Via Christa: Via Christa Life: Sermons and Lectures: Edna Lister’s Lectures, 1939

Degree Descending	Initiation	Degree Ascending	Initiation
1\|Christos	Ascension	7\|Christos	Ascension
2\|Priest	Resurrection	6\|Priest	Resurrection
3\|Master	Crucifixion	5\|Master	Crucifixion
4\|Mystic	Transfiguration	4\|Mystic	Transfiguration
5\|Adept	Baptism by Fire	3\|Adept	Baptism by Fire
6\|Disciple	Baptism by Water	2\|Disciple	Baptism by Water
7\|Neophyte	Rebirth	1\|Neophyte	Rebirth

We must have a ladder from earth to the heavenly realms and our starry home. Our initiations consist of many tests, trials and temptations. These main Seven Degrees have many sub-degrees.

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Seven Breaths in One
Edna Lister outline, June 27, 1939, Cleveland, OH

The 1st degree of breath is a pulsation of expansion and contraction of the lungs, and action that is also mirrored within each cell. The 1st degree of breath rules in Aries at the sacrum plexus.
The 2nd degree of breath is the substance used to build the negative outline of form, to project a picture on the essence within the brain cells. It rules in Taurus at the splenic vital center.
The 3rd degree of breath is the grade of substance which goes forth as thought or common thinking, the substance which forms the solid structure or body of a plan. It rules in Gemini at the navel center. Gemini is the Gate of the Father's messenger on earth.
The 4th degree of breath is the electronic substance which carries thought waves, the substance which fulfills the law of love, or substance as power. It rules in Cancer, Leo and Virgo at the heart center, and includes the stomach, heart and lungs. Cancer is the Gate of the Mother on earth.
The 5th degree of breath is the first spiritual substance of life itself, which animates rocks, plants and creatures. The 5th degree of breath is the first of the three higher pulsing breaths taken in through the crown of the head. It is ruled by Libra and Scorpio at the throat center and thyroid gland.
The 6th degree of breath is the creator’s breath of the kingly faculty, imagination, which relates to the 2nd degree of breath as substance relates to form. It rules in Sagittarius at the brow center, and through the pituitary gland, the all-seeing eye. Sagittarius is the Gate of the Spiritual Mother.
The 7th degree of breath is the universal breath of life that is the innermost essence of each living soul. It rules in Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces at the crown center and through the pineal body. Capricorn is the Gate of the Spiritual Father. Aquarius unveils and Pisces reveals.

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The Golden Bowl
Edna Lister outline, August 7, 1939, Cleveland, OH

Plato was enriched by his philosophic vision, yet the modern thinker is impoverished by his unbelief. Compare the ancient philosophers with today’s victim of modern intellectual breeding. Gone from earth it seems, is the rugged grandeur personified by those older teachers.
Let us consider the brain, which is enclosed by the protective boney walls of the skull, which Plato describes as being an imitation of the peripheral constitution of the world. The skull symbolizes the vault of the heavens. The cranium, then is that microscopic heaven that Atlas, the third cervical vertebra of the spinal column, bears upon his shoulders. The spine, therefore, like the Tat (djed) pillar of the Egyptians, which supports the superior world upon its upper end. The skull consists of twenty-two bones, of which eight make up the cranium, and fourteen the face.
The skull is the door through which the animating spirit makes its egress at death of the body. When the time has come for the soul to depart, the anima collects herself either in the heart, from which she can easily depart through the lungs and mouth or else gathers her spirits in the head out of which opens the door to the beyond. Some believe the soul departs from the mouth, in accordance with an early belief that the life principle escaped with the exhalation of the last breath. In the ancient tradition there are ten apertures in the body, of which nine are apparent in the outward parts but the tenth is concealed and is the door of God. According to some the door of egress is located at the back part of the head near the crown near the parietal foramen. Others say it is the anterior fontanelle. This is the “little door of heaven’s wall” through which St. John passed in his vision of the Apocalypse. When you can steadfastly turn your face to God through discipline and regeneration, no matter what befalls, you can attain greatness.
Moses, (who kabbalistically symbolizes the Sun, ascended into the Mount where the Law was revealed to him. He received the ten commandments, which represent mysterious breaths, and were metaphorically called the ten entries to the brain. Calvary (Calvaria), “a bare skull,” is from the Latin calva, the “scalp without hair” or calvus, which means bald. The Hebrew word is Golgotha, which means both “skull” and “burial place.” Here is the definite link between the mysteries of the Spirit and those of the body.
The secret of the Gate of the Father was perpetuated among the early Christians by the ceremony of shaving a circular portion of the hair on the crown (tonsure) to symbolize the ecclesiastical state. Thus, we have the origin of the shaven corona of the Roman Catholic priest, and the sunburst head-piece of the Pageant mysteries. The thousand petaled lotus crowns the cerebrum; the crown center there is known as a chakra in Sanskrit, which means “wheel.”
Andrew Jackson Davis, 1 said that the various internal organs of the body appear to resist the withdrawal of the animating soul. The muscles seek to regain the element of motion, the arteries the element of life the nerves the element of sensation and the brain the principle of intellect. These internal conflicts often give rise to the appearance of suffering, which was not actual, for the whole process of death is according to natural and immutable law. The head appears enveloped in a voluminous radiant atmosphere to clairvoyant sight as the cerebrum and cerebellum expand their interior portions and discontinue their appropriate galvanic functions.
Then the brain becomes highly charged with vital electrical magnetism; that is to say, the brain as a whole suddenly becomes tenfold more positive over the lesser portions of the body, than it ever had during the period called health. This phenomenon invariably precedes a physical dissolution. The brain begins to attract the elements of electrical magnetism, motion, life, and sensation. The head becomes more intensely brilliant as the extremities of the body grow darker. Another enlarged outline of the head appears as the brilliant atmosphere that had surrounded the brain of the old body fades from the corporeal brain, the soul leaves the physical body.

1 Andrew Jackson Davis.

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The History of the Great Pyramid
Edna Lister outline, October 30, 1939, Cleveland, OH

At the close of the third dynasty (c. 2670-2613 BC), the hill of Giza was a bare stretch of desert ground overlooking the Nile valley. In ages long before this, at the dawn of living history, that valley had been deeply scoured out by the deep and rushing mountain-born stream which filled the whole width of the great tract of limestone rock through which it passes. Cataracts fed this stream along its course, dashing down through gorges on either side, thus forming a series of cascades that continually further eroded the cliffs of the great river. The present stream, meandering slowly in a delta of mud flats, covers its ancient limits with a few inches or feet of water once a year, seems a mere ditch when compared with its former grandeur.
In the days of the fourth dynasty (c. 2613 to 2494 BC), these changes were long past and the valley would be familiar to the modern architect as in the days of their ancient power. Above the then growing city of Memphis rose the low hills and cliffs of the desert on the Libyan side and a higher part of the desert's edge, a bare wind-blown, rise attracted the attention of Khufu for the site of his great monument. It remains the finest site for miles in any direction. The happiness of the blessed West in contrast to the East, and the nearness of the capital at Memphis led him to build there, though materials had to be ferried from the higher, more commanding cliffs of the eastern bank.
The custom in those early days was to build the tomb as near to a man's home as possible so it could be viewed with pride and satisfaction. It was the place where he would be periodically remembered and honored by his descendants, it was the “cool place” or place of refreshing, where the body would rest in peace until reviewed, a character of the deep rock-hewn chambers most pleasing in such a climate. Hence, we find the tombs clustered where but little of the sacred Nile could be seen. Each pyramid has a temple on its eastern side. Kings were called great gods in the Pyramid Age, and more priests attended them than any of the original deities. The deified king was worshiped in the temple looking toward the pyramid, which stood to the blessed West of myth and fable.
The Great Pyramid is situated in the North for symbolic reasons. The sun of the physical world rises in the East travels by way of the South and sets in the West. It does not pass by way of the North because that is the side of nature by which the soul enters embodiment on earth; North is “up,” in mystical terms. The observation of all mysteries, lesser and greater, are governed by exact law: The seat of the High Priest is in the East, and all lesser priests pass by way of the South to the West and thence to the East again. To the embodied soul the North represents coldness and death. No man seeks death knowingly or purposely; he seeks light, wisdom, and warmth.
The physical entrance to the temple symbolizes the mental attitude that must characterize the neophyte. He must turn from and forever give up those ideas that lead to death of body, heart (spirit), mind, and soul. Immediately upon entering he turns East, toward the rising Light, seeking wisdom and true understanding; he journeys by way of the South and finds kindness and gentleness of disposition; he travels toward the West where he reaps the soul-nourishing ripeness of experience; again he travels East toward even greater rising Light. Thus, the embodied soul circumambulates his temple of the soul as he makes the round of the four quarters of the solar year. He repeats this process cyclically, each year surrendering more fully those ideas that lead to death, seeking wisdom and truth more eagerly, partaking more deeply of love and generosity of spirit, always growing in the grace of compassion.
Eventually the neophyte becomes the master of his own soul and takes his place as the hierophant (Ancient Greek: ἱεροφάντης) of his own temple. If his journeys are successful he will, in the end, have worked out the proper proportions to equalize and perfect the four departments of his being — body, heart, mind, and soul. He trains his consciousness into unity to partake equally of these four natures. Only this way can he ascend into the apex of unity with the Sun of Righteousness shining in his soul, where there is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” Thus, the Sun represents perfect man, the symmetrical being becoming perfect through living the exalted life. The dot, the center around which the circle was formed, becomes manifest in this illumination, the Sun of the Soul rises into view and man arises to his God-high stature.
The circle is a two-dimensional representation of the sphere. The Egyptians regarded the earth as a sphere. They knew that the radius of a sphere must bear a certain proportion to its circumference. Therefore, they constructed the quadrangular pyramid the height of which is in proportion to its base so that its perpendicular measure would be the radius of a sphere equal to the perimeter of the base. Plato rightly understood that the heart of all mysteries resides in mathematics, the expression of the principle of number. For greater insight, read his Timaeus dialogue.

Sphere Formulae

Name	Formula
Diameter	2 × radius of the sphere
Circumference	2πr, where π is a constant, which takes the value of 22/7 or ≈ 3.14
Surface Area	4πr2
Volume	(4/3)πr3

The quadrangular pyramid is an accurate representation of man on his perfected foundation. By analogy, man’s four natures are symbolized in the cube. By harmonizing his four natures, which correspond to the four elements—earth, water, air and fire—he gradually rounds and smooths the corners until he becomes spherical rather than cubical. As the spherical surface supplants the cubical through purification, his nature becomes transparent, and the dot at the center comes visible, another view of the rounding of the square. In various particulars and proportions of the Great Pyramid, its builders symbolized countless generations which were to come—the perfected man, the result of symmetrical development. The Great Pyramid likewise stands as an enduring monument to the superior wisdom and learning of the Egyptian priesthood, which understood the sublime mysteries of the destiny of man—“as above so below.” In the future, as ever more embodied souls reach perfection, the laws that rule the visible manifestations of God will increasingly correspond to the laws that rule the invisible heavenly realms. The Great Pyramid is a symbol of perfection, an emblem of eternal life—death, the giving up of mere physical life, and passing to higher realms, into the infinite eternity.
The King’s chamber is the room for the initiation of kings, but man is not there yet. He lives in a subterranean chamber of chaos inhabited by appetitive desires and will. The Queen’s chamber represents man as he usually is, living by the carnal nature. Man descended from above, took on the flesh and now dwells in a subconscious cave, just as Plato said. He remains there, possibly never freeing himself. But if he listens to the Voice of God through his own Oversoul, he will gradually travel upward to the Queen’s chamber. There he will be instructed in and accept the life of love, of truth, of beauty, of goodness. As he masters these he will leave this chamber and ascend to the Anteroom, where he remains until he frees the flesh from carnality according to the perfect measure. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13); “an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel” (Revelation 21:17). Then the ascending embodied soul receives divine instructions and guidance, at last to be permitted to enter the King’s chamber to receive final initiation, which is illumination of the soul or Sonship with God.
In brief, the pyramid is a perfect symbol for man when he has reached the state of full illumination of the soul or the Christed consciousness of I AM. After man has passed through a system of training in self-mastery, after he has endured the tests and the ordeals of such training and has perfected the qualities of love and forgiveness in his nature, he comes to the point in his experience in which the Sun of Righteousness shines upon his Temple and casts no shadow either to the right or the left. Its rays fall upon the temple, the purified body, where is there neither a shadow nor darkness.
The pyramid has four sides, which represent man in his four natures — body, heart, mind, and soul, which as we have noted corresponds to the four elements of the ancients. The end and the aim, the good and the reward placed before him is to make his fourfold-ness arise in Unity of Spirit with the One God. When he has accomplished this, he has ascended to become as one of the gods in truth, and his body has become a perfected temple of the living God.
As the Great Pyramid was to the initiate Priest, a temple upon which the heavenly sun could shine without shadow, so is the body of man a temple of flesh in which the soul, illumined through the harmonizing of his fourfold being, may shine without a shadow. The recurrence of the number four in Nature’s domain is significant and emphasizes the wisdom symbolized on the four cardinal points. The four kingdoms are mineral, vegetable, animal, and spiritual, or life. The latter is the means it gives to all others. Man is thought of as threefold, but when the life element departs, the other three natures cannot hold together and are cast asunder.
The Great Pyramid’s foursquare foundation corresponds to the fourfold nature of man. Its four sides are joined into one at the apex and thus form a temple enclosure. Its exterior manifests proportion, equality and symmetry in every detail: The base is a perfect square—the four triangular faces, being equal to each other, rise gradually at the same triangular slope, terminating and uniting at the apex. This perfection of form symbolizes the ideal of equalizing and harmonizing body, mind, spirit and soul, and by means of their symmetrical development erecting a structure that culminates in unity. False doors were placed on the West side of the tomb to represent the entrances to the hidden sepulchers.

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Philosophy: Time and Space
Edna Lister transcript, December 30, 1939, Cleveland, OH; Edna Bender, scribe

Coming soon.

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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

Hall, Manly P. Man, The Grand Symbol of the Mysteries. Los Angeles: Philosopher's Press, 1937.

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