Book Description
This book takes the reader on a journey towards Understanding. A venture towards Self Realization, and the finding of Truth in its great Splendor. Enter the enchanting world of Pauline (Polly) Durant and share her dreams as she climbs the pinnacle of Wisdom. Polly paints us a wonderful picture of how to redirect our thoughts to bring about the outcome we desire. With a pinch of kindled romance, which slowly turns to a harmoniously-flowing stream of love and friendship; from the simple mathematics instructor to an irresistible and enlightened Miss Durant; she finds a fiancé and a friend, packaged in a man called John Lewis. You are invited to share the journey of Polly towards her dreams and her desires while learning and discovering within yourself the power of the thought process. 

Based on the teachings of Judge Thomas Troward, and written by his only personal student, this book takes us on a journey of Spiritual Unfoldment to the mystical land of Egypt. A trip to visit the Egyptian pyramids is something on many people’s wish list. People love to see mystical qualities and the history of the pyramids is fascinating. Now you can make that journey in your imagination without leaving your armchair! This book was first published in 1934 and original copies are very scarce indeed.

Contents
1. Vacation Quest; 2. Within the Heart of Wisdom; 3. Prophecies Resplendent; 4. The Great Intuitive Power of God-Men; 5. Divine Self-Knowledge; 6.  Fulfillment of the Master’s Vision; 7. Supreme Power Over Death and the Grave; 8. Climbing the Summit of Wisdom; 9. Happiness; 10. Romance and Vision of the Night; 11. True Companionship; 12. Glad News of Six Weeks; 13. Bon Voyage!

IT WAS the last day of school. A number of teachers were standing in the large hall of one of Chicago's great high schools. A group of pupils paused to say their farewells to Pauline Durant, instructor in higher mathematics. Their adieux said, the students filed out; and the teachers stood discussing among themselves the prospect of securing their back salaries. A fellow teacher suddenly asked Miss Durant how she had planned to spend her vacation.

"If we receive our tardy salaries before July 20th," Miss Durant answered, "I shall be on my way at once to visit that first wonder of this marvelous world of ours, the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, the one and only prophet which has never failed in foretelling coming events of major importance for a period of nearly forty-five hundred years. They say also that those who visit the Great Pyramid with an open mind find many hidden truths there which, if adopted, will help hu­manity to find happiness. To me it seems that so wise an oracle should be able to indicate, too, how a Chicago school-mom could attract a good husband."

A burst of laughter came from the group. Then for a moment all was suddenly still. Could it be, each thought, that Polly Durant was speaking seriously? Polly herself supplied the answer by continuing:

"It must be a very unique situation to be so very wise and yet not be conscious of one's wisdom. That's the position of this greatest of all the prophets. And soon, with her father's consent, Polly Durant is to be off on her quest of wisdom, and, one never knows, maybe a husband."

Laughing merrily, Polly walked away, the other teachers gazing after her. As she passed down the long corridor Polly's thoughts immediately assumed a seri­ous trend again. My mental attitude, she thought, should not be that of "if we receive our back salaries." My thought current shall change from this moment. With my will I shall hold my power of attraction in the direction that I wish to see manifested in form. How very subtle our habits of thought are, she mused. They slip in on us and take absolute possession of our mental house like a thief in the dead of night. Now I know that the law of Life is this: that as one thinks one is sure to manifest. Well, from now on no time will be lost by me. My mental picture shall be that of myself in the very heart of the Great Oracle, learning all that I am able to absorb. As she walked to the car-stop, and while she rode to her home, Polly's thoughts dwelt upon the matter closely.

As soon as she reached the house, she went directly to her room where she might be alone and undisturbed in order that she might put her mental house well in order. This Polly began to do by simply tuning her very soul in with her own conception of what God is; and she endeavored to hold her feeling in that place of joyous assurance while she mentally pictured her­self in the different passages and chambers of the Great Pyramid. Her picture finished, Polly again brought her thought and feeling into the attitude of happy assurance.

Polly then went downstairs, and sought her mother. "Mother," she said without any preliminary remarks, "I have been on the wrong road again inside. But I am right now. From now on both of us must see me sailing for Egypt, with no ifs and whens about it. Is it not so, mother? "

Mrs. Durant agreed to do her part in the matter, and happily Polly went about her duties. Her mind still pictured facts of the Great Pyramid as she walked about the house, doing her small tasks unconsciously. She had recently read a number of works dealing with the subject of the Great Pyramid, and she thought about some of the startling assertions she had encoun­tered. There in the Libyan Desert it still stands, this oracle of supernal wisdom, a vast monument built by men, and in the exact geographical center of the land area of the earth.

How could those wonderful builders have known, forty-five centuries ago, she silently questioned, the ex­tent of the land area of the earth when much of the land was still unknown at the time? Or was it unknown to the builders? Why, the Great Pyramid was built more than forty centuries before Columbus made his hazardous trip to our wonderful America. From what source, and in what manner, did the builders of the ancient structure draw their astonishing information? Obviously there could be but one source, that of the All-Intelligence. Those ancient Shepherd Kings who were such master builders must have been in intimate contact with that Source of All Wisdom, must have keenly realized their ability to tune their minds in with It at will. They must have been able, in some mysterious way unknown to us of today, to recognize the right key when it was passed to them from out of the Universal.

Well, Polly mused, at all events I shall know how it feels to stand upon that great mass of stone, so mys­terious and silent, by whose measurements and signs and tokens all may learn much if they will but use the key to all of it. I shall try to understand some of its messages at least while my feet are firmly placed upon it.

As the succeeding days sped quickly by Polly Durant simply knew with her innermost thought and feeling at all times that the creative power of thought must mani­fest in outward form for her. And because of that fact she received, on the last day of June, all of her arrear­age of salary; and on July 23 she experienced the thrill of triumph by landing in Egypt. Alone she had jour­neyed, without the slightest desire for human compan­ionship; nor had she so much as looked for a face that might prove friendly. The weather had been splendid, the voyage restful and invigorating; Polly was in excel­lent condition to really enjoy the fulfillment of her dreams. Upon her arrival in Cairo she secured, through the medium of her letters of introduction, unusually good and reasonable accommodations at one of the leading hotels, and arranged for a trip out to the Great Pyramid the following day.

One hour after her arrival in the strangely beautiful city Polly leisurely walked through the streets. She felt very much at ease, although her friends had told her that she would feel like an imprisoned spirit all alone in that city where all was so different, especially so since this was her first journey abroad. The sug­gestion now seemed absurd to Polly since she was experiencing exactly the contrary reaction to her surroundings. She felt as if her spirit had been suddenly released; nor was she aware of any oppressive heat such as she had understood would be the case in Egypt in summer. She was clad in conformity with the climatic conditions, and found that her mind dwelt almost continually upon the adventure before her rather than upon any awareness of discomfort.

Tomorrow she would be upon the sacred ground, the thought of which had fascinated her for so long. She would then be one of the first to put her hand upon the massive structure in which was enshrined the secrets of the profoundest knowledge of the ages. She would clamber over it, ascend to the crest high above the earth, go within it wherein was written the marvelous secret messages of the foremost minds of a dim age to those who should come long after them. She would see the many scientific wonders for herself and great would be her delight. What a stirring account of her summer's findings she would have to give her friends in Chicago upon her return late in the season.

At nine-thirty the following morning Polly stepped into the saddle of a kneeling camel for her first ride on such a beast, and was soon on her way to the realiza­tion of her fond dream. She could hardly believe the evidences of her senses that such was the case. Sud­denly she was aware of a rocking sensation, very unrhythmic, first decidedly forward, then abruptly back­ward, and before she could adjust herself to the move­ment, there would come at a most unexpected moment a sidewise lurch. Soon there came to Polly a realiza­tion of "sea-sickness." Was there not irony in the thought that she had missed the dread malady of travelers for all of the time that she had been aboard ship only to have it seize her unexpectedly when upon the back of a swaying camel? She must do something about the condition immediately else she would have to dismount and find some other form of conveyance. A thought flashed through her soul that the movement of this great camel must be in tune with the undertones of the Universal, and she kept her mind consistently stayed upon that thought. Very soon, her discomfort vanished, and Polly found herself really enjoying the balance of the slow, ten-mile journey. The crossing of the historic Nile with palm-fringed banks its flags and lotus flowers, she discovered particularly interest­ing. And when on the opposite shore of the stream the guides pointed out for Polly the series of pyramids several miles to the westward, low, sharply angular buildings upon the horizon.

Slowly the small caravan moved onward, the pyra­mids growing constantly larger as the distance to them was shortened. Polly counted six of them as she ap­proached, three that now appeared very large, in a row, quite close together, and nearby three more that were decided miniatures in comparison to their tower­ing neighbors. The guides informed her that still three more pyramids would come into view a little later since nine of them formed a cluster there on the plateau of Gizeh. And on the site of the pyramids was reached.

A guide directed Polly's attention to the one in which she was most interested, the oldest and largest of the group, the one farthest north. A sinking sensation swept over Polly, a wave of deep disappointment. Was that great pile of utterly non-inspiring sand-stone, loosely thrown together and unevenly terraced, all of a dun and lifeless shade, really the object that she had journeyed all the way from Chicago to witness?

Bewildered for the moment, Polly asked again if that were the Great Pyramid, and was informed, that it surely was. She was pleased that there were none pres­ent who knew her. She was quite alone except for the two guides and a middle-aged couple whom she be­lieved to be Germans. She would use the power of her thought to dispel her feeling of acute disappointment. She recalled, too, that she had read the beautiful, white, limestone casing which originally graced the structure had long since been removed, some of it to be used in certain buildings in Cairo, but the greater part of it to be burned by the residents for the lime the stones contained in abundant quantity. Despite her knowledge of this fact Polly had held to the idea that the great monument was still attractive to the sight.

"Well, here we are, Miss," a guide said. He then gave a low command, and the camel upon which Polly was mounted rocked itself to its knees, almost unseat­ing her. But the guide was on the alert; grasping Polly's arm firmly, he steadied her, and helped her dismount. How small she seemed to herself here beside this mammoth building. Really it was to her a man-made mountain of stone, solid faces of enormous scope, no windows or doors visible. In wonderment, Polly's gaze surveyed the east face. Up, up it reached in towering majesty. Polly thought for a moment. How high was it to the top? She had read the figure. Was it 486 feet and five inches? Yes, that was it, the height of the average modern office building of forty stories, or so. The guide as if reading her mind confirmed the height. And what was that great figure which told of the weight of the Pyramid in tons? Whatever it was obviously it was not exaggerated. The weight, she recalled, was 5,273,834 Pyramid tons; and in the structure are not less than 2,300,000 individual stones, occupying not less than 90,000,000 cubic feet of space. Her flair for figures soaring, Polly became enthused; her eyes shone with intelligent light. Gone entirely, and utterly forgotten, was her feeling of disappoint­ment of a few minutes before. How convincing to her were the figures as she recalled them. Truly this enormous monument she was scanning must be to this day the largest building ever constructed by man.

Polly followed the guide around to the north face of the Pyramid. Immediately she saw the few original casing-stones that still adhere to the face at the foun­dation-line, and stopped for a minute to examine them. Even to her, as one lettered in the builder's arts, it was apparent that the quality of the stones was the very finest. They were 100 inches thick, cut with the greatest precision this world has ever known, and fitted together with remarkably thin seams, yet cemented throughout with a most tenacious and durable cement which was most effectively holding, even now, after forty-five centuries of duty. How inspiringly beautiful the great building must have been originally, Polly marveled, when all four of its faces, comprising nearly twenty-two acres of area, were covered solidly with this magnificent arris.

The balance of the party came by, but they did not stop to examine the casing-stones. As they passed on Polly lingered a little longer. She was not inclined to hurry her inspection, and found pleasure in the thought that she could concentrate better if alone with her own guide. But even he talked too much, recited by monot­onous rote his speech on the wonders of the Great Pyramid. Instructing him to confine his words to answering her questions; and to allow her all the time that she wished at any given point of interest, Polly moved on close beside the foundation.

Soon they came to the dark bore where Al Mamoun and his band of Arabs had driven their forced passage into the building in A.D. 820. She recalled what she had read of the incident. Mamoun had believed the Great Pyramid to be a tomb, as were the others of the pyramids; and he had the idea that this greatest of all the structures must contain an enormous treasure. He had been unable to find the one entrance, which the builders had made in the monument — oh yes, there it is, that pointed arch opening higher up on the face, some fifty feet up the slope from the foundation.

The builders had sealed the aperture too cleverly for it to be found by Mamoun, had closed it with a so perfectly that its presence was not revealed by even so much as a single joint line. So Mamoun had forcibly entered, at the cost of a great amount of hard labor, hewing and chiseling with the crude tools his work­men had, and quite by accident rather than by employ­ment of any science had broken into the Passage-System near the junction of the Descending Passage with the Ascending Passage. And all of Mamoun's labors had been futile; he found no treasure whatever in the whole of the Great Pyramid. This one, unlike the thirty-seven others, had never been used as a tomb, in fact it was not constructed for that purpose at all. Polly found amusement in picturing to herself the great dis­appointment that must have been Mamoun's, and espe­cially that of his men who had been promised a share of the loot as compensation for their arduous labors. It was no matter for wonder that the men had complained bitterly against their leader, had mutinied, and were swayed from their resolve to slay their chieftain only by his paying them in gold the amount of their wages.

"Would you like to go inside now, Miss?" the guide requested, forgetful of Polly's command of a few min­utes before. Polly did not answer immediately. She felt somewhat hesitant to enter the dark recesses of the Pyramid accompanied only by her guide. Perhaps she had better wait until the other members of the party were ready to go inside. They were not far away, and probably would soon join her. Upon second thought the idea did not appeal to her. The other people might babble all the time and thus spoil the trend of her thought when she wished to study some inner feature of the great marvel. Then she noticed five other camels grouped not far away under the care of a herds­man. The animals did not belong to her party. No doubt another group had preceded her here. But where were they? They were not to be seen anywhere on the outside. Possibly they were inside. But whether they were, or were not, she would not hesitate longer to go within, and alone with her guide. The One Great Pro­tective Spirit which had enabled not less than 280,000 of the people of the Shepherd Kings to come into this, an enemy country, without use of implements of war­fare, to spend without molestation at least fifty years in erecting this building, to call upon and secure with­out any trouble 100,000 Egyptian laborers to help them with their work, that Power which protected them and provided for them must still he here to pro­tect anyone who would provide the condition for its manifestation, that of recognition. Clearly it came to Polly that there is but one mind to think about me, or to make laws over me, and that is the Mind of Divine Love, Understanding, Peace and Power.

In response to her questions the guide assured Miss Durant that a trip within was not now so very difficult, similar to a visit through a cave in a mountain, the pas­sages low and steep in many places, but not hazardous any more due to the fact that a lighting system had been recently installed and steps cut into the floor of the passages where they were most steep and slippery. She would have to bend low in some places, and travel along in a stooped and cramped position, but occasion­ally they would come to a chamber where they could stand upright and rest. They would enter by way of Mamoun's tunnel rather than climbing higher up the side to the original entrance.