- PEACE - OR WAR -
Norman Thomas, voicing not only his own opinion but that of many other people, believes there will be no war of major proportions for at least one decade, maybe for two. All 'commonsense' supports this, since so far as the common man can judge conditions, to precipitate such a war would be suicidal for any nation, because of new weapons and because of the desperate circumstances of the post-war world.
And on the plane of common sense this would be our opinion also, but we suspect that the verdict of enlightened or uncommon sense might be more pessimistic. For the fact remains, that human conduct is not predictable in terms of good sense and reason. The role of reason in the governance of conduct is small; she is the bond-slave of desires, that is to say of greed, fear, hate and all other viciousness. We do not believe that great historical happenings are explainable by previous or contemporary circumstances; they are simply interrelated in various obscure ways. Very often they seem to be comparable to a biological 'sport' - or one white feather in the tail of a black cockerel, coming from God-knows-where and not 'explainable' at all. Their true causes lie always in the invisible, the inaccessible - and hence in the unpredictable. All our 'causes' are proximate, or else mere coincidences; things 'fall together', but Why - and Why and Why? We think this last war, and the one before it likewise, was in essence an up rush of demonism from the astral hells. Human nature was ready and accessible to it - but that's not quite the same as being the cause. Farther back, we can hardly push our speculation. But just as surely as an atom or a stone or a comet is a projection and forth-casting from the Void into the worlds of sense, so is war and peace, and the death and life of each of us. Berate human nature if you like, but do not argue that human conduct is rational and predictable - for where is there any evidence, unless by the sheer impressment of facts? Say that another war would be insanity! Why, so it would! - but what God has revealed to you that humanity is sane? The war just ended was insane also, and born in hell and contrived by devil-obsessed men - in our own small opinion, and as the voices of communicators have affirmed many times - but that did not prevent the vast disaster of it!
The occult philosopher enters yet more deeply into such matters. War, he tells us, is the result of karmic misdeeds of grows, nations, races. "As within, so without; as above, so below" is the most ancient of occult maxims. All that is to come into manifestation is generated on the inner planes, or is conceived by the Great Ones in the World of Ideas. Well then, if the root of war runs so deep, how foolish it is to say, 'there will be no war for a decade or two or three, because men are too sensible - or too frightened, or too impoverished.' Neither shall we say it is inevitable, nor give over our striving against it, however poor and feeble our efforts may be . . . Mr Thomas, who has given us text and pretext for this editorial, speaks with the accents of intelligence and common sense and right reason. Yet since reason itself leads us to the boundaries of the non-reasonable and the unpredictable, one greatly fears that his words are wishful reasoning - and nothing more.