of
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
by
Max Heindel
by
Max Heindel
Chapter XIV
The Occult Analysis of Genesis
In our study thus far, previous to Chapter XIII, comparatively little reference has been made to the Bible, but we shall now devote our attention to it for some time. Not that it is intended to attempt a vindication of the Bible (in the form in which it is commonly known to us at the present day) as the only true and inspired Word of God, nevertheless it is true that it contains much valuable occult knowledge. This is, to great extent, hidden beneath interpolations and obscured by the arbitrary withholding of certain parts as being "apocryphal." The occult scientist, who knows the intended meaning, can, of course, easily see which portions are original and which have been interpolated. Yet, if we take the first chapter of Genesis even as it stands, in the best translations we possess, we shall find that it unfolds the identical scheme of evolution which has been explained in the preceding portion of this work and harmonized quite well with the occult information in regard to Periods, Revolutions, Races, Etc. The outlines given are necessarily of the briefest and most condensed character, an entire Period being covered in a score of words—nevertheless, the outlines are there.Before proceeding with an analysis it is necessary to say that the words of the Hebrew language, particularly the old style, run into one another and are not divided as those of our language. Add to this that there is a custom of leaving out vowels from the writing, so that in reading much depends upon where and how they are inserted, and it will be seen how great are the difficulties to be surmounted in ascertaining the original meaning. A slight change may entirely alter the signification of almost any sentence.
In addition to these great difficulties we must also bear in mind that of the forty-seven translators of the King James version (that most commonly used in England and America), only three were Hebrew scholars, and of those three, two died before the Psalms had been translated! We must still further take into consideration that the Act which authorized the translation prohibited the translators from any rendition that would greatly deviate from or tend to disturb the already existing belief. It is evident, therefore, that the chances of getting a correct translation were very small indeed.
Nor were conditions much more favorable in Germany, for there Martin Luther was the sole translator and even he did not translate from the original Hebrew, but merely from a Latin text. Most of the versions used in Continental Protestant countries today are simply translations, into the different languages, of Luther's translations.
True, there have been revisions, but they have not greatly improved matters. Moreover, there is a large number of people in this country who insist that the English text of the King James version is absolutely correct from cover to cover, as though the Bible had been originally written in English, and the King James version were a certified copy of the original manuscript. So the old mistakes are still there, in spite of the efforts which have been made to eradicate them.
It must also be noted that those who originally wrote the Bible did not intend to give out the truth in such plain form that he who ran might read. Nothing was further from their thoughts than to write an "open book of God." The great occultists who wrote the Zohar are very emphatic upon this point. The secrets of the Torah were not to be understood by all, as the following quotation will show:
"Woe to the man who sees in the Torah (the law) only simple recitals and ordinary words! Because, if in truth it contained only these, we would even today be able to compose a Torah much more worthy of admiration. But it is not so. Each word of the Torah contains an elevated meaning and a sublime mystery. . . .The recitals of the Torah are the vestments of the Torah. Woe to him who takes this vestment of the Torah for the Torah itself!. . . The simple take notice of the garments and recitals of the Torah alone. They know no other thing. They see not that which is concealed under the vestment. The more instructed men do not pay attention to the vestment, but to the body which it envelops."
In the preceding words, the allegorical meanings are plainly implied. Paul also unequivocally says that the story of Abraham and the two sons whom he had by Sarah and Hagar is purely allegorical (Gal. iv:22-26). Many passages are veiled; others are to be taken verbatim; and no one who has not the occult key is able to find the deep truth hidden in what is often a very hideous garment.
The secrecy regarding these deep matters and invariable use of allegories where the mass of the people were permitted to come in contact with occult truths will also be apparent from the practice of Christ, who always spoke to the multitude in parables, afterward privately explaining to His disciples the deeper meaning contained therein. On several occasions He imposed secrecy upon them with regard to private teachings.
Paul's methods are also in harmony with this, for he gives "milk" or the more elementary teaching to the "babes" in the faith, reserving the "meat" or deeper teaching for the "strong"—those who had qualified themselves to understand and receive them.
The Jewish Bible was originally written in Hebrew, but we do not possess one single line of the original writings. As early as 260 B.C. the Septuagint, a translation into Greek, was brought forth. Even in the time of Christ there was already the utmost confusion and diversity of opinion regarding what was to be admitted as original, and what had been interpolated.
It was not until the return from Babylonian exile that the scribes began to piece together the different writings, and not until about 500 A.D. did the Talmud appear, giving the first text resembling the present one, which, in view of the foregoing facts, cannot be perfect.
The Talmud was them taken in hand by the Masorete school, which from 590 to about 800 A.D. was principally in Tiberias. With great and painstaking labor, a Hebrew Old Testament was produced, which is the nearest to the original we have at the present time.
This Masoretic text will be used in the following elucidation of Genesis, and, not relying upon the work of one translator, it will be supplemented by a German translation, the work of three eminent Hebrew scholars— H. Arnheim, M. Sachs, and Jul. Furst, who co-operated with a fourth, Dr. Zunz, the latter being also the editor.
The opening sentence of Genesis is a very good example of what has been stated about the interpretation of the Hebrew text, which may be changed by differently placing the vowels and dividing the words in another way.
There are two well recognized methods of reading this sentence. One is: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"; the other is: "Out of the ever-existing essence (of space) the twofold energy formed the double heaven."
Much has been said and written as to which of these two interpretations is correct. The difficulty is, that the people want something settled and definite. They take the stand that, if a certain explanation is true, all others must be wrong. But, emphatically, this is not the way to get at truth, which is many sided and multiplex. Each occult truth requires examination from many different points of view; each viewpoint presents a certain phase of the truth, and all of them are necessary to get a complete, definite conception of whatever is under consideration.
The very fact that this sentence and many others in the vestment of the Torah can thus be made to yield many meanings, while confusing to the uninitiated, is illuminative to those who have the key, and the transcendental wisdom of the wonderful Intelligences Who inspired the Torah is thereby shown. Had the vowels been inserted, and a division made into words, there would have been only one way of reading it and these grand and sublime mysteries could not have been hidden therein. That would have been the proper method to pursue if the authors had meant to write an "open" book of God; but that was not their purpose. It was written solely for the initiated; and can be read understandingly by them only. It would have required much less skill to have written the book plainly than to have concealed its meaning. No pains are ever spared, however, to bring the information, in due time, to those who are entitled to it, while withholding it from those who have not yet earned the right to possess it.
Regarded by the light thrown upon the genesis and evolution of our system, it is plain that both renderings of the opening sentence in the Book of Genesis are necessary to an understanding of the subject. The first tells that there was a beginning of our evolution, in which the heavens were created; the other interpretation supplements the first statement by adding that the heavens and the earth were created out of the "ever-existing essence," not out of "nothing," as is jeeringly pointed out by the materialist. The Cosmic Root-substance is gathered together and set in motion. The rings formed by the inertia of the revolving mass break away from the central part, forming planets, etc., as the modern scientist, with remarkable ingenuity, has reasoned out. Occult and modern science are in perfect harmony as to the modus operandi. There is nothing in these statements inconsistent with the two theories, as will presently be shown. Occult science teaches that God instituted the process of formation and is constantly guiding the System in a definite path. The modern scientist, in refutation of what he calls a foolish idea, and to demonstrate that a God is not necessary, takes a basin of water and pours a little oil into it. The water and the oil represent space and fire-mist respectively. He now commences to turn the oil around with a needle, bringing it into the form of a sphere. This, he explains, represents the Central Sun. As he turns the oil-ball faster and faster, it bulges at the equator and throws off a ring, the ring breaks and the fragments coalesce, forming a smaller ball, which circles around the Sun. Then he pityingly asks the occult scientist, "Do you not see how it is done?" There is not need for your God, or any supernatural force."
The occultist readily agrees that a Solar System may be formed in approximately the manner illustrated. But he marvels greatly that a man possessing the clear intuition enabling him to perceive with such accuracy the operation of Cosmic processes, and the intellect to conceive this brilliant demonstration of this monumental theory, should at the same time be quite unable to see that in his demonstration he himself plays the part of God. His was the extraneous power that placed the oil in the water, where it would have remained inert and shapeless through all eternity had he not supplied the force that set it in motion, thereby causing it to shape itself into representation of Sun and planets. His was the Thought which designed the experiment, using the oil, water and force, thus illustrating in a splendid manner the Triune God working in Cosmic substance to form a Solar System.
The attributes of God are Will, Wisdom and Activity. (See diagram 6. Note carefully what the name "God" signifies in this terminology.) The scientist has Will to make the experiment. He has ingenuity to supply ways and means for the demonstration. This ingenuity corresponds to Wisdom, the second attribute to God. He has also the muscular force necessary to perform the action, corresponding to Activity, which is the third attribute of God.
Further, the universe is not a vast perpetual-motion machine, which, when once set going, keeps on without any internal cause or guiding force. That also is proven by the experiment of the scientist, for the moment he ceases to turn the oil-ball the orderly motion of his miniature planets also ceases and all returns to a shapeless mass of oil floating on the water. In a corresponding manner, the universe would at once dissolve into "thin space" if God for one moment ceased to exert His all-embracing care and energizing activity.
The second interpretation of Genesis is marvelously exact in its description of a twofold formative energy. It does not specifically state that God is Triune. The reader's knowledge of that fact is taken for granted. It states the exact truth when it says that only two forces are active in the formation of a universe.
When the first aspect of the Triune God manifests as the Will to create, It arouses the second aspect (which is Wisdom) to design a plan for the future universe. This first manifestation of Force is Imagination. After this primal Force of Imagination has conceived the Idea of a universe, the third aspect (which is Activity), working in Cosmic substance, produces Motion. This is the second manifestation of Force. Motion alone, however, is not sufficient. To form a system of worlds, it must be orderly motion. Wisdom is therefore necessary to guide Motion in an intelligent manner to produce definite results.
Thus we find the opening sentence of the Book of Genesis tells us that in the beginning, orderly, rhythmic motion, in Cosmic Root-substance, formed the universe.
The second interpretation of the opening sentence also gives us a fuller idea of God when it speaks of the "twofold energy," pointing to the positive and negative phases of the One Spirit of God in manifestation. In harmony with the teaching of occult science, God is represented as a composite Being. This is accentuated in the remaining verses of the chapter.
In addition to the creative Hierarchies which worked voluntarily in our evolution, there are seven others which belong to our evolution, and are co-workers with God in the formation of the universe. In the first chapter of Genesis these Hierarchies are called "Elohim." The name signifies a host of dual and double-sexed Beings. The first part of the word is "Eloh," which is a feminine noun, the letter "h" indicating the gender. If a single feminine Being were meant, the work "Eloh" would have been used.
The feminine plural is "oth," so if the intention had been to indicate a number of Gods of the feminine gender, the correct word to use would have been "Elooth." Instead of either of those forms, however, we find the masculine plural ending, "im," added to the feminine noun, "Eloh," indicating a host of male-female, double-sexed Beings, expressions of the dual, positive-negative, creative energy.
The plurality of Creators is again implied in the latter part of the chapter, where these words are ascribed to the Elohim: "Let us make man in our image;" after which it is inconsistently added, "He made them male and female."
The translators have here rendered the puzzling word "Elohim" (which was decidedly not only a plural word but also both masculine and feminine) as being the equivalent of the singular, sexless word, "God." yet could they have done differently, even had they known? They were forbidden to disturb existing ideas. It was not truth at any price, but peace at any price that King James desired, his sole anxiety being to avoid any controversy that might create a disturbance in his kingdom.
The plural "them" is also used where the creation of man is mentioned, clearly indicating that the reference is to the creation of ADM, the human species, and not Adam, the individual.
We have shown that six creative Hierarchies (besides the Lords of Flame, the Cherubim, the Seraphim, and the two unnamed Hierarchies which have passed into liberation) were active in assisting the virgin spirits which in themselves form a seventh Hierarchy.
The Cherubim and the Seraphim had nothing to do with the creation of Form; therefore they are not mentioned in the chapter under consideration, which deals principally with the Form-side of Creation. Here we find mentioned only the seven creative Hierarchies which did the actual work of bringing man to where he acquired a dense physical form, through which the indwelling spirit could work.
After a description of each part of the work of Creation it is said: "and Elohim saw that it was good." This is said seven times, the last time being on the sixth day, when the human form had been created.
It is stated that on the seventh day "Elohim rested." This is all in accord with our occult teaching of the part taken by each of the creative Hierarchies in the work of evolution down to the present Period. It is also taught that in the present Epoch the Gods and creative Hierarchies have withdrawn from active participation, that man may work out his own salvation, leaving the necessary guidance of ordinary humanity to the "Elder Brothers," who are now the mediators between man and the Gods.
Having satisfied ourselves that the beginning of our System and the work of the creative Hierarchies, as described by occult science, harmonize with the teachings of the Bible, we will now examine the Bible account of different "Days of Creation" and see how they agree with the occult teachings relative to the Saturn, Sun, and Moon Periods; the three and one-half Revolutions of the Earth Period; and the Polarian, Hyperborean, Lemurian, and Atlantean Epochs, which have preceded the present Aryan Epoch.
Naturally, a detailed account could not be given in a few lines like the first chapter of Genesis, but the main points are there in orderly succession, very much like an algebraical formula for Creation.
The second verse proceeds: "The Earth was waste and uninhabited, and darkness rested upon the face of the deep; and the Spirits of the Elohim floated above the deep." In the beginning of manifestation that which is now the Earth was in the Saturn Period, and in exactly the condition described, as may be seen by referring to the descriptions already given of that Period. It was not "without form and void," as expressed in the King James version. It was hot, and thus well-defined and separate from the deep of space, which was cold. It is true that it was dark, but it could be dark and still be hot, for "dark" heat necessarily precedes glowing or visible heat. Above this dark Earth of the Saturn Period floated the creative Hierarchies. They worked upon it from the outside and molded it. The Bible refers to them as the "Spirits of the Elohim."
The Sun Period is well described in the third verse, which says, "And the Elohim said, Let there be Light; and there was Light." This passage has been jeered at as the most ridiculous nonsense. The scornful query has been put, How could there be light upon the Earth when the Sun was not made until the fourth day? The Bible narrator, however, is not speaking of the Earth alone. He is speaking of the central "Fire-mist," from which were formed the planets of our system including the Earth. Thus when the nebula reached a state of glowing heat, which it did in the Sun Period, there was no necessity for an outside illuminant, the Light was within.
In the fourth verse we read: "The Elohim differentiated between the light and the darkness." Necessarily, for the outside space was dark, in contradistinction to the glowing nebula which existed during the Sun Period.
The Moon Period is described in the sixth verse, as follows: "and Elohim said, Let there by an expansion (translated "firmament" in other versions) in the waters, to divide the water from the water." This exactly describes conditions in the Moon Period, when the heat of the glowing fire-mist and the cold of outside space had formed a body of water around the fiery core. The contact of fire and water generated steam, which is water in expansion, as our verse describes. It was different from the comparatively cool water, which constantly gravitated toward the hot, fiery core, to replace the outrushing stream. Thus there was a constant circulation of water held in suspension, and also an expansion, as the steam, rushing outward from the fiery core, formed an atmosphere of "fire-fog" condensed by contact with outside space, returning again to the core to be reheated and perform another cycle. Thus there were two kinds of water, and a division between them, as stated in the Bible. The dense water was nearest the fiery core; the expanded water or steam was on the outside.
This also harmonizes with the scientific theory of modern times. First the dark heat; then the glowing nebula; later the outside moisture and inside heat; and, finally incrustation.
The Earth Period is next described, Before we take up its description, however, we have to deal with the Recapitulations. The verses quoted and the descriptions given will also correspond to the recapitulatory Periods. Thus what is said of the Saturn Period describes also the condition of the System when it emerges from any of the rest Periods. The descriptions of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon Periods would therefore correspond to the first three Revolutions of our present Earth Period, and the following would correspond with conditions on Earth in the present Revolution.
In the ninth verse, we read: "And Elohim said, Let the waters be divided from the dry land. . . .and Elohim called the dry land Earth." This refers to the first firm incrustation. Heat and moisture had generated the solid body of our present Globe.
The Polarian Epoch: The ninth verse, which describes the Earth Period in this fourth Revolution (where the real Earth Period work commenced), also describes the formation of the mineral kingdom and the Recapitulation by man of the mineral stage in the Polarian Epoch. Each Epoch is also a Recapitulation of the previous stage. Just as there are Recapitulations of Globes, Revolutions, and Periods, so there are on each Globe, recapitulations of all that has gone before. These Recapitulations are endless. There is always a spiral within a spiral—in the atom, in the Globe, and in all other phases of evolution.
Complicated and bewildering as this may appear at first, it is really not so difficult to understand. There is an orderly method running through it all and in time one is able to perceive and follow the workings of this method, as a clue leading through a maze. Analogy is one of the best helps to an understanding of evolution.
The Hyperborean Epoch is described in verses 11 to 19, as the work of the fourth day. It is here recorded that Elohim created the plant kingdom, the Sun, the Moon, and the stars.
The Bible agrees with the teaching of modern science that plants succeeded the mineral. The difference between the two teachings is in regard to the time when the Earth was thrown off from the central mass. Science asserts that it was before the formation of any incrustation which could be called mineral and plant. If we mean such minerals and plants as we have today, that assertion is correct. There was no dense material substance, but nevertheless the first incrustation that took place in the central Sun was mineral. The Bible narrator gives only the principal incidents. It is not recorded that the incrustation melted when it was thrown off from the central mass as a ring which broke, the fragments afterward coalescing. In a body as small as our Earth, the time required for recrystallization was so comparatively short that the historian does not mention it, nor the further subsidiary fact that the melting process took place once more when the Moon was thrown off from the Earth. He probably reasons that one who is entitled to occult information is already in possession of such minor details as those.
The plants of the incrustation of the central fire-mist were ethereal, therefore the melting processes did not destroy them. As the lines of force along which the ice crystals form are present in the water, so when the Earth crystallized, were those ethereal plant-forms present in it. They were the molds which drew to themselves the dense material forming the plant-bodies of the present day and also of the plant-forms of the past, which are embedded in the geological strata of the Earth globe.
These ethereal plant-forms were aided in the formation when the heat came from outside, after the separation of the Earth from Sun and Moon. That heat gave them the vital force to draw to themselves the denser substance.
The Lemurian Epoch is described in the work of the fifth day. This Epoch, being the third, is in a sense a Recapitulation of the Moon Period, and in the Biblical narrative we find described such conditions as obtained in the Moon Period—water, fire-fog, and the first attempts at moving, breathing life.
Verses 20 and 21 tell us that "Elohim said, Let the waters bring forth life-breathing things. . .and fowl. . . ; and Elohim formed the great amphibians and all life-breathing things according to their species, and all fowl with wings."
This also harmonizes with the teaching of material science that the amphibians preceded the birds.
The student is invited to note particularly that the things that were formed were not Life. It does not say that Life was created, but "things" that breathe or inhale life. . . .The Hebrew word for that which they inhale isnephesh, and it should be carefully noted, as we shall meet it in a new dress later.
The Atlantean Epoch is dealt with in the work of the sixth day. In verse 24 the creation of mammals is mentioned, and there the word nephesh again occurs, explaining that the mammals "breathed life."
"Elohim said, Let the earth bring forth life-breathing things. . .mammals. . .;" and in verse 27, "Elohim formed man in their likeness; male and female made they (Elohim) them."
The Bible historian here omits the a-sexual and hermaphrodite human stages and comes to the two separate sexes, as we know them now. He could not do otherwise, as he is describing in the Atlantean Epoch, and by the time that stage in evolution was reached there were neither sexless men nor hermaphrodites, the differentiation of the sexes having taken place earlier—in the Lemurian Epoch.
That which afterward became man could hardly be spoken of as man in the earlier stages of its development, as it differed but little from the animals. Therefore the Bible narrator is doing no violence to facts when he states that man was formed in the Atlantean Epoch.
In verse 28 (all versions) will be found a very small prefix, with a very great significance: "Elohim said, Be fruitful and re-plenish the earth." This plainly shows that the scribe who wrote it was cognizant of the occult teaching that the life wave had evolved here, on Globe D of the Earth Period, in previous Revolutions.
The Aryan Epoch corresponds to the seventh day of Creation, when the Elohim rested from their labors as Creators and Guides, and humanity had been launched upon an independent career.
This ends the story of the manner in which the Forms were produced. In the following chapter the story is told from the point of view which deals a little more with the Life side.
There has been much learned discussion concerning the discrepancy between, and especially the authorship of the creation story of the first chapter and that which starts at the fourth verse of the second chapter. It is asserted that the two accounts were written by different men, because the Being or Beings, the name of Whom the translators have rendered as "God" in both the first and second chapters of the English version, are, in the Hebrew text, called "Elohim" in the first chapter, and "Jehovah" in the second chapter, It is argued that the same narrator would not have named God in two different ways.
Had he meant the same God in both cases, he probably would not, but he was not a monotheist. He knew better than to think of God as simply a superior Man, using the sky for a throne and the earth for a footstool. When he wrote of Jehovah he meant the Leader Who had charge of the particular part of the work of Creation which was then being described. Jehovah was and is one of the Elohim. He is the Leader of the Angels who were the humanity of the Moon Period and He is Regent of our Moon. The reader is referred to diagram 14 for an accurate understanding of the position and constitution of Jehovah.
As Regent of Our Moon, He has charge of the degenerate, evil Beings there, and He also rules the Angels. With Him are some of the Archangels, who were the humanity of the Sun Period. They are the "Race-Spirits".
It is the work of Jehovah to build concrete bodies or forms, by means of the hardening, crystallizing Moon forces. Therefore He is the giver of children and the Angels are His messengers in this work. It is well know to physiologists that the Moon is connected with gestation; at least, they have observed that it measures and governs the period of intra-uterine life and other physiological functions.
The Archangels, as Spirits and Leaders of a Race, are known to fight for or against a people, as the exigencies of the evolution of that Race demand. In Daniel x:20 an Archangel speaking to Daniel, says, "And now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come."
The Archangel Michael is the Race-spirit of the Jews (Daniel xii:1), but Jehovah is not the god of the Jews alone; He is the Author of all Race-religions which led up to Christianity. Nevertheless, it is true that He did take a special interest in the progenitors of the present degenerate Jews—the Original Semites, the "seed-race" for the seven races of the Aryan Epoch. Jehovah, of course, takes special care of a seed-race, in which are to be inculcated the embryonic faculties of the humanity of a new Epoch. For that reason He was particularly concerned with the Original Semites. They were His "chosen people"—chosen to be the seed for a new Race, which was to inherit the "Promised Land"—not merely insignificant Palestine, but the entire Earth, as it is at present.
He did not lead them out of Egypt. That story originated with their descendants and is a confused account of their journey eastward through flood and disaster out of the doomed Atlantis into the "wilderness" (the Desert of Gobi in Central Asia), there to wander during the cabalistic forty years, until they could enter the Promised Land. There is a double and peculiar significance to the descriptive word "promised" in this connection. The land was called the "promised Land" because, as land or earth suitable for human occupation, it did not exist at the time the "chosen people" were led into the "wilderness." Part of the Earth had been submerged by floods and other parts changed by volcanic eruptions, hence it was necessary that a period of time elapse before the new Earth was in a fit condition to become the possession of the Aryan Race.
The Original Semites were set apart and forbidden to marry into other tribes or peoples, but they were a stiff-necked and hard people, being yet led almost exclusively by desire and cunning, therefore they disobeyed the command. Their Bible records that the sons of God married the daughters of man—the lower grades of their Atlantean compatriots. They thus frustrated the designs of Jehovah and were cast off, the fruit of such cross-breeding being useless as seed for the coming Race.
These cross-breeds were the progenitors of the present Jews, who now speak of "lost tribes." They know that some of the original number left them and went another way, but they do not know that those were the few who remained true. The story of the ten tribes being lost is a fable. Most of them perished, but the faithful ones survived, and from that faithful remnant have descended the present Aryan Races.
The contention of the opponents of the Bible, that it is a mere mutilation of the original writings, is cheerfully agreed to by occult science. Parts of it are even conceded to be entire fabrications and no attempt is made to prove its authenticity as a whole, in the form we now have it. The present effort is simply an attempt to exhume a few kernels of occult truth from the bewildering mass of misleading and incorrect interpretations under which they have been buried by the various translators and revisers.
Having in the foregoing paragraphs disentangled from the general confusion the identity and mission of Jehovah, it may be that we can now find harmony in the two seemingly contradictory accounts of the creation of man, as recorded in the first and second chapters of Genesis, in the first of which it is written that he was the last, and in the second that he was the first created of all living things.
We note that the first chapter deals chiefly with the creation of Form, the second chapter is devoted to the consideration of Life, while the fifth chapter deals with the Consciousness. The key to the meaning, then, is that we must differentiate sharply between the physical Form, and the Life that builds that Form for its own expression. Although the order of the creation of the other kingdoms is not as correctly given in the second chapter as in the first, it is true that if we consider man from the Life side, he was created first, but if we consider him from the standpoint of Form, as is done in the first chapter, he was created last.
All through the course of evolution—through Periods, Globes, Revolutions and Races—those who do not improve by the formation of new characteristics are held back and immediately begin to degenerate. Only that which remains plastic and pliable and adaptable for molding into new Forms suitable for the expression of the expanding consciousness; only the Life which is capable of outgrowing the possibilities for improvement inhering in the forms it ensouls, can evolve with the pioneers of any life wave. All else must straggle on behind.
This is the kernel of the occult teaching. Progress is not simply unfoldment; not simply Involution and Evolution. There is a third factor, making a triad—Involution, Evolution, and—Epigenesis.
The first two words are familiar to all who have studied Life and Form, but while it is generally admitted that the involution of spirit into matter takes place in order that form may be built, it is not so commonly recognized that the Involution of Spirit runs side by side with the Evolution of Form.
From the very beginning of the Saturn Period up to the time in the Atlantean Epoch when "man's eyes were opened" by the Lucifer Spirits, and as a consequence the activities of man—or the Life-force which has become man—were chiefly directed inward; that very same force which he now sends out from himself to build railways, steamboats, etc., was used internally in building a vehicle through which to manifest himself. This vehicle is threefold, like the spirit which built it.
The same power by which man is now improving outside conditions was used during Involution for purposes of internal growth.
The Form was built by Evolution, the Spirit built and entered it by Involution; but the means for devising improvements is Epigenesis.
There is a strong tendency to regard all that is, as the result of something that has been; all improvements on previously existing forms, as being present in all forms as latencies; to regard Evolution as simply the unfolding of germinal improvements. Such a conception excludes Epigenesis from the scheme of things. It allows no possibility for the building of anything new, no scope for originality.
The occultist believes the purpose of evolution to be the development of man from a static to a dynamic God—a Creator. If the development he is at present undergoing is to be his education and if, during its progress, he is simply unfolding latent actualities, where does He learn to create?
If man's development consists solely in learning to build better and better Forms, according to models already existing in his Creator's mind, be can become, at best, only a good imitator—never a creator.
In order that he may become an independent, original Creator, it is necessary that his training should include sufficient latitude for the exercise of the individual originality which distinguishes creation from imitation. So long as certain features of the old Form meet the requirements of progression they are retained, but at each rebirth the evolving Life adds such original improvements as are necessary for its further expression.
The pioneers of science are constantly brought face to face with Epigenesis as a fact in all departments of nature. As early as 1759, Caspar Wolff published his "Theoria Generationis," in which he shows that in the human ovum there is absolutely no trace of the coming organism; that its evolution consists of the addition of new formations; a building of something which is not latent in the ovum.
Haeckel (that great and fearless student of nature as he sees it, and very near to knowledge of the complete truth regarding evolution) says of the "Theoria Generationis": "Despite its small compass and difficult terminology, it is one of the most valuable works in the whole literature of biology."
Haeckel's own views we find thus stated in his "Anthropogenie": "Nowadays we are hardly justified in calling Epigenesis an hypothesis, as we have fully convinced ourselves of its being a fact and are able at any moment to demonstrate it by the help of the microscope."
A builder would be but a sorry craftsman were his abilities limited to the building of houses after only one particular model, which, during his apprenticeship, his master had taught him to imitate, but which he is unable to alter to meet new requirements. To be successful he must be capable of designing new and better houses, improving that which experience teaches was not serviceable in the earlier buildings. The same force which the builder now directs outward to built houses better adapted to new conditions was used in past Periods to build new and better vehicles for the evolution of the Ego.
Starting with the simplest organisms, the Life which is now Man built the Form to suit its necessities. In due time, as the entity progressed; it become evident that new improvements must be added which conflicted with the lines previously followed. A new start must be given it in a new species, where it could retrieve any previous mistakes which experience taught would preclude further development if the old lines were adhered to and thus the evolving life would be enabled to progress further in a new species. When later experience proved that the new form also was inadequate, inasmuch as it could not adapt itself to some improvement necessary to the progress of the evolving life, it too was discarded and still another departure made, in a form adaptable to the necessary improvement.
Thus by successive steps does the evolving Life improve its vehicles, and the improvements is still going on. Man, who is in the vanguard of progress, has built his bodies, from the similitude of the amoeba up to the human form of the savage, and from that up through the various grades until the most advanced races are now using the best and most highly organized bodies on Earth. Between deaths and rebirths we are constantly building bodies in which to function during our lives and a far greater degree of efficiency than the present will yet be reached. If we make mistakes in building between lives, they become evident when we are using the body in Earth life, and it is well for us if we are able to perceive and realize our mistakes, that we may avoid making them afresh life after life.
But just as the builder of houses would lag commercially if he did not constantly improve his methods to meet the exigencies of his business, so those who persistently adhere to the old forms fail to rise above the species and are left behind, as stragglers. These stragglers take the forms outgrown by the pioneers, as previously explained, and they compose the lower Races and species of any kingdom in which they are evolving. As the Life which is now Man passed through stages analogous to the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms and through the lower human Races, stragglers were left all along the way who had failed to reach the necessary standard to keep abreast of the crestwave of evolution. They took the discarded Forms of the pioneers and used them as stepping-stones, by means of which they tried to overtake the others, but the advanced Forms did not stand still. In the progress of Evolution there is no halting-place. In evolving Life, as in commerce, there is no such thing as merely "holding your own." Progression or Retrogression is the Law. The Form that is not capable of further improvement must Degenerate.
Therefore there is one line of improving forms ensouled by the pioneers of the evolving Life, and another line of degenerating forms, outgrown by the pioneers, but ensouled by the stragglers, as long as there are any stragglers of that particular life wave to which those forms originally belonged.
When there are no more stragglers, the species gradually dies out. The Forms have been crystallized beyond the possibility of being improved by tenants of increasing inability. They therefore return to the mineral kingdom, fossilize and are added to the different strata of the Earth's crust.
The assertion of material science that man has ascended through the different kingdoms of plant and animal which exist about us now to anthropoid and thence to man, is not quite correct. Man has never inhabited forms identical with those of our present-day animals, nor the present-day anthropoid species; but he has inhabited forms which were similar to but higher than those of the present anthropoids.
The scientist sees that there is an anatomical likeness between man and the monkey, and as the evolutionary impulse always makes for improvement, he concludes that man must have descended from the monkey, but he is always baffled in his efforts to find the "missing link" connecting the two.
From the point where the pioneers of our life wave (The Aryan Races) occupied ape-like forms, they have progressed to their present stage of development, while the Forms (which were the "missing link") havedegenerated and are now ensouled by the last stragglers of the Saturn Period.
The lower monkeys, instead of being the progenitors of the higher species, are stragglers occupying the most degenerated specimens of what was once the human form. Instead of man having ascended from the anthropoids, the reverse is true—the anthropoids have degenerated from man. Material science, dealing only with Form, has thus misled itself and drawn erroneous conclusions in this matter.
The same relative conditions are to be found in the animal kingdom. The pioneers of the life wave which entered evolution in the Sun Period are our present-day mammals. The different grades correspond to the steps once taken by man, but the forms are all degenerating under the management of the stragglers. Similarly, the pioneers of the life wave which entered evolution in the Moon Period are found among the fruit trees, while the stragglers of that life wave ensoul all other plant forms.
Each life wave, however remains definitely confined within its own borders. The anthropoids may overtake us and become human beings, but no other animals will reach our particular point of development. They will reach a similar stage, but under different conditions, in the Jupiter Period. The present plants will be the humanity of the Venus Period, under a still greater difference of condition, and our minerals will reach the human stage under the conditions of the Vulcan Period.
It will be noted that the modern evolutionary theory, particularly that of Haeckel, would, if it were completely reversed, be in almost perfect accord with the knowledge of occult science.
The monkey has degenerated from the man.
The polyps are the last degeneration left behind by the mammals.
The mosses are the lowest degenerations of the plant kingdom.
The mineral kingdom is the final goal of the forms of all the kingdoms when they have reached the acme of degeneration.
A corroboration of this is found in coal, which was once vegetable or plant forms; also in petrified wood and fossilized remains of various animal forms. Common stone or rock, which no scientist would admit had it origin in another kingdom, is to the occult investigator as truly mineralized plants as coal itself. The mineralogist will learnedly explain that it is composed of hornblende, feldspar, and mica, but the trained clairvoyant, who can trace it back in the memory of Nature, through millions of years, can supplement that statement by adding: Yes, and that which you call hornblende and feldspar are the leaves and stems of prehistoric flowers, and the mica is all that remains of their petals.
The occult teaching of evolution is also corroborated by the science of embryology in the ante-natal recapitulation of all past stages of development. The difference between the ovum of a human being and of some of the higher mammals, and even of the higher developments in the plant kingdom, is indistinguishable, even under the microscope. Experts are unable to tell which is animal and which is human. Even after several of the initial ante-natal stages have been passed through the experts cannot differentiate between and animal and human embryo.
But if the animal ovum is studied through the entire period of gestation, it will be observed that it passes through the mineral and plant stages only, and is born when it reaches the animal stage. This is because the Life ensouling such an ovum passed through its mineral evolution in the Sun Period, its plant life in the Moon Period, and is now forced to stop at the animal stage in the Earth Period.
OnWhere Epigenesis is inactive in the individual, family, nation, or Race—there evolution ceases and degeneration commences.
Thus the two Creation stories harmonize very well.
One deals with Form, which was built up through mineral, plant and animal and reached the human last.
The other tells us that Life which now ensouls human forms was manifested anterior to the Life which ensouls the forms of the other kingdoms.
One of these accounts of Creation would not have been sufficient. There are important particulars hidden behind the narrative of man's creation, in the second chapter; the verse reads: "Then Jehovah formed man from the dust of the Earth, and blew into his nostrils the breath [nephesh], and man become a breathing creature [nephesh chayim]."
In other places in the King James version nephesh is translated "life," but in this particular instance (Gen. ii.7) it is rendered "living soul," thus conveying the idea that there was a distinction made between the life that ensouled the human form and that which ensouled inferior creations. There is no authority whatever for this difference in translation, which is purely arbitrary. The life-breath (nephesh) is the same in man and beast. This can be shown even to those who stand firmly upon the Bible as authority, for even the King James version distinctly states (Eccles. iii:19,20): ". . .as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they all have one breath [nephesh]; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast:. . .All go unto one place."
The animals are but our "younger brothers," and though they are not now so finely organized, they will eventually reach a state as high as our own, and we shall then have ascended higher.
If it is contended that man received his soul in the way described in this seventh verse of the second chapter of Genesis, and that he could have received it in no other way, it is pertinent to ask where and how woman received her soul?
The meaning of the chapter, and of the inspiration of the breath of life by Jehovah, is very plain and clear when we use the occult key, and it has the further and immense advantage of being logical.
The fact that the Regent of the Moon (Jehovah), with His Angels and Archangels, were the principals in this action fixes the time when this creation occurred. It was between the early and the middle parts of the Lemurian Epoch, and must have been after the Moon was thrown out from the Earth, because Jehovah had nothing to do with the generation of bodies before the Moon was thrown off. The forms were then more ethereal. There were no dense and concrete bodies. It is possible to make such bodies only by means of the hardening and crystallizing Moon-forces, It must have been in the first half of the Lemurian Epoch, because the separation of the sexes, which is recorded later, took place in the middle of that epoch.
At that time man-in-the-making had not yet commenced to breathe by means of lungs. He had the gill-like apparatus still present in the human embryo while passing through the stage of ante-natal life corresponding to that Epoch. He had no warm, red blood, for at that stage there was no individual spirit, the entire form was soft and pliable and the skeleton soft like cartilage. Before the later date, when it became necessary to separate humanity into sexes, the skeleton had grown firm and solid.
The work done by Jehovah was to build dense, hard bone substance into the soft bodies already existing. Previous to this time, i.e., during the Polarian and Hyperborean Epochs, neither animal nor man had bones.
The grotesque and impossible manner in which the separation of the sexes is said to have been accomplished (as described in the common versions of the Bible and, in this particular case, in the Masoretic text also) is another example of what may be done by changing vowels in the old Hebrew text. Read in one way, the work is "rib"; but in another, which has at least as good a claim to consideration, with the additional advantage of being common-sense, it reads "side." If we interpret this to mean that man was male-female and that Jehovah caused one side or sex in each being to remain latent, we shall not be doing violence to our reason, as we would by accepting the "rib" story.
When this alternation is made, the occult teaching as previously given harmonizes with that of the Bible and both agree with the teaching of modern science that man was bi-sexual at one time, before he developed one sex at the expense of the other. In corroboration of this, it is pointed out that the fetus is bi-sexual up to a certain point; thereafter one sex predominates, while the other remains in abeyance, so that each person still has the opposite sex organs in a rudimentary form and therefore is really bi-sexual, as was primitive man.
Apparently the Bible narrator does not wish to give, in this second creation account, an accurate picture of the whole of evolution, but rather to particularize a little more what was said in the first chapter. He tells us that man did not always breathe as he does now; that there was a time when he was not separated into sexes; and that it was Jehovah Who effected the change, thus fixing the time of the occurrence. As we proceed, it will be found that much further information is given.
During the earlier Epochs and Periods the great creative Hierarchies had worked upon humanity as it was unconsciously evolving. There had been only one common consciousness among all human beings; one group-spirit for all mankind, as it were.
In the Lemurian Epoch a new step was taken. Bodies had been definitely formed, but they must have warm, red blood before they could be ensouled and become the abode of indwelling spirits.
In nature no process is sudden. We would get a wrong idea were we to imagine that air blown into the nostrils could put a soul into an image of clay and galvanize it into life as a sentient, thinking being.
The individual spirit was very weak and impotent and quite unfitted for the task of guiding its dense vehicle. In that respect it is not yet very strong. To any qualified observer, it is evident that the desire body rules the personality more than does the spirit, even at our present stage of advancement. But in the middle of the Lemurian Epoch, when the lower personality—the threefold body—-was to be endowed with the light of the Ego, the latter, if left to itself, would have been absolutely powerless to guide its instrument.
Therefore it is necessary for someone much more highly evolved to help the individual spirit and gradually prepare the way for its complete union with its instruments. It was analogous to a new nation, over which, until it becomes capable of forming a stable government for itself, some stronger power establishes a protectorate, guarding it alike from external dangers and internal indiscretions. Such a protectorate was exercised over evolving humanity by the Race-spirit, and is exercised over the animals by the group-spirit, in a somewhat different way.
Jehovah is the Most High. He is Race-God, as one might express it, having dominion over all Form. He is the Chief Ruler and the highest Power in maintaining the form and exercising an orderly government over it. The Archangels are the Race-spirits, each having dominion over a certain group of people. They also have dominion over animals, while the Angels have dominion over the plants.
The Archangels have dominion over races or groups of people and also over the animals, for these two kingdoms have desire bodies and the Archangels are expert architects of desire matter, because in the Sun Period the densest globe was composed of that materials, and the humanity of that period, who are now Archangels, learned to build their densest vehicles of desire staff as we are now learning to build our bodies of the chemical elements whereof our Earth-globe is composed. Thus it will be readily understood that the Archangels are peculiarly qualified to help later life waves through the stage where they learn to build and control a desire body.
For analogous reasons the Angels work in the vital bodies of man, animal and plant. Their densest bodies are composed of ether and so was the Globe D in the Moon Period when they were human.
Jehovah and His Archangels, therefore, hold a similar relation to Races that the group-spirit does to animals. When individual members of a Race have evolved entire self-control and government, they are emancipated from the influence of the Race-spirit and kindred beings.
As we have seen, the point of vantage of the group-spirit, as of any Ego in the dense body, is in the blood. The Masoretic text shows that this knowledge was possessed by the writer of Leviticus. In the fourteenth verse of the seventeenth chapter the Jews are prohibited from eating blood because ". . .the soul of all flesh is in the blood. . . ;" and in the eleventh verse of the same chapter we find these words: ". . .for the soul of the flesh is in the blood. . .the blood itself mediates for the soul," which shows that this applies to both man and beast, for the word here used in the Hebrew is neshamah and means "soul"—not "life," as it is rendered in the King James version.
The Ego works directly through the blood. The Race-spirit guides the Races by working in the blood, as the group-spirit guides the animals of its species through the blood. So also does the Ego control its own vehicle, but with a difference.
The Ego operates by means of the heat of the blood, while the Race (i.e., tribal, or family) spirit works by means of the air, as it is drawn into the lungs. That is why Jehovah, or His messengers, "breathed into man's nostrils," thereby securing admission for the Race-spirit, Community-spirits, etc.
The different classes of Race-spirits guided their peoples to various climates and different parts of the Earth. To the trained clairvoyant, a tribal-spirit appears as a cloud enveloping and permeating the atmosphere of the whole country inhabited by the people under its dominion. Thus are produced the different peoples and nations. Paul spoke of "The Prince of the Power of the Air"; or "principalities and powers," etc., showing that he knew of the Race-spirits, but now not even an attempt is made to understand what they mean, although their influence is strongly felt. Patriotism is one of the sentiments emanating from and fostered by them. It has not now so much power over people as formerly. There are some who are being liberated from the Race-spirit and can say with Thomas Paine, "The world is my country." There are those who can leave father and mother and look upon all men as brothers. They are being liberated from the Family-spirit, or spirit of the Clan which is different from the race-spirit, an etheric entity. Others again, who are deep in the toil of the Race or Family spirit, will suffer the most dreadful depression if they leave home or country and breathe the air of another Race of Family spirit.
At the time the Race-spirit entered human bodies the individualized Ego commenced to get some slight control of its vehicles. Each human entity became more and more conscious of being separate and distinct from other men, yet for ages he did not think of himself primarily as an individual, but as belonging to a tribe or family. The affix "son" to many present day surnames is a remnant of this feeling. A man was not simply "John," or "James." He was John Robertson, or James Williamson. In some countries a woman was not "Mary," or "Martha." She was Mary Marthas daughter, Martha Mary's daughter. The custom was continued in some European countries until within a few generations of the present time; the "son" affix remains with us yet and the family name is still much honored.
Among the Jews, even down to the time of Christ, the Race-spirit was stronger than the individual spirit. Every Jew thought of himself first as belonging to a certain tribe or family. His proudest boast was that he was of the "Seed of Abraham." All this was the work of the Race-spirit.
Previous to the advent of Jehovah, when the Earth was yet a part of the Sun, there was one common group-spirit, composed of all the creative Hierarchies, which controlled the entire human family, but it was intended that each body should be the temple and pliable instrument of an indwelling spirit and that meant an infinite division of rulership.
Jehovah came with His Angel and Archangels and made the first great division into Races, giving to each group the guiding influence of a Race-spirit—an Archangel. For each Ego He appointed one of the Angels to act as guardian until the individual spirit had grown strong enough to become emancipated from all outside influence.
Christ came to prepare the way for the emancipation of humanity from the guidance of differentiating Race-and Family-spirit, and to unite the whole human family in One Universal Brotherhood.
He taught that "Abraham's seed" referred to the bodies only, and called their attention to the fact that before Abraham lived [the] "I"—the Ego—was in existence. The threefold individual spirit had its being before all Tribes and Races and it will remain when they have passed away and even the memory of them is no more.
The threefold spirit in man, the Ego, is the God within, whom the personal, bodily man must learn to follow. Therefore did Christ say that, to be His disciple, a man must forsake all he had. His teaching points to the emancipation of the God within. He calls upon man to exercise his prerogative as an individual and rise above family, tribe, and nation. Not that he is to disregard kin and country. He must fulfill all duties, but he is to cease identifying himself with part and must recognize an equal kinship with all the world. That is the ideal given to mankind by the Christ.
Under the rule of the Race-spirit, the nation, tribe or family was considered first—the individual last. The family must be kept intact. If any man dies without leaving offspring to perpetuate his name, his brother must "carry seed" to the widow, that there might be no dying out (Deut. XXV:5-10). Marrying out of the family was regarded with horror in the earliest times. A member of one tribe could not become connected with another without losing caste in his own. It was not an easy matter to become a member of another family. Not only among the Jews and other early nations was the integrity of the family insisted upon, but also in more modern times. As previously mentioned, the Scots, even in comparatively recent times, clung tenaciously to their Clan, and the old Norse Vikings would take no one into their families without first "mixing blood" with him, for the spiritual effects of haemolysis, which are unknown to material science, were known of old.
All these customs resulted from the working of Race-and tribal-spirit in the common blood. To admit as a member one in whom that common blood did not flow would have caused "confusion of caste." The closer the inbreeding, the greater the power of the Race-spirit, and the stronger the ties that bound the individual to the tribe, because the vital force of the man is in his blood. Memory is intimately connected with the blood, which is the highest expression of the vital body.
The brain and the nervous system are the highest expression of the desire body. They call up pictures of the outside world, but in mental image-making, i.e., imagination, the blood brings the material for the pictures; therefore when the thought is active the blood flows to the head.
When the same unmixed strain of blood flows in the veins of a family for generations, the same mental pictures made by great-grandfather, grandfather and father are reproduced in the son by the family-spirit which lived in the hemoglobin of the blood. He sees himself as the continuation of a long line of ancestors who live in him. He sees all the events of the past lives of the family as though he had been present, therefore he does not realize himself as an Ego. He is not simply "David," but "the son of Abraham"; not "Joseph," but "the son of David."
By means of this common blood men are said to have lived for many generations, because through the blood their descendants had access to the memory of nature, in which the records of the lives of their ancestors were preserved. That is why, in the fifth chapter of Genesis, it is stated that the patriarchs lived for centuries. Adam, Methuselah and the other patriarchs did not personally attain to such great age, but they lived in the consciousness of their descendants, who saw the lives of their ancestors as if they had lived them. After the expiration of the period stated, the descendants did not think of themselves as Adam or Methuselah. Memory of those ancestors faded and so it is said they died.
The "second sight" of the Scotch Highlanders shows that by means of endogamy the consciousness of the inner World is retained. They have practiced marrying in the Clan until recent times; also in Gypsies, who always marry in the tribe. The smaller the tribe and the closer the inbreeding, the more pronounced is the "sight."
The earlier Races would not have dared to disobey the injunction issued by the tribal God, not to marry outside of the tribe, nor had they any inclination to do so, for they had no mind of their own.
The Original Semites were the first to evolve Will, and they at once married the daughters of the men of other tribes, frustrating temporarily the design of their Race-spirit and being promptly ejected as evil-doers who had "gone a-whoring after strange gods," thereby rendering themselves unfit to give the "seed" for the seven Races of our present Aryan Epoch. The Original Semites were, for the time being, the last Race that the Race-spirit cared to keep separate.
Later, man was given free will. The time had come when he was to be prepared for individualization. The former "common" consciousness, the involuntary clairvoyance or second-sight which constantly held before a tribesman the pictures of his ancestor's lives and caused him to feel most closely identified with the tribe or family, was to be replaced for a time by a strictly individual consciousness confined to the material world, so as to break up the nations into individuals, that the Brotherhood of Man regardless of exterior circumstances may become a fact. This is on the same principle that if we have a number of buildings and wish to make them into one large structure, it is necessary to break them up into separate bricks. Only then can the large building be constructed.
In order to accomplish this separation of nations into individuals, laws were given which prohibited endogamy or marriage in the family and henceforth incestuous marriages gradually came to be regarded with horror. Strange blood has thus been introduced into all the families of the Earth and it has gradually wiped out the involuntary clairvoyance which promoted the clannish feeling and segregated humanity into groups. Altruism is superseding patriotism, and loyalty to the family is disappearing in consequence of the mixture of blood.
Science has lately discovered that haemolysis results from the inoculation of the blood of one individual into the veins of another of a different species, causing the death of the lower of the two. Thus any animal inoculated with the blood of a man dies. The blood of a dog transfused into the veins of a bird kills the bird, but it will not hurt the dog to have the bird's blood inoculated into its veins.
Science merely states the fact, the occult scientist gives the reason. The blood is the vantage ground of the spirit, as shown elsewhere. The Ego in man works in its own vehicles by means of the heat of the blood; the race, family or community spirit gains entrance to the blood by means of the air we inspire. In the animals are also both the separate spirit of the animal and the group-spirit of the species to which it belongs, but the spirit of the animal is not individualized and does not work self-consciously with its vehicles as does the Ego, hence it is altogether dominated by the group-spirit which works in the blood.
When the blood of a higher animal is inoculated into the veins of one from a lower species, the spirit in the blood of the higher animal is of course stronger than the spirit of the less evolved; hence when it endeavors to assert itself it kills the imprisoning form and liberates itself. When, on the other hand, the blood of a lower species is inoculated into the veins of a higher animal, the higher spirit is capable of ousting the less evolved spirit in the strange blood and assimilating the blood to its own purposes, therefore no visible catastrophe ensues.
The group-spirit always aims to preserve the integrity of its domain in the blood of the species under its charge. Like the human Race-God, it resents the marriage of its subjects into other species and visits the sins of the fathers upon the children as we see in the case of hybrids. Where a horse and a donkey produce a mule for instance, the mixture of strange blood destroys the propagative faculty so as not to perpetuate the hybrid which is an abomination from the standpoint of the group-spirit, for the mule is not so definitely under the dominion of the group-spirit of the horses or of the group-spirit of the donkeys as the pure breed, yet it is not so far away as to be entirely exempt from their influence. If two mules could mate, their offspring would be still less under the dominion of either of these group-spirits, and so a new species without a group-spiritwould result. That would be anomaly in nature, an impossibility until the separate animal-spirits should have become sufficiently evolved to be self-sufficient. Such a species, could it be produced, would be without the guiding instinct, so-called, which is in reality the promptings of the group-spirit; they would be in an analogous position to a litter of kittens removed from the mother's womb prior to birth. They could not possibly shift for themselves, so they would die.
Therefore, as it is the group-spirit of the animals that sends the separate spirits of the animals into embodiment, it simply withholds the fertilizing seed-atom when animals of widely differing species are mated. It permits one of its charges to take advantage of an opportunity for re-embodiment where two animals of nearly the same nature are mated, but refuses to let the hybrids perpetuate themselves. Thus we see that the infusion of strange blood weakens the hold of the group-spirit and that therefore it either destroys the form or the propagative faculty where it has the power.
The human spirit is individualized, an Ego, it is evolving free will and responsibility. It is drawn to birth by the irresistible law of Consequence, so that it is beyond the power of the race, community or family spirit to keep it from returning at the present stage of human development, and by the admixture of strange blood, by intermarriage of the individuals of different tribes or nations, the leaders of man are gradually helping him to oust the family, tribal or national spirit from the blood, but with it has necessarily gone the involuntary clairvoyance which was due to its working in the blood, whereby it fostered the family traditions in its charges, and so we see that also in the case of man a faculty was destroyed by the mixture of blood. That loss was a gain, however, for it has concentrated man's energy on the material world and he is better able to master its lessons than if he were still distracted by the visions of the higher realms.
As man becomes emancipated he gradually ceases to think of himself as "Abraham's Seed," as a "Clan Stewart Man," as a "Brahmin" or a "Levite": he is learning to think more of himself as an individual an "I". The more he cultivates that "Self," the more he frees himself from the family and national spirit in the blood, the more he becomes a self-sufficient citizen of the world.
There is much foolish, even dangerous, talk of giving up the Self to the Not-Self; only when we have cultivated a "Self," can we sacrifice ourselves and give up the Self to the whole. So long as we can only love our own family or nation we are incapable of loving others. We are bound by the tie of kin and country. When we have burst the tie of blood and asserted ourselves and become self-sufficient may we become unselfish helpers of humanity. When a man has reached that stage he will find that, instead of having lost his own family, he has gained all the families in the world, for they will have become his sisters and brothers, his fathers and mothers to care for and help.
Then he will regain the viewpoint of the Spiritual World which he lost by the mixing of blood, but it will be a higher faculty, an intelligent, voluntary clairvoyance where he can see what he wills and not merely the negative faculty imprinted in his blood by the family spirit which bound him to the family to the exclusion of all other families. His viewpoint will be universal, to be used for universal good.
For aforementioned reasons, intertribal, and later international, marriages came gradually to be regarded as desirable and preferable to close intermarriages.
As man progressed through these stages, and gradually lost touch with the inner world, he sorrowed over the loss and longed for a return of the "inner" vision. But by degrees he forgot, and the material world gradually loomed up before his mind as the only reality, until at last he has come to scout the idea that such inner Worlds exist and to regard a belief in them as foolish superstition.
The four causes contributing to this condition were:
Christ came to reunite the separated races in bonds of peace and good will, wherein all will willingly and consciously follow the law of Love.
The present Christianity is not even a shadow of the true religion of Christ. That will remain in abeyance until all race feeling shall have been overcome. In the Sixth Epoch there will be but one Universal Brotherhood, under the Leadership of the Returned Christ, but the day and the hour no man knows, for it is not fixed, but depends upon how soon a sufficient number of people shall have commenced to live the life of Fellowship and Love, which is to be the hall-mark of the new dispensation.
In connection with the analysis of Genesis, a few more words must be said about "The Fall," which is the backbone and sinew of popular Christianity. Had there been no "Fall," there would have been no need for the "plan of salvation."
When, in the middle of the Lemurian Epoch, the separation of the sexes occurred (in which work Jehovah and His Angels were active), the Ego began to work slightly upon the dense body, building organs within. Man was not at that time the wide-awake conscious being he is at present, but by means of half the sex force, he was building a brain for the expression of thought as previously described. He was more awake in the Spiritual World than in the physical; hardly saw his body and was not conscious of the act of propagation. The Bible statement that Jehovah put man to sleep when he was to bring forth is correct. There was no pain nor trouble connected with childbirth; nor (because of man's exceedingly dim consciousness of his physical surroundings) did he know anything of the loss of his dense body by death, or of his installment in a new dense vehicle at birth.
It will be remembered that the Lucifers were a part of the humanity of the Moon Period; they are the stragglers of the life wave of the Angels, too far advanced to take a dense physical body, yet they needed an "inner" organ for the acquisition of knowledge. Moreover, they could work through a physical brain, which the Angels or Jehovah could not.
These spirits entered the spinal cord and brain and spoke to the woman, whose Imagination, as explained elsewhere, had been aroused by the training of the Lemurian Race. As her consciousness was principally internal, a picture-consciousness of them was received by her, and she saw them as serpents, for they had entered her brain by the serpentine spinal cord.
The training of the women included watching the perilous feats and fights of the Men in developing Will, in which fights bodies were necessarily often killed. The dim consciousness of something unusual set the imagination of the woman to wondering why she saw these strange things. She was conscious of the spirits of those who had lost their bodies, but her imperfect sense of the Physical World failed to reveal these friends whose dense bodies had been destroyed.
The Lucifers solved the problem for her by "opening her eyes." They revealed to her her own body and that of the man and taught her how, together, they might conquer death by creating new bodies. Thus death could not touch them for they, like Jehovah, could create at will.
Lucifer opened the eyes of woman, She sought the help of man and opened his eyes. Thus, in a real though dim way, they first "knew" or became aware of one another and also of the Physical World. They became conscious of death and pain and by this knowledge they learned to differentiate between the inner man and the outer garment he wears and renews each time it is necessary to take his next step in evolution. They ceased to be automatons and became free thinking beings at the cost of freedom from pain, sickness and death.
That the interpretation of the eating of the fruit as a symbol of the generative act is not a far-fetched idea, is shown by the declaration of Jehovah (which is not a curse at all, but simply a statement of the consequences that would follow the act) that they will die and that the woman will bear her children in pain and suffering. He knew that, as man's attention had now been called to his physical garment, he would become aware of its loss by death. He also knew that man had not yet wisdom to bridle his passion and regulate sexual intercourse by the positions of the planets, therefore pain in childbirth must follow his ignorant abuse of the function.
It has always been a sore puzzle to Bible commentators what connection there could possibly be between the eating of fruit and the bearing of children, but if we understand that the eating of the fruit is symbolical of the generative act whereby man becomes "like God" inasmuch as he knows his kind and is thus able to generate new beings, the solution is easy.
In the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch when man arrogated to himself the prerogative of performing the generative act when he pleased, it was his then-powerful will that enable him to do so. By "eating of the tree of knowledge" at any and all times he was able to create a new body whenever he lost an old vehicle.
We usually think of death as something to be dreaded. Had man also "eaten of the tree of life," had he learned the secret of how to perpetually vitalize his body, there would have been a worse condition. We know that our bodies are not perfect today and in those ancient days they were exceedingly primitive. Therefore the anxiety of the creative Hierarchies lest man "eat of the tree of life also," and become capable of renewing his vital body, was well founded. Had he done so he would have been immortal indeed, but would never have been able to progress. The evolution of the Ego depends upon its vehicles and if it could not get new and improving ones by death and birth, there would be stagnation. It is an occult maxim that the oftener we die the better we are able to live, for every birth gives us a new chance.
We have seen that brain-knowledge, with its concomitant selfishness, was brought by man at the cost of the power to create from himself alone. He bought his free will at the cost of pain and death; but when man learns to use his intellect for the good of humanity, he will gain spiritual power over life and in addition, will be guided by an innate knowledge as much higher than the present brain-consciousness as that is higher than the lowest animal consciousness.
The fall into generation was necessary to build the brain, but that is, at best, only an indirect way of gaining knowledge and will be superseded by direct touch with the Wisdom of Nature, which man, without any co-operation, will then be able to use for the generation of new bodies. The larynx will again speak "the lost Word," the "creative Fiat," which, under the guidance of great Teachers, was used in ancient Lemuria in the creation of plants and animals.
Man will then be a creator in very truth. Not in the slow and toilsome manner of the present day, but by the use of the proper word or magical formula, will he be able to create a body.
All that was manifested during the descending period of involution remains until the corresponding point on the ascending arc of evolution has been reached. The present generative organs will degenerate and atrophy. The female organ was the first to come into existence as a separate unit and, according to the law that "the first shall be last," will be the last to atrophy. The male organ was differentiated last and is even now commencing to divide itself from the body. Diagram 13 will make this clear.
Man's Future Development and Initiation
Chapter XV
Christ and His Mission
In the foregoing part of this work we have become familiar with the way in which our present outside world came into existence, and how man evolved the complicated organism with which he is related to outer conditions. We have also, in a measure, studies the Jewish Race-religion. We will next consider the last and greatest of the divine measures put forth for the uplifting of humanity, i.e., Christianity, which will be the Universal Religion of the future.It is a notable fact that man and his religions have evolved side by side and in an equal degree. The earliest religion of any Race is found to be as savage as the people governed by it and as they become more civilized, their religions become more and more humane and in harmony with higher ideals.
From this fact materialists have drawn the inference that no religion has a higher origin than man itself. Their investigations into early history have resulted in a conviction that, as man progressed, he civilized his God and fashioned Him after his own pattern.
This reasoning is defective, because it fails to take into account that man is not the body, but an indwelling spirit, an Ego who uses the body with ever-increasing facility as evolution progresses.
There is no doubt that the law for the body is "The Survival of the Fittest." The law for the evolution of the spirit demands "Sacrifice." As long as man believes that "Might is Right," the Form prospers and waxes strong, because all obstacles are swept out of the way regardless of others. If the body were all, that manner of life would be the only one possible for man. He would be altogether incapable of any regard for others and would forcibly resist any attempt to encroach upon what he considered his rights—the right of the stronger, which is the sole standard of justice under the law of the Survival of the Fittest. He would be quite regardless of his fellow beings; absolutely insensible to any force from without that tended to make him act in any manner not conducive to his own momentary pleasure.
It is manifest, then, that whatever urges man toward a higher standard of conduct in his dealing with others must come from within, and from a source which is not identical with the body, otherwise it would not strive with the body and often prevail against its most obvious interests. Moreover, it must be a stronger force than that of the body, or it could not succeed in overcoming its desires and compelling it to make sacrifices for those who are physically weaker.
That such a force exists, surely no one will deny. We have come to that stage in our advancement where, instead of seeing in physical weakness an opportunity for easy prey, we recognize in the very frailty of another a valid claim upon our protection. Selfishness is being slowly but surely routed by Altruism.
Nature is sure to accomplish her purposes. Though slow, her progress is orderly and certain. In the breast of every man this force of Altruism works as a leaven. It is transforming the savage into the civilized man, and will in time transform the latter into a God.
Though nothing that is truly spiritual can be thoroughly comprehended, yet it may at least be apprehended by means of an illustration.
If one of two tuning-forks of exactly the same pitch is struck, the sound will induce the same vibration in the other, weak to begin with, but if the strokes are continued, the second fork will give out a louder and louder tone until it will emit a volume of sound equal to that of the first. This will happen though the forks are several feet apart, and even if one of them is encased in glass. The sound from the smitten one will penetrate the glass and the answering note be emitted by the enclosed instrument.
These invisible sound-vibrations have great power over concrete matter. They can both build and destroy. If a small quantity of very fine powder is placed upon a brass or glass plate, and a violin bow drawn across the edge, the vibrations will cause the powder to assume beautiful geometrical figures. The human voice is also capable of producing these figures; always the same figure for the same tone.
If one note or chord after another be sounded upon a musical instrument—a piano, or preferably a violin, for from it more gradations of tone can be obtained—a tone will finally be reached which will causes the hearer to feel a distinct vibration in the back of the lower part of the head. Each time that note is struck, the vibration will be felt. That note is the "key-note" of the person whom it so affects. If it is struck slowly and soothingly it will build and rest the body, tone the nerves and restore health. If, on the other hand, it be sounded in a dominant way, loud and long enough, it will kill as surely as a bullet from a pistol.
If we now apply what has been said about music or sound to the problem of how this inner force is awakened and strengthened, we may perhaps understand the matter better.
In the first place, let us particularly note the fact that the two tuning-forks were of the same pitch. Had this not been the case, we might have sounded and sounded one of them until the crack of doom, but the other one would have remained mute. Let us understand this thoroughly: Vibration can be induced in one tuning-fork by one of like tone only. Any thing, or any being, can be affected as above stated by no sound except its own key-note.
We know that this force of Altruism exists. We also know that it is less pronounced among uncivilized people than among people of higher social attainment, and among the very lowest races it is almost entirely lacking. The logical conclusion is that there was a time when it was altogether absent.
Consequent upon this conclusion follows the natural question: What induced it?
The material personality surely had nothing to do with it; in fact, that part of man's nature was much more comfortable without it than it has been at any time since. Man must have had the force of Altruism latentwithin, otherwise it could not have been awakened. Still further, it must have been awakened by a force of the same kind—a similar force that was already active—as the second tuning-fork was started into vibration by the first after it was struck.
We also saw that the vibrations in the second fork become stronger and stronger under the continued impacts of sound from the first, and that a glass case was no hindrance to the induction of the sound. Under the continued impacts of a force similar to that within him, the Love of God to man has awakened this force of Altruism and is constantly increasing its potency.
It is therefore reasonable and logical to conclude that, at first, it was necessary to give man a religion commensurate with his ignorance. It would have been useless to talk to him, at that stage, of a God Who was all tenderness and love. From his viewpoint, those attributes were weaknesses and he could not have been expected to reverence a God Who possessed what were to him despicable qualities. The God to Whom he rendered obedience must be a strong God, a God to be feared, a God Who could hurl the thunderbolt and wield the flail of lightning.
Thus, man was impelled first to fear God and was given religions of a nature to further his spiritual well-being under the lash of fear.
The next step was to induce in him a certain kind of unselfishness, by causing him to give up part of his worldly goods—to sacrifice. This was achieved by giving him the Tribal or Race-God, Who is a jealous God, requiring of him the strictest allegiance and the sacrifice of wealth, which the growing man greatly prizes. But in return, this Race-God is a friend and mighty ally, fighting man's battles and giving him back many fold the sheep, bullocks and grain which he sacrificed. He had not yet arrived at the stage where it was possible for him to understand that all creatures are akin, but the Tribal God taught him that he must deal mercifully with his brother tribesman and gave laws which made for equity and fair dealing between men of the same Race.
It must not be thought that these successive steps were taken easily, nor without rebellion and lapses upon the part of primitive man. Selfishness is ingrained in the lower nature even unto this day, and there must have been many lapses and much backsliding. We have in the Jewish Bible good examples of how man forgot, and had to be patiently and persistently "prodded" again and again by the Tribal God. Only the visitations of a long-suffering Race-spirit were potent, at times, in bringing him back to the law—that law very few people have even yet learned to obey.
There are always pioneers, however, who require something higher. When they become sufficiently numerous, a new step in evolution is taken, so that several gradations always exist. There came a time, nearly two thousand years ago, when the most advanced of humanity were ready to take another step forward, and learn the religion of living a good life for the sake of future reward in a state of existence in which they must have faith.
That was a long, hard step to take. It was comparatively easy to take a sheep or a bullock to the temple and offer it as a sacrifice. If a man brought the first-fruits of his granary, his vineyards, or his flocks and herds, he still had more, and he knew that the Tribal God would refill his stores and give abundantly in return. But in this new departure, it was not a question of sacrificing his goods. It was demanded that he sacrifice himself. It was not even a sacrifice to be made by one supreme effort of martyrdom; that also would have been comparatively easy. Instead, it was demanded that day by day, from morning until night, he must act mercifully toward all. He must forego selfishness, and love his neighbor, as he had been used to loving himself. Moreover, he was not promised any immediate and visible reward, but must have faith in a future happiness.
Is it strange that people find it difficult to realize this high ideal of continued well-doing, made doubly hard by the fact that self-interest is entirely ignored? Sacrifice is demanded with no positive assurance of anyreward. Surely it is much to the credit of humanity that so much altruism is practiced and that it is constantly increasing. The wise Leaders, knowing the frailness of the spirit to cope with the selfish instincts of the body, and the dangers of despondency in the face of such standards of conduct, gave another uplifting impulse when they incorporated in the new religion the doctrine of "vicarious Atonement."
This idea is scouted by some very advanced philosophers, and the law of "Consequence" made paramount. If it so happens that the reader agrees with these philosophers, we request that he await the explanation herein set forth, showing how both are part of the scheme of upliftment. Suffice it to say, for the present, that this doctrine of atonement gives many an earnest soul the strength to strive and, in spite of repeated failures, to bring the lower nature under subjection. Let it be remembered that, for reasons given when the laws of Rebirth and Consequence were discussed, western humanity knew practically nothing of these laws. With such a great ideal before them as the Christ, and believing they had but a few short years in which to attain to such a high degree of development as this, would it not have been the greatest imaginable cruelty to leave them without help? Therefore, the great sacrifice on Calvary—while it also served other purposes, as will be shown—becomes rightfully the Beacon of Hope for every earnest soul who is striving to achieve the impossible; to attain, in one short life, to the perfection demanded by the Christian religion.
To gain some slight insight into the Great Mystery of Golgotha, and to understand the Mission of Christ as the Founder of the Universal Religion of the future, it is necessary that we first become familiar with His exact nature and incidentally, with that of Jehovah, Who is the head of such Race-religions as Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, etc.; also with the identity of "The Father," to Whom Christ is to give up the Kingdom, in due time.
In the Christian creed occurs this sentence: "Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God." This is generally understood to mean that a certain person Who appeared in Palestine about 2,000 years ago, Who is spoken of as Jesus Christ—one separate individual—was the only begotten Son of God.
This is a great mistake. There are three distinct and widely different Beings characterized in this sentence. It is of the greatest importance that the student should clearly understand the exact nature of these Three Great and Exalted Beings—differing vastly in glory, yet each entitled to our deepest and most devout adoration.
The student is requested to turn to diagram 6 and note that "The only begotten" ("The Word," of Whom John speaks) is the second aspect of the Supreme Being.
This "Word" and It alone, is "begotten of His Father [the first aspect] before all Worlds." "Without Him was not anything made that was made," not even the third aspect of the Supreme Being, which proceeds from the two previous aspects. Therefore the "only begotten" is the exalted Being which ranks above all else in the Universe, save only the Power-aspect which created It.
The first aspect of the Supreme Being "thinks out," or imagines, the Universe before the beginning of active manifestation, everything, including the millions of Solar Systems and the great creative Hierarchies which inhabit the Cosmic Planes of existence above the seventh, which is the field of our evolution (See diagram 6). This is also the Force which dissolves everything that has crystallized beyond the possibility of further growth and at last, when the end of active manifestation has come, reabsorbs within Itself all that is, until the dawn of another Period of Manifestation.
The second aspect of the Supreme Being is that which manifests in matter as the forces of attraction and cohesion, thus giving it the capability of combining into Forms of various kinds. This is "The Word," the "creative Fiat," which molds the primordial Cosmic Root-substance in a manner similar to the formation of figures by musical vibrations, as previously mentioned, the same tone always producing the same figure. So this great primordial "word" brought, or "spoke," into being, in finest matter, all the different Worlds, with all their myriads of Forms, which have since been copied and worked out in detail by the innumerable creative Hierarchies.
"The Word" could not have done this, however, until the third aspect of the Supreme Being had first prepared the Cosmic Root-substance; had awakened it from its normal state of inertia and set the countlessinseparate atoms spinning upon their axes, placing those axes at various angles with respect to each other, giving to each kind a certain "measure of vibration."
These varying angles of inclination of the axes and the measures of vibration made the Cosmic Root-substance capable of forming different combinations, which are the basis of the seven great Cosmic Planes. There is, in each of these Planes, a different inclination of the axes, and also a different measure of vibration, consequently the conditions and combinations in each one are different from those in any of the others, due to the activity of "The Only Begotten."
Diagram 14 shows us that:
"The Son" (Christ) is the highest Initiate of the Sun Period. The ordinary humanity of that Period are now the Archangels.
"The Holy Spirit" (Jehovah) is the highest Initiate of the Moon Period. The ordinary humanity of that Period are now the Angels.This diagram also shows what are the vehicles of these different orders of Beings, and upon comparison with diagram 8, it will be seen that their bodies or vehicles (indicated by squares on diagram 14) correspond to the Globes of the Period in which they were human. This is always the case so far as the ordinary humanities are concerned, for at the end of the Period during which any life wave becomes individualized as human beings, those beings retain bodies corresponding to the Globes on which they have functioned.
Christ has power to build and function in a vehicle as low as the desire body, such as is used by the Archangels but He can descend no further. The significance of this will be seen presently.
Jesus belongs to our humanity. When the man, Jesus, is studied through the memory of nature, he can be traced back life by life, where he lived in different circumstances, under various names, in different embodiments, the same, in that respect, as any other human being. This cannot be done with the Being, Christ. In His case can be found but one embodiment.
It must not be supposed, however, that Jesus was an ordinary individual. He was of a singularly pure type of mind, vastly superior to the great majority of our present humanity. Through many lives had he trod the Path of Holiness and thus fitted himself for the greatest honor ever bestowed upon a human being.
His mother, the Virgin Mary, was also a type of the highest human purity and because of that was selected to become the mother of Jesus. His father was a high Initiate, virgin, and capable of performing the act of fecundation as a sacrament, without personal desire or passion.
Thus the beautiful, pure and lovely spirit whom we know as Jesus of Nazareth was born into a pure and passionless body. This body was the best that could be produced on Earth and the task of Jesus, in that embodiment, was to care for it and evolve it to the highest possible degree of efficiency, in preparation for the great purpose it was to serve.
Jesus of Nazareth was born at about the time stated in the historic records, and not 105 B.C., as stated in some occult works. The name Jesus is common in the East, and an Initiate named Jesus did live 105 B.C., but he took the Egyptian Initiation, and was not Jesus of Nazareth, with whom we are concerned.
The Individual who was later born under the name of Christian Rosenkreuz, who is in the body today, was a highly evolved being when Jesus of Nazareth was born. His testimony, as well as the results of first-hand investigation by later Rosicrucians, all agree in placing the birth of Jesus of Nazareth at the beginning of the Christian Era, on about the date usually ascribed to that event.
Jesus was educated by the Essenes and reached a very high state of spiritual development during the thirty years in which he used his body.
It may be here said, parenthetically, that the Essenes were a third sect which existed in Palestine, besides the two mentioned in the New Testament—the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Essenes were an exceedingly devout order, widely different from the materialistic Sadducees and entirely opposite to the hypocritical, publicity seeking Pharisees. They shunned all mention of themselves and their methods of study and worship. To the latter peculiarity is due the fact that almost nothing is known of them, and that they are not mentioned in the New Testament.
It is a law of the Cosmos that no Being, however high, can function in any world without a vehicle built of the material of that world (See diagram 8 and diagram 14). Therefore the desire body was the lowest vehicle of the group of spirits who had reached the human stage in the Sun Period.
Christ was one of those spirits and was consequently unable to build for Himself a vital body and a dense physical vehicle. He could have worked upon humanity in a desire body, as did His younger brothers, the Archangels, as Race-spirits. Jehovah had opened an avenue for them to enter the dense body of man by means of the air he inhaled. All Race-religions were religions of law, and creators of sin through disobedience of that law. They were under the direction of Jehovah, Whose lowest vehicle is the human spirit, correlating Him to the World of Abstract Thought, where everything is separative and therefore leads to self-seeking.
That is precisely the reason why the intervention of Christ became necessary. Under the regime of Jehovah unity is impossible. Therefore the Christ, Who possesses as a lowest vehicle the unifying life spirit, must enter into the dense human body. He must appear as a man among men and dwell in this body, because only from within is it possible to conquer the Race-religion, which influences man from without.
Christ could not be born in a dense body, because He had never passed through an evolution such as the Earth Period, therefore He would first have had to acquire the ability to build a dense body such as ours. But even had He possessed that ability, it would have been inexpedient for such an exalted Being to expend for that purpose the energy necessary for body-building through ante-natal life, childhood and youth, to bring it to sufficient maturity for use. He had ceased to use, ordinarily, vehicles such as would correspond to our human spirit, mind and desire body, although He had learned to build them in the Sun Period, and retained the ability to build and function in them whenever desired or required. He used all his own vehicles, taking only the vital and dense bodies from Jesus. When the latter was 30 years of age Christ entered these bodies and used them until the climax of His Mission on Golgotha. After the destruction of the dense body, Christ appeared among His disciples in the vital body, in which He functioned for some time. The vital body is the vehicle which He will use when He appears again, for He will never take another dense body.
It is encroaching upon a subject to be dealt with later to remark that the object of all esoteric training is to so work on the vital body that the life spirit is built up and quickened. When we come to deal with Initiation it may be possible to give more detailed explanations, but no more can be said on the subject just now. In chronicling the events incident to post mortem existence, this subject has been partially dealt with and the student is here asked to note that a man is supposed to have conquered his desire body to a considerable extent before attempting esotericism. His esoteric training and the earlier Initiations are devoted to work on the vital body and result in the building of the life spirit. At the time Christ entered the body of Jesus, the latter was a disciple of high degree, consequently his life spirit was well organized. Therefore, the lowest vehicle in which Christ functioned, and the best organized of the higher vehicles of Jesus, were identical; and Christ, when He took the vital body and the dense body of Jesus, was thus furnished with a complete chain of vehicles bridging the gap between the World of Life Spirit and the dense Physical World.
The significance of the fact that Jesus had passed several initiations lies in the effect that has on the vital body. Jesus' vital body was already attuned to the high vibrations of the life spirit. An ordinary man's vital body would have instantly collapsed under the terrific vibrations of the Great Spirit who entered Jesus' body. Even that body, pure and high-strung as it was, could not withstand those tremendous impacts for many years, and when we read of certain times when Christ withdrew temporarily from his disciples, as when he later walked on the sea to meet them, the esotericist knows that he drew out of Jesus' vehicles to give them a rest under the care of the Essene Brothers, who knew more of how to treat such vehicles than Christ did.
This change was consummated with the full and free consent of Jesus, who knew during this entire life that he was preparing a vehicle for Christ. He submitted gladly, that his brother humanity might receive the gigantic impetus which was given to its development by the mysterious sacrifice on Golgotha.
Thus (as shown in diagram 14) Christ Jesus possessed the twelve vehicles, which formed an unbroken chain from the Physical World to the very Throne of God. Therefore He is the only Being in the Universe in touch with both God and man and capable of mediating between them, because He has, personally and individually, experienced all conditions and knows every limitation incidental to physical existence.
Christ is unique among all Beings in all the seven Worlds. He alone possess the twelve vehicles. None save He is able to feel such compassion, nor so fully understand the position and needs of humanity; none save He is qualified to bring the relief that shall fully meet our needs.
Thus do we know the nature of Christ. He is the highest Initiate of the Sun Period and He took the dense and vital bodies of Jesus that He might function directly in the Physical World and appear as a man among men. Had He appeared in a manifestly miraculous manner, it would have been contrary to the scheme of evolution, because at the end of the Atlantean Epoch humanity had been given freedom to do right or wrong. That they might learn to become self-governing, no coercion whatever could be used. They must know good and evil through experience. Before that time they had been led willy-nilly, but at that time they were given freedom under the different Race-religions, each religion adapted to the needs of its particular Tribe or Nation.
All Race-religions are of the Holy Spirit. They are insufficient, because they are based on law, which makes for sin and brings death, pain and sorrow.
All Race-spirits know this, and realize that their religions are merely steps to something better. This is shown by the fact that all Race-religions, without exception, point to One Who is to come. The religion of the Persians pointed to Mithras; of the Chaldeans to Tammuz. The old Norse Gods foresaw the approach of "The Twilight of the Gods," when Sutr, the bright Sun-spirit, shall supersede them and a new and fairer order be established on "Gimle," the regenerated earth. The Egyptians waited for Horus, the new-born Sun. Mithras and Tammuz are also symbolized as Solar orbs and all the principal Temples were built facing the East, that the rays of the rising Sun might shine directly through the open doors; even Saint Peter's at Rome is so placed. All these facts show that it was generally known that the One Who was to come was a Sun-spirit and was to save humanity from the separative influences necessarily contained in all Race-religions.
These religions were steps which it was necessary for mankind to take to prepare for the advent of Christ. Man must first cultivate a "self" before he can become really unselfish and understand the higher phase of Universal Brotherhood—unity of purpose and interest—for which Christ laid the foundation at His first coming, and which He will make living realities when He returns.
As the fundamental principle of a Race-religion is separation, inculcating self-seeking at the expense of other men and nations, it is evident that if the principle is carried to its ultimate conclusion it must necessarily have an increasingly destructive tendency and finally frustrate evolution, unless succeeded by a more constructive religion.
Therefore the separative religions of the Holy Spirit must give place to the unifying religion of the Son, which is the Christian religion.
Law must give place to Love, and the separate Races and Nations be united in one Universal Brotherhood, with Christ as the Eldest Brother.
The Christian religion has not yet had time to accomplish this great object. Man is still in the toils of the dominant Race-spirit and the ideals of Christianity are yet too high for him. The intellect can see some of the beauties, and readily admits that we should love our enemies, but the passions of the desire body are still too strong. The law of the Race-spirit being "An eye for an eye," the Feeling is "I'll get even!" The heart prays for Love; the desire body hopes for Revenge. The intellect sees, in the abstract, the beauty of loving one's enemies but in concrete cases it allies itself with the vengeful feeling of the desire body, pleading, as an excuse for "getting even," that "the social organism must be protected."
It is a matter for congratulation, however, that society feels compelled to apologize for the retaliative methods used. Corrective methods and mercy are becoming more and more prominent in the administration of the laws, as is shown by the favorable reception which has been accorded that very modern institution, the Juvenile Court. Further manifestation of this same tendency may be noted in the increasing frequency with which convicted prisoners are released on probation, under suspended sentence; also in the greater humanity with which prisoners of war are treated of late years. These are the vanguards of the sentiment of Universal Brotherhood, which is slowly but surely makings its influence felt.
Yet, though the world is advancing and though, for instance, it has been comparatively easy for the writer to secure a hearing for his views in the different cities where he has lectured, the daily papers sometimes devoting to his utterances whole pages (and front pages at that) so long as he confined himself to speaking of the higher worlds and the post mortem states, it has been very noticeable that as soon as the theme was Universal Brotherhood his articles have always been consigned to the waste-basket.
The world in general is very unwilling to consider anything that is, as it thinks, "too" unselfish. There must be "something in it." Nothing is regarded as an entirely natural line of conduct if it offers no opportunity for "getting the best of" one's fellowmen. Commercial undertakings are planned and conducted on that principle and, before the minds of those who are enslaved by the desire to accumulate useless wealth, the idea of Universal Brotherhood conjures up frightful visions of the abolition of capitalism and its inevitable concomitant, the exploitation of others, with the wreck of "business interests" implied thereby. The word "enslaved" exactly describes this condition. According to the Bible, man was to have dominion over the world, but in the vast majority of cases the reverse is true—it is the world which has dominion over man. Every man who has property interests will, in his saner moments, admit that they are a never-failing source of worry to him; that he is constantly scheming to hold his possessions, or at least to keep from being deprived of them by "sharp practice," knowing that others are as constantly scheming to accomplish that, to them, desirable end. The man is the slave of what, with unconscious irony, he calls "my possessions,' when in reality they possess him. Well did the Sage of Concord say, "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind!"
This state of affairs is the result of Race-religions, with their system of law; therefore do they all look for "One Who is to come." The Christian religion alone is not looking for One Who is to come, but for One Who is to come again. The time of this second coming depends upon when the Church can free itself from the State. The Church, especially in Europe, is bound to the Chariot of State. The ministers are fettered by economic considerations and dare not proclaim the truths that their studies have revealed to them.
A visitor to Copenhagen, Denmark, recently witnessed a church confirmation service. The Church there is under State control and all ministers are appointed by the temporal power. The parishioners have nothing whatever to say in the matter. They may attend church or not, as they please, but they are compelled to pay the taxes which support the institution.
In addition to holding office by the bounty of the State, the pastor of the particular church visited was decorated with several Orders conferred by the king, the glittering badges bearing silent but eloquent testimony as to the extent of his subservience to the State. During the ceremony, he prayed for the king and the legislators, that they might rule the country wisely. As long as kings and legislators exist, this prayer might be very appropriate, but it was a considerable shock to hear him add: ". . . . and, almighty God, protect and strengthen our army and navy!"
Such a prayer as this shows plainly that the God worshiped is the Tribal or National God—the Race-spirit, for the last act of the gentle Christ Jesus was to stay the sword of the friend who would have protected Him therewith. Although He said He had not come to send peace, but a sword, it was because He foresaw the oceans of blood that would be spilled by the militant "Christian" nations in their mistaken understanding of His teachings and because high ideals cannot be immediately attained by humanity. The wholesale murder of war and like atrocities are harsh, but they are potent illustrations of what Love would abolish.
There is, apparently, a flat contradiction between the words of Christ Jesus, "I came not to send peace, but a sword," and the words of the celestial song which heralded the birth of Jesus, "On earth Peace, Goodwill toward men." This contradiction, however, is apparent only.
There is as great an apparent contradiction between a woman's words and her actions when she says, "I am going to clean house and tidy up," and then proceeds to take up carpets and pile chairs one upon another, producing general confusion in a previously orderly house. One observing only this aspect of the matter, would be justified in saying, "She is making matters worse instead of better," but when the purpose of her work is understood, the expediency of the temporary disorder is realized and in the end her house will be the better for the passing disturbance.
Similarly, we must bear in mind that the time which has elapsed since the coming of Christ Jesus is but little more than a moment in comparison with the duration of even one Day of Manifestation. We must learn, as did Whitman, to "know the amplitude of time," and look beyond the past and present cruelties and jealousies of the warring sects to the shining age of Universal Brotherhood, which will mark the next great step of man's progress on his long and wondrous journey from the clod to the God, from protoplasm to conscious unity with the Father, that
. . . one far-off, divine event
To which the whole creation moves.
It may be added that the above mentioned pastor, during the ceremony of receiving his pupils into the Church, taught them that Jesus Christ was a composite individual; that Jesus was the mortal, human part, while Christ was the divine, immortal Spirit. Presumably, if the matter had been discussed with him, he would not have supported this statement, nevertheless in making it he stated an occult fact.
The unifying influence of the Christ has been symbolized in the beautiful legend of the worship of the three magi, or "wise men of the East," so skillfully woven by General Lew Wallace into his charming story, "Ben Hur."
The three wise men—Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar—are the representatives of the white, yellow and black Races and symbolize the people of Europe, Asia and Africa, who are all led by The Star to the World-Savior, to Whom eventually "every knee shall bow," and Whom "every tongue shall confess"; Who shall unite all the scattered nations under the Banner of Peace and Goodwill; Who shall cause men to "beat their words into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks."
The Star of Bethlehem is said to have appeared at the time of the birth of Jesus, and to have guided the three wise men to the Savior.
Much speculation has been indulged in as to the nature of this Star. Most material scientists have declared it a myth, while others have said if it were anything more than a myth, it might have been a "coincidence"—two dead Suns might have collided and caused a conflagration. Every mystic, however, knows the "Star"—yea, and the "Cross" also—not only as symbols connected with the life of Jesus and Christ Jesus, but in his own personal experience. Paul says: "Until Christ be formed in you"; and the mystic, Angelus Silesius, echoes:
Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born
And not within thyself, thy soul will be forlorn.
The Cross on Golgotha thou lookest to in vain
Unless within thyself it be set up again.
Richard Wagner shows the intuitional knowledge of the artist when, to the question of Parsifal, "Who is The Grail?" Gurnemanz answers:
That tell we not;Under the "old dispensation" the path to Initiation was not open. It was for only the chosen few. Some might seek the path, but only those who were guided to the Temples by the Hierophants found entrance. Previous to the advent of Christ, there was no such sweeping invitation as "Whosoever will may come."
But if thou hast by Him been bidden,
From thee the truth will not stay hidden.
. . . The land to Him no path leads through,
And search but severs from Him wider
When He Himself is not the Guider.
At the moment the blood flowed on Golgotha, however, "the veil of the Temple was rent" (for reasons presently to be explained), and ever since that time, whosoever will seek admittance will surely find it.
In the Temples of Mystery the Hierophant taught his pupils that there is in the Sun a spiritual, as well as a physical force. The latter force in the rays of the Sun is the fecundating principle in nature. It causes the growth of the plant world and thereby sustains the animal and human kingdom. It is the upbuilding energy which is the source of all physical force.
This physical, solar energy reaches its highest expression in midsummer, when the days are longest and the nights are shortest, because the rays of the Sun then fall directly on the northern hemisphere. At that time the spiritual forces are the most inactive.
On the other hand, in December, during the long winter nights, the physical force of the solar orb is dormant and the spiritual forces reach their maximum degree of activity.
The night between the 24th and the 25th of December is The Holy Night, par excellence, of the entire year. The Zodiacal sign of the immaculate celestial Virgin stands upon the eastern horizon near midnight, the Sun of the New Year is then born and starts upon his journey from the southernmost point toward the northern hemisphere, to save that part of humanity (physically) from the darkness and famine which would inevitably result if he were to remain permanently south of the equator.
To the people of the northern hemisphere, where all our present day religions originated, the Sun is directly below the Earth; and the spiritual influences are strongest, in the north, at midnight of the 24th of December.
That being the case, it follows as a matter of course that it would then be easiest for those who wished to take a definite step toward Initiation to get in conscious touch with the spiritual Sun especially for the first time.
Therefore the pupils who were ready for Initiation were taken in hand by the Hierophants of the Mysteries, and be means of ceremonies performed in the Temple, were raised to a state of exaltation wherein they transcended physical conditions. To their spiritual vision, the solid Earth become transparent and they was the Sun at midnight—"The Star!" It was not the physical Sun they saw with spiritual eyes, however, but the Spirit in the Sun—The Christ—their Spiritual Savior, as the physical Sun was their physical Savior.
This is the Star that shone on that Holy Night and that still shines for the mystic in the darkness of night. When the noise and confusion of physical activity are quieted, he enters into his closet and seeks the way to the King of Peace. The Blazing Star is ever there to guide him and his soul hears the prophetic song, "On earth Peace, Goodwill toward men."
Peace and goodwill to all, without exception; no room for one single enemy or outcast! Is it any wonder that it is hard to educate humanity to such a high standard? Is there any better way to show the beauty of, and the necessity for peace, goodwill and love than by contrasting them with the present state of war, selfishness and hate?
The stronger the light, the deeper the shadow it casts. The higher our ideals, the more plainly can we see our shortcomings.
Unfortunately, at the present stage of development, humanity is willing to learn only by the hardest experience. As a Race, it must become absolutely selfish to feel the bitter pangs caused by the selfishness of others, as one must know much sickness to be thoroughly thankful for health.
The religion miscalled Christianity has therefore been the bloodiest religion known, not excepting Mohammedanism, which in this respect is somewhat akin to our malpracticed Christianity. On the battle field and in the Inquisition innumerable and unspeakable atrocities have been committed in the name of the gentle Nazarene. The Sword and the Wine Cup—the perverted Cross and Communion Chalice—have been the means by which the more powerful of the so-called Christian nations gained supremacy over the heathen peoples, and even over other but weaker nations professing the same faith as their conquerors. The most cursory reading of the history of the Greco-Latin, Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon Races will corroborate this.
While man was under the full sway of Race-religions each nation was a united whole. Individual interests were willingly subordinated to the community interests. All were "under the law." All were members of their respective tribes first, and individuals only secondarily.
At the present time there is a tendency toward the other extreme—to exalt "self" above all else. The result is evident in the economic and industrial problems that are facing every nation and clamoring for solution.
The state of development wherein every man feels himself an absolutely separate unit, an Ego, independently pursuing his own course, is a necessary stage. The national, tribal and family unity must first be broken up before Universal Brotherhood can become a fact. The regime of Paternalism has been largely superseded by the reign of Individualism. We are learning the evils of the latter more and more as our civilization advances. Our unsystematic method of distributing the products of labor, the rapacity of the few and the exploitation of many—these social crimes result in under-consumption, industrial depressions and labor disturbances, destroying internal peace. The industrial war of the present day is vastly more far-reaching and destructive than the military wars of the nations.
No lesson, though its truth may be superficially assented to, is of any real value as an active principle of the life until the heart has learned it in longing and bitterness, and the lesson man must so learn is that what is not beneficial to all can never be truly beneficial to any. For nearly 2,000 years we have lightly assented with our lips that we should govern our lives in accordance with such maxims as "Return good for evil." The Heart urges mercy and love, but the Reason urges belligerent and retaliatory measures, if not as revenge, at least as a means of preventing a repetition of hostilities. It is this divorce of head from heart that hinders the growth of a true feeling of Universal Brotherhood and the adoption of the teachings of Christ—the Lord of Love.
The mind is the focusing point by means of which the Ego becomes aware of the material universe. As an instrument for the acquisition of knowledge in those realms the mind is invaluable, but when it arrogates to itself the role of dictator as to the conduct of man to man, it is as though the lens should say to an astronomer who was in the act of photographing the Sun through a telescope: "You have me improperly focused. You are not looking at the Sun correctly. I do not think it is good to photograph the Sun anyway, and I want you to point me at Jupiter. The rays of the Sun heat me too much and are liable to damage me."
If the astronomer exercises his will and focuses the telescope as he desires, telling it to attend to its business of transmitting the rays that strike it, leaving the results to him, the work will proceed well, but if the lens has the stronger will and the mechanism of the telescope is in league with it, the astronomer will be seriously hampered in having to contend with a refractory instrument, and the result will be blurred pictures, of little or no value.
Thus it is with the Ego. It works with a threefold body, which it controls, or should control through the mind. But, sad to say, this body has a will of its own and is often aided and abetted by the mind, thus frustrating the purposes of the Ego.
This antagonistic "lower will" is an expression of the higher part of the desire body. When the division of the Sun, Moon, and Earth took place, in the early part of the Lemurian Epoch, the more advanced portion of humanity-in-the-making experienced a division of the desire body into a higher and a lower part. The rest of humanity did likewise in the early part of the Atlantean Epoch.
This higher part of the desire body became a sort of animal soul. It built the cerebro-spinal nervous systems and the voluntary muscles, by that means controlling the lower part of the threefold body until the link of mind was given. Then the mind "coalesced" with this animal soul and become a co-regent.
The mind is thus bound up in desire; is enmeshed in the selfish lower nature, making it difficult for the spirit to control the body. The focusing mind, which should be the ally of the higher nature, is alienated by and in league with the lower nature—enslaved by desire.
The law of the Race religions was given to emancipate intellect from desire. The "fear of God" was pitted against "the desires of the flesh." This, however, was not enough to enable one to become master of the body and secure its willing co-operation. It became necessary for the spirit to find in the body another point of vantage, which was not under the sway of the desire nature. All muscles are expressions of the desire body and a straight road to the capital, where the traitorous mind is wedded to desire and reigns supreme.
If the United States were at war with France, it would not land troops in England, hoping in that way to subjugate the French. It would land its soldiers directly in France, and fight there.
Like a wise general, the Ego followed a similar course of action. It did not commence its campaign by getting control of one of the glands, for they are expressions of the vital body; nor was it possible to get control of the voluntary muscles, for they are too well garrisoned by the enemy. That part of the involuntary muscular system which is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system would also be useless for the purpose. It must get into a more direct touch with the cerebro-spinal nervous system. To do this, and secure a base of operations in the enemy's country, it must control a muscle which is involuntary, and yet connected with the voluntary nervous system. Such a muscle is the heart.
We have previously spoken of the two kinds of muscles—voluntary and involuntary. The latter are formed in lengthwise stripes and are connected with functions not under the control of the will, such as digestion, respiration, excretion, etc. The voluntary muscles are those which are controlled by the will through the voluntary nervous system, such as the muscles of the hand and arm. They are striped both lengthwise and crosswise.
The above is true of all muscles in the body except the heart, which is an involuntary muscle.
Ordinarily, we cannot control the circulation. Under normal conditions the heart-beat is a fixed quantity, yet to the bewilderment of physiologists, the heart is cross-striped like a voluntary muscle. It is the only organ in the body exhibiting this peculiarity but, sphinx-like, it refuses to give material scientists an answer to the riddle.
The occult scientist easily finds the answer in the memory of nature. From that record he learns that when the Ego first sought a stronghold in the heart, the latter was striped lengthwise only, the same as any other involuntary muscle; but as the Ego gained more and more control over the heart, the cross-stripes have gradually developed. They are not so numerous nor so well defined as on the muscles under the full control of the desire body, but as the altruistic principles of love and brotherhood increase in strength and gradually overrule the reason, which is based in desire, so will these cross stripes become more numerous and more marked.
As previously stated, the seed-atom of the dense body is located in the heart during life and withdrawn only at death. The active work of the Ego is in the blood. Now, if we except the lungs, the heart is the only organ in the body through which all the blood passes in every cycle.
The blood is the highest expression of the vital body, for it nourishes the entire physical organism. It is also, in a sense, the vehicle of the subconscious memory, and in touch with the Memory of Nature, situated in the highest division of the Etheric Region. The blood carries the pictures of life from ancestors to descendants for generations, where there is a common blood, as produced by inbreeding.
There are in the head three points, each of which is the particular seat of one of the three aspects of the spirit (See diagram 17), the second and third aspects having, in addition, secondary vantage grounds.
The desire body is the perverted expression of the Ego. It converts the "Selfhood" of the spirit into "selfishness." Selfhood seeks not its own at the expense of others. Selfishness seeks gain regardless of others. The seat of the human spirit is primarily in the pineal gland and secondarily in the brain and cerebro-spinal nervous system, which controls the voluntary muscles.
The love and unity in the World of the Life Spirit find their illusory counterpart in the Etheric Region, to which we are correlated by the vital body, which latter promotes sex love and sex union. The life spirit has its seat primarily in the pituitary body and secondarily in the heart, which is the gateway of the blood that nourishes the muscles.
The actionless Divine Spirit—The Silent Watcher—finds its material expression in the passive, inert and irresponsive skeleton of the dense body, which is the obedient instrument of other bodies, but has no power to act on its own initiative. The Divine Spirit has its strong hold in the impenetrable point at the root of the nose.
In reality there is but one spirit, the Ego, but looking at it from the Physical World, it is refracted into the three aspects, which work as stated.
As the blood passes through the heart, cycle after cycle, hour after hour all through life, it engraves the pictures it carries upon the seed-atoms while they are still fresh, thus making a faithful record of the life which is indelibly impressed on the soul in the post mortem existence. It is always in closest touch with the life spirit, the spirit of love and unity, therefore the heart is the home of altruistic love.
As these pictures pass inward to the World of Life Spirit, in which is the true memory of nature, they do not come through the slow physical senses, but directly through the fourth ether contained in the air we breathe. In the World of Life Spirit the life spirit sees much more clearly than it can in the denser Worlds. In its high home it is in touch with the Cosmic Wisdom and in any situation it knows at once what to do and flashes the message of guidance and proper action back to the heart, which as instantaneously flashes it on to the brain through the medium of the pneumogastric nerve, resulting in "first impressions"—the intuitional impulse, which is always good, because it is drawn directly from the fountain of Cosmic Wisdom and Love.
This is all done so quickly that the heart has control before the slower reason has had time to "take in the situation," as it were. It is the thought that man "thinketh in his heart," and it is true that "so is he." Man is inherently a virgin spirit, good, noble and true in every respect. All that is not good is from the lower nature, that illusory reflection of the Ego. The virgin spirit is always giving wise counsel. If we could only follow the impulses of the heart—the first thought—Universal Brotherhood would be realized here and now.
But that is just the point where the trouble begins. After the good counsel of the first thought has been given, the mind begins to reason, with the result that, in the great majority of cases, it dominates the heart. The telescope arranges its own focus and points where it lists, despite the astronomer. The mind and the desire body frustrate the designs of the spirit by taking control and, as they lack the spirit's wisdom, both spirit and body suffer.
Physiologists note that certain areas of the brain are devoted to particular thought activities and phrenologists have carried this branch of science still further. Now, it is known that thought breaks down and destroys nerve tissues. This and all other waste of the body is replaced by the blood. When, through the development of the heart into a voluntary muscle, the circulation of the blood finally passes under the absolute control of the unifying life spirit—the Spirit of Love—it will then be within the power of that spirit to withhold the blood from those areas of the brain devoted to selfish purposes. As a result, those particular thought centers will gradually atrophy.
On the other hand, it will be possible for the spirit to increase the blood supply when the mental activities are altruistic, and thus build up the areas devoted to altruism, so that, in time, the desire nature will be conquered and the mind emancipated by Love from its bondage to desire. It is only by complete emancipation, through Love, that man can rise above the law and become a law unto himself. Having conquered himself, he will have conquered all the World.
The cross stripes of the heart may be built by certain exercises under occult training, but as some of these exercises are dangerous, they should be undertaken only under the direction of a competent teacher. That no reader of this book may be deceived by imposters professing ability and willingness to so train aspirants for a consideration, it is emphatically repeated that No true occultist ever boasts, advertises his occult power, sells occult information or lessons at so much each or for a course; nor will he consent to a theatrical display. His work is done in the most unobtrusive manner possible and solely for the purpose of legitimately helping others, without thought of self.
As said in the beginning of this chapter, all persons earnestly desiring the higher knowledge may rest assured that if they will but seek, they will find the way open for them. Christ Himself prepared the way for "whosoever will." He will help and welcome all real seekers who are willing to work for Universal Brotherhood.
During the last 2,000 years much has been said about "the cleansing blood." The blood of Christ has been extolled from the pulpit as the sovereign remedy for sin; the only means of redemption and salvation.
But if the laws of Rebirth and Consequence work in such a way that the evolving beings reap as they have sown, and if the evolutionary impulse is constantly bringing humanity higher and higher, ultimately to attain perfection—where then is the need for redemption and salvation? Even if the need existed, how can the death of one individual help the rest? Would it not be nobler to suffer the consequences of one's acts than to hide behind another? These are some of the objections to the doctrine of vicarious atonement and redemption by the blood of Christ Jesus. We will try to answer them before showing the logical harmony between the operation of the law of Consequence and the Atonement by Christ.
In the first place, it is absolutely true that the evolutionary impulse does work to achieve ultimate perfection for all; yet there are some who are constantly straggling behind. At the present time, we have just passed the extreme point of materiality and are going through the sixteen Races. We are treading "the sixteen paths to destruction," and are consequently in graver danger of falling behind than at any other part of the evolutionary journey.
In the abstract, time is nothing. A number may fall behind so far that they must be abandoned, to take up their further evolution in another scheme, where they can continue their journey to perfection. Nevertheless that was not the evolution originally designed for them and it is reasonable to suppose that the exalted Intelligences in charge of our evolution use every means to bring through in safety as many as possible of the entities under their charge.
In ordinary evolution, the laws of Rebirth and Consequence are perfectly adequate for bringing the major portion of the life wave up to perfection, but they do not suffice in the case of the stragglers, who are lagging behind in the various Races. During the stage of individualism, which is the climax of the illusion of separateness, all mankind needs extra help, but for the stragglers some additional special aid must be provided.
To give that special aid, to redeem the stragglers, was the mission of Christ. He said that He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He opened the way of Initiation for all who are willing to seek it.
Objectors to vicarious atonement urge: That it is cowardly to hide behind another; that each man should be willing to take the consequence of his acts.
Let us consider an analogous case. The waters of the Great Lakes narrow into the Niagara River. For twenty miles this enormous volume of water flows rapidly toward the falls. The river bed is filled with rocks and if a person who goes beyond a certain point does not lose his life in the rapids above the cataract, he will surely do so by the plunge over the brink.
Suppose a man appeared who, in pity for the victims of the current, placed a rope above the cataract, although he knew that the conditions were such that in doing so, he himself could not by any possible chance escape death. Yet gladly and of his own free will, he sacrificed his life and placed the rope, thus modifying former conditions so that any otherwise helpless victims who would grasp the rope would be saved and thenceforward none need be lost.
What would we think of a man who had fallen into the water through his own carelessness, and was struggling madly to reach the shore, if he should say: "What! Save myself and seek to avoid penalty of my carelessness by shielding myself behind the strength of another, who suffered through no fault of his own, and gave up his life that such as I might live? No, never! That would not be "manly." I will take my deserts!" Would we not all agree that the man was a fool?
Not all are in need of salvation. Christ knew that there is a very large class who do not require salvation in this way, but just as surely as there are the ninety-and-nine who are well taken care of by the laws of Rebirth and Consequence and will reach perfection in that way, so there are the "sinners" who have become "bogged" in matter and cannot escape without a rope. Christ came to save them and to bring peace and good will to all, by raising them to the necessary point of spirituality, causing a change in their desire bodies which will make the influence of the life spirit in the heart more potent.
His younger brother Sun spirits, the Archangels, had worked as Race-spirits on the desire bodies of man, but their work had been from without. It was simply a reflected spiritual Sun-force and came through the Moon—as moonlight is reflected sunlight. Christ, the Chief Initiate of the Sun spirits, entered directly into the dense body of the Earth and brought the direct Sun-force, thus enabling Him to influence our desire bodies from within.
Man cannot gaze long upon the Sun without becoming blind because its vibrations are so rapid that they destroy the retina of the eye. But he can look without harmful results upon the Moon, the vibrations from which are much slower; yet they are also sunlight, but the higher vibrations have been taken up by the Moon, which then reflects the residue to us.
So it is with the spiritual impulses which help man to evolve. The reason why the Earth was thrown off from the Sun was because our humanity could not endure the Sun's tremendous physical and spiritual impulses. Even after an enormous distance had been placed between the Earth and Sun, the spiritual impulse would still have been too strong had it not been sent first to the Moon, to be used by Jehovah, the Regent of the Moon, for man's benefit. A number of Archangels (ordinary Sun spirits) were given Jehovah as helpers in reflecting these spiritual impulses from the Sun upon the humanity of the Earth, in the form of Jehovistic or Race-religions.
The lowest vehicle of the Archangels is the desire body. Our desire body was added in the Moon Period, at which time Jehovah was the highest Initiate. Therefore Jehovah is able to deal with man's desire body. Jehovah's lowest vehicle is the human spirit (see diagram 14) and its counterpart is the desire body. The Archangels are His helpers because they are able to manage the spiritual Sun forces and the desire body is their lowest vehicle. Thus they are able to work with and prepare humanity for the time when it can receive the spiritual impulses directly from the Solar Orb, without the intervention of the Moon.
Upon Christ, as the highest Initiate of the Sun Period, is laid the task of sending out this impulse. The impulse which Jehovah reflected was sent out by Christ, Who thus prepared both the Earth and humanity for His direct ingress.
The expression, "prepared the Earth," means that all evolution on a planet is accompanied by the evolution of that planet itself. had some observer gifted with spiritual sight watched the evolution of our Earth from some distant star, he would have noticed a gradual change taking place in the Earth's desire body.
Under the old dispensation the desire bodies of people in general were improved by means of the law. This work is still going on in the majority of people, who are thus preparing themselves for the higher life.
The higher life (Initiation) does not commence, however, until the work on the vital body begins. The means used for bringing that into activity is Love, or rather Altruism. The former word has been so abused that it no longer conveys the meaning here required.
During the old dispensation the path of Initiation was not free and open, except to the chosen few. The Hierophants of the Mysteries collected certain families about the Temples, setting them apart from all the other people. These chosen families were then rigorously guarded as to certain rites and ceremonies. Their marriages and sexual intercourse were regulated by the Hierophants.
The effect of this was to produce a race having the proper degree of laxity between the dense and vital bodies; also to wake the desire body from its state of lethargy during sleep. Thus a special few were made fit for Initiation and were given opportunities that could not be given to all. We see instances of this method among the Jews, where the tribe of Levi were the chosen Templars; also in the caste of the Brahmins, who were the only priestly class among the Hindus.
The Mission of Christ, in addition to saving the lost, was to make Initiation possible to all, therefore Jesus was not a Levite of the class to which priesthood came by inheritance. He came from the common people and though not of the teacher class, His teaching was higher than that of Moses.
Christ Jesus did not deny Moses, the law, nor the prophets. On the contrary, He acknowledged them all and showed the people that they were His witnesses, as they all pointed to One Who was to come. He told the people that those things had served their purpose and that henceforth Love must supersede Law.
Christ Jesus was killed. In connection with this fact, we come to the supreme and fundamental difference between Him and the previous teachers, in whom the Race spirits were born. They all died and must be reborn again and again to help their peoples bear their destiny. The Archangel Michael (the Race-spirit of the Jews) raised up Moses, who was taken up to Mount Nebo to die. He was reborn as Elijah. Elijah returned as John the Baptist; Buddha died and was reborn as Shankaracharya; Shri Krishna says, "Whenever there is decay of Dharma. . .and. . .exaltation of Adharma, then I myself come forth for the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, for the sake of firmly establishing Dharma. I am born from age to age."
When death came Moses' face shone and Buddha's body become alight. They all reached the stage when the spirit begins to shine from within—but then they died.
Christ Jesus reached that stage on the Mount of Transfiguration. It is of the very highest significance that His real work took place subsequent to that event. He suffered; was killed—and resurrected.
Being killed is a very different thing from dying. The blood that had been the vehicle of the Race-spirit must flow and be cleansed of that contaminating influence. Love of father and mother, exclusive of other fathers and mothers, must go—otherwise Universal Brotherhood and an all-embracing Altruistic Love could never become an actuality.
When the Savior Christ Jesus was crucified His body was pierced in five places; in the five centers where the currents of the vital body flow; and the pressure of the crown of thorns caused a flow from the sixth also. (This is a hint to those who already know these currents. A full elucidation of this matter cannot be publicly given out at this time.)
When the blood flowed from these centers, the great Sun-spirit Christ was liberated from the physical vehicle of Jesus and found Himself in the Earth, with individual vehicles. The already existing planetary vehicles He permeated with His own vehicles and, in the twinkling of an eye, diffused His own desire body over the planet, which has enabled Him thenceforth to work upon the Earth and its humanity from within.
At that moment a tremendous wave of spiritual sunlight flooded the Earth. It rent the veil which the Race-spirit had hung before the Temple to keep out all but the chosen few, and it made the Path of Initiation free thenceforth to whomsoever will. So far as concerned the Spiritual Worlds, this wave transformed the conditions of the Earth like a flash of lightning, but the dense, concrete conditions are, of course, much more slowly affected.
Like all rapid and high vibrations of light, this great wave blinded the people by its dazzling brilliance, therefore it was said that "the Sun was darkened." The very opposite was what actually occurred. The Sun was not darkened, but shone out in glorious splendor. It was the excess of light that blinded the people, and only as the entire Earth absorbed the desire body of the bright Sun-spirit did the vibration return to a more normal rate.
The expression, "the cleansing blood of Christ Jesus," means that as the blood flowed on Calvary, it bore with it the great Sun-spirit Christ, Who by that means secured admission to the earth itself and since that moment has been its Regent. He diffused His own desire body throughout the planet, thereby cleansing it from all the vile influences which had grown up under the regime of the Race-spirit.
Under the law all sinned; nay, more—they could not help it. They had not evolved to where they could do right for Love's sake. The desire nature was so strong that it was an impossibility for them to rule it altogether, therefore their debts, engendered under the law of Consequence, piled up to monstrous proportions. Evolution would have been terribly delayed and many lost to our life wave altogether it some help had not been given.
Therefore did Christ come "to seek and to save that which was lost." He took away the sin of the world by His cleansing blood, which gave Him entrance to the Earth and its humanity. He purified the conditions and we owe it to Him that we are able to gather for our desire bodies purer desire-stuff than formerly, and He continues working to help us, by making our external environment constantly purer.
That this was and is done at the expense of great suffering to Himself, no one can doubt who is able to form the least conception of the limitations endured by that Great Spirit in entering the hampering conditions of physical existence, even in the best and purest vehicle possible; nor is His present limitation as Regent of the Earth must less painful. True, He is also Regent of the Sun, and therefore only partially confined to the Earth, yet the limitations set by the crampingly slow vibrations of our dense planet must be almost unendurable.
Had Christ Jesus simply died, it would have been impossible for Him to have done this work, but the Christians have a risen Savior; One Who is ever present to help those who call upon His Name. Having suffered like unto ourselves in all things and knowing fully our needs, He is lenient toward our mistakes and failures so long as we continue trying to live the good life. We must ever keep before our eyes the fact that the only real failure is ceasing to try.
Upon the death of the dense body of Christ Jesus, the seed atom was returned to the original owner, Jesus of Nazareth, who for some time afterward, while functioning in a vital body which he had gathered temporarily, taught the nucleus of the new faith which Christ had left behind. Jesus of Nazareth has since had the guidance of the esoteric branches which sprang up all over Europe.
In many placed the Knights of the Round Table were high Initiates in the Mysteries of the New Dispensation. So were the Knights of The Grail—to whom was finally confided Joseph of Arimathea's Grail Cup, which was used by Christ Jesus at The Last Supper. They were afterward entrusted also with the Lance which pierced His side, and the receptacle which received the blood from the wound.
The Druids of Ireland and the Trottes of Northern Russia were esoteric schools through which the Master Jesus worked during the so-called "Dark Ages," but, dark though they were, the spiritual impulse spread, and from the standpoint of the occult scientist they were "Bright Ages" compared to the growing materialism of the last 300 years, which has increased physical knowledge immensely, but has almost extinguished the Light of the Spirit.
Tales of "The Grail," "Knights of The Round Table," etc., are now scouted as superstitions and all that cannot be materially demonstrated is regarded as unworthy of belief. Glorious as are the discoveries of modern science, they have been bought at the terrible price of crushing the spiritual intuition and, from a spiritual standpoint, no darker day than the present has ever dawned.
The Elder Brothers, Jesus among them, have striven and are striving to counteract this terrible influence, which is like that in the eyes of the snake, causing the bird to fall into its jaws. Every attempt to enlighten people and awaken in them a desire to cultivate the spiritual side of life, is an evidence of the activity of the Elder Brothers.
May their efforts be crowned with success and speed the day when modern science shall be spiritualized and conduct its investigation of matter from the standpoint of spirit, for then, and not until then, will it arrive at a true knowledge of the world.
Chapter XVI
Future Development and Initiation
The Rosicrucian speaks of the Earth Period as Mars-Mercury. The great creative Day of Manifestation is embodied in the names of the days of the week, for our week-days have been named after the evolutionary stages through which the virgin spirits pass in their pilgrimage through matter.| Day | Corresponds to the | Is ruled by |
| Saturday | Saturn | Period Saturn |
| Sunday | Sun Period | The Sun |
| Monday | Moon Period | The Moon |
| Tuesday | First half of the Earth Period | Mars |
| Wednesday | Second half of the Earth Period | Mercury |
| Thursday | Jupiter Period | Jupiter |
| Friday | Venus Period | Venus |
The Vulcan Period is the last Period of our scheme of evolution. The quintessence of all the preceding Periods is extracted by the recapitulation of spiral after spiral. No new work is done until the very last Revolution on the very last Globe and then only in the Seventh Epoch. Therefore the Vulcan Period may be said to correspond to the week, which includes all of the seven days.
The claim of astrologers that the days of the week are ruled by the particular planet for which they are named, is well-founded. The ancients were also familiar with this occult knowledge, as is shown in their mythologies, in which the names of the gods are associated with the days of the week. Saturday is plainly "Saturn's day"; Sunday is correlated to the Sun, and Monday to the Moon. The Latins call Tuesday "Dies Martis," which obviously shows its connection with Mars, the god of war. The name "Tuesday" is derived from "Tirsdag," "Tir" or "Tyr," being the name of the Norse god of war. "Wednesday" was "Wotensdag," from Woten, also a Norse god; it is called "Dies Mercurii" by the Latins, showing its association with Mercury, as given in our list.
Thursday, or "Thorsdag," is named for "Thor," the Norse god of thunder, and is called "Dies Jovis" by the Latins, after the thunder god, "Jove" or "Jupiter."
Friday is named for the Norse goddess of beauty, "Freya," and for similar reasons, the Latins call it "Dies Veneris," or Day of Venus.
These names of periods have nothing to do with the physical planets, but refer to past, present or future incarnations of the Earth; for, again applying the Hermetic axiom, "As above, so below," the macrocosm must have its incarnations as well as the microcosm, man.
Occult science teaches that there are 777 incarnations, but that does not mean that the Earth undergoes 777 metamorphoses. It means that evolving life makes 7 Revolutions around the 7 Globes of the 7 World Periods.
This pilgrimage of Involution and Evolution, including the "short cut" of Initiation, is embodied in the Caduceus, or "Staff of Mercury" (see Diagram 15), so called because this occult symbol indicates The Path of Initiation, which has been open to man only since the beginning of the Mercury half of the Earth Period. Some of the lesser mysteries were given to the earlier Lemurians and Atlanteans, but not the Four Great Initiations.
The white serpent represents the path that the human race will follow through the Mercury half of the Earth Period, and the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan Periods, during which pilgrimage man's consciousness will expand into that of an omniscient, Creative Intelligence.
The serpentine path is the path followed by the great majority; but the "Staff of Mercury," around which the serpents twine, shows the "straight and narrow way," the path of Initiation, which enables those who walk therein to accomplish in a few short lives that which it requires millions of years for the majority of mankind to accomplish.
It need scarcely be said that no description of the initiatory ceremonies can be given, as the first vow of the Initiate is silence; but even if permissible, it would not be important. What concerns us in getting a bird's-eye view of the evolutionary path is to ascertain the results of the ceremonies.
The whole result of initiation is to give to the spiritually aspiring an opportunity to develop the higher faculties and powers in a short time and by severe training, thereby gaining the expansion of consciousness that all mankind will surely possess eventually, but which the vast majority choose to acquire through the slow process of ordinary evolution. We may know the states of consciousness and their concomitant powers attained by the candidate as he passes through successive great Initiations provided we know what those future states and powers will be for humanity in general. Some hints have been given and more may be logically deduced by an application of the law of Correspondences, to give a fairly rounded picture of the evolution in store for all of us, and the magnitude of the great steps in Initiation. To do this it may help us to glance back over the steps by which the consciousness of man has been evolved through the various Periods.
We remember that during the Saturn Period the unconsciousness of man was similar to that of the dense body when plunged into the deepest trance condition; this was succeeded, in the Sun period, by a dreamless-sleep consciousness. In the Moon Period the first glimmering of waking showed itself in inward pictures of outward things. The entire consciousness consisted of such inward representations of external objects, colors, or sounds. At last, in the latter part of the Atlantean Epoch, this picture consciousness, in which objects could be observed outside, clearly and distinctly outlined in space. When this objective-consciousness was attained, man became aware of an outside world and for the first time thoroughly realized the difference between "self" and "others." He then realized his separateness and thenceforth the "I" consciousness, Egoism, became paramount. As previous to that time there had been no thoughts nor ideas dealing with an outside world, there had consequently been no memory of events.
The change from the internal picture consciousness to the objective-self-consciousness was effected by a very slow process, commensurate with its magnitude, lasting from the existence on Globe C in the third Revolution of the Moon Period, until the latter part of the Atlantean Epoch.
During that time the evolving life passed through four great stages of animal-like development before reaching the human stage. These steps of the past correspond to four stages yet to be passed through, and to thefour initiations.
Within these four stages of consciousness previously passed there are altogether thirteen steps, and from man's present state to the last of the Great Initiations there are also thirteen initiations—the nine degrees of the lesser mysteries and the four Great Initiations.
There is a similar division among our present animals which can be traced through Form, because, as the form is the expression of life, so each step in its development must necessarily show a step forward in consciousness.
Cuvier was the first to divide the animal kingdom into four primary classes, but was not so successful in his division of these classes into sub-classes. The embryologist, Karl Ernst von Baer, also Professor Agassiz and other scientists, classify the animal kingdom into four primary and thirteen subdivisions, as follows:
-
- Polyps, Sea-anemones and Coral
- Acalephs, or Jelly-fish
- Starfish, Sea-urchins
-
- Acephala (oysters, etc.)
- Gastropoda (snails)
- Cephalopoda
-
- Worms
- Crustacea (lobsters, etc.)
- Insects
-
- Fishes
- Reptiles
- Birds
- Mammals
The fourth division in the list of the advancing animal kingdom has four subdivisions: Fishes, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals. The steps in consciousness thus indicated correspond to similar states of advancement to be attained by humanity at the end of the Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan Periods and which any qualified individual may now attain by initiation. The first of the Great Initiations gives the stage of consciousness which will be attained by ordinary humanity at the end of the Earth Period; the second that to which all will attain at the end of the Jupiter Period; the third gives the extension of consciousness to be reached at the close of the Venus Period; the last brings to the initiate the power and omniscience to which the majority will attain only at the end of the Vulcan Period.
The Objective-Consciousness by which we obtain knowledge of the outside world is dependent upon what we perceive through the medium of the senses. This we call "real," in contradistinction to our thoughts and ideas which come to us through our inner consciousness; their reality is not apparent to us in the same as that of a book or table, or other visible or tangible object in space. Thoughts and ideas seem misty andunreal, therefore we speak of a "mere" thought, or of "just" an idea.
The ideas and thoughts of today, however, have an evolution before them; they are destined to become as real, clear and tangible as any of the objects of the outside world which we now perceive through the physical senses. At present, when a thing or a color is thought of, the picture or color presented by the memory to our inner consciousness is but a dim and shadowy one compared with the thing thought of.
As early as the Jupiter Period there will be a marked change in this respect. Then the dream-pictures of the Moon Period will return, but they will be subject to the call of the thinker, and not mere reproductions of outer objects. Thus there will be a combination of the pictures of the Moon Period and the thoughts and ideas consciously developed during the Earth Period, that is, it will be a Self-Consciousness Picture-Consciousness.
When a man of the Jupiter Period says "red," or speaks the name of an object, a clear and exact reproduction of the particular shade of red of which he is thinking, or of the object to which he refers, will be presented to his inner vision and will also be quite visible to the hearer. There will be no misconception as to what is meant by the words spoken. Thoughts and ideas will be alive and visible, therefore hypocrisy and flattery will be entirely eliminated. People can be seen exactly as they are. There will be both good and bad, but the two qualities will not be mingled in the same person. There will be the thoroughly good man and the downright evil man, and one of the serious problems of that time will be how to deal with the latter. The Manichees, an Order of still higher spirituality than the Rosicrucians, are at present studying that very problem. An idea of the condition anticipated may be gained from a short resume of their legend. (All mystic orders have a legend symbolic of their ideals and aspirations.)
In the legend of the Manichees there are two kingdoms—that of the Light-Elves and that of the Night Elves. The latter attack the former, are defeated and must be punished. But, as the Light-Elves are as thoroughly good as the Night-Elves are bad, they cannot inflict evil upon their foes, so they must be punished with Good. Therefore a part of the kingdom of the Light-Elves is incorporated with that of the Night-Elves and in this way the evil is in time overcome. Hate which will not submit to hate, must succumb to Love.
The internal pictures of the Moon Period were a certain expression of man's external environment. In the Jupiter Period the pictures will be expressed from within; they will be an outcome of the inner life of the man. He will also possess the additional faculty, which he cultivated in the Earth Period, of seeing things in space outside of himself. In the Moon Period he did not see the concrete thing, but only its soul-qualities. In the Jupiter Period he will see both, and will thus have a thorough perception and understanding of his surroundings. At a later stage in the same Period, this perceptive ability will be succeeded by a still higher phase. His power to form clear mental conceptions of colors, objects, or tones will enable him to contact and influence supersensuous beings of various orders and to secure their obedience, employing their forces as he wishes. He will be unable to send out from himself the forces wherewith to carry out his designs, however, and will be dependent upon the help of these superphysical beings, who will then be at his service.
At the close of the Venus Period he will be able to use his own force to give his pictures life and to set them out from himself as objects in space. He will then possess an Objective, Self-Conscious, Creative-Consciousness.
Very little can be said about the high spiritual consciousness which will be attained at the close of the Vulcan Period; it would be quite beyond our present comprehension.
It must not be supposed that these states of consciousness commence at the beginning of the Periods to which they belong and last until the end. There is always the Recapitulation, and therefore there must be the corresponding stages of consciousness on an ascending scale. The Saturn Revolution of any Period, the stay on Globe A, and the first Epoch on any Globe, are repetitions of the Saturn Period states of development. The Sun Revolution, the stay on Globe B, and the second Epoch on any Globe are Recapitulations of the Sun Period states of development, and so on, all the way through. Hence it will be seen that the consciousness which is to be the especial and peculiar result or product of any Period, does not begin to be evolved until all the Recapitulations have been made. The waking-consciousness of the Earth Period was not started until the Fourth Revolution, when the life wave had reached the Fourth Glove (D), and was in the Fourth or Atlantean Epoch on that Globe.
The Jupiter Consciousness will not start in the Jupiter Period until the Fifth Revolution, when the Fifth Globe (E) has been reached and the Fifth Epoch commences on that Globe.
Correspondingly, the Venus consciousness will not begin until the Sixth Revolution has come to the Sixth Globe and Epoch, and the special Vulcan work will be confined to the very last Globe and Epoch, just before the Day of Manifestation closes.
The time required for passing through these respective Periods varies greatly. The further into matter the virgin spirits descent, the slower their progress and the more numerous the steps or stages of progression. After the nadir of material existence has been passed and the life wave ascends into more tenuous and mobile conditions, the progress is gradually accelerated. The Sun Period is of somewhat longer duration that the Saturn Period, and the Moon Period is longer than the Sun Period. The Mars (or first) half of the Earth Period is the longest half of any Period. Then the time begins to shorten again, so that the Mercury half of the Earth Period the latter three and a half Revolutions, will occupy less time that the Mars half; the Jupiter Period will be shorter than the Moon Period; the Venus Period shorter than the corresponding Sun Period; and the Vulcan Period the shortest Period of them all.
| Period: | Corresponding consciousness: |
| Saturn: | Unconsciousness corresponding to deep trance |
| Sun: | Unconsciousness resembling dreamless sleep |
| Moon: | Picture consciousness corresponding to dream state |
| Earth: | Waking, objective consciousness |
| Jupiter: | Self-conscious picture consciousness |
| Venus: | Objective, Self-conscious, Creative consciousness |
| Vulcan: | Highest Spiritual Consciousness |
The dense body was started in the Saturn Period, passed through various transformations in the Sun and Moon Periods, and will reach its highest development in the Earth Period.
The vital body was started in the second Revolution of the Sun Period, was reconstructed in the Moon and Earth Periods, and will reach perfection in the Jupiter Period, which is its fourth stage, as the Earth Period is the fourth stage for the dense body.
The desire body was started in the Moon period, reconstructed in the Earth period, will be further modified in the Jupiter Period, reaching perfection in the Venus period.
The mind was started in the Earth Period, will be modified in the Jupiter and Venus Periods, and attain perfection in the Vulcan Period.
Reference to diagram 8 will show that the lowest Globe of the Jupiter Period is located in the Etheric Region. It would therefore be impossible to use the dense physical vehicle there, as only a vital body can be used in the Etheric Region. Yet it must not be supposed that after spending the time from the beginning of the Saturn Period to the end of the Earth Period in completing and perfecting this body, it is then thrown away that man may function in a "higher" vehicle!
Nothing in Nature is wasted. In the Jupiter Period the forces of the dense body will be superimposed upon the completed vital body. That vehicle will then possess the powers of the dense body in addition to its own faculties, and will therefore be a much more valuable instrument for the expression of the threefold spirit that if built from its own forces alone.
Similarly, Globe D of the Venus Period is located in the Desire World (see Diagram 8), hence neither a dense nor a vital body could be used as an instrument of consciousness, therefore the essences of the perfected dense and vital bodies are incorporated in the completed desire body, the latter thus becoming a vehicle of transcendent qualities, marvelously adaptable and so responsive to the slightest wish of the indwelling spirit that in our present limitations, it is beyond our utmost conception.
Yet the efficiency of even this splendid vehicle will be transcended when in the Vulcan period its essence, together with the essences of the dense and vital bodies, are added to the mind body, which becomes the highest of man's vehicles, containing within itself the quintessence of all that was best in all the vehicles. The vehicle of the Venus Period being beyond our present power of conception, how much more so is that which will be at the service of the divine beings of the Vulcan Period!
During involution the creative Hierarchies assisted man to arouse into activity the threefold spirit, the Ego, to build the threefold body, and to acquire the link of mind. Now, however, on the seventh day (to use the language of the Bible), God rests. Man must work out his own salvation. The threefold spirit must complete the working out of the plan begun by the Gods.
The human spirit, which was awakened during Involution in the Moon Period, will be the most prominent of the three aspects of the spirit in the evolution of the Jupiter Period, which is the corresponding Period on the upward arc of the spiral. The life spirit, which was started into activity in the Sun Period, will manifest its principal activity in the corresponding Venus Period, and the particular influences of the Divine Spirit will be strongest in the Vulcan Period, because it was vivified in the corresponding Saturn Period.
All three aspects of the spirit are active all the time during evolution but the principal activity of each aspect will be unfolded in those particular Periods, because the work to be done there is its special work.
When the threefold spirit had evolved the threefold body and gained control of it through the focus of Mind, it commenced to evolve the threefold soul by working from within. How much or how little soul a man has depends upon the amount of work the spirit has done in the bodies. This has been explained in the chapter describing post mortem experiences.
As much of the desire body as has been worked upon by the Ego is transmuted into the emotional soul, and is ultimately assimilated by the human spirit, the special vehicle of which is the desire body.
As much of the vital body as has been worked upon by the life spirit, becomes the Intellectual soul, and it builds the life spirit, because that aspect of the threefold spirit has its counterpart in the vital body.
As much of the dense body as has been worked upon by the Divine Spirit is called the Conscious soul, and is ultimately merged in the Divine Spirit, because the dense body is its material emanation.
The Conscious soul grows by action, external impacts, and experience.
The Emotional soul grows by the feelings and emotions generated by actions and experiences.
The Intellectual soul, as mediator between the other two, grows by the exercise of memory, by which it links together past and present experiences and the feelings engendered thereby, thus creating "sympathy" and "antipathy," which could not exist apart from memory, because the feelings resulting from experience alone would be evanescent.
During the involution the spirit progressed by growing bodies, but evolution depends upon soul growth—the transmutation of the bodies into soul. The soul is, so to say, the quintessence, the power or force of the body, and when a body has been completely built and brought to perfection through the stages and Periods as above described, the soul is fully extracted therefrom and is absorbed by the one of the three aspects of the spirit which generated the body in the first place; thus:
The Conscious soul will be absorbed by the divine spirit in the seventh Revolution of the Jupiter Period;
The Intellectual soul will be absorbed by the life spirit in the sixth Revolution of the Venus Period;
The Emotional soul will be absorbed by the human spirit in the fifth Revolution of the Vulcan Period.
The mind is the most important instrument possessed by the spirit, and its special instrument in the work of creation. The spiritualized and perfected larynx will speak the creative Word, but the perfect mind will decide as to the particular form and the volume of vibration, and will thus be the determining factor. Imagination will be the spiritualized faculty directing the work of creation.
There is a strong tendency at the present time to regard the faculty of imagination slightingly, yet it is one of the most important factors in our civilization. If it were not for the imagination, we would still be naked savages. Imagination planned our houses, our clothes and our transportation and transmission facilities. Had not the inventors of these improvements possessed the mind and imagination to form mental images, the improvements could never have become concrete realities. In our materialistic day and age there is scarcely an effort made to conceal the contempt in which the faculty of imagination is generally held, and none feel the effects of this more acutely than inventors. They are usually classed as "cranks," and yet they have been the chief factors in the subjugation of the Physical World and in making our social environment what it is today. Any improvement in spiritual or physical conditions must first be imagined as a possibility before it can become an actuality.
If the student will turn to diagram 1 this fact will become clear. In the comparison there drawn between the functions of the different human vehicles and the part of a stereopticon, the mind corresponds to the lens. It is the focusing medium whereby the ideas wrought by the imagination of the spirit are projected upon the material universe. First they are thought forms only, but when the desire to realize the imagined possibilities has set the man to work in the Physical World, they become what we call concrete "realities."
At the present time, however, the mind is not focused in a way that enables it to give a clear and true picture of what the spirit imagines. It is not one-pointed. It gives misty and clouded pictures. Hence the necessity of experiment to show the inadequacies of the first conception, and bring about new imaginings and ideas until the image produced by the spirit in mental substance has been reproduced in physical substance.
At the best, we are able to shape through the mind only such images as have to do with Form, because the human mind was not started until the Earth Period, and therefore is now in its form, or "mineral" stage, hence in our operations we are confined to forms, to minerals. We can imagine ways and means of working with the mineral forms of the three lower kingdoms, but can do little or nothing with the living bodies. We may indeed graft living branch to living tree, or living part of animal or man to other living part, but it is not life with which we are working; it is form only. We are making different conditions, but the life which already inhabited the form continues to do so still. To create life is beyond man's power until his mind has become alive.
In the Jupiter Period the mind will be vivified to some extent and man can then imagine forms which will live and grow, like plants.
In the Venus Period, when his mind has acquired "Feeling," he can create living, growing, and feeling things.
When he reaches perfection, at the end of the Vulcan Period, he will be able to "imagine" into existence creatures that will live, grown, feel, and think.
In the Saturn Period the life wave which is now man started on its evolution. The Lords of Mind were then human. They worked with man at that Period, when he was mineral. They now have nothing to do with the lower kingdoms, but are concerned solely with our human development.
Our present animals started their mineral existence in the Sun Period, at which time the Archangels were human, therefore the Archangels are the rulers and guides of the evolution of that which is now animal, but have nothing to do with plant or mineral.
The present plants had their mineral existence in the Moon period. The Angels were then human, therefore they have special concern with the life that now inhabits the plants, to guide it up to the human stage; but they have no interest in the minerals.
Our present humanity will have to work with the new life wave, which entered evolution in the Earth Period and now ensouls the minerals. We are now working with it by means of the faculty of imagination, giving it form—building it into ships, bridges, railways, houses, etc.
In the Jupiter Period we shall guide the evolution of the plant kingdom, for that which is at present mineral will then have a plant-like existence and we must work with it there as the Angels are now doing with out plant kingdom. Our faculty of imagination will be so developed that we shall have the ability, not only to create forms by means of it, but to endow those forms with vitality.
In the Venus Period our present mineral life wave shall have advanced another step, and we shall be doing for the animals of that period what the Archangels are now doing for our animals—giving them living and feeling forms.
Lastly, in the Vulcan Period it will be our privilege to give them a germinal mind, as the Lords of Mind did to us. The present minerals will then have become the humanity of the Vulcan Period, and we shall have passed through stages similar to those through which the Angels and Archangels are now passing. We shall then have reached a point in evolution a little higher that that of the present Lords of Mind, for remember, there is never an exact reproduction anywhere, but always progressive improvement, because of the spiral.
The Divine Spirit will absorb the human spirit at the close of the Jupiter Period; the life spirit at the close of the Venus Period; and the perfected Mind, embodying all that it has garnered during its pilgrimage through all the seven Periods, will be absorbed by the Divine Spirit at the close of the Vulcan Period. (There is no contradiction of the foregoing in the statement made elsewhere that the Emotional soul will be absorbed by the human spirit in the fifth Revolution of the Vulcan Period, because the latter will then be within the Divine Spirit.)
Then will succeed the long interval of subjective activity during which the virgin spirit will assimilate all the fruits of the septenary Periods of active Manifestation. It is then merged in God, from Whom it came, to re-emerge at the dawn of another Great Day, as One of His glorious helpers. During its past evolution its latent possibilities have been transmuted to dynamic powers. It has acquired Soul-power and a Creative Mind as the fruitage of its pilgrimage through matter. It has advanced from impotence to Omnipotence, from nescience to Omniscience.
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