THE HILL 
 OF VISION 
 
 Frederick Qlidi %nd 
 
DUKE UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 The Glenn Negley Collection 
 of Utopian Literature 
 

 3«^^o 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/hillofvisionforeOObond 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 A Forecast of the Great War 
 
 and of Social Revolution with the Coming 
 of the New Race 
 
 Gathered from Automatic Writings Ob- 
 tained between 1909 and 1912, and 
 also, in 191 8, through the hand 
 of John Alleyne, under 
 the supervision of 
 the author 
 
 BY 
 
 Frederick Bligh Bond 
 
 F.R.I.B.A. 
 AUTHOR OF "THE GATE OF REMEMBRANCE" 
 
 Script by JOHN ALLEYNE 
 
 BOSTON 
 MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 
 
 M D CCCC XIX 
 
COPYRIGHT, I 91 9, 
 BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY l'RESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface. Ralph Adams Cram ... vii 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 The Prophecies 15 
 
 The War Script of 1918 20 
 
 Discursus on Prophecy 37 
 
 Transcriptions of the Writings . . 47 
 On the Segregation of the Chosen 
 
 Race 100 
 
 Postscript. Ralph Adams Cram . . . 116 
 
 Notes 127 
 
 Attestations 130 
 
 11 w 
 
PREFACE 
 
 1ATE in the summer of 1908 I was staying 
 for a time at Erdington Abbey, a 
 -« Benedictine house near Birming- 
 ham, and while I was there my friend Dom 
 John Chapman, the guest master, sent for 
 another architect, Mr. F. Bligh Bond, to 
 come to the Abbey in order that he might 
 tell me of certain very wonderful happen- 
 ings then in process at the ancient and holy 
 ruins of Glastonbury. 
 
 Dom Chapman knew well my devotion to 
 Glaston, and it appeared that Mr. Bond was 
 a kindred spirit; naturally, therefore, I 
 awaited his arrival with the keenest in- 
 terest. I first went to the most holy place in 
 Britain in the year 1886, and thereafter as 
 often as I was in England— -some seven or 
 eight times in all. From the first it had 
 overwhelmed me by its almost mystical in- 
 fluence, partly august and enormous history, 
 partly dim and evocative tradition, partly 
 the sense that the story was not finished, but 
 that in some way " these dead bones may 
 live" again and the ruined Abbey take its 
 [vii] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 place once more as a potent influence for 
 good. 
 
 Bond arrived late in the afternoon, and 
 that night we sat over the fire in my cell, 
 talking furiously and smoking after the 
 same fashion. The story he told me was of 
 the most extraordinary, but all that part that 
 referred to Glaston itself (and at that time, 
 i.e., 1908, there was little else) has been set 
 down and printed and need not be repeated 
 here. " The Gate of Remembrance " is now 
 available, and in it may be found one of the 
 most remarkable revelations of psychical 
 experience ever made public. 
 
 Briefly, the case was this. In the year 
 1907 Bond had been put in charge of cer- 
 tain excavations at Glaston for the Somer- 
 setshire Archaeological Society. One of the 
 first problems that offered itself was the site 
 of the lost " Edgar Chapel " known to have 
 been built by Abbots Bere and Whiting 
 (the martyr) just before the Suppression. 
 The weight of expert opinion was against 
 the suggested site east of the retro-choir, and 
 earlier excavations had revealed no sign. It 
 was at this moment that, almost by chance, 
 " automatic writing" was brought in to give 
 the successful clue. For some time Bond 
 
 [ viii ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 and his friend "J. A." had experimented 
 with this baffling phenomenon with unim- 
 portant or negative results. On the 7th 
 November, 1907, the first question was asked 
 about Glaston. The answer was in the 
 shape of a rough plan showing the Abbey, 
 the Chapel of St. Joseph, and the " Edgar 
 Chapel" occupying the traditional place of 
 the Lady Chapel at the east, the drawing 
 being clearly signed " Gulielmus Mona- 
 chus." Exact and detailed information fol- 
 lowed as to dimensions, design, authorship, 
 together with explicit directions as to what 
 remained and where the digging should 
 begin. Thereafter Bond began his excava- 
 tions, and at the point indicated, six inches 
 below the trial-pits sunk by Mr. St. John 
 Hope in his earlier explorations, he struck 
 squared stone. At the time he came to Er- 
 dington he had cleared the complete foot- 
 ings of the chapel, nearly all in situ, and the 
 figures given in the automatic writings were 
 proved almost to an inch. 
 
 The next day Bond had to return to Bath, 
 but forty-eight hours later I rejoined him 
 there, where he was then living, and we 
 went at once to Glaston. At that time the 
 foundations of the Edgar Chapel had been 
 
 [ix] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 exposed up to the eastern line of Abbot 
 Bere's work, while the grave of " Radul- 
 phus Concellarius" with the skull of " Ea- 
 wulf, Yarl of Edgarley," was still open for 
 me to see. I examined carefully the Chapel 
 foundations and the fragment of the fan 
 vaulting that had been found midmost of 
 the footings, with its spaces of faded red 
 pigment and flecks of gold leaf, sole relic 
 of the " certaine roofe in golde and crimson, 
 very cunning" referred to in the automatic 
 writing of 16th June, 1908. At this time 
 also I was shown some of the original writ- 
 ings and was given a full account of the 
 circumstances under which they were pro- 
 duced. I was not in England again until 
 April, 191 2, when once more I went to 
 Glastonbury where Bond had taken a house 
 in order that he might give constant super- 
 vision to the excavations, which by that 
 time had extended to the great cloister, the 
 refectory, and the west end of the Abbey 
 church, many discoveries having been made 
 of very great archaeological interest. At 
 this time I saw the whole mass of writings, 
 as I remember, over an hundred foolscap 
 pages in all, many of them in a corrupt and 
 colloquial "monk. Latin." Before coming 
 [x] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 away I urged Bond to write out the whole 
 story for publication, on the ground of its 
 unique interest, offering, if he would not do 
 it himself, to undertake the work on my own 
 part. At the time he demurred, giving 
 many good reasons why publication should 
 at least be postponed. A year or two ago 
 he wrote me that he had decided to print so 
 much of the automatic writing as referred 
 specifically to the Abbey, and the very re- 
 markable book "The Gate of Remem- 
 brance" (Oxford, B. H. Blackwell, New 
 York, Longmans, Green & Co.) is now 
 available. 
 
 No sooner was this first work successfully 
 accomplished than the fountains of psychic 
 energy seemed to be unsealed, and for five 
 years followed an enormous mass of miscel- 
 laneous writings, partly in "monk Latin" 
 partly in sixteenth-century English, together 
 with more sketches, this time of a quite 
 different chapel, every trace of which has 
 disappeared from above ground, and the 
 actuality of which has not yet been proved 
 by the necessary excavations. These ghostly 
 communications were signed by "Johannes 
 Bryant, monachus et lapidator," Abbot 
 Bere, the martyred Abbot Whiting (who 
 [xi] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 spells his name "Whyttinge") and many 
 other religious. Early in the experience, 
 however, the crabbed script would break 
 off from time to time and a clearer and 
 firmer writing take its place. These com- 
 munications usually had little to do directly 
 with the Abbey, and have strange signa- 
 tures, such, for example as " We who are the 
 Watchers," "One of the Controllers of 
 things that are," "The Nameless One" and 
 "The Guardian of things that be as they 
 were meant to be." Amongst them, how- 
 ever, came suddenly the bold signature " Im- 
 perator," then " Caesar Aug." and " Caesar 
 Augustus, Pacificator et Imperator." This 
 was evidently a somewhat dominating and 
 even irritable personality (?) who, on one 
 occasion, burst out " Rede, I said it not. I 
 said not Ralph of the King Henricus, but 
 Ralph the Norman. Taedet damnosum. 
 Lege ! — Imperator. Audi me, barbari stul- 
 tissimi! Ego Imperator qui feci interpre- 
 tationes pro anima insularium. — Caesar." 
 It is from him and the various abstractions 
 named above that the surprising communi- 
 cations have been received. The first hint, 
 however, comes from the altogether de- 
 lightful "Johannes monachus." This was 
 
 [xii] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 received on the 30th of December, 1907; 
 the first part is quite illegible, then it clears 
 up and goes on as follows: 
 
 "... The Chapel of Our Lady of Glaston — 
 type of spiritual things which are not manifest to you. 
 The changes need not alarm you. The reconstructions 
 will be the more perfect. Let the State fall in ruins 
 and the outward garments of Faith perish — fear not. 
 
 "... For greater things will rise into being — 
 great nations and great ideals. We work for it. Be 
 willing and strive not against the tide. Up on the crest 
 and prosper. All will work for the best. . . . The 
 spark will live through the ruins and relight dead fires, 
 fire which is still fire but with purer flame. We cannot 
 hasten the time but it is sure and is not long de- 
 layed. ..." 
 
 Here, in the form of quite typical ghostly 
 generalities, is a strong hint of secular and 
 spiritual catastrophe "sure and not long de- 
 layed," with a great rebuilding thereafter. 
 In connection with the ensuing architectural 
 and historical revelations, references, veiled 
 but not doubtful, were constantly being 
 made to this reconstruction, and the Abbey 
 itself seemed to be the type; as for example 
 under date of 20th April, 1908. 
 
 " Move, work, and unceasingly persist, and in time 
 there will be a place for what once was and ye shall 
 know its buildings yet again as they were wont to be, 
 
 [ xiii ] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 the lesser buildings first; and then cometh one who will 
 build the great church — a son of Glaston from beyond 
 the sea. Even now he waits and watches. . . . The 
 church is always the church, and in the great scheme 
 of the world we come soon and our instrument Glaston 
 shall find a mighty place. . . . Thus Johannes saith." 
 
 In the excitement of progressive dis- 
 coveries and the proving of novel assertions, 
 these hints of coming catastrophe received 
 little attention. Why should they have 
 seemed impressive? The years 1907-14 
 were those of the very crest of fat self- 
 satisfaction, of material triumph, of wealth, 
 luxury, power. The last thing that would 
 be thought of was any possible failure or 
 breakdown, or even halting of modern civi- 
 lization in its imperial progress. In 1909, 
 however, and without preface, Imperator 
 began his extraordinary series of warnings 
 of ill things to come, and these continued 
 until the 29th July, 191 1. Then "Caesar" 
 falls silent, but towards the end of the year 
 191 2, there comes from another source a 
 repetition of the warning of world-war. 
 Then in March, 191 8, begins the astonishing 
 series of mysterious writings called by Mr. 
 Bond "The War Script of 1918." 
 
 The narrative of " The Gate of Remem- 
 [xiv] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 brance" is sufficiently difficult of credence; 
 that which follows is even more so. My 
 object in writing this preface is to give my 
 testimony as to dates, as I have been as- 
 sociated with Mr. Bond through personal 
 contact and correspondence since Septem- 
 ber, 1908, and so far as the matter incorpo- 
 rated in this volume is concerned, the dates 
 which I am able to fix are conclusive. 
 
 On the 27th July, 191 8, Bond sent me 
 transcripts of the two predictions of the 
 ending of the war, dated the one March 
 14th, the other April 19th. These I received 
 on the nth of August. All the remainder 
 of the MS. for this volume was posted to 
 me on the 6th of December, 191 8, and I re- 
 ceived it on December 19th. 
 
 Now the first of the two prophecies of 
 the ending of the war was written just be- 
 fore the terrible " March offensive," at the 
 very moment when the Central Powers 
 seemed strongest, when Marshal Foch's 
 "army of reserve" was popularly held to 
 be a myth, and when the fortunes of the 
 Allies seemed at the lowest ebb. The sec- 
 ond was written in the midst of the Great 
 Offensive, when everywhere on the Western 
 Front the Allied armies were being beaten 
 
 [xv] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 back. Paris lay under the bombardment of 
 monstrous guns of unsuspected force, and 
 the hearts of the people (and we know now 
 of the military leaders) were in the depth 
 of apprehension if not of despair. For the 
 Teutons it was the high-water mark of the 
 war, and the most sanguine optimist hoped 
 for nothing better than a successful defen- 
 sive warfare until winter gave some respite, 
 with the chance of a victorious offensive in 
 April, 1919. And at that moment of gloom, 
 horror and almost despair comes this calm 
 assurance that on the 26th day of August 
 the war would come to an end with com- 
 plete victory for the Allies, although " a 
 semblance of war " would continue for some 
 time thereafter. What happened? Not 
 daring to believe in the possibility of the 
 event, yet knowing the exact accuracy of the 
 strange writings that had been obtained in 
 the case of Glastonbury, and encouraged by 
 the miraculous success of Marshal Foch's 
 offensive which had then been under way 
 for three weeks, I recklessly stated to vari- 
 ous people that the war would be over be- 
 fore Thanksgiving — and was of course 
 roundly jeered at ' * my pains. On Mon- 
 day the 26th of August there was no lack of 
 
 [xvi ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 confirmatory evidence, and from amongst 
 the various reports on this fateful day was 
 the following: 
 
 " Enemy Has Simply Disintegrated " 
 
 " Dramatic Era Began with Startling Suddenness " 
 
 London, Aug. 26: " We have entered the most dra- 
 matic era of the war with such startling suddenness 
 that it is difficult to realize the full extent of its pos- 
 sibilities," says Reuter's correspondent at British Head- 
 quarters, in describing the situation Sunday. " It is a 
 staggering fact that since yesterday morning the enemy 
 has simply disintegrated over a considerable zone." 
 
 Even then the possibility of an ending of 
 the war before a spring campaign seemed, 
 at the least, remote, and yet — within the 
 space of exactly seven weeks, Bulgaria, Tur- 
 key and Austria had been beaten in the field 
 and forced to capitulate at discretion, the 
 Italian armies had come back and won one 
 of the decisive victories of the war, Meso- 
 potamia and the Holy Land were free, Aus- 
 tria had broken up in disintegration and 
 anarchy, the American army had won im- 
 perishable glory at Chateau-Thierry and 
 Saint-Mihiel, had taken Sedan and was at 
 the gates of Metz; the French had driven 
 almost every Germrn ^ross the frontier, 
 the British were back \ Mons, the Belgians 
 
 [ xvii ] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 had cleared half of their country, the King 
 was in Bruges on his way to Brussels — and 
 Germany had surrendered on such terms as 
 never before had been dictated to a broken 
 foe in the whole career of history. 
 
 It is a fact that the 25th day of August, 
 1918, is now generally accepted by military 
 commentators as the day when, as a result 
 of the hammer blows of Foch, now here, 
 now there, without respite and without 
 mercy, the Teuton line, shaken at five differ- 
 ent points, collapsed all along the front, 
 hopelessly and finally. August 25th is ad- 
 mittedly the day when the offensive passed 
 conclusively into the hands of the Allies. 
 
 Further; it is also now avowed from Ger- 
 man sources that " the last week of August" 
 was the time when the morale of the Ger- 
 man people at home snapped like a wire 
 drawn too taut, with no hope of recovery. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that the officers of 
 the Allied armies, the military critics, the 
 newspaper correspondents and the general 
 public were all wrong in their forecast of 
 events, overestimating the mark in their pre- 
 dictions of the date of the ending of the war 
 by about six months, while the one exact 
 prophecy came through the automatic writ- 
 
 [ xviii ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ing produced by an architect and his friend, 
 a prophecy dated the 19th of April, just 
 seven months before the event. What is the 
 explanation? Some must be forthcoming, 
 for the fact opens up unlimited possibilities. 
 The fact itself is incontestable and the dated 
 and attested documents are here to prove it. 
 If in April, 1918, and at the one moment in 
 the four years of war when immediate vic- 
 tory, even victory itself, was most doubtful, 
 the very day of the enemy's downfall is pre- 
 dicted some months hence, how escape the 
 conclusion that some conscious power is de- 
 termining the affairs of men, willy-nilly, in 
 accordance with a preordained destiny; at 
 the least in accordance with the determina- 
 tion of fate? A wise man whom I know 
 once devoutly thanked God that he was not 
 so superstitious as to believe in coincidences. 
 Only Cimmerian superstition would allege 
 a coincidence in this instance as the sufficient 
 explanation. 
 
 In the case of the Glastonbury writings a 
 plausible solution is possible without in- 
 voking " Spiritualism," for Mr. Bond's own 
 theory of the operation of the intuition 
 through the subconscious mind is tenable; 
 so also is the doctrine of the reservoir of 
 
 [xix] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 cosmic memory, and that of the multiple 
 personality, one element in which (not the 
 immortal soul, but a thing like the faculty of 
 memory) survives that dissolution which is 
 death, and remains for a time bound to its 
 earthly environment and strives always to 
 recover a fictitious life through the poten- 
 tiality of the medium. 
 
 In " The Gate of Remembrance " (p. 95) 
 is a communication from "Johannes" which 
 is significant in that it puts this last thing 
 into very clear words : 
 
 " I dydde it not, God wot, not I ! Why cling I to 
 that which is not? It is I, and it is not I, butt parte 
 of me which dwelleth in the past, and is bound to that 
 whych my carnal soul loved and called ' home ' these 
 many years. Yet I, Johannes, amm of many partes, 
 and ye better parte doeth other things — Laus, Laus 
 Deo ! — only that part which remcmbereth clingeth 
 like memory to what it seeth yet." 
 
 In itself this adequately explains how and 
 why the past history of the Abbey is spread 
 before us now after four hundred years, and 
 the secrets of its buried mysteries are given 
 up. 
 
 The predictions of the coming of war and 
 of the end are in another category. Here 
 we are dealing neither with the past nor 
 
 [xx] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 with the present, but with the future ; in one 
 case the prophecy is of what was not to be- 
 fall for five years, in the other for seven 
 months. Subconscious mind, and the reser- 
 voir of memory, and multiple personality all 
 fail here, and some other solution is neces- 
 sary. What this may be I leave to others 
 better fitted than myself to determine. 
 
 Now since the "force" or "conscious- 
 ness" or whatever it is that has manifested 
 itself through Mr. Bond and his friend 
 "J. A.," has established its reputation for 
 veracity through the prophecy of war and 
 the prediction of its end, the question arises 
 as to the credence that should be given to the 
 other forecasts made through the same chan- 
 nels. Consider the "call to arms" which 
 was at the same time the valedictory of " Im- 
 perator," and is dated 29th July, 191 1. 
 Here is, first, the statement that " the West 
 shall fall " and that " the East comes into its 
 heritage." Great Britain is to endure, 
 though "through a sea of blood and suffer- 
 ing shall she attain to her perfection," while 
 " a higher Knighthood than her own shall 
 spare her in the day of the humiliation of 
 nations." Then follows the statement that 
 after this great purgation of " suffering and 
 [xxi] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 catastrophe " shall come " change and the 
 soul's death," while " strange creeds and no 
 creeds shall echo in the sacred places." 
 After an interval " the leaven of the Faith- 
 ful shall work, and because it shall endure 
 it shall transform the world." 
 
 Here is a clear prophecy of the inevitable 
 downfall of Western civilization after the 
 war already foretold. The causes of this 
 great debacle are more than hinted at in the 
 writings that were obtained in 191 8, as for 
 example: 
 
 " Beware! ye ravers. Beware! ye fanatics, ye per- 
 verted and unbalanced, dreamers of great things, that, 
 raving in the land, are leading and directing the brute! 
 — the true Beast of the Apocalypse. Ye not only in- 
 volve yourselves but the whole world of your ideals in 
 one common ruin, and by misdirected freewill which 
 is entirely perverted, set back the clock for generations. 
 Now is the appointed time! For now, Self and its in- 
 firmities are the pendulum swinging to the darkest night 
 of barbarism. Follow the Spirit! Yield to the in- 
 fluence of the Divine, which would fain control you, 
 and the world advances, by the longest stride it ever 
 has taken, to the borders of the Kingdom. Darkness 
 and Light! Self and God! Which, in the relief from 
 the impending menace, will ye accept?" 
 
 There is here not only diagnosis and 
 warning but for the first time an expression 
 of doubt as to the immediate future; at least 
 [ xxii ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 the admission of a choice which may be 
 made and is not yet determined. In the 
 earliest scripts, i.e., 1907-09, there is ap- 
 parent certainty of a recovery that is to be 
 "not long delayed." "Chaos, Darkness — 
 and a new dawn in crimson skies." "Not 
 long the conflict. The fury burns fierce and 
 fast — and then the calm on a red world." 
 In the forepart of 191 8 there seems a more 
 definite certainty of immediate fulfillment, 
 as for example, under date of the 27th of 
 March. "We have told you many times 
 this is the end of old things and the labour- 
 ing world of war, in a new era and a new 
 dispensation. The Earth-spirit passes under 
 the control of a Higher Power, and sud- 
 denly, suddenly in the twinkling of an eye, 
 it will be with you. It is near at hand. In 
 your souls you can feel it, and they who are 
 in war and conflict feel it more than even 
 you do." 
 
 During this year, however, there seems 
 to be an increasing doubt as to the rapidity 
 with which the great revolution that is to 
 follow the war is to attain its fruition in 
 what is constantly referred to as the "New 
 Kingdom" or the "Middle Kingdom" be- 
 tween Matter and Spirit when " the martyr- 
 
 [ xxiii ] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 dom of matter" has been accomplished and, 
 its interpretation by Spirit perfected, Spirit 
 shall for the first time be in universal con- 
 trol. This would seem like a progressive 
 "eclaircissement" of vision on the part of 
 whatever force or intelligence it is that is 
 the source of the script, but the varying in 
 dates (except in the case of the ending of 
 the war when the date was exact to a day) is 
 explained by the statement in the prophecy 
 of 19th April, to the effect that while the in- 
 fluence (whatever it is) does " control spirit- 
 ual forces which manifest themselves in 
 Matter," yet it is "often unconscious of 
 the spiritless movements of Matter after the 
 withdrawal of the spiritual work in Time." 
 A further elucidation is given through the 
 Bergsonian phrase (14th March, 1918) 
 "Time is the ratio of the resistance of 
 Matter to the Spirit." 
 
 Now however much the duration of the 
 predicted "Chaos and Darkness" of the 
 period of revolution and redemption may 
 be prolonged by the resistance of Matter to 
 the interpenetration of Spirit, as this resis- 
 tance is effected by the " ravers and fanatics" 
 the "perverted and unbalanced, dreamers 
 of great things that, raving in the land, are 
 
 [ xxiv ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 leading and directing the brute! — the true 
 Beast of the Apocalypse," and who not only 
 involve themselves but the whole world " in 
 one common ruin, and by misdirected free- 
 will which is entirely perverted, set back the 
 clock for generations" (3rd June, 1918) — 
 the coming in of the new " Spiritual King- 
 dom" is as clearly foretold as the nature of 
 the inimical and arresting force is indi- 
 cated. The choice is given between " Dark- 
 ness and Light, Self and God. Which, in 
 the relief from the impending menace, will 
 ye accept?" 
 
 The headlong events in Russia since the 
 first Revolution, in Germany since the Ar- 
 mistice, and the steady encroachment of 
 these dark forces on the spiritual territories 
 of the Allies, give startling significance to 
 this last script of the 3rd of June, 1918. Itis 
 evident that man himself must, and at once, 
 make his decision for or against a new era 
 of Dark Ages that may soon extend in time 
 to a period equal in duration to the last. 
 It is the old choice, now offered anew, be- 
 tween " Darkness and Light, Self and God. 
 Which, in the relief from the impending 
 
 menace, will ye accept?" 
 
 Ralph Adams Cram. 
 
 [xxv ] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE Glastonbury Messages, published 
 under the title "The Gate of Re- 
 membrance," record the story of the 
 discovery of the long-lost Chapel of King 
 Edgar, by the help of a series of automatic 
 writings produced after careful and thor- 
 ough study of all available documents and 
 data derived from the remains had fur- 
 nished the author and his friend the autom- 
 atist with the material on which it might 
 be supposed that the subconscious powers of 
 the mind could work, in order that by the 
 automatic process some more perfect in- 
 ferences as to the actual facts might be 
 caused to emerge. The success of the proc- 
 ess surpassed all anticipations, and the 
 result certainly indicates a wide field of 
 possible utility for this method of laying 
 hold of truth stored in the subliminal or 
 subconscious mind. 
 
 But the script took a narrative form, and 
 the outstanding peculiarity of it is that it 
 everywhere claims to have been communi- 
 cated by intelligent agents outside the actual 
 [i] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 personality of the automatist and his friend 
 the present writer. And although the Glas- 
 tonbury matters are dealt with in the writ- 
 ings as a coherent whole, and present them- 
 selves as a body of information complete 
 and well-rounded, there appear, almost 
 from the first, certain other features quite 
 foreign to them. These have been described 
 as " intrusions," and are only dealt with in- 
 cidentally in the book, 1 and necessarily to a 
 very limited extent. Behind and beyond 
 the mediaeval and monkish ideas and in- 
 fluences which are concerned with Glaston- 
 bury Abbey, there are in evidence certain 
 controlling influences which speak to us 
 from out the great profundity of time, and 
 which seem to marshal the memories and 
 personalities evoked in the script, as the 
 stage-manager summons and controls the 
 actors of a play in their several parts. 
 These more dominant influences are many, 
 and first and foremost among them appears 
 one of masterful aspect, who speaks to us 
 under the name " Imperator." At other 
 times the communications are signed "The 
 Watchers." They speak to us of things 
 greater than the Abbey, of interests more 
 
 1 "The Gate of Remembrance." 
 [2] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 comprehensive of the general destiny of our 
 race. 
 
 In particular, they have, for many years 
 past, hinted at the coming of a great world- 
 crisis, of war and revolution, leading to the 
 dawn of a new era for man, and the promise 
 of greater power and greater glory for the 
 race, when the materialism which has 
 hitherto stunted his spiritual growth and 
 thwarted his best efforts shall be cast off, 
 and he shall claim lordship over Matter, 
 which shall henceforth be his servant, and 
 no longer as heretofore his master. A few 
 of these writings have been published in an 
 English weekly magazine, but the bulk of 
 them are now for the first time offered to 
 the public through the kind cooperation of 
 Dr. Ralph Adams Cram, whose assistance 
 has made it possible to publish them in 
 America. And the duties of editor will to 
 some extent devolve upon him, though in 
 the presentation of the material it will be 
 necessary that the present writer should add 
 certain notes from his own experience, of 
 an explanatory nature. 
 
 The substance of the script may be di- 
 vided into two main sections: the Pre-War 
 Script, and the Later Script But as, for 
 [3] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 the better elucidation of the whole, and 
 especially of the part claimed to be played 
 by Imperator, the Watchers, and others, 
 we must refer to the latter, the order of 
 sequence is ordered for convenience 1 sake. 
 In every case, however, the extracts will be 
 found to bear their proper date. 
 
 The chief difficulty met with in publica- 
 tion has been the correct rendering of faultily 
 written passages. Much of the original has 
 been difficult to decipher, and occasionally a 
 whole sentence has baffled correct transcrip- 
 tion. Where this is so, the following system 
 has been adopted : ( i ) Italics are used to de- 
 note doubtful verbiage, and (2) where the 
 meaning is itself obscure, dots are inserted. 
 Here and there the present writer has added 
 his own gloss under the initials F.B.B. 
 
 On the very first occasion on which this 
 series of automatic writings was attempted, 1 
 there was observed the same phenomenon 
 which other investigators into the sublim- 
 inal have noticed, namely, a tendency to 
 changes, more or less abrupt, in the manner 
 of diction as well as in the matter of the 
 script. In some of the later sittings this was 
 often so sudden as to constitute a real break 
 
 1 See "The Gate of Remembrance," p. 32. ■ 
 [4] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 in the thread of the communication. Be- 
 fore any of the monkish messages were 
 given this was written: 
 
 " All Knowledge is eternal, and is available to mental 
 sympathy." 
 
 And this was not a mere platitude, but 
 the keynote of all that followed — an idea 
 afterwards enlarged upon and consistently 
 developed until in the later script we have 
 something like a completed scheme of philo- 
 sophic doctrine concerning the survival of 
 the human personality and its real experi- 
 ence as acquired in the body, in union with 
 a greater and more transcendent conscious- 
 ness in which all the individual memories 
 and experiences are preserved and co- 
 ordinated. 
 
 The change of influence was very marked 
 in the fourth sitting. There had been a 
 communication under the name Gulielmus 
 concerning a maiden who, it was said, had 
 spiritual vision, knowing many things "in 
 her herte but not in her minde." The script 
 ran as follows: 
 
 " She is a virgin as of old was Brigit and her bande. 
 Let her goe to ye fielde yclept Bee Eyrie, in ye orcharde; 
 there dreme, and it shall be vouchsafed to her soul to 
 reveal the memory of things now hidden underground 
 
 [5] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 by long tyme: greater than stones or things builded by 
 handes the greater things that perish not, revealed to 
 the pure in herte " 
 
 (here the influence begins to change. 
 F.B.B.). 
 
 " Ye shall learn of builded things . . . and in signs 
 and symbols, more than that. (Ye ) will read the future 
 and the returning of new faith. Ye are for the build- 
 ing of things that were and are not: builded by faith 
 and deeds and lost through vanity and the evil of the 
 pride of the eye " 
 
 (the change is now completed. F.B.B.). 
 
 " Thus shall the light be relighted, and shall shine 
 on all the Earth, a Temple set in the midst of a new 
 revelation, where the wise shall worship as well as the 
 simple, in the old Faith reclothed with acceptance to 
 the wider knowledge, and in the habiliments of modern 
 intelligence." Imperator. 
 
 Here we have for the first time the sig- 
 nature " Imperator." It was entirely un- 
 expected. But F.B.B., who had many years 
 before read, and possessed a copy of, Stain- 
 ton Moses's "Spirit Teachings" was not 
 long in recalling the circumstance that the 
 greater number of these are signed with this 
 name. J. A., the automatist, seems how- 
 ever to have been absolutely unaware of the 
 fact, and had no knowledge of the book. 
 [6] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 We now pass to the ninth sitting, which 
 took place on the 30th of December, 1907, 
 and is recorded in "The Gate of Remem- 
 brance." From this we extract the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 "The Chapel of Our Lady of Glaston: type of 
 spiritual things which are not manifest to you. The 
 changes need not alarm you. The reconstructions will 
 be more perfect. Let the State fall in ruins and the 
 outward garments of Faith perish — fear not ! 
 
 "For greater things will rise into being — great 
 nations and great ideals — we work for it. Be willing, 
 and strive not against the tide. Up on the crest and 
 prosper. All will work for the best. . . . The spark 
 will live thro' the rains and will relight dead fires, 
 fire which is still fire, but with purer flame. We 
 cannot hasten the time, but it is sure, and is not 
 delayed." 
 
 There had been nothing to lead up to 
 this warning. The word "reconstruction" 
 as applying to the ecclesiastical or social 
 fabric, was far from our minds, which were 
 more engaged with the more literal sense of 
 the word, in connection with schemes al- 
 ready in the air for the future of the Abbey 
 ruins. Hence the warning attracted but 
 little attention at the time. It was not fol- 
 lowed up by other communications to a like 
 effect until much later. 
 [7] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 But the recurrence of the signature " Im- 
 perator" excited our curiosity, and F.B.B. 
 thought it well to ask the question, "Will 
 Imperator tell us who he is? " The answer 
 came as follows : 
 
 " C^sar Augustus Imperator et Pacificator " 
 Not knowing the identity of Stainton 
 Moses's " control," which has been more 
 or less a secret known to a few only, we 
 could not feel sure that our "Imperator" 
 was the same. It is now certain that he is 
 not. 
 
 In the eleventh sitting, which took place 
 in very cold weather, in the winter of 1907- 
 1908, a little writing was obtained, very 
 cramped and irregular. It followed on 
 some conversation on the subject of the 
 mental affinities of the British and Romans. 
 We deciphered this: 
 
 " Sanguis Romanorum in Britannia manet et re- 
 
 (e) 
 surgat 
 
 and: 
 
 " In insula Brittanica, Roma manet et resurgat." 
 
 Here followed some attempt to give 
 advice to the sitters about their own affairs, 
 but the cold seemed to make the effort hope- 
 [8] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 less and the sentence broke down with — 
 "obliviscor . . . heu mihi! — pro tempore 
 Augustus non possit!" The thread was 
 then taken up by Johannes, who said: 
 
 " Imperator would say — ' Seek the goal and ensue 
 it.' " 
 
 F.B.B. had given expression to some ques- 
 tion which was in his mind as to the real 
 meaning of these alleged racial rebirths, 
 and there came the following: 
 
 " The facts live, and the emotions and events. The 
 puppets die and are not. The leaf is reproduced : the 
 ear grows: but the old time is dead. You understand 
 not reincarnation, nor can we explain. What in you 
 reincarnates, do you think? How can you find words? 
 Blind gropers after immutable facts, which are not of 
 your sphere or experience." 
 
 The Script of 1909 
 DURING the year 1908, and on through 
 1909, down to the month of October, the 
 Glastonbury message unfolded itself. The 
 script of 1908 was chiefly concerned with 
 the Edgar Chapel, and the features of the 
 building were successively brought to light 
 after their description in the writings, and 
 proved these veridical. First, the rectan- 
 gular chapel as built by Abbot Beere of 
 [9] ' 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 which it had been said, "We laid down 
 seventy-and-two, but they builded longer." 
 And the extreme measure proved to be 
 within a few inches of this length, though 
 no hint of any such length, nor even of any 
 division of length in this chapel, had been 
 extant in document or tradition. Subse- 
 quently were found the remains of the 
 polygonal apse, whose outline, following 
 the indication of the script, was published 
 before discovery. 
 
 During 1909 much more matter was re- 
 ceived, whose accuracy, as in the case of 
 the Loretto Chapel, still awaits verification, 
 which will be attempted when funds and 
 labour are forthcoming at the right season 
 of the year. Throughout this time we have 
 no actual mention of Imperator's presence, 
 although we are occasionally sensible of a 
 controlling influence which may be his. 
 
 During October, 1909, J. A. (Mr. John 
 Alleyne) was located at Teddington, and 
 on the evening of the 15th of that month, 
 a further experiment was made, and the 
 result was strange and utterly beyond antic- 
 ipation. In a few terse sentences, in lan- 
 guage powerful and full of fine imagery, 
 there came a prediction, quite unmistakable, 
 [10] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of a world-war, a cataclysm which should 
 drench the earth in blood, with a hint im- 
 plied of some sort of social revolution to 
 follow or to accompany it. Afterwards is 
 to come an era of splendour which is spoken 
 of as " the great feast of the Christus," and 
 the communication is signed "Augustus 
 Caesar Imperator" (see full transcript fol- 
 lowing, p. 15). 
 
 The Script of 191 i 
 
 DURING 19 10, several writings were ob- 
 tained, all of which seem to have had 
 reference to Glastonbury, but we do not 
 detect the influence of Imperator again 
 until April, 191 1, when he intervenes 
 brusquely to correct the sitters' misappre- 
 hension about Ralph FitzHamon (see "The 
 Gate of Remembrance," p. 108). 
 
 Again on the 7th July, we obtain the fine 
 utterance which commences with a call to 
 Britain, summoning her to enter upon a 
 new heritage of greatness which is to be 
 hers after the " fall of the West." Her Em- 
 pire shall endure, for she will not fail in 
 spirit. And with her, and her company of 
 nations, will be united in loyalty and chival- 
 rous friendship those ancient races of the 
 [11] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 East who have learned her love of justice 
 and freedom. 
 
 It would seem indeed that she would 
 have need of that friendship, and that the 
 day may come when, exhausted with suffer- 
 ing and sacrifice, she will be at the mercy 
 of the still unexploited manhood of the 
 East, now awakening to its world-heritage. 
 What further vials are to be poured out 
 upon unhappy Europe? What will bring 
 about the final humiliation of her peoples? 
 Whatever it be, we are promised that a 
 higher knighthood than her own shall in- 
 tervene to spare our race. Can we not 
 already discern a promise of that high chiv- 
 alry in the flower of Oriental culture now 
 mingling with us? 
 
 The latter part of this script is indeed 
 the logical sequence of the first, for with 
 a greatly increased influence and -prestige 
 in mundane affairs of Eastern modes of 
 thought would certainly arrive newer and 
 fuller interpretations of religion and a 
 further slackening of the hold which the 
 mere intellectualisms of the cruder and 
 often less spiritual mind of the West has 
 managed until now in a measure to retain. 
 (See transcript, p. 18.) 
 
 [12] 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Script of 191 2 
 
 JUST three years after the appearance of 
 the war script of 1909, comes a further cor- 
 roboration of the warning then conveyed. 
 The mysterious "Poppies" therein alluded 
 to, are again spoken of — poppies of blood! 
 It was on the 26th of October, 19 12, that 
 this second war script was given. The 
 Balkan war was raging at the time, and no 
 doubt many people were watching the situ- 
 ation with anxiety, and fearing that the 
 conflagration might spread. And we can 
 read in the script a sense of shortly impend- 
 ing doom for the whole of Europe. " POV- 
 ERTY, HUNGER, AND THE WAR-LUST IN 
 EVERY LAND ON WHICH LIES THE SHADOW 
 OF THE CROSS." It is a fact of strange sig- 
 nificance that the territories invaded in the 
 Great War have been Christian territories, 
 and the massacred and enslaved peoples, 
 Christian peoples. Asiatic Turkey, that is, 
 Turkey proper, has been inviolate, and save 
 for internecine warfare between Turk and 
 Arab, which has been a matter of old 
 standing, the non-Christian world has been 
 spared the ordeals of invasion. 
 The transcript of these earlier writings is 
 [13] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 appended to these notes. There are alto- 
 gether four different scripts. The first three 
 were published in the London weekly Light 
 for May 18, 1918; the fourth, dated 27th 
 June, 1912, has recently been recovered 
 from a mass of miscellaneous writings 
 mostly concerning Glastonbury Abbey. It 
 concerns the rise of a false democracy and 
 its attempted usurpation of power by gross 
 and violent methods. The most recent 
 scripts — those obtained in 1918 — contain 
 allusions to the same subject, and readers 
 may compare the earlier with the later 
 warnings given. On first reading, in 1909, 
 the script which speaks of "The Poppies," 
 one's thoughts naturally turned to a war of 
 nations. Yet the following words point 
 surely to a social upheaval : 
 
 " Strike not and ye will be stricken not; and they of 
 a true heart among the people will give you shelter. 
 Among them ye have no foes." 
 
 There seems in these writings no definite 
 distinction between the national and the so- 
 cial cataclysm. The two are interwoven. 
 They may be dual aspects of One Great 
 Event. 
 
 [14] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR AND 
 OF THE ENDING OF WAR 
 
 Here begin the War Prophecies; suddenly 
 and without warning or preface. The 
 writing was obtained at Teddington 
 where U J. A. " was then staying. R. A. C. 
 
 October 15, 1909. 
 
 " Fortuna fuit. Caelum ruit. Labor fruit in 
 aeternum." 
 
 Q. What is impending? 
 
 A. " War — horrid war. Mars is King. 
 Brother's blood. Before the great feast of the 
 Christus, the Nazarene, it cometh. The weak 
 must suffer. The strong must die. Those who 
 are neither will suffer and live. Chaos — dark- 
 ness — and a new dawn in crimson skies. 
 
 " Bow to the storm. Leave the strong to break it 
 and be broken. Be like the holy men of old, in the 
 sanctuary of your inner selves. Strike not, and ye will 
 be stricken not, and they of a true heart among the 
 people will give you shelter. Among them ye have no 
 foes. But there must be suffering of the body. Fear 
 not. The shrine of your inner self is consecrated 
 ground, and none will enter there. 
 
 " Learn the great secret. Let others strive for the 
 shadows. To the earth the earth; and to the stars 
 the soul of the free. 
 
 [15] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 " Not long the conflict. The fury burns fierce and 
 fast. And then the calm on a red world. 
 
 "The masters watch: the puppets play, and think 
 that they are gods. Let them dance! They are gone 
 like the shadows of the night. 
 
 "Red world! Red Poppies of forgetfulness in the 
 graveyard of the past and gone — for — ever — 
 
 " They dance but to a music of madness, which is 
 not of their piping. They swell and sweep the earth, 
 and say, ' Behold ! We have changed the face of the 
 Universe, and there is no God ! ' And the Silent Ones 
 look down and cease their piping, and the song of the 
 morning arises. 
 
 " Red Poppies in the graveyard. And then Red Pop- 
 pies in the smiling cornfields in the sun. Read, learn, 
 and fear not. All is well, and all has been ordained. 
 
 " Out of the ocean of the Infinite the ripples come. 
 Deaf ears hear not their murmur. Blind eyes see not 
 their shimmer, nor the rainbow on their crests. The 
 blind lead not the blind, but they who see. Ye have 
 your answer. 
 
 " Hearing, they will not hear: and seeing, they will 
 not believe, and who can change the course of Destiny ? 
 The force moves on. Who can change or check its 
 coming? Only watch and wait! 
 
 " Play with the toys of Man's handiwork — it is 
 well. He makes his instruments out of humble things. 
 Your great Abbey of yesterday — a child's puppet — 
 nothing more ; but a great Impulse from the Eternal 
 created it, and the echo of that Inspiration is on you 
 now. Yesterday, the work in stone: eternal and ever- 
 lasting, the emotions it typifies go on. 
 
 [16] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 " Even as the ant in the grass, so is your work in 
 the eyes of the watchers. But through the ages of 
 your soul's development, the seed shall grow, and as 
 architect of the soul in the Life of the Infinite, ye 
 shall know the value of that which is now of little 
 worth. Strive for a prize of high calling. Do some- 
 thing well, and aspire to reconstruct that Perfection 
 which Avalon humbly typifies, and ye have an exceed- 
 ing great reward. Understand. 
 
 " Augustus C^sar. Imperator." 
 
 "Britain, Arise! July 29, 191 1. 
 
 " That which has been, shall be. New things 
 appear, but the Old in new guise shall return. 
 Ye have been great. Ye shall be great in other 
 garments, as Rome hath been: and in new realms, 
 new possessions, new joys — strange, but still 
 the same. 
 
 " What change comes? Say, is your Britain of 
 today the Britain of olden time — of one short 
 hundred years ago? 
 
 "When the West shall fall, Britain shall en- 
 dure. The East comes into its heritage in the 
 days to come ; and as well try to stop the sun, as 
 the march of progress. But when that Day 
 comes, Britain shall remain the Friend and Com- 
 rade of the Eastern nations, as she has ever been. 
 
 "Once the Friend — changed not — just and 
 faithful to her trust: then the Friend and Ally 
 of the nations of the East. 
 
 " Forget not : so have comfort. She shall en- 
 dure, but Perfection comes through suffering 
 and catastrophe. Through a sea of blood and 
 
 [17] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 suffering shall she attain to her perfection: the 
 elder sister and the model of their constitution. 
 But fear not! A higher Knighthood than her 
 own shall spare her in the day of the humiliation 
 of nations, and with a new growth shall she 
 flourish in her gates. 
 
 " But then cometh change, and the soul's death. 
 The Old Gods shall be for a time eclipsed, and 
 strange creeds and no creeds shall echo in the 
 sacred places for a time; but thereafter a time, 
 and then the leaven of the Faithful shall work, 
 and because it shall endure it shall transform the 
 world. The great Truth shall manifest itself — 
 the Word as it was spoken. For men shall strive 
 each for his own truth, and shall strip the gar- 
 ments off the gods, and behold! their nakedness 
 shall show the face of the One Eternal Truth 
 whose shadow all religions be ; and men shall say, 
 'Quarrel not! Behold! Your Gods are mine, 
 only we did not understand ! ' 
 
 " But the truth of the East and of the West is 
 the same and thereby shall all men marvel. 
 " I have spoken. 
 
 "Imperator. Vale." 
 
 "Demos" Script 
 
 27th January, 191 2. 
 Note. The first part of this script refers entirely to 
 technical details of Glastonbury Abbey, and is there- 
 fore not printed here. The question was then asked 
 " What lies in store for Glastonbury? " 
 
 A. Trans oceana spes est. (Across the ocean 
 is hope.) 
 
 [18] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 Immediately afterwards the following was written: 
 
 " Ruat ccelum ! Self and Luxury. Demos rises and 
 would sweep away all there is of good and charity. 
 Fear not his swelling gorge. He blindly snatches at the 
 fruit and will clutch the empty air. 
 
 " Those in high places will turn in just wrath and 
 rend him. He aimeth too high and will fall swollen 
 with pride and with the success begotten of the apathy 
 and kindness of those who should rule with firmness. 
 He thinketh he hath but to stretch forth his hand and 
 the fruit will fall. Not so is the Law of God and 
 Man subverted : and even as the great ones of the earth 
 have found their mistake, so will this god of clay fall 
 to pieces in his effort for the god of Self. So we have 
 said. 
 
 " The elements of his ruin are in himself; and after 
 a time and times, he will turn and rend himself, and 
 the earth shall be as it was before he rose to sprinkle 
 the blood of the just and innocent upon her breast. 
 
 "Imper:" 
 
 October 26, 1912. 
 
 "That which we spoke of, know we. The 
 'Poppies' cometh to pass before the Day of 
 Christ. Note what we have said. Poverty and 
 Hunger and the War-lust in every land on which 
 lieth the shadow of the Cross. They who would 
 be at peace with their neighbours shall not be 
 able, for Peace reigns no more. War with their 
 neighbours is better than war at home, and so 
 the cause must be made for quarrels. So, when 
 Europe is exhausted, the reign of Asia will begin, 
 for there the Sun is rising. So say we." 
 
 [19] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 The Later Script 
 
 The close of the year 1916, found the 
 writer domiciled in Bristol, with his friend, 
 J. A. a near neighbour, and by December 
 it had been mutually agreed that, in view 
 of the greatly revived interest in the sub- 
 ject of spiritual phenomena, the experi- 
 ments in writing should be resumed. Mean- 
 while F.B.B. had formed the intention of 
 publishing, as soon as might be possible, the 
 story of the finding of the Edgar Chapel. 
 A sitting on December 4th, 1916, led, unex- 
 pectedly, to the production of additional 
 matter concerning the as yet undiscovered 
 "Loretto" Chapel, and the upshot was that 
 he decided to incorporate in his book "The 
 Gate of Remembrance," all the matter deal- 
 ing with this, since the story was now com- 
 plete, and only needed the spade for veri- 
 fication. This was done, and the volume 
 appeared early in the year 191 8, which 
 brings us to a new chapter of events. 
 
 The War Script of 19 18 
 
 It was not long after the publication of 
 
 "The Gate of Remembrance," that Sir 
 
 William Barrett, F. R. S., who is so well 
 
 [20] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 known in connection with the work of the 
 Society for Psychical Research, approached 
 the writer with a suggestion that he should 
 continue his experiments in automatic writ- 
 ing — to which he readily agreed, and as 
 J. A. also concurred, the sittings were re- 
 sumed early in March. The subject was 
 left open, and the matter was approached 
 with a mind quite impartial as to what 
 might be the result. The first three or four 
 attempts were entire failures. All that was 
 obtained was a few lines of minute writing, 
 very irregular, cramped, and almost en- 
 tirely illegible. At last perseverance was 
 rewarded in a small measure, and a script 
 was obtained on the ioth of March, and 
 a second on the nth, which proved to be 
 of a philosophic nature. Again on the 13th, 
 writing was produced in which it was 
 possible to make out the sense in parts. 
 It turned out to be a prediction of the future 
 course of the war (see p. 49). The gist of 
 it was — if we correctly interpret the very 
 difficult writing — that the end of the eighth 
 month of 19 18 would find the enemy weak- 
 ened by lack of resources, and that his re- 
 sistance would collapse on the twenty-fourth 
 day of August. The expression used is 
 [21] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 "surcease of battles" — a term very incor- 
 rect as the event proved, though it was at 
 this date that the English forces operating 
 in the neighbourhood of Bapaume, made 
 their first unmistakable sweep forward, 
 overriding the enemy's resistance and to a 
 great extent confirming the feeling of as- 
 cendancy which Foch's earlier achievement 
 had inspired. 
 
 The remainder of the script seemed to 
 have reference to a pestilence of sorts that 
 was to follow the harvest, and it would seem 
 that this prediction has been in a measure 
 justified. It also referred to a segregation 
 of the new race, or chosen peoples, but this 
 part has not yet been satisfactorily made 
 out, and the script seems hopelessly bad to 
 decipher. 1 
 
 Further trials were made, still with little 
 success, and feeling that something was in- 
 hibiting the free action of the subconscious 
 faculty in the automatist, the writer was led 
 to try the experiment of detaching the work- 
 ing of the conscious from the subconscious 
 by a new method. This was as follows. 
 
 The next sitting which took place on the 
 
 1 Further study has cleared up many obscure points and the 
 sense is now clear. See transcript, pp. 50, 51. R. A. C. 
 
 [22] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 21st of March may be regarded as the first 
 of the new series. Instead of mere conversa- 
 tion, to distract the mind from the mechan- 
 ical action of the hand, F.B.B. took a book 
 and read continuously from it during the 
 whole course of the sitting. The book 
 chosen on this occasion was Dr. S. Honaga's 
 "National Spirit of Japan." 
 
 The result was immediately successful. 
 There was at once a marked improvement in 
 the continuity and freedom of the writing, 
 which flowed evenly and extended to four 
 pages of neatlywrittenmatter, the lines being 
 well maintained. The subject of this com- 
 munication is the reproduction of hered- 
 itary memories in human symbolism as 
 expressed in language and in architecture. 
 There was a pause at the end of the second 
 page, and before anything material had been 
 deciphered, F.B.B. asked the question, "Can 
 you give us anything on the subject of 'The 
 Gate of Remembrance ' ? " The writing was 
 immediately resumed, but on examination 
 afterwards it was found that the subject of 
 the question had been dismissed in a single 
 curt sentence and that of the former subject 
 of the script had been continued. 
 
 The success of the new method, and its 
 [23] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 clear advantage in dissociating J. A.'s nor- 
 mal consciousness from what his hand was 
 engaged upon, was so unmistakable, that the 
 same plan was followed out systematically 
 all through the course of the sittings in this 
 series. F.B.B. was careful to see that his 
 friend's attention was fully given to the 
 reading, and he would frequently punctuate 
 it by comments and questions, necessitating 
 a reasoned rejoinder on the part of J. A. 
 It was also his practice at the conclusion of 
 a sitting to discuss with his friend the sub- 
 ject-matter of the reading, so that he might 
 feel sure that his attention had been con- 
 tinuously fixed upon it. The result was 
 sufficient to confirm the conviction that it 
 had been genuinely given. 
 
 Now there are many cases known in 
 which persons of intellectual ability have 
 been able to give simultaneous attention to 
 three or four distinct subjects, and the 
 faculty is most commonly seen in the case 
 of men of business who are able to dictate to 
 their shorthand clerks, sentence by sentence, 
 in rotation, perhaps as many as four letters 
 on different subjects, and yet retain the 
 several threads of thought clear and dis- 
 tinct. But the parallel, though seemingly 
 [24] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 a close one, is not so in reality, and this for 
 two reasons. In the first place, your busi- 
 ness man is in reality performing a feat of 
 agility which is a purely intellectual one. 
 His attention is given, however, not simul- 
 taneously, but consecutively, to his three or 
 four subjects, and all that he is really doing 
 is to jump with a wonderful degree of quick- 
 ness and precision, from one to the other. 
 And these subjects are more or less of kin- 
 dred nature, which makes the transition 
 easier. The same may be said of the chess 
 expert, who will play as many as twenty- 
 four games of chess blindfold, and simul- 
 taneously in the sense that the moves alter- 
 nate in rapid rotation. 
 
 But here we are face to face with a dif- 
 ferent problem. The reading is continuous. 
 The writing is also continuous. There is no 
 pause, not for a moment, which can allow 
 mental breathing space for the alternation 
 of the current of thought. And the script, 
 when it comes to be read, is on a subject so 
 widely removed in quality, in nature, in its 
 psychological atmosphere, from that of the 
 reading, that it may be said to have nothing 
 whatever in common with the latter. And 
 more than this. Under such circumstances, 
 [25] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 the mechanical action of the brain would, 
 one would think, result almost inevitably 
 in the occasional picking-up of a word or 
 phrase here and there from the reading by 
 the common phenomenon of " metaphasia," 
 and the reappearance of such isolated words 
 or phrases in the script. But such a thing 
 has never yet been observed. Neither is 
 there any similarity visible at any time be- 
 tween the literary style of what is read to 
 the medium, and the style of the script. 
 The script indeed has its own style, and it 
 is a peculiar one, very different from that 
 which is habitual to the medium. But the 
 unique interest of the script is this: that it 
 shews all throughout a consistent purpose, 
 a sustained argument, a memory of what 
 has been already given, and an avoidance 
 of repetitions. It shews independence of 
 view, common sense, and critical judgment. 
 Therefore in assessing the value of these 
 writings under the conditions stated, full 
 weight must be given to the features above 
 noted, and the possible presence of an in- 
 telligence other than that of the medium or 
 of the writer must be considered. 
 
 [26] 
 
the prophecies of war 
 
 Script of March 27 
 
 On the 27th of March, in the presence of a 
 witness, M. W., a script was obtained of 
 which the followingis a resume. F.B.B. read 
 continuously from Duhamel's "New Book 
 of Martyrs." The difficulties in communi- 
 cation were described, and the wretched 
 quality of the writing accounted for by the 
 psychic disturbances consequent on the tur- 
 moil of war on the physical plane. In this 
 turmoil of emotion the passional nature of 
 the newly slain is described as an active 
 element, and the Earth-spirit is involved. 
 In this script the ultimate triumph of the 
 cause of intrinsic right is asserted, also the 
 waning of the enemy's last great effort as 
 seen in the slackening of his advance, this 
 being the prelude to complete disaster. 
 And the mutterings of coming trouble on 
 the Eastern front of Germany's empire are 
 foreshadowed. Reference to a chronicle 
 of the campaign in the spring will shew the 
 reader that at this time (Wednesday be- 
 fore Easter) the situation was one which 
 all the Allied nations were viewing with 
 the utmost apprehension, and it is now no 
 longer a secret that the British Prime Min- 
 ify ] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 ister had prepared against the formidable 
 eventuality of a break-through to the coast 
 by the enemy, which would separate the Al- 
 lied forces, and necessitate the withdrawal 
 of the British from the fields of northern 
 France. 
 
 Script of March 29 
 
 On Good Friday, March 29th, things 
 were at their worst, and the public mind 
 was full of anxiety, but the script received 
 this day was full of sustained hopeful- 
 ness, and contained again the assurance of 
 victory. 
 
 The dissolution of the central combina- 
 tion was predicted in the near future. 
 " Watch ! " it reads, " on Easter Day the tide 
 will turn and ebb swiftly and consistently." 
 Late on Saturday came to hand Sir Doug- 
 las Haig's cheering report that the enemy's 
 attacks had been repulsed at all points, the 
 full news of his enormous losses being pub- 
 lished on Easter Monday, April 1st. And 
 on this day the London evening papers 
 came out with the headlines "THE TIDE 
 HAS TURNED." 
 
 The script of March 29 also said that 
 " the very elements would fight on the side 
 [28] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 of right." Now the weather up to this point 
 had been distinctly and consistently unfa- 
 vourable. But in a correspondent's letter 
 to the Daily Chronicle, dated April 2, we 
 find the following: 
 
 " Our soldiers are saying, what probably a good 
 many Germans are thinking, that ever since the bom- 
 bastic Kaiser declared that this was his battle, things 
 have ceased to go well with the enemy. The progress 
 of the opening days of the offensive, which drew forth 
 this bragging claim, has been arrested, and on balance 
 the fighting since then has gone distinctly in our favour. 
 The luck of the weather has turned for about the first 
 time that I can call to mind, and gone completely 
 against the enemy." 
 
 Script of March 30 
 
 On the Saturday before Easter, and before 
 the better news had been received, a script 
 was obtained which again referred to the 
 war. F.B.B. read from Crake's " Last Abbot 
 of Glastonbury." It was pointed out that 
 although all material signs were so far un- 
 favourable to the Allies, yet this was only 
 a superficial aspect of a different, and much 
 more hopeful, state of things, but the forces 
 making for a bold effect would not be 
 apparent till the morrow. The enemy was 
 in reality shattering his forces against a 
 [29] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 barrier produced by the indomitable energy 
 of the Allies, their unbroken communica- 
 tions, and above all, by the moral strength 
 of an honest cause. 
 
 This script passes to the gradual awak- 
 ening of Germany to the truth so long 
 hidden from her people under a screen of 
 falsehood and intriguing diplomacy, now 
 wearing thin. The following remarkable 
 words are used : 
 
 " The awakening of the soul of this great misguided 
 nation will be the termination of its warlike force, and 
 a fresh force presents itself which will destroy war 
 utterly and overthrow it." 
 
 And it adds: "Tomorrow the first great 
 sign of failure will be manifest and what 
 follows we have told you already." The 
 League of Nations is foreshadowed in this 
 script, and the imminence of Germany's 
 debacle is predicted thus: 
 
 " The swing of the pendulum will shew Germany ere 
 long not only on the side of the Allies but in the fore- 
 front of a new menace which will ere long arise. She 
 who has so sinned will thus work out her own sal- 
 vation." 
 
 And now we have Germany appealing 
 to the Allies to support her against the 
 threatening spectre of Bolshevism! It is 
 [30] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 strange to look back at this Easter script 
 and see these words. The script ends with 
 a passage on the dangers of ignorance and 
 the forces of Ignorance in a world ruled by 
 intellect. The exclusiveness of intellect 
 and its failure in sympathy towards the 
 masses are given as the cause of the down- 
 fall of past civilizations. But in the script 
 following this (March 31), we are prom- 
 ised that this will not be so again, as knowl- 
 edge is now sufficiently diffused to offer a 
 foundation broad enough and firm enough 
 for a permanent social fabric, established 
 by the union of all classes in the bond of 
 brotherly love which is the basis of Chris- 
 tianity, which is after all (to quote the 
 script) but the inspired philosophy of 
 earlier ages interpenetrated by humanity 
 made manifest. ( The Word made Flesh. — 
 F.B.B.) 
 
 Script of March 31 
 
 (Easter Day) 
 In this communication more is said on the 
 nature of intellect and the need for enlight- 
 ened reason to control the forces of the 
 emotional and intuitive nature of Man. A 
 warning is uttered against that abuse of in- 
 [31] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 tellectual control which has involved the 
 soul of the German nation in schemes of 
 material ambition using the weapons of 
 force and violence to attain its ends. This 
 influence must pass, and yield to a readjust- 
 ment in which the moral and spiritual fac- 
 tors will reassert their dominance over the 
 material side of man's thought and will. 
 It ends with these words: 
 
 " Today the balance changes, and soon it will be 
 manifest to all the world. Let Humanity hold hands 
 and never break the chain. So shall the influence of 
 the greatest pervade the whole in the time appointed." 
 
 Script of April i 
 The script obtained on this day (Easter 
 Monday) is purely on philosophic lines, and 
 is therefore not included in this series. It 
 has to do with the genesis and the evolution 
 of the twin powers of the human soul — 
 Intuition and Intellect, shewing their re- 
 actions and the manner in which they will 
 ultimately achieve a perfect union, bring- 
 ing the golden age of our race. The meet- 
 ing of the two powers is compared to the 
 building of the two arcs of a bridge, whose 
 Keystone is the Divine Logos, Reason. 
 
 [32] 
 
the prophecies of war 
 
 Script of April 17 1 
 
 We are told again not to be misled by ap- 
 pearances, the storm and stress of the ma- 
 terial happenings being only as it were the 
 dark background of a picture illuminated 
 by a manifestation of spiritual influences 
 making for the victory of Right and Truth. 
 The new offensive, we are told, was a des- 
 perate necessity for Germany, in order to 
 avoid a state of paralysis; and with our- 
 selves, the further sacrifice is not in vain. 
 It is like the pruning of a young tree, and 
 the grafting in of new branches — represent- 
 ing a new spirit — at the very root. The 
 issue will be a great regeneration, and no 
 sudden change of spirit is predicted. Yet 
 in Austria first, and afterwards in Ger- 
 many, a change of mind is growing more 
 manifest. 
 
 Script of April 18 
 The significance of the most terrible and 
 cataclysmic of human happenings is but 
 
 1 This script was obtained after an intermission of sixteen 
 days, at 12 noon, at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. [F.B.B.'s 
 address.] Conversation had been entirely on the subject of the 
 book, " The Gate of Remembrance," with one brief reference to 
 the war news which was serious. During the writing F.B.B. read 
 aloud continuously from Edgar Wallace's novel, "The Council of 
 Justice." 
 
 [33] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 small as compared with the birth of spirit- 
 ual principles. Even the submergence of 
 a civilization is a thing that, in the ulti- 
 mate reckoning, weighs but little in view 
 of the fact that the Eternal Purpose, though 
 thwarted and set back by Man's unreadiness 
 to exercise his Freewill in a spiritual direc- 
 tion, will finally vindicate itself and estab- 
 lish the destined Kingdom. On the first 
 reading of this script, the views expressed 
 seemed to exhibit a ruthlessness for which 
 the sitters were unprepared, and F.B.B. 
 voiced this feeling in a question, or rather, 
 a request for further explanation. The 
 answer was given in these words : 
 
 " May will prove the statement that we have made 
 and repeated to you. The advance of the material 
 force outlines the adopted plan, and carries the foe 
 down the fair lands that lie to the west of him. The 
 breaking wave of realization and truth sweeps eastward. 
 Therefore have we told you the heart of the foe grows 
 faint with fear and the consciousness of evil done. All 
 the glory and all that he rights for sinks to dross in view 
 of the discovery that he is deceived and betrayed. The 
 bitterness against his rulers rises while yet his forces 
 sweep desperately against all opposition in growing 
 ferocity; and the very blows that he deals against the 
 opposition of the Allies are but levelled against the 
 heart and life of his betrayers. Such conditions cannot 
 persist, but must break and end in quick decline and 
 
 [34] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 reaction, even as a dying brute has greater fury with 
 his last flicker of strength, although he knows his end 
 has come. 
 
 "These things we say. This we know, and (the 
 truths) are apparent to us in our places. Those, there- 
 fore, who prune the tree weep not for the dropping 
 leaves and withering branches. Only ye are the tree, 
 healthy and regenerate. So rejoice, and do not sorrow 
 ever." 
 
 Script of April 19 
 We are told in this script that our human 
 judgments of right and wrong are very- 
 faulty. For example, there is much to be 
 said for the older ideals of conquest, and 
 there is a spiritual purpose underlying war 
 which has hitherto made that terrible in- 
 strument necessary to the Divine scheme 
 of evolution in Man. And though we have 
 been promised the success of the Allied 
 cause, yet this coming success will be " rather 
 in the necessities of development in the 
 scheme of Creation, than in any intrinsic 
 superiority of one ideal over the other." 
 This we found very difficult to understand. 
 One might almost say that it was repugnant. 
 But what is spoken of is " Ideals" and not 
 "Methods" and there lies our human diffi- 
 culty, for it is not easy for us to dissociate 
 these things, and to maintain a clear view of 
 [35] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 principles apart from the admixture of ma- 
 terial motives with which all human activ- 
 ities are of necessity amalgamated. It is 
 conceivable that we should not have been 
 disposed to think evil of the German ideal 
 of World-Order, and a perfectly organized 
 body-politic under one paternal govern- 
 ment, had she always employed humane 
 methods and disdained all material and 
 personal gain and caste aggrandisement in 
 her pursuit of this ideal. 
 
 We on our side, we are told, have had 
 the moral support of the conviction that we 
 have battled for Right, for Liberty, and for 
 the support of the weaker nations. But 
 these, and a hundred other intense convic- 
 tions do but screen a great underlying need 
 for commercial freedom, and in accepting 
 the gage of battle, our personal and na- 
 tional activities have been a powerful 
 stimulus. Yet the really decisive factor 
 has been the superiority of spiritual over 
 brutal methods, and this is made plain in 
 the later part of this script. The argument 
 is elucidated in the following words: 
 
 " Ye chose the spiritual — they the brutal. In this 
 way do ye differ. Thus there is a reason in the uni- 
 versal scheme for the victory over Matter and the 
 
 [36] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 principles of Matter. The survival of the fittest; the 
 best basis of government: these engage on the side of 
 the foe, and under ordinary conditions and in the de- 
 velopment of Man's best benefit, they should have won. 
 But as ye know, and we have told you, the Era of 
 Spirit comes quickly, and the old conditions are ending. 
 Therefore ye will win, and thus the old era ends. The 
 intention of War, the interpenetration of the material 
 force of the victors by the spirit and soul of the van- 
 quished, is no longer necessary nor desirable. 
 
 " For the first time in the history of Mankind the 
 rules have been removed and reversed, because now for 
 the first time in the evolution of the Earth, Spirit is 
 not only triumphantly dominant over Matter, but this 
 domination has at last been necessary for the betterment 
 of Mankind." 
 
 Discursus on Prophecy 
 In the course of this script occurs a re- 
 markable passage dealing with the date 
 already given for the Ending of the War. 
 It occurs in response to a remark interjected 
 by F.B.B. to the following effect: 
 
 "What we feel we want at present (be- 
 lieving that it may be helpful to many) is 
 something tangible connected with human 
 affairs that will shew unmistakably the 
 presence of a Guiding Power." The an- 
 swer is as follows : 
 
 " We have given you the spiritual ending of 
 the war as on August the twenty-sixth (sic), and 
 
 [37] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 the material manifestation may, and should, coin- 
 cide. We have this difficulty, that though we 
 control spiritual forces which manifest them- 
 selves in Matter, yet we are often unconscious 
 of the spiritless movements of Matter after the 
 withdrawal of the spiritual work in Time. As 
 the oceans may continue to heave and swell long 
 after the tempest which moved them has passed 
 away ; and even as conflicts between individuals 
 may persist long after anger and opposition have 
 passed from their souls, so an outward semblance 
 of war may continue sporadically and inter- 
 mittently long after the opposing nations have 
 ceased to desire it." 
 
 Assuming a spiritual force as the stimu- 
 lating cause of all human motions one is 
 bound, we think, to admit the reasonable- 
 ness of this parallel: and hence the uncer- 
 tainty of any predictions of date. Even 
 among the exponents of Biblical prophecy, 
 the fulfillment of events has even been sub- 
 ject to this same uncertainty, and where 
 students of prophecy have attempted to fix 
 definite dates they have in all cases, so far 
 as we are aware, found themselves con- 
 stantly at fault, for they have too often pro- 
 ceeded upon an assumption, which we see 
 nothing to warrant, that the precise dates 
 are preordained and predetermined. It is 
 by this means they would seek to vindicate 
 [38] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 the exact foreknowledge of the Creator. 
 But, on the other hand, would they not one 
 and all demand scope for the active prin- 
 ciple of Human Freewill? And if Free- 
 will or Self-determination be really a domi- 
 nant factor in the making of Man's history, 
 it is difficult to see why the course of the 
 greatest of human events should not be sub- 
 ject to the same limitation in regard to the 
 exact period of their accomplishment, as 
 the innumerable minor ones. To assert the 
 fixity of these greater ones in point of date 
 would seem to involve the denial of Free- 
 will in Man, a proposition no thinking man 
 can tolerate. 
 
 So in lesser affairs. Impulse, Intuition, 
 Will, guide and control, but human intellect 
 is the executive agent, and human intellect 
 is involved in human circumstances and con- 
 ditions which make for conflict of decision. 
 The captain lays down a course and a time- 
 table for his ship; but although the desti- 
 nation of the vessel is preordained, the mo- 
 ment of his arrival in port will depend upon 
 the intelligent will of his officers and crew. 
 
 Again, as regards the overruling power 
 of God, Providence, the Almighty Will that 
 presides over human destinies, shall we be 
 [39] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 content with the older conception of a 
 purely Transcendent Power, moving us like 
 pawns on a chessboard, or shall we not 
 rather think of the Word, the Logos, incar- 
 nate in Man, untiringly wooing and winning 
 his heart and mind ever in harmony with the 
 transcendent Will and Purpose, but never 
 at the expense of his freedom of choice? 
 
 Script of May 
 DURING the month of May, a number of 
 writings were received, but without direct 
 bearing upon the war, except in a philo- 
 sophic sense. A good deal was said on the 
 subject of what was termed " the martyr- 
 dom of Matter" implying that the general 
 break-up of material conditions as well as 
 the sacrifice of life, was in reality liberating 
 powerful spiritual forces hitherto pent in 
 Matter. And the result of this process 
 would be the hastening of the New Era in 
 which spiritual conditions would assert 
 once for all their dominance over Man's 
 development. Another very interesting 
 consideration emerges from the script. 
 This is the westward trend of human life 
 and civilization. The original impulse 
 towards westward migration is deeply hid- 
 [40] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 den in the soul of Man, who is generally 
 unaware of its spiritual nature. Thus only 
 the material motives of trade and conquest, 
 or national expansion which is a motive for 
 conquest are obvious to him, but the higher 
 developments follow, as we see in the case 
 of the spread of religions westward, as the 
 script says. On the other hand there is 
 always a reaction of a purely spiritual na- 
 ture in an eastward direction and we get 
 a very curious application of this law in a 
 later script, received on June ist. 
 
 Script of June i 
 
 The instrument of the spiritual activities 
 in impelling the movements of the races of 
 Man always westward, is the magnetism of 
 the Sun, which is described as winding, as 
 it were, a coil of invisible wire round and 
 round the globe in this direction, and thus 
 causing a perpetual flow of psychical or, 
 perhaps it would be more correct to say, 
 aetheric, energies towards the west. But 
 however mechanical the process, it has a 
 psychical side and even a spiritual one. 
 
 The liberation of spiritual forces through 
 the break-up of material conditions in the 
 Near East has been so overwhelming that 
 [41] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 the races of the East of Europe are now in 
 a state of unparalleled complexity. Each 
 race is controlled in its individual and col- 
 lective aspect by the Soul of that race. 
 This is in each case a really subsisting En- 
 tity, but an Entity in an intermediate stage 
 of development just like the several indi- 
 viduals of the race. Now in Germany we 
 have an instance of a vast and tremen- 
 dously powerful race-group, with a highly 
 organized race-consciousness; one might 
 almost say, an intellectualized race-con- 
 sciousness, but this controlling soul of the 
 race has, in the case of Germany, been de- 
 bauched by an apostate use of Intellect, and 
 thus exists today as a race-spirit drugged 
 into spiritual coma, and yet growing potent 
 in the material sphere by reason of its great 
 cohesion of parts. All its members are so 
 much a part of the greater unmanifest 
 Entity that they are all impregnated with a 
 spirit of blind obedience to the state, and 
 with a swelling consciousness of their Im- 
 perial destiny; therefore the westward trend 
 in the material sense has manifested itself 
 with immense strength. They beat at their 
 western frontiers and would batter down 
 all opposition and overrun the west if they 
 [42] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 could, but all the while a strange thing is 
 happening on their eastern bounds. Their 
 spiritual yearnings and ideals, however de- 
 graded, however apostate, are finding ex- 
 pression in an eastward direction and in this 
 respect Germany is a house divided against 
 itself. 
 
 In time the material defeat in the west 
 will weaken the material or brute force of 
 the national will to such an extent that the 
 striving of the spirit in the eastward direc- 
 tion will purify it as in a furnace, amalga- 
 mating with, and counterbalancing with it- 
 self, all the fallow and uncontrolled spirit- 
 uality of the eastern races, the final outcome 
 being a new racial balance and readjust- 
 ment. " Mittel Europa" is thus a type of 
 what the script in many places describes as 
 "The Middle Kingdom" of Matter and 
 Spirit in perfect union, which is to be the 
 Kingdom of God upon Earth, the "New 
 Heavens and New Earth." 
 
 Script of June 3 
 
 (F.B.B. reading from Boz's "Memoirs of Grimaldi ") 
 
 In this communication the state of the 
 
 various nations of Europe before the war 
 
 is analysed and their faults described. 
 
 [43] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 Belgium, it is said, had special need of pur- 
 gation, and there is a hint of very deep- 
 seated spiritual disease in her body-politic. 
 In France and Italy the religious con- 
 sciousness had gone astray, the Reality 
 being submerged in the Symbol, so far as 
 the orthodox faith was concerned. They 
 perfected the symbol, whilst forgetting the 
 great cause of the symbol. England is 
 censured for her crass materialism and 
 love of pleasure, but on the spiritual side 
 she is absolved from the apostasy of some 
 other nations. Nevertheless her " sins of 
 the body" must be purged if she is to hold 
 her spiritual freedom and lead others to 
 light and liberty. America, without racial 
 stimulus, is commended in that she has 
 freely, and through a wonderful unanimity 
 of individual conscience, and individual 
 judgment, chosen the better part. Of her 
 it is said that through the strength thus 
 given, she will persevere to the end, and her 
 counsels shall prevail. Russia is a melan- 
 choly contrast. Her racial intuitions, so 
 spiritual in their nature, are held in bond- 
 age to the rule of perverted Intellect and 
 thus she lies between the upper and the 
 nether millstones. 
 
 [44] 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF WAR 
 
 Script of June 5 
 
 This very fine script is chiefly on philo- 
 sophic lines, and it contains a warning and 
 an appeal to the rulers of the Allied nations 
 today which we give here in extenso. The 
 argument is that all spiritual truth comes 
 through Intuition and not through Intellect, 
 though it is only by purified Intellect that 
 spiritual truth can be successfully applied. 
 
 " Given a nation of intuitive men we can control it 
 as we can control prophet, poet, dreamer, and him who 
 is using hi: intellect yet consciously links it to his in- 
 tuitional soul. Take heed, we say, and in all earnest- 
 ness must we press the matter upon you. Take heed 
 lest in the thirst for knowledge and for the control of 
 the material ye educate your rising generations in the 
 plane of the material only. Truly a nation thus edu- 
 cated may be as a battering-ram in the world of Matter 
 and 3 r e have ample evidence before you now. But such 
 nations, even as through all the ages — even to that 
 cradle of Humanity which lies beneath the waves of 
 the Atlantic — such a nation, containing within itself 
 the seeds of its own destruction must suffer death of 
 Body and Spirit. 
 
 " Educate in the will of Matter starving the intuition 
 and you break the rope which lifts Humanity to higher 
 spheres and connects material Man with Spirit. This 
 danger presses. We have watched the galvanizing of 
 the sleeping Spirit under the influence of crucified 
 nature in the conduct of the war, but this is passing 
 
 [45] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 and temporal and unless those among you who are in 
 authority cultivate equally the Spiritual, both in home 
 and school, and in the university of daily life the fate 
 of Humanity will be again infinitely delayed and cast 
 back into the limbo of barbarism which is Matter 
 deprived of soul. 
 
 " Greece developed a soul, a Pagan soul which yet 
 was soul, though only the soul of her race-spirit mani- 
 fest in beauty. But this was not enough. It was a 
 strand in the divine seven, but only one, though lovely 
 in its earthly manifestation. But the seven strands 
 must be equally developed lest catastrophe attend you. 
 
 " Again at this moment we appeal to you as a nation 
 to cultivate the Spiritual lest inevitably ye fall from 
 grace although blazing like a meteor in the world of 
 time and then drawn out like a meteor pass on to the 
 darkness of the limbo of past glories." 
 
 [46] 
 
TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE 
 WRITINGS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Script of 13th March, 191 8 .... 49 
 
 27th " " .... 51 
 
 29th " " .... 54 
 
 30th " " .... 57 
 
 31st " " .... 61 
 
 " 17th April " .... 65 
 
 1 8th " " .... 68 
 
 " 19th " " .... 69 
 
 1 st June " .... 74 
 
 " 3rd " " .... 79 
 
 10th July " .... 89 
 
 1 2th " " .... 92 
 
 " 2 1 st August " .... 112 
 
 [47] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 Script No. i, March 13, 191 8 
 
 This script was produced during the morning of the 
 13th of March, at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. Mr. 
 Alleyne was the automatist. Nothing had been sug- 
 gested as a subject for communication, and neither of 
 the sitters had had anything in mind on the subject of 
 the war. F.B.B. had not yet adopted the method of 
 reading aloud to the automatist. During the sit- 
 ting therefore, there was desultory conversation. The 
 script is difficult, and in many places illegible. In the 
 transcript, doubtful passages are italicized. 
 
 "When the eighth month of the year ends, 
 failure will be more evident in those that 
 ye pursue. The twenty-fourth day will see 
 surcease of battle. The clear outline of 
 these verities will shadow forth the reality, 
 and ye shall grasp them. Proof is not 
 needed, but ye shall have your proof for 
 others' sake. . . . 
 
 The rest is quite illegible. Writing was resumed 
 in the evening of the same day, with the following 
 result. The first part has reference to the segrega- 
 tion of a chosen people from the ends of the Earth, 
 
 [49] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 but only fragments can be read, and some words are 
 conjectural. 
 
 " ... of the Israelites, one common stock, 
 and others including the yellow races of the 
 East. . . . 
 
 "... The chosen race is not confined 
 to Israel, but must include all branches of 
 the original stock, as yet unregenerate yet 
 the oons of God in mystery, who know not 
 wholly of their stock, and must be purified, 
 but not yet. Nevertheless, a portion will 
 remain . . . 
 
 Here only a few words are legible, and seem to imply 
 that Asiatic Christians are referred to. . . . 
 
 "The sub-races are involved, east and 
 west. They are of the same stock and are 
 on the side of right. . . . 
 
 "... When the harvests are ready, the 
 reapers will reap in peace. Then the plague 
 spreads west and south. They shall be few 
 indeed, but they who live beyond the waters 
 will be spared. The people shall be sifted 
 in the winnowing of the pestilence, which 
 shall seize the goats and spare the sheep. 
 We have said it. Watch and pray and fear 
 not: ye are the immune. 
 
 Then in a different hand, very large: — 
 [50] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 "ONE THOUSAND, NINE HUN- 
 DRED AND EIGHTEEN, IN AU- 
 TUMN, I HAVE GIVEN YOU THE 
 TIME AND YEAR. 
 
 "The race of the appointed ones is se- 
 cure: not ye only, but all they of the race 
 of . . . count ye members of the race. 
 All are of the same stock, chosen and ap- 
 pointed. From the seas none others save 
 they who are of the Race but stand aloof 
 for fear. Three are marked for the penalty, 
 and one of these must be purified in the 
 fire. Two war with the body, and one with 
 the spirit. This one must be cleansed." * 
 
 Script No. 2, March 27, 1918 
 
 Obtained at 22 Cotham Grove, Bristol. No sug- 
 gestion as to the subject of the proposed communication. 
 F.B.B. read during the sitting from Duhamel's " New 
 Book of Martyrs" (Verdun episode). A few words 
 at the commencement of the script are illegible owing 
 to the condition of the fountain-pen, which blotted. 
 
 "... The conditions of external influ- 
 ences are such as make any impression al- 
 most impossible. Physical vibrations alone 
 would be sufficient to overpower the deli- 
 cate vibration on the other plane, and when 
 
 1 See " Notes," p. 128. 
 [51] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 in addition the spiritual world is invaded 
 by questions of the most intense and con- 
 centrated nature, it becomes a pure impos- 
 sibility to do anything. The spirits of the 
 slain, earth-bound and still most deeply in- 
 terested in the conditions of the battlefield, 
 cause a loss of balance in the proportions 
 of the relative influences which interrupt 
 every normal condition for many hundreds 
 of miles beyond the zone of warfare. One 
 influence which has been observed amongst 
 others is that which was once known as 
 Demeter, but it is past for the time being. 
 " Conflict is the cause of our failure. The 
 balance rises and will soon shew a full pre- 
 ponderance on the side of intrinsic right. 
 The last great effort passes away. There 
 will be fluctuations, but we see clearly what 
 the seething world sees dimly, — the issue 
 to victory of the Good over Evil. This is 
 inevitable and is a law of nature and of 
 God. Have no fear! It will pass, and 
 quickly. The climax that approaches, based 
 on natural laws, will witness the end of 
 the great offensive. Already hope works in 
 the breasts of the leaders, and awaiting 
 Nature hangs breathless at the progress of 
 its realization. 
 
 [52] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 " Slower, slower, grows the advance. 
 The hunter is entrapped in his own toils, 
 and after the brief glory comes the tragedy 
 of a disordered retirement. So great will 
 be the disaster that the very defenders will 
 stand arrested by the terror. The danger 
 grows, and in their heart the foe knows 
 that the breaking point is growing very 
 near. They sense the upheaval of an out- 
 raged people in the east, and already the 
 first low rumble of the rising wrath is dis- 
 tinctly audible. 
 
 "Afterwards the barrier that separates 
 us from you grows thin, and somewhere it 
 will break and open a new vision of life. 
 Out of evil comes good, and out of the mire 
 of Matter in which the Earth is now buried 
 will grow the lilies of the Spirit, beautiful 
 and sweet and comforting. We have told 
 you many times, this is the end of old 
 things and the labouring world of War, in 
 a new era and a new dispensation. The 
 Earth-spirit passes under the control of a 
 higher Power, and suddenly, suddenly, in 
 the twinkling of an eye, it will be with you. 
 It is near at hand. In your souls ye can feel 
 it, and they who roll in mire and conflict 
 feel it more even than you." 
 [53] 
 
the hill of vision 
 Script No. 3, March 29, 19 18 
 
 {Good Friday) 
 
 Obtained at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. No ques- 
 tions asked or suggestions made. F.B.B. reading from 
 Bain's " Digit of the Moon." 
 
 " The material success of the offensive 
 wanes. All will be as I have already told 
 you. Plans of despair lose their intelli- 
 gence. The hearts of the leaders are al- 
 ready failing them for fear of the conse- 
 quence of their disaster. The pact is near 
 its end in Europe. 
 
 " Complications must arise in the balance 
 of power, which is in itself an ordinance 
 of value incontrovertible. 
 
 " The East must of necessity extend the 
 sphere of influence under firm European 
 control because it is ordained in the nature 
 of things. 
 
 "Where opportunity fails and evil and 
 decay take place, there will be change of 
 control: but where good predominates, there 
 will the present order not only persist but 
 be strengthened. 
 
 " For the Goth is ever turbulent and his 
 control is unsuited to the Eastern races. But 
 India needs the control of her races and 
 [54] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 will not turn from the influence which is 
 beneficial in that it has not betrayed its 
 trust. 
 
 " Everywhere, all through the ages, the 
 forces of Good prevail and work out their 
 destiny even though the outer and material 
 economy may appear as failure. Look in- 
 wardly and learn from history. Never has 
 ultimate good failed of its purpose, even 
 though destruction of the material manifes- 
 tation may have been necessary to its con- 
 summation. Therefore take heart and fear 
 not. The balance again must be estab- 
 lished, well established; the one the reflex 
 of the other. 
 
 " It is as it were a Kingdom within a 
 kingdom, and even as the bud must burst 
 for its full development and thrust out fresh 
 shoots that its kernel may carry out its 
 destiny, so Matter must be all fractured and 
 destroyed for the progress of the spiritual 
 force contained in it. . . . 
 
 "Watch! At Easter Day the tide will 
 turn and ebb swiftly and consistently. The 
 very elements will fight on the side of Right, 
 and be used in the accomplishment of the 
 intended trap into which they have fallen. 
 The soul of the'nations to be fully purified 
 [55] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 had to suffer to the uttermost, but not to the 
 completion of destruction, to perish. Never 
 so was it ordained in the history of nations. 
 Never yet has this world seen the forces of 
 Good annihilated, for always a choice resi- 
 duum is left, even though perchance im- 
 planted in the material souls of the foes of 
 Good. 
 
 " So will it be now, for the nations who 
 have fought on the side of Right have not 
 been found wanting. The pruning has been 
 great and the sickle has reaped, but the 
 garnering is great and good. The spiritual 
 harvest being reaped, enough is left of the 
 good, and for the harvest-fields of the 
 world. 
 
 "Think you there is no good in the 
 Teuton? There is much good, and by 
 pruning it will be preserved for future 
 generations. He has his work in spheres 
 prearranged and preconceived, and his im- 
 petus to German perfection, if penetrated 
 by the good he has opposed, will make for 
 a great future. He has worshipped strength, 
 and he was wise till he perverted it to lust 
 of power. He has despised the other na- 
 tions, because he deemed their greater 
 gentleness was weakness. Now, he knows 
 [56] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 and appreciates the fact that strength is not 
 brutality, and that the human philosophy 
 of holy men was not weaker or more de- 
 cadent than his own. 
 
 "Already they realize and understand it 
 well: and ye will realize that there is some- 
 what in them that was necessary to the sal- 
 vation of the world. Spirit and Matter 
 must blend and interpenetrate and balance; 
 whence the necessity for the combination of 
 the Old with the New Testament is thus 
 dimly portrayed. The one without the 
 other is but perfect in its own sphere. 
 
 " So all comes under the Law which no 
 mortal can understand: the necessity of 
 Matter for the perfecting of the Spirit. 
 More we could say, but what need of more? 
 All will be well in the general balance of 
 the future." 
 
 Script No. 4, March 30, 19 18 
 
 {Saturday Before Easter) 
 
 Obtained at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. No previ- 
 ous question or suggestion as to subject. Reading was 
 continuous during the sitting, from Crake's " Last 
 Abbot of Glastonbury." 
 
 " . . . The crisis dominating the present 
 situation on the battle-front is one which, to 
 
 [57] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 the material sense, is quite unfavourable. 
 Various forces combine to produce a bold ef- 
 fect which, however, will begin to be more 
 apparent to Europe tomorrow morning. 
 
 " The indomitable energy of the Allies, 
 the strong plan on which they fight, the 
 perfection of their manoeuvres, and their 
 unbroken communications, all combine to 
 produce a barrier against which the enemy 
 will shatter the forces of his army in vain. 
 Nevertheless the good influences aforesaid 
 are as nothing in the balance as compared 
 with the consciousness of integrity and 
 honesty of purpose which supports their 
 souls. 
 
 " Day by day the Teuton nation awakes 
 yet more keenly to the truth so long hidden 
 from them, and the great and hitherto im- 
 penetrable screen of falsehood and intrigu- 
 ing diplomacy grows correspondingly at- 
 tenuated and impotent. It is this impartial 
 force which decides the day, and once the 
 enemy realizes that he has lost the offensive, 
 his soul will turn instinctively to that work 
 which his untiring individuality must al- 
 ways procure him. For the past forty years 
 the whole nation has been blind, — cut off 
 from that strict sense of truth which is part 
 [58] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 of the soul of Humanity. It is always 
 dangerous to be insular and even nations 
 which, by their innate sense of honour and 
 virtue might be deemed immune, have 
 suffered in the past from this cause — 
 notably England, which, like all insular 
 nations, has its dangers. 
 
 "The awakening of the soul of this great 
 misguided German nation will be the ter- 
 mination of its warlike force, and a fresh 
 force presents itself which will destroy war 
 utterly and overthrow it. 
 
 " This rehabilitation and regeneration of 
 the nation itself and the recovery of its 
 place among the nations, will regain for it 
 esteem and mutual trust. 
 
 "Tomorrow, as we have said, the first 
 great sign of failure will be manifest, and 
 what follows, we have told you already. 
 
 "Nature, and natural forces, drive hu- 
 manity against the will of its diplomatists 
 into a covenant for mutual preservation and 
 protection whilst the swing of the pendulum 
 will shew Germany ere long not only on the 
 side of Humanity but in the very forefront 
 of a new menace which will ere long accrue. 
 She who has so sinned will thus work out 
 her own salvation. 
 
 [59] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 "Fear not Democracy, if properly led 
 and instructed. Ignorance is the great 
 danger of a world ruled by Intellect, as 
 the senses are the foe of Intuition. Of old, 
 the war on earth was between these latter 
 forces but now it is lifted to the higher 
 plane, and so the former are the battling 
 forces in the development of the human 
 race. 
 
 " It will pass: but, till it passes, the many 
 will demand knowledge of the few. There 
 will be frequent backslidings. The prin- 
 ciples, the intuitions, are in another sphere 
 where the influence of Good predominates, 
 but for the time being Intellect has betrayed 
 the Intuitions. . . . The failures of past 
 civilizations lay in the fact that the jealousy 
 of the possession of knowledge drove men 
 to keep it in secret cults and in the bodies 
 of societies, . . . and set apart by their 
 intellectual superiority they forgot the 
 brotherhood of Man. And at length the 
 utter ignorance of the multitude, unchecked 
 by any nobleness of instruction, rose like 
 a flame and swept the brilliant groups 
 away. 
 
 "Of what use was the knowledge of 
 these groups to the masses grovelling be- 
 [60] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 neath the Temple walls? . . . Pride of 
 possession of jewels of knowledge which 
 the mob never possessed brought its own 
 reward. 
 
 " It is not so now. Deception passes 
 away, and all knowledge is open to them 
 that have the power to seek it. And as the 
 soul of Man ever aspires to those priceless 
 gifts of which even the most ignorant are 
 conscious, there is no sense of injustice now 
 causing jealousy, and the danger which sur- 
 rounded the acquisition of knowledge now 
 threatens no longer. Therefore gain Knowl- 
 edge : turn not from the Light. . . . 
 
 "The Light of the Word is the consum- 
 mation of all things human: the martyrdom 
 of Matter and the corresponding growth 
 of the physical manifestation of the Spirit. 
 We have no more to tell you now, but 
 ponder and be thankful." 
 
 Script No. 5, March 31, 19 18 
 
 (Easter Day) 
 
 Obtained at 25 Sydenham Hill, Bristol. Time: 12 
 to 1 p. m. No subject suggested, but before sitting 
 down, F.B.B. remarked on the difficulty of reading the 
 script recently given, and expressed a hope that any- 
 thing not understood might be repeated. The reading 
 [61] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 during this sitting was from Crake's " Last Abbot of 
 Glastonbury." 
 
 " We have been anxious to point out to you 
 the danger of supporting an intellectual 
 and sublime philosophy upon a foundation 
 of ignorance and passion, and the necessity 
 for a close cooperation of all strata through 
 the element of brotherly love which is 
 the basis of Christianity, which is after 
 all but the inspired philosophy of earlier 
 ages penetrated by Humanity made mani- 
 fest. 
 
 " The whole system of the past was neces- 
 sary at the time of its inception; but in the 
 very nature of its constitution doomed to 
 failure on the physical or communal plane. 
 By its very nature the only philosophy and 
 the only creed which can persist is that 
 which is developing to the highest degree 
 on the intellectual side, and which yet per- 
 vades and guides the weaker members and 
 controls their thoughts and actions through 
 the unconscious acceptance by the instinc- 
 tive mind of the superiority of Intellect over 
 Intuition. 
 
 " Intellect is the result of the penetration 
 of Matter by the Spirit, whose only expres- 
 sion lies in Intuition. Intuition made mani- 
 [62] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 fest is the Word clothed with the flesh, the 
 Christ regent in Man. Intellect is by its 
 nature lacking in sympathy with Humanity, 
 and Humanity revolts. Yet Intellect as a 
 reigning force interpenetrates the whole 
 future of Humanity, being conscious as a 
 vague force through all the body of Hu- 
 manity, and the spirit strives for it. Igno- 
 rance and Intuition need guidance, with 
 constant control, and the controlling force 
 in the past has lacked the physical power 
 to control on the physical plane. The line 
 of demarcation has been so sharply defined 
 that the tree has had no root in the soil of 
 Matter. But let the tree be deeply rooted 
 in the soil, and the storms of matter and 
 emotion will beat upon it in vain. 
 
 " ( Have root lest you wither away.' This 
 would we explain to you. Germany has 
 exhibited a species of deformity: Intellect 
 leading and controlling, but involved in- 
 dissolubly with a form of Matter, — Force 
 and Violence. And in this deadly union 
 she has dominated the world for evil. But 
 for the future of the world, this influence 
 and association will swiftly pass. 
 
 11 But some of them remember that the 
 golden age will represent the proportional 
 [63] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 blending of Intellect and Matter 1 — condi- 
 tions whose birth must of necessity be at- 
 tended by storm and stress in both spheres 
 of influence. 
 
 " Mutual yieldings and revolts : the pangs 
 of birth : or rather, the actions and reactions 
 of readjustment. The present war is simply 
 an exhibition of this adjustment, — an evil 
 growth to be pruned and controlled ; a sign, 
 but not a necessity, of quickened functions 
 and developments. But the ultimate end 
 is inevitable and certain, and the birth will 
 prevent an abnormal and cancerous growth 
 in the body-politic, Humanity. Each mem- 
 ber of this Body will in time perform the 
 functions for which it was ordained. But 
 blind obedience was not so ordained for- 
 ever. The hands must know the inten- 
 tions of the head, and be trained to per- 
 form their functions before the work can 
 proceed without interruption. But the 
 training period is difficult and fraught 
 with trouble and loss. So would we ex- 
 plain to you. 
 
 " Today the balance changes, and soon it 
 will be manifest to all the world. Let Hu- 
 manity hold hands and never break the 
 
 1 Intuition. 
 [6 4 ] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 chain. So shall the influence of the greatest 
 pervade the whole in the time appointed. 
 
 " So, when the time is ripe, Life will be 
 prolonged indefinitely, and Matter, in com- 
 plete union with the Spirit, will likewise 
 be eternal : but not now, for Matter is not 
 purified." 
 
 (The remarkable fulfillment of the Easter prediction is else- 
 where commented upon. The date is attested by Sir William 
 Barrett, F. R. S., and Lady Barrett. — F.B.B.) 
 
 Script No. 6, April 17, 19 18 
 
 At Sydenham Hill, 12 noon. Conversation had 
 been on literary subjects, with a brief reference to the 
 morning's war news, which was serious. F.B.B. read 
 during the sitting from Edgar Wallace's novel, " The 
 Council of Justice." 
 
 " Consider not the outer semblances, but 
 in the storm and tumult of Matter ye can 
 see instead a consciousness of the true spirit- 
 ual influences of which these signs are but 
 one manifestation, causing often what we 
 call an antithesis, the blackness upon which 
 spiritual forces are manifested. 
 
 " Thus, when we told you the change 
 would take place on the Sunday called 
 Easter, we saw only the fact that then, for 
 the first time, the Spirit of Right and Truth 
 and Justice would become . . . imaged in 
 [65] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 the souls of the Central Powers perceiv- 
 ing that they had followed blindly and in 
 the dark the commands of their rulers. . . . 
 " Their souls are awaking to the madness 
 and cost of their crime. Like sheep to the 
 slaughter, they go forward, driven by the 
 whips and scourges of their leaders; bent 
 on the suicide if chance fails them, for all 
 is then lost, and only death remains. But 
 Spirit will defeat Matter and the victory 
 on the one plane grows more complete even 
 as the triumph of physical force becomes 
 more accentuated. Also comes now the 
 reaction of the Spirit-power eastward, while 
 the full surge to the west and with it the 
 march to defeat continues. The end is al- 
 ready discernible, but though Matter is 
 striving for conquest over Spirit, at the 
 eleventh hour the effort of Spirit will be- 
 come manifest. The contest becomes even 
 more perilous : and the Watchers wait in the 
 tower. There will be much to do ere the 
 Spirit can triumph, and on the side of right 
 and justice there is yet much clearing to 
 be performed. Were peace to be com- 
 passed, a condition of Peace would tran- 
 scend the use of war. All is the birth-throes 
 of a Race, and they must not be shirked, nor 
 [66] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 hidden by false methods. Had there been 
 no offensive, the war would never end 
 except in stasis and exhaustion. Movement 
 was necessary to an issue contrary to the 
 offenders. With you, as the power of Mat- 
 ter fails, so will the Spirit strengthen. It is 
 not the decay of Destiny, but the pruning 
 for better fruition of the young tree. Have 
 no fear of the result. The soil is formed, 
 and enriched by the blood of the slain. The 
 spiritual forces combine in the running sap, 
 which will presently produce the blossoms 
 and the good fruit of the tree, and on the 
 spathe, cut down to the very roots in Matter, 
 will a new spirit be grafted in. Therefore, 
 look beyond to the ultimate issues; they are 
 to perfection inevitable. What matter the 
 suffering of the body personal or national. 
 Of the signs of regeneration one by one 
 has become manifest; and — what you can 
 never realize — the New Spirit formed in 
 the nations that need regeneration. Who 
 can see Conversion, or grasp its utter mar- 
 vel, but by its works? By these a spirit 
 is manifest, and there can be no sudden 
 change. But in Germany, and more prom- 
 inently in Austria the change of mind is 
 growing more manifest." 
 [67] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 The final passages of this script cannot be deciphered. 
 The writing is very difficult throughout. E. G. P. 
 witnesses the date of the writing. — F.B.B. 
 
 Script No. 7, April 18, 191 8 
 
 There were two sittings at Sydenham Hill, one at 
 12 noon, and the second an hour after the conclusion 
 of the first. Only the second script is given, as the first 
 had no reference to the war. This one was prefaced 
 by a comment on the part of F.B.B. who said, — " We 
 have missed a good deal of what has been told us con- 
 cerning the war, and we shall be glad if we can have 
 the same repeated." F.B.B. reading from Dorothy 
 Sayers' "Poems. Op. I." 
 
 " May will prove the statement that we 
 have made and often repeated to you. The 
 advance of the material forces outlines the 
 adopted plan, and carries the foe down the 
 fair lands that lie to the west of him. The 
 breaking wave of realization and truth 
 sweeps eastward. Therefore have we told 
 you the heart of the foe grows faint with 
 fear and the consciousness of evil done. All 
 the glory, and all that he rights for sinks 
 to dross in view of the discovery that he 
 is deceived and betrayed. The bitterness 
 against his rulers rises while yet his forces 
 sweep desperately against all opposition in 
 growing ferocity, and the very blows he 
 [68] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 deals against the opposition of the Allies 
 are in truth but levelled at the heart and 
 life of his betrayers. Such conditions can- 
 not persist, but must break and end in quick 
 decline and reaction, even as a dying brute 
 has greater fury with his last flicker of 
 strength, although he knows his end has 
 come. 
 
 "These things we say. This we know, 
 
 intentions? 
 
 and the tendencies that accompany physical 
 actions are apparent to us in our places. 
 Those, therefore, who prune the tree weep 
 not for the dropping leaves and withering 
 branches. Only you are the tree, healthy 
 and regenerate; so rejoice, and do not 
 sorrow ever." 
 
 Script No. 8, April 19, 191 8 
 
 At Sydenham Hill (morning), F.B.B. reading aloud 
 throughout the sitting, from Dr. Honaga's " National 
 Spirit of Japan." The first part of this script has to 
 do with abstract principles only, and is not given here. 
 
 "We have given you the spiritual ending 
 of the war as on August the twenty-sixth, 
 and the material manifestation may, and 
 should, coincide. We have this difficulty, 
 that though we control ... in the purely 
 spiritual forces which manifest themselves 
 [69] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 in Matter, yet we are often unconscious of 
 the spiritless movements of Matter after the 
 withdrawal of the spiritual work in Time. 
 
 " As the ocean may continue to heave and 
 swell long after the tempest which moved it 
 has passed away; and even as conflicts be- 
 tween individuals may persist long after 
 anger and opposition have passed from their 
 souls: so an outward semblance of war may 
 continue sporadically and intermittently 
 long after the opposing nations have ceased 
 to desire it. 
 
 Here follows a short passage which has not been 
 satisfactorily deciphered. . . . 
 
 But even now the combatants have yielded 
 to the spirit of peace and benevolence to 
 such an extent that it may be questioned 
 whether any number of the opposing 
 forces — other than their leaders, who have 
 all to win or lose by a decision — are not 
 anxious to the uttermost to cease the 
 warfare; and the nations sincerely regret, 
 and only desire peace, and only they who 
 are responsible still continue in active op- 
 position to save their own skins. Who 
 can search the hearts of the Heads of 
 Nations? — for we tell you but the truth 
 when we say that he whom ye call the 
 [70] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 Kaiser is, and has for long been, suffering a 
 martyrdom of soul-agony compared with 
 which death would be relief. So it is with 
 all who have battled on the side of error. 
 On the side of the Allies this is less evident, 
 for as a nation you possessed and are sup- 
 ported by an original consciousness of 
 Right, which still supports you in spite of 
 doubts innumerable. 
 
 " You have comforted yourselves with the 
 conviction that you have battled for Right, 
 Liberty, and the weaker nations. A hun- 
 dred intense and meritorious convictions 
 support you and comfort you, and hide the 
 great underlying necessity for commercial 
 and personal and national activities which 
 were equally puissant in the throwing down 
 of the gage of battle. The preponderance 
 of conscious right is on your side, and added 
 to this, you have waged a war in accordance 
 with principles in themselves spiritual 
 rather than material and brutal, and thus 
 your spirits are exalted above those of your 
 foe. 
 
 "Yet in both nations, the elements or 
 
 principles which move to war were often 
 
 identical, and mostly incompatible, that is, 
 
 from the relative standpoints of the two 
 
 [71] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 nations. The real reason why the scales 
 have fallen in your favour is intrinsically 
 this one thing: the basing of your methods 
 on the material and brutal or on the 
 spiritual. 
 
 "Ye chose the spiritual: they the brutal. 
 In this way do ye differ. Thus there is a 
 reason in the universal scheme, for the vic- 
 tory over Matter and the principles of 
 Matter. 
 
 "The survival of the fittest — the best 
 basis of government — these engage on the 
 side of the foe; and under ordinary condi- 
 tions and in the development of Man's best 
 benefit, they should have won. But as ye 
 know, and as we have told ye, the Era of 
 Spirit comes quickly, and the old conditions 
 are ending. Therefore ye will win, and 
 thus the old era ends. The intention of war, 
 the interpenetration of the material force of 
 the victors by the spirit and soul of the 
 vanquished, is no longer necessary nor de- 
 sirable. For the first time in the history of 
 mankind, the rules have been removed and 
 reversed, because now for the first time in 
 the evolution of the Earth, Spirit is not only 
 triumphantly dominant over Matter, but 
 this domination has at last been necessary 
 [72] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 for the betterment of Mankind. This do we 
 think we have now made clear to you, and 
 you will understand in view of what we 
 have formerly explained to you. To sum 
 up, we will explain once more. The enemy 
 fought upon principles which, in former 
 times, would have inevitably brought him 
 victory in that his principles were for the 
 betterment physically and materially of the 
 Race. And so it has ever been until today. 
 And ever, when the world has sunk from 
 a false civilization into the darkness of bar- 
 barism and ruin, then from this condition, 
 the blossoms of the garden are scattered and 
 diffuse their scent through all. 
 
 "Thus, for the first time, these no longer 
 must fall and though after the war there 
 will be much pain and suffering, and much 
 pruning and grafting needed, instead of the 
 destruction of Civilization for the better- 
 ment ultimately of the race, Civilization is 
 adjudged unworthy of this penalty and is 
 allowed still to exist, faulty, defective, but 
 capable of being pruned and converted to 
 higher perfections. 
 
 " Thus in place of the horrors of conquest 
 will ensue the pains of reconstruction. This 
 have we tried to explain to you." 
 [73] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 Script No. 9, June i, 1918 1 
 
 Obtained at Sydenham Hill, Bristol, 12:25 p.m. 
 F.B.B. asked for further information as to other forms 
 of life in the Universe, to supplement a brief remark 
 appearing in a recent script. The present communica- 
 tion however does not refer to this, and is largely de- 
 voted to a philosophic study of the soul of Germany. 
 This portion is given below. During the sitting F.B.B. 
 read aloud continuously from Boz's " Life of Joseph 
 Grimaldi." 
 
 The script commences with a description of certain 
 mobile and vital forces affecting Matter, one of which 
 is the effect of the solar magnetism in inducing a west- 
 ward trend, in animate Nature, impelling tribes and 
 nations westwards in conquest, adventure, and migra- 
 tion. This is a physical effect, but there is a corre- 
 sponding spiritual reaction in an eastward direction, in 
 opposition to the trend of Matter. Here the argument 
 is applied as follows : — 
 
 "WHILE Matter in its pilgrimage is im- 
 pelled westward, Spirit, Intuition look 
 eastward for the source of their redemption 
 in as far as Spirit is clothed in, and in- 
 fluenced by, Matter in which it is involved. 
 At the present juncture, at the present crisis 
 in the world's history, the races of the earth 
 are in a condition of unparalleled complex- 
 ity in that the liberation of new forces is 
 world-wide and not local, both physically, 
 
 1 See "Notes" at end of volume, p. 125. 
 [74] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 and still more, spiritually. And it is neces- 
 sary to be without the body and influenced 
 only by the spiritual conditions in which 
 we are meshed, to give anything like a true 
 impression, or to master the conditions of 
 their internal revolutions. 
 
 " In the first place, you have a vast Race- 
 Group or Race-Spirit, drugged with de- 
 ceptions into spiritual coma, and existing 
 only as a vast physical manifestation: a 
 nation existing simply as a vast, divided, 
 and materialized race spirit-group, tre- 
 mendously potent in the material plane by 
 reason of the cohesion of its parts: a na- 
 tion plunged in one direction under the 
 influence of a swelling manifestation of 
 what you may call 'Destiny' as apart from 
 solar control, although nevertheless acting 
 in conjunction with, and in complete har- 
 mony with, the Solar Magnetism. To this 
 is superadded a control of great intellectual 
 forces which have drawn down both spirit- 
 ual and intuitional influences to their own 
 material level, and harnessed them to its 
 apostate intention to control a world not 
 only of Matter but also of Spirit. Here is 
 a complete and perfectly equipped Macro- 
 cosm — a Power of God on earth, seduced 
 [75] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 and aspostate and a blemish on the growing 
 glory of the manifestation of God: a body 
 perfect and energetic in health as regards 
 the work it undertakes, which constitutes 
 PERFECT MATTER, but imperfect in that it 
 has cut itself off with the sword of Intellect 
 from the Spirit of God which should be 
 all-controlling. 
 
 " There you have the greatest influence 
 of the grossly material as liberated against 
 the whole spiritual Body of God in His 
 Manifested Self upon the earth. Follow 
 the law of solar influence. It tends bodily 
 westward. The material force, the purely 
 animal, tends to batter with irresistible 
 force against its western boundaries. But 
 the spirit chained, involved in that west- 
 ward flow of Matter, and yielding partly to 
 its influence, yet even in its apostate situation 
 turns towards the East, and as a reaction, 
 beats with invisible wings longing to spread 
 towards Asia and the East. 
 
 " In this one detail, (Germany) is a house 
 divided against itself: and only in this one 
 detail. Were it to combine absolutely, no 
 western balance could control it. But it is 
 (divided in aim 1 ). 
 
 » Conjectural. — F.B.B. 
 [76] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 "And as in the body of Man, the local 
 failure of Matter can be controlled, and 
 eventually removed by the influence of the 
 spirit, the will producing ultimate recovery: 
 so, in course of time, the split between spirit 
 and body in the constitution of these nations 
 will at the same time defeat its material 
 end and right itself. 
 
 " But as the defeat of Matter in the West 
 will ultimately weaken the material or brute 
 force of these nations, so the strivings of 
 Spirit in the Eastward trend will purify as 
 through a furnace, amalgamating with, and 
 counterbalancing with, itself all the fallow 
 and uncontrolled spirituality of the Eastern 
 races; whence returning victor over the 
 westward materialism of their body, to 
 an ultimate combination or recombination 
 from within, their weakened will chastened. 
 Thus several of the nations will balance and 
 readjust into a grouping favourable to the 
 ultimate perfecting of the whole race of 
 Man throughout the world. 
 
 " So far we have indicated the trend of 
 events in the Middle Kingdom of the world 
 of gross Matter; the escape of the apostate 
 spirit; the regeneration of that spirit; the 
 return, and the ultimate perfecting of the 
 [77] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 Middle Kingdom, not for the expression of 
 Matter only, but for the elevation of that 
 forceful combination, 1 through the cruci- 
 fixion of adversity, to the higher state of 
 the Middle Kingdom of the Spirit. 
 
 "Thus let us, looking from afar, turn our 
 attention to the position of the other nations 
 of the world. Remember that the ultimate 
 End to be arrived at through the wondrous 
 influence of Spirit is the perfection of Man, 
 first to a perfected Kingdom in Matter, and 
 after that to a perfected Kingdom in that 
 intermediate sphere which is Heaven upon 
 Earth, for which end He who tends and 
 watches guards you from stagnation, from 
 Spirit confused and enmeshed in influences 
 of Intellect — plus — Matter, influences that 
 though not expressing themselves in the 
 plane of Nature, and sometimes temporal 
 in that they were contributing (though usu- 
 ally in a covert and harmful degree) to 
 the solution of the Conquest of Matter by 
 Spirit, nevertheless produced a condition of 
 stagnation and balance which refused to 
 modify the balance of the scales to any ap- 
 preciable extent: a condition which called 
 for similar treatment to that accorded to the 
 
 1 I.e., Germany. 
 [78] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 human body in a similar condition. That 
 which ye call a caustic irritant was applied. 
 Now, when the inflammation is departed, 
 the progress may be recommenced, and even 
 as the pain of the knife or the blister arouses 
 the Spiritual through the medium of pain 
 in Man, so the anguish of a suffering world 
 is reawakening the dormant spirit to greater 
 upward effort to resume control of Matter, 
 and to a progress rapid in the ratio of its 
 material suffering — which is as naught in 
 the scale of the ultimate intention. 
 
 "We have more to say, and will continue 
 in spite of the tumult of the confused issues 
 of the material plane, seeking to give you 
 some idea of the balance of spiritual and 
 material elements for which the warring 
 nations are responsible. 
 
 " Sufficient that the growth of the Spirit- 
 ual is infinitely in excess of the suffering 
 of the Material which is now so evident to 
 you." 
 
 Script No. io, June 3, 191 8 
 
 Obtained at Sydenham Hill, Bristol, 12:20 p.m. 
 F.B.B. reading aloud from Boz's " Memoirs of 
 Grimaldi." 
 
 This script picks up the thread of the argument 
 elaborated in the last, and proceeds to describe the 
 
 [79] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 spiritual condition of the nations opposed to Germany 
 in the war. 
 
 " Following on our late discourse, we 
 would turn to the other side of the picture. 
 Here we are involved in a far more complex 
 condition of affairs. . . . 
 
 "... Thus in the first place, though to 
 outward appearance the whole subject seems 
 to differentiate itself into two issues, — 
 Right and Wrong, Liberty and Slavery, 
 Divine and Diabolical, — this difference is 
 more apparent on the surface than in its 
 true inwardness. 
 
 "To commence with: by taking the psy- 
 chical conditions of the various oldest na- 
 tions individually instead of in their com- 
 plexity of combination, it is obvious to you 
 and ourselves that the soul of Belgium was 
 degraded by her vanity, her moral deprav- 
 ity, her love of money, her treatment of 
 those lower orders of humanity entrusted 
 to her care. 
 
 " But also the collective and individual 
 life of her inhabitants left much to be de- 
 sired in matters of propriety and rectitude. 
 There was disease in the body-politic which 
 called for treatment. And though the inter- 
 ference was drastic, overwhelming, and ap- 
 [80] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 parently out of proportion to the disease it 
 was called in to combat, yet the apparent 
 discrepancy is partly due to circumstances 
 other than the present intention of spiritual 
 control. For geographical reasons and 
 other physical causes combine to explain 
 the results. 
 
 " Yet great as the purging, great will be 
 the reward, and the cleansing of the soul of 
 this nation will initiate the revival and de- 
 velopment of a spirit whose glory has never 
 yet been equalled in the history of Fleming 
 or Walloon. 
 
 " But, as we have indicated, there was a 
 totally unappreciated contamination in the 
 kingdom, which had to be eradicated ere 
 the spiritual, the artistic, the really great 
 genius of the nation finds unrestricted play. 
 
 "Then, following in a sequence geo- 
 graphically, it is reasonable to couple both 
 France and Italy in one common nation- 
 ality. Each the product of a greatly gifted 
 race, the Latin; each especially provided 
 by the spirit of Nature, — the collective 
 Race-spirit, — with extreme talents, and a 
 corresponding race-mentality, each has 
 failed, that the spirit of each, whilst de- 
 veloping along lines of Art which, in the 
 [81] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 welding of the material with the expres- 
 sion of the spiritual, were yet unconscious of 
 the inner meaning of the symbolism which 
 they portrayed. They perfected the Sym- 
 bol whilst forgetting the great Cause of the 
 Symbol. And for this they were not al- 
 together responsible, in that each nation 
 has been suffering so long from the influence 
 (and the reaction from the influence) of 
 a type of Catholicity which has concen- 
 trated for so long its spiritual motive on 
 the perfection and glory of its symbolism. 
 The spirit was there, but occluded by the 
 magnificence and spectacular materialism 
 of its forms and symbols. 
 
 " Here we digress, to draw your attention 
 to the corruption of reason, judgment, and 
 intuition to gain temporal power, and the 
 darker ends which conduce to the temporal 
 power. 
 
 " In England, on the other hand the 
 spiritual was openly expressed in the sym- 
 bol, and with a true appreciation of the 
 Original. The heart was sound, the brain 
 was sound, but the body given over to its 
 own desires and to the acquisition of that 
 profit which should minister to its desires, — 
 thus knowingly and consciously surrender- 
 [82] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 ing and prostituting its conscious rectitude 
 to the claims of Matter, and this through a 
 most practical and natural expression of 
 national genius. 1 
 
 " The apostasy was not in spirit, although 
 the results in the material plane were 
 equally potent for evil, by reason of the 
 great authority of that nation in the material 
 plane. From those is much expected if they 
 be greatly gifted in the spiritual, the in- 
 tuitional; but from those who are more 
 especially material in the balance of Nature, 
 less is demanded in the spiritual, although 
 more is expected in the material plane. 
 
 "And the next: that complex group 
 across the Atlantic. There is, in the nation, 
 the Group-spirit, only a complex combina- 
 tion of many orders of Spirit and Matter 
 from the spirit-groups of the whole world. 
 Even so; and it is to the credit of this 
 Continent of Humanity that failing to be 
 led by one consent through the medium of 
 its Race-spirit, — that medium which is so 
 potent in the nation to which it is now op- 
 posed, it nevertheless, in its separate units, 
 did at length after long delay and contra- 
 
 1 Does this refer to England's talent for commercial adven- 
 ture?— F.B.B. 
 
 [8 3 ] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 diction and cross-purpose, respond with 
 one heart to the call of that Law of Nature 
 which is above all tribal groupings; and like 
 one individual intelligent corporation came 
 forward, as one great country putting itself 
 on the side of intrinsic Right. This being 
 so, there is no going back; but committed 
 with the force of their own individual in- 
 tuition to the support of this Great Law, 
 which is God, in that it is the direct repro- 
 duction of God in His body of matter, they 
 will never fail nor change until the canker 
 be removed. 
 
 " Young, inchoate, incapable of express- 
 ing the Spirit on this plane of Matter by 
 reason of the lack of experience of their 
 body-politic so to express itself, it yet speaks 
 with no uncertain voice, and shall prevail. 
 
 "The other, the solitary land which 
 should guard the East, has fallen, in that 
 its undeveloped intuitions have fallen an 
 easy prey to the intellectual control of the 
 developed force within and without. 
 
 " In spirit, she has also forgotten the 
 Great Original in the glory and complexity 
 of her symbolism. And her intuition, de- 
 prived of the ballast of experience and ma- 
 terial judgment, has, like all power uncon- 
 [8 4 ] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 trolled, broken out in the direction of least 
 resistance, following dimly in its unde- 
 veloped sense of goodness the instincts of 
 the Law of Nature, otherwise Love and 
 Humanity: but like a crowd, unable to 
 express itself, it has perverted a right in- 
 tention to the selfishness of libertinism, mis- 
 taking license for freedom, and the tawdry 
 glitter of the grossly material manifestation 
 for the high ideal. 1 Here, as you will ob- 
 serve, the humanity of the whole world lies 
 between the upper and the nether millstone. 
 Intent on destroying tyranny, it stands in 
 danger of being ground to atoms by the 
 lower. For Humanity senses its spiritual 
 ideal in a true brotherhood of Man, bound 
 from head to foot in a manifold and many- 
 coloured mesh of love, human and divine. 
 This is the true Democracy, grounded and 
 founded on brotherhood and love of God 
 and Man; Love which penetrates through 
 every pore not only of Humanity but of the 
 whole of Creation, — God's Body mani- 
 fest: not with equality of the individual 
 components, but in the equality of Sons of 
 God, — cells in His Divine Body, but un- 
 
 1 The actual script reads high ideal for the tawdry glitter, 13c. 
 which is obviously a metathesis. — F.B.B. 
 
 [8 5 ] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 equal, if so ye deem inequality, in the way 
 of purpose. This is the true government, 
 and it is inevitably approaching with ac- 
 celerated motion, — not the so-called De- 
 mocracy, which is sovereignty reversed, the 
 Feet of Clay in power and controlling that 
 which is over highly specialized, but that 
 Humanity which is the original intent of 
 Christianity bound in undying love and 
 sympathy but still a Government of all in 
 Love, by the higher and specialized ele- 
 ments and intellects of the least material 
 among the masses: equal in intuition as 
 Sons of God, but unequal, in that material 
 mastery and in that intellectual comprehen- 
 sion and expression which make for the 
 true and steady differentiation into the aris- 
 tocracies and the intellectuals. These shew 
 a difference. . . . Great the power of pure 
 intellect with the power of perfect sym- 
 pathy. The true aristocrat, the intuitive 
 leader, the great soul or passion, needs In- 
 tellect, needs Mind, but rules by virtue of 
 that Sympathy intuitive and divine. Thus 
 each specialised cell in the Divine Body 
 of Humanity should contribute to the per- 
 fect whole; not following that common law 
 of the lowest instincts of jealousy, envy, and 
 [86] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 cupidity, misnamed Democracy, but rather 
 in that higher system of which Kingship 
 and its accompanying system of government 
 is the nearly perfect symbol, but which, in 
 its spiritual perfection, has never yet been 
 manifest on earth, by reason of the selfish- 
 ness or folly of imperfect human nature 
 enmeshed in the material. 
 
 " There is Freewill in Nature as in Man 
 individually, and also in the great law of 
 Nature which is the complete expression 
 not only of God in Nature, but of God in 
 Humanity. The war, terrible though it is 
 in its present aspect, yet by its awakening 
 of brotherly love, and its stimulating of the 
 Spirit, has saved the whole world of Man 
 from a thing infinitely more terrible, — the 
 influence of Matter in the materialization 
 of the masses, to the destruction of all things 
 spiritual. 
 
 "This would have been the apostasy not 
 of a race-spirit under the control of Intellect 
 which started as a possessor of Spirit (with 
 which it is in nearer association), but the 
 surrender to the insane control of the Beast 
 in Man impelled by exigent and unspiritual 
 impulse to the destruction of all that is true 
 and lovely and spiritual in this world below. 
 [87] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 Beware! ye ravers. Beware! ye fanatics, ye 
 perverted and unbalanced dreamers of 
 great things that, raving in the land, are 
 leading and directing the Brute, the true 
 Beast of the Apocalypse. 
 
 " Ye not only involve yourselves, but the 
 whole world of your ideals in one common 
 ruin, and by misdirected freewill which is 
 entirely perverted, set back the clock for 
 generations. Now is the appointed time, 
 for now Self and its infirmities are the 
 pendulum swinging to the darkest night of 
 barbarism. 
 
 "Follow the Spirit! Yield to the in- 
 fluence of the Divine, which would fain 
 control you, — and the world advances by 
 the longest stride it has ever taken, to the 
 borders of the Kingdom, the Millenium. 
 
 "Darkness and Light! Self and God; 
 appeal to the lowest and the highest. 
 Which, in the relief from the impending 
 menace, will ye accept?" 
 
 Script No. ii 
 
 Including Parts of Writings of July 10 and 12 
 
 The script of July IO was unfinished, and at the 
 next sitting, two days later, the thread of the first 
 was resumed. A portion of these scripts is reserved 
 [88] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 for future publication, as it is hardly relevant to the 
 subject-matter of the present volume. Both scripts 
 are very difficult to decipher and neither was tran- 
 scribed until December, 191 8. The parts here given 
 may be taken in conjunction with the fragmentary 
 script of March 13. 
 
 From Script of July io 
 "We would point out that the simplicity 
 and lack of complexity in the personalities 
 of the members of a clan, and the identity 
 of their ancestry, will make for greater re- 
 sponse intuitively to the vibrations of each. 
 The question of sympathetic vibration is 
 the key to all communication and expres- 
 sion of Personality between both God and 
 Man, for Sympathy responds and Antip- 
 athy is a dissonance and makes for chaos 
 in Life and Nature. 
 
 " Strange to say, this vibrational influence, 
 in as far as the material and non-spiritual 
 vibrations are concerned, is intensified in 
 the bulk and mass of non-living Matter 
 which constitutes a district or country — 
 which means that the Race-Spirit, as you 
 call it, resides rather in that inanimate 
 Matter than in the bodies of living persons. 
 This will explain the longing for home 
 which possesses all older-established races. 
 [89] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 And although the constitution of boun- 
 daries is usually held to be a purely artifi- 
 cial arrangement, this is not so: but is in- 
 stead the non-conscious obedience of the 
 living to the dictates of the Racial Spirit 
 which resides perpetually in the lands 
 which races have long inhabited. 
 
 "Thus when boundaries are infringed, 
 the Race-Spirit is in revolt: inhabiting its 
 environment but called upon to act on a liv- 
 ing medium which is foreign to its nature. 
 Thus, and in consequence, one of two things 
 must happen: either the boundaries must 
 be rectified, or the invading race must be 
 transformed to the likeness and character- 
 istics of the race which it has transplanted. 
 This will not always be apparent, for in the 
 course of generations it very often happens 
 that the races which once possessed the land 
 return as conquerors to the land of their 
 fathers; and this has happened more often 
 than the living are wont to realize. 
 
 " But in the war which is now raging, 
 races absolutely and essentially contrasting 
 are in strange territory, and until this is 
 adjusted, there can be no peace whatever. 
 The spirit of the Latin will never accept 
 the Teuton, though he may gain a fortune 
 [90] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 with Slavs and Flemings, though as regards 
 the latter, with difficulty and resentment. 
 But the storm passes and the moral force of 
 the Teuton expansion is even now fully ex- 
 pended and the wider significance of their 
 offensive is now past. 
 
 "They may rush and they may charge 
 into new territory, but the spirit is dead and 
 powers of Earth over which they would 
 have control are now opposing and defeat- 
 ing them. Their residence in the conquered 
 lands is even now altering and converting 
 the invader to a semblance of the natives he 
 has slain. 1 
 
 "As we said, the End approaches, and 
 four years, and the period of resistance of 
 Matter will see the end. Russia awakens. 
 Her soul calls her" . . . (here the script 
 was interrupted). 
 
 I interpret this as meaning four years plus the 
 period of the resistance of Matter; connecting this 
 passage with the notion elsewhere found of the con- 
 tinued movement of the waters after the storm has 
 subsided. — F.B.B. 
 
 1 Compare Count Hertling's opinion, quoted on p. 128. 
 It would be interesting to learn that there is any warrant for 
 this strange statement in observed facts. — F.B.B. 
 
 [91] 
 
the hill of vision 
 Script of July 12 
 
 Only a few words of the last script had been de- 
 ciphered when this sitting commenced. F.B.B. had 
 seen that it had some bearing on the war, and as it 
 had been necessary to break off, he commenced the pres- 
 ent sitting with the question: — "You were telling 
 us something of the War and the relations of the dif- 
 ferent races involved, but we were obliged to break 
 off. Will you please say more on this subject? Do 
 you still adhere to the date given for the end ? When 
 are we to expect Germany's great debacle in the 
 West?" 
 
 "You will understand therefore that the 
 limitations of boundaries, or rather, the re- 
 sults of grouping, have their several condi- 
 tions, the Race-Spirit being confined as a 
 rule to certain areas which we have pre- 
 viously referred to as Nodes or spheres of 
 Influence in the general magnetic field of 
 the Earth. 
 
 "To appreciate this, you must first ap- 
 preciate the close connection between Life 
 and Electricity; Electricity being in fact 
 the vehicle of Life, the connecting link, the 
 flux of, and from, Spirit to Matter. 1 
 
 "This influence being entirely spiritual, 
 fields of influence quite ubiquitous can be 
 
 1 This was in a script dated 26 April. 
 [92] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 drawn upon by the powers of incarnate 
 Man, and can be concentrated by reactions 
 of Matter . . . but these conditions will 
 only procreate Life, and not the Entity, 
 which demands the Involution of Spirit 
 rather than its influence from without. 
 Nevertheless as the prototypal energy of 
 Spirit is involuted in nodes, its influence is 
 manifest even without individual effort or 
 expression. 1 
 
 "Nevertheless once in this world's his- 
 tory, a tribe or clan, by the exerciseof com- 
 mon consent, — or rather, as an early exhi- 
 bition of Freewill in a group of entities 
 acting by common consent as a consequence 
 of blood-relationship and to a still greater 
 degree by the unit interaction and intuition 
 of advanced thinkers (commencing in a 
 specialized branch of religious intuition), 
 did separate itself from the community of 
 Mankind and stand aloof from the Race of 
 Man. 2 
 
 "This was a preliminary to the final ad- 
 vent of conscience and freewill in the indi- 
 vidual, for with its advent — the prospect 
 
 1 A paraphrase of this very obscure passage is attempted at 
 the end of the transcript. — F.B.B. 
 
 2 The sequence of the script is altered here for the purpose of 
 clearness. — F.B.B. j 
 
 This obviously refers to the segregation of the Israelites. 
 
 [93] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 of Individuality — Personal — comes . . . 
 the reception of a personal responsibility be- 
 fore unknown save in the accepted Vehicle 
 for such responsibility, possessed of Free- 
 will throughout the Earth: and the Birth 
 of the Christus in the individual became 
 thus manifest. 
 
 " With the Tribes of the original number 
 scattered over the earth, responsible each 
 according to his environment, do you doubt 
 that the Vision of the Shepherds on the 
 moonlit plains of Judea was indeed a true 
 perception of the opening of a new era in 
 the history of the world? Ye have no rea- 
 son therefore to doubt the authenticity and 
 historical accuracy of the Scripture narra- 
 tive: for even as in the uninspired writing 
 of the Hebrew Race-group, the History was 
 detailed in obedience to the spiritual intent 
 expressed to their chosen leaders essentially 
 and in perfect truth, through an imperfect 
 (or at any rate apparent) adjustment to 
 Chronology and Fact, — so indeed the Ad- 
 vent of a New Revelation was truly and 
 accurately expressed both in matter of 
 Time, Fact, and Locality, though to the 
 material intellect no sure trace can be found 
 in the Hebrew of history. 
 
 [94] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 " Hence you perceive that Spiritual par- 
 able having no time or material expression, 
 cannot tally with the written and accepted 
 facts of Time and Place. They who found 
 in the intuition of their spirit the remote 
 and materially presented facts of the spirit- 
 ual changes, strove to express in the 
 language of their nation the impressions 
 which, in their intuition, they felt to be 
 spiritual facts. 
 
 "They were right: and, at the period be- 
 fore and after the supposed date of Anno 
 Domini, the Embryo Individual Soul re- 
 ceived the liberty of choice independently 
 of the Fatherhood of the Race: and, as the 
 Christus appeared on earth, there, in the 
 Home of our Race, in the centre of the 
 known world, at so late a date as the era 
 accepted in the tradition of the Church, the 
 Christ was born; not sporadically, but as a 
 First-born, a First-fruit, which, emanating 
 like the first intuition of Man in smallest 
 form, — the Nucleus of a single individual, 
 passed first through the medium of the 
 head-branches of the Parent Race, through 
 all the length and breadth of the known 
 Earth. 
 
 " Those nations which lay beyond the in- 
 [95] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 fluence of these groupings but partially as- 
 similated this phenomenon; and to this day 
 are lacking in the softer influences upon 
 which its morals were based. But by 
 spreading over all the world and physically 
 absorbing the temperament and spirit of 
 the true Asiatic races, they can hope to grow 
 in true grace ; and for this purpose long time 
 must intervene. 
 
 "They are the Philistines, the Sun-Wor- 
 shippers, hard, and fierce, and bright, — 
 and mundane and unspiritual as compared 
 with the more spiritual nature of the mys- 
 tic worshippers of the Moon. 
 
 "What think you of the Birth of the 
 Spirit, and its growth in Man? We have 
 already told you that the emotions and in- 
 tuitions only are handed down to the child 
 from its parents. With the inheritance thus 
 afforded for the reception of the parental 
 knowledge, no increase in the Spirit was 
 made for very many ages. Man was gov- 
 erned by Instinct handed down from age to 
 age through the medium of the Spirit of the 
 Race, which, partly itself the resultant of 
 material interactions, was yet affected by the 
 Spirit of the Creator and became to a great 
 extent receptive of His impressions. 
 [96] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 "Thus in the Spirit of the Race the in- 
 tuitions grew and developed until, in that 
 Chosen Race, Mans emotions became fully 
 incarnate, and all unspiritual though 
 checked and controlled by the medium of 
 
 his Guides. o . 
 
 " But not yet did the Embryo Spirit ot 
 God, the Embryo Son of the Father inhabit 
 the mansions which through countless ages 
 were in course of preparation for His maj- 
 esty and perfections. So, when the House 
 was made in the likeness and Microcosm 
 of God, and furnished by His Saints and in 
 obedience to His instructions with the In- 
 tuitions which are His attributes: and after 
 the squaring and perfecting of the whole, 
 He placed there a Son of His own in germ, 
 a Personality of His own Splendour within 
 this receptacle, — and left It there, a Babe 
 in swaddling-clothes and for Its Minis- 
 ters the Intuitions and Emotions, as serv- 
 ants to His Majesty. And, thus equipped, 
 He reigned. 
 
 "There, in that House, It had the oppor- 
 tunity of growing and developing to God- 
 head but powerless to open the mansion- 
 door'and come forth unless they who minis- 
 tered to It were willing to obey. 
 [97l 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 "The Freewill lay with the servants and 
 the preventive powers which material gross- 
 ness oft resents. Through the influence of 
 the servants, the Emotions, the very walls 
 of the House may minister to the Royal 
 Master, 1 stone calling to stone and beam to 
 beam, until in perfect harmony the Edifice 
 becomes part and parcel of the Divine In- 
 habitant, — becomes gilded and glorified, 
 and transcends itself to a stage of spiritual 
 glory; and, so transformed, becomes no 
 longer Matter, but Spirit expressed in 
 Matter. 
 
 " This would we dimly explain : and here 
 in Galilee was the first stone instituted. 
 With the Coming of the Christus comes re- 
 sponsibility for His growth, and the power 
 to gain that response truly; but again, the 
 Volitions, — the Ministers — must volun- 
 tarily place themselves in vibrational sym- 
 pathy with the Infant growth. It is not 
 easy to explain; we can only appeal to your 
 intuitions. But this we would say again : — 
 The spiritual Truth of the Gospels is ab- 
 solute and in perfect harmony with the 
 Spirit; but material Intellect may strive in 
 
 1 The script has "servant" but this seems certainly a slip. — 
 F.B.B. 
 
 [98] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 vain to find the substantial proofs of its 
 manifestation in Matter. 
 
 "Through the destruction of Matter, 
 Spirit is oftentimes refreshed and evolved; 
 and the spirituality of the East, — lost in 
 this upheaval of the antithesis of true 
 Emotion will in course of time result in its 
 resurrection on a new basis of Reason. But 
 not until the cause of her defection is 
 removed. 1 
 
 " There is now no road to this recovery 
 save in the destruction of those who are in 
 hostility to universal Order. Mercifully 
 they are but few, — though powerful 
 through reason of the ignorance and waver- 
 ing nature of the forces they control. For 
 the same reason, the recovery will be swift 
 and sure — But the influence must come 
 from without, because the counter-influence 
 is acting from without. Help must be 
 given. The necessary sacrifice must be 
 made; and the reward will be great in. 
 very truth. 
 
 " The responsibility is also great: and if, 
 from a sense of ' laissez-faire, 1 or unwill- 
 ingness to risk the further strain which such 
 action will involve, the nations of the 
 
 1 The passions stirred by the war? 
 [99] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 Earth refrain from intervening, — the en- 
 emy, the representative of Force, the Ex- 
 emplar of War, would turn all to his own 
 advantage. 
 
 " Thus the chaos and welter of this great 
 nation 1 can be converted either to a mighty 
 power of spiritual Good, or else can be 
 seduced and degraded to be the Mallet in 
 the Hands of Thor for the destruction of 
 all things." 
 
 On the Segregation of the Chosen 
 Race 
 
 Allusion has already been made to a 
 script received on the 13th March, 1918. 
 This script seems to merit some further con- 
 sideration, and this will now be given. It 
 has been deferred to this point, not only 
 because of the special nature of the matter 
 contained, but also for the reason that it 
 must be taken in conjunction with a further 
 writing received on the 12th July, and only 
 lately deciphered owing to its cramped 
 and difficult nature. There is a percep- 
 tible variation in the handwriting of some 
 of the scripts, and it was observed in the 
 
 1 Russia ? 
 [ IOO] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 case of the Glastonbury writings that the 
 caligraphy sometimes altered with the sub- 
 ject-matter of the script. It may however 
 be only a coincidence that the two scripts 
 of 19 1 8 which deal most prominently with 
 the subject of the Chosen Race appointed 
 to reign and rule in the New Era, are both 
 of a character exceptionally difficult to de- 
 cipher. The writer has taken great pains 
 to accomplish this task, but even now not 
 with entire success. Still, patience and per- 
 severance have to some extent been re- 
 warded and the general sense has been made 
 clear. 
 
 Script of March 13 
 
 The Spiritual Israel is now to be gathered 
 and concentrated for further advance of 
 the great plan of the Creator for the rais- 
 ing of Humanity to a more spiritual con- 
 dition, bringing about the Kingdom of God 
 upon Earth. The New Race is by ancestry 
 linked on to the Israel of old, since the 
 Tribes of the original number have spread 
 over the earth and intermingled with the 
 outer nations. Even nations of absolutely 
 alien blood thus contain those who may be 
 qualified to be heirs of the Promise. The 
 [101] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 nations who trace their ancestry to the scat- 
 tered tribes of the Israel of old-time are 
 now to be found in the East and in the West. 
 These nations therefore have had their share 
 in the evangelizing of the peoples of the 
 world. But some are as yet unregener- 
 ate and do not recognize their origin or 
 mission. 
 
 Our blood is of the Chosen Race, but 
 there are many others, including nations 
 overseas. Some have not borne their part 
 in the recent conflict and these must un- 
 dergo purgation. 
 
 Script of July 12 
 Paraphrase of Script 
 
 With Explanatory Additions 
 
 It is stated in a script of June 1st that there 
 are certain forces of an invisible nature 
 affecting Matter, which are, as it were, the 
 envelope of the Divine Will and Intention 
 controlling Nature. 
 
 Important among these is the effect of 
 the Sun's magnetism in inducing a west- 
 ward flow of all animate things. The Sun's 
 passage over the Earth is compared to the 
 winding of a vast magnetic coil. 
 [ 102] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 The superficial atoms on our globe are 
 polarized in a westward flow, and certain 
 spots on the face of the globe are developed. 
 These " act as nodes or centres of force, and 
 can influence both materially and spiritu- 
 ally the peoples that inhabit them." Look- 
 ing back to a script dated April 26, a simi- 
 lar description appears. "This world is 
 co-ordinated by Lines and Ganglia of spirit- 
 ual force, — ocean-currents in the world of 
 the Spiritual, — moving ever under spirit- 
 ual influence through the impalpable aether 
 and sucking in through their vortices the 
 mobile specks or motes or atoms, each of 
 which represents that complexity, Man. 
 
 "Man, in his complex nature, is moved 
 by many influences of a material nature and 
 he is generally only conscious of these in 
 his impulses to travel and tribal exodus. 
 He does not realize that behind these mate- 
 rial motive forces lie the forms and schemes 
 of spiritual development, instruments of a 
 greater Impulse beyond his ken." 
 
 Even earlier, in a writing on the 21st 
 April, we are told that in the case of such 
 localities as Athens, Rome, Jerusalem (and 
 Glastonbury also is named), it is not simply 
 the genius of a people that makes for the 
 [103] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 power and influence wielded by these 
 names and sites. Rather was it that the geo- 
 graphical and natural conditions were in 
 harmony with those special conditions of 
 genius "which each particular race personi- 
 fied in Man." Each unit of a race is a Mi- 
 crocosm of the whole. Hence the impor- 
 tance of grouping a nation in units, classes, 
 and masses; for the characteristics of indi- 
 viduals are "magnified, reduplicated, and 
 rendered a millionfold more powerful by 
 association." The reader may at this point 
 turn to the script of July 10, in which the 
 strange assertion is made that the Race- 
 Spirit resides more in the soil than in the 
 individuals who inhabit the district (see 
 transcript). 
 
 In another script of the same date, as yet 
 only partially transcribed and therefore 
 not included in this series, there occurs a 
 passage which it may be permissible to 
 quote here, as it concerns the question of 
 individual versus racial freewill, and is a 
 curiosity in its way: — "There is no doubt" 
 it says " but that the Creator is strongly con- 
 scious of the resistance of Matter, and that 
 as Matter intensifies in vibration, so the 
 Christ-consciousness advances. Thus He 
 [104] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 decides the question of the Freewill of 
 Man, and it is difficult to express. The 
 true explanation of this problem is often a 
 matter of the will of the Creator, who de- 
 sires independent individuality rather in 
 the Race than in the personal emphasis of 
 her tyrants." Attention is invited to the 
 last significant statement. How it accords 
 with the most recent phases of philosophic 
 thought I am in no position to judge, as I 
 have not read any modern works on the sub- 
 ject. We now turn to the script of July 
 12, and this I would like to put in other 
 words suggestive of my own impressions of 
 its meaning. We are to understand that 
 geographical boundaries (where not arbi- 
 trarily fixed) are dependent on conditions 
 inherent in the racial lie, the Race-spirit 
 being confined as a rule to those special 
 areas in the magnetic field of the earth with 
 which the particular race with which that 
 Spirit is associated have been for a long 
 time involved. The magnetic life-current 
 induced by the Solar action feeds the Life 
 of the Race with its own energy as special- 
 ized in each place that is the Metropolis 
 of the racial life. The magnetic or elec- 
 tric current is the vehicle of this nutrient 
 [105] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 energy which has a spiritual source and is 
 creative of life in the general sense. But 
 this is only one of two modes of spiritual 
 Involution, and it is the more external 
 mode. It cannot create Being, in the sense 
 of Soul, or individual Entity. It is the 
 " prototypal" form of spiritual descent 
 into Matter. But it assists in the process 
 of collecting, separating, and focussing the 
 life of a race around one or other of these 
 centres or nodes. 
 
 Once in the history of the world, a whole 
 people, grouped about such a centre, de- 
 veloped a racial individuality, a racial will 
 and something like a common conscious- 
 ness associated with a recognition of God 
 as a Father in a spiritual sense of the Race. 
 The clannish feeling of blood-relationship 
 helped to separate this people from the 
 outer world of men, and this process was 
 assisted by the teachings derived from cer- 
 tain advanced thinkers among them, who 
 acted as foster-fathers of the new conscious- 
 ness which was destined to be born in each 
 member of the clan. This new conscious- 
 ness brought at last the realization of moral 
 responsibility and the liberty of self-deter- 
 mination to each one. Its full accomplish- 
 [106] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 ment in the individual is described as the 
 Birth of the Christ in each. The responsi- 
 bility of the new personal consciousness 
 varies according to the environment of the 
 individual. 
 
 Had this Race never been scattered, they 
 could not have developed all varieties of 
 spiritual achievement, nor could they have 
 impregnated the whole human race outside 
 with the germ of the new principle now 
 born in them. But this they were destined 
 to do, and thus, according to the scheme of 
 the Creator, they were dispersed through- 
 out the globe, to leaven the masses of men, 
 and to spread the seeds of the Christ-con- 
 sciousness throughout the earth. Such is 
 the spiritual purpose underlying the segre- 
 gation of Israel, and the Bible presents us 
 with the record in fact, and parable har- 
 monized with fact and accordant with it. 
 So the new Spiritual Consciousness in Man, 
 commencing as a tiny germ, as a grain of 
 mustard-seed, in his heart or true emotional 
 nature, is eventually brought to birth as an 
 infant consciousness, and this is symbolized 
 as the Babe in the Manger. "Do you 
 doubt," says the script, "that the Vision of 
 the Shepherds was indeed a true perception 
 [107] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 of the opening of a new era in the History 
 of the World?" 1 
 
 The writing clearly indicates that the 
 Israel of old was instructed by Divinely 
 appointed Teachers and Guides. These, 
 we may be sure, were of a high order of ad- 
 vanced Humanity; individuals in whom the 
 spiritual consciousness was fully developed. 
 They had liberty of choice and could obey 
 or disobey. Here and there, they may have 
 been unfaithful to their trust: but under 
 their tuition there is no doubt that the Race 
 evolved the Idea and Worship of the One 
 God, the Father of the race, and was conse- 
 quently able to create from among the Sons 
 of Men a group capable of receiving the 
 Sonship of the Spirit. 
 
 Two points arise in connection with this 
 brief survey of the allusions in these scripts 
 to the segregation and ultimate manifesta- 
 tion of a Chosen People. 
 
 (i) As to the idea of the segregation of 
 a Race and the differentiation of its charac- 
 ter and religious intuitions under special 
 natural conditions and subject to the guid- 
 ance of great Teachers, may we not find in 
 
 1 " Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth Peace to men 
 of goodwill." 
 
 [108] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 the familiar facts of human association 
 many analogies of this phenomenon? For 
 example: a site is selected for a public 
 school, and a Head Master is found who, in 
 the course of a few years, succeeds in im- 
 pressing upon the establishment a mark of 
 individuality, even of personality not en- 
 tirely his own, inculcating a strong sense of 
 esprit de corps, which tends, after his time, 
 to increase rather than diminish. 
 
 The very buildings, as it were, become 
 impregnated with this influence, and insen- 
 sibly modify the character of succeeding 
 generations of students. 
 
 (2) In the quest for light upon the ob- 
 scure problem of the present location of 
 the scattered tribes of Israel, may it not be 
 possible that, forsaking the beaten tracks of 
 ethnology, in this case a somewhat barren 
 line of research, our enquiries might profit- 
 ably be directed towards an analysis of the 
 varying religious and social ideals prevail- 
 ing in the several racial areas which have 
 received a distinctive and characteristic im- 
 pression through the preaching of Chris- 
 tianity, and a comparison instituted between 
 these severally and the prophetic characters 
 of the Twelve Tribes as given in Genesis. 
 [109] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 Beyond the borders of the original 
 Semite racial grouping there dwelt those 
 fierce and warlike peoples whose undevel- 
 oped nature only partially assimilated the 
 " softer influences " upon which the new 
 evolution of the spiritual man was based. 
 Philistines, Hittites, Assyrians, we may 
 think, among many others further removed 
 yet in a geographical sense, were among 
 these. How are we to distinguish their 
 modern counterparts or representatives. 
 The script gives us a clue, in the nature of 
 the religious symbolism they respectively 
 employed. Israel has a typically Lunar 
 system of symbol in connection with her 
 religious ideals, expressed in her priestly 
 Times and Seasons, her Temple furniture, 
 and in many other ways. In antithesis to 
 this, we must look for evidences of Sun- 
 worship and Solar symbolism among the 
 "outer peoples." Hard they are, and 
 bright and fierce and mundane, — unspirit- 
 ual as compared with the Chosen Race. 
 Their God is Baal, or his later representa- 
 tives. Readers may follow out this line of 
 enquiry for themselves. Let us call to 
 mind that which is known of the primitive 
 worship of the original peoples of Europe 
 [no] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 and the nearer East, and in the light of these 
 traces, let us examine the character of their 
 modern representatives as modified by 
 Christianity, together with the type of 
 Christian worship and ideal they have 
 evolved. 
 
 But we can be under no misapprehen- 
 sion as to the intention of the script when it 
 speaks of those nations who " to this day 
 are lacking in the softer influence" afore- 
 said, since the context gives the clue. They 
 are to grow in true grace "by spreading 
 over all the world and physically absorb- 
 ing the temperament and spirit of the true 
 Asiatic races." 
 
 The use of the word "true" in this con- 
 nection, if we rightly read the script, im- 
 plies that the modern Philistines are not 
 really Asiatic but of European stock, suffi- 
 ciently nearly related in locale to be liable 
 to be so regarded. The description would 
 therefore apply well enough to the Otto- 
 man, Bulgar, and Baltic Slav, and in this 
 category we might perhaps include the 
 Prussian or Brandenburger, the original 
 Wendish and Lettish tribes which so 
 long and so stoutly resisted all efforts at 
 evangelization. 
 
 [in] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 Script No. 12, August 21, 19 18 
 
 Obtained at Sydenham Hill, Bristol, 4 p. m. Previ- 
 ous conversation had been entirely on archaeological 
 matters and the War had not been mentioned. J. A. 
 held the pen, and F.B.B. read aloud continuously from 
 an article he had written on the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 "When we said that August the twenty- 
 fourth (sic) would see the end of the enemy 
 offensive, we spoke with a distinct con- 
 sciousness of the spiritual intention; only 
 the tendency in the mass of Matter to retain 
 those impressions which are conveyed to it 
 by its medium, follows the universal law of 
 continued vibration for some period after 
 the cessation of the impulse of the rising. 
 Bear this in mind, and make no mistake 
 on this score : a whole year may pass away 
 before these impulses, absorbed by Matter 
 and conveyed by its instrumentality into 
 your plane, — to be there expressed, pass 
 away into the silence of its interspaces. 
 
 " Buthere we assert and reassert: the great 
 force of the impulse has already expended 
 itself and will never again be resumed. 
 
 "We have quoted the twenty-fourth, be- 
 cause on this date, — or rather, a period 
 immediately following it, — that is to say, 
 [112] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 during the sixty-six or sixty-eight hours 
 immediately succeeding to it, you, if you 
 perceive aright the symptoms which should 
 be evident to you, cannot fail to perceive 
 that which must inevitably ensue, and from 
 which you will realize indubitably that the 
 spiritual tide of this great offensive has 
 turned finally and irrevocably. 
 
 " The tide once ebbing will flow no more, 
 but the waves, though in their intermittent 
 vehemence they may rise to the high-water 
 mark, or surpass it for a moment, will yet 
 be but instantaneous, or rather momentary 
 impulses of a despairing foe: and the true 
 tide irrevocably sinking, ebbing ever lower 
 and lower, will at length, in a period of 
 time (the period of which is the indication 
 of the momentum and ponderosity of Mat- 
 ter in concert with the freewill of Man), 
 subside into the great calm which has no 
 wave, no further rise nor ebb. 
 
 " Heaven forfend lest this in turn yield 
 to stagnation and useless) inertia!' — lest 
 again the striving of the Spirit beat upon it 
 and lash it into fresh fury! Watch, we say 
 again, watch! with the eye of the Spirit, 
 and you shall infallibly see and understand 
 that we who have spoken in response to your 
 [113] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 faith, do not speak without knowledge and 
 authority. 
 
 "More we cannot say, — more we may 
 not say, — and in very truth, more would 
 be not only superabundant, but unseemly 
 and calculated to defeat the ends of Spirit. 
 For indeed they who are materially-minded 
 might turn it to base uses. 
 
 " Coloured with your hopes and tinctured 
 with your individuality, — as coloured 
 glasses colour the pure beams of light 
 which penetrate them, — yet freed by Rea- 
 son from this colouring, you shall see the 
 pure and true residuum in you of absolute 
 truth which is in that which you may ask 
 and we are able to convey to your material 
 conception. 
 
 "We in very truth speak as spirit to 
 spirit, and only in so far as your spirit is 
 attuned to an unselfish desire for knowledge 
 to be applied to good ends. And even thus, 
 we penetrating in, it is carried of yourselves 
 by channels which, though tried and beaten 
 paths to us, are yet unknown, or at least 
 unappreciated by the limitations of your 
 human consciousness. We, by these tried 
 though unknown paths, can only convey to 
 you that germ of the subliminal knowledge 
 [11+] 
 
THE SCRIPT 
 
 from which in God's good time the great 
 Tree of Comprehension shall arise, piercing 
 the empyrean with its myriad branches, and 
 absorbing in every pore that consciousness 
 of spiritual Immanence which shall in 
 course of time culminate in EXISTENCE IN 
 TWO SPHERES, — even as the tree upon which 
 we hang the allegory exists by virtue of its 
 green and sun-kissed raiment in contrast 
 with its dark and devious roots hidden 
 beneath the dark soil of Matter. 
 
 "There is no need for more at the mo- 
 ment: but as you are doubtful and anxious, 
 we do say this . . . watch, trust, and be- 
 lieve! In a few days now ye shall know 
 and understand." 
 
 " We who are known to you in the councils of 
 the Watchers in the Radiant Sphere of Liberated 
 Human Memory and Spirit thus write in the 
 responsive vibrations of your own awakened 
 Spirit." 
 
 [ii5] 
 
POSTSCRIPT 
 
 Apart from the predictions both of war 
 and of the ending of war, with their ex- 
 traordinary verification in fact, these auto- 
 matic writings are sufficiently remarkable 
 from other points of view. The analysis of 
 German character and its later development 
 under stress of an inclusive materialism is 
 exact even if it contains nothing particularly 
 novel. This process was clear to many be- 
 fore the war; it is now obvious to all. The 
 statements definitely made and constantly 
 reiterated that there is much in the Teuton 
 races that is not only of essential value to 
 the world, but indispensable, and that the 
 purgation of war will release this potency 
 from its hitherto inhibiting bondage, mak- 
 ing it operative and even bringing it into 
 alliance with the civilized peoples of the 
 West for the last fight against an evil 
 greater even than the war, is one that at 
 the present juncture will hardly be well re- 
 ceived even though it has the sound reason 
 of dispassionate men behind it. The fore- 
 [116] 
 
POSTSCRIPT 
 
 cast of social disruption sequent on the war 
 is now being substantiated by events, and 
 one would wish (admitting the credibility 
 of the mysterious witnesses) that the ques- 
 tion of the solution of this new menace 
 were left less open as regards the point of 
 time. The insistence of the communicating 
 agencies on the fundamental fact of free 
 will, not only in man but in the whole 
 process of life, and the definition of time 
 as only "the ratio of the resistance of Mat- 
 ter to the interpenetration of the Spirit," 
 must be accepted whatever one's philo- 
 sophical standpoint; and this being so it 
 is clear that no approximation of dates is 
 at present possible, the matter rests in our 
 hands, that is all. 
 
 Throughout the communications are 
 many references to some "Race" with 
 many ramifications, that is destined to be 
 the next ethnic group in whose hands is 
 placed the working out of the next epoch 
 of civilization. It is unfortunate that the 
 very words and phrases which specify this 
 race are absolutely illegible, and for the 
 present the question must remain unan- 
 swered. In any case the testimony is against 
 anything approaching "Internationalism" 
 [117] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 and in favour of definite and specific na- 
 tionalism as a prime necessity for the de- 
 velopment of personal as well as social 
 character. The tendency today to extend 
 that " democracy " which has wrecked mod- 
 ern government and society by postulating 
 an equality that does not exist and denying 
 every element of 'selection and choice, to 
 races as well as to individuals, putting all 
 on the same plane of social value and po- 
 tential, is one of the greatest dangers of the 
 time. It is good to get a little sound sense 
 along this line even if we are forced by its 
 absence elsewhere to find it in the automatic 
 writings of unknown, and probably un- 
 knowable, personalities. 
 
 Not that they are averse to democracy, 
 but they apparently draw the same line 
 between " democracy of ideal and de- 
 mocracy of method," indicated in "The 
 Nemesis of Mediocrity" which was being 
 written just when these writings of F.B.B. 
 and J. A. were being obtained, though this 
 book was published some months before 
 the writings themselves reached America. 
 "The Watchers" warn both against that 
 social and intellectual severance that cuts 
 humanity in two, with a small class of the 
 [n8] 
 
POSTSCRIPT 
 
 elect on the one hand and a vast proletarian 
 mass on the other, and also against " that 
 so-called democracy which is sovereignty 
 reversed." "Fear not Democracy" they 
 say, " if properly led and instructed," which 
 is of course exactly the point; for, except 
 for brief periods, it never has been either 
 properly led or instructed, nor does it desire 
 the one or the other. Improperly led, " the 
 utter ignorance of the multitude unchecked 
 by any nobleness of instruction rose like a 
 flame and swept the brilliant groups away," 
 whenever in the past " the jealousy of the 
 possession of knowledge drove men to keep 
 it in secret cults and in the bodies of so- 
 cieties," and so it is now and forever will 
 be, unless man can achieve the true De- 
 mocracy. Where the false is " that com- 
 mon law of the lowest instincts of jealousy, 
 envy and cupidity," the true is "grounded 
 and founded on brotherhood and love of 
 God and man ; love which penetrates 
 through every pore not only of humanity 
 but of the whole of Creation — God's Body 
 manifest; not with equality of the sons of 
 God — cells in His Divine Body, but un- 
 equal in the way of purpose." This is 
 neither Bolshevism (rather it is its an- 
 [119] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 tithesis) nor is it democracy as this is now 
 understood, but it is a very sane thing and 
 is best expressed "in that higher system of 
 which Kingship and its accompanying sys- 
 tem of government is the nearly perfect 
 symbol." 
 
 The constant assertions of a readjustment, 
 even a cataclysmic revolution, whereby the 
 West is bound to fall and the East " come 
 into its own," appearing as they do in the 
 war prophecy of 191 1 and continuing down 
 to the script of June, 191 8, are to be taken, 
 it would seem, in a sense other than that of 
 political, racial or social supremacy. The 
 doctrine that is enunciated is that man being 
 compounded of matter and spirit, there are 
 two driving forces in the process of material 
 redemption, intellect and intuition, the first 
 being of the West and liable to degenera- 
 tion into sheer materialism, the other of the 
 East and subject to no such danger, but 
 liable to isolation and abandonment when- 
 ever the first balance is lost. The West has 
 abandoned itself, through the prostitution 
 of intellect, to materialism, and only through 
 the war could its false standards be broken 
 down, its evil motives be purged away, and 
 the gate opened for the re-entrance of that 
 [120] 
 
POSTSCRIPT 
 
 vitalizing spirituality that is of the East and 
 is of the soul of the East. The restoration 
 of this balance through the new coming of 
 this Eastern spirituality is clearly predicted 
 as the result of the war and as its very reason 
 for being, and by this the readjustment is 
 to be effected that will make possible the 
 "Great Days of Christ" wherein a new 
 civilization will be born — a civilization that 
 is given promise of indefinite continuance; 
 since this is the last time that matter will 
 triumph even temporarily over intellect and 
 spirit. The curious parallel between this 
 diagnosis and Professor Ferrero's theory of 
 the quantitative and qualitative standards, 
 Lisle March Phillipps' analysis of the re- 
 spective contributions of the East and the 
 West to the social synthesis in " Form and 
 Colour," and M. Bergson's exposition of the 
 difference and the relations between intel- 
 lect and intuition in his " Creative Evolu- 
 tion," will not escape the reader. 
 
 To me the most interesting point is the 
 correspondence between the philosophical 
 elements that show themselves through the 
 "War Script of 1918" and the general 
 system of philosophy that was finally per- 
 fected in the Middle Ages along the three 
 [121] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 lines of St. Thomas as representing Domin- 
 ican, Duns Scotus Franciscan, and Hugh 
 of St. Victor Augustinian philosophy. Per- 
 haps it would be safer to say that the sug- 
 gestion is rather of the sources from which 
 Mediaeval philosophy derived — Plotinus, 
 Philo, Origen, or even the earlier schools 
 of the Peripatetics and the Pythagoreans. 
 The doctrine of the " Martyrdom of Mat- 
 ter" through the process of redemption by 
 the interpenetration of Spirit is particularly 
 striking. A similar doctrine is the common 
 possession of all great philosophical sys- 
 tems, whatever their date and source, and 
 the assured discoveries of modern science 
 seem to force a return to this primal idea. 
 The scholastic postulate of the rationes 
 seminales in opposition to the earlier doc- 
 trine that matter in itself was nothingness, 
 void of inherent potentiality but subject to 
 transformation by the operation of Spirit 
 penetrating it from without, seems now to 
 have opened the door to the nineteenth cen- 
 tury conception of blind evolution; a posi- 
 tion no longer tenable. According to Plo- 
 tinus " Matter is merely the space which 
 conditions all corporeal existence; it is a 
 pure possibility of being, mere nothingness, 
 [122] 
 
POSTSCRIPT 
 
 and it is identified with primitive evil," 
 while Philo said the same in declaring the 
 visible world to be not so much the result 
 of emanation as of the application of Divine 
 power to matter pre-existing in a chaotic 
 state. Matter in this sense is undoubtedly 
 Duns Scotus' "Materia primo prima," 
 chaos "without form and void," the first 
 reaction of the operation of Spirit being the 
 sensible form. From this point the process 
 of spiritual interpenetration is constant, 
 though probably rhythmical ; and in the end 
 Matter, which, as Albertus Magnus taught, 
 is not eternal, is transformed, redeemed, 
 transubstantiated, and is no longer Matter 
 but Spirit. Redemption is therefore not 
 only the ultimate destiny of man but of the 
 entire universe of which matter is the mode. 
 Startling and even sensational as are the 
 War Predictions, I am inclined to think 
 that, in spite of the lacunae, the occasional 
 apparent inconsistencies, the downward 
 trend towards something approximating 
 sentimentalism now and then, the "War 
 Script of 1918" finds its chief value in its 
 philosophical possibilities. At all events 
 it is a welcome prophylactic to the many 
 post-Mediaeval philosophies, from Des- 
 [123] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 cartes through Hobbes and Kant to Posi- 
 tivism and Pragmatism. The world gained 
 nothing when it abandoned the sacramental 
 philosophy of Scholasticism (heir as it was 
 of all the philosophies of the past from Neo- 
 Platonism to the Pre-Platonists) for the 
 intellectualist-materialist systems of mod- 
 ernism. The world-before-the-war, and 
 the war itself, and the present chaos of 
 after-the-war, were the inevitable result. 
 The future, if it is to be worth having, will 
 be built on other foundations. 
 
 [124] 
 
NOTES 
 Note on the Script of June i 
 
 There has been an opening of the vials of spiritual 
 force of a new kind over all the civilized world. The 
 result of this outbreak of spiritual energies of an un- 
 accustomed kind has been in the first instance to create 
 unexampled confusion. 
 
 The effect is seen in revolutionary movements, whose 
 inwardness cannot be appreciated from a merely exter- 
 nal or temporal survey. 
 
 Germany is depicted as possessing a very perfectly 
 organized Race-consciousness immensely strong in a ma- 
 terial sense owing to its coherent structure, but in a 
 state of spiritual coma. And its spiritual forces have 
 been absorbed into intellectual activities of a corrupt 
 order, expressing themselves in a national will to cap- 
 ture and dominate the two worlds of Mind and Mat- 
 ter, decreeing the sovereignty of German Kultur and 
 the German Empire. 
 
 The true evolutionary task of Germany is the ma- 
 nipulation and conquest of all the forces of Matter. 
 This is her gift, and its rightful exercise is necessary 
 to the fulfilment of the great Intention of the scheme 
 of Man's development. But at present the intention 
 is perverted owing to the fissure in Germany's soul, 
 which has severed her spiritual part from her material 
 self, and her intelligence has allied itself exclusively 
 with the latter. Her apostate Spirit wanders eastward 
 
 [125] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 in vague dreams whilst her bodily part presses west- 
 ward in frantic efforts at material dominion. But for 
 this severance, she must infallibly have achieved her 
 ambitions. 
 
 But her failure in a material sense will so weaken 
 the degraded elements of her nature, that her better 
 part will ultimately have strength to assert once more 
 its dominion over the whole body-politic, and this will 
 be brought about by her spiritual sufferings in the East, 
 where she will amalgamate with herself all the " fallow 
 and uncontrolled spirituality of the Eastern races." 
 
 So much for Germany's characteristic perversion of 
 the forces of the Spirit to material ends. For ourselves, 
 we have to be on our guard against a yet more subtle 
 danger, which, if allowed to continue, would paralyse 
 spiritual energies and put an end to further progress or 
 achievement on the part of Man, by producing a static 
 condition of premature balance between Spirit and 
 Matter, between the forces of Good and Evil. 
 
 This dangerous tendency is one which does not ex- 
 press itself in material action, but works, generally in 
 a covert manner, for compromise of conflicting forces, 
 compromise due to a confused conception of spiritual 
 aims derived from a type of thought which though in 
 essence spiritual, is enmeshed in all sorts of material 
 conceptions more or less intellectualized. The de- 
 scription clearly applies to those mild and vaguely 
 benevolent souls whose conception of spiritual triumph 
 begins and ends with the idea of an earthly millenium 
 of Rest, in which all the swords shall be prematurely 
 beaten into ploughshares and the lion shall lie down 
 with the lamb. They cannot see that the lion is still 
 a lion and a beast of prey, and that even whilst lying 
 [126] 
 
NOTES 
 
 down by the lamb, his jaws would be dripping with the 
 slaver of expectancy. Nor do they understand that 
 where spiritual principle is involved there is, and can 
 be, no compromise and they will never understand that 
 so long as the material will of Man remains in any 
 degree unconverted, the spiritual warfare must be per- 
 petually continued until the balance be finally turned. 
 They would too often be content with a state of equi- 
 poise, with a formal treaty planned to ensure the obliv- 
 ion of all discord, and the wiping-out of all memories 
 of wrong. In this category must be placed those who 
 either actively or passively, and from whatever motive, 
 whether humanitarian or personal, whether ideal or 
 debased, sympathetic or cowardly or even merely lazy, 
 are seeking a premature peace. They are, however 
 unwittingly, opening the door to reaction and to the 
 back-rush of thwarted material forces, and thus threat- 
 ening ruin and disaster to the whole human race. 
 
 To counter this spiritual error and prevent stagna- 
 tion, the script tells us that a caustic irritant is applied 
 to the body of the Allied nations. This process we 
 can observe if we will in the recrudescence of senseless 
 cruelties on the part of the foe, long after any conceiv- 
 able military object could be served by them even from 
 their point of view. 
 
 Rape, arson, murder, and enslavement; the torture 
 and starvation of prisoners, and other atrocities too 
 numerous to mention have at last thoroughly inflamed 
 the sore which had grown callous and even the most 
 pacific minds have been stirred and galvanized into 
 active opposition. 
 
 As a typical instance of this extraordinary change, a 
 single case may be cited. It was reported early in 
 
 [127] 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 December that a group of " conscientious objectors " 
 forming part of a labour battalion in France, had been 
 so horrified by the cruelties and devastations they had 
 seen that they petitioned to be embodied in the fighting 
 line, and became the most ardent of belligerents. 
 
 Note on Script of March 13 
 
 It may be long before events are seen in true perspec- 
 tive, and the actual turning-point of the great conflict 
 can be clearly seen: but we now have it from the lips 
 of Count Hertling, a few days before his death, that 
 the German military authorities had realized by July 
 1 8th, 191 8, that all hope of winning the war had gone. 
 Nevertheless they doggedly persisted and in the north- 
 ern section, our greatest danger-point, their line was 
 well maintained till the period of the great British 
 advance. The culminating point of this strong offensive 
 movement was reached on the 26th of August, when 
 the British forces penetrated the German lines on a 
 wide sector from Arras to Albert. The following ex- 
 tract from the Daily Mail of August 26th, based upon 
 Mr. Beach Thomas's report, is significant. 
 
 " British troops won the greatest British victory of 
 the war yesterday and on Saturday, driving the Ger- 
 mans before them on a wide front between Arras and 
 the Somme, and pushing rapidly to the outskirts of 
 Bapaume, the chief German road and railway centre 
 on the Somme front " 
 
 and again, from the Report itself, we quote : — 
 
 " Whatever happens, the present achievement is its 
 own record. German confidence and hope are shattered 
 as never before even approximately." 
 [128] 
 
NOTES 
 
 From Mr. H. Perry Robinson's report, published in 
 the Daily News for August 26th. 
 
 " These are great days. It surely must be that they 
 will even loom greatly in history, but they are certainly 
 great to live in. . . . 
 
 " The sweep of our advance is so rapid that no man 
 can say where our advanced line as a whole may stand 
 at any given moment, for every half-hour brings news 
 that this or that village is in our hands. . . . German 
 officers taken make no attempt to minimize the gravity 
 of the catastrophe. . . . All practically seem to take 
 the view that Germany's ultimate victory now is out 
 of the question, though if the Allies mean to crush her 
 utterly she can still fight on for at least a year or two 
 to come." 
 
 A Reuter's despatch printed in American newspapers 
 of August 26th is quoted on p. xvii. 
 
 The newspaper reports for the day succeeding the 
 26th are generally restrained in tone, but the advance 
 of the British and Allied forces continued from this 
 time forward and the tide of the German advance 
 was henceforth stemmed, and ceased finally to flow 
 westward. 
 
 [129] 
 
ATTESTATIONS 
 
 Extract from the Daily Express of the 14th 
 March, igig 
 
 THE NEXT WAR! 
 
 Allied Victory Sterile unless Bolshevism 
 is Crushed 
 
 The Yellow Peril in a New Setting 
 
 The next war will be between the Allies and 
 the Bolsheviks. ... If the Allies fail, Bolshe- 
 vism will destroy the culture of the world and 
 the yellow races will become supreme. This is 
 the prophecy of General Hoffmann, of Brest- 
 Litovsk notoriety, made in the course of a re- 
 markable interview with Mr. H. J. Greenwall, 
 the Daily Express special correspondent in Ber- 
 lin. There is irony in the fact that this picture 
 of a Russian terror is drawn by the man who 
 bullied Trotsky into accepting a humiliating 
 peace. General Hoffmann believes that unless 
 the armies of Lenin and Trotsky are crushed 
 now, and that quickly, the Entente will lose the 
 fruits of their victory. 
 
 Germans in the Rhineland dread the Bol- 
 shevist terror as much as General Hoffmann. 
 [130] 
 

 «A^V 
 
 
 Facsimile of a Page 
 
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 ^T*^- *-** i^^m^ju W^+- 
 
 Xll^Ayvlw^U* J+* ^V K"***^'^ 
 
 the Automatic Writings 
 
ATTESTATIONS 
 
 A demonstration at Cologne was strongly in 
 favour of a Rhenish buffer State as a barrier 
 against the Red Wave. 
 
 From General Hoffmann's detailed remarks 
 we select the following: 
 
 " Without Lenin the Entente would never have won 
 the war. But unless Bolshevism is crushed, the Allies' 
 victory will be a sterile one, for the triumph of Bol- 
 shevism means the end of the world's culture. Bol- 
 shevism can only be crushed by force: it needs a large 
 Entente army — marching side by side with a German 
 army — to crush it. It must be done and done soon or 
 it will too late. 
 
 " In reply to a question as to the break-up of the Ger- 
 man army he said he told Herr Scheidemann that if the 
 Kaiser went away, the army would collapse . . . the 
 long duration of the war and the need of men also 
 played a part in the downfall of the German army. 
 Until the end of August, 191 8, Ludendorff thought 
 that the war was won, and he did not change that 
 opinion until General Mangin's offensive took place. 
 
 "... We should not have allowed Bolshevik repre- 
 sentatives to come to Germany. Ludendorff was in a 
 great hurry for me to make peace with the Russians 
 and he telephoned instructions to me to make immediate 
 peace as he wanted our troops withdrawn from the 
 eastern to the western front. . . ." 
 
 "When and where will the next war take 
 place?" I asked as a last question. 
 
 " If the Entente statesmen are clever, the next war 
 will be between the Allies and the Bolsheviks: other- 
 
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THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 wise Bolshevism will kill European culture and the 
 yellow race will reign supreme in Europe " 
 
 was the General's reply. 
 
 COPY OF LETTER 
 
 FROM 
 
 Sir William Barrett, F.R.S. 
 
 dated April 2, 191 8 
 Dear Mr. Bond: — 
 
 I have been out of Town for a few days and your 
 interesting letter enclosing the automatic script of that 
 day (Good Friday, March 29th) has just reached me. 
 
 Before I read the script with its confident statement 
 that " the tide would turn on Easter Day " the first 
 thing that caught my eye on opening the Westminster 
 Gazette and other newspapers was the headline in capi- 
 tal letters " The Tide turned on Easter Sunday." 
 
 That is to say, the terrible apprehension the whole 
 country has been under from the great German offen- 
 sive during March, and its overflowing tide of disaster 
 to our troops has been arrested on Easter Day. 
 
 One can only hope and pray that the tide will turn 
 now in our favour and that Easter Day may prove to 
 be the critical turning point. 
 
 With regard to the new procedure you have adopted 
 in reading aloud to the automatist so that his mind may 
 be interested in what you are reading, and his attention 
 thus diverted from the script, — this is a most happy 
 thought and an excellent procedure. The conscious self 
 
 [ 132] 
 
ATTESTATIONS 
 
 Is thus engaged in thinking over and discussing what 
 you are reading, and the subliminal self is more free to 
 
 act ' Yours sincerely 
 
 Signed, W. F. BARRETT. 
 
 3 I.Devonshire Place.W. 
 April.2.1918. 
 
 P. S. That is why my plan of blindfolding the sit- 
 ters in the Ouija experiments has been so useful. In 
 fact, the sitter gets more rapid and coherent messages 
 when thoroughly blindfold. I do hope you will be able 
 to continue these interesting experiments, valuable from 
 every point of view. 
 
 ATTESTATION BY MISS MAUD 
 WINGATE 
 
 I was present at some of the sittings between March 
 and December, 191 8, and can testify to the fact that 
 Mr. Bond's reading was continuous and that Mr. 
 Alleyne's writing was also continuous and was rapid 
 and very uniform in speed. 
 
 ATTESTATION BY MRS. ELLEN PARFITT 
 
 I am witness to the date of the Script obtained on the 
 13th of March, 1918, referring to the end of the war, 
 etc. I was also present on other occasions during the 
 writing and have in many cases signed the record of 
 date. 
 
 ATTESTATION BY MR. JOHN ALLEYNE 
 
 I desire to state for the information of readers that 
 I undertook these sittings for automatic writing purely 
 
THE HILL OF VISION 
 
 in deference to Sir William Barrett's suggestion as con- 
 veyed by my friend Mr. Bond, and without any pre- 
 conceived idea as to what might be the nature of the 
 results. I am unable to recognize the resulting script 
 as in any appreciable degree the reflection of any notions 
 of my own, and although I am a wide general reader 
 and possess a retentive memory, I find myself often curi- 
 ously unable to retain a clear mental impression of 
 these scripts after they have been read to me. It is by 
 nature difficult for me to write a letter or to carry on 
 a conversation in presence of any distracting influence 
 such as music or talking by others. Yet during our sit- 
 tings my attention is fully given to Mr. Bond's reading, 
 and I feel my hand to be moved quite independently of 
 my own volition. I have never seriously studied philos- 
 ophy and have not followed the developments of mod- 
 ern theosophical thought. With Spiritualism I have 
 had scant sympathy. Applied Science and the Arts 
 have always appealed to me and my hobbies have in- 
 cluded many forms of Sport, together with poetry and 
 literature. 
 
 I am a retired officer, a conservative in politics, 
 though in sympathy with the present movement for 
 Reconstruction. 
 
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