The Eye Opener

Dixie’s Censored Subject: Black Slave Owners
Culture/Society Extended News News Keywords: BLACK SLAVE OWNERS
Source: Barnes Review
Author: By Robert M. Grooms
Posted on 02/13/2001 12:58:03 PST by meandog
DIXIE’S CENSORED SUBJECT: BLACK SLAVEOWNERS
By Robert M. Grooms

© 1997 (this article is copyrighted and is provided here courtesy of the Barnes Review)


In an 1856 letter to his wife Mary Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee called slavery “a moral and
political evil.” Yet he concluded that black slaves were immeasurably better off here than in
Africa, morally, socially and physically.
The leftists who predominate in the mass media and the world of academe have refashioned
the by gone world of slavery and black life in the Old South. Their agenda does not allow for a
balanced view of a world they never knew.
In a society molded by highly skewed and agenda-selective presentations of history, the
tightest censorship involves the fact that large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in
fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small
minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before
the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them
lived in the slaveholding states.
The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned
slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of
whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves).
In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free Negroes is acknowledged in the
history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals
who purchased the freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to
legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the
majority of instances, one which is debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned
slaves. These include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton
District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free
Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more (2).
According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in
the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states.
Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in
New Orleans. The country’s leading African American historian, Duke University professor
John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28
percent of the free Negroes in that city.
To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when
compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern
whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.
The majority of slaveholders, white and black, owned only one to five slaves. More often
than not, and contrary to a century and a half of bullwhips-on-tortured-backs propaganda, black
and white masters worked and ate alongside their charges; be it in house, field or workshop. The
few individuals who owned 50 or more slaves were confined to the top one percent, and have
been defined as slave magnates.
In 1860 there were at least six Negroes in Louisiana who owned 65 or more slaves The
largest number, 152 slaves, were owned by the widow C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards,
who owned a large sugar cane plantation. Another Negro slave magnate in Louisiana, with over
100 slaves, was Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued at (in 1860 dollars)
$264,000 (3). That year, the mean wealth of southern white men was $3,978 (4).
In Charleston, South Carolina in 1860 125 free Negroes owned slaves; six of them owning 10
or more. Of the $1.5 million in taxable property owned by free Negroes in Charleston, more
than $300,000 represented slave holdings (5). In North Carolina 69 free Negroes were slave
owners (6).
In 1860 William Ellison was South Carolina’s largest Negro slaveowner. In Black Masters.
A Free Family of Color in the Old South, authors Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roak write a
sympathetic account of Ellison’s life. From Ellison’s birth as a slave to his death at 71, the
authors attempt to provide justification, based on their own speculation, as to why a former slave
would become a magnate slave master.
At birth he was given the name April. A common practice among slaves of the period was to
name a child after the day or month of his or her birth. Between 1800 and 1802 April was
purchased by a white slave-owner named William Ellison. Apprenticed at 12, he was taught the
trades of carpentry, blacksmithing and machining, as well as how to read, write, cipher and do
basic bookkeeping.
On June 8, 1816, William Ellison appeared before a magistrate (with five local freeholders as
supporting witnesses) to gain permission to free April, now 26 years of age. In 1800 the South
Carolina legislature had set out in detail the procedures for manumission. To end the practice of
freeing unruly slaves of “bad or depraved” character and those who “from age or infirmity” were
incapacitated, the state required that an owner testify under oath to the good character of the
slave he sought to free. Also required was evidence of the slave’s “ability to gain a livelihood in
an honest way.”
Although lawmakers of the time could not envision the incredibly vast public welfare
structures of a later age, these stipulations became law in order to prevent slaveholders from
freeing individuals who would become a burden on the general public.
Interestingly, considering today’s accounts of life under slavery, authors Johnson and Roak
report instances where free Negroes petitioned to be allowed to become slaves; this because they
were unable to support themselves.
Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (University Press of Virginia-
1995) was written by Ervin L. Jordan Jr., an African-American and assistant professor and
associate curator of the Special Collections Department, University of Virginia library. He
wrote: “One of the more curious aspects of the free black existence in Virginia was their
ownership of slaves. Black slave masters owned members of their family and freed them in their
wills. Free blacks were encouraged to sell themselves into slavery and had the right to choose
their owner through a lengthy court procedure.”
In 1816, shortly after his manumission, April moved to Stateburg. Initially he hired slave
workers from local owners. When in 1817 he built a gin for Judge Thomas Watries, he credited
the judge nine dollars “for hire of carpenter George for 12 days.” By 1820 he had purchased two
adult males to work in his shop (7). In fewer than four years after being freed, April demonstrated
that he had no problem perpetuating an institution he had been released from. He also achieved
greater monetary success than most white people of the period.
On June 20, 1820, April appeared in the Sumter District courthouse in Sumterville.
Described in court papers submitted by his attorney as a “freed yellow man of about 29 years of
age,” he requested a name change because it “would yet greatly advance his interest as a
tradesman.” A new name would also “save him and his children from degradation and contempt
which the minds of some do and will attach to the name April.” Because “of the kindness” of his
former master and as a “Mark of gratitude and respect for him” April asked that his name be
changed to William Ellison. His request was granted.
In time the black Ellison family joined the predominantly white Episcopalian church. On
August 6, 1824 he was allowed to put a family bench on the first floor, among those of the
wealthy white families. Other blacks, free and slave, and poor whites sat in the balcony.
Another wealthy Negro family would later join the first floor worshippers.
Between 1822 and the mid-1840s, Ellison gradually built a small empire, acquiring slaves in
increasing numbers. He became one of South Carolina’s major cotton gin manufacturers, selling
his machines as far away as Mississippi. From February 1817 until the War Between the States
commenced, his business advertisements appeared regularly in newspapers across the state.
These included the Camden Gazette, the Sumter Southern Whig and the Black River Watchman.
Ellison was so successful, due to his utilization of cheap slave labor, that many white
competitors went out of business. Such situations discredit impressions that whites dealt only
with other whites. Where money was involved, it was apparent that neither Ellison’s race or
former status were considerations.
In his book, Ervin L. Jordan Jr. writes that, as the great conflagration of 1861-1865
approached: “Free Afro-Virginians were a nascent black middle class under siege, but several
acquired property before and during the war. Approximately 169 free blacks owned 145,976
acres in the counties of Amelia, Amherst, Isle of Wight, Nansemond, Prince William and Surry,
averaging 870 acres each. Twenty-rune Petersburg blacks each owned property worth $1,000
and continued to purchase more despite the war.”
Jordan offers an example: “Gilbert Hunt, a Richmond ex-slave blacksmith, owned two
slaves, a house valued at $1,376, and $500 in other properties at his death in 1863.” Jordan
wrote that “some free black residents of Hampton and Norfolk owned property of considerable
value; 17 black Hamptonians possessed property worth a total of $15,000. Thirty-six black men
paid taxes as heads of families in Elizabeth City County and were employed as blacksmiths,
bricklayers, fishermen, oystermen and day laborers. In three Norfolk County parishes 160 blacks
owned a total of $41,158 in real estate and personal property.
The general practice of the period was that plantation owners would buy seed and equipment
on credit and settle their outstanding accounts when the annual cotton crop was sold. Ellison,
like all free Negroes, could resort to the courts for enforcement of the terms of contract
agreements. Several times Ellison successfully sued white men for money owed him.
In 1838 Ellison purchased on time 54.5 acres adjoining his original acreage from one
Stephen D. Miller. He moved into a large home on the property. What made the acquisition
notable was that Miller had served in the South Carolina legislature, both in the U.S. House of
Representatives and the Senate, and while a resident of Stateburg had been governor of the state.
Ellison’s next door neighbor was Dr. W.W. Anderson, master of “Borough House, a magnificent
18th Century mansion. Anderson’s son would win fame in the War Between the States as
General “Fighting Dick” Anderson.
By 1847 Ellison owned over 350 acres, and more than 900 by 1860. He raised mostly cotton,
with a small acreage set aside for cultivating foodstuffs to feed his family and slaves. In 1840 he
owned 30 slaves, and by 1860 he owned 63. His sons, who lived in homes on the property,
owned an additional nine slaves. They were trained as gin makers by their father (8). They had
spent time in Canada, where many wealthy American Negroes of the period sent their children
for advanced formal education. Ellison’s sons and daughters married mulattos from Charleston,
bringing them to the Ellison plantation to live.
In 1860 Ellison greatly underestimated his worth to tax assessors at $65,000. Even using this
falsely stated figure, this man who had been a slave 44 years earlier had achieved great financial
success. His wealth outdistanced 90 percent of his white neighbors in Sumter District. In the
entire state, only five percent owned as much real estate as Ellison. His wealth was 15 times
greater than that of the state’s average for whites. And Ellison owned more slaves than 99
percent of the South’s slaveholders.
Although a successful businessman and cotton farmer, Ellison’s major source of income
derived from being a “slave breeder.” Slave breeding was looked upon with disgust throughout
the South, and the laws of most southern states forbade the sale of slaves under the age of 12. In
several states it was illegal to sell inherited slaves (9). Nevertheless, in 1840 Ellison secretly
began slave breeding.
While there was subsequent investment return in raising and keeping young males, females
were not productive workers in his factory or his cotton fields. As a result, except for a few
females he raised to become “breeders,” Ellison sold the female and many of the male children
born to his female slaves at an average price of $400. Ellison had a reputation as a harsh master.
His slaves were said to be the district’s worst fed and clothed. On his property was located a
small, windowless building where he would chain his problem slaves.
As with the slaves of his white counterparts, occasionally Ellison’s slaves ran away. The
historians of Sumter District reported that from time to time Ellison advertised for the return of
his runaways. On at least one occasion Ellison hired the services of a slave catcher. According
to an account by Robert N. Andrews, a white man who had purchased a small hotel in Stateburg
in the 1820s, Ellison hired him to run down “a valuable slave.” Andrews caught the slave in
Belleville, Virginia. He stated: “I was paid on returning home $77.50 and $74 for expenses.
William Ellison died December 5, 1861. His will stated that his estate should pass into the
joint hands of his free daughter and his two surviving sons. He bequeathed $500 to the slave
daughter he had sold.
Following in their father’s footsteps, the Ellison family actively supported the Confederacy
throughout the war. They converted nearly their entire plantation to the production of corn,
fodder, bacon, corn shucks and cotton for the Confederate armies. They paid $5,000 in taxes
during the war. They also invested more than $9,000 in Confederate bonds, treasury notes and
certificates in addition to the Confederate currency they held. At the end, all this valuable paper
became worthless.
The younger Ellisons contributed more than farm produce, labor and money to the
Confederate cause. On March 27, 1863 John Wilson Buckner, William Ellison’s oldest
grandson, enlisted in the 1st South Carolina Artillery. Buckner served in the company of
Captains P.P. Galliard and A.H. Boykin, local white men who knew that Buckner was a Negro.
Although it was illegal at the time for a Negro to formally join the Confederate forces, the
Ellison family’s prestige nullified the law in the minds of Buckner’s comrades. Buckner was
wounded in action on July 12, 1863. At his funeral in Stateburg in August, 1895 he was praised
by his former Confederate officers as being a “faithful soldier.”
Following the war the Ellison family fortune quickly dwindled. But many former Negro
slave magnates quickly took advantage of circumstances and benefited by virtue of their race.
For example Antoine Dubuclet, the previously mentioned New Orleans plantation owner who
held more than 100 slaves, became Louisiana state treasurer during Reconstruction, a post he
held from 1868 to 1877 (10).
A truer picture of the Old South, one never presented by the nation’s mind molders, emerges
from this account. The American South had been undergoing structural evolutionary changes
far, far greater than generations of Americans have been led to believe. In time, within a
relatively short time, the obsolete and economically nonviable institution of slavery would have
disappeared. The nation would have been spared awesome traumas from which it would never
fully recover.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
1. The American Negro, Raymond Logan and Irving Cohen New York: Houghton and Mifflin,
1970), p.72.
2. Black Masters. A Family of Color in the Old South, Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roak
New York: Norton, 1984), p.64.
3. The Forgotten People, Gary Mills (Baton Rouge, 1977); Black Masters, p.128.
4. Men and Wealth in the US: 1850-1870, Lee Soltow (New Haven, 1975), p.85.
5. Black Masters, Appendix, Table 7; p.280.
6. Black Masters, p.62.
7. Information on the Ellison family was obtained from Black Masters; the number of slaves
they owned was gained from U.S. Census Reports.
8. In 1860 South Carolina had only 21 gin makers; Ellison, his three sons and a grandson
account for five of the total.
9. Neither Black Nor White: Slaveiy and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States, Carl N.
Degler (New York, Macmillan, 1971), p.39; Negro Slavery in Louisiana, Joe Gray Taylor
(Baton Rouge, 1963), pp. 4041.
10. Reconstruction, 1863-1877, Eric Foner (New York; Harper & Row, 1988), p.47; pp.353-355.
Robert Grooms is a freelance writer living in Indiana.

To the entire Black race living in America, we, the Adamic, pink complexioned race (better known to you as the White race) that came to these shores from Iceland, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Europe, apologize for freeing you from slavery by fighting a horrible war among ourselves that cost the lives of almost two million of our own race and totally wiped out an entire way of life. We apologize for continuing to fight among ourselves over that very issue, even though you’ve never told us you appreciate our freeing you.

We apologize for splitting to pieces our entire race the world over to take sides with you to help you survive and become a freer race. We apologize for forcing the rest of the world to outlaw the slavery which your ancestors had practiced for thousands of years, even though many nations on your home continent still practice it today.

We apologize for thinking we could civilize you when you have proven that it is indeed an impossible feat, a feat beyond anything we could have ever imagined.

We apologize for introducing Christianity to you and dragging you away from the Voodoo you previously followed, although you have managed to sneak that religion back into cultic Christianity and our people have accepted it, which is attested by their animalistic whooping and hollering and stomping and screaming instead of respectfully worshiping our God as they ought to.

We apologize for teaching you to add and subtract (what little you can), thereby enabling you to run a household and pay your bills (what few you will) and count your children other than on your fingers and sometimes toes when you have so many you run out of fingers.

We apologize for providing you with medical care instead of leaving you under the witch doctors you used before we arrived, as a result of which you have been able to survive all sorts of diseases to multiply in massive numbers beyond what you could have without these aides.

We apologize for building schools for you which we have had to repair over and over after you vandalized them beyond use. We apologize for inventing computers and the Internet, neither of which you use very much, but when you do use them it’s mostly to bash our race.

We apologize for building factories and businesses that employ you, if you so desire to work. We apologize for creating millions of bureaucratic jobs within our government system simply to give you employment, instead of leaving you to find work on your own.

We apologize for promoting and buying your music, although you refuse to buy ours. We apologize for talking and acting as you do, although you refuse to talk and act as we do.

We apologize for placing you in our movies and TV shows and elevating you to a fictional, heroic level that you have never reached in real life. We apologize for creating this false image of yourselves in your minds, for we realize after 400 years of trying to help you that you cannot solve problems and provide leadership and create original thoughts; and the image we’ve placed in your minds causes you to live in a delusional world. For that we truly apologize.

We apologize for creating quota systems and forced employment programs to make sure you have the best jobs, if you so desire to work. We apologize for thinking we could educate you so that you could learn to build and help others, when you obviously have only the ability to tear down and take from others.

We apologize for giving you welfare and food stamps, with the result that for four generations over half of your race has not had to work, except in makesift type of jobs in our governments and bureaucracies.

We apologize for promoting your children in school as if they could understand basic arithmetic and grammar, such as multiplication and past participles, when we should have made sure they were accustomed to manual labor so that we would not have had to make up jobs for them in our governments dusting seats with their butts.

We apologize for developing farms in our own lands which you have never been able to do, and that to this day feed most of your race still living in Africa. We apologize for coming to Africa and building farms, from which you have now run us off of and have devastated beyond use, forcing us to continue feeding you.

We apologize for creating the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) and U.S. Government Foreign Aid Programs and hundreds of charities that funnel billions of our tax dollars and charitable donations to nations around the world run by your race, all because your race cannot take care of itself by itself anywhere you live.

We apologize for giving you the right to vote so you could take over all our major cities and turn them into high-taxed, crime-ridden cess pools that no civilized human being can live in.

We apologize for creating the term "reverend," which your leaders use to give themselves credentials and which their actions have denigrated beyond repair, with the result that no decent person would call himself "reverend," much less a Christian

We apologize for trying to come up with an AIDS vaccine to stop the epidemic spread of AIDS in Africa, AIDS being a disease that you created and passed on to us after having sexual intercourse with monkeys and then with one of our idiotic race-mixers who then passed it on to the rest of the world.

We apologize for providing you with warm, custom-made garments instead of the animal skins and leaves that you wore before we arrived. We apologize for providing you with shoes instead of leaving you barefooted as you were before we arrived in Africa.

We apologize for teaching you how to clean yourselves and your homes, and how to sanitize the water you drink to keep you from getting even more dreadful diseases than the rest of your race gets that still lives in Africa. We apologize for teaching you to cook your foods, which keeps you from getting the hundreds of parasitic diseases that your race gets that still lives on your home continent of Africa.

We apologize for providing you with solidly built, heated, and cooled homes with grass yards instead of the straw huts and dirt yards you were living in before we arrived, and in which most of your race is still living in in Africa.

We apologize for inventing sports so that you can make millions of dollars and live like kings, then kill and rape people with impunity, as O.J. Heisman-Trophy-Winner Simpson and Mike Heavy-Weight-Champion-of-the-World Tyson have done, as well as many others among your race.

We apologize for producing such beautiful people for you to race-mix with, and if they won’t voluntarily mix, you often casually rape them as if you were eating a piece of fried chicken.

We apologize for building thousands of prisons around the nation to house dangerous criminals, of which your race makes up over sixty percent even though you’re only thirteen percent of the U.S. population, and this at an expense of billions of dollars and manpower every year.

We apologize for taking precious metals from the earth on your home continent of Africa, metals which you neither knew were there nor how to use them if you had known they were there, but which you love to puncture and cover your bodies with in the most tawdry way imaginable.

We apologize for those among us who have established charitable organizations, donated billions of dollars and hours of time, and have devoted their entire lives to make life easier and better for your race, although most often to no positive result.

We apologize for all the stupid White ministers whom your race has martyred in Africa where they were trying to evangelize you to a faith that you can’t understand nor do you won’t to; yet when you claim to join it soon pervert it with the Voodooistic concepts you have inherited from your forefathers.

We apologize for building highways and railroads and for inventing flying machines that you could never have invented but which you use everyday to move about, yet without thinking or appreciating their origins in the least.

We apologize for paying the majority of both federal and state taxes, to maintain the governments which protect and promote you but fight against our own people at every turn.

We apologize for some members of our race who worship the monstrosities your genes have created, such as Jacko the Wacko and Little Fruity Richard and Dennis Nutman Rodman and Don Electrified King and Daryl Coke-Head Strawberry and Whitney Whacked-Out-Screaming Houston and Cassius If-Only-I-Be-White-But-I'm-Really-Black Clay and Tiger Adamic-Hater Woods and Whoopi Thinks-She’s-White Goldberg and Oprah Interview-a-Nut New-Age-Goof Winfrey and Ru Triple-Freak Paul and Morgan Act-White-But-Hate-White Freeman and Sammy Convert-To-The-Christ-haters-Religion Davis and Colin Have-A-Black-Pet-In-The-White-House Powell, to name only a few.

We apologize for defeating the major part of the communist threat which cost us several trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, but whose doctrines you still wish to have implemented on the backs of our race to further torture us and tear us down.

We apologize for spending over $2 trillion dollars on welfare and food stamps in the last thirty-five years, funds which your race received the majority of, although you are a small minority among us.

We apologize for introducing you to the rule of law under a republican form of government, a government that has gone abroad to keep your own warring nations from slaughtering other members of your race by the hundreds of thousands as they did year in and year out before we arrived, and still do every time we leave them alone and do not intervene.

We apologize for teaching you to read a language that contains more than a few words and a couple of hand signs, which has allowed you to take part in our philosophies, our culture, our art, our industry, our collegial nature, and our freedom, even though as soon as you get around them you pervert them.

For surely, if you could not read, how could you have learned the teachings of Karl Marx, Mao Tse Sung, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Lenin, Howard Zinn, the Damocrat Party, the Neo-cons in the Republicoward Party, and others who hate our race, and have brainwashed you into believing our race is evil and that you are severely oppressed?

We apologize for placing you under the form of government that our own forefathers died to create, and for which you are helping to destroy, instead of leaving you under the anarchy you lived under before we arrived.

For all these wrongs we’ve carried out against you, we apologize deeply and unreservedly, and if you will please accept our apology, we shall happily and immediately take back all of the above mentioned evils we have cast upon you and return you to your home continent, if you so desire.

We would with the greatest of glee and cheer even provide you with a nice, little stipend for traveling money, if you’d go and take your race-traitor wives and husbands and Mulatto children with you.

We have enjoyed having you here, but because you claim we’ve been, and are still being, so mean to you, we’d like to atone by helping you get back to where you came from.

You could live in peace without our persecuting you anymore, and we could save ourselves trillions of dollars over the next few years by shrinking our governments and emptying our prisons. We could take hundreds of thousands of security guards and police officers around the country off their jobs and put them to more productive use, and we could celebrate our own culture without offending you anymore.

Moreover, we could take the three-point shot and the forty-five second shot clock out of basketball which would return it to a game of plays and strategies, instead of the run and gun show our enemies have tailored especially for you. We could place the "palming penalty" and the "walking penalty" and the "charging penalty" back in to slow the game down to the point that defense and brains matter.

We could place the "bump and run" rule back in football and have referees start calling "offensive pass interference" again, to change the game to one where something more than straight-ahead speed is what matters. The "taunting rule" and the "roughing the quarterback rule" that we had to implement because of you, we could do away with completely, because civility would automatically come back into the game.

The race traitors of our race who hate their own culture and heritage could go with you, and we won’t offend them anymore either. For after a few generations of mixing with your race they would disappear into the dark tar-mix which your dominant design-genes make up.

What say? Do you accept our apology? Do we have a deal? Please let us know, soon!

From the Idea Man

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The Path
I
1:1
Life is short, our brothers and sisters. Must it also be empty? Must it also be bitter? Must its passing hold terror?
1:2
Where is fulfillment to be found in the midst of shallow and empty things? Where is peace to be found in the midst of chaos and strife? Where is serenity to be obtained in a spiritual wasteland?
1:3
Seek no more, our brothers and sisters, for we give you these answers, and more.
1:4
We show you the meaning and the purpose of things. We lead you from confusion and uncertainty to knowledge; from weakness to strength; from frustrated desire to fulfillment.
1:5
We lead you to the Path of Life. We bring your souls into harmony, with the Spirit of All Things.
1:6
We give you the Truth, which is this: There is but one Reality, and that Reality is the Whole. It is the Creator, the Self-Created.
II
2:1
The meaning of the Truth is this: Man, the world, and the Creator are not separate things, but man is a part of the world, which is a part of the Whole, which is the Creator.
2:2
The tangible Universe is the material manifestation of the Creator. All the blazing suns of the firmament; the formless gas between the stars; the silent, frozen mountain peaks of the moon; the rustling trees of earthly forests; the teeming creatures of the dark ocean depths; and man are parts of the Creator's material manifestation.
2:3
But the Creator has a spiritual manifestation, which is the Urge toward the One Purpose. The Urge lies at the root of all things and is manifested in the relations between all things.
2:4
The Urge is in the tenuous gases of the void, for they have a purpose, which are the flaming suns and all the planets, which form from them. The Urge is in the earth, for it has a purpose, which is the realm of plants and animals which flourish on it. And the Urge is in man, for he has a purpose, which is higher man.
2:5
And the purposes of all these things are steps on the Path of Life, which leads to the One Purpose, which is the Self-realization of the Creator: the Self-completion of the Self-created.
2:6
And the matter and the spirit, the Universe and the Urge, are One, and it is the Whole.
III
3:1
Man is of the Whole, and his purpose is the Creator's Purpose. And this signifies: Man is, in part, both the substance and the means of the Creator, and he is nothing else; this is his entire being and purpose.
3:2
And man serves the Creator's Purpose in two ways. The first way is the way of all the other parts of the Whole; it is the way of sub-man; it is the blind way; it is the way of the deeply in-dwelling consciousness, the immanent consciousness; it is the way of instinct. The second way is the way of higher man; it is the sighted way; it is the way of the awakened consciousness and of true reason; which is to say, it is the way of the perfect union of the immanent consciousness with man's reason, which perfect union we call Divine Consciousness.
IV
4:1
The meaning of the first way is this: The Purpose of the Creator is Self-completion; the Path of the Creator toward Self-completion is the Path of Life; and man is a step on this Path.
4:2
The Creator existed before man, and the Creator will exist after man has surpassed himself. The step on the Path before man was sub-man, and the step on the Path after man is higher man. But man is now, for a time, a part of the Creator, of the ever-changing, ever-evolving Whole.
4:3
There is a threshold on the Path at the step, which is man. It is the threshold of Divine Consciousness. Before man, each part of the Whole was blind, and it could not see the next step on the Path. The gases of the void could not foresee the suns which they were to become, nor could sub-man foresee man. The Urge carried the Whole along the Path, and each part of the Whole, though blind, served the Creator's Purpose.
V
5:1
And the meaning of the second way in which man serves the Creator's Purpose is this: The evolution of the Whole toward Self-completion is an evolution in spirit as well as in matter. Self-completion, which is Self-realization, is the attainment of perfect Self-consciousness. The Creator's Urge, which is immanent in the Universe, evolves toward an all-seeing Consciousness.
5:2
Man stands between sub-man and higher man, between immanent consciousness and awakened consciousness, between unawareness of his identity and his mission and a state of Divine Consciousness. Some men will cross the threshold, and some will not.
5:3
Those who attain Divine Consciousness will ascend the Path of Life toward their Destiny, which is Godhood; which is to say, the Path of Life leads upward through a never-ending succession of states, the next of which is that of higher man, and the ultimate that of the Self-realized Creator. True reason will illuminate the Path for them and give them foresight; it will be a mighty aid to the Creator's Urge within them.
5:4
And those who do not attain Divine Consciousness will continue groping in the darkness, and their feet will be tripped by the snares of false reason, and they will stumble from the Path, and they will fall into the depths.
5:5
For the threshold at which man stands is a dangerous threshold, a difficult threshold. And man's reason is a dangerous achievement. Just as it can give eyes to his instinct, which is the immanent consciousness of the Whole acting in him, so it can confuse and mislead his instinct.
VI
6:1
And let us now understand the present state of man, so that we can distinguish true reason from false reason. Let us employ true reason, so that it can guide us across the threshold of Divine Consciousness.
6:2
The difference between true reason and false reason is this: True reason seeks to guide man's actions in accord with the immanent consciousness of the Whole, while false reason does not.
6:3
The man or woman of true reason seeks order in all things, and he shuns chaos. He is pleased by a harmonious relationship between all the elements of his life and the world. He rejects that which clashes and does not fit, that which is alien.
6:4
He is happy in the knowledge that what was true and good yesterday will be true and good tomorrow. Through order and harmony, he seeks true progress, which is the ascent of the Path of Life; but he shuns frivolous change, which destroys the harmony between the past and the future.
6:5
He loves truth, and he hates falsehood.
6:6
He loves beauty, and he hates ugliness.
6:7
He loves nobility in all things, and he hates baseness.
6:8
And all these predispositions of the man or woman of true reason are like rays thrown out by the Divine Spark which burns in his soul. And this Divine Spark is the immanent consciousness of the Whole. It is the presence of the Creator's Urge in him.
VII
7:1
The Divine Spark burns brightly in some men, and their reason is true. It burns less brightly in others, and in them true reason may give way to false reason.
7:2
For the Urge is in all things, but the state of consciousness of the Whole is more highly evolved in some things than in others. It is more highly evolved in living things than in non-living things; in man than in other animals; and in some men than in other men. There exists in the various living creatures a continuous hierarchy of states of the immanent consciousness of the Whole.
7:3
In the best of times men and women of true reason prevail, and there is true progress.
7:4
But in the worst of times false reason overcomes true reason. Then the self-seekers, the liars, and those of base motives prevail.
7:5
And then all the other evils come forth: Falsehood overcomes truth and is held up in the place of truth. Ugliness replaces beauty and is preferred over beauty. Baseness is everywhere and is praised as nobility. Disharmony rules all men's lives, and those of true reason are frustrated in their desires.
7:6
Lies are heard everywhere, and no one has the power to speak against them. Evil deeds are seen everywhere, and no one can act against them. All that is good, valuable, and progressive is pulled down and defiled. All that is alien and discordant grows and multiplies. There is no true reason or peace in the masses of men, and they are without direction or purpose.
7:7
Then most men live from day to day, and their only thought is of themselves. Through idle amusements, through eating and drinking, through games and parties, through stupefying themselves with intoxicants, and through every other form of self-indulgence, they turn their thoughts away from the meaninglessness of their existence.
7:8
Some men attempt to give directions to their lives, but they are false directions. Their purposes may be to accumulate wealth or f o wield power over other men or to become skilled in some art or craft. But unless these purposes are related to the Creator's Purpose they are without merit and the lives of those who pursue them are as without meaning as the lives of those with no purpose.
7:9
For falsehood may often have the appearance of truth, but it remains false nevertheless. A man may pile up mountains of gold, or he may order nations to war, or he may acquire great knowledge or skill, but if he does not direct his life in accordance with the One Purpose, he may as well not have lived.
VIII
8:1
Death comes to the man or woman without Divine Consciousness as it comes to the sub-man: living matter becomes non-living matter; meaningless life becomes meaningless death; the personality is annihilated. Eternal nothingness is the destiny of those who are spiritually empty.
8:2
But he who has attained a state of Divine Consciousness partakes of the immortality of the Whole in the way of higher man: his body perishes, but his spirit remains with the Whole.
8:3
He who is a member of the Community of Divine Consciousness is not annihilated by death, because his consciousness is one with that of the Community. So long as the Community lives, his consciousness lives; and so long as the Community serves the One True Purpose, he who served that Purpose before the perishing of his body serves it in eternity.
IX
9:1
The Community of Divine Consciousness is the Community of the Awakened, the Community of the Climbers of the Path, the Community of the People of the Rune of Life, the Community of the Ordained Ones.
9:2
The gathering of those who would become members of the Community of Divine Consciousness is called the Cosmotheist Community; it is the Community of those who would become People of the Rune.
9:3
And the People of the Rune are known by these four things: knowledge, consciousness, discipline, and service; they are the things for which the members of the Cosmotheist Community strive.
9:4
By knowledge is meant understanding of the Truth. It is attained by the receptive learner through diligent study of the teachings of the Cosmotheist Community.
9:5
By consciousness is meant the awakened state of those who have gone beyond knowledge and have partaken of the immanent consciousness of the Whole which resides in their innermost souls; they have understood the inner message and have seen that it is the same as the outer message, which is the message taught by the Cosmotheist Community. The attainment of consciousness, like knowledge, requires receptiveness and diligence, and it also requires good will, which is to say, a pure motive.
9:6
Discipline comes from without and from within. From without it is imposed on the members of the Cosmotheist Community. By being so imposed it brings forth the growth of discipline from within. Without discipline, there is no mastery, and he who has not mastered the chaos of conflicting forces within himself cannot render full service. But discipline imposed and discipline which grows from within together give those who have attained knowledge and consciousness mastery over their own forces, so that those forces may serve the Creator's Purpose.
X
10:1
Service of the Creator's Purpose is the purpose of all things, and the purpose of the Community of Divine Consciousness is service which is conscious and disciplined. In this dangerous and difficult era of the threshold between man and higher man, many men have ceased serving the Creator's Purpose in the old way, which is the way of sub-man, the unconscious way, and they have not begun serving in the new way. False reason leads them instead into the grievous error of contravention of the Creator's Purpose.
10:2
But the members of the Community of Divine Consciousness, the Awakened Ones, the People of the Rune, serve in the new way, which is the way of higher man, the way of true reason. They are conscious agents of the Creator's Purpose.
10:3
And they are ordained to overcome the men of false reason and to put an end to the works of all those who contravene the Creator's Purpose.
10:4
They are the beginning; they are the first crossers of the threshold; they are the pointers of the way, of the Path of Life. Through their service, they resume the never-ending ascent toward their Destiny, which is Godhood.
XI
11:1
And this is our summons to you, our brothers and sisters; it is our call to all the men and women of our blood who are of good will:
11:2
Abandon falsehood and folly. Cast off alien ways and free yourselves from the snares of false reason. Turn away from the corruption of this decaying order of things.
11:3
Understand who you are and what your purpose is. Seek your Destiny. Put your life into the service of Cosmic Truth.
11:4
Enter now into the Cosmotheist Community. Partake of our joyful certainty that the Creator's Purpose will be fulfilled. Lay with us the foundations for the new order of things, which will rise in the place of the old.
11:5
Cross with us the threshold of Divine Consciousness. Strive with us toward membership in the Community of the Awakened.
On Living Things
I
1:1
From the Path we know these things:
1:2
There is but one Reality, and that Reality is the Whole. It is the Creator, the Self-created. (1:6)
1:3
The material manifestation of the Creator is the tangible Universe, with all its non-living and living things, including man. (2:2)
1:4
The spiritual manifestation of the Creator is the Urge toward the One Purpose. The Urge lies at the root of all things and is manifested in the relations between all things. (2:3)
1:5
The One Purpose is the Self-Realization of the Creator: the Self-completion of the Self-created. (2:5)
1:6
Man's purpose is the Creator's Purpose. He is, in part of both substance and the means of the Creator, and he is nothing else; this is his entire being and purpose. (3:1)
1:7
Man serves the Creator's Purpose in two ways: unconsciously and consciously. In both ways, he follows the Path of Life, which is the Creator's evolutionary Path toward Self-Completion. He passes from step to step on the Path, from sub-man to man to higher man, and beyond. (3:2, 4:1-2)
1:8
In the unconscious way the passing is blind, an its driving force is instinct, which is a manifestation of the immanent consciousness of the Whole in man. (3:2)
1:9
And in the conscious way the passing is guided by man's awareness of his true identity and his true mission; this awareness illuminates the Path before him and allows him to choose his steps. (5:3)
II
2:1
These things, which we know, lead us to an understanding of the significance and value of all living things: of the variety of animals, of the races of man, and the varying qualities of individual men.
2:2
We understand that the living things developed from non-living things through the all-permeating Urge toward self-realization: first, there was the Urge, and through it came the ordering of non-living and the highest ordered became living. And the Urge has ordered the living things, and through this ordering has come higher levels of consciousness. And the Urge continues it's ordering.
2:3
All matter, living and non-living, is ordered in a hierarchy, animate above inanimate, conscious above unconscious. The Urge is toward higher consciousness; the purpose of all material things is the implementation of the Urge, the service of the One Purpose; and the value of each thing is its potential for serving the One purpose.
2:4
Now, our understanding of this truth must serve as a guide to us in evaluating all things living and on-living, animate and inanimate, human and non-human.
III
3:1
Some have taught falsely that all things, being of the Whole, are sacred and inviolable. They mean: sacred in the eyes of men; inviolable by men. They may be of good will, in wanting to restrain men from thoughtless destruction, in wanting to protect beautiful and noble living things, in wanting to preserve the harmony of the Universe. But their understanding is limited, and their teaching is contrary to the purpose of the Creator's Purpose.
3:2
For man is not a spectator, but a participant; not a being apart, but a part of all Being. And every living part of the Whole lives only by violating other parts; every animal must take unto itself other living things and must cast away its wastes.
3:3
It is only the Whole, which is inviolable, only the One Purpose that is sacred. The parts of the Whole come and go; they are subject to the eternal process of Creation, which annihilates some, preserves some, and transforms some.
3:4
And higher man, Divinely Conscious man, is an agent as well as a subject of this process. When a member of the Community of Divine Consciousness acts in accord with the One Purpose, the Creator is acting.
3:5
Others have taught falsely that man himself is sacred and inviolable; that all who are "men" are immune to the process of creation, that men stand aside from it and above it, and that all men are of kind.
3:6
But the value of man lies not in his conformation, nor in his ability to speak or to reason, except as these things aid him in serving the One Purpose. If he does not serve the Purpose, his life is without value, his formation and reason meaningless. If he contravenes the One Purpose, then he is an abomination, his life a defilement of all life.
IV
4:1
Thus are men ranked in value: First in value are those with Divine Consciousness; they are those who walk the Path of Life with sure foresight; they are those who have crossed the threshold from man to higher man; they are those who serve the Creator's Purpose in full consciousness that they are of the Creator and in full knowledge of the way in which they serve; they are the Awakened Ones.
4:2
Next in value are those of goodwill and awakening consciousness; they are those who strive for Divine Consciousness; they are those of the Cosmotheist Community.
4:3
After them are all those of the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise, those of the same race-soul; for they collectively, are the reservoir in which higher man has his origin and from which he draws his replacements.
4:4
But in this reservoir men are also ranked in value: Those uncorrupted by false reason are higher, and those corrupted are lower.
4:5
Those of goodwill are higher, and those indifferent, self-seeking, or serving alien masters are lower.
4:6
Those who have mastered themselves are higher, and those who have not are lower.
4:7
Those with great capability for knowledge are higher, and those with less capability are lower.
4:8
Those who are strong constitution and well formed are higher, and those who are weak, sickly, or ill formed are lower.
4:9
And those men who, even though of the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise, are corrupted of ill will, undisciplined, without the capability for knowledge, weak, or ill formed cannot claim value by reason of their stock alone.
4:10
For they may threaten, through evil action, the One Purpose, if they are corrupted by false reason and of ill will.
4:11
And they may also threaten, through weakening of the stock, the One purpose, if they lack the capability for discipline or knowledge or are of poor constitution.
V
5:1
And all other living things may also be ranked in value: men not of the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise; the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea; the smaller things which creep or crawl or fly; the large and small forms of inanimate life.
5:2
Each living thing has a potential for good effect and for evil effect, for serving the Creator's Purpose and for contravening it. This potential is both inherent in a thing and dependent on its relationships with other living things, and it determines the value of the thing.
5:3
Let us now understand how this potential is judged: The Potential for good which is inherent in a thing is its potential for attaining Divine Consciousness or for giving rise to new things which may attain Divine Consciousness; its potential for good which is dependent on its relationships with other things is its potential for hindering the attaining of Divine Consciousness by other things.
5:4
A Thing's potential for evil, which is dependent on the things relations to other things is its potential for hindering the attaining of Divine Consciousness by other things.
5:5
A thing may have a high potential for attaining Divine Consciousness, but it may also have a potential for hindering another living thing with a higher potential for attaining Divine Consciousness; or it may have a low potential for attaining Divine Consciousness, yet have a high potential for aiding another living thing in attaining Divine Consciousness.
5:6
We can deem a thing good or evil only after we have weighted together its potential for both good and evil effect. For this weighing, we must have knowledge; for this reason does the Cosmotheist seek knowledge.
VI
6:1
A living thing may realize its potential for good effect by proving either physical or spiritual sustenance for the stock of men who from which the Awakened Ones arise:
6:2
It may provide physical sustenance, as the sheaf of grain or the steer provides bread or meat.
6:3
Or it may sustain those things which provide sustenance, as the grass of the meadow nourishes the steer or the microbes of the soil allow the grain to grow.
6:4
Or it may provide spiritual sustenance, as the trees of the forest, the flowers of the field, the strong and graceful beasts of prey provide beauty for the eye, instruction for the mind, and inspiration for the soul.
6:5
And a living thing may realize its potential for evil effect in all the ways it may harm the stock of men from which the awakened Ones arise:
6:6
It may weaken or destroy that stock physically, as the plague microbe or the debilitating parasite wreaks its havoc.
6:7
Or it may deny that stock sustenance, as the swarm of locusts destroys the sustaining grain.
6:8
Or it may corrupt that stock spiritually, as the stock of alien race soul spreads its spiritual poison.
6:9
Or it may corrupt that stock through a mixing of bloods.
6:10
The first two of these evil effects may come from things which have a low potential for attaining Divine Consciousness, but the latter two come only from things which are close in potential for attaining Divine Consciousness to the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise.
VII
7:1
Let us understand these latter evils:
7:2
The process of Creation is a process of developing self-consciousness in the Whole. Its way has progressed from blindness to foresightedness, from unguided groping to the threshold of consciously directed progress.
7:3
Because its way has been a groping, bound in the fog of imperfect consciousness, Creation has followed many channels; the Urge has taken many directions.
7:4
In some channels the current of progress has been slow, and in some it has been rapid. Some channels have ended in stagnant ponds, and the Urge has found no outlet. Some ponds have dried up altogether.
7:5
In other channels the current has been rapids, but the course of the channel has gone askew: reason has developed without consciousness, strength without discipline, action without service for the One Purpose.
7:6
Thus are we to understand the diversity of the forms of life.
7:7
In one channel the current has been sufficiently rapid and the course sufficiently true that the stream of life has reached the edge of the god. Beyond lies the open water in which distant goals can bee seen and a straight course chosen with foresight.
7:8
But other currents also run near the edge of the fog, and the danger still exists of being swept into a false channel, of being carried back into the fog, of emptying into a stagnant pond. And the closer we are these false channels, the greater the danger.
VIII
8:1
And so, then, those living things which provide necessary physical and spiritual sustenance for the stock from which arise the awakened ones are good and should be preserved: the grain and the steer, just as the living forest, the flowers of the field, the eagle and the leopard, and all other living things necessary to these.
8:2
And those living things which weaken the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise, or deny it necessary sustenance, or pull down its potential for divine consciousness are evil, and measures must be taken against them; against the disease organisms which plague sustenance, against the lesser stocks which may mix or corrupt. And as the last of these evils is the greatest, so must the strongest measures be taken against it.
IX
9:1
In evaluating living things this also must be understood:
9:2
Our stock has reached a threshold, which separates the unconscious way of progress from the conscious way, and the values of all things change when this threshold is crossed.
9:3
In an age of immanent consciousness some living things severed through their very hostility to advance our stock, as the wolf strengthens the stock of sheep by pruning away the slow and the infirm.
9:4
In an age of awakened consciousness, these things cease to serve; our stock will prune itself, and the pruning will better serve the One Purpose, because it will be done with foresight.
9:5
But at the threshold we must use the greatest care; its crossing is a time of danger, in which the old way no longer serves, and the new way still waits beyond the threshold.
X
10:1
And these are the qualities which man shall value in himself, both higher man and the stock from which higher man arises.
10:2
First, the brightness of the Divine Spark in his soul, which is the immanent consciousness of the Whole in him. The brighter it burns, the truer is a man's inner sense of direction.
10:3
Second, the strength of his reason, for the perfect union of reason with immanent consciousness is divine Consciousness. The stronger is a man's reason, the more effectively can he implement the Creator's Urge and the more truly steer his life's course in the direction illuminated by the Divine Spark in his soul.
10:4
Third, the strength of his character, which is his ability to act in accord with his immanent consciousness and reason, overcoming the lesser urgings in himself, seeking consciousness rather than pleasure, knowledge rather than happiness, true progress rather than wealth. It is his ability to subordinate all the extraneous urgings, which are of the nature of sub-man and man to Urge, which is the nature of higher man.
10:5
Fourth, the physical constitution of his body, that it might serve well the One Purpose. Thus are strength and soundness and keen senses to be valued, for they make the body a better tool, and beauty, for it manifests mans Divine nature and inspires his efforts to act in accord with the urgings of his race-soul.
XI
11:1
These are the ways in which man shall consciously serve the Creators Purpose, combining true reason with immanent consciousness in the advancement of his stock along the Path of Life:
11:2
He shall keep his stock pure; he shall not permit his blood to mix with that of other stocks, for each stock follows a different course along the Path of Life. When stocks are mixed, the inner sense of direction is lost with it the potential for attaining Divine Consciousness.
11:3
He shall increase the number of his stock, and he shall make every land wherein he dwells, free of the danger of mixing with other stocks.
11:4
He shall so arrange his laws and his institutions that in each generation men and women shall engender numbers of offspring in proportion to their own value: the best shall engender the most, and the worst none.
11:5
He shall guide the progress of his stock from generation to generation: he shall act as the wolf and the winter have acted, pruning and selecting; and he shall act as have all those forces of the Whole which change the seed of his stock.
11:6
And he shall do these things in full consciousness of his identity as the substance of the Creator and the agent of the Creators Purpose.
On Society
I
1:1
Human social institutions, like all other things, are of the Whole, and they cannot be perfect while the Self-realization of the Whole remains incomplete. As men and all other things made by men they can only serve the One Purpose imperfectly.
1:2
While men lack consciousness, their society reflects their blindness and their groping; its service fails; it even may become an instrument of retrogression, contravening the Creator's Purpose.
1:3
But when men are awakened, then their society should reflect their consciousness and their true reason; it should become an instrument of progress; it should manifest in its structure and in its institutions the Urge toward the One Purpose.
1:4
How, then, should men who have been awakened constitute their society so that it may best serve the Creator's Purpose? How should they govern their community, which is the Cosmotheist Community? What should be the forms and functions of their institutions?
1:5
We know that men who are members of the Community must keep their stock pure, increase their number, and make every place where they dwell secure for these purposes (On Living Things, 6:2-3); they must strive for knowledge, consciousness, discipline, and service (The Path, 4:3); they must judge themselves by their qualities and order themselves accordingly (On Living Things, 2:3-4, 6:4); and they must elevate the value of their stock from generation to generation (On Living Things, 6: 5).
1:6
These four concerns of men- survival, right striving, order, and progress- are the proper determinants of human social institutions. Accordingly, society has four proper functions: defense of the Community and of the stock in which it is based; guidance of the striving of the Community's members; organization of the Community for the maintenance of order and the effective pursuit of its Purpose; and elevation of the value of the Community's stock.
II
2:1
The Community defends itself and the stock in which it is based by providing collective means for countering the many dangers with which the individual man alone cannot contend.
2:2
The Community must protect the purity and healthfulness of the air men breathe and the water they drink. It must concern itself with the quality of the food they eat. It must beware of every threat to the physical health and fitness of men, and it must have the means to prevent any man from poisoning the common air, water, or land, whether from greed, malice, negligence, or ignorance.
2:3
The Community also must have the means to promote those factors in the lives of men which lead to sounder, stronger, and more beautiful bodies; to build health is to defend against illness.
2:4
Vigilance against famine and disease, the conservation of common resources upon which the survival or welfare of the Community and its stock depends, and armed protection of the Community against those who would harm it are necessary elements of society's defensive function.
2:5
Likewise are those elements concerned with defense against the corruption of men's spirits necessary, for survival depends not on the physical aspects of men's lives alone: Just as the defense of the physical health and welfare of the Community is a proper social function, so is the defense of its spiritual health and welfare.
2:6
Thus, it is proper that the Community use all needed means to exclude the purveyors of doctrines which would have men act against the Creator's Purpose, and that it oppose diligently all influences which corrupt men's spirits and turn them from the Path of Life.
2:7
If a man teaches others that the mixing of stocks is permissible or that all men are of equal value or that human life has no purpose, then the Community shall make him an outlaw and drive him out.
2:8
And, whether a man teaches falsehood or not, if his behavior or his manner of life is such as to lead others astray or to weaken the order of the Community, then he may not remain in the Community. For it is a proper function of society to safeguard the Community against indiscipline as much as against falsehood.
III
3:1
The Community guides its members in their striving for knowledge, consciousness, discipline, and service by providing a social framework and social institutions within which each striver learns and grows and is shaped into an effective agent of the Creator's Purpose. These support and direct him; they give him both necessity and means.
3:2
Men's knowledge comes not from their individual endeavors alone, but from the collective striving of the race over the endless course of generations. The Community must preserve the knowledge gained in each generation and make it the basis for further gain in the next generation; it must impart to the members of the Community knowledge gained by past generations; and it must facilitate the gain of new knowledge to be bequeathed to future generations.
3:3
The Community must provide a framework, which encourages and rewards scholarship, and it must provide the institutions- the libraries, the schools, and the laboratories- within which scholars can seek knowledge effectively.
3:4
The Community must concern its self with the imparting of knowledge outside of its schools as well as inside. The Community's customs and practices, its celebrations and festivals, its songs and rituals, all the work and the play of its members should impart knowledge of identity, of mission, and of means.
3:5
Above all else, the Community must give direction to the gain of knowledge; for it is not mere knowledge itself for which the members of the Community strive: it is knowledge which leads to understanding, knowledge which complements consciousness, knowledge which abets service of the One Purpose. The Community must ensure that the efforts of its knowledge-seekers are purposeful and coordinated; that every member remains aware of the Community's direction and of its goal in his quest for knowledge, so that what he gains will be the gain of the Community.
3:6
Those entrusted by the Community to supervise the guidance of its members, however, must ever be mindful that the path to knowledge takes many unexpected turns. The course of wisdom, therefore, is to avoid narrowness and to be ever ready to accept new ways to the goal, if they were better ways.
3:7
Consciousness and discipline, like knowledge, are better acquired with guidance than without, and the Community also must provide this guidance through its institutions.
3:8
Many of the same institutions which guide the members of the Community in their striving for knowledge also will guide the awakening of their consciousness and the building of their control over themselves. Schools must impart consciousness along with knowledge, and they must impart both in a manner, which trains the awakening learners in self-mastery.
3:9
Festivals and rituals, likewise, must raise consciousness, and they must demand self-discipline of the celebrants: in practice for song and recitation; in demonstration of grace, skill, and strength. The Community must glory in the self-mastery of its members and in their achievements, valuing these things so highly that all will strive mightily for them.
3:10
Service, above all else, requires guidance, so that the service of each member of the Community complements and reinforces that of every other member. The Community itself is an instrument of service; the performance of service is its reason for existence, and its every institution must manifest that reason.
3:11
The Community, therefore, must have order and structure: each member has his place in the Community, each place serves its purpose, and the purpose of every place is comprehended by the One Purpose. Each member of the Community serves according to his qualities: one in his way, and another in his- and it is good that there be many ways. But each way is guided; each member accepts the guidance of the Community in the performance of his service.
IV
4:1
The Community is not merely the sum of its members, its institutions, and its material assets; it is an organization, and its ability to perform its service depends upon the effective coordination of its components.
4:2
Without order, by which is meant the placing of members in accordance with their qualities, the Community is incoherent, and it cannot progress.
4:3
Without structure, by which is meant the body of rules defining the relationships between its members and governing its institutions, the Community has no strength, and it will fail.
4:4
The qualities of men and women grow from within; but the growth of these qualities is ruled both from within and from without. The Community rules the growth from without, and it judges the qualities according to its standards.
4:5
Some qualities are manifest even in an infant. These include beauty, strength, vigor, and fidelity to the physical norms of the stock. Other qualities- intelligence and disposition- show themselves in the growing child; and some become visible only in full maturity, when the mind and character of the man or woman have developed for many years and been proved in attainments and in service.
4:6
The Community must judge all of these qualities, throughout the life of each member, and it must act on its judgment in such a way that the order in the Community best serves the Creator's Purpose. It must judge the infant, and decide whether or not his future lies in the Community; it must judge the child, and train him according to his ability; and it must judge the adult, so that he is fitted to his task and to his station.
4:7
In every society men are ranked, in high station or low: some by the criterion of wealth, some by age, some by the favor of the mob, some by the qualities of their friends or associates, some by their mental or physical skills. But the Community stands apart from other societies: its members attain their stations, and they ascend from one station to the next, according only to their value in the Community's performance of its service.
4:8
In every aspect of the Community's service, those who are ranked high guide those who are ranked beneath them, and the latter return respect for guidance. Authority to guide is granted by the Community to those whose qualities, manifested in their prior attainments and service, provide assurance that the authority will serve well the Community's purpose, and it is granted in a measure corresponding to the assurance provided. With each grant of authority, a corresponding degree of responsibility is imposed.
4:9
And these are the four essential institutions of the Community: the family, the academy, the corps of guardians, and the hierarchy.
4:10
The family is the institution by which the Community regenerates itself. For the Community the name of the institution has a special meaning. Others may call a man and a woman living together who are beyond the childbearing age a "family," or they may use the name to designate an extended group, including grandparents and other related persons. But by "family" we mean a man and a woman united by the Community specifically for the purpose of engendering and nurturing children, and the children so engendered until they attain adulthood.
4:11
Over each family so defined the Community exerts its authority: it judges the children of each family; it limits their number when that serves the Community's purpose; and it sets the pattern for nurturing them.
4:12
The Community does these things in order to ensure that the value of its stock will increase from generation to generation, and it charges each man and each woman who are united in a family to keep this purpose ever in mind and to govern themselves accordingly.
4:13
The Community honors each man who is a father and each woman who is a mother, and the family in which the two are united, in a measure corresponding to the value of the children they engender; and this value is measured both by the qualities inherent in the children at their birth and by the development and strengthening of their qualities through proper nurture.
4:14
The academy is the institution by which the Community educates its members, throughout their lives.
4:15
In the academy the children of the Community receive a uniform grounding in language, history, music, and the other elements of their cultural heritage; they are made conscious of the spiritual basis of their existence and of the Cosmotheist Truth; and they begin the lifelong process of building will and character through discipline.
4:16
In the academy the youth of the Community receive the training necessary to prepare them for their work in the Community, in accord with their qualities.
4:17
And in the academy those adult members of the Community who serve it as scholars carry on their work.
4:18
The corps of guardians is the institution by which the Community defends itself against its enemies, both within and without: against those who would harm any of the things upon which the life of the Community depends, both its physical life and its spiritual life.
4:19
The men of the Community who are chosen to become guardians shall be trained and proven. They shall come only from among those ordained to a life of service to the One Purpose, and they shall be only of the best of those: of the most disciplined, the most conscious, and the most capable. They shall be the strong right arm of the Community, a sworn brotherhood of sentinels ever vigilant against the enemies of the Community.
4:20
The hierarchy is the institution by which the Community orders itself, rules itself, and holds itself to its proper course along the Path of Life.
4:21
The hierarchy is a community of priests within the Community; in structure it is a series of steps leading upward. When a man enters the first step, he is ordained to a life of service to the One Purpose.
4:22
Thereafter he may be the father of a family, or a scholar in the academy, or a guardian, or a worker in another field of service to the Community, but he remains also a hierarch. As he advances in knowledge, in consciousness, in discipline, and in service, he is judged by those above him; and, according to their judgment, he may progress upward, from step to step, throughout his life.
4:23
The hierarchy guides and judges. It shapes structures and makes or changes rules, when those things are needed; otherwise it preserves what it has made. It looks to the future, foresees the needs of the Community, and strives to fulfill those needs. Above all else, it keeps the Community moving ever upward: toward new knowledge, higher levels of consciousness, greater strength and discipline, more effective service of the Creator's Purpose.
4:24
The Community may have other institutions which serve its needs, but it must have these four: the family, by which it breeds and builds itself; the academy, by which it trains itself and grows in knowledge; the corps of guardians, by which it defends itself; and the hierarchy, by which it governs and guides itself.
V
5:1
The Community progresses by traveling upward along the Path of Life from generation to generation: it elevates itself in both its physical and its spiritual aspects.
5:2
It strives toward higher man by pruning and selecting the stock in which it is based. It orders its men and women according to their qualities, and, in the family, it combines and propagates those qualities that best serve its purpose. It ensures that the children born in each generation manifest those qualities more strongly than those of the preceding generation.
5:3
The Community also elevates itself by awakening more fully in each member the immanent consciousness of the Whole and by building in him the discipline needed to render more effective service; through the family and the academy it does these things, and it strives always to do them better.
5:4
And the Community elevates itself by refining and strengthening all of its institutions, by striving always to make them more nearly perfect: to make the family an institution able to engender children of higher quality and to nurture and train them more suitably in their earliest years; to make the academy a more effective institution for raising these children to conscious, disciplined, and knowledgeable adulthood; to make the corps of guardians a stronger and more vigilant institution for safeguarding the physical and spiritual welfare of the Community; and to make the hierarchy wiser, truer, and more effective in its guidance of the Community, with each passing year.
5:5
Thus, the structure of the Community, the form of its institutions and the rules, which govern them, evolve, just as does the stock in which the Community is based. But they do not evolve blindly; they are guided with an ever-growing self-consciousness, with an ever-surer sense of direction along the Path of Life, with an ever brighter and clearer vision of the Godhood, which is the destiny of the stock whose members follow the Path.