Edna Lister’s Lectures 1957

Fresh Manna Every Day

Edna Lister International New Thought Alliance 42nd Congress speech outline is dated July 21, 1957, Los Angeles, California. Scriptures: Exodus 16:13-20 and John 6:28-34.

"And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them." – Exodus 16:13-20.

"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread." – John 6:28-34.

All growth and development, whether physical-material or mental-spiritual, in either the individual or civilization as a whole, is based and depends on desire. You must have desire before you can take action. You must desire something better and greater than is available now.

Desire causes you to progress. From hollowed log canoes to Leviathan ocean tankers, from steam harnessed for the first time to electronics, from the Wright brothers' monoplane to jets, science has been doing the greater works. We have accomplished all this based on the one desire to do something greater and better.

One thing we know: We have no growth or success without desire. To pray for health, things, ideas, or illumination, you must desire them. The fervency of your prayers equals the fervency of your desire, and your results depend on this.

To contact fresh manna every day, you must desire fresh manna every day. A vague yearning toward something is not desire. To desire, you must know all about what you want to create. You have to know what manna is to be able to create it. What will manna do for you?

Everyone knows about the manna of Moses; few understand clearly this manna of Jesus, mystically termed "bread" (John 6:28-34). What is the difference between the two? Moses' manna fell to the ground as small white flakes. Israel had to pick it early in the morning. They could not hoard it, or it spoiled. Fresh manna fell every day.

Moses' manna was something like an all-in-one brand of vitamins today. They could see it, feel it, touch and taste it; it was a visible material substance, a nearly perfect fulfilling of their physical needs for food. We have that same necessity today: We must have food, clothing and shelter. We need the manna of Moses.

Thinkers and writers have classed the manna-bread of Jesus as too mystical to understand. Typically, Christians have passed it by, at least not consciously praying for it. However, you must remember that both types of manna come from above, and both require prayers of desire to bring them to earth.

With the manna of Moses, you work out your salvation; you pray for a position, transportation, and to earn your daily food. With the manna of Jesus, you are obedient to and practice the laws of Spirit.

Your prayers of desire, when fervent enough, create from the same invisible substance — positions by which you can earn food, new ideas for meeting your needs, and substance for healing your body. Yet it all comes from above.

The manna of Moses falls to the ground, and to partake of it, you must pick it up. The manna of Jesus flows through your faculties as divine Mind, and registers on the awakened "I AM" Christ consciousness, as illumination and as intuition. Thus, manna falls as low as the ground or flows as high as the stars.

God is the Source of all Light as Mind, Substance and Power; all is One. The manna of Moses is your all-in-one vitamin, but the manna of Jesus holds the high potency of Spirit, the vitamins of concentrated life eternal and immortal.

Science is proving that everything comes from above. The high potency of Spirit proves the same thing — they are all attributes of God, and faith, joy and love are the most important. Faith builds your supply pipeline to the Source. Joy generates the atomic power in your body's cells. Love fills your molds and resets your creative abilities into action at a faster pace.

Yesterday's love-supply becomes stale today. These high potency qualities invest your life with a radiance, a glory and a divine quality that is all-powerful, all strength, life enough to meet every need, fresh strength every day.

Daniel in the lions' den is a perfect illustration of the power in these high potency qualities when you add them to your present all-in-one prayers. Daniel had prayed, partaken of high potency faith, love and joy of Spirit. Because the king's advisers had been after him, his desire burst into flame in his prayers.

Daniel stood serenely confident in the love of God, and was with Him. His faith was a strong cable of Light holding him in contact with the Father. Daniel's joy vitalized his faith and love. He was not lion-conscious because he had overcome all devouring ideas of hungry lions in his mind and heart.

Daniel was God-conscious, so in love with God that love possessed him. Love moved through him and into his state of affairs, and instantly went to work on the lions. Love, not Daniel, was working, and the lions changed. Love always takes charge for you when your love is undiluted by self, unadulterated by fear or doubts. Where pure love is your daily fresh manna, it flows through you freely into your affairs.

Daniel's fresh supply came as a strong emanation of Light, filling the den until the lions cowered in their corner, getting as far away from Daniel as space permitted. Daniel did nothing to cause the lions to cower. Love did the work. He wasted no time trying to conquer the lions. Love's glory, moving through Daniel, had enslaved them.

In July, we opened a new International Geophysical Year.^[1] For the first time in earth's history, every nation, every race is working with every other race and nation on one idea together. They are doing a greater work.

Science has named many outer layers above earth — troposphere, stratosphere, ionosphere, mesosphere and exosphere. Between each layer is a pause (e.g., tropopause, etc.), which they say is a barren void place between each sphere of activity. Each forms a wall or a barrier that requires great power to penetrate.

Science has also named three subsonic barriers, phases through which we must pass. We are now breaking through the transonic barriers. They hope to break through into supersonic space with new satellites and space stations that will orbit earth. The plans and designs for great space ships are already on the drawing boards.

You may ask, "How does this concern my creative ability, or my fresh manna every day?" Science has now named the spaces through which your desire prayers must past instantaneously, and then return as Light and substance. God has given you the creative equipment to do what science labors so hard to achieve by mechanics. Yet if your prayers are weak and puerile, they cannot break through these barriers.

New tiny satellites, with a life span of two to four seconds, travel some 16,000 miles per second; they live 124 seconds at most. Their payload is a recorder and an antenna, which when triggered from earth, broadcasts scrambled facts, just before it blows up. Every fact the machine has recorded flows back over a communications beam to be unscrambled by a receiving recorder. They then send all that information to different departments.

Daniel's beam of faith touched the Source, and Power returned along that line of Light to quell lions. Prayer is your satellite; faith is your fuel; love is your space ship, and joy is your engine. Your prayer travels to the Source and the fresh manna of life pours back over your radar beam. Fresh manna every day is your destiny when you do the greater works.

Endnote

1^ International Geophysical Year (IGY), an 18-month period from July, 1957, through December 1958, during a period of maximum sunspot activity, designated for cooperative study of the solar-terrestrial environment by the scientists of 67 nations. The only prior combined international scientific efforts took place during the Polar Years of 1882 and 1932. Discoveries were made in the fields of cosmic ray research, climatology, oceanography, and the nature of the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field. Earth satellites (see satellite, artificial) launched by the United States discovered the Van Allen radiation belts, a region of high-energy particles, mainly electrons and protons. Soundings of the world's oceans revealed new information about the physical features on the ocean floor. Seismically active rifts along the summits of mid-oceanic ridges were identified.

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The Brain, Your Instrument of Power

Edna Lister lecture outline, September 24, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio.

The Brain, Your TV Set

Edna Lister lecture outline, October 1, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio.

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The Brain, Your Servant

Edna Lister lecture outline, October 8, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio.

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Conquering Inner Space

Edna Lister lecture outline, October 15, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio.

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Conquering Time

Edna Lister lecture outline, October 22, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio.

Space is absolute, but time is relative. Space is absolute as the universal substance, the absolute substrate upon and through which relative time moves. Time is the action contained within space. The instant that time moves into action, the space it occupies becomes relative to the Godhead. God, as All That Is, is the only possible boundary of infinite space.

The spatial boundaries of the universe contain all that is, which includes all times. This is why "timing" is so important, and why you must hold time as a sacred trust. Tempus vincit omnia — time really does conquer all things. You acknowledge this when you say, "Give it time to work out," and Tempus omnia sanat, "Time heals all wounds."

As a category on the outer, you use timing in the form of antecedence and sequence to relate events, which makes integration of all outer experiences possible. Time also expresses the law of mental synthesis. You bind and relate your different actions and experiences to time so that you can, by "contacting" one "time" in your memory bank, find your way to all other related "times."

Without timing, you could not operate your brain. Timing is the action-Power, which descends from above as intuition to touch the nerve ending cells into life. Only by "time-action" could you know "which" and "what" memories and knowledge you need to open and relate. Timing changes ideas from one memory sector to another. Timing adds new to the old and rearranges what you know. Your whole life depends on your timing. Everyone operates under this great principle and category of time.

The idea of time is born in the intervals, long or short, between happenings. You know and recall experiences and knowledge by their timing record in memory. Events always seem to succeed each other in memory. From this arises the experience of "succession." You are thus able to relate events in sequence as they happened, not in a scattered way.

For example, someone who tells a story poorly, so that they must backtrack and add necessary details for it to make sense, is someone whose timing is "off"; you have heard people say, "He has poor timing." When they say, "She has perfect timing," you know that person has a good sense of time.

Lack of orientation is the result of a failure to allow time to measure space. Extreme cases even find it difficult to use a map. Time is "real" here on the outer, although relative universally, where "All time is now." We need periods, such as years, day and hours, to explain our experiences. Immanuel Kant's Antinomy of Space and Time is good reading, although heavy.

The principle of number arises from your need for spacing, or sequencing time in your life. Counting involves the establishment of a unity. Units are determined by mind itself, using such expressions as: Time involved, space occupied, work done and temperature. Your use of temperature as unit includes measuring emotions, "boiling mad," and "cold as ice."

A unit is the absolute form of an action or a position, since both space and time are involved. Number arises from the repetition of this act under a synthetic form of counting. This unfolds into a numerical series, expressed as for instance, powers, roots, logarithms, differentials, integrals, limits and rates.

Mind creates its own data, processes and problems, and tests them by its own insights. You have nerves which conduct signals of sensation to the brain. The senses have nothing to do with their production, and nothing to do with testing; only the nerves of space and action.

Someone credited George Russell Harrison, Dean of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1942), with the statement, "Science is the systematic production and analysis of experience, using time and space. Science is a systematic search for truth."

Timing is the action, the Power that descends from above as intuition, as said earlier. A scientist must be "intuitive" as well as "systematic." Harrison, as a scientist, also said, "Intuition is the ability to integrate previous experience without detailed analysis, to produce new awareness."

He further said that what we commonly call "intuition" involves merely a mess of confused emotions (hunches, predictions and premonitions) and prejudices, with thought. "True intuition," he said, "consists of that leap upward in the dark" (which we would call ascending into the Light), "with no solid ground underneath, in which you end up in perfect balance on your feet."

Five Categories of Expression (a)
Edna Lister outline, November 19, 1957.

Five Categories of Expression (b)
Edna Lister transcript, November 19, 1957.

Cosmic Principles: The Theory of Being

Edna Lister lecture transcript, December 3, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio. Scribe: Ruth Johnson.

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Laws of Progression: Six Categories of Being

Edna Lister lecture transcript, December 10, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio. Scribe: Ruth Johnson.

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The Wheels of Ezekiel.

Edna Lister lecture transcript, December 17, 1957, Cleveland, Ohio. Scribes: Margaret Pratt Doan, Ruth Johnson, Ross Whitehead.

Coming soon.

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