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Pioneering Mystic Essays, 2025

The Sacrifices of Patriots

by Margaret M. Pauls
August 9, 2025

While taking a friend to the Veterans Hospital for treatments, and waiting for him to be finished, I sat in the hallway, watching the parade of wheelchairs, walkers, oxygen tanks and the like, all indicating the illness and suffering of our veterans.
It saddened me to see our once healthy and virile young men and women, who proudly served this great nation, reduced to mere shadows of their former selves, and I added them to my daily prayers.
While in prayer one morning, I “heard” a Voice ask, “Has it ever occurred to you that these souls, on some level, chose these conditions as a way to pay dividends for themselves and the world, and to serve God?”
I admit it hadn’t.
While I am aware of a few people that had consciously made that choice, I never appreciated the fact that it could apply to all other souls, in all their various levels of consciousness, who would choose their sacrifices to serve God, and I pondered a long time on this.
We know that God has a Plan for saving earth and all embodied souls, and by offering this choice to all souls, He opens His kingdom to all who work out their own salvation through the surrender of self, ascension of consciousness, and obedience to God’s Law.
No matter how we perceive Him or what name we know Him by, God's people bring sacrifice and gifts of obedience, worship, and thanksgiving before Him. In Romans 12:1, St. Paul states, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
The act of sacrifice is an oblation solemnly reflecting honor toward God and gratitude for His sustaining power and salvation. One’s sacrifice must be dear to them, or it is otherwise without worth or merit. Sacrifice includes the personal virtues of consecration, bravery and action, all of which are embodied in the souls of true patriots, and is shown by their stoicism and acceptance.
The word “patriot” is the honorable name for the brave men and women of the armed forces who fight for the rights and freedoms of their country. It also refers to all those who support and defend their country of choice and is derived from the Greek “patrós,” meaning “of the father.”
But, aren’t all others who consciously choose God also patriots?
The “Elect” means “chosen,” from the Greek “eklektos.” These are individual people from diverse nations whom God has chosen beforehand for a specific purpose or destiny, particularly concerning salvation and eternal life. They chose to serve Him and be saved by His grace. They are begotten of His Love.
We, along with the veterans and the men and women who defend their country by act, word or deed, are the Elect, patriots of God. Instead of hoping that your sacrifices are good enough, rejoice and be glad for all you have accomplished so far in your service to God. We are begotten in His Love, our sacrifices accepted and credited, and we are held forever in the hollow of His Hand.

Of the Father's Love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are and have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore.
–Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

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The High Territory of Ascension

The mystics pioneering in the high territory of ascension were and are life-long students of the work and teachings of Edna Miriam Lister as revealed to her through her daily communion with Jesus the Christ in prayer and contemplation in the Golden Silence. Here we share ideas and insights into what she taught about Life on the Via Christa, God’s original Magna Carta, the Way of Ascension that Jesus taught, the Plan of Salvation, universal and personal, and how to conquer self to become what God intended us to be and do.
As Pioneering Mystics, we prefer an exact and “to the point” approach to our prized goal of soul ascension. As mystics, we believe in the possibility of direct communion with the Divine, and practice several of Edna Lister’s safe and simple techniques in prayer and contemplation to achieve a mystical state. The papers collected here are a distillation of the experiences of five generations of Pioneering Mystics, circa late-1880s to the present. Those who led the way blazed new trails through previously uncharted territories. We have collected here descriptions of their personal journeys transmitted orally and from their written correspondence and journals.
As participants in Edna Lister’s Society of the Universal Living Christ, we are part of her legacy, her life, and her spiritual teachings. We have each learned and practiced the soul conquering and self-disciplines she prescribed as an optimal way to walk the Via Christa, the Path of Ascension. We have experienced such positive results using her methods that we have spent decades teaching and disseminating her life’s work. We are glad to share the results of her efforts and ours with you.

Margaret M. Pauls
1948 –
Pioneering Mystic, Christian Platonist,
American Idealist, teacher, artist, author

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