Edna Lister’s Lectures 1944

Metaphysics Versus Physics

Edna Lister lecture outline; Tuesday June 20, 1944, Cleveland, Ohio.

Coming soon.

Planetary Diet

Edna Lister lecture outline; Tuesday June 27, 1944, Cleveland, Ohio.

Coming soon.

Tribute to Leila Combs

Edna Lister eulogy; Wednesday September 27, 1944, Tacoma, Washington.

They say she’s gone because they cannot see her with earthly eyes—that form so loved by all. Yet here she stands in radiant robes, all-glorious, immortal in the Light. It is as if I hear her say to friends and loved ones dear,

“Grieve not, my dears. I’m here beside you now and evermore. I’ll never leave you all alone to bear your heavy loads of grief and pain. Remember all I’ve told you in the past. Have I not said ’There is no death’? Believe me, you can see your friends behind the veil. Yes, so it is, and I am with you still in love and understanding greater and deeper than I ever had on earth. Gird up your loins and stand erect. You are each a god you know.

“My love enfolds you evermore, and you shall hear my voice at times if you believe and trust in God and all the power divine. I need you, too, to pray for me that I may serve in heaven with greater grace than ever upon earth I gave.”

And as I pen this message—very clear to me from you, my friend, behind the veil that hides all heavenly places from earthly view for those who do not hear or see, but only hope that life goes on—I also hope your message sweet shall mitigate the loss, the sorrow of those whose love for you is still most dear—may they believe.

It seems like yesterday you sent me forth, dear friend, to conquer life, when it had left deep scars upon my heart, and fear of greater wounds to come. Your courage, like a gallant ship, storm tossed upon life’s waves, has ever been before my eyes, has ever helped to hold me to an upward, steadfast course.

I wish you bon voyage, my friend. You’ve earned your Great Adventure by holding fast your soul’s Ideals on earth, and conquering life itself until at last you took one step beyond life’s Door, to stand with outstretched arms—yourself—within the gates of heaven.

Thirty-three Steps to Glory

Edna Lister lecture transcript; Thursday November 16, 1944, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Ruth Collord.

Coming soon.

Laws of Nature: Emergence, Maturity and Decline

Edna Lister lecture transcript; Thursday December 14, 1944, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Ruth Bender Collord.

Emergence, maturity and decline are laws of nature. Prejudice and opinion bring about senility and old age. If you live so, you put yourself under the laws of nature where you are not deathless, ageless and abiding. You must stand upright in the Garden of Eden to live in a high spiritual consciousness. To be able to do this, declare, “I have forgiven my debtors and I know my debts are forgiven.” When someone asks me “Why does this happen or continue happening to me? or Why can’t I cause this to manifest?” I say, “You have not forgiven your debtors. God credits you for all your good work, but principle demands payment for what you have failed to do.”

An embodied soul, trained from childhood in the law and the way of ascension, should be able to reach age of thirty-five and to hold that stage of youthfulness, and retain it. I drew up my plan for age sixty when I was twenty. You have to make your plan for life and its stages well in advance to be sure of being ready in time. Only so can you do it all according to schedule. An architect creates a blueprint, a plan for each structure he is commissioned to build—why do we not do this also? Every soul born to the body on earth arrives here on an arc of descension, sojourns here to gain the needed experiences, and returns to his place in the realms of heaven on an arc of ascension.

At twenty-six I thought I was going blind. The doctor I went to told me I had a tumor on my spine and had but one year to live! He said my case was hopeless and gave up on me. So I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be blind or die! Then I saw a motion picture mentally, in my imagination, of what I could do. Afterward I treated myself by seeing my body, lying on my back, being held up by a hand of Light holding my spine in the area of my heart and lungs, the other hand of Light above, but not touching my breastbone (sternum), in the corresponding area. I saw this countless times—until I was thirty, each time thanking God that I was healed! I came through that experience with no further problems.

The life of God is limitless! If all you want is enough to create what you don’t like or want, then just wash your dishes and waste your time until you go to bed—be assured, you will get just this!

It took me five years to draw the blueprint for how to say, “Now I am ready to create something great and burn up the world!” I know the Source of all Good never fails and God never lets you down unless you let Him down first. Choose your philosophy of life and then have the guts to continue living by it! Do not let anyone tell you that you cannot. Today you are getting more of your share of life, but you must still become law to live and look and work as though you are still thirty-five. You do not receive of God, or receive ideas from fishing in the River of Life by contemplating the physical body! Keep your mind stayed on perfection. To contemplate self is to commit as great a crime as to actually worhip the self!

Old-fashioned religion said anything that was pleasant to do was “vanity.” Old-time metaphysicians said that law was made for us to use. Both opinions are extremes to avoid; a middle course is the one to follow.

A miracle results from someone having faith which is unconquerable! Nothing can conquer true faith. Love is unquenchable; it quenches anything unlike itself. “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”—John 1:9. There is only one power, one mind and one substance—and that one is God.

Let this wondrous power possess you as its instrument for new ideas. To make room for new ideas, you must clean out the emotional hurts and resentments from your heart. Surrender the self, laying all hindrances on the altar as a burnt offering. “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”—John 14:14. If the Master says he will do it then rest assured that the new seed idea is then in your hands. You must not squeeze the seed in your hand to death; you must plant the seed. Imagine that you and the seed are surrounded in an auric container of Light; if you send out no criticism or condemnation, you will then have a substance that no outward thing has or can pass through to disturb the seed’s growth. Thank God for this seed of Light repeatedly, a thousand times an hour if needed, until it comes to pass. You can do this for yourself and for others. The measure of your faith is whatever you think can come to pass for you in a moment.

No one can lose any part of mind because all minds are parts of The Mind of God. Yet, if you misuse your mind in negative thoughts and emotions it’s like pouring molasses into a battery instead of water—mind cannot operate. The spirit of God is a Light-substance that flows through you constantly, hour by hour as the River of Life. It moves through the nerve centers of your head to revitalize and quicken the nerves and brain cells. Let this power move through whatever circumstance or condition you face, and let it move through your body. If you honestly desire a miracle with a constant burning desire, a vivid imagination, and eagerly acting as if you already have it, you can blueprint and stamp the flowing power-as-substance with your personal rate of vibration, which can and will bring the miracle to pass.

Praise, praise and breathe then pray and praise again. Nothing can ever deplete God’s Light as mind, substance or power. You could use all the numbers and names of everything and everyone on earth but you can never use them all up. This is why we can say that God is deathless, ageless and abiding, forever the same in ages past as He is now and forever shall be.

Let’s have all darkness lifted by 1953. Those who do not accept shall go out and be held in classes for a thousand years. Hold them on cloud lands of Light within pillars of fire to burn away their dross. Hold honor above all things as you love and praise God. Ten thousand years from now, if we continue to live here, we will dwell in fire bodies of pure soul. There shall be no destruction of the earth.

The Realm of Imagination

Edna Lister lecture transcript; Monday December 18, 1944, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Ruth Bender Collord.

The realm of imagination deals with three phases. The first and lowest phase is pure imagination, which is a self-created fabulation that changes with every passing urge. It has no basis in outer facts, but is pure make-believe.

The second phase is imagination based upon some facts that the appetitive soul enlarges into phantasms—imaginary images upon which self creates a fantasy or a ‘fairy tale’.

The third phase is imagination running wild—though often based upon an outer fact, it is so distorted that it becomes a delusion or illusion—resulting in what we call prevarication or a common lie.

Plato called these three phases of imagination the “spirited” soul—not spirited in the sense of the Holy Spirit, but in the sense of impatience, hasty judgment, and living by urges. You must conquer the wayward imagination. The embodied ascending soul finally learns to command, to rein in these wild horses to work in concert and harmony with thinking and desire as teammates.

In order to overcome these base levels of imagination, you must work toward and attain the Realization of Truth. To do this you must take five steps in ascension: aspiration, desire, decision, choice, and action.

You must realize who you are, what you are, where you came from, what you are supposed to be doing here, and how to find and return to your original starry ‘home’. From this point of balance you can carve the individual steps in your climb to the stars. All of this requires that you realize many greater laws than the mere apparent laws of nature. How shall you do this?

The ordinary laws of nature on earth range in an arc beginning with emergence (birth), rising to physical maturity and descending into physical decline, and the result is the death of the physical body. Under the great illumination of Realization of Truth the embodied ascending soul sees and accepts that the much greater heavenly laws of the living soul for another arc beginning with Resurrection, reaching Maturity, and rising ever higher in Ascension.

This is how you transform and transfigure your individual use of imagination into the original vision of Truth which God transmitted to you straight from Mind to mind in the beginning. Finally, this is how you turn the base metal of mere illusion into the kingly faculty of true imagination, which is a first step in creating in the image and likeness of God!

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