JOHN ST. JOHN
There are countless worlds of wonder unpath’d and un-
comprehended—and even unguessed, we doubt not.
Therefore we set out diligently to explore and map these
untrodden regions of the mind.
Surely our adventures may be as exciting as those of Cortes
or Cook!
It is for this reason that I invite with confidence the
attention of humanity to this record of my journey.
But another set of people will find another disappoint~
ment.
I am hardly an heroic figure.
I am not The Good
Young Man That Died.
Ido not remain in holy meditation,
balanced on my left eyelash, for forty years, restoring ex-
hausted nature by a single grain of rice at intervals of several
months.
You will perceive in these pages a man with all his im-
perfections thick upon him trying blindly, yet with all his
force, to control the thoughts of his mind, 50 that he shall be
able to say ”I will think this thought and not that thought”
at any moment, as easily as (having conquered Nature) we are
all able to say “I will drink this wine, and not that wine.”
For, as we have now learnt, our happiness does not at all
depend upon our possessions or our power.
We would all
rather be dead than be a millionaire who lives in daily dread
of murder or blackmail.
Our happiness depends upon our state of mind.
It is the
mastery of these things that the Magicians of to-day have set
out to obtain for humanity; they will not turn back, or turn
aside.
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