L. P. Jacks Quotes

The spiritual men of India, a great and watchful multitude whose spiritual status is unattainable, are many of them catholics in a deeper sense than we of the West have yet given to the word ....

It is one of the signs of decadence in the present age that livelihoods should be procurable by the scientific analysis of religion. Had I the power, I would make it a penal offence to publish the results of such inquiries.

"Remember, I implore you, what I have already said: that, in the spiritual world, the brain-habit is strictly confined to the working class." [2] "Before you can persuade me of all this," I said, "you will have to turn my intelligence clean inside out." "That is precisely what I intend doing, and the first step shall be taken this very instant. Begin the exercises by repeating the Formula of Initiation. It runs as follows: 'Till another speaks to me I am nothing.'" "Why, Panhandle," I said laughing, "that is the very formula they taught me when I first entered a Public School. And they enforced it with kicks." "The Universe enforces it in the same manner. But let us keep to the matter in hand. Repeat the formula at once."

Would not all we mean by “communication between mind and mind” be provided for if we suppose that common knowledge comes about, not from our explaining things to one another, but from things explaining themselves in the same terms to us all? Accepting the object as its own interpreter, as its own “medium of communication,” do we not begin to understand what is utterly dark on any other view, how it comes to pass that the resulting knowledge is a common possession?

Above all, you must not expect them to take more than a passing interest in your brain. Your best course is to avoid all reference to that topic. 'The brain' is seldom, if ever, mentioned in the best circles of the spiritual world — to which circles, I assume, your leading Ideas belong. You must never forget that in the realm of Ideas class distinctions are rigidly observed; there is an aristocracy and a proletariat, with all the intermediate grades; and many topics which may be safely mentioned among the commons are an offence when introduced to the nobility. 'The brain' is one of these. Its use, among the ghosts, is confined exclusively to the working class; and you will commit a breach of good manners by flaunting its functions in the presence of august society. Were you, for example, in the course of some conversation with a noble Principle, to offer him the use of your own brain, or to suggest that he was in need of such an implement, or in the habit of using it, you would commit an indiscretion of the first magnitude; and it is certain the offended spirit would strike you off his visiting list and decline to haunt you any more.

Are not the richest and most significant experiences of man precisely those which are the least patient of verbal reproduction? A book, a treatise, a discourse, is the very thing that cannot contain them, that can contain at most their lower elements, their less significant aspects. Who shall transfer them to paper, write them in ink, utter them in words? And yet, though inexpressible thus, these things crave expression, for they are full of meaning and must be expressed. They have a language of their own. Art can utter some of them, and Nature, perhaps, can interpret them all. They borrow her tongues, speaking in the winds, singing in the voice of moving waters, looking down upon us in the cold shining of the stars. What they mean, we, too, can express; but we express it, not by speaking there and then, but by all that we become through their influence, by all that we are led to do, through their compelling, till life shall end.

Philosophy resembles poetry in being an art for enforcing meditation, for driving the mind inwards until it sinks into its Object.

Of all the media of expression employed by man (and let us never forget that they are many) none are so unstable, none so quick to change their meaning, as words. Even sculpture, architecture, painting, in their noblest works, speak differently under different conditions; but these arts are relatively immortal compared with speech.

Illusion is an integral part of reality,

Is not every man familiar with situations in his own life, when the needs of self-expression cannot be satisfied by saying any thing whatsoever times and occasions when, to make his fellows understand what he means, he must straight way do something, or be something, and perhaps hold his tongue the while? And can we deny that the same holds good of the Universe?

In all great poetry there is a kind of 'kenosis' of the understanding, a self-emptying of the tongue. Here language points away from itself to something greater than itself.

Are there not many Arts which, though speechless, express their meanings with perfect adequacy, with satisfaction to the recipient, and serve at the same time as a medium of communication between soul and soul?

"Panhandle's residence was situated in a remote part of the country, and at this moment I have no clear recollection of the complicated journey, with its many changes at little-known junctions, which I had to make in order to find my friend. The residence stood in the midst of elevated woodlands, and was well hidden by the trees. An immense sky-sign, standing out high above all other objects and plainly visible to the traveller from whatever side he made his approach, had been erected on the roof. The sky-sign carried the legend "No Psychologists!" It turned with the wind, gyrating continually, and when darkness fell the letters were outlined in electric lamps. Only a blind man could miss the warning. This legend was repeated over the main entrance to the grounds, with the addition of the word "Beware!" I thought of mantraps and ferocious dogs, and for some minutes I stood before the gates, wondering if it would be safe for me to enter. At last, remembering how several friends had assured me that I was "no psychologist," I concluded that little harm awaited me, plucked up my courage, and boldly advanced. Beyond the gates I found the warning again repeated with a more emphatic truculence and a finer particularity. At intervals along the drive I saw notice-boards projecting from the barberries and the laurels, each with some new version of the original theme. "Death to the Psychology of Religion" were the words inscribed on one. The next was even more precise in its application, and ran as follows: — "Inquisitive psychologists take notice! Panhandle has a gun, And will not hesitate to shoot." Somewhat shaken I approached the front door and was startled to see a long, glittering thing suddenly thrust through an open window in the upper storey; and the man behind the weapon was unquestionably Panhandle himself. "Can it be," I said aloud, "that Panhandle has taken me for an inquisitive psychologist?" "Advance," cried my host, who had a keen ear for such undertones. "Adva

Better that the nation grow poor for a cause we can honor, than grow rich for an end that is unknown. Who can regard without deep misgiving the process of accumulating wealth unaccompanied by a corresponding growth of knowledge as to the uses to which wealth must be applied? This is what we see in normal times, and the spectacle is profoundly disturbing. Far less disturbing at all events is that process of spending the wealth which we have now to witness.

Though science makes no use for poetry, poetry is enriched by science. Poetry “takes up” the scientific vision and re-expresses its truths, but always in forms which compel us to look beyond them to the total object which is telling its own story and standing in its own rights. In this the poet and the philosopher are one. Using language as the lever, they lift thought above the levels where words perplex and retard its flight, and leave it, at last, standing face to face with the object which reveals itself.