—and vanished.
It was an abrupt and violent interruption, but yet it startled no one; the thread of interest was not broken; a few heads turned to look, and then faced towards the lecturer again. A general sigh was heard, expressive of relief. The audience settled itself more comfortably, and a deeper concentration of interest was felt at once. The removal of the hostile element produced an immediate increase of attentive earnestness. It showed first in the lecturer’s face; his eyes grew fixed and steady, his manner more confident, more impressive, and his tone of voice had a more authoritative ring than before.
He leaned forward with an air of mysterious intimacy, as though about to share a secret knowledge he had not dared to divulge before a scoffer. There was a booming note about his voice that thrilled. The charlatan that hides in every human soul slipped out, unconsciously perhaps but unmistakably. It was this, possibly, that affected Wimble as he watched and waited, so eagerly attentive; or, possibly, it was some uncanny anticipation of what he was about to hear. An emotion, at any rate, and one shared by others in the small packed room, rose suddenly in his soul. A little shiver ran down his spine, he shuddered, as once before he had shuddered in Maida Vale.
‘Before we close this little meeting,’ the deep voice rang, ‘and before you go your way and I go mine, per’aps not to come across each other’s path again for a tidy while—I want to just say this. It’s as well we all should know it, so as we are prepared.’
He fixed his glowing eyes on one of his audience—on Wimble, it so happened—and went on slowly, choosing his words with care and uttering them with a conviction that was not without its impressiveness:
‘I want to warn you all, to give you this little word of warning. For I’m led to believe—in fact, I may say it’s been given me—that a dying Age— don’t die without an effort. An expiring Age, so to say, seeks to prolong its life. With the result that, just before it passes, its characteristics is first intensified. The Powers that have ruled over us for 2000 years make themselves felt with extra strength; and these Powers, seeing that their time is past, are no longer right. They’re no longer what we need. Good and right in their time, they now seem wrong, and out of place. They’re evil. We see them as evil, any’ow, though they make for good in another way. I don’t know if you foller me. Wot I mean is that, when an old Age is passing and a new Age coming to birth—there’s conflict.’
There was a renewed rustling, as this sentence was written down on many half-sheets that had so far been blank. But Wimble had no need to make a note of it. He remembered that walk down Maida Vale of several months before, and again the singular shudder passed like a little wind of ice along his nerves.
‘Conflict means trouble,’ continued the speaker amid a solemn hush, ‘and nothing big ever comes to birth without labour and travail and pain. We must expect this pain and travail, and be ready for it. A new
‘eaven and a new earth will come, but they won’t come easily. They will be preceded by a mighty effort of the old ones to keep going a bit longer first. A ‘uge up’eaval, physically and spiritually, will take place first—on the earth, that is, as well as in our ‘earts—before we all get caught up to meet the Lord in the air.’
His sentences grew slower and more emphatic, more charged with conviction and with warning. He made privileged communications. There were pauses between his utterances:
‘I warn you, I prepare you, so that when it comes you will be ready and prepared—not for yourselves, mind, but so as you may ‘elp others wot won’t quite realise quite wot it all means.
‘For there’ll be sacrifice as well.
‘There’s always a sacrifice when a New Age catches ‘old of our old earth, and our old earth will shake and tremble in the re-making, and some of us will shake and tremble too. You’ll feel, maybe, that shudder in advance and know what it means. Signs and wonders, men’s ‘earts failing them for fear, and the instability of all solid things. ‘There will be death.
‘Death takes its ‘undreds, aye, its thousands at a time like that, and many—the best and finest usually—go out before their time, as it seems. But—mark this—they go out—to help!
‘There comes in the sacrifice.
‘They’ll be taken off to ‘elp, taken into the air, but taken away from those they leave be’ind.’
His tone grew lower, and a deeper hush passed over the little crowd before him. There was dull fire in his eyes. An atmosphere of the prophet clothed him.
The Algernon Blackwood Collection Page 253