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Edna Lister’s Lectures, 1935
The High Call
Edna Lister outline, January 2, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Luke 24:44-49
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
–Luke 24:44-49.
“Turn unto me. Come unto me,” says the Master. To turn is to repent, and repentance means “to be sorry for, a change of heart, a change of attitude, to give up.” To repent, you must first see where you stand, and see clearly wherein you have failed.
You must become meek before God, but be strong and remain so before men. You do this through the Light, as the power of the Holy Breath, the heavenly essence of inspiration, which you inhale on every physical breath. To breathe is to be moved by inspiration.
Remission means “to clear away from, dropping away from, falling from.” The “remission of sins” is Light going forth to dissolve whatever soul taint blocks the way. You can remit your own sins by surrendering and sacrificing the soul taints that cause them.
Forgiveness is to give love for what your brother has done or held against you. Your will is the key to the fountain of life in you, but whose will shall it. be, yours or God’s will for you?. What you bind on earth by your will is bound in heaven. What you hold by your will, you crush and thus lose. What you loose on earth, you loose in heaven. To loose something is to free it of you.
The One Source never alters, never changes. All roads lead to Light, but traveling some of them adds so many miles to the journey that making it on time is impossible. Who wants to go backward half the time on detours? It takes courage and determination to travel the Via Christa, so anything not showing you how to reach for and gain higher courage is a detour. Anything that makes it too easy leads downward, not the upward trek taking you home, but the long way around. The road home is always ascending higher.
No soul’s past is too dark to be forgiven. God will wipe it all out, if you lay everything on the altar in complete sacrifice of self. St. Augustine, a rebellious youth, traveled to Rome and became one of the greatest saints because he surrendered all self. The voice of self always urges you to snatch your sacrifice from the altar.
Put on your regal robes, take up your scepter and crown, and hold to an attitude of delight in life. The new year is sweet and young, one you would not want to hurt or harm. It’s a new page, so what will you write on it? To advance, you can sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” in a state of ecstasy and peace, filled with God’s joy and love. Love more and praise more. Listen to the high call to service. Release more Power and walk on the heights of soul this year.
Life More Abundant
Edna Lister outline, January 4, 1935, Buffalo, NY, John 10:10, 11:41-44, Matthew 28:20
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”–John 10:10.
Who was Jesus Christ, the Son of God? He wept in Gethsemane when finished with this life. Yet he is alive today, not weeping, but glorying in joy. “Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”–Matthew 28:20. Like Christ, we have no time for sorrow, for we are too near the close of an old era. The Christian world is moving from the vibration of Crucifixion and Resurrection into Ascension.
God has made man of Christed substance, which is always here, expressing through different soul bodies, but alive as Spirit, living. The life abundant is flowing from the Source of Light. You must stand under it, but how? Where? Surrender to become the servant of all the Power. The whole Adamic race is filled with Light. Entire nations have been prepared for wholeness because they have accepted God and Christ in faith.
“Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.”–John 11:41-44.
Having all faith in God confers immunity to the ills of earth because the vibration is raised above disease. Redouble your declarations and decrees. “Lazarus! Come forth!” It takes a loud, authoritative tone of voice to resurrect the dead in spirit today.
Stand firm on the foundation of all your prayer decrees for the good until Light establishes them in form. You can have abundant life, strength, and health now. Because Solomon asked for intangible wisdom and understanding, God gave him all tangible added things.
The Unity of the Law
Edna Lister outline, January 6, 1935, Buffalo, NY
A lack of standards in truth leads to a lack in governmental standards. The unity of the law is exact: The manifest Creation comes forth from the invisible and returns to or folds back into the invisible, all under exact principle or law.
The number 100 is an equation. Take away the "1" and nothing remains except two ciphers, "00." One cipher, 0, added to 1 becomes 10. Two ciphers, 00, added to 1 equals 100 in value. Mind and soul are two spiritual ciphers that cannot be weighed, tasted, seen, or felt save in their consequences, their con-sequences, the effects following their causal presence. Effect inevitably follows cause under law. Mind and soul remain mere potential values until their presence in a material body validates them. All unfolding and infolding of the meaning of mind and soul takes place under the principle of enumeration (numbering), which constitutes God as the mathematical enumerator—one counted off or named one by one, indefinitely—thus the Mind of God, the Creator, expresses.
All life cycles operating on earth, from leaf to bloom to fruit, revolve around and emerge under the life-giving magnetism of sunlight. Under the principle of involution, all life-giving processes are physical, flowing from God to man. With the evolution of the soul, the flow of enlivening processes are spiritual—of the soul—and reverse the flow of principles from man to God as praise and worship. The difficulty lies in the fact that most people still believe that everything must flow from God to man, ignoring man’s working end of the agreement.
Man must exercise his physical body to be alive, alert, glorious, and free in movement. Correspondingly, without exercise in the physical world, spirit and soul cannot move freely within man. National freedom flows from man’s individual freedom. The exercise of mind is the second step. Your brain cells are a receiving set, with which you may physically hear, mentally listen, and spiritually know. Your body is like an electric transformer—it regulates the electric voltage of spiritual power that enables hearing by adjusting it to the amperage that enables listening.
Without a physical organism, you cannot function in the material world. If you have no body, you are invisible and ineffective. If our nation has no body of governance, it cannot govern itself. Every physical body grown is eventually outgrown, and the death of your physical body is one expression of this law. For example, a hermit crab, in order to grow, must cast off its old shell. The shell is first protective, then restrictive.
In the same way, man’s society and government are both currently restricted by old inhibitions, worn out dogmas, and economic systems everywhere. God, ruling in this case through the needs of evolution, puts us on our honor to accept the change and grow. “Behold a new day cometh in which many things shall be made plain that ye cannot bear now.” When an organism becomes a heaving, wheezing, rattling old mechanism, out worn and outgrown, it must be rejuvenated or destroyed. World War I burned out the old order of despotic tyranny in favor of a new birth into a new era of ascension of consciousness.
As man is made in God’s image and likeness, so must government be made in man’s spiritual image and likeness. Man’s body is an organism, 98 percent of which consists of somatic cells. Man’s brain comprises a mere 2 percent of his cells, but they direct and control the other 98 percent. Our God-given soul and spirit must become our enumerators, properly taking census of our appetitive soul and its impulsive urges and cravings. When we learn how to properly direct and control ourselves, we will be granted access to greater divine Mind, Substance and Power.
Surrender to the Supreme
Edna Lister outline, January 9, 1935, Buffalo, NY, John 21:22
To surrender to the Supreme means to give up self to the Supreme, not to cling to human nature, the world or to man’s ways of living. To surrender to God is to be meek toward God, with no thought of self or “me.”
Declare aloud, “I accept God’s plan for me,” which is to reach the place of high I AM, the Oversoul and super-conscious mind. The little invidiualized “I am” speaks from the heart of the embodied soul. The high I AM speaks from the crown center of the Oversoul.
Job first blasphemed when all that he had possessed was taken away. When Job praised God, he became greater and wiser than ever. Joshua praised God, and surrendered to His will when he faced the Midianites. The sun stood still, which was a great accomplishment in one day’s conquering of the self’s fears.
Gideon asked, “Who am I, a man of poor family?” when God chose him for service. He surrendered one step at a time, yet prevailed against the Midianites with God’s aid. Daniel, weak, shaken and quivering, obeyed the angel who told him, “Arise! Stand upon thy feet.” He became a prince, possessing all knowledge. It took Moses forty years to let God move in and possess him. Yet he possessed all authority when he bowed to God and stood before Pharaoh.
“Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.”–John 21:22. “Follow thou me,” the Master commands. When man’s self-centered and usually selfish will lets go, God moves in as wisdom, as the splendor of white Light. When you bow down before God only, you become an infallible prophet, a seer of the Good for God. The individual “I am” of “little me,” becomes submerged in the high I AM of God, the center of Light, conferring all authority, all power, all seeing.
You can sing in darkness, and make it light wherever you find yourself. Wherever Jesus looked, something happened. When Jesus walked, something happened. When Jesus spoke, something happened. When Jesus moved, something happened. Jesus could not pass his great tests alone; he did it with God. Approach the throne of grace boldly so that all these things may be added unto you.
In God We Trust
Edna Lister outline, January 10, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The 25-cent piece [Standing Liberty] displays the idealized figure of Liberty holding a shield and olive branch on the obverse. The Liberty quarter’s motto is “In God We Trust.” We may handle money, but we trust in God. The reverse side carries a flying eagle with the motto, “E Pluribus Unum,” or “Out of Many, One,” which truly expresses our national destiny. Yet E Pluribus Unum may also be read several ways as Out of Many, One; Many in One, Many as One, and One as many.
Birds will either hunt for cover and hide, or fight until they are exhausted, defeated or killed. The eagle soars above the storm, which symbolizes how man’s scientific prayer soars above the storm of any and every conflict. A variety of crowned eagles have adorned various national coins and banners: The Roman eagle, the Prussian eagle, the Czarist eagle of Russia, and the double-headed eagle of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Of them all, only the American bald eagle wears no earthly crown. The choice of the bald eagle as our national emblem, as expressly enjoined by an act of Congress, is no mistaken choice, no accident, but a spiritual event of great note. The white head of the bald eagle symbolizes the direct contact with a divine priesthood, the top of whose heads were shaven to symbolize their openness to the Light. Fully understood, this symbology illustrates the practice of the presence of God through prayer.
Apperception and the Senses
Edna Lister outline, January 11, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Spirit uses the faculty of apperception. Embodied soul uses emotion and the pictures of imagination. The body uses the five senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. Seeing includes seeing pictures in the mind’s eye, which may be perfect or imperfect. Hearing and smelling may also be perfect or imperfect. For example, as one wag said, “Everything smells when your nose is in the other fellow’s business.” The influences of Spirit have a fragrance, but influences of earth have an odor.
Of the sense of taste we say, “It’s sweet as honey in your mouth. It has a taste of luxury. It has a taste of the farm.” You taste of the kingdom of heaven when you eat the words of God, which are sweet to the mouth and to the belly. People speak of the sense of touch as “feeling” but generally only to describe the thrills, delights, or pains of earth. Few people mention feeling the ecstasy of heavenly awareness and God consciousness, yet some have described experiencing the scent of rose or lily of the valley.
You must eventually synthesize all the lower senses into the one great soul faculty of apperception. However, before you can do this, you reach a drab place in consciousness, which is called the “desert,” and the time you spend there is called “the burning sands of the desert.” Most people look grim while they traverse this spiritual-mental-emotional desert, but you can and must choose to smile your way through it.
Imagine for a moment a walled city whose glowing gates are closed and locked. The people outside, in the open desert wilderness, are weeping as though they are starving while peering through the gates at a beautiful land of bounty, filled with fruiting orchards, flowers, birds, gentle animals, and peace. Whether sunrise or sunset, life-giving light abounds. Inside the gates are crowds of people in happy groups, some singing, others walking and talking quietly, but no one pushing, shoving or trampling anywhere. Suddenly a woman outside walks through the crowd to the gate. The crowd becomes hushed and still as she, all alone, walks into the radiant glow, reaches out, touches the latch, finds it loose and the gate swings open! She steps inside and the gate closes, locked again.
So many souls stand outside the gates fearing to cross the desert. Do not remain with them. Begin the crossing with a spring in your step knowing that the lush, shaded oasis awaits. With joy in your heart as your journey’s companion, the sands will not burn your soul but only your remaining self!
The Human Spectrum: Breathing
Edna Lister outline, January 12, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Breathing, deep breathing in particular, is the basis for inspiration, intuition, and spiritual illumination, and is a physical necessity. Your lungs
You eliminate some body wastes from food and fatigue when you exhale them from the lungs as carbon dioxide gas. So exhaling deeply is as important as inhaling deeply. If you use only one-third of your capacity, you receive only one-third the lungs’ potential service. You then have insufficient oxygen to inflate the cells of the bloodstream, which in turn inflate all the other body cells, creating lightness of body. The body's two most critical physical needs are for oxygen and water, which it needs in a clean form and in abundance.
Most people accustom themselves to living with pain, but God did not create man’s body to run with pain as a physical need. Because of this self-created deficiency, about half your nerves may be asleep or atrophied. When you begin to practice breathing deeply, you may wonder why you get light-headed. Too rapidly changing the way you breathe may further upset your present lack of balance. If you feel “off,” stop! Wait for the vibration to right itself, for a sense of internal stillness.
The rhythmic breath, even breath, and uneven forms of breath may cause light-headedness or a slight loss of balance initially. Breathe on a count of four, four times, which equal 16, or four squared. Two stages of breath are unconscious, which may seem a silly thought, but is very wise since we are seeking spiritual balance in addition to physical balance. You are creator gods, living souls who descended from heavenly realms to earth to gain experience in physical expression. You must prove that you are a creator of good by the way you live your life; there is no other way. Your actions and appearance speak louder than words.
We all try to fly before we’ve even grown pin feathers. Eagerness is a necessity, but it must be a controlled eagerness, or it will easily degenerate into curiosity and greed. Eagerness is best applied as power to climb the heights. Running wild, it burns you up or tires you out when you become bored. Breathing does awaken the glands, and does increase the activity of the pineal body. If you apply this increased activity of the lungs at the expense of other organs, you become unbalanced.
Proper diet and breathing are necessities vecause the body is the temple in which we dwell. God furnished it, but we have to take care of the furnishings. Breathing is like dusting. Diet is like making repairs, polishing floors, painting, replacing what's worn out. Crusaders of Light need healthy body instruments for crusading. You must keep your lamp trimmed and burning to shed light. Weakness in the body is a sign of lukewarmness, regardless of the desire of the soul. You need physical strength for God's Power to use you in a spiritual way, to express as a creator god.
1 Lungs: Your lungs are on each side of your heart, inside your chest cavity. They are the main organs of the respiratory system. The right lung is divided into three lobes (sections), and the left lung is divided into two lobes. Your left lung is slightly smaller than your right lung, since your heart takes up some space on the left side. When you breathe in, air enters your airways and travels down into the air sacs, or alveoli, in your lungs. This is where gas exchange takes place.
The circulatory system, which is made up of the heart and blood vessels, supports the respiratory system by bringing blood to and from the lungs. The circulatory system helps deliver nutrients and oxygen from the lungs to tissues and organs throughout the body. It also helps remove carbon dioxide and waste products. Other body systems that work with the respiratory system include the nervous system, lymphatic system, and immune system.
Command Ye Me
Edna Lister outline, January 16, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Isaiah 45:11
Command in the outer world is first of all learning to obey orders, then learning to command others. Command is not making demands, but polite firmness in making the needs known, which gets cooperation and prompt action. God’s world is the same: You must command the self before you may hear the Voice say, “Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me.”–Isaiah 45:11. In short, you must learn who you are and what you are made of, which is God’s Light. Thus, you are always more, always greater in growth and progress. H. B. Jeffery
Jesus offered himself for the Father’s use no matter what task he was to perform. He volunteered to become a servant and to sacrifice self and position before he commanded. In his atonement, he paid the debt for the sins of the world to that time. Love for God requires willing, loving sacrifice. All the works you notice, or see that need doing are yours to do. Desire places you in line for service, giving you the ambition to succeed, but you must command selflessly.
Others called Abraham a “man of faith,” and he changed the world idea from fear of many small capricious gods to faith in the one great God. Jesus was the pivotal soul in achievement when the world was waiting for a man of completely perfect expression on every level. “Follow me” requires willingness to do and to be the servant, to be commanded and ordered. Only then can you expect to command.
You must forgive sins, and you will find this easy to do when you keep your eye on the power of love as Light. If you choose to focus on the illusions of this world of appearances, you will receive lashes that need to be healed, which describes failure. “It is finished” when you achieve mastery of self and a Christed crown of attainment. The world is waiting for the great teacher of ascension.
In His Image and Likeness
Edna Lister outline, January 18, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Creative Mind is a composite of Wisdom that plans all the molds for Creation, and Love that fills the molds and sustains them—not an act of Light plus darkness, but of powers, positive and negative in their action. This is how two disparate vibrations can create an etheric-magnetic explosion when they meet. On every plane, this law holds true: “As above, so below.” In your daily life, the mixed thinking of a “double-minded man” is a sin. The only real mental sin is thinking “I can’t.” Perfection begins with thinking “I can do this!”
Do you know that Light is everywhere? The only darkness is in whatever place you imagine it or declare it. You have the ability to create a new body when and as you need it. A chicken’s heart is built to last forty times longer than the chicken lives, and that sort of ratio means you could limit it to half its size and it would still function.
When two minds disagree, they must separate and go on each alone on its solitary path. It takes perfect cooperation for the soul as mind to cooperate with the body’s subconscious mind and thus to continue living in the body. Ascension of consciousness is a risk that requires you to gamble your soul to traverse the universe to its Source in God!
“I am already under the Light. My Father already has the right answer I need. I am now launching out into the deep, journeying to my Father’s house!”
Mastering Self
Edna Lister transcript, May Wilder, scribe, January 19, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Self-control is the embodied soul’s command over the self, the appetitive soul, in a process which we term self-mastery. Wisdom, Love, and Selflessness are aspects of the divine that act through your breathing to clear your mind, aura of lights and colors, and physical body of the effects of any and all cross-vibrations. Breathing is inspiration, which actually also inspires you to greater sublimation and transmutation of the physical into the metaphysical realms of being.
You begin to express six qualities through exerting a minimum of control over the self, which we call the appetitive soul. Six is the creative number; therefore these qualities are essential to creating anything of enduring value. You develop them all at once, six qualities as one, as you walk the Via Christa.
The first quality is controlled imagination. Uncontrolled, imagination will run away with you every time you permit it to hold sway. It’s like the proper handling of a team of horses pulling a loaded wagon; any lapse in paying attention to the team and they go their own way, which could end in disaster. wild imagination is how you destroy your own ability to think clearly.
The second quality is mental clarity, which produces controlled thinking. Erratic thinking injures your ability to think logically and damages your mental body lotus petals; thus, continued erratic thinking withers the lotus petals altogether, ruining your receptivity to new ideas until you can’t take anything new into your conscious mind.
The third quality is controlled action through consideration of all possible outcomes beforehand. Such consideration includes critical evaluation of how your speech or actions will affect others; e.g. take time to consider the affect of your words before you speak to criticize another. Always put what you hear or read on a shelf of Light for due consideration and pondering. A good example is a salesman who analyzes his successes without becoming arrogant, and doesn’t spend all his time doing it.
If you receive praise or criticism, opportunity is knocking at your door. When criticism comes, God is working to get you to accept a new idea, which is His way of saying, “Watch your step and consider your actions.” You never receive undeserved criticism; whatever you send out returns to you in time. If you descend to old ways after a Baptism by Fire, but withdraw from that low place in consciousness through prayer, the results still return to you—inevitably. Your soul access to the Christ mind contact comes with the first portion of your soul that takes possession of the body at birth. Your contact with the Christ mind is undiluted by self if you look up to God above! Never let go, which is death to the spirit!
Say, “Thank You, Father, for this lesson, which means added illumination!” Consider why it came and what it can and will do for you. Accept it and put it on the altar. Then say, “Thank You that Your agent has appeared to bring me this needed lesson.” God uses disintegrators so you must learn to integrate, to build, and to fill every mental pothole with Light. God’s agent turns into your strengthened responsibility, and an enemy is thus made your footstool. Let him build you higher, and use the experience as a step up.
“Thank You, Father, for illumination that gives me the lesson, for opening my eyes to see.” Leave it on the altar in Light, and declare that it is wiped clean. Nothing is hidden from those who have earned the right to know, who have stood under light and lifted. You can’t be hurt. Assume responsibility for any group you are in, and you can be an integrator.
If you accept praise as your due, you’re gone. Read “If” by Rudyard Kipling. Lay it on the altar, saying, “Thank You, Father. Your Light must be shining through.” Praise is your tempter, your enemy. “Not I, but the Light,” which is all anyone can praise.
Analyze the particular thing you were doing or saying. Seek what degree of devotion and surrender you were in at the time, then God says, “Child, this is your new level of living.” You don’t dare to lose it. The Voice of God says, “Hold your ground and watch your step.” You will develop a quality, which is the control of action, if you watch criticism and praise.
Instability of action also withers your mental body lotus petals. You gain control of their action through systematic practice. Three minutes of this definite and controlled practice means more that ten hours of loose, chaotic reacting. As a discipline for the self, make yourself do one disagreeable thing each day.
All practice serves to relate spirit, soul and body as one. When you start a car, you 1. turn on the ignition, 2. feed it fuel to 3. get the power started, then 4. mesh the gears. You gain perfect service by cooperative relations. You cleanse, purify and feed the physical, with serene love and calm thinking.
Buddhists refer to the causal body as “you” because it is the fundamental cause of all the other lesser vehicles. To get the power started and moving through you, hold your state of consciousness in an attitude of indrawn readiness. Take a deep breath, and the etheric currents and magnetic currents will meet in an explosion at your solar plexus. Put your hands up to release the power, which meshes your gears. This you can account for your time gainfully spent in fifteen-minute periods.
Understanding
Edna Lister outline, January 23, 1935, Buffalo, NY, 2 Kings 6:8-17, Proverbs 4:5-9
“Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice. Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, None, my Lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! How shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”–2 Kings 6:8-17.
“Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.”–Proverbs 4:5-9.
Light crowns you with the glory of God, as Wisdom, Love, and Selflessness. Wisdom expresses the Father principle, yet Light as Wisdom alone is not enough. You must add the Light of the Mother Love of God to gain understanding. This text promises certain benefits once you do get understanding. If you “keep” understanding, she will preserve you. If you “exalt” her, she will promote you. If you “embrace” her, she will bring you to honor. When you keep, exalt, and embrace understanding, she will place an ornament of grace upon your head, a crown of glory. The crown of glory is the high place for the soul, your Jerusalem, which is the Light of your Oversoul star. The Master commanded his disciples not to depart from Jerusalem, but to “wait for the promise of the Father,” until they received the Light as the Power of the Holy Spirit.
Call upon Jesus the Christ only, accepting no substitute, for he is the Head Master. St. John, writer of the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, said that “no one in heaven or on earth” was worthy to open the book sealed with seven seals because no one was persistent enough. You must ask, seek, and knock. “Open in the name of Jesus the Christ” is your “Open sesame.” The Light from above is the Light of understanding. You can hear the high call of Christ only on the mountain peaks of your soul’s consciousness.
Throughout history, groups of people in desperate straits have prayed and decreed, “It shall not pass,” and have found themselves safe. Leonidas, the Spartan king, withstood the Persian army against overwhelming odds. Britain repelled the Spanish Armada. Washington and his Continental Army endured the killing winter in Valley Forge. No one outside these events ever knew what really happened; they only heard stories others told about the events. We now begin to touch that degree of Light-as-power that has been hidden for ages. Understanding means “standing under” the Light of God.
Speak the Word in a mighty voice, not a whisper. Declare, “Come forth,” and it will manifest. If you decree, “It shall come to pass,” it will, exactly as you decree. If you leave the heights and fall back in consciousness, you must arise and march to the heights once more. Looking forward, you are mindful (Mind-full). Looking back, you are mindless (Mind-less). It is time to open your eyes to see the protection that surrounds you. Like Elisha’s servant Gehazi, at Dothan, you can and will see the chariots of fire.
Elisha and Gehazi at Dothan: “Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice. Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”–2 Kings 6:8-17.
Being and Doing
Edna Lister outline, Buffalo Metaphysics Club, January 25, 1935, Buffalo, NY
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Love, Wisdom, and Selflessness—the upper half of the tripod—become Desire, Will, and Motive when expressed below. The point of contact is the “I AM,” the Christ mind as God, but this is not true if you hold any idea or sense of separation. Then you are pulled apart by a troop of small I ams, all negative, all imitations of the real I AM.
We, the Elect, are not supposed to work by the sweat of our brow in the old sense, for that is not what God intends us to do in this age. We are supposed to serve as the releasers of God’s Power using us as it moves through us. To be and to do is to work. Merely to “try” is death. Stop tinkering with the self. Stop using self’s pump to inflate soul’s flat tire of desire.
A perfect idea results from and uses a perfect mind. Perfect surrender and letting go create a perfect body. Each cell has its own “sun center” of Light-power. What are you doing with it? How are you using this Light? What are you Being? What are you doing?
What do you rely on? Some folks rely on man-made {processed} food products, not on God’s foods as they are. Others rely on an auto for transportation and think Henry Ford is God. Really they risk their lives and bodies with a man-made God.
Jesus fed 5,000 with a God-supplied feast. What about now? Do you believe that we, the Elect, can do this? We could feed 5,000,000 if we all, being of one heart and mind in accord, said “yes” to our Father, Mother and Their Son.
The Guardian of Speech
Edna Lister transcript, May Wilder, scribe, January 26, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The throat is the guardian, the seat of power for speech, the spoken Word. It also holds the larynx vital center in the desire body and the lotus center in the mental body. The spoken Word is always the carrier of power both to release the idea-substance and to build the form it will eventually take. The idea itself creates a gestating place that protects and sustains its potential, holding it untouchable and inviolate until it gathers enough substance within a womb of nature to manifest the heart of its being. Thus, the Mothering principle of God then nourishes and sustains it. The idea’s center of being takes form (to clairvoyant sight) as a star of Light at the throat center. Later it becomes a spiritual “mechanism” like a machine gun to send out bullets (but in this case words) that open the way to present your unborn ideas to world.
If you, through fearful unguarded speech, form a monstrosity of sickness, a failing business, etc., only your praise, prayer and thanksgiving can convert it to Light again. When you live by “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord.” (Psalm 19:14), you send forth perfect ideas. Your business will be a perfect business, your hours active and quickened by spirit with people coming in and produce going out. Why? How? Because this is God’s activity, God’s open doors, God’s substance, God’s abundance, and God’s perfect ideas made manifest. You release the substance of all this through your thinking and speech. You must release your own ideas sooner or later or they will backfire, blowout or blow up to God.
If I can register an idea, it is for me to work out or I wouldn’t have it. Prepare a place for your idea; gestate it by applying the Mother God principle. As you begin to picture the growing idea, it takes on clearer form until it reflects itself as a solid form. As you think, you prepare a mold of the form, a mesh-like fabric of Light, to make it ready to exist in the world. Don’t try to fill the form too soon, or it will leak through any remaining weak places. The form you build must be “heavy” enough to contain the right kind of thinking. Every time you make a cutting remark to someone, you slash the mesh of your own form-mold, and it will leak. “I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”–Matthew 12:36.
When the idea’s mesh-form is released—at the right time and with guarded words—it goes forth as a circular (spherical) wave form scintillant with light and magnetized to attract all necessary elements to itself. When you have loved enough, praised enough during the day, and faced judgment every night, then you can release enough love to wash your mind and heart clean of doubt and fear. You must not live life by a build-then-destroy plan if you want to advance and succeed. Keep your own counsel. All words have a unique vibration and go out to fulfill that purpose only, so using only the right words is critical. Does a word know you don’t mean it?
An Idea in God’s mind can be caught only by one who is listening while standing under the Light. Then the clear idea must come forth in the illumination of initiation. In other words, are you ready to bring this idea into fruition? You will face initiations to prove your readiness. Thus, the seer awakens, listens, is illumined, then intuitionally ponders the idea. Ponder it in your heart, but do not think about it mentally. What’s the difference? You ponder intuitionally with your God-given faculties of desire, thinking, and imagination in the silence. When you think mentally, you are noisy and broadcast your ideas into the collective world mind, where the shrewd, keen thinkers, the mental pirates, can pick up your thoughts and use them. Anyone can pick up your idea if you talk about it too soon; then it will be “stillborn.” Gestate your idea in silence, and the substance of your form will appear in the outer world while you ponder and pray for other things. Offer God praise and thanksgiving: “Thank You, Father, for furnishing the substance for this idea.”
Keep your own counsel until you have completed the gestation and readied the form—then speak the Word. The moment you voice it, you arouse antagonists, people and opposing forces aimed at preventing your success. What are you feeding, the idea or the world? The heart of being for any idea is the gestating center for your “brain children.” When you talk idly you are raising power which should be feeding your idea’s heart of being. When you gossip, you use that power and substance, which should be building your own temple of the living God. Remember the injunction “Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matthew 5:37), then just smile and say, “Thank You, Father, that this form being built is maturing.”
Without a goal you can expect no result; you must have something to accomplish and achieve. Praise is the best shortcut to releasing more Light, and persevere by standing under the Light. It will shine on the path to your goal. If you surrender yourself to stand under the Light, Light will go forth to only one path, the one where the Master has walked. Declare, “I now stand under the Light. The Father knows the answers I need, and His Power does the work. Thank You, Father, that it’s already finished. The Power is out there, waiting to work on the right answer to my problem. Thank You, Father, You know the answer. Thank You, Father, that You always say yes. Thank You, Father, that You always move in. Thank You, Father, that You have moved in.”
You must have an attitude of perseverance, a middle course to follow, laid down in the Light in front of you. Obstacles pose challenges to overcome, but are not something to make you stop and listen. You give failure an excuse when you sit down and wait. “I shook out the fold of my garment and said, So may God shake out each man from his house, and from his property, who does not perform this promise. Even thus may he be shaken out and emptied.”–Nehemiah 5:13. So much for the empty and unfulfilled promises. Meet it, beat it (whatever is left), and keep your trap shut. “Lord, don’t let me miss an opportunity today!” When a reaction returns to you, meet it with a wall of Light. “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?”–Matthew 26:53. Create a new star necklace, a glowing star surrounded by tiny sparkling stars—a new idea in all its glorious array.
The Single Vision
Edna Lister outline, January 30, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Hebrews 11:23-29
“By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.”–Hebrews 11:23-29.
To endure, “as seeing Him who is invisible,” is the mystic way, which Moses followed. Thousands seek the invisible but never find it, for it reveals itself only to the earnest enduring one. To endure is “to bear without resistance, or with patience.” As a candidate for ascension, you endure, or suffer gladly all sorts of punishment to become strong.
History abounds with stories of warriors, monks, and saints who punished the body to be brave. You may flinch and quail at the first sign of pain; you think you cannot bear to suffer, experience pain, or nerves. You want to hear only a report you want to believe or can change.
What is your desire? God has given you authority, power, dominion, and a scepter, supreme and glorious. Yet you must accept it and pick it up to use it. You must endure as if you can see the invisible. Spiritual seeing is an apperception beyond physical sight. Apperception is defined as “conscious perception with full awareness.” Spiritual seeing progresses from perception to intuition and apperception.
The world issues a challenge. Do you accept, or not? Nothing can pass you by when you are seeing the invisible. Daniel, seeing the invisible, stepped out of time with the lions’ desire into God’s timing. They were unable to see him. Everything of darkness becomes powerless, helpless in Light, which blinds their eyes, until they cannot see. Are you helpless in the glare?
David sang praises to the Lord constantly: “The Lord is my strength, my high tower, my shield and my buckler.” A phonograph record is old-fashioned. You need cosmic rays to transmit, to voice your prayer. Lift your eyes in high soul vision, and praise, praise, praise during an endurance test. The essence of Light, cast forth, relieves pain, and rebuilds you into steadfast, joyous endurance.
The Temple of the Living God
Edna Lister outline, February 1, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Ice, water, vapor, and steam—all these states of one element are really 100 percent pure Light, and that Light is One God as one Mind, one Substance, and one Power. A temple is an edifice, a structure dedicated to the Living God. Your body is your own personal individualized temple of the Living God.
The Holy Spirit is the Holy Breath, which is really seven degrees of breath as one. Someone said that every seven years, every cell in the body is changed, but the truth is that the body is constantly renewing itself. If every cell is constantly changing, then you’re really exchanging a new body for the old. Consider how beneficially you could affect this change by also changing your emotions, thinking, and pictures of imagination.
Soul dwells in this physical temple, creating life’s expressions, so you must have the right relationships within the temple for balance. For example, the cerebrospinal fluid surrounds the brain and spinal cord to absorb shocks. The brain is further encased in a sturdy skull to protect it.
Muscles, veins and arteries are all protected by the skin. Bones are set into sockets for smoothness of action, and nails protect your fingers and toes. Yet every organ is interdependent. The lungs breathe oxygen, the heart pumps blood, the stomach processes food, the liver helps to break it down into energy, and filters the blood. The kidneys extract the poisons. Thus, by all these actions, all cells are renewed.
The Divine Challenge
Edna Lister outline, February 6, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The path to immortality requires that you take two steps: You must awaken your soul, and you must sacrifice your selfishness—how you think and speak and act. You must awaken to whom you are, what your purpose in life is, and where you are going. So you ask, How shall I attain this?
Your sacrifice is giving up all thoughts of mortality, which has resulted from the doctrine of sin. You are children of the Light, children of the Sun-Son. You have no home in darkness or the pale and lifeless reflection of moonlight.
Regeneration
Edna Lister outline, February 8, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Conscious union is knowing that you know. At the Center of Being is the One God, which is the One Light, One Mind, One Substance, and One Power.
Regeneration is both spiritual and physical, renewal and restoration. Regeneration means to transform, to sublimate, and to breathe deeply as needed, which is always. Regeneration goes hand in hand with resurrection, which is so much more than being raised from the dead. To be resurrected is to know the “real me,” to need no ability except to stand under the Light, to release Power and to speak the Word. This is how you become a transforming station and a mouthpiece of Power for revealing the good.
The body is like a machine that could live forever. It has the capacity for eternal life, yet everyone around you loses their equipment, and you expect to do so also. The physical body’s well-being is dependent on air, water, food, and sunshine. The mental life depends on invisible lights that train the subconscious mind to do such mundane tasks as check for mail, turn off the lights, answer the telephone, etc.
The spiritual life is dependent on principle, and you must know what principle is and how it works. All principles are really laws, and the best laws are those that work effectively and instantly: One of the best laws for improving your spiritual life is, “Wherever you find self, drop it.” Self must disintegrate, it must melt, dissolve and be absorbed into Light until you achieve Christ’s stature. Whenever you call your self belittling names, or another does, remember that even an acorn must grow to become an oak tree.
As all rivers run to the ocean, darkness must succumb to Light. Heat melts ice, even in consciousness. You must return to God, and to do it you must be at the white point of heat. Joy does this for you. Give yourself and the world joy with every word, every thought, and every breath!
Inner Mysteries
Edna Lister outline, February 13, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Luke 8:4-10, Luke 21:29-36
“And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable: A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be? And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.”–Luke 8:4-10.
“And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”–Luke 21:29-36.
In beginning, all was one Gospel. Jesus handed down the one religion to his disciples, when he said, “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”–Luke 8:10. He spoke in simple language to his disciples, but used parables in speaking to the multitudes of people, all of whom were potential disciples. A disciple is one who is submitting to discipline. World religion is about God, but is not God. Christianity is about Jesus, but is not Jesus.
Jesus formed his message around the lost Word, which is love. He talked and taught about our relationship to him and to God, not about his Power or his name. He desired that we experience intimately living with and being with the Father, using Him as the Light-as-Mind, Substance and Power, not thinking about Him. Living is about knowing, and knowing is about doing.
Moses prohibited wrong action, but Jesus affirmed right action. The higher you go, the more others can mistake the Power moving through you as ordinary ego and conceit. Yet you must preach, heal, and speak with authority to release the power necessary for God to use you to heal. St. Paul was grateful to be used, though he had never met Jesus in the flesh. His soul vision of the Master came in a blinding flash of Light and forever after he was most powerful in his preaching when he let Christ speak through him.
As you read Jesus’ message in the Gospels, and his directions in the Epistles, you realize that he taught us how to live when he said, “Follow me.” Read what Paul and the disciples said about Jesus in the Epistles, and think about him in terms of his own words and their descriptions and quotations. “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.”–Luke 21:33. In saying, “My words shall not pass away,” Jesus affirmed the eternal durability of the Word of God. By following Jesus’ Christed pattern, when you are living, working and doing in life, you become filled with more life. When you are using his life, you are finding your life. A disciple is always quickened, thrilled, and divinely tempted by Light.
The Blood of the Lamb
Edna Lister outline, February 15, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Revelation 12:7-11
“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”–Revelation 12:7-11.
The blood of Christ, the blood of the Lamb, represents the Mother light ray of love. The flesh or body of Christ is the Father light ray of wisdom. Blood symbolizes eternal life. Flesh symbolizes incorruptible substance. These are the original power principles of Mind and Substance.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”–Hebrews 11:1. Faith is a principle to which understanding is the key.
God goes on forever, without beginning or end, eternal and infinite. Because of these facts of being, you can never really be lost, nor can you lose God. As the old Indian said, “I not lost. Teepee lost.” You feel lost whenever you are outside your Father’s house, which is in the Light. Whenever you allow Christ to fade from your life, you become fogged, mired and bound until you need healing through the flesh and blood of the Lamb.
Real Christianity
Edna Lister outline, February 20, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Luke 24:44-49, John 15:20-24
“He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.”–Luke 24:44-49.
“Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”–John 15:20-24.
What is real? A boil on the neck, an empty purse, anything you believe in is real to you at that time. What is real is lasting, something immoveable and unchangeable. You are constantly living in conflict between the truth of appearances versus the truth of reality. Christianity is the reality of the Christ principle in practice. Jesus was the first embodied soul who achieved Christed perfection.
A great man’s followers always describe and explain his life, to account for his life in the world, which is what the Gospels and Epistles do for us today. Jesus’ life abounded in glorious experiences. It must have been a marvelous experience to have walked with him by the Sea of Galilee. It is exciting and richly rewarding today to picture it or catch a glimpse.
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”–Luke 24:45-47. To open your understanding means to have the Light penetrate through the crown lotus center and permeate your entire golden bowl with Light. When Jesus opened their understanding by releasing the Light through them, the truth he taught them set the world afire, and it is still flaming today. Then he made them “witnesses of truth.”
“If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin” is an expression of the gospel of Christianity, the gospel of Light. Each of the truly great teachers in all ages, Socrates, Plato, Seneca all taught God as Light. No teaching is new, only the teacher and how he or she presents the truth. Jesus’ newness made an old message vital, gave it new life and new Light. He lived it, and the cross was not the end. He is the way to man’s “hope of glory.” To declare, “In the cross of Christ I glory!” is your final sacrament of daily living, for “ye are offspring of God.”
From Adam to Christ
Edna Lister outline, February 22, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Adam was the first man, and is the generic name given to the first appearance on earth of the creator gods dwelling as men in a body. We, the Adamic race are reigned over by the Christ Power in the Garden of Eden, which represents Christ consciousness. The Fall was really Adam’s belief in God and anything, the false idea that here are two powers at work in God—good and evil, Light and darkness.
Man really is Spirit. God forms an Adamic consciousness into which He breathes the Breath of Life. You, the living soul, animate, or share power-as-life with the physical Adamic part of you.
The Christ idea is One with God. It’s time to turn again to your original estate, which is being at one with God. Transgression against God’s laws creates the original sin, the sense of separation from God. Jesus crucified self and became the Christ; he was resurrected as the Christ. This really describes how you regain the Garden of Eden, the paradise Garden of God.
When you give up enough self to regain the real Christ mind and live the Christ life, the joy wells up in you is too glorious, too great for mere words. It grows into a “star of destiny,” which confers the ability to produce anything. God’s life as a unit is all in one, one in all. Dependence on other folks to do this for you is like taking hypodermic injections that start and stop. God goes on and on forever. Travel with Him in Christed power as independence, liberty, and know the freedom of the spheres.
Resurrection
Edna Lister outline, February 27, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Luke 20:34-38
“The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him.”–Luke 20:34-38.
Resurrection is defined as “revival from disuse, inactivity or decay; restoration to vogue or memory.” It also means the “rising again of humanity at the last day,” thus dealing with the kingdom of heaven. Superstition and dogma have gone far in trying to make a hollow mockery of Jesus and the Gospels. Yet in colleges and schools here and abroad, some young people are still eager, thirsty and needy for truth.
When you are “raised up” in the crucifixion of self, you see life differently, and think and talk differently, being filled with new power and strength. The cross, as a symbol, impresses the world as proof that death does not exist for the soul. The one sin you are likely to commit is denial of your own Christed potential. You put everyone else in the kingdom, but leave yourself out. The opposite of this is hurting someone, without understanding that it is like nailing Christ to the cross.
We are the “children of the resurrection,” all raised up in glory. Jesus did demonstrate the truth of his own words. His is our Savior, our Messiah. Every place, everything and everyone can express his glory. As a deathless being, you must be bold, not cringe or falter. You must not care about the world’s opinion of you. You cannot afford to, because only truth is all-important.
Jesus said, “I came down from the Father of Light.” John, the beloved, said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”–John 1:1. Resurrect the Word, and raise it up again. James was Jesus’ brother, born of the same mother. He did not know Jesus was destined to be the Messiah, yet he understood Jesus’ message. Mary, his mother, knew his mission, but never fully understood him until after the Cross, when she realized that he was more than a man.
What happened after Jesus’ Ascension was even greater. His disciples and apostles went forth boldly, fearless, and filled with zeal. His spirit lifted them up as the cross had exalted him into his full Christing.
The Song of the Lamb
Edna Lister outline, March 1, 6, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Revelation 5
“The Fall of Man” marked the separation of spirit, soul and body in mankind. People think that they are bodies walking around, taking care of the body, seeking its pleasure, giving it the thought and attention due the soul. Yet you cannot offer diet or exercise as a substitute for living the Christ life. People are always pandering to the idea of the soul, always talking about the state of their soul, telling others about their soul, and examining it in public before friends. They may center their attention on how bad or how good their soul is, but all that talk is nothing more than pride. Yet these same people are all souls, embodied for an incarnation.
What is the purpose of an earth life? How does the process work? In the beginning, we all built bodies as vehicles to gain and refine greater consciousness. We used the experience we gained in our embodied lives to build up a personal ego, an identity separate from others. Ideally, each life should be for gaining experience, some of which you need only once. However, no matter how long it takes, you must learn each lesson. So learning is why you are here. All you need to do to know this is to pinch yourself.
“And they sang a new song, saying: You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”–Revelation 5:9-10. The Lamb is the Begotten Son of God, the ascended Jesus the Christ, whom we follow, love and adore. When you sing the new song of the Lamb, you sing of your own soul travail and victory.
To understand the Song of the Lamb, you must first consider remission, forgiveness, and compassion. Remission means “to remit, to take away.” What do you want to remit? Ideally, self and sins. How do you remit your sins? Through forgiveness, which means to “give for.” Forgiveness for self? Forgiveness for the world? Your forgiveness can be selfish or selfless.
What is compassion? What is the Song of the Lamb? It is the Song of the Redeemed, those who have redeemed themselves from a sense of separation into an awareness of God. You have a choice: Will you be merely human or a creator god together with your Father? When you compare yourself with other people, it is easy to look better. When you compare yourself with God, you don’t look so good.
The blood of the Lamb helps to purify the soul. The Song of the Lamb makes you one with God, as you breathe of the heavenly essence and partake of the heavenly manna. Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”–John 10:34. You must practice the high watch and remain obedient to the high call to live in the white Light of Christed compassion.
Law and Order
Edna Lister outline, March 8, 1935, Buffalo, NY, James 4:6-10
“God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”–James 4:6-10.
The subjects of law and order deal specifically with relationships. The kingdom of heaven is harmony in, with and among all on earth, visible and invisible. You can see this illustrated in practice by the interrelationship of your city, state, and federal governments.
If you lack relationship among the five phases or categories of expression in life—psychology, metaphysics, science, philosophy, and mysticism—only confusion can result, not mental clarity. You also have five personal phases of expression, called Spirit, mind, soul, body, and affairs. Further, you have the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and feeling, or touch. All must dovetail one into another for comfort, harmony, and peace. Submit yourself unto God, with no compromise. You can offer no substitute for, or experience happiness, peace, joy or contentment beyond this surrender ever.
Every department of your being must be perfect, whether it is the soul-psychic, the mind-mental, or the body-material. You must walk earth as one in every department; otherwise, you experience only chaos, not order. Declare, “I obey the law of my spirit. I obey the law of my being. I obey the law of my soul.” These are the highest ideals possible to man. God establishes law and order on earth through your obedience, your ideals, and your service.
Willingness
Edna Lister outline, March 13, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Psalm 37:3-6
“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord: and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.”–Psalm 37:3-6.
Wisdom, Love, and the Logos of selflessness, the greatest of the absolute abstract principles, are also supreme as Mind, Substance and Power. Thus, Wisdom operates as will, whether it is the will of God or the will of man. The will of God must be and always is perfect. The will of man may be perfect or imperfect.
The worldly definitions of man’s will, best expressed as willingness, often seem to be conflicting, but really are not. For example, you may define willingness as surrender of your personal will to the will of the Supreme, or as the practice of abject meekness, which is very humble and self-abasing.
Abandonment is surrender, giving up the self to be filled with Light, giving up your personal life to obey God’s marching orders, laying self aside as an empty vessel. “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass.”–Psalm 37:5. The practice of abject meekness is one of yielding toward God. Meekness is soft and putty-like in the hands of God, who, meekness knows, must be greater.
In truth, you have only one adversary, the self, though you imagine it is God or some devil. You push against His Power, yet it permits no fooling around or playing with it. You may practice letting the Power use you to see and hear spiritually. For example, imagine being held suspended within a sphere of brilliantly shining Light. Does the Light continue entering your body because of your will? No, the Light permeates and penetrates your body and soul because of your obedience to law.
“Submit and I will instruct thee. I will teach thee. I will show thee great and mighty things.”–Jeremiah 33:3. With a singing heart, singing life, singing joy, and glory, you shall see the face of God.
The Second Coming
Edna Lister outline, March 15, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Matthew 24:27-42
“For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.”–Matthew 24:27-42.
The first coming of Christ was in person, as Jesus, who was already a teacher at age twelve. (Unfold the life of the boy.) Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem annually for the feast of the Passover. When he was twelve, they went to Jerusalem as usual, but when they left, thinking he was with their party, Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing.
They missed him at day’s end and turned back to Jerusalem, seeking him. After three days they found him in the temple with the doctors of law, listening and asking questions. Everyone was astonished at his understanding and answers. His mother said, Son, why did you do this? Your father and I have looked for you, fearing something had happened to you. Jesus said, Why did you seek me? Don’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business?
The second coming of Christ will be heralded by lightning coming forth from the east, from the rising sun, from east to west. At the second coming of the Son of Man, Christ will be in the minds and hearts of everyone. “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.”–Matthew 24:42. Watch. Ponder what guise he will take. Consider this in all the tests, temptations and initiations you face.
Easter is a time of great advancement and confirmation. During Holy Week, you are open to greater inspiration, revelation, and illumination. You must awaken and arise, for desire bursts forth in flame and glory. Power is released. Whatever originates in the deathless soul can be done. What you may not do, cannot afford to do is to commit blasphemy against your inner soul, which self blackmails into paralysis. Your affirmations must give outer consent to the nature of what your real being is.
Vicarious Atonement
Edna Lister outline, March 20, 1935, Buffalo, NY, 1 Peter 2:21-24
“For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”–1 Peter 2:21-24.
Vicarious atonement
A mediator is an intervener, a messenger or an agent, one who mediates between God and man, a seer and prophet who has soul knowing, whose obedience to spiritual law refines subconscious and conscious mind to open super-conscious faculties. Jesus was a mediator; he embodied what we must become.
First you must have absolute command over the self of appetitive soul, then, if you surrender all self to become the servant of all Light-as-Power, you may be granted command over the degree of Power suitable to God’s requirements. You must also be aware of your divinity, and aware of God’s Power. Then, you must give up self to be used by that Power.
A mediator must also offer propitiation and sacrifice for sin, and as such must be pure and innocent. Every lifting, every advance, any upward growth must have someone to see it, to recognize the need for it and to make sacrifice to obtain it. Abraham, for example, made such an advance in faith that faith became the path back to God for all time. Jesus made such advance in achievement that his sacrifice has set the standard for all time. Like him, you must find your authority, your divinity of soul.
You know that you can train your physical muscles. In the same way, by regular exercise, you must learn to train the thoughts of your mind and practice being aware of the presence of Christ. By abandoning your self-centered will, by lending your self in surrender and sacrifice, you attain the stature of a creator god. You may rise up, filled with the Light as Power, willing to be or do whatever is required. You are now living in a redeemed world that is majestic, splendid, powerful and divine. So soar like an eagle in glory and freedom.
Our Father says, “All that I have is thine.” The Master said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”–John 14:12. When you finally do the greater works, there will be no more illness to heal, just more Light for you to manifest.
Your Standard of Action
Edna Lister outline, March 22, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Matthew 7:7-12
What is the Golden Rule? Why do you need it? What does it mean? The Golden Rule is so written that it deals with selfish personal interest, or selfless impersonal interest. The Golden Rule for the Christed Golden Age is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Do unto others refers to actions between men. A standard is a measure of action, a degree of excellence required for some particular purpose. Living by the Golden Rule will invariably lead you back to Light.
All rules are formulas for applying laws in specific sets of circumstances. The world confuses rules and laws, using them merely to curb human passions and conduct, to keep them under control. However, the law that Jesus taught, condensed into the Golden Rule, requires you to conquer self, to become law, and to do as this Christ principle dictates.
Any standard of action always has two phases: The giving is the action, and the receiving is the reaction. In living by the Golden Rule, your action is the giving of love, of faith or of joy, and it will automatically create expansion, leading you and others toward the Light. Anything less than the nonresistance of the Christ mind creates contraction, which blocks you and others from reaching greater Light.
Naming as a Principle
Edna Lister outline, March 29, 1935, Buffalo, NY
God is He who is, He who was, He who will be manifest. The self-existent One, He who is eternal is the “I am that I am.” “He” changes to “I”: “I am, I was, I will be” because “I am, I was and I will be” result from the Power to be eternally “I."
The name “Jehovah” represents both male and female principles. “JHVH” is manifest as the Christ principle. “Lord” is the metaphysical I AM, and Jehovah is made manifest in the words following after “I AM,” which are peace, plenty, and a high standard.
Give consent to perfection and you give consent to Power, life, and Light. A seed germinates in darkness. Lent is the time of darkness in which the seed of compassion germinates within the soul. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”–Matthew 5:48.
Your Relation to Divinity
Edna Lister outline, April 3, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Luke 24:49, John 14:25-27, 17:6-8
The life of Jesus and his expression of being at one with the Father is the key to your relationship with God. “Tarry ye,” he told his disciples, “calling upon my name, until ye be endued with power from on high.” In another place, he said, “The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”–John 14:26.
Christ is both your Comforter and your Redeemer. John, who wrote the Book of the Revelation of Jesus the Christ, spoke of a book that no one was found worthy to open. No one was persistent enough to do so.
Goodness comes through persistence, through continued asking, seeking and knocking. Jesus wanted his disciples to know that he had given them all that the Father had given him. He left us his message to carry on. If you use the inward eye, the vision of soul, you can part the veil and behold the glory.
The Word of God
Edna Lister outline, April 5, 1935, Buffalo, NY, John 1:1-5
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”–John 1:1-5.
God desired to create a universe and thought His plan into being. Then He spoke the Word, which went forth as an expression of Himself. That Word became law, the framework of the universe. Your Word is your personal law, according to the degree and kind of appetitive soul you retain. Soul, giving perfect service in willingness, surrender, and yielding, is the instrument to be used by law, which is God’s Light as Wisdom using Power.
Despite any relative temporal changes, law does and always will continue functioning as the absolute framework of reality, which is God. Law is the immovable, unchangeable reality that underlies the appearance of things.
Your Relation to Others
Edna Lister outline, April 10, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The Fall of Man was his separation from a realm of greater Light to a realm of relative shadowy darkness, which included the loss of soul vision and the light of understanding. Man’s original sin was believing that it was possible to be separated from God in any way but our own personal awareness of His presence. Thus we fell into the truth of appearances, where we have worshiped false gods ever since.
In the realm of Light, in the high courts of heaven, we, the creator gods, never fell. As we, the embodied portions of our own Oversouls, are busy gaining experience, choosing and learning our intended lessons, the great ones that we are parts of are becoming, doing and being in the radiance of Light. Behold, the glory of God present in man!
With the coming of Jesus, who became and is the Christ, God gave us the opportunity to know Him through His Son and to heed His call to come Home by becoming like unto the Son. Thus, you are now the freeborn one, given authority, dominion and power through the absolute laying down of your self in sacrifice to serve as the instrument of God’s divine will. In doing so, you fulfill God’s desire for you, to be Christed in heart, mind and soul.
We all participate in the Tree of Life as its many branches, leaves, and buds, converting Light into all its myriad forms. Life itself is a fellowship, sharing the endless bounties of earth, sunshine, and rain with all creatures of different forms, those as yet unable to speak the Word. God made us great enough to tend His world as caretakers, gardeners, guardians and shepherds. We share God’s Life with all its forms, from blades of grass to mighty elephants, from those that have feathers and wings to those with fur and fangs.
God is so good to us—He always has been and always will be our Father. We are His children who played in the garden all day until we grew so tired; then He put us to sleep as the earth below put forth it arms to embrace and sustain us while we grew. And how we have grown, so many of us, strong and tall, able to stand in the Light and reach up to our Father, offering to do His will. And he sends us forth now to speak the Word for him to call together all the tribes, clans and nations of earth as our Master taught us to do. Our time has come—those who have chosen God as the better part have been chosen by Him in turn. He has elected us to work for Him and with Him as we work hitherto.
The Sacredness of All Life
Edna Lister outline, April 12, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Matthew 15:11-20
Light is life, which is God as all Mind, Substance, and Power in the universe. Light fills the universe with near infinite degrees of Light. Physicists such as Albert Einstein and James Jeans have proposed this idea [quantum theory]. Forms are God’s Ideas, which He encases and enfolds within Light. If one form is destroyed, it frees that embodied Light as life to manifest in a higher form. The life sparks of Light are in all, through all, and as all possible forms.
All misuse of God’s Power originates in wrong ideas based on separation, beginning with the idea that man was separated after the “Fall of Man.” Thus, the idea of “original sin” arises from a false belief. How does this apply in life today? For example, a young man, who was a vegetarian, refused to take over his father’s hunting and fishing equipment business, as his father had planned, because it consisted of selling instruments of death.
I counseled him to do as his parents had planned, declaring that all life forms must be disintegrated to reappear in a higher form, since, of course you cannot take the life substance, per se, from anything. The young man saw the light, and took over the family business, to his parents’ great delight. He prayerfully treated every gun and rod displayed and sold. Eventually, he developed as a great influence for good.
“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.”–Matthew 15:11. Heavy food creates heavy thoughts. Overeating indulges over emotionalism. Stop eating before you are full. Breathing the Holy Breath feeds you the life of God as Love divine, and releases Power through you. A lack of expression in giving, or killing desire, which is a facet of love, is much worse than killing animals for food.
You always meet an angel with a flaming sword on the stairway to glory. He will send you back if you need to awaken the love faculty, which means selfless giving. You must give of your self in complete sacrifice, to be used by God’s Power. If you exert your will in any way, you will exert it in every way. When you give love, everything lives. Praise and glorify God until all that you need is given and appears!
The Durability of Spirit
Edna Lister outline, April 17, 1935, Buffalo, NY
All life is a preparation for one goal—Resurrection, Ascension and its glories. You must experience Resurrection before you can ascend. All other approaches to life are just substitutes and leave a lack, a void, a bottomless pit until you finally crawl out and begin to climb. Living life that way is counterfeit.
A counterfeit coin press machine is made in the image and likeness of a real U.S. Mint coin press, operates on the same principles, but is a fake and produces only more fakes. All man-made things eventually wear out and lose their value; they are finite and temporary. God’s supernal Light, life, and souls cannot be faked, for they are born of the eternal absolute extending itself into manifestation in time and space.
Will our great civilization again go down?
Signs Along the Way
Edna Lister outline, May 3, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Exodus 20:3-17, Ephesians 6:1-4, 6
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.”–Exodus 20:3-17.
1. You shall have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.
2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image…you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. To take the name in vain is blasphemy, the unforgivable sin.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord...Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.”–Ephesians 6:1-4, 6.
6. You shall not murder, which includes others’ faith in themselves, in God, in love, in hope; do not encourage hopelessness or discouragement.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal time or others’ belongings, such as faith, or reputation.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, which includes lies, deceit, misinterpretations of truth, and so on.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.
These laws are sign posts on the Way. As you travel peacefully through the garden of life, clothed in the simple white of your spiritual baptism, you are thankful for the light of day, your Christian training, and the soothing shadows of night, your eternal understanding.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”–John 3:16. Your love of God the Father, who gave His Only Begotten son that whosoever believe on him shall have life everlasting, is the love of God only.
In the Master’s Footsteps
Edna Lister outline, May 10, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Truth is released anew from Divine Mind in every age. Correspondingly, some truth is given through every teacher in the degree to which he or she is able to access the mind that was in Christ Jesus. Today we shall review what six of the most recent teachers have taught regarding the conquering of self, as in being self-centered. In this age we must relate all these branches of truth together as limbs of one tree.
Zoroaster (Zarathustra 628-551 BC), a Persian, founded a monotheistic religion whose one god was Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom; its written text was the Zend Avesta, which taught the power of Light through fire worship, and the perfection of the soul through purification by the divine fire of praise, which he taught burns out the dross of self. Worshipers cast their soul’s imperfections into pillars of fire and shafts of light as they praised Ahura Mazda.
Confucius (K’ung-fu-tzu 551-479 BC) was China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, whose ideas have profoundly influenced the civilizations of all Asian countries. Fu-tzu means “master.” He taught that to teach is “to impart light, to guide and entice students forward and higher so that even when they are tired and dispirited, even when they want to give up, they cannot” (Analects, 7).
Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BC) was better known as the “Buddha,” which means “Awakened One.” He was a Hindu prince who renounced his position and wealth to seek enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic. He came to lift the desire for wealth. He sought in silence, which was, he discovered, a form of selfishness. He was a beggar, but spent the better part of his life giving, giving, giving. Buddha is best known for the Four Noble Truths and his Eightfold Path to non-attachment.
Socrates (470-399 BC) invented and taught using elenchus or dialectic, the “Socratic method” of logical refutation; an argument that refutes another argument by proving the contrary of its conclusion. Socrates posed as being ignorant, asking questions in order to to teach another by leading him to the point Socrates wished him to see. Whenever a person really has to work to bring an answer through the veil that covers his soul’s memory, he retains it forever consciously. The use of dialectic leads to self-mastery and greater personal development.
Plato (428-348 BC) was the son of an ancient aristocratic house, a student of Socrates from his youth, and author of at least 27 dialogues and 13 letters, all of which have survived to the present. Plato’s formulation of Idealism—the One as the Good, which is the true (as in all truth), and which is beautiful—was the highest development of Greek philosophy. The Good of the One is found in the Ideas of God, which become clothed in Light as Forms for expression in the material world. From Idealism arises the concept of Platonic love as spiritual love, which is freedom from the bondage implicit within personal selfish love. To elevate love from the merely physical elevates desire, not stifling or seeking to control love’s desire, but ascending it to the spiritual, the Godlike. Plato’s works set the stage for the next and greatest of the avatars, our Messiah:
Jesus of Nazareth (6-4 BC–30-33 AD) was born to become the Savior of mankind, and he did so as he preached his Father’s message of “Love ye one another” and “Love fulfills the Law.” Jesus brought the Triunity of God to earth to provice us with a solid foundation in principle:
△ Morality Equality |
△ Justice Religion |
△ Simplicity Sincerity |
Graciousness, meekness, humility, patience, fellowship with Holy Ghost, Love God—the Son, Peace, contentment, happiness, service, and love. World without end. The graciousness, lovliness, tenderness mercy compassion love
Prayer, the Broad Highway
Edna Lister outline, May 15, 1935, Buffalo, NY, 2 Corinthians 3:14, Galatians 3:23-24, Jeremiah 23:36
“But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.”–2 Corinthians 3:14.
“And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man's word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.”–Jeremiah 23:36
“Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”–Galatians 3:23-24
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, its aspiration voiced.
Acceptance is also implied in the principle of nonresistance, which encompasses Christ’s Crucifixion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. God’s perfect power, life, and strength are all yours to use when you have done away with the old. Prayer is intimate communion with God. Communion implies a two-way circuit, sending and receiving, receiving and sending. You both give and receive during your prayer communion.
Words are first ideas and thoughts, which you must work to interpret in the present as words. Thought is the medium between the idea and the Word. Your thoughts must partake of the truth of reality, which includes the realization and recognition of the Eternal. Develop the habit of right thinking, and using the right words. When you develop the habit of right thinking, you will always speak the right words. “Every man’s word shall be his burden.”–Jeremiah 23:36, so make your words as buoyant as a balloon.
Prayer can move or remove mountains when you faithfully fast from habits of negative thinking and using idle words. Opinions distort vision, like looking through dirty glasses. Faith cleanses the lens of your perception into perfection.
Prayer is like traveling a broad highway from a city to a distant walled estate with a vineyard. This estate represents your heavenly workroom for prayer. The wall surrounding it symbolizes omnipresence, which you maintain in good repair through God consciousness and prayer.
As you draw closer, you see that what appeared as picture perfect from a distance is not so lovely. Although the vineyard is filled with weeds, brambles and nettles, the vines are still there. It takes hard work an plenty of sweat, but you can dig out the weeds.
Earth life is a broad highway to a vineyard, which you have planted and kept. If you forget to maintain your vineyard, you settle down at the side of the road and stagnate, leaving your vineyard unprotected. “Ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
The majesty on high.
Prayer is the contrite sinner’s voice
Returning from his ways,
While angels in their songs rejoice,
And cry: "Behold, he prays!"
Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,
The Christian’s native air,
Our watchword at the gate of death;
We enter heaven with prayer.
O thou by whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the Way!
The path of prayer thyself hast trod:
Lord, teach us how to pray!
–James Montgomery
How to Pray
Edna Lister outline, May 16, 1935, Buffalo, NY. Luke 6:38
“Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”–Luke 6:38.
Prayer is a state of being, of communion and devotion, the intelligent desire to communicate with our Father-Mother God. You pray with treatments, both asking and receiving. You receive from God after you have praised Him to express your thankfulness and gratitude. You can offer prayer and give treatments while you are sitting, standing or lying down by releasing Power and lifting, but remember to lift your hands to God when you ask.
Why do I need to pray at all? The law is, “Give and you shall receive.” If no current stirs the water, it becomes stagnant. A becalmed ship is worthless. Souls who allow themselves to become becalmed are worthless to themselves and to the world.
When a ship spreads its sails, it slips through the water swiftly and smoothly. If even one sail is unfurled or missing, the ship drifts off-course. When you spread the wrong sails, life’s winds toss your ship around. This illlustrates why it’s a long, hard path up to Calvary and the crucifixion of the self. Each soul must travel over the Seven Degrees to attain the Messiah’s mantle, the emblem of the highest self-mastery.
A ship’s captain knows every sail and what it will do. You have three sets of foundation sails on each side to balance your faithfulness and steadfastness, your hope and patience, your gracious giving and receiving. Your heart sails include purity and sacrifice, desires and compassion, meekness and courage. The imagination sails are pictures and tolerance, justice and right, truth and appreciation.
Pray your way to receiving the Messiah’s mantle. Love is your top sail, the highway to entering the Seven Degrees: Neophyte, Disciple, Adept, Mystic, Master, Priest, and Christos. A Messiah is the one Disciple chosen to give a new added message to the world. Obedience to laws, keeping your vows of silence, developing and expressing the virtues all lead to mastery.
Devotion: The Bridge Builder
Edna Lister outline, May 22, 1935, Buffalo, NY
We build bridges to span a chasm, a river, swamp, always some otherwise impassable obstacle. To bridge the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon they first used a ferry, then built three different kinds of bridges. First was an old-fashioned drawbridge. Next was a jackknife design that opened one span upward to fold so ships could pass. Finally, they built the multi-level Broadway bridge, towering skyward, with trains running underneath. Streetcars, buses, autos, and pedestrians could all use it.
The vision for a bridge includes the plans for its construction, the sinking of piers, patterns for its form, and all parts of creating it. It’s finished when people are using it, but is it ever finished? No, it’s not.
A bridge is subject to excess weight from paving. A river corrodes, eats, and rots the metal, producing rust in all parts of the bridge body and cables. Maintaining a bridge is a constant process of scraping, applying red lead, and repainting to keep it strong and beautiful. A bridge is a project involving continuous work.
A river symbolizes the worlds’ desires flowing. A swamp represents intolerance, criticism, etc. Quicksand is a metaphor for personal self-worship, and self-pity. A chasm symbolizes a cold lack of belief in love.
Devotion is fervor, ardent and enthusiastic. Devotion, poured out as praise and gratitude, bridges the abyss to God. We are triumphant and victorious in its completion, but like any work in progress we must rebuild our bridge daily to reap the rewards.
Devotion: What is It?
Edna Lister outline, May 24, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Devotion is the act of devoting one’s self to divinity in loyalty and constant prayer. Devotion is an act of worship, the surrender of the soul’s self to Light, to life, and to Power.
The way to Wisdom’s Well is a path through the burning sands of the desert. There, in the shade of tall date palms, you may dip into cool water, the storehouse of Mind, Substance and Power, of Wisdom, Love and Selflessness. Wisdom’s Well is the source of the living waters of eternal life.
Maintaining Perfect Poise
Edna Lister outline, June 5, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Poise is a state of balance; equipoise; equilibrium; hence, equanimity
; metaphysically, a combination of love, tranquility, peace, serenity, and power acting as one. Poise is a dynamic state of being that requires a constant influx of power to maintain equilibrium.
Our Sun is a power generator and a pump. Metaphorically speaking, invisible cogs of force within the sun’s core mesh various sets of gears to generate and send rays of light as radiant energy from the sun’s corona to every planet in the solar system. Each ray has many “lesser lights,” which propel it. This describes a perfectly integrated system. If you throw sand in the gears of any system, the system falls out of harmony, and is no longer able to operate as designed and intended.
Maintaining your personal physical or spiritual poise requires insistence, persistence, and determination. In effect, you must personally play all the roles of a baseball team: 1. pitcher, 2. catcher, 3. first baseman, 4. second baseman, 5. third baseman, 6. shortstop, 7. left fielder, 8. center fielder, and 9. right fielder.
As a perfect pitcher, you must be a self-starter. The perfect catcher practices acceptance in the now as standing and holding your ground, yet being able to move in any direction instantly. To meet the needs of the first, second, and third baseman, you must remain firmly resolute in the face of opposition, loyal in holding to your axis of balance, and be integrity in action.
As a shortstop, you absolutely must avoid the pitfall of rivalry, which directs your attention away from the goal. As an outfielder you cover left, center and right field, having no need of personal popularity, but knowing that poise is your soul’s last chance for equilibrium, harmony, and balance.
The Temple of the Soul
Edna Lister outline, June 19, 1935, Buffalo, NY
A temple is a sanctified structure, a holy place dedicated to the living God. Every individual soul is a symbolic temple of the living God. All souls belong to God, who made them, and are equal in His sight only in terms of their origin and potential to do and to become. The soul itself dictates what its potential to do and become shall be by exercising its freedom to choose.
The temple of the soul, not being built by the hands of a man, is nonmaterial and cannot be marred or hurt. It is perfect in its eternal form. Each of us began as an unconscious individual manifestation of God, who must become a conscious individual manifestation. You can add only experience and the resulting greater consciousness to your soul, and you take that consciousness back home to God as greater strength of character.
Life itself is unlimited; no limitations have or can be imposed on it. You cannot force or make the life within you do anything. Mind has perfect freedom of choice as to desire, yet mind can only allow or deny. Every soul may choose its own life’s expression. Mind determines whether it remains true to its life’s expression or not.
You can choose to abuse your own life, but not another’s. If you choose to abuse soul you lose mind, identity, and life. The soul is God’s own. An earth life is the outer continuity of a temprary expression, but the soul is forever.
From Orthodoxy to Mysticism
Edna Lister outline, International New Thought Alliance 22nd Congress, August 1935, Cincinnati, OH
The “Christ within” offers us no Source of Power, which must come from the Heart Center of All Being. Revelations are given in every age, and while some are accepted, others are rejected. Still, the revelations continue.
Jesus spoke to people in veiled parables, to discover how far along the path to the mysteries they had progressed. You have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear,” knowing they are mysteries, but what are they? How do you find the answers? Are you afraid to know? Why shouldn’t you know where you come from? Why shouldn’t you know where “there” is?
Everyone builds a reputation, which is the world’s gift, bestowed in the world and by the world. Character is God’s gift, God-given but yours to increase. You receive the results of reputation and character, based on your own efforts. Finally, you reach a crossroads of choice between a road to the left and one to the right. How can you be sure to choose the right road to glory? If you track the Light, you’re always on the lookout for the glory.
Psalm 23 tells us that a table is prepared for us in the midst of our enemies. This is a table of mysteries. What do we find on that table? The fruits of our life’s earnings. How does your table look to you?
We come from Light, and we must sacrifice the worldly self to regain our divine heritage. The Master is always appearing to us. We are always being given opportunities to invite him in and entertain him. Are you inviting him to approach? Are you aboard the train of Light with him?
We are always being tested to determine whether we are ready to depart from the world to gain the glory of the kingdom. Remain close to him. Leave tonight for “over there” in soul flight. Are you ready? Do you like your mesh of Light? Would you rather do a bit more work to perfect it?
The greatest inner mystery is your soul, and your contact with God. The Father has all the answers regarding the inner mysteries and your relationship to the One who reveals all things.
Parents and Children
Edna Lister outline, August 4, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Exodus 20:12, Ephesians 6:4, Luke 2:40-52
“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”–Exodus 20:12.
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”–Ephesians 6:4.
“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”–Luke 2:40-52.
These texts deal with the relationship between parents and children, and the relationship between God and men. The Ten Commandments provide ten crosses on which you may crucify self. Yet, you could fashion a ladder from them to reach the kingdom of God.
You come to earth to express your soul talents and to live in obedience to law as a child, as the Master did. Jesus, during the “lost years,” was trained and underwent temptation and trials in the denial and sacrifice of self, until he became selfless in his sacrificial service. He is still saying, “Come unto me all you who are weary, heavy laden. I will give you rest.”
Freedom is more than a license to do as you will and as you wish. True soul freedom arises from joy. Invoke the Power, the white Light of Christ from the Heart of Being. Become an ambassador in bonds to the Christ Light.
The Great Divide
Edna Lister outline, August 8, 1935, Buffalo, NY
We conquer mountain ranges with tunnels through them, bridges over chasms between them, and roads around their peaks. Mountain roads are often slippery, climbing a steep grade, and sometimes you have to hang onto the edge until you “overcome.”
The only real shortcut in the material world is selfless sacrificial service for God among our fellow men. The world does not understand selfless service at all, serving only where it benefits the self, and it defines sacrifice as mere charity. Selfish service wants its way smoothed by its reputation, not its character.
Moses came and through him God gave man the Ten Commandments. Jesus came with the message that love is the law paramount over all, saying, “Come unto me.” Let him who is perfect cross the Abyss from Becoming to Being.
How Law Works
Edna Lister outline, August 10, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Fundamental principles include the Wisdom to plan, the Love necessary to sustain the plan to its fulfilllment, and the Selflessness to create a universal pattern. These three principles also form the cyclic law of action and reaction.
We mark the periods of the Sun’s course, and the courses of the planets by the day, week, month, and year. These cycles work in your life, too. When you create some darkness of word or deed in one place, it’s as though you’ve dug a ditch there. When you return to that ditch of darkness in consciousness you fall in.
Your desire is made up of all the wrong emotions you’ve permitted as well as the good; it’s the same with your thinking and imagination: all your negative ideas and thoughts, your idle words, and dark imaginings follow you through life. The hatreds, criticism and black moods all return to their senders. If you dig a ditch, you fall in. The story of Job illustrates this idea perfectly.
Depending on how it’s watered, a field of grain may include ripe stalks, partly ripe, green and very green wheat. Rust will decay the crop to uselessness. The master of the grain field turns on just enough moisture to attain a perfectly ripe field. The sun begins to warm it, becomes warmer and finally hot.
God’s field of grain contains all these types. Mankind naturally divides itself into types similar in their kinds and degrees. Like a field of grain, some are eager, others lukewarm, indifferent and some are hate-filled and cursing. We’re all in the same field, receiving the same moisture, having the same ability to unfold. What is your personal reaction to a situation? How do you take it? How do you handle it, and what do you do about it?
The Heart of God
Edna Lister outline, August 22, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The Heart of God, the Source of Light, is the chalice of love and charity which flows from the Heart of God in a never-ending universal circle. Life has no beginning or ending. The circle of unity of purpose is sent forth, and drawn back by the love of its being.
A chalice is a cup such as the one in which the wine is given in the celebration of the Lord’s supper. A chalice can also be a cup-shaped globe for diffusing light. With what do you fill your own chalice? With love, compassion, and charity?
Charity is a combination of the Love and Wisdom expressed through an embodied soul. Charity springs from the soul’s surender in obedience to God. Melchizedek, the King of Righteousness of old, was both Father and Mother. The truth of God’s mothering Love arises again within the heart of the soul, triumphant, splendid, and glorious.
Mind, Idea, Thinking, Form
Edna Lister outline, September 11, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The first step in unfolding the working of mind in man is becoming aware that thought produces all form both within in your body and in the world. The second step is discovering your medium of control over your mind, its thoughts, and the thinking process itself. The third step is understanding that no form can exist without a corresponding mental structure—the mental structure must be built first.
Thought is the medium between an Idea and its outer manifestation as form. Individual thought is the composite of how the people of a particular culture have lived and died. The product of every thought either agrees to or denies something.
A word is a group of thought impressions. A sentence is a group of thoughts expressed in words, as symbols. You extend thought through words with outer expressions. All life is made up of a series of thinking in affirmation and denial. Everything you say infers the opposite. Thought is intelligent acceptance of the desirable and intelligent rejection of the undesirable.
First, you must be able to pay attention, then to sustain attention. An affirmation’s only worth is as an extension of your attention. You cannot control your mind by affirmation from the outside. Soul is the underlying architectural design in God’s Mind, an Idea. Affirmations must be based on the truth of some particular underlying basic principle. Principle: Illustration in home building, throw out the inferior materials.
Second phase: Power of selection. When you are overly selective, desire is killed, or frozen out. If you are under-selective, the soul is crowded, squeezed out. Most of us are more selective about home and business than we are about the body. Mind is cluttered with rubbish. When we succumb to emotional jags, we have allowed ourselves to become the dumping ground for others’ thoughts.
Selective attitudes create habitual denials: “I don’t believe in goblins” feeds the goblin idea; a denial is a refusal to accept stopping the habit. The only wise use of denial must be a perfect forgetting. Denials coat thought with emotional reaction, and cultivate the thing denied. All denial is just one thing. “Whatever it is, don’t do it.” “Get thee behind me Satan.” Out of range of vision. Out of mind.
Heaven is all negative consumed. Hell is being consumed by the thing. The creative process consumes all negative things. Everything not sustained by the creative process consumes itself. Matter is the result of energy directed. Reject false ideas, and they cannot appropriate matter. Earth matter does not need to be spiritualized, only my own idea of matter needs spiritualizing. My temple will remain undefiled when I sustain my attention on the Divine Plan idea, and make a wise selection.
Only effective denial, putting behind old life, forgetting, blotting out. “Get thee behind me Satan.” Out of range, out of sight. Jesus illustrated perfect denial when he said, “of myself, I can do nothing. The Father in me, He does all things,” which is an expression of complete surrender to be used by Power.
A Philosophy of Numbers
Edna Lister outline, September 25, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Philosophy deals with the study of wisdom. Science deals with the application of philosophy to life. Arithmology is the science of numbers.
What can we do without the use of numbers? Very little. All numbers proceed in sequence from One: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
To transform letters into numbers use this table of numerical assignment:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Add numbers together for philosophy of numbers: For example, you may reduce a date in this way: September 25, 1935 becomes 9 + 25 +1935 = 1969 = 1 + 9 + 6 + 9 = 25 = 2 + 5 = 7. Thus, the date September 25, 1935 has a numerical value of seven (7).
The symbolic meaning of the numbers 1 through 9:
1 = man standing upright before God
2 = agreeing with God and adjusting with the physical world
3 = the first creative trinity
4 = foursquare foundation of divine principle
5 = freedom of choice under law
6 = the double trinity of the Father and Mother
7 = the priest alone in the world
8 = integrating earth with heaven
9 = the brotherhood of man under the Father
Differentiations of the Undifferentiated
Edna Lister outline, September 25, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The four Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel are superior to all except the prophets and apostles. “As the Holy One blessed be He created four winds (directions) and four banners (for Israel’s army), so also did He make four angels to surround His Throne—Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael. Michael is on its right, corresponding to the tribe of Reuben; Uriel on its left, corresponding to the tribe of Dan, which was located in the north; Gabriel in front, corresponding to the tribe of Judah as well as Moses and Aaron who were in the east; and Raphael in the rear, corresponding to the tribe of Ephraim which was in the west.”–Numbers Rabbah 2:10
Angelic nature is held to be inferior to man, and to human nature because all angels were commanded to worship Adam: Angels are commanded to worship Jesus Christ: “Delight, O heavens, with him and worship him, you sons of God. Delight, O nations, with his people and prevail with him, all you angels of God. For he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will avenge and he will repay the enemies with vengeance, and he will repay those who hate, and the Lord will cleanse out the land of his people.”–Deuteronomy 32:43. “And again, when He brings the firstborn into the world, He says, And let all the angels of God worship Him.”–Hebrews 1:6.
Most students mistakenly think the quote came from Psalm 97:7 alone, unaware that the Septuagint (282 BC), Odes 2:43 Apocrypha (150 BC), Dead Sea Scroll 4Q-44 (100 BC) and Justin Martyr (150 AD) all quote Deuteronomy 32:43 with the key phrase from Hebrews 1:6. Bible scholars are certain that in 30 AD, the missing sentence in Deuteronomy 32:43 was in both the Hebrew Bible in possession of the Jerusalem high priest and the Septuagint used in the synagogues.
Angels, created on the second day, are immortal and thus endure forever.
According to the Zohar, in Exodus 43a, angels are grouped in ten classes, in descending order of rank: Malakim (fiery messengers), Erelim (ambassadors of peace, Isaiah 33:7), Seraphim (burning ones Isaiah 6), Ha Kodeshim (holy ones, Ezekiel 1, 10), Ophanim (wheels, Ezekiel 1, 10), Hashmallim (ηλεκτρον = elektron, Ezekiel 1:4), Elohim (creator gods), Bene Elohim (sons of God), Cherubim (vehicles of Yaweh) and Ishim (attending angels who appeared as men to the prophets). All are messengers who relay the Will of Deity to man, and their duties are connected with the ordering of the heavens and earth.
The Scientific Method
Edna Lister outline, September 30, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The scientific method proceeds upon these propositions by three distinct steps: Observation and experience; hypothesis; and verification through fresh observation and experiment. The first step consists in discovery by actual perception that things and their relations objectively exist in the universe. Upon this observation and experience all human knowledge begins.
The second step, hypothesis, is the rational interpretation of the results of observation and experience, with the ideal anticipation of further possible experience. The third step of verification is the conversion of the hypothesis into theory and scientific law by means of fresh and corroborative experience.
Out of this process scientific truth may be defined as the universal experience and reason of mankind voiced in the unanimous consensus of the competent. This method makes possible a philosophy which is truly scientific.
A hypothesis is a supposition made as the basis for reasoning without reference to its truth, or as a starting point for investigation, a groundless assumption. Hypothetic = foundation. To assume! Corroborative or corroboration is to confirm formally, to confirm evidence to strengthen corroboration, informative by further evidence.
The philosophy of the scientific method is called noumenalism. The universe is simultaneously a noumenon and a phenomenon, yet indissolubly One. The noumenon is the object of intellectual intuition, devoid of all phenomenal attributes, the “thing-in-itself.”
Phenomenal means “of the nature of a phenomenon (recurring natural phenomena); remarkable, prodigious; non-thing that appears or is perceived, especially the thing where the cause is in question; known or derived through the senses rather than through the mind; that of which the senses or mind directly takes note. Immediate object of perception, a remarkable person, thing or occurrence.”
The Scientific Method: Noumenalism
Edna Lister outline; October 7, 14, 1935, Buffalo, NY
The philosophy of the scientific method is called noumenalism. Synopsis: The universe is a noumenon and a phenomenon, indissolubly One. It is a noumenon because it exists and is intelligible in itself, independent yet knowable, by the human mind, and its knowableness consists in the immanent relational indwelling inherent causation, permanently pervading the universe. It is a phenomenon because it is apparent and is actually known, in part, and not in whole, and science is the knowledge of it.
Every phenomenon is necessarily a noumenon, and every noumenon is an actual or a possible phenomenon. The actual phenomena, as the mind has discovered the, constitute the known. The merely potential phenomena, the as yet undiscovered, constitute the unknown. Every known is related to human consciousness. The unknown is that which is intelligible, but is as yet unrelated to human consciousness (by discovery).
Potential means capable of coming into being or action; latent. Physics function by differentiation of which the force at any point in space, arising from any system of bodies, can be expressed; energy existing in form, not as motion.
Intelligible means that which can be understood, that can be comprehended only by the intellect, not by the senses. This is scientific realism, which declares that all existence, seen or unseen, known or unknown, is intelligible. This intelligible existence embraces the whole objective universe with its relations of which we are, through experience, steadily growing in knowledge.
It embraces also the cause the intelligence and the purpose dimly apparent, and which we apprehend through rational contacts, and these are equally intelligible. Intelligence is intellect, sagacity, quickness of understanding, rational being, information, news.
Using the Mystic Eye
Edna Lister outline, October 12, 1935, Buffalo, NY
A pioneering mystic uses the third eye of soul vision and extrasensory perception instead of a machine to study the unseen. The super-conscious mind is that “mind that was in Christ Jesus,” which is why we may say, “We have the mind of Christ.”
| Oversoul is Super-conscious Mind | |||
| Your Consciousness | Rational Soul is Your Conscious Mind | ||
| Impulsive Appetive Soul is Your Subconscious Mind | |||
A Child’s Prayer
Edna Lister outline, October 20, 1935, Buffalo, NY
Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
–A traditional English children’s bedtime prayer
“Now I lay me down to sleep.” How do you “lay me down”? What attitude do you hold, hopelessness, weariness and grief? Or do you lie down in childlike trust and anticipation, as if you were going somewhere?
Do you rest down or up in consciousness, heavily or lightly? What is sleep? What happens while you sleep? Do you want to receive spiritual dividends? What were your dreams as a child?
“I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” The Lord is law, the Source. The keeper of your soul refers to Jesus’ arms, as the good shepherd.
The embodied soul withdraws consciousness during sleep to gain knowledge, to know how to act the following day. What is prayer? Trust, confidence, love, devotion and praise.
“If I should die before I wake.” What is death? To the carnal mind it is the death of the physical body. To the Christ mind, death is transition from dust to stardust, earthly to heavenly. You take one breath here and the next over there, awakening more gloriously than you can dream.
“I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Commit your soul to Him to return to the Source, to a higher life and glory beyond compare. Death is therefore the entrance into life eternal.
Love’s Healing Power
Edna Lister outline, December 19, 1935, Buffalo, NY, Ruth 1:16
“Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”–Ruth 1:16.
Naomi represents the soul, which leaves the heart of God charged with spiritual ideas. Love satisfies you on the outside until the world takes that so-called love away. Our return journey is long, filled with great bitterness, though cleansing and purifying. Travel to a foreign country always brings you much experience.
Ruth, for all ages, has and will typify the soul’s purity, beauty and firm will. After the death of her husband, who symbolizes emotional ties in the physical world, Ruth was reborn. Her desire was renewed to return to her original soul divinity, as the love of God.
When they returned to Bethlehem-Judah, Ruth served Naomi, who represents love, with her own personal selfless, sacrificial service during the barley harvest. She married Boaz, who symbolizes strength of character. They became David’s great-grandparents, and ancestors of Jesus the Christ. Ruth’s purity of love created the metaphysical foundation for Mary’s life of loving sacrifice of self.
Naomi represents the soul, which leaves the Heart of God charged with spiritual Ideas. God’s love satisfies us on the outside until the world’s influence replaces God with physicality, a so-called love. Then our return journey is long, filled with great bitterness, although cleansing and purifying to the soul. Travel to a foreign country always brings us much experience, and Earth is the ultimate “foreign land.”
Ruth, for all ages, typifies the soul’s purity, beauty, and firm will to do and be the good. After the death of her husband, who represents emotional ties in the physical world, Ruth was reborn, and her desire renewed to return to soul divinity, as love of God.
When they returned to Bethlehem-Judah, Ruth served Naomi (love) with selfless, sacrificial service during the barley harvest. She married Boaz, who represents strength of character, and they became David’s great-grandparents, and ancestors of Jesus the Christ. Ruth’s purity of love created the foundation for Mary’s life of loving sacrifice.
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Edna Miriam Lister
1884–1971
The original Christian Pioneering Mystic,
Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.
References
Truesdell, Nell. Biography of H. B. Jefferey.
Christ League. April 24, 2023.
Ray, Michael. The Nazi Party and Hitler’s rise to power.
Encyclopedia Britannica, February 17, 2023.
Vicarious atonement
The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, February 17, 2023.
sv. “Repent”, “Remission” Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 3rd ed. Springfield, MA., G. & C. Merriam Co., 1929.