Edna Lister’s Lectures, 1938

The Sun: Aries the Lamb
Edna Lister outline, January 13, 1938, Cleveland, OH

  The Sun portrays that quality in human life which more than any other planet is able to lift the soul to lofty heights, gives youth to the body, and assurance to immortality in the realms of the Beyond. When the Sun had circled the Zodiac and passed over the Vernal Equinox into Aries, a new solar year begins. This, to Jesus, especially symbolized the transition from the physical world to the spiritual dimension of life. To signify that the child, while still on earth, was consecrated to a life of spiritual endeavor, a ceremony was instituted which should represent the arching of the Sun and its annual transition. On the eighth day, the boy was circumcised, using the blood of a Lamb as a token that a new spiritual life had been entered upon was not a custom confined to Christian and Jew, it was part of that universal symbol employed by all peoples.
  Egypt, a name meaning “darkness,” is where Sun is “held a prisoner” before it passes into the summer signs. The last of these signs, Pisces has astrological rule over slavery and imprisonment, and the Israelites were captive in Egypt for 400 years. Symbolically, this encompasses the story of Cepheus, King of Ethiopia, Cassiopeia, his Queen, and Andromeda, their daughter, chained to a rock as an offering to Cetus, a sea monster, because her mother had angered the sea gods by boasting that Andromeda was more beautiful than they.
  Aries is a militant sign and the Bible relates, “It came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all of the first born in the land of Egypt from the first born of Pharaoh that sat as the throne, unto the first born of the captive that was in the dungeon and all the first born of cattle.”–Exodus 12:29.
  Exodus records the rules to be observed during the Passover. No leavened bread is permitted in the house for seven days, leaven being a symbol for spiritual impurity and pollution. Aries is a fiery sign, so the lamb could not be eaten raw or boiled at the feast, but must be roasted. Also, they must eat it with bitter herbs, maror, to recall the bitterness of their slavery, and that new growth and change can be unpleasant.
  The first-year lamb must be unblemished, and its blood daubed on the lintel and posts of the house’s door. The lintel preserved the shape of the doorway: On the top of two upright pillars was a huge slab of rock to that symbolized a plane of life above the earth, where departed souls consciously dwell after death. Daubing the posts with blood represented the soul leaving the womb for birth into earth life, and leaving physical life through a doorway of pain and suffering into the next life through another door no less difficult.

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  Let us turn to the rivers of Greek tradition: Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon, Cocytus, and Lethe. The Greeks had Charon ferry the souls of their dead across the black waters of the river Styx, while in Egypt the boat of the Sun transported them to the judgment seat of Osiris. Just what part this river—where the Sun, in whose boat the soul is said to depart—has its highest influence in the afterlife. It determines the plane of man’s earthly endeavors, sacred literature reveals two stories, and one from the Bible, the other from the Greeks. Rivers relate to emotions.
  The great river Eridanus is a particular kind of water. It is not a pond, nor a raging torrent. It is an emotion, but not passive or sluggish, nor is it a torrid passion. This river is deep, strong of current and amply wide. The huge sea serpent Cetus (Kêtos) hunts its prey on its bank while brave Orion struggles with the mighty Bull.
  Ponce de Leon might have saved himself much travel in search of this same fountain of eternal youth, so aptly pictured in the sky, had he known about his endocrine glands, and the varied reactions of their secretions to the emotions. Minute chemical messengers secreted into the blood, burn out the life in fits of rage, starve the organs in fear and melancholy, and add youth and vigor at their prompts, not of passion but unselfish love.
  The Piscean Age, from which the world is passing, rules not merely imprisonment and restrictions but crime and its punishment. It gave us a heaven, which to most would be a prison, and it taught us the doctrine of torment in hell.
  Aquarius measures the influence of the stars, pours down its blessings. Right now the world is enduring pangs of its birth into a heaven of new knowledge. The blood on the doorsteps is but the incidents of this passing. Aquarius will unfold the truths of the afterlife, fit the individual for his eventual responsibilities there and establish an unrestricted system of communication between those who live and function on the different planes. The Aquarius key phrase is “I know,” for Aquarius knows that there is no death—what seems to be death is but a transition—from this mortal life of body and breath to the Elysian life, whose gate we call death.

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Articles of Faith
Edna Lister, Articles of Faith, Edna Bender, scribe, March 26, 1938, Cleveland, OH

Our Great Creed

  I believe in God, the Manifold Creator, the Father-Mother of us all, Maker of the visible and invisible universe.
  I believe in Father-Mother God as both the Source of all life and the Expression of all life.
  I believe in the Father-Mother God as both Personality and Principle: Personality, which is the Father of Wisdom who plans and the Mother of Love who sustains all that they create; Principle as both Spiritual Substance, which becomes and Divine Law, which directs and controls.
  I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, begotten, not made, before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, who was incarnate by the Holy Ghost, who lived on earth, suffered and was crucified.
  I believe his soul ascended to his Father at once and that his body was buried and raised to be ascended the third day.
  I believe we must judge ourselves each day according to his standards.
  I believe in turning to Light from all darkness and that, through surrender to the Power of God, all darkness shall be overcome.
  I believe we must be resurrected from all weakness into all strength.
  I believe we may, by following our Lord Jesus Christ all the way, see the unseen, commune with the saints and bridge the Abyss from the visible to the invisible here and now.
  I believe we must ascend to our Father-Mother God for the Life Everlasting. Amen.

Declaration of Life Principles

  We believe in the Motherhood and the Fatherhood of God. We believe in the Holy Trinity of the Father, Mother and Child.
  We believe that God created the world, and He is still here with us, watching us run it.
  We believe in the sacredness of the human body, this transient dwelling place of the Soul, and so we deem it the duty of every man and woman to keep his or her body beautiful through right thinking and right living.
  We believe that the love of a man for a woman and the love of a woman for a man is holy, and that this love in all its prompting is an emanation of the Divine Spirit.
  We believe in salvation through economic, social, and spiritual freedom. We believe that the best way to prepare for a future life is to be kind, live one day at a time, and do the very best that you can do each day.
  We believe that there is no devil but fear.
  We believe that no one can harm us but ourselves.
  We believe that we are Sons and Daughters of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be.
  We believe in the purifying process of sorrow, and we do believe that death is but a manifestation of life.
  We believe in sunshine, fresh air, mental freedom, pure friendship, and a world of beautiful thoughts.

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  “After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself. There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little ship (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits); dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.”–John 21:1-13.
  The disciples had seen Jesus heal the ten lepers, the man with palsy, the centurion’s servant, the woman with the issue of blood, cases of lunacy and possession, Lazarus, the widow’s boy, and Jairus’ daughter. Yet in this text, the disciples worked all night at fishing, but with no results. Jesus told them to cast their net on the right side. The right side represents execution, and use of what you have. When they did so, their nets were filled.
  You are always either negative or positive, empty or full. You are like a bobbin that fills a shuttle. 1 Empty, the bobbin is useless. When full of thread, it gives the shuttle the thread with which to work. What do you give? You give what you have, which is free.

1 A shuttle is a wooden device with two pointed ends holding a bobbin, used for carrying the weft thread between the warp threads in weaving.

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  “By measure hath he measured the times; and by number hath he numbered the times; and he doth not move nor stir them, until the said measure be fulfilled.”–2 Esdras 4:37 (Apocrypha).
  No student of hidden laws would give credence to the cry of chance in a divinely and well-ordered universe of cause and effect. There is a connection of numbers with the heavenly study of the stars that must be regarded, but this need not dismay the neophyte. In expounding inner and sacred learning by the agency of numbers, we follow in the footsteps of the greatest and oldest masters on the subject. By years of study of the value of letters and numbers man will win the prize of prophecy and this will bring him in touch with the universal Mind.
  The Kabbala insists that all human beings are possessed by those soul facilities, which by kavanah (soul devotion and concentration on the secret meanings of words during prayer) will unfold into a mystical and spiritual knowledge. The sincere seeker will cultivate unswerving faith and fervent imagination, for by these means the men of wisdom were enabled to receive their learning from heaven through the spiritual powers their study thus attracted. In this manner the hidden erudition of the Bible and other sacred books was understood—the history, and within the history, the secrets.
  Learning is expansive, bestowing freedom to. the mind, but in it must include the pure power of kavanah, prayerful devotion. For example, to meditate on the heavenly zodiac while breathing regularly and deeply, he would mentally construct ToLeCh (Aries), and picture the Ram mentally. Then he would mentally calculate its number: To = 400, Le = 30, Ch = 8. It yields a royal number of the sun, and the sun in astrology is strong in the sign of the ram, Aries. To = 400, Le = 30, Ch = 5: the total is 12, the number of completion, the end that is contained in the beginning, which in this case, is Aries, the one.
  Then Abraham, Isaac and the Ram on Mount Moriah are envisioned. Then the ram’s horn, the shofar, which is sounded at the atonement in the Jewish Temple, then the blood of the lamb on the Egyptian doorposts and lintel, then the lamb or ram, which is astrologically ruled by the martial pioneering sign Aries, is pictured. Thus, the mind will be drawn from the outer to inner sources hitherto unexplained, perhaps scarcely conceived. Kavanah is the key to such enlightenment.
  In treating the varied import of numbers, we include some of the great books of the Hebrews, known generally under the common title of Kabbalah. The word may be written as kabala, quaballah, quabala, etc., all of which spellings derive from the Hebrew, KaBaL, “to receive.”
  Traditionally, the angel Raziel taught the mysteries to Adam, the angel Japhiel to Shem, and the angel Zadkiel to Abraham. Moses received them directly from the Supreme Father. Moses initiated Aaron, whence it was passed on, age after age by word of mouth from ear to ear, solemnly and secretly. The study is endless and a single lifetime is considered inadequate to master its profundities. It is also necessary to study all the books of the Bible and the Apocrypha.
  Kabbalistic intrusions into Bible texts are frequent and tend to show how stumbling blocks were placed in the way of the unwary. For example, in Genesis 23, alluding to the death of Sarah, the letter Qoph (meaning “closed hand”), which occurs in the lines “and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep to her,” is written minutely, for Sarah’s advanced age forbade any loud demonstrations of grief. Then comes another peculiar consideration—Sarah passed from earth at 127 years. This is a solar number composed of the sun (positive) and the negative number of the moon. The letter Qoph is a negative lunar potency, emblematic of change, while the years of Sarah’s age indicate immortality.
  The Holy Books were especially designed to uplift the soul, to educate it, and wisdom is hidden in the guise of parable—“He that hath ears, let him hear. He that hath eyes let him see.” The Hebrews held their alphabet in special reverence and alluded to it as the “heavenly alphabet,” the “celestial writing of the angels,” the “bridge ‘twixt heaven and earth,” the “passing of the river” and “over the waters,” etc. This mystic alphabet was the vehicle of correspondence between God, the angels, and man.
  This “writing of the angels” and the science of heavenly astrology are connected because the nature and influence of the stars themselves must be taken into consideration to read the letters of the heavens. The stars were formerly indicated by the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. By the aid of this glittering alphabet, the ancients read the will of God in heaven and, among many predictions, foretold the Babylonian Captivity. The Hebrew alphabet is of heavenly origin and holy, and its formation from the heavens was the work of inspired scholars who presented it to man in so simple a dress.
  There are five rules for reading the heavenly imports. First, observe how the stars are placed, whether close together or spread abroad. Second, the fixed stars may, in the course of years by diverse aspects of the planets, form certain words. Third, we must pay attention to the appearance of new stars, since by their location they may materially alter the sense of the ordinary stars, as an additional letter will alter a word in common writing. Forth, the vertical stars, by altitude, must be well considered because their declarations influence the countries directly beneath them. Fifth, the reader of these magnificent characters must be readily able to distinguish the four cardinal points of heaven and the stars peculiar to them for by this rule good or evil fortune is to be ascertained, the former being read vertically from west to east and the later from the north to the west.
  Throughout the whole system of this starry writing, we observe a close coincidence with the Hebrew tongue. Its sentences are short and abbreviated; sometimes only the most prominent word is obvious. Thus, shortly time before the Babylonian captivity, the five stars directly above Jerusalem formed the Hebrew word NaTaK = NTK = 50 + 400 + 500, which is 950 = 14 = separation. NaTaK signifies “to break asunder.” The numbers of the letters, as they rank in the Hebrew series, are also to be taken to discover the time when their prophecies should be accomplished.
  In the Sabbath morning service of the modern Jews, we still read, “the luminaries, which are God created, are good, for He formed them with knowledge, understanding and wisdom. He hath endowed them with power and might to bear rule in the world. They are filled with splendor and radiate brightness; their splendor is graceful throughout the world. They rejoice when going forth and with reverential awe perform the will of their creator–He called forth the Sun and it rose in resplendent light. At His look the moon assumed its varying form. The whole heavenly host, Seraphim, Ouphanim and holy powers, ascribe unto Him praise, glory and majesty.”
  In one place, the letter Q is valued at 100, in another, at 20. The Q, Qoph, valued as 20 (Kaph) can be used safely. The letter T is valued at 400 (Tav) and as nine (Teyt). The 400 value is correct for the beginning and ending of words. The nine value is used when the letter is repeated as in attack. The double T is regarded as one letter. H is correctly valued as five, for instance hey, how, here. The hard H (Cheth) is rare and its value (eight) is incorrect when used in Kabbalistic astrology.
  The paths of the kabbala: the three veils of the kabbala are Gematria, Notaricon, and Timurah. Gematria: accepting the philosophy that each letter has a corresponding numerical value, the Gematria further informs us that names of the same numerical value have a sympathetic relation to each other. An example, which occurs in Genesis 18:2, will serve to illustrate this special doctrine of correspondences. It alludes to the angelic visit to Abraham, and the deduction is taken from the line, “And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,” which in Hebrew reads Vayyissa einav, vayyar, vehinneh sheloshah anashim, nitzavim alav; vayyar, vayyarotz likratam mippetach ha'ohel, vayyishtachu, aretzah; numerically this is vene (6 + 5 + 50 + 5 = 66). ShLShH = 300 + 30 + 300 + 5 = 635. 66 + 635 = 701.
  The three men are identified with the three great angels: Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. These are Mikhael, Gabrial and Raphael. Mikal = Mem-Yod-Qoph-Aleph-Lammed. 40 + 10 + 20 + 1 + 30 = 101, or “God is present in the individual.” Gabriel is = GeBRIAL = Gimel-beth-resh-yod-aleph-lammed = 3 + 2 + 200 + 10 + 1 + 30 = 246. “And” [the conjunctive] = Vau (V) = 6 = 6. Raphael = Resh-Pe-Aleph-Lammed (RePeAL), 200 + 80 + 1 + 30 = 311. 37 + 101 + 246+ 6 + 311 = 701. So the line, “these are Mikhael, Gabriel and Raphael,” is numerically in agreement with the line, “and lo three men,” the number 701 revealing their identity.
  This order of numerical identification is also known as arithmancy, and was largely used as an aid to the elucidation of future events. To illustrate with a common example, let us take the words “man” and “lass.” Man is 40 + 1 + 50 = 91. Lass is 30 + 1 + 60 = 91. This is an evidence of expressive sympathy. In the same way, whole sentences can be considered as analogies by deduction.
  Notaricon: the section observes the initial, central and final letters of words and verses. In the opening chapter of the book of Genesis, the beth of the word bereschith is written in much larger type than the letters following. Large letters indicate thousands, hence the large beth is indicative of the immense and wonderful creation, which is beyond the limits of human conception. The limits of the entire word, beth-resh-aleph-shin-yod-tau is 2 + 200 + 1 + 300+ 10 + 400 = 913 = 13. 13 is the number of new beginnings or rebirth. It is the number of the symbolic reaper, who with his magical scythe, demolishes the old so that the work might begin anew. The Rabbis constructed from the letters composing this word, which opens the gate of the Bible mysteries, “In the beginning the Lord saw that the law would be acceptable to Israel.”
  The Maccabees was transposed as follows: Y mi-chamochah ba'elim adonai,mi kamochah ne'dar bakkodesh; nora tehillot, oseh fele, or, “Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” These lines occur in the chapter 15:11 of Exodus, and are appropriately the triumphant song of Miriam after the destruction of pharaoh and the Egyptian army, in the midst of the crashing waters of the red sea.
  The magical word, Amen (aleph-men-nun final), numerically 741 = 7 + 4 + 1 = 12. At the end of a term, this corresponds to Adonai Melekh NAmen, “the Lord, faithful King.”
  In English, the history of the ministry of Charles II was composed of the following members:
Clifford,
Ashley,
Buckingham,
Arlington and
Lauderdale.
Their initials make up the mystic world CABAL, which is one of those occult “accidents,” exemplifying a law in Notaricon consideration.
  Temurah (permutation and change): this varies in order of a set of things. The names of angels and sacred objects were constructed from the substitution of transposed letters as indicated in magical scripts. Taking the English alphabet as a simple illustration, we would place the first 13 letters in one line and the second 13 beneath:

  The Temurah rules would now substitute N for A, O for B, P for C, and so on. You will find however, the old Hebrew alphabet gives more pronounced results than any modern ones in this Kabbalistic department.

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