Filename: RC4009.TXT

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                   ROSICRUCIAN CHRISTIANITY BIBLE COURSE:

               "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE WESTERN WORLD
              BY THE RECORDING ANGELS, WHO GIVE TO EACH AND ALL
               EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT."
                                                  --Max Heindel

                                LESSON NO. 8:

                          THE CREATION (continued):

REFERENCES:  Genesis, Chapter 1.

   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  the
different "Days of Creation"  and see how they agree with the occult  teach-
ings  relative to 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  succes-
sion, 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  de-
scribed.  It was not "without form and void." as expressed in the King James
version.  It was hot, and thus well defined 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 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.

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   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 be 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 steam.   Thus there was a constant circulation of the water  held
in suspension, and also an expansion, as the steam, rushing outward from the
fiery  core,  formed an atmosphere of "fire-fog"  condense by  contact  with
outside  space,  returning again to the core to be reheated and perform  an-
other  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 in-
side hear; 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 cor-
respond with conditions on Earth in the present Revolution.

   In the ninth verse we read,  "And Elohim said,  Let the waters be divided
from the cry 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 if
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  Reca-
pitulation  of  the previous stage.   Just as there are  Recapitulations  of
Globes,  Revolutions,  and Periods, so there are on each Globe,  recapitula-
tions  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

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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 teachings of modern science that  plants  suc-
ceeded 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 ice crystals form are present in the water,  so when the  Earth
crystallized,  were those ethereal plant-forms in it.   They were the  molds
which drew to themselves and 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 our Earth globe.

   These  ethereal  plant-forms are aided in their 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  sub-
stance.

   The LEMURIAN EPOCH is described in the work of the fifth day.   this  Ep-
och, 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,  breath-
ing 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 amphib-
ians 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  am-
phibians preceded the birds.

   The  student  is invited to not particularly that THE  THINGS  THAT  WERE
FORMED WERE NOT  LIFE.  It  does NOT way that Life was created, but "things"

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THAT BREATHE OR INHALE LIFE.  . .The Hebrew word for that which they inhaled
is NEPHESH,  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 work  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 the Atlantean Epoch,  and by the time
that  stage in evolution was reached there were neither 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 Ep-
och.

   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  Pe-
riod, 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 succeeding lessons the story is told from the point of view which  deals
a little more with the Life side.

                                  NOTES:

   *Occult science teachings that the evolutionary scheme is carried through
five Worlds (the Physical World, the Desire World, the World of Thought, the
World  of  Life  Spirit,  and  the  World  of  Divine  Spirit),   or  Cosmic
Root-substance  of  varying rates of vibration,  in seven great  Periods  of
manifestation  during  which the virgin spirit,  or evolving  life,  becomes
first,  man--then,  a God.  The names of these seven Periods,  or successive
rebirths of the earth,  are as follows:  the Saturn Period,  the Sun Period,
the Moon Period, the Earth Period, the Jupiter Period, the Venus Period, and
the Vulcan Period.

   It must not be thought that the above mentioned Periods have anything  to
do  with  the planets which move in their orbits around the sun  in  company
with the earth.  In fact, it cannot be too emphatically stated that there is
no  connection  whatever  between  these  planets  and  the   Periods.   The

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Periods are simply past, present, or future incarnations of our earth, "con-
ditions"  through which it has passed,  is now passing,  or will pass in the
future.

   The  three first-mentioned Periods (the Saturn,  Sun,  and Moon  Periods)
have been passed through.  We are now in the fourth, or Earth Period.  These
periods are divided into seven Revolutions on seven successive Globes.   Our
passage  on  the  lowest  of these Globes  is  divided  into  seven  Epochs:
Polarian,  Hyperborean,  Lemurian,  Atlantean,  Aryan,  and two other Epochs
which  are unnamed.   The three and one-half Periods already behind us  have
been spent in gaining our present vehicles and consciousness.  The remaining
three and one-half Periods will be devoted to perfecting these different ve-
hicles and expanding our consciousness into something akin to omniscience.

                          QUESTIONS NO LESSON NO. 8:

1. Name the Periods and Epochs of manifestation as mentioned in occult
   teachings.
2. Describe briefly the conditions existing in each, correlating with verses
   in Genesis.
3. What is meant by recapitulation?
4. What should we particularly noted was CREATED?
5. Explain how it is true that "man was formed in the Atlantean Epoch."
6. What is the significance of the prefix "Re" placed before "plenish"?
7. What are the characteristics of the present Aryan Epoch?

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               "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE WESTERN WORLD
              BY THE RECORDING ANGELS, WHO GIVE TO EACH AND ALL
               EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT."
                                                  --Max Heindel

                                LESSON NO. 9:

                          THE CREATION (continued):

REFERENCES:  Genesis 1, 2, and 5.

   There  has  been much learned discussion concerning the  discrepancy  be-
tween,  and  especially the authorship of, the creation story of  the  first
chapter  and that which starts at the fourth verse of the second chapter  of
Genesis.   It  is asserted that the two accounts were written  by  different
men, because the Being of Beings, the name of Whom the translators have ren-
dered as "God" in both the first and second chapters of the English version,
are, in the Hebrew test, 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 supe-
rior Man, using the sky for a throne and the earth for a footstool.  When he
wrote  of Jehovah he meant 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.

   As Regent of our Moon, He has charge of the evil degenerate 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
hardening,  crystallizing Moon forces.   Therefore, He is the giver of chil-
dren  and the Angels are His messengers in this work.   It is well known  to
physiologists  that  the  Moon  is  connected  with  gestation;  periods  of
intrauterine life and other physiological functions.

   The Archangels,  as Spirits and Leaders of a Race, are known to fight for
or against people,  as  the exigencies of the evolution of that race demand.

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In Daniel 10:20,  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 will come."

   The  Archangel Michael is the Race-Spirit of the Jews (Daniel 12:1),  but
JEHOVAH  IS  NOT  THE  GOD  OF THE JEWS ALONE;  HE  IS  THE  AUTHOR  OF  ALL
RACE-RELIGIONS WHICH LET UP TO CHRISTIANITY.  Nevertheless,  it is true that
He did take a special interest in  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 con-
cerned  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"--
the entire Earth, as it is at present.

   He did not lead them out of Egypt.   That story originated with their de-
scendants  and is a confused account of their journey eastward  through  the
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 pe-
culiar significance to the descriptive word "promised"  in this  connection.
The land was called the "promised land" because, as and or earth is 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
men--the lower grades of their Atlantean compatriots.   They thus frustrated
the  designs of Jehovah and were cast off,  the fruit of such  crossbreeding
being useless as seed for the coming Race.

[PAGE 147]

   The contention of the opponents of the Bible,  that it is a mere  mutila-
tion  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 truths
from the bewildering mass of misleading and incorrect interpretations  under
which they have been buried by the various translators and revisors.

   Having  disentangled form the general confusion the identity and  mission
of Jehovah, it may be that we can now find harmony in the two seemingly con-
tradictory  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 consciousness.  The key to the meaning, then,  is that we
must differentiate sharply between the physical Form and the Life that build
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 man 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  ca-
pable of outgrowing the possibilities for improvement inhering in the  forms
it ensouls,  can evolve with the pioneers of any life wave.   All else  must
struggle on behind.

   This  is  the kernel of the deeper teachings.   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  recog-
nized 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 Invo-
lution; but the means for devising improvements is Epigenesis.

   There is a strong tendency to regard all that is,  as the result of some-
thing that has been; all improvements on previously existing forms, as being
present in all forms as latencies; to regard Evolution as simply the unfold-
ing  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 bet-
ter  Forms,  according to MODELS already existing in his Creator's mind,  he
can become, at best only a good IMITATOR--never a CREATOR.

                          QUESTIONS ON LESSON NO. 9:

1. Who is meant when the term "Jehovah" is used in the Bible?
2. Describe the work of this Being.
3. Why were the Original Semites called the "chosen people"?
4. From whom have the present Aryan Races descended.
5. Name the three factors constituting the triad of progress.
6. State the arguments in favor of epigenesis.
7. What does occult science teach to be the object of evolution?

[PAGE 148]

               "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE WESTERN WORLD
              BY THE RECORDING ANGELS, WHO GIVE TO EACH AND ALL
               EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT."
                                                  --Max Heindel

                                LESSON NO. 10:

                          THE CREATION (continued):

REFERENCES:  Genesis 1,2 and 5.

   In order that man may become an independent, original Creator, it is nec-
essary 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 with 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.

   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 be-
came  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 farther 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 tot he 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 improvement 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 out lives and a far greater degree  of  efficiency
than  the present will yet be reached.  If we make mistakes in building  be-
tween lives,  they be 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.

[PAGE 149]

  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 king-
dom., fossilize and are added to the different strata of the Earth's crust.

   The assertion of material science that man has ascended through the  dif-
ferent  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 anthro-
poid  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)  oc-
cupied ape-like forms, they have PROGRESSED to their present stage of devel-
opment, while the Forms (which were the "missing link") have DEGENERATED and
are now ensouled by the last stragglers of the Saturn Period.

   The  lower monkeys,  instead of being the progenitors of the higher  spe-
cies,  are stragglers occupying the most degenerated specimens of  what  was
once  the  human form.  Instead of man having ascended from the anthropoids,

[PAGE 150]

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 bor-
ders.  The anthropoids may overtake us and become human beings, but no other
animal  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 the forms
outgrown by the pioneers as previously explained, and they
   The monkey has degenerated from man.
   The polyps are the last generation left behind 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 is 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 its 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 antenatal recapitulation of all past stages  of  develop-
ment.   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
antenatal  stages have been passed through the experts cannot  differentiate
between animal and human embryo.

[PAGE 151]

   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.

   On the other hand, the Life which uses the human ovum had its mineral ex-
istence  in the Saturn Period,  passed the animal stage in the Moon  Period,
has  still some scope for Epigenesis after it has reached the  animal  stage
and therefore goes on to the human--nor does it stop there.   The father and
mother  give  the substance of their bodies for the building  of  a  child's
body, but, particularly in the higher Races, Epigenesis makes it possible to
add something which makes the child different from the parents.

   Where Epigenesis is inactive and in the individual,  family,  nations  or
Race--there evolution ceases and degeneration commences.

                         QUESTIONS ON LESSON NO. 10:

1. Describe how the evolving Life improve its vehicles.
2. Who are the stragglers of our live wave?
3. What are the only two paths open to evolving life?
4. What relation do the anthropoids have to human beings?
5. What is true concerning the confines of each life wave?
6. What is the acme of degeneration of all forms?
7. What does a study of the human ovum reveal in regard to evolution?

[PAGE 152]

               "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE WESTERN WORLD
              BY THE RECORDING ANGELS, WHO GIVE TO EACH AND ALL
               EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT."
                                                  --Max Heindel

                                LESSON NO. 11:

                          THE CREATION (continued):

REFERENCES:  Genesis 1 and 2.

   From our study of previous lessons we find that the two Creation  stories
harmonize very well.   One deals with Form,  which was built up through min-
eral,  plant and animal and reached the human LAST.  The other tells us that
the  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 seventh 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. 2:7) 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  author-
ity, for even the King James version distinctly states (Eccles,. 3:  19,20:)
". . .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 still 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 re-
ceived 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 Arch-
angels,  was the principle in this action fixes the time when this  creation
occurred.  It was between the early and the middle parts of the Lemurian Ep-
och,  and  must  have  been  after  the  Moon was thrown out from the Earth,

[PAGE 153]

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  not
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  i  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 fill-like apparatus still present in the human embryo
while passing through the stage of antenatal life corresponding to that  Ep-
och.   He had no warn,  red blood, for at that stage there was no indwelling
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.  Before 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 Masorectic text also) is an-
other example of what may be done by changing vowels in the old Hebrew text.
Read in one way,  the word is "rib"  (TSAD);  but in another,  which has  at
least as good a claim to consideration with the additional advantage of  be-
ing  common-sense,  it reads "side"  (TSELA).  If we interpret this to  mean
that man was male-female and that Jehovah caused one side or sex in each be-
ing to remain latent,  we shall not be doing violence to our reason,  as  we
would by accepting the "rib" story.

   When  this alteration is made,  the occult teaching as  previously  given
harmonizes with that of the Bible and both agree with the teachings of  mod-
ern science that man was bisexual at one time,  before he developed one  sex
at the expense of the other.   In corroboration of this,  it is pointed  out
that the foetus is bisexual up to a certain point;  thereafter one sex  pre-
dominates,  while the other remains in abeyance,  so that each person  still
has  the opposite sex organs in a rudimentary form and therefore  is  really
bisexual, as was primitive man.

   Apparently the Bible narrator does not wish to give,  in this second cre-
ation 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.

[PAGE 154]

   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  ad-
vancement.   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 was 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  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,  hav-
ing 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 do-
minion over the plants.

   In the tenth and eleventh chapters of David we are given an insight  into
the  workings  of the invisible government of the race spirits,  the  powers
behind the throne.  Daniel is much disturbed in spirit; he fasts,  for fully
THREE WEEKS, praying for light, and at the end of that time an Archangel,  a
race spirit, appears before him and addresses him:  "Fear not, Daniel:   for
from  the  first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand,  and  to
chasten theyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy
words.   But the prince of the kingdom of persia withstood me ONE AND TWENTY
DAYS:   but,  lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me;  and I
remained there with the kings of Persia."   After he explains to Daniel what
is to happen,  he says:  "Knowest thou wherefore I came unto thee?   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. . .and there is none that holdeth with
me in these things, but Michael your prince."  The archangel also says:  "In
the first year of Darius the Mede, even I stood to confirm and to strengthen
him."

   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

[PAGE 155]

are expert architects of desire matter,  because in the Sun Period the dens-
est  globe was composed of that material,  and the humanity of that  Period,
who  are now Archangels,  learned to build their densest vehicles of  desire
stuff  as we are now learning to build out 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.

   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  vehicles,
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 nos-
trils,"  thereby securing admission for the Race-spirit,  community-spirits,
etc.

   Before 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
means an infinite division of rulership.

   Jehovah came with His Angels and Archangels and made the first great  di-
vision  into  Races,  giving  to  each group  the  guiding  influence  of  a
Race-spirit--an Archangels.   For each Ego He appointed one of the Angels to
act  as guardian until the individual spirit had grown strong enough to  be-
come emancipated from all outside influence.  This occurred in the Atlantean
Epoch.

                         QUESTIONS ON LESSON NO. 11:

1. With what do the two stories of creation deal?
2. What Biblical authority is there for the statement that all life is one?
3. When did the inspiration of the breath of life by Jehovah take place?
4. Describe the form of man as it was at this time.
5. What is the occult teaching in regard to the "rib" story?
6. What is the particular work of Jehovah?  Of the Archangels?
7. What was the work of the "guardian angels"?

[PAGE 156]

               "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE WESTERN WORLD
              BY THE RECORDING ANGELS, WHO GIVE TO EACH AND ALL
               EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT."
                                                  --Max Heindel

                                LESSON NO. 12:

                          INDIVIDUALIZATION OF MAN:

REFERENCES:  Genesis 5; Deutronomy 25.

   Christ came to prepare the way for the emancipation of humanity from  the
guidance  of the 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 not more.   The threefold spirit in man,  the Ego,  is
the God within, whom the personal, bodily man must learn to follow.   There-
fore did Christ say that to be His disciple, a man must foresake all that 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,  the tribe,  or family was
considered first--the individual last.  The family must be kept intact.   If
any man died without leaving offspring to perpetuate his name,  his  brother
must  "carry seed"  to the widow,  that there might be no dying  out  (Deut.
25:5-10).  Marrying out of the family was regarded with horror in the earli-
est  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 mem-
ber of another family.

   All these customs resulted from the working of the 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 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.

[PAGE 157]

   The  brain and nervous system are the highest expressions 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 pic-
tures;  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,  grandfa-
ther,  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 re-
alize  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  gen-
erations,  because through their 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 patri-
archs  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 expirations of the period stated, the de-
scendants  did  not think of themselves as Adam or  Methuselah.   Memory  of
those ancestors faded and so it is said that they died.

   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 incli-
nation to do so, for they had no mind of their own.

   The original Semites were the first to evolve Will, and they at once mar-
ried the daughters of men of other tribes,  frustrating temporarily the  de-
sign  of their Race-spirit and being promptly ejected as evildoers  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 pre-
pared  for  individualization.   The  former  "common"  consciousness,   the
intervoluntary  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  re-
gardless 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.

[PAGE 158]

   In order to accomplish this separation of nations into individuals,  laws
were  given which prohibited endogomy or marriage in the family  and  hence-
forth  incestuous  marriages  gradually came to  be  regarded  with  horror.
Strange blood had thus been introduced into all 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 supersed-
ing patriotism,  and loyalty to the family is disappearing in consequence of
the mixture of blood.

   The human spirit is individualized,  an Ego, it is evolving free will and
responsibility.   It  is drawn to birth by the irresistable  law  of  Conse-
quence,  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 work-
ing 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  les-
sons that if he were still distracted by the visions of the higher realms.

   For  aforementioned reasons,  intertribal, and later international,  mar-
riages  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 longer for a return of the  "in-
ner"  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:

   (1)   The clearing of the foggy atmosphere of the Atlantean continent.
   (2)   The indrawing of the vital body, so that a point at the root of the
nose corresponds to a similar point in the vital body.
   (3)   The elimination of inbreeding and the substitution therefor of
marriages outside the family and tribe.
   (4)   The use of intoxicants.

   The Race-spirits still exist in and work with man,  but the more advanced
the  nation,  the  more freedom is given the individual.  In countries where

[PAGE 159]

people are most fettered, the Race-spirit is strongest.  The more in harmony
a man is with the law of Love, and the higher his ideals,  the more he frees
himself from the spirit of the Race.

   When  seen by the spiritual vision the Race Spirit appears like  a  cloud
brooding  over a country,  and it is breathed into the lungs of  the  people
with every breath they take.  In it they live,  move,  and have their being,
as a matter of actual fact.   Through this process they become imbuted  with
the national fellow feeling which we call "patriotism,"  which is so  power-
fully stirring in time of war that all feel wrought up about a certain  mat-
ter and are ready to sacrifice all for their country.

   America  has  no Race Spirit as yet.  It is the melting pot  wherein  the
various  nations are being amalgamated to arouse universal  sentiment  which
will make all move as One in any matter.   This new race is beginning to ap-
pear, however.  You may know them by their long arms and limbs, their little
bodies,  their long and somewhat narrow heads, high crowns, and almost rect-
angular foreheads.

   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 hallmark of the new dispensation.

                         QUESTIONS ON LESSON NO. 12:

1. What was the specific aim of the coming of Christ?
2. Explain briefly how Methuselah and others "lived" so long?
3. What quality were the Original Semites the first to evolve?
4. What is the purpose of individualization?
5. State the four factors involved in the loss of man's "inner" vision.
6. How is one freed from the Race and Family-spirit?
7. What is to be the keynote of Christianity of the RETURNED Christ?

[PAGE 160]

               "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE WESTERN WORLD
              BY THE RECORDING ANGELS, WHO GIVE TO EACH AND ALL
               EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT."
                                                  --Max Heindel

                                LESSON NO. 13:

                               THE FALL OF MAN:

REFERENCE:  Genesis 3.

   In  connection with the study 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 the earth came out of chaos,  it was at first in the dark red  stage
known as the Polarian Epoch.  There humanity first evolved A DENSE BODY, not
at all like our present vehicle, of course.  When the condition of the earth
became fiery,  as in the Hyperborean Epoch, THE VITAL BODY was added and man
become plant-like,  that is to say,  he had the same vehicles as our  plants
have today, and also similar consciousness, or, rather, unconsciousness,  to
that  which we have in dreamless sleep when the DENSE and VITAL  bodies  are
left upon the bed.

   At that time,  in the Hyperborean Apoch,  the body of man was as an enor-
mous gas bag,  floating outside the fiery earth, and it threw off plant-like
spores,  which then grew and were used by other incoming entities.   At that
time man was double sexed, a hermaphrodite.

   In the Lemurian Epoch,  when the earth and somewhat cooled and islands of
crust had begun to form amid boiling seas, then also man's body had somewhat
solidified and had become more like the body we see today.  It was ape-like,
a  short trunk with enormous arms and limbs,  the heels projecting  backward
and almost no head--at least the upper part of the head was nearly  entirely
wanting.   Man  lived  in  the atmosphere of  steam  which  occultists  call
fire-fog,  and  had  no lungs,  but breathed by means of tubes.   He  had  a
bladder-like  or an inside,  which he inflated with heated air to  help  him
leap  enormous chasms when volcanic eruptions destroyed the land upon  which
he was living.  From the back of his head there projected an organ which has
now  been drawn into the head and is called by anatomists THE PINEAL  GLAND,
OR  THE THIRD EYE,  although it was never an eye,  but a localized organ  of
feeling.   The body was then devoid of feeling,  but when man came too close
to  a volcanic crater,  the heat was registered by this organ too  warn  him
away before his body was destroyed.

   At  that time the body had already so far solidified that it  was  impos-
sible  for man to continue to propagate by spores, and it was necessary that

[PAGE 161]

he would evolve an organ of thought, a brain.   The creative force which  we
now use to build railways,  steamships, etc.,  in the outer world,  was then
used inwardly for the building of organs.   Like all forces it was  positive
and negative.   One pole was turned upward to build the brain,  leaving  the
other  pole  available for the creation of another body.   Thus man  was  no
longer  a  complete creative unit.   Each possessed only half  the  creative
force, and it was therefore necessary for him to seek him complement outside
himself.

   Man was not at that time the wide-awake conscious being he is at present.
He was more awake in the Spiritual World than in the physical; he hardly saw
his body and was not conscious of the act of propagation.   The Bible state-
ment  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.

   But at that time, "their eyes had not been opened,"  and the human beings
of  that  age were unconscious of each other in the Physical  World,  though
well aware and awake in the Spiritual World.   Therefore under the  guidance
of  the  Angels,  who were particularly fitted to help them  in  respect  to
propagation,  they were herded together in great temples at certain times of
the  year  when the lines of force running between the planets  were  propi-
tious,  and there the creative act was performed as a  religious  sacrifice.
And when the primal man Adam came into the intimate sexual contact with  the
woman, the spirit for the moment pierced the flesh and "Adam KNEW (or became
aware of) his wife";  he sensed her physically.   It is this which the Bible
has recorded,  using that chaste expression all through its leaves,  for  we
are told that "Elkanah KNEW his wife Hannah,  and shore bore Samuel."   Even
in  the New Testament where the angel comes to Mary telling her that she  is
to  be the mother of the Savior, she answers,  "How shall that  be  possible
seeing I KNOW not man?"

   Sin  is action contrary to law, and while humanity propagated  under  the
guidance of the Angels, who understood the cosmic lines of force, paturation
was painless,  as it is now among wild animals,  which propagate only at the
proper  time of the year under the guidance of the group spirit.   But  when
man, acting on the advice of certain spirits (the Lucifers) half-way between
humanity  and the Angles,  under took to create at any and all times of  the
year,  regardless of cosmic lines of force, that sin, or "eating the tree of
KNOWLEDGE,"  caused the painful parturition which the Lord God proclaimed to
Eve.   He did not curse her,  but simply stated what would be the result  of
the ignorant and indiscriminate use of the creative function.

   The  Lucifers were a part of 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

[PAGE 162]

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 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 woman included watching the  perilious  feats  and
fights of the men in developing will,  in which fights bodies were necessar-
ily  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 im-
perfect  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 re-
vealed 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 the woman.  She sought the help of  man  and
opened his eyes.   Thus, in a real though dim way, they first "knew"  or be-
come aware of one another and also of the Physical World.   They became con-
scious 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  au-
tomatons  and become 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 Je-
hovah  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 inter-
course  by the positions of the planets,  therefore pain in childbirth  must
follow his ignorant use 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 chil-
dren but if we understand that the eating of the  fruit is symbolical of the
generative act whereby man becomes "like God"  inasmuch as he KNOWN 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 the tree of knowl-
edge" 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 the tree of life," had he learned  the  secret  of how to perpetually

[PAGE 163]

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 exceed-
ingly primitive.  Therefore the anxiety of the creative Hierarchies lest man
"eat 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  low-
est 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 tough with the wisdom of Nature, which man,  without any cooperation,
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 for-
mula, will he be able to create a body.

                         QUESTIONS ON LESSON NO. 13:

1. Describe the condition of man in the Lemurian Epoch.
2. Under whose direction was the propagation of man at this time?
3. Who were the Lucifers?
4. Explain how they manifested themselves to woman and what they made known
   to her.
5. Give the Bible passage in which Jehovah stated the results of "eating of
   the fruit" and explain its meaning.
6. Explain the anxiety of the creative Hierarchies lest man "eat of the tree
   of life also."
7. When the creative force has been properly transmuted by man, what power
   will be have?

[PAGE 164]

               "THE BIBLE HAS BEEN GIVEN TO THE WESTERN WORLD
              BY THE RECORDING ANGELS, WHO GIVE TO EACH AND ALL
               EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT."
                                                  --Max Heindel

                                LESSON NO. 14:

                           JESUS AND CHRIST JESUS:

REFERENCES:  Matthew 1, 2, 3; Luke 1, 2.

   To understand the Mission of Christ as the Founder of the Universal Reli-
gion 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 be-
gotten  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.

   Please  note in the following diagram (No.  6) 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 pre-
vious  aspects.   Therefore the "only begotten"  is the exalted Being  which
ranks above all else in the Universe,  save only the Power-aspect which cre-
ated It.

   The first aspect of the Supreme Being "thinks out," or imagines, the Uni-
verse  before the beginning of active manifestation,  everything,  including
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).   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,  re-absorbs within Itself all
that is, until the dawn of another Period of Manifestation.

[PAGE 165]

   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
coming  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 countless INSEPARATE  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  vi-
bration made the Cosmic Root substance capable of forming different combina-
tions,  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

[PAGE 166]

different measure of vibration, consequently the conditions and combinations
in each One are different from those in any of the others, due to the activ-
ity of "The Only Begotten."

   Diagram 14 shows us that:

   "The Father is the highest Initiate among the humanity of the Saturn  Pe-
riod.  The ordinary humanity of that period are now the Lords of Mind.

   "The Son" (Christ) is the highest Initiate of the Sun Period.   The ordi-
nary 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 (in Lesson No. 8), it will be
seen that their bodies or vehicles (indicated by squares on diagram 14) cor-
respond to the Globes of the Period in which they were human.   This is  al-
ways  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, these beings retain bodies corresponding to the Globes on which they
have functioned.

   On  the other hand,  the Initiates have progressed and evolved for  them-
selves higher vehicles, discontinuing the ordinary use of the lowest vehicle
when the ability to use a new and higher One has been attained.  Ordinarily,
the lowest vehicle of an Archangel is the desire body,  but Christ,  Who  is
the highest Initiate of the Sun Period,  ordinarily uses the life spirit  as
lowest vehicle, functioning as consciously in the World of Life Spirit as we
do  in  the Physical World.   The student is requested to  note  this  point
particularly, as the World of Life Spirit is the first UNIVERSAL World.   It
is  the World in which differentiation ceases and unity begins to  be  real-
ized, so far as our solar system is concerned.

   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 FARTHER.  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  ma-
jority 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.

[PAGE 167]

   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 fecunda-
tion as a sacrament, without personal desire or passion.

   Thus  the  beautiful,  pure and lovely spirit whom we known as  Jesus  of
Nazareth was born into a pure and passionless body.   This body was the best
that could be procured on Earth and the task of Jesus,  in that  embodiment,
was  to  care for it and evolve it to the highest possible degree  of  effi-
ciency, 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 Egyptians Initiation,  and was not Jesus of Nazareth,  with who  we
are concerned.

   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 said here,  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
diagrams 8 and 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 be means of the air he inhaled.   All Race-religions were  reli-
gions  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 separate and therefore leads to self-seeking.

   That is precisely the reason why the intervention of Christ become neces-
sary.   Under  the REGIME of Jehovah unity is  impossible.   Therefore,  the
Christ,  Who possesses as the 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.

[PAGE 168]

   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  ex-
alted   Being  to  expend  for  that  purpose  the  energy   necessary   for
body-building through antenatal 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,  al-
though  He  had learned to build then in the Sun Period,  and  retained  the
ability to build and function in them whenever desired or required.  He used
all His vehicles,  taking only the vital and dense bodies from Jesus.   When
the latter was thirty 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.

   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  al-
ready 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 impe-
tus  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 in-
cident to physical existence.  None save He is able to feel such compassion,
nor  so  fully  understand  the  position  and  needs  of  humanity;    none

[PAGE 169]

save  He is qualified to bring the relief that shall fully meet  our  needs.
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.

                         QUESTIONS ON LESSON NO. 14:

1. Explain the functions of the three aspects of the Supreme Being.
2. Designate specifically the identity of Christ.
3. State the facts concerning the identify of the man Jesus.
4. Why could Christ not be BORN in a dense body?
5. What differentiates Christ Jesus from every other Being?
6. Why did Christ not appear in a miraculous manner?
7. In what will He appear when He comes again?

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