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Overview
2018 Reprint of 1960 First Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. This is a book of verse to inspire those who wander in a desert of defeat, unhappiness and loneliness. It opens a door into the hidden places of your mind and gives you faith in yourself--a faith you thought had been destroyed forever. It tells you how to recover your sense of security, a felling of being right, superior and happy NOW because you find a way out. It is a book of experience written out of the hearts and minds of real spiritual teachers who have felt what you feel and who have helped others to a new and happier life through the practice of Science of Faith. It also contains the biographies of the Great Teachers and Masters of history who revealed God in man and the way to a life of freedom, peace and abundance. The basic teaching is that man does not suffer from the Will of God, but from a breakdown of his own understanding. Those who are searching a higher spiritual experience will find guidance toward the attainment of cosmic consciousness; and every reader will feel better, think better and be better for having read this book.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781684222711 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Martino Fine Books |
| Publication date: | 10/26/2018 |
| Pages: | 354 |
| Sales rank: | 552,323 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.79(d) |
About the Author
Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) and his brother Fenwicke Holmes (1883-1973) worked closely together in their early years, and later became independently successful, Ernest for his innovative metaphysical writings, and Fenwicke for his various lectures and publications on philosophy. Their collaboration on The Voice Celestial stands as a lyrical movement of New Thought.
Read an Excerpt
The Voice Celestial
Thou Art That An Epic Poem
By Ernest S. Holmes, Fenwicke L. Holmes
SCIENCE OF MIND PUBLISHING
Copyright © 2004 Dr. Christian SorensenAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-911336-71-9
CHAPTER 1
Reverie of the farer
He came at sunset to his home at last,
Unchained at night from slavery to the day.
"Ah, night," he breathed, "angelic specter, thou
Who dost possess a million eyes — or fears,
I shall relax and in a sweet content
Review the day. For good outweighs
The ill; and when tomorrow comes (it comes,
No doubt), I shall arise and spin the wheel
Of fortune once again."
But then he faltered, for the word Tomorrow
Was overcast by doubt. Are there "Tomorrows"?
How swift the change in all things manifest,
Illusive, beckoning and, like a wraith
Dissolving into air, washed out by light.
Today — tomorrow — what are they? And what
Was yesterday? Where are they now — these days
Of which I speak as real? Are they but dreams?
Perhaps "the Now" is all that does exist.
I wonder if when I am dead that I
Shall know that I am dead —
Why am I here and who and what am I?
I heard, I think, (or does it rise in me?)
That man is soul and lives the mortal span
To save his soul by deeds and thoughts and prayer
To clothe himself in immortality.
What joke is here! What laughter for the gods,
If gods there be! I, too, shall laugh
At those who fictionalize a living soul,
A wraith, a specter of the mind, and then
Go out into the wastes to find and bring
It back again. And I,
Had I a soul and knew I had a soul,
Would gladly work to save the soul I had
And all the other souls of overburdened men.
But who is there to prove and justify
A faith toward which I lean without a hope?
Creeds, dogmas, candlesticks and sandalwood,
Gold, ivory, and marble-chiseled walls —
All these are still of earth! While I have need
Of the unearthly, if such there be! I
Must find the REAL behind the things that seem.
But where, oh, where to look and what to do!
I know that poets, seers and those they call
The avatars — embodiments of gods —
Declare they know by other means
That there exists another world beyond.
They say it was revealed to them or to
Another who stood behind another whom they knew.
The mystery, they say, has been unsealed
Unto a "chosen few."
BUT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT I MYSELF CAN KNOW.
I crave to know the meaning of great words;
I ask that LIFE may be defined, and what
Is LOVE. Perchance I, too, can grasp a key
That opens up the door and for myself
Unveil the Mysteries. Or I may hear
A Voice beyond earth's hearing, or see
A PRESENCE which shall REVEAL TO ME!
I know in part, at least, the sayings of
Old faiths, religions great and small — and creeds,
And creeds and creeds! I shudder here
Within my lonely room. Complex and dread,
How often they affirm damnation each to each!
From them no answer comes to me unless
A Something stirs within me, and I hear
A Voice from out the Void, if such there be.
The Scribe
His mind was spinning like a whirling wheel
That comes to rest by chance yet never moves
Beyond its orbit to a higher plane.
He seemed himself to be upon the wheel,
Bound there by dread necessity and fate.
He knew the wheel had spun and once again
Had come to rest upon the same old shibboleth,
A form to hide the emptiness that lies
In ancient, mystic abracadabra.
"Though folly pass from age to age and through
Ten thousand years of tonsured heads, it still
Is folly at the end. 'Tis so with Truth
But how am I to know, though true or false?"
He laughed at this, a bitter laugh. "How now,
O Timeless Sphinx," he said, "thou face inscrutable,
Cold, calculating, cruel question mark
Who dost bestride the ages like a god,
Will Delphic speech break from thy sandstone lips
To shatter all the silence of the ages?
The Farer
Perhaps I am myself the Sphinx, the dumb
Unblinking stone that broods but does not think.
O God, if God there be, O Soul of souls,
I cannot bear the hollowness and pain
That fills my heart with loneliness and grief;
How can I bear the emptiness of ignorance?
I WANT TO KNOW AND KNOW I KNOW.
Alas, alas, should I concede the Heaven,
That some have taught, with angel-choirs and wings,
I must accept their Hell as well
With cries from purgatory, and bats' wings!
Far better this, dumb as I am, to build
My heaven or hell out of myself!
I have the stuff for one; perhaps, the other.
Oh, mystery on mystery so piled
That I would welcome death could it display
The figured tapestry beneath the shroud.
'Tis said that Jesus knew and that the cord
Which binds the body to the soul remained
Unbroken and that he rose and walked ...
I was not there. O how then shall I KNOW
If this sweet tale be true? 'Tis sweet enough,
I swear. I was not there!
We sail a storm-racked sea and in the depths
The hulls of ships, the skeletons of men;
They will not rise and skim the sea again!
All things run to this sea at last. The rose
Is dying as it blooms; its perfumed breath
Is its own self, dividing in the air:
Its petals fall and in the end, the sea
Will claim the ashes in its depths.
Is this my fate? Is there no hope, no voice
To break the stillness of this deathly pall?
I had my hopes of it one night. I felt
A strange cold breeze that broke the stifling heat
And something passed me in the air and whispered ...
Where was it? Let me see, can I recall?
Oh, yes, I see it now! The light was dim
And people strange to me were gathered there
In faith that they might speak and be bespoke
By entities discarnate, souls of men
Who broke the barrier that divides
The living and the dead. (This is their word,
Not mine. I know so little and must see
And touch and hear, before I can believe.)
"We have not died," it said. "You change your garb
Because your wrap is worn, your garment
Clay, but life is life and cannot die."
I do not know ... I wonder ... shall I say?
I know that those who claim to know — because
"Their Faith" proclaims no other source than theirs —
Affirm that things like this can never be;
Their "Faith, delivered to the saints," forbids ...
Their saints have shut the out-hinged door of Heaven ...
From faiths like this, sweet truth, deliver us.
And yet he had no rancor for he hoped
Behind the panoplies of every "Faith"
Some Truth was hid, some Presence felt;
"If some survive," he thought, "then all survive.
And since all life is change, then all will change."
He wondered why some took delight in fear
Or seemed complacent when they talked of Hell;
And, on their soul, declared there was no way
By which the soul unshriven could escape
Eternal doom, nor even pass into
Oblivion beyond Elysian fields.
The Farer stirred and shuddered on his bed:
He wondered why such thoughts should come to him.
"For I know none who knows," he said,
"Or if he knew, I would not know he knows."
He laughed with mirthless humor. "How well I know
I do not know. Can I aspire to find a way?
But woe, most awful woe, besets me if
I fail to try — a living death! but where
Shall I begin?"
"I shall begin with life," he said, "Of this
I am assured: I am alive. And what is it
To live, save that I think? And I can think
Back from "effect to cause."
The very greatness of the thought o'erwhelmed him —
"How swiftly reason points the mind
To unknown cause," he said, "but does it verify?"
The Scribe
He could not sleep,
Excited by the bigness of his quest
And more excited by the thought that he
Must hold within himself the answer,
For through his mind must march the serried ranks
Of masters, hierophants, and sages
And all their sayings, all their works, and all
Their lengthened shadows in those who follow after
Who chant their articles of faith. And he
Must pass upon theologies, philosophies,
And all the songs inspired by faith; for men
Do build cathedral spires of hymns and songs;
For poetry is priestess to the soul
And tends the fires which, by Prometheus filched,
Were first to heat cold reason.
"All these must play their part upon my stage
But in the end I must decide, accept,
Reject, for I and only I can know
Within myself and for myself that which is true
For me. Not even God can faith compel,
Not even He reject."
He sought for Truth, he said, and not alone for God:
The Farer
If there be God, why, it is well, but I
Seek Truth and whether there be Mind or no
Within the Cosmic Scheme: and should it be,
Then shall I further quest a way to speak,
Perhaps to hear; and should It speak to me,
Then gladly to obey.
But Truth Itself can never lay commands;
For dogma is the mummy of the past,
Long since embalmed but not interred,
Wrapped round with gravecloths of intolerance.
The God of such belief is not the God I seek,
Nor can be real to me. I search for God,
Unfettered, free from cloying garb
Of priests whose bony hands and tonsured pates
Bespeak a niggard faith.
The Scribe
He laughed aloud for to his vision came
The images, the sculptured forms, the gilded
Domes, the naked paunches cast in bronze;
Hawk-headed Horus, son of Osiris;
And gargoyles, leering, frightful
To minions of the nether world;
For superstition ever molds a form
For ignorance to worship or to fear.
The Farer
Then what is judgment, justice, hell or heav'n
But that which man creates? Is this not true? —
The hell designed by those who seek to put
The fear of God in man, with flame and fork,
And Satan and his horde, is crude, and bears
The imprint of an atavistic age,
A throwback infantile. For so it seems to me.
It cannot be that Heaven stands aloof
From prayer, if so it be the soul's desire
Of him who prays. But as for me,
I cannot hold with those who claim to pray
The sinner out of hell and so transport,
Like some Aladdin's rug, the rascal soul,
Unscathed, from those hot flames so dearly loved
In theologic lore. Else would the flames
Unfed, and withered, die; a sorry thing
For those who hold to fear as best designed
To frighten souls to heaven.
The Scribe
He fell into a state of wonderment
And every cell of him was shaken
Like aspen leaves that tremble in the night.
Enthusiasm, that drunk'ness of the gods
Which thrills the worshipper, thrilled him.
He would himself launch out on such a quest,
A Farer going forth to find the Truth.
The Farer
My battle cry is Truth,
My banner shall be faith. I think I can.
But where shall I begin?
I first of all must turn to mountain peaks
Of personalities and what they saw
Before men canonized and commonized
And cracked the sacred crystal;
To Vedic hymns that sang of the Creation;
To Egypt, sacred keeper of the flame;
To Hebrew prophets, to Moses and the Law;
To Zendavesta, prayer-book of the Parsees,
Transcribed by Zoroaster from the gods;
Or wise Lao-tzu with his Tao old,
Whose wisdom, lost to China, sealed her doom.
I shall essay to sample all the ore
Of ev'ry land and age but most of all
Extract the gold of those rich mountain souls
Who lived the message that they taught,
Like Krishna, Buddha and the risen Christ.
A tunnel I will run beneath the shaft
That bears the gold of ev'ry age; and so
From each will draw the wealth to build
The temple spires that upward point to God!
I shall absorb from ev'ry source all that
I can of systems known to man; let them
Assume a single body with a Voice
That speaks to me as though it were
The Primal Voice, which first proclaimed,
"Let there be light."
The Scribe
'Twas then that laughter caught him unaware,
A kind of shame that he had dared to match
His wits with nature and with man — those men
Whose names were cut in stone, the seers
Of science, philosophy and faiths.
How did he dare to check his thought against
Such men as these ...
But time ticked on and suddenly he thought —
The Farer
But this is NOW, not then — TODAY!
And I am heir to all they knew or claimed
To know, and I am scion of their Wisdom
Which may, through me, give birth
To knowledge and to clearer sight. For each
New soul is heir to all the past. And God
May make him prophet of the things to come.
The Scribe
He saw with comic inner eye the look
Of horror on faces of the past; of Jove
With readied thunderbolts; astrologers,
Blear-eyed with peering at the stars;
High priests of church and science, prepared
To nail him to the cross ... And then
He laughed again with joy until it boomed
Across the ceiling and along the walls —
A cataract of sound that filled the air;
For on another highway he could see,
Advancing in the light, with banners high
And trumpets full-ablaze and clear, a new
Processional; and on each breast the one word, TRUTH.
To his amaze the vestments that they wore
Were those of priests and scientists and seers —
No other garb than such as others wore;
And with them marched initiates of rites
Of schools long gone, the mystic cults
Whose passion plays had introduced the Christ.
And there calm Plato marched with Socrates,
Aurelius, Plotinus, Paul and Jesus Christ,
And following close were many saints,
Saint Augustine, Saint Francis, and mystics
Small and great of yesteryear; and players
With their string'd lyres and instruments of brass,
With Mozart, Mendelssohn and sacred choirs;
And poets singing Songs of Deliverance
And hope and faith; and souls illumined, who through
The ages dark had kept alive the sacred flame.
The Farer
A goodly company, I claim; not Prodigals
Whose wasted hours are tarnished o'er
By fear to try. For they were Farers,
Not vagabonds like me. They pressed upon
The flying feet of wingéd goals and found
The happiness that lies in the pursuit.
And each drew some bright star from all
The galaxies of heaven.
Oh, would that I might be for that
Sweet caravan, the camel-driver who, in
The storm, lashed by the whirling sand
Might find oasis in a desert place.
Had I the genius, I would pluck each star,
Proclaimed by these great souls, and with them form
A new and brilliant galaxy, and set them
So in place that they would shine as one.
Too long, men analyze, dissect
And into parts divide philosophies and faiths.
Let me but posit this: the gold of truth,
If it be truly gold, will melt in one
Great crucible.
'Tis this, no less, that I shall now essay.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Voice Celestial by Ernest S. Holmes, Fenwicke L. Holmes. Copyright © 2004 Dr. Christian Sorensen. Excerpted by permission of SCIENCE OF MIND PUBLISHING.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
First Book,In THAT is found identity Of Cause and Cosmos and the ME.,
1. Reverie of the farer,
2. The celestial presence,
3. Faith and hope,
4. Life and death,
5. Heaven and hell,
6. Truth and beauty,
7. Reality and illusion,
8. Illumination and intuition,
9. Praise and thanksgiving,
10. Love and friendship,
Second Book,
1. The Altar of the ages,
2. The Vedic hymns,
3. Rama, founder of faiths,
4. Zoroaster, Mithras' priest,
5. Prophets of India,
6. Ascription to Buddha,
7. Buddha, the enlightened,
8. Hermes, Egypt and the law,
9. Moses and the great I AM,
10. Orpheus and the mysteries,
11. Pythagoras the genius,
12. Plato and the ideal,
13. Jesus, last of the great masters,
14. Song of the Father,
15. Song of the Mother,
16. Song of the Son,
17. The awakening,
18. The Farer's dedication,
19. Postword,
Notes,
Index,
About the authors,