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Teacher-Brother Dave's Compilation

of TOPICAL STUDIES from

The New Epochal Revelation of Truth, Page 94


(The current one is on our Home Page, left column)





Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.

[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]

Topical Study 79 "Spiritual Proof & Conviction in Truth"

Compiled 7/23/2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org

[Part 18 of several]

PAPER 195 AFTER PENTECOST

195:4 THE EUROPEAN DARK AGES

[Paper:Section.Paragraph]

195:4.4 Christianity exhibits a history of having originated out of the unintended transformation of the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus. It further presents the history of having experienced Hellenization, paganization, secularization, institutionalization, intellectual deterioration, spiritual decadence, moral hibernation, threatened extinction, later rejuvenation, fragmentation, and more recent [as of A.D. 1935] relative rehabilitation. Such a pedigree is indicative of inherent vitality and the possession of vast recuperative resources. And this same Christianity is now present in the civilized world of Occidental peoples and stands face to face with a struggle for existence which is even more ominous than those eventful crises which have characterized its past battles for dominance.

195:4.5 Religion is now confronted by the challenge of a new age of scientific minds and materialistic tendencies. In this gigantic struggle between the secular and the spiritual, the religion of Jesus will eventually triumph. [Amen !! Thank You, our Creator Son of God Jesus Christ Michael, here in Spirit worldwide and in your Universe-wide !]

195:6. MATERIALISM

195:6.1 Scientists have unintentionally precipitated mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the moral bank of the ages, but this bank of human experience has vast spiritual resources; it can stand the demands being made upon it. Only unthinking men become panicky about the spiritual assets of the human race. When the materialistic-secular panic is over, the religion of Jesus will not be found bankrupt. The spiritual bank of the Kingdom of Heaven will be paying out faith, hope, and moral security to all who draw upon it "in His name."

195:6.2 No matter what the apparent conflict between materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. In reality, true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in no way concerned with material things. Religion is simply indifferent to, but sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the scientist.

195:6.3 The pursuit of mere knowledge, without the attendant interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious experience, eventually leads to pessimism and human despair. A little knowledge is truly disconcerting. [Many humans today seem to mainly think and operate on a trivial secular physical temporal survival level.]

195:6.4 At the time of this writing [about A.D. 1935-1938] the worst of the materialistic age is over; the day of a better understanding is already beginning to dawn. The higher minds of the scientific world are no longer wholly materialistic in their philosophy, but the rank and file of the people still lean in that direction as a result of former teachings. But this age of physical realism is only a passing episode in man's life on earth. Modern science has left true religion -- the teachings of Jesus as translated in the lives of his believers -- untouched. All science has done is to destroy the childlike illusions of the misinterpretations of life.

195:6.16 Freedom or initiative in any realm of existence is directly proportional to the degree of spiritual influence and cosmic-mind control; that is, in human experience, the degree of the actuality of doing "the Father's will." And so, when you once start out to find God, that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you. [!!! "Our loving Father God states: You are My beloved son: Be you perfect; even as I AM perfect."]

195:6.17 The sincere pursuit of goodness, beauty, and truth leads to God. And every scientific discovery demonstrates the existence of both freedom and uniformity in the universe. The discoverer was free to make the discovery. The thing discovered is real and apparently uniform, or else it could not have become known as a thing. [!!]

195:7. THE VULNERABILITY OF MATERIALISM

195:7.1 How foolish it is for material-minded man to allow such vulnerable theories as those of a mechanistic universe to deprive him of the vast spiritual resources of the personal experience of true religion. Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than attempting the overthrow of religious faith -- human belief in spiritual realities and divine values.

195:7.4 Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena of the universes of time and space. But it requires the eye of faith in a Spirit-born mortal to detect and discern these spiritual values.

195:7.5 The realities and values of spiritual progress are not a "psychologic projection" -- a mere glorified daydream of the material mind. Such things are the spiritual forecasts of the indwelling Adjuster, the spirit of God living in the mind of man. And let not your dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of "relativity" disturb your concepts of the Eternity and Infinity of God. And in all your solicitation concerning the necessity for self-expression do not make the mistake of failing to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your real and better self. [The Divine Thought Adjuster is God's will within you ! and destined to eventually fuse with and Be You as all-Spirit perfected !! What a wonderful Gift from God !]

195:8. SECULAR TOTALITARIANISM

195:8.8 It is not necessary to sacrifice faith in God in order to enjoy the blessings of the modern secularistic revolt: tolerance, social service, democratic government, and civil liberties. It was not necessary for the secularists to antagonize true religion in order to promote science and to advance education.

195:8.9 But secularism is not the sole parent of all these recent gains in the enlargement of living. Behind the gains of the twentieth century are not only science and secularism but also the unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual workings of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. [Our Master Jesus Christ is fully here in Spirit, lovingly leading and guiding all Truth-seekers and Truth-lovers worldwide into All Truth ! See John 16:7-16]

195:8.10 Without God, without religion, scientific secularism can never co-ordinate its forces, harmonize its divergent and rivalrous interests, races, and nationalisms. This secularistic human society, notwithstanding its unparalleled materialistic achievement, is slowly disintegrating. The chief cohesive force resisting this disintegration of antagonism is nationalism. And nationalism is the chief barrier to world peace.

195:8.11 The inherent weakness of secularism is that it discards ethics and religion for politics and power. You simply cannot establish the Brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the Fatherhood of God.

195:9. CHRISTIANITY'S PROBLEM

[Very important:]

195:9.1 Do not overlook the value of your spiritual heritage, the river of Truth running down through the centuries, even to the barren times of a materialistic and secular age. In all your worthy efforts to rid yourselves of the superstitious creeds of past ages, make sure that you hold fast the Eternal Truth. But be patient! when the present superstition revolt is over, the Truths of Jesus' Gospel will persist gloriously to illuminate a new and better way.

195:9.2 But paganized and socialized Christianity stands in need of new contact with the uncompromised teachings of Jesus; it languishes for lack of a new vision of the Master's life on earth. A new and fuller revelation of the religion of Jesus is destined to conquer an empire of materialistic secularism and to overthrow a world sway of mechanistic naturalism. Earth is now quivering on the very brink of one of its most amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment.

195:9.3 The teachings of Jesus, even though greatly modified, survived the mystery cults of their birthtime, the ignorance and superstition of the dark ages, and are even now slowly triumphing over the materialism, mechanism, and secularism of the twentieth century. And such times of great testing and threatened defeat are always times of great revelation. [We are all blessed to live in an epoch of greater spiritual Revelation ! Amen !]

195:9.4 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual Renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus' religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then will these Spirit-born souls quickly supply the leadership and inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world. [!!! Coming soon !!]

195:9.5 The modern age will refuse to accept a religion which is inconsistent with facts and out of harmony with its highest conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness. The hour is striking for a rediscovery of the true and original foundations of present-day distorted and compromised Christianity -- the real life and teachings of Jesus. [There are now millions of printed and internet copies of this mighty Revelation free to peruse and share. Billions of copies will be needed in the next decades of augmented spiritual progress worldwide. A soon-coming world standard language of English (expanded somewhat) will help.]

195:9.6 Primitive man lived a life of superstitious bondage to religious fear. Modern, civilized men dread the thought of falling under the dominance of strong religious convictions. Thinking man has always feared to be held by a religion. When a strong and moving religion threatens to dominate him, he invariably tries to rationalize, traditionalize, and institutionalize it, thereby hoping to gain control of it. By such procedure, even a revealed religion becomes man-made and man-dominated. Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them -- and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.

195:9.7 Selfish men and women simply will not pay such a price for even the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered mortal man. [even a personal Revelation of your final spiritual Destiny as an eternalized and ever-progressing son of God in Jesus ! and other sacred Gifts !] Only when man has become sufficiently disillusioned by the sorrowful disappointments attendant upon the foolish and deceptive pursuits of selfishness, and subsequent to the discovery of the barrenness of formalized religion, will he be disposed to turn wholeheartedly to the gospel of the kingdom, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. [That transformation I see as coming in ever faster ! It is much needed !]

195:9.8 The world needs more firsthand religion. Even Christianity -- the best of the religions of the twentieth century -- is not only a religion about Jesus, but it is so largely one which men experience secondhand. They take their religion wholly as handed down by their accepted religious teachers. What an awakening the world would experience if it could only see Jesus as he really lived on earth and know, firsthand, his life-giving teachings! Descriptive words of things beautiful cannot thrill like the sight thereof, neither can creedal words inspire men's souls like the experience of knowing the presence of God. But expectant faith will ever keep the hope-door of man's soul open for the entrance of the eternal spiritual realities of the divine values of the worlds beyond.

195:9.9 Christianity has dared to lower its ideals before the challenge of human greed, war-madness, and the lust for power; but the religion of Jesus stands as the unsullied [pure,clean] and transcendent spiritual summons, calling to the best there is in man to rise above all these legacies of animal evolution and, by grace, attain the moral heights of true human destiny.

195:9.10 Christianity is threatened by slow death from formalism, overorganization, intellectualism, and other nonspiritual trends. The modern Christian church is not such a brotherhood of dynamic believers as Jesus commissioned continuously to effect the spiritual transformation of successive generations of mankind.

195:9.11 So-called Christianity has become a social and cultural movement as well as a religious belief and practice. The stream of modern Christianity drains many an ancient pagan swamp and many a barbarian morass; many olden cultural watersheds drain into this present-day cultural stream as well as the high Galilean tablelands which are supposed to be its exclusive source.

Topical Study 79 "Spiritual Proof & Conviction in Truth"

Compiled 7/25/2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org

[Part 19 of several]

PAPER 195 AFTER PENTECOST, Cont.

195:10 THE FUTURE

[Very Important ! All is presented here.]

[Paper:Section.Paragraph]

195:10.1 Christianity has indeed done a great service for this world, but what is now most needed is Jesus. The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men. [I now share in the Spirit of Truth: Beloved human sons of God: Behold our loving Father God in and as our True God-Man Jesus Christ here in Spirit ! For the time is now at hand ...] It is futile to talk about a revival of primitive Christianity; you must go forward from where you find yourselves. Modern culture must become spiritually baptized with a new revelation of Jesus' life and illuminated with a new understanding of his gospel of eternal salvation. And when Jesus becomes thus lifted up, he will draw all men to himself. [Very true ! Also said by Jesus as recorded in John 12:32 !!] Jesus' disciples should be more than conquerors, even overflowing sources of inspiration and enhanced living to all men. Religion is only an exalted humanism until it is made divine by the discovery of the reality of the presence of God in personal experience.

195:10.2 The beauty and sublimity, the humanity and divinity, the simplicity and uniqueness, of Jesus' life on earth present such a striking and appealing picture of man-saving and God-revealing that the theologians and philosophers of all time should be effectively restrained from daring to form creeds or create theological systems of spiritual bondage out of such a transcendental bestowal of God in the form of man. In Jesus the universe produced a mortal man in whom the spirit of love triumphed over the material handicaps of time and overcame the fact of physical origin.

195:10.3 Ever bear in mind -- God and men need each other. They are mutually necessary to the full and final attainment of eternal personality experience in the divine Destiny of universe Finality.

195:10.4 "The Kingdom of God is within you" was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving Spirit.

195:10.5 In winning souls for the Master, it is not the first mile of compulsion, duty, or convention that will transform man and his world, but rather the second mile of free service and liberty-loving devotion that betokens the Jesusonian reaching forth to grasp his brother in love and sweep him on under spiritual guidance toward the higher and divine goal of mortal existence. Christianity even now willingly goes the first mile, but mankind languishes and stumbles along in moral darkness because there are so few genuine second-milers -- so few professed followers of Jesus who really live and love as he taught his disciples to live and love and serve.

195:10.6 The call to the adventure of building a new and transformed human society by means of the spiritual rebirth of Jesus' brotherhood of the kingdom should thrill all who believe in him as men have not been stirred since the days when they walked about on earth as his companions in the flesh. [We Spirit-transformed humans can continue to help build a spiritually transformed world according to God's will and in loving brotherhood service !]

195:10.7 No social system or political regime which denies the reality of God can contribute in any constructive and lasting manner to the advancement of human civilization. But Christianity, as it is subdivided and secularized today, presents the greatest single obstacle to its further advancement; especially is this true concerning the Orient. [Our Living Master Jesus Christ who is here in Spirit is calling all Christians and others into greater spiritual Unity, not mere dogmatic intellectual uniformity !]

195:10.8 Ecclesiasticism is at once and forever incompatible with that living faith, growing spirit, and firsthand experience of the faith-comrades of Jesus in the Brotherhood of man in the spiritual association of the Kingdom of Heaven. The praiseworthy desire to preserve traditions of past achievement often leads to the defense of outgrown systems of worship. The well-meant desire to foster ancient thought systems effectually prevents the sponsoring of new and adequate means and methods designed to satisfy the spiritual longings of the expanding and advancing minds of modern men. Likewise, the Christian churches of the twentieth century stand as great, but wholly unconscious, obstacles to the immediate advance of the real gospel -- the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

195:10.9 Many earnest persons who would gladly yield loyalty to the Christ of the gospel find it very difficult enthusiastically to support a church which exhibits so little of the Spirit of his life and teachings, and which they have been erroneously taught he founded. Jesus did not found the so-called Christian church, but he has, in every manner consistent with his nature, fostered it as the best existent exponent of his lifework on earth.

195:10.10 If the Christian church would only dare to espouse the Master's program, thousands of apparently indifferent youths would rush forward to enlist in such a spiritual undertaking, and they would not hesitate to go all the way through with this great adventure.

195:10.11 Christianity is seriously confronted with the doom embodied in one of its own slogans: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The non-Christian world will hardly capitulate to a sect-divided Christendom. The living Jesus is the only hope of a possible unification of Christianity. The true church -- the Jesus brotherhood -- is invisible, spiritual, and is characterized by unity, not necessarily by uniformity. Uniformity is the earmark of the physical world of mechanistic nature. Spiritual unity is the fruit of faith union with the living Jesus. The visible church should refuse longer to handicap the progress of the invisible and spiritual brotherhood of the kingdom of God. And this brotherhood is destined to become a living organism in contrast to an institutionalized social organization. It may well utilize such social organizations, but it must not be supplanted by them.

195:10.12 But the Christianity of even the twentieth century must not be despised. It is the product of the combined moral genius of the God-knowing men of many races during many ages, and it has truly been one of the greatest powers for good on earth, and therefore no man should lightly regard it, notwithstanding its inherent and acquired defects. Christianity still contrives to move the minds of reflective men with mighty moral emotions.

195:10.13 But there is no excuse for the involvement of the church in commerce and politics; such unholy alliances are a flagrant betrayal of the Master. And the genuine lovers of truth will be slow to forget that this powerful institutionalized church has often dared to smother newborn faith and persecute truth bearers who chanced to appear in unorthodox raiment.

195:10.14 It is all too true that such a church would not have survived unless there had been men in the world who preferred such a style of worship. Many spiritually indolent souls crave an ancient and authoritative religion of ritual and sacred traditions. Human evolution and spiritual progress are hardly sufficient to enable all men to dispense with religious authority. And the invisible Brotherhood of the Kingdom may well include these family groups of various social and temperamental classes if they are only willing to become truly Spirit-led sons of God. But in this Brotherhood of Jesus there is no place for sectarian rivalry, group bitterness, nor assertions of moral superiority and spiritual infallibility.

195:10.15 These various groupings of Christians may serve to accommodate numerous different types of would-be believers among the various peoples of Western civilization, but such division of Christendom presents a grave weakness when it attempts to carry the gospel of Jesus to Oriental peoples. These races do not yet understand that there is a religion of Jesus separate, and somewhat apart, from Christianity, which has more and more become a religion about Jesus.

195:10.16 The great hope of earth lies in the possibility of a new revelation of Jesus with a new and enlarged presentation of his saving message which would spiritually unite in loving service the numerous families of his present-day professed followers. [Yes !!]

195:10.17 Even secular education could help in this great spiritual Renaissance if it would pay more attention to the work of teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression. The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality. There is great need for the teaching of moral discipline in the place of so much self-gratification. Upon such a foundation religion may contribute its spiritual incentive to the enlargement and enrichment of mortal life, even to the security and enhancement of life eternal.

195:10.18 Christianity is an extemporized religion, and therefore must it operate in low gear. High-gear spiritual performances must await the new revelation and the more general acceptance of the real religion of Jesus. But Christianity is a mighty religion, seeing that the commonplace disciples of a crucified carpenter set in motion those teachings which conquered the Roman world in three hundred years and then went on to triumph over the barbarians who overthrew Rome. This same Christianity conquered -- absorbed and exalted -- the whole stream of Hebrew theology and Greek philosophy. And then, when this Christian religion became comatose for more than a thousand years as a result of an overdose of mysteries and paganism, it resurrected itself and virtually reconquered the whole Western world. Christianity contains enough of Jesus' teachings to immortalize it. [Yes, a more Spirit-led and more true Living Personal Christianity will eventually become the one universal living religion worldwide !! This is God's perfect will for all humans on earth - to seek and to follow in love and service only our Eternal Sovereign Savior Jesus Christ ! (aka Jesus Christ Michael). If added divine visitations of made-visible Sons and high Angels are required, our loving Father God will send them as needed.]

195:10.19 If Christianity could only grasp more of Jesus' teachings, it could do so much more in helping modern man to solve his new and increasingly complex problems.

195:10.20 Christianity suffers under a great handicap because it has become identified in the minds of all the world as a part of the social system, the industrial life, and the moral standards of Western civilization; and thus has Christianity unwittingly seemed to sponsor a society which staggers under the guilt of tolerating science without idealism, politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without restraint, knowledge without character, power without conscience, and industry without morality.

195:10.21 The hope of modern Christianity is that it should cease to sponsor the social systems and industrial policies of Western civilization while it humbly bows itself before the cross it so valiantly extols, there to learn anew from Jesus of Nazareth the greatest truths mortal man can ever hear -- The Living Gospel of the [loving and merciful] Fatherhood of God and the [perfecting] Brotherhood of man. [Please save, peruse often, continue to pray and worship God, and share this very important Paper, or portions of it, with others.]

PAPER 196 THE FAITH OF JESUS

Introduction

[This Paper is also very important !]

196:0.1 Jesus enjoyed a sublime and wholehearted faith in God. He experienced the ordinary ups and downs of mortal existence, but he never religiously doubted the certainty of God's watchcare and guidance. His faith was the outgrowth of the insight born of the activity of the divine Presence, his indwelling Adjuster. His faith was neither traditional nor merely intellectual; it was wholly personal and purely spiritual.

196:0.2 The human Jesus saw God as being holy, just, and great, as well as being true, beautiful, and good. All these attributes of divinity he focused in his mind as the "will of the Father in Heaven." Jesus' God was at one and the same time "The Holy One of Israel" and "The living and loving Father in Heaven." The concept of God as a Father was not original with Jesus, but he exalted and elevated the idea into a sublime experience by achieving a New Revelation of God and by proclaiming that every mortal creature is a child of this Father of love, a son of God. [Yes, Jesus teaches us in Spirit that each and every human on earth is a divinely beloved son of God with potential for eventual perfection and eternal life ! That is the real Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ that all humans on this world most need to know and to believe !]

196:0.3 Jesus did not cling to faith in God as would a struggling soul at war with the universe and at death grips with a hostile and sinful world; he did not resort to faith merely as a consolation in the midst of difficulties or as a comfort in threatened despair; faith was not just an illusory compensation for the unpleasant realities and the sorrows of living. In the very face of all the natural difficulties and the temporal contradictions of mortal existence, he experienced the tranquility of supreme and unquestioned trust in God and felt the tremendous thrill of living, by faith, in the very Presence of the heavenly Father. And this triumphant faith was a living experience of actual Spirit attainment. Jesus' great contribution to the values of human experience was not that he revealed so many new ideas about the Father in Heaven, but rather that he so magnificently and humanly demonstrated a New and higher type of Living Faith in God. Never on all the worlds of this universe, in the life of any one mortal, did God ever become such a Living Reality as in the human experience of Jesus of Nazareth. [So true !! Now our Master Jesus is the fullness of God here to all in His Created Universe ! And He, Jesus, the Spirit of All Truth, is here with us to lovingly lead us -- now and eternally ! Amen !]

Topical Study 79 "Spiritual Proof & Conviction in Truth"

Compiled 7/28/2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org

[Part 20 of 21]

PAPER 196 THE FAITH OF JESUS, Cont.

Introduction, Cont.

[Paper:Section.Paragraph]

196:0.4 In the Master's life on earth, this and all other worlds of the local creation discover a new and higher type of religion, religion based on personal spiritual relations with the Universal Father and wholly validated by the supreme authority of genuine personal experience. [Supreme Authority !] This living faith of Jesus was more than an intellectual reflection, and it was not a mystic meditation.

196:0.5 Theology may fix, formulate, define, and dogmatize faith, but in the human life of Jesus faith was personal, living, original, spontaneous, and purely spiritual. This faith was not reverence for tradition nor a mere intellectual belief which he held as a sacred creed, but rather a sublime experience and a profound conviction which securely held him. His faith was so real and all-encompassing that it absolutely swept away any spiritual doubts and effectively destroyed every conflicting desire. Nothing was able to tear him away from the spiritual anchorage of this fervent, sublime, and undaunted faith. Even in the face of apparent defeat or in the throes of disappointment and threatening despair, he calmly stood in the divine Presence free from fear and fully conscious of spiritual invincibility. Jesus enjoyed the invigorating assurance of the possession of unflinching faith, and in each of life's trying situations he unfailingly exhibited an unquestioning loyalty to the Father's will. And this superb faith was undaunted even by the cruel and crushing threat of an ignominious death. [Jesus had and has fearless confidence that is Real in God, not false intellectual confidence or arrogance !]

196:0.6 In a religious genius, strong spiritual faith so many times leads directly to disastrous fanaticism, to exaggeration of the religious ego, but it was not so with Jesus. He was not unfavorably affected in his practical life by his extraordinary faith and spirit attainment because this spiritual exaltation was a wholly unconscious and spontaneous soul expression of his personal experience with God.

196:0.7 The all-consuming and indomitable spiritual faith of Jesus never became fanatical, for it never attempted to run away with his well-balanced intellectual judgments concerning the proportional values of practical and commonplace social, economic, and moral life situations. The Son of Man was a splendidly unified human personality; he was a perfectly endowed divine Being; he was also magnificently coordinated as a combined Human and divine Being functioning on earth as a single Personality. Always did the Master co-ordinate the faith of the soul with the wisdom-appraisals of seasoned experience. Personal faith, spiritual hope, and moral devotion were always correlated in a matchless religious unity of harmonious association with the keen realization of the reality and sacredness of all human loyalties -- personal honor, family love, religious obligation, social duty, and economic necessity. [And Jesus continues today and forever to Be the SAME ONE God-Man Spirit Person ! and here with us ! and we each may personally allow him to enter our souls and minds to further guide and transform us !]

196:0.8 The faith of Jesus visualized all Spirit values as being found in the Kingdom of God; therefore he said, "Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven." Jesus saw in the advanced and ideal fellowship of the Kingdom the achievement and fulfillment of the "will of God." The very heart of the prayer which he taught his disciples was, "Your Kingdom come; Your will be done." Having thus conceived of the Kingdom as comprising the will of God, he devoted himself to the cause of its realization with amazing self-forgetfulness and unbounded enthusiasm. But in all his intense Mission and throughout his extraordinary Life there never appeared the fury of the fanatic nor the superficial frothiness of the religious egotist.

196:0.9 The Master's entire life was consistently conditioned by this living faith, this sublime religious experience. This spiritual attitude wholly dominated his thinking and feeling, his believing and praying, his teaching and preaching. This personal faith of a Son in the certainty and security of the guidance and protection of the heavenly Father imparted to his unique life a profound endowment of spiritual Reality. And yet, despite this very deep consciousness of close relationship with Divinity, this Galilean, God's Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, "Why do you call me good?" When we stand confronted by such splendid self-forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to Manifest himself to him and Reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms.

196:0.10 Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic service of doing the divine will. Jesus always and consistently interpreted religion wholly in terms of the Father's will. When you study the career of the Master, as concerns prayer or any other feature of the religious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Jesus never prayed as a religious duty. To him prayer was a sincere expression of spiritual attitude, a declaration of soul loyalty, a recital of personal devotion, an expression of thanksgiving, an avoidance of emotional tension, a prevention of conflict, an exaltation of intellection, an ennoblement of desire, a vindication of moral decision, an enrichment of thought, an invigoration of higher inclinations, a consecration of impulse, a clarification of viewpoint, a declaration of faith, a transcendental surrender of will, a sublime assertion of confidence, a revelation of courage, the proclamation of discovery, a confession of supreme devotion, the validation of consecration, a technique for the adjustment of difficulties, and the mighty mobilization of the combined soul powers to withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin. [120 words in that one profound sentence !] He lived just such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father's will and ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. [Jesus' last words on the cross, said in a loud Voice were: "IT IS FINISHED! FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT.” ] The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the Presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship -- unbroken communion with God [!!!]-- and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices.

196:0.11 In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the divine Spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child, but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound confidence in the universe -- just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus' wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child's trust in the security of its earthly surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father's overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear. [!!]

196:0.12 The faith of Jesus attained the purity of a child's trust. His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of dependence on the Divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the joy and the assurance of absolute personal security. [and perfect peace and more !] There was no hesitating pretense in his religious experience. In this giant intellect of the full-grown man the faith of the child reigned supreme in all matters relating to the religious consciousness. It is not strange that he once said, "Except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the Kingdom." Notwithstanding that Jesus' faith was childlike, it was in no sense childish.

196:0.13 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the Reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, "Follow me." [I choose to believe and to know God in and with my loving Sovereign Savior Jesus as both my Universe Creator Father and very Elder Brother; and thus I believe also in the Universal Father-Infinite I AM on Paradise ! This Infinite Father of All Reality and our loving, merciful, Sovereign Savior Creator Son Jesus Christ Michael are fully One in Spirit Eternally ! In Jesus, God is fully Present here with us in Spirit !]

196:0.14 Jesus' earthly life was devoted to one great purpose -- doing the Father's will, living the human life religiously and by faith. The faith of Jesus was trusting, like that of a child, but it was wholly free from presumption. He made robust and manly decisions, courageously faced manifold disappointments, resolutely surmounted extraordinary difficulties, and unflinchingly confronted the stern requirements of duty. It required [and still requires today] a strong will and an unfailing confidence to believe what Jesus believed and as he believed.

196:1. JESUS -- THE MAN [Very Important !]

196:1.1 Jesus' devotion to the Father's will and the service of man was even more than mortal decision and human determination; it was a wholehearted consecration of himself to such an unreserved bestowal of love. No matter how great the fact of the sovereignty of [Jesus Christ] Michael, you must not take the human Jesus away from men. The Master has ascended on high as a [all-perfected Spirit] man, as well as God; he belongs to men; men belong to him. How unfortunate that religion itself should be so misinterpreted as to take the human Jesus away from struggling mortals! Let not the discussions of the humanity or the divinity of the Christ obscure the saving Truth that Jesus of Nazareth was a religious man who, by faith, achieved the knowing and the doing of the will of God; he was the most truly religious Man who has ever lived on earth.

196:1.2 [a very important paragraph:] The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries. Jesus of Nazareth must not be longer sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. What a transcendent service if, through this Revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions I Surely the Christian fellowship of believers will not hesitate to make such adjustments of faith and of practices of living as will enable it to "follow after" the Master in the demonstration of his real life of religious devotion to the doing of his Father's will and of consecration to the unselfish service of man. Do professed Christians fear the exposure of a self-sufficient and unconsecrated fellowship of social respectability and selfish economic maladjustment? Does institutional Christianity fear the possible jeopardy, or even the overthrow, of traditional ecclesiastical authority if the Jesus of Galilee is reinstated in the minds and souls of mortal men as the ideal of personal religious living? Indeed, the social readjustments, the economic transformations, the moral rejuvenations, and the religious revisions of Christian civilization would be drastic and revolutionary if the living religion of Jesus should suddenly supplant the theologic religion aboutThis spiritual Renaissance-Transformation worldwide is coming ! Amen !]

196:1.3 To "follow Jesus" means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it. [So True !!]

196:1.4 The common people heard Jesus gladly, and they will again respond to the presentation of his sincere human life of consecrated religious motivation if such truths shall again be proclaimed to the world. The people heard him gladly because he was one of them, an unpretentious layman; the world's greatest religious teacher was indeed a layman. [!!]

196:1.5 It should not be the aim of Kingdom believers literally to imitate the outward life of Jesus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God and to believe in men as he believed in men. Jesus never argued about either the Fatherhood of God or the brotherhood of men; he was a living illustration of the one and a profound demonstration of the other. [!!! Yes !]

196:1.6 Just as men must progress from the consciousness of the human to the realization of the Divine, so did Jesus ascend from the nature of man to the consciousness of the nature of God. And the Master made this great ascent from the human to the Divine by the conjoint [united together] achievement of the faith of his mortal intellect and the acts of his indwelling Adjuster. The Fact-Realization of the attainment of totality of Divinity (all the while fully conscious of the Reality of [Spirit-perfected] Humanity) was attended by seven stages of faith consciousness of progressive divinization. These stages of progressive self-realization were marked off by the following extraordinary events in the Master's bestowal experience:

196:1.7 1. The arrival of the Thought Adjuster. [at about age 4.5 years]

196:1.8 2. The messenger of Immanuel who appeared to him at Jerusalem when he was about twelve years old. [April 08, A.D. 7]

196:1.9 3. The manifestations attendant upon his baptism. [Jan 14, A.D. 26]

196:1.10 4. The experiences on the Mount of Transfiguration. [Aug 15, A.D. 29]

196:1.11 5. The morontia [soul-form] resurrection. [April 09, A.D. 30]

196:1.12 6. The spirit ascension. [to the Universal Father on Paradise on May 18, A.D. 30]

196:1.13 7. The final embrace of the Paradise Father, conferring unlimited sovereignty of his universe. [May 18, A.D. 30 - on]

Topical Study 79 "Spiritual Proof & Conviction in Truth"

Compiled 7/30/2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org

[Part 21 of 21]

PAPER 196 THE FAITH OF JESUS, Cont.

196:2. THE RELIGION OF JESUS

[Paper:Section.Paragraph]

196:2.1 Some day a reformation in the Christian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadulterated religious teachings of Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus. ...

196:2.2 Jesus' life in the flesh portrays a transcendent religious growth from the early ideas of primitive awe and human reverence up through years of personal spiritual communion until he finally arrived at that advanced and exalted status of the consciousness of his oneness with the Father. [See Jesus: See God; They are ONE in Spirit: Jesus is I AM here with us !] And thus, in one short life, did Jesus traverse that experience of religious spiritual progression which man begins on earth and ordinarily achieves only at the conclusion of his long sojourn in the Spirit training schools of the successive levels of the pre-Paradise career. Jesus progressed from a purely human consciousness of the faith certainties of personal religious experience to the sublime spiritual heights of the positive realization of his [Eternal] Divine Nature and to the consciousness of his close association with the Universal Father in the management of a universe. He progressed from the humble status of mortal dependence which prompted him spontaneously to say to the one who called him Good Teacher, "Why do you call me good? None is good but God," to that sublime consciousness of achieved Divinity which led him to exclaim, "Which one of you convicts me of sin?" And this progressing ascent from the human to the Divine was an exclusively mortal achievement. And when he had thus attained Divinity, he was still the same human Jesus, the Son of Man as well as the Son of God. [Omnipresent Spirit-form God-Man, not a limited, weak, physical human form !]

196:2.4 But the greatest mistake was made in that, while the human Jesus was recognized as having a religion, the Divine Jesus (Christ) almost overnight became a religion. Paul's Christianity made sure of the adoration of the Divine Christ, [which is true and proper !] but it almost wholly lost sight of the struggling and valiant [Spirit-perfected] Human Jesus of Galilee, who, by the valor of his personal religious faith and the heroism of his indwelling Adjuster, ascended from the lowly levels of humanity to become [very important:] ONE with Divinity, thus becoming the New and Living Way whereby all mortals may so ascend from humanity to Divinity. [!!] Mortals in all stages of spirituality and on all worlds may find in the personal Life of Jesus that which will strengthen and inspire them as they progress from the lowest Spirit levels up to the highest Divine Values, from the beginning to the end of all personal religious experience. [Yes !! Perfect peace and eternal joy ! Amen !]

196:2.7 You would be neither shocked nor disturbed by some of Jesus' strong pronouncements if you would only remember that he was the world's most wholehearted and devoted Religionist. He was a wholly consecrated mortal, unreservedly dedicated to doing his Father's will. Many of his apparently hard sayings were more of a personal confession of faith and a pledge of devotion than commands to his followers. And it was this very singleness of purpose and unselfish devotion that enabled him to effect such extraordinary progress in the conquest of the human mind in one short life. Many of his declarations should be considered as a confession of what he demanded of himself rather than what he required of all his followers. In his devotion to the cause of the Kingdom, Jesus burned all bridges behind him; he sacrificed all hindrances to the doing of his Father's will.

196:2.9 Jesus led men to feel at home in the world; he delivered them from the slavery of taboo and taught them that the world was not fundamentally evil. He did not long to escape from his earthly life; he mastered a technique of acceptably doing the Father's will while in the flesh. He attained an idealistic religious life in the very midst of a realistic world. Jesus did not share Paul's pessimistic view of humankind. The Master looked upon men as the sons of God and foresaw a magnificent and eternal future for those who chose survival. He was not a moral skeptic; he viewed man positively, not negatively. He saw most men as weak rather than wicked, more distraught than depraved. But no matter what their status, they were all [ALL !] God's children and his brethren. [Amen ! What a beautiful Savior we have in Jesus who really understands each and all of us, and who desires to transform each human son of God to attain Eternal Life in our loving Father and in His Light ! !]

196:2.10 He taught men to place a high value upon themselves in time and in Eternity. Because of this high estimate which Jesus placed upon men, he was willing to spend himself in the unremitting service of humankind. And it was this Infinite worth of the finite [!!!] that made the golden rule a vital factor in his religion. What mortal can fail to be uplifted by the extraordinary faith Jesus has in him? [Tremendous !!! The higher "golden rule" up-stepped by Jesus is to try to love and serve all humans as you believe that Jesus would do ! Fatherly love is much higher and more real than just human brotherly love !]

196:2.11 Jesus offered no rules for social advancement; his was a religious mission, and religion is an exclusively individual experience. The ultimate goal of society's most advanced achievement can never hope to transcend Jesus' brotherhood of men based on the recognition of the Fatherhood of God. The ideal of all social attainment can be realized only in the coming of this divine Kingdom.

196:3. THE SUPREMACY OF RELIGION

196:3.1 Personal, spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and adjuster of all human problems. Religion does not remove or destroy human troubles, but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them. True religion unifies the personality for effective adjustment to all mortal requirements. Religious faith -- the positive leading of the indwelling Divine Presence -- unfailingly enables the God-knowing man to bridge that gulf existing between the intellectual logic which recognizes the Universal First Cause as It and those positive affirmations of the soul which aver this First Cause is He, the heavenly Father of Jesus' gospel, the personal God of human salvation.

196:3.3 [Deep and important:] The progressive comprehension of Reality is the equivalent of approaching God. The finding of God, the consciousness of identity with Reality, is the equivalent of the experiencing of self-completion -- self-entirety, self-totality. The experiencing of Total Reality is the full realization of God, the Finality of the God- knowing experience. [Profound Reality !]

196:3.4 The full summation of human life is the knowledge that man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved -- justified -- by religious faith.

196:3.5 Physical certainty consists in the logic of science; moral certainty, in the wisdom of philosophy; spiritual Certainty, in the truth of genuine religious experience. [just as and just where you are at all times and all places !]

196:3.6 The mind of man can attain high levels of spiritual insight and corresponding spheres of divinity of values because it is not wholly material. There is a Spirit Nucleus in the mind of man -- the Adjuster of the Divine Presence. There are three separate evidences of this Spirit indwelling of the human mind:

196:3.7 1. Humanitarian fellowship -- love. The purely animal mind may be gregarious for self-protection, but only the Spirit-indwelt intellect is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.

196:3.8 2. Interpretation of the universe -- wisdom. Only the Spirit-indwelt mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual. [Definitely Spirit and Cosmic Mind friendly, even if not always physically friendly as finitely perceived by mortals in this initial life on earth.]

196:3.9 3. Spiritual evaluation of life -- worship. Only the Spirit-indwelt man can realize the Divine Presence and seek to attain a fuller experience in and with this foretaste of Divinity. [Yes, most worthwhile and satisfying ...]

196:3.10 The human mind does not create real values; human experience does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight, the recognition of moral values and the discernment of spiritual meanings, all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.

196:3.15 Thus it appears that all human progress is effected by a technique of conjoint revelational evolution.

196:3.16 Unless a divine lover lived in man, he could not unselfishly and spiritually love. Unless an interpreter lived in the mind, man could not truly realize the unity of the universe. Unless an evaluator dwelt with man, he could not possibly appraise moral values and recognize spiritual meanings. And this lover hails from the very source of infinite love; this interpreter is a part of Universal Unity; this evaluator is the child of the Center and Source of all Absolute Values of Divine and Eternal Reality. [We have the Thought Adjuster, Jesus the Father-Son Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit of the Infinite Spirit ! Three in Two as One to ever love, guide and serve us in Combined Divine Ministry !]

196:3.17 Moral evaluation with a religious meaning -- spiritual insight -- connotes the individual's choice between good and evil, truth and error, material and spiritual, human and divine, time and eternity. Human survival is in great measure dependent on consecrating the human will to the choosing of those values selected by this Spirit-value sorter -- the indwelling interpreter and unifier. Personal religious experience consists in two phases: discovery in the human mind and Revelation by the indwelling Divine Spirit. Through oversophistication or as a result of the irreligious conduct of professed religionists, a man, or even a generation of men, may elect to suspend their efforts to discover the God who indwells them; they may fail to progress in and attain the Divine Revelation. But such attitudes of spiritual nonprogression cannot long persist because of the presence and influence of the indwelling Thought Adjusters.[our Father's perfect love and eternal guidance for us !]

196:3.19 The Hebrews had a religion of moral sublimity; the Greeks evolved a religion of beauty; Paul and his conferees founded a religion of faith, hope, and charity. Jesus revealed and exemplified a religion of love: security in the Father's love, with joy and satisfaction consequent upon sharing this love in the service of the human brotherhood.

196:3.21 The exquisite and transcendent experience of loving and being loved is not just a psychic illusion because it is so purely subjective. The one truly divine and objective Reality that is associated with [and within] mortal beings, the Thought Adjuster, functions to human observation apparently as an exclusively subjective phenomenon. Man's contact with the highest objective Reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, of worshiping him, of realizing sonship with him.

196:3.22 True religious worship is not a futile monologue of self-deception. Worship is a personal Communion with that which is divinely Real, with that which is the very Source of Reality. Man aspires by worship to be better and thereby eventually attains the best.

196:3.23 The idealization and attempted service of truth, beauty, and goodness is not a substitute for genuine religious experience -- spiritual Reality. Psychology and idealism are not the equivalent of religious Reality. The projections of the human intellect may indeed originate false gods -- gods in man's image -- but the true God-consciousness does not have such an origin. The God-consciousness is resident in the indwelling Spirit. Many of the religious systems of man come from the formulations of the human intellect, but the God-consciousness is not necessarily a part of these grotesque systems of religious slavery. [!!]

196:3.24 God is not the mere invention of man's idealism; he is the very source of all such superanimal insights and values. God is not a hypothesis formulated to unify the human concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness; he is the personality of love from whom all of these universe manifestations are derived. The truth, beauty, and goodness of man's world are unified by the increasing spirituality of the experience of mortals ascending toward Paradise Realities. The unity of truth, beauty, and goodness can only be realized in the spiritual experience of the God-knowing personality.

196:3.25 Morality is the essential pre-existent soil of personal God-consciousness, the personal realization of the Adjuster's inner Presence, but such morality is not the source of religious experience and the resultant spiritual insight. The moral nature is superanimal but subspiritual. Morality is equivalent to the recognition of duty, the realization of the existence of right and wrong. The moral zone intervenes between the animal and the human types of mind as morontia [soul-level reality] functions between the material and the spiritual spheres of personality attainment.

196:3.26 The evolutionary mind is able to discover law, morals, and ethics; but the bestowed Spirit, the indwelling Adjuster, reveals to the evolving human mind the lawgiver, the Father-source of all that is true, beautiful, and good; and such an illuminated man has a religion and is spiritually equipped to begin the long and adventurous search for God.

196:3.27 Morality is not necessarily spiritual; it may be wholly and purely human, albeit real religion enhances all moral values, makes them more meaningful. Morality without religion fails to reveal ultimate goodness, and it also fails to provide for the survival of even its own moral values. Religion provides for the enhancement, glorification, and assured survival of everything morality recognizes and approves.

196:3.32 Some men's lives are too great and noble to descend to the low level of being merely successful. The animal must adapt itself to the environment, but the religious man transcends his environment and in this way escapes the limitations of the present material world through this insight of divine love. This concept of love generates in the soul of man that superanimal effort to find truth, beauty, and goodness; and when he does find them, he is glorified in their embrace; he is consumed with the desire to live them, to do righteousness.

[The following sentence is so very important; I will put it in big size and centered:]

196:3.33

Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress,
and the revelation of GOD to the world,
in and through JESUS,
shall not fail.

[Amen ! My Brothers and Sisters in Jesus; do you now realize that you may help in serving our loving Father and Son in Spirit in helping to realize the perfecting Family of God on earth ! Pray about this. Thank you. You may also email me.]

196:3.34 The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man's greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of Spirit-consciousness -- contact with the Divine Presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such Spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.

196:3.35 And God-consciousness is equivalent to the integration of the self with the universe, and on its highest levels of spiritual Reality. Only the Spirit content of any value is imperishable. Even that which is true, beautiful, and good may not perish in human experience. If man does not choose to survive, then does the surviving Adjuster conserve those realities born of love and nurtured in service. And all these things are a part of the Universal Father. The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his [Paradise Coordinate Creator] Sons. [Our Creator Father-Son Jesus Christ Michael] And the Spirit of the Father is in his Sons' sons -- mortal men. [Yes, we are Jesusonians: sons of God in Jesus !] When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God.

Topical Study 80 "Priests, Priesthood, Ecclesiasticism"

Compiled 8/01/2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org

[Part 1 of many]

Do you seek God's will directly in yourself ? or through a church's priest or pastor ?

Are priests becoming obsolete because of increasing personal God-consciousness ?

PAPER 4 GOD'S RELATION TO THE UNIVERSE

4:5 ERRONEOUS IDEAS OF GOD

[Paper:Section.Paragraph]

4:5.1 Religious tradition is the imperfectly preserved record of the experiences of the God-knowing men of past ages, but such records are untrustworthy as guides for religious living or as the source of true information about the Universal Father. Such ancient beliefs have been invariably altered by the fact that primitive man was a mythmaker.

4:5.2 One of the greatest sources of confusion on earth concerning the nature of God grows out of the failure of your sacred books [and the Christian Bibles] clearly to distinguish between the personalities of the Paradise Trinity and between Paradise Deity and the local universe creators and administrators. During the past dispensations of partial understanding, your priests and prophets failed clearly to differentiate between Planetary Princes, System Sovereigns, Constellation Fathers, Creator Sons, Superuniverse Rulers, the Supreme Being, and the Universal Father. Many of the messages of subordinate personalities, such as Life Carriers and various orders of angels, have been, in your records, presented as coming from God himself. Religious thought on earth still confuses the associate personalities of Deity with the Universal Father himself, so that all are included under one appellation. [Jesus called God "Elohim" -- the Paradise Trinity -- and not the local Jewish tribal God, "Yahweh".]

4:5.7 But the inhabitants of earth are to find deliverance from these ancient errors and pagan superstitions respecting the nature of the Universal Father. The Revelation of the Truth about God is appearing, and the human race is destined to know the Universal Father in all that beauty of character and loveliness of attributes so magnificently portrayed by the Creator Son who sojourned on earth as the Son of Man and the Son of God. [Our Sovereign Creator Jesus Christ Michael, now here in Spirit to further guide, teach and elevate all humans to higher spiritual levels !]

PAPER 69 PRIMITIVE HUMAN INSTITUTIONS

69:3. THE SPECIALIZATION OF LABOR

69:3.9 The early specialists in industry were the flint flakers and stone masons; next came the smiths. Subsequently group specialization developed; whole families and clans dedicated themselves to certain sorts of labor. The origin of one of the earliest castes of priests, apart from the tribal medicine men, was due to the superstitious exaltation of a family of expert swordmakers. [Many of these early priests were warrior-priests, then warrior-kings. Sadly today, in all major religions, some ungodly warrior-priests continue to preach nationalistic, chosen-people racism and a "god of battles".]

69:5.3 The basic urges which led to the accumulation of capital were:

69:5.9 6. Fear of the ghosts of the dead — priest fees for protection. Men early began to give death presents to the priests with a view to having their property used to facilitate their progress through the next life. The priesthoods thus became very rich; they were chief among ancient capitalists.

69:5.15 Though capital has tended to liberate man, it has greatly complicated his social and industrial organization. The abuse of capital by unfair capitalists does not destroy the fact that it is the basis of modern industrial society. Through capital and invention the present generation enjoys a higher degree of freedom than any that ever preceded it on earth. This is placed on record as a fact and not in justification of the many misuses of capital by thoughtless and selfish custodians.

69:6. FIRE IN RELATION TO CIVILIZATION

69:6.4 Though Andon, the discoverer of fire, [the first human pair, along with his sister Fonta, almost one million years ago] avoided treating it as an object of worship, many of his descendants regarded the flame as a fetish or as a spirit. They failed to reap the sanitary benefits of fire because they would not burn refuse. Primitive man feared fire and always sought to keep it in good humor, hence the sprinkling of incense. [still used today by some !] Under no circumstances would the ancients spit in a fire, nor would they ever pass between anyone and a burning fire. Even the iron pyrites and flints used in striking fire were held sacred by early mankind. [Today, some candles still burn in churches. Mankind is slow to evolve ! Programed multi-colored laser lights shows would be an advantage, having no smoke and no fire hazard and far more creative.]

69:6.5 It was a sin to extinguish a flame; if a hut caught fire, it was allowed to burn. [!! Shocking, unless you are a pyromaniac ! ha ha] ] The fires of the temples and shrines were sacred and were never permitted to go out except that it was the custom to kindle new flames annually or after some calamity. Women were selected as priests because they were custodians of the home fires. [Today, it is good that a woman can be equally a priest as a man; later, the "Priesthood of all believers" may make all temple-tycoon, ecclesiastical priests obsolete.]

69: 9. PRIVATE PROPERTY

69:9.13 Private property was early marked by family insignia, and this is the early origin of family crests. Real estate could also be put under the watchcare of spirits. The priests would “consecrate” a piece of land, and it would then rest under the protection of the magic taboos erected thereon. Owners thereof were said to have a “priest’s title.” The Hebrews had great respect for these family landmarks: “Cursed be he who removes his neighbor’s landmark.” These stone markers bore the priest’s initials. Even trees, when initialed, became private property.

PAPER 70 THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN GOVERNMENT

70:1 THE GENESIS OF WAR

70:1.14 7. Religion — the desire to make converts to the cult. The primitive religions all sanctioned war. Only in recent times has religion begun to frown upon war. The early priesthoods were, unfortunately, usually allied with the military power. One of the great peace moves of the ages has been the attempt to separate church and state. [How long will it take, for Spirit of Truth-led Christians and other Spirit of Truth-led religionists, to unite and outlaw all war with the establishment of a very strong world peace army to stop all warring nations ? On this, see Jesus' teachings in Paper 154, sections 4,5,6]

70:5. THE BEGINNINGS OF GOVERNMENT

70:5.8 Some early communities were ruled by medicine men, who often acted as chiefs. One man would act as priest, physician, and chief executive. Quite often the early royal insignias had originally been the symbols or emblems of priestly dress. [The foolish practice of priests wearing expensive, over-ornate robes and trappings continues today !]

70:8 SOCIAL CLASSES

70:8.8 6. Social — classes have gradually formed according to popular estimate of the social worth of different groups. Among the earliest divisions of this sort were the demarcations between [highest class ] priest-teachers, [2nd class] ruler-warriors, [3rd] capitalist-traders, [4th] common laborers, and [5th] slaves. The slave could never become a capitalist, though sometimes the wage earner could elect to join the capitalistic ranks.

70:8.10 8. Religious — the early cult clubs produced their own classes within the clans and tribes, and the piety and mysticism of the priests have long perpetuated them as a separate social group.

70:10. EVOLUTION OF JUSTICE

70:10.5 It was very early believed that ghosts administered justice through the medicine men and priests; this constituted these orders the first crime detectors and officers of the law. Their early methods of detecting crime consisted in conducting ordeals of poison, fire, and pain. These savage ordeals were nothing more than crude techniques of arbitration; they did not necessarily settle a dispute justly. For example: When poison was administered, if the accused vomited, he was innocent.

70:10.6 The Old Testament records one of these ordeals, a marital guilt test: [This so barbaric test is in Numbers chapter 5, and stated as a command from God ! And for women only ! Men were exempt !] If a man suspected his wife of being untrue to him, he took her to the priest and stated his suspicions, after which the priest would prepare a concoction consisting of holy water and sweepings from the temple floor. After due ceremony, including threatening curses, the accused wife was made to drink the nasty potion. If she was guilty, “the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thighs shall rot, and the woman shall be accursed among her people.” If, by any chance, any woman could quaff this filthy draught and not show symptoms of physical illness, she was acquitted of the charges [then] made by her jealous husband. [She could be brought back many times to endure this "test" or die, on the whim of the husband ! Why is that rotting evil filth still in the Bible? Shame !]

70:10.7 These atrocious methods of crime detection were practiced by almost all the evolving tribes at one time or another. Dueling is a modern survival of the trial by ordeal.

70:10.8 It is not to be wondered that the Hebrews and other semicivilized tribes practiced such primitive techniques of justice administration three thousand years ago, but it is most amazing that thinking men would subsequently retain such a relic of barbarism within the pages of a collection of sacred writings. Reflective thinking should make it clear that no Divine Being ever gave mortal man such unfair instructions regarding the detection and adjudication of suspected marital unfaithfulness.

70:10.14 Punishment by burning alive was once a common practice. It was recognized by many ancient rulers, including Hammurabi and Moses, the latter directing that many crimes, particularly those of a grave sex nature, should be punished by burning at the stake. If “the daughter of a priest” or other leading citizen turned to public prostitution, it was the Hebrew custom to “burn her with fire.”

PAPER 74 ADAM AND EVE

74:8 THE LEGEND OF CREATION

74:8.11 When the Jewish priests returned to Jerusalem, they had already completed the writing of their narrative of the beginning of things. Soon they made claims that this recital was a recently discovered story of creation written by Moses. But the contemporary Hebrews of around 500 B.C. did not consider these writings to be divine revelations; they looked upon them much as later peoples regard mythological narratives. [In Genesis, there are two different creation legends, not according to how God creates in Paradise-Eternity and our Creator Son Jesus does in our evolving space-time local universe.]

PAPER 76 THE SECOND GARDEN

76:2. CAIN AND ABEL

76:2.2 Now, in those days it was customary to make offerings to the priesthood of the things at hand. Herders would bring of their flocks, farmers of the fruits of the fields;...

76:3. LIFE IN MESOPOTAMIA

76:3.4 The religious rulers, or priesthood, originated with Seth, the eldest surviving son of Adam and Eve born in the second garden. He was born one hundred and twenty-nine years after Adam’s arrival on earth. [About 38,000 years ago, our biologically uplifting, Material Sons of God, named Adam and Eve, arrived to physically, intellectually, socially and morally up-step the human race which was then about 955,000 years old. God does not allow mankind to deteriorate; so periodic bestowals of epochal revelation are always given. Never was there a "fall of man"; rather it was a rebellion of some junior administrative Sons of God that were removed by Jesus Christ when he was Incarnate here as Son of God and Son of Man. See John 12:31-32 which is fully true and very important.] Seth became absorbed in the work of improving the spiritual status of his father’s people, becoming the head of the new priesthood of the second garden. His son, Enos, founded the new order of worship, and his grandson, Kenan, instituted the foreign missionary service to the surrounding tribes, near and far.

76:3.5 The Sethite priesthood was a threefold undertaking, embracing religion, health, and education. The priests of this order were trained to officiate at religious ceremonies, to serve as physicians and sanitary inspectors, and to act as teachers in the schools of the garden. [That was much better than later, very evil and degenerate magic-priests and shamans, warrior-priests and warrior-kings !]

76:3.6 Adam’s caravan had carried the seeds and bulbs of hundreds of plants and cereals of the first garden with them to the land between the rivers; they also had brought along extensive herds and some of all the domesticated animals. Because of this they possessed great advantages over the surrounding tribes. They enjoyed many of the benefits of the previous culture of the original Garden.

76:3.7 Up to the time of leaving the first garden, Adam and his family had always subsisted on fruits, cereals, and nuts. On the way to Mesopotamia they had, for the first time, partaken of herbs and vegetables. The eating of meat was early introduced into the second garden, but Adam and Eve never partook of flesh as a part of their regular diet. Neither did Adamson nor Eveson nor the other children of the first generation of the first garden become flesh eaters.

76:3.8 The Adamites greatly excelled the surrounding peoples in cultural achievement and intellectual development. They produced the third alphabet and otherwise laid the foundations for much that was the forerunner of modern art, science, and literature. Here in the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates they maintained the arts of writing, metalworking, pottery making, and weaving and produced a type of architecture that was not excelled in thousands of years. 76:3.9 The home life of the violet [Adam and Eve race] peoples was, for their day and age, ideal. Children were subjected to courses of training in agriculture, craftsmanship, and animal husbandry or else were educated to perform the threefold duty of a Sethite: to be priest, physician, and teacher.

76:3.10 And when thinking of the Sethite priesthood, do not confuse those high-minded and noble teachers of health and religion, those true educators, with the debased and commercial priesthoods of the later tribes and surrounding nations. Their religious concepts of Deity and the universe were advanced and more or less accurate, their health provisions were, for their time, excellent, and their methods of education have never since been surpassed. [Not even today ! This Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth states: (my paraphrase of many paragraphs:) The main purpose of true education should be to develop well-balanced human personalities having inner God-consciousness, living and serving spiritual values, higher wisdom-moral philosophy, superior scientific energy-matter skills, and ever more clear understanding of facts.]

76:3.9 The home life of the violet peoples was, for their day and age, ideal. Children were subjected to courses of training in agriculture, craftsmanship, and animal husbandry or else were educated to perform the threefold duty of a Sethite: to be priest, physician, and teacher.

76:3.10 And when thinking of the Sethite priesthood, do not confuse those high-minded and noble teachers of health and religion, those true educators, with the debased and commercial priesthoods of the later tribes and surrounding nations. Their religious concepts of Deity and the universe were advanced and more or less accurate, their health provisions were, for their time, excellent, and their methods of education have never since been surpassed.

PAPER 78 THE VIOLET RACE AFTER THE DAYS OF ADAM

78:5. THE ANDITE MIGRATIONS

78:5.1 For twenty thousand years the culture of the second garden persisted, but it experienced a steady decline until about 15,000 B.C., when the regeneration of the Sethite priesthood and the leadership of Amosad inaugurated a brilliant era. The massive waves of civilization which later spread over Eurasia immediately followed the great renaissance of the Garden consequent upon the extensive union of the Adamites with the surrounding mixed Nodites to form the Andites.

78:7. THE FLOODS IN MESOPOTAMIA

78:7.1 The river dwellers were accustomed to rivers overflowing their banks at certain seasons; these periodic floods were annual events in their lives. But new perils threatened the valley of Mesopotamia as a result of progressive geologic changes to the north.

78:7.2 For thousands of years after the submergence of the first Eden the mountains about the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and those to the northwest and northeast of Mesopotamia continued to rise. This elevation of the highlands was greatly accelerated about 5000 B.C., and this, together with greatly increased snowfall on the northern mountains, caused unprecedented floods each spring throughout the Euphrates valley. These spring floods grew increasingly worse so that eventually the inhabitants of the river regions were driven to the eastern highlands. For almost a thousand years scores of cities were practically deserted because of these extensive deluges.

78:7.3 Almost five thousand years later, as the Hebrew priests in Babylonian captivity sought to trace the Jewish people back to Adam, they found great difficulty in piecing the story together; and it occurred to one of them to abandon the effort, to let the whole world drown in its wickedness at the time of Noah’s flood, and thus to be in a better position to trace Abraham right back to one of the three surviving sons of Noah.

78:7.4 The traditions of a time when water covered the whole of the earth’s surface are universal. Many races harbor the story of a world-wide flood some time during past ages. The Biblical story of Noah, the ark, and the flood is an invention of the Hebrew priesthood during the Babylonian captivity. There has never been a universal flood since life was established on earth. The only time the surface of the earth was completely covered by water was during those Archeozoic ages before the land had begun to appear. [Almost one billion years ago. See 57:8.1 - on]

78:7.5 But Noah really lived; he was a wine maker of Aram, a river settlement near Erech. He kept a written record of the days of the river’s rise from year to year. He brought much ridicule upon himself by going up and down the river valley advocating that all houses be built of wood, boat fashion, and that the family animals be put on board each night as the flood season approached. He would go to the neighboring river settlements every year and warn them that in so many days the floods would come. Finally a year came in which the annual floods were greatly augmented by unusually heavy rainfall so that the sudden rise of the waters wiped out the entire village; only Noah and his immediate family were saved in their houseboat.

78:7.6 These floods completed the disruption of Andite civilization. With the ending of this period of deluge, the second garden was no more. Only in the south and among the Sumerians did any trace of the former glory remain.

Topical Study 80 "Priests, Priesthood, Ecclesiasticism"

Compiled 8/04/2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org

[Part 2 of many]

PAPER 78 THE VIOLET RACE AFTER THE DAYS OF ADAM

78:8. THE SUMERIANS -- LAST OF THE ANDITES

[Paper:Section.Paragraph]

78:8.7 After the breakup of the early Sumerian confederation the later city-states were ruled by the apostate descendants of the Sethite priests. Only when these priests made conquests of the neighboring cities did they call themselves kings. The later city kings failed to form powerful confederations before the days of Sargon [maybe circa 2334 B.C. - 2279 B.C.] because of deity jealousy. Each city believed its municipal god to be superior to all other gods, and therefore they refused to subordinate themselves to a common leader.

78:8.8 The end of this long period of the weak rule of the city priests was terminated by Sargon, the priest of Kish, who proclaimed himself king and started out on the conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia and adjoining lands. And for the time, this ended the city-states, priest-ruled and priest-ridden, each city having its own municipal god and its own ceremonial practices.

PAPER 79 ANDITE EXPANSION IN THE ORIENT

79:3. DRAVIDIAN INDIA

79:3.3 The superior culture and religious leanings of the peoples of India date from the early times of Dravidian domination and are due, in part, to the fact that so many of the Sethite priesthood entered India, both in the earlier Andite and in the later Aryan invasions. The thread of monotheism running through the religious history of India thus stems from the teachings of the Adamites in the second garden.

79:3.4 As early as 16,000 B.C. a company of one hundred Sethite priests entered India and very nearly achieved the religious conquest of the western half of that polyglot people. But their religion did not persist. Within five thousand years their doctrines of the Paradise Trinity had degenerated into the triune symbol of the fire god. [Named "Angi". A god of lightning, fire, and the sun, and thought as an intercessor between the "gods" and humans.]

79:4. THE ARYAN INVASION OF INDIA

79:4.5 In India many types of social organizations flourished from time to time, from the semidemocratic systems of the Aryans to despotic and monarchial forms of government. But the most characteristic feature of society was the persistence of the great social castes that were instituted by the Aryans in an effort to perpetuate racial identity. This elaborate caste system has been preserved on down to the present time. [Stated as as of A.D. 1935. By A.D. 1950, laws were passed to gradually eliminate some of the injustices of caste; but some problems remain today.]

79:4.6 Of the four great castes, all but the first were established in the futile effort to prevent racial amalgamation of the Aryan conquerors with their inferior subjects. But the premier caste, the teacher-priests, stems from the Sethites; the Brahmans of the twentieth century after Christ are the lineal cultural descendants of the priests of the second garden, albeit their teachings differ greatly from those of their illustrious predecessors.

79:4.7 When the Aryans entered India, they brought with them their concepts of Deity as they had been preserved in the lingering traditions of the religion of the second garden. But the Brahman priests were never able to withstand the pagan momentum built up by the sudden contact with the inferior religions of the Deccan after the racial obliteration of the Aryans. Thus the vast majority of the population fell into the bondage of the enslaving superstitions of inferior religions; and so it was that India failed to produce the high civilization which had been foreshadowed in earlier times.

79:4.8 The spiritual awakening of the sixth century before Christ did not persist in India, having died out even before the Mohammedan invasion. But someday a greater Gautama may arise to lead all India in the search for the living God, and then the world will observe the fruition of the cultural potentialities of a versatile people so long comatose under the benumbing influence of an unprogressing spiritual vision.

79:4.9 Culture does rest on a biologic foundation, but caste alone could not perpetuate the Aryan culture, for religion, true religion, is the indispensable source of that higher energy which drives men to establish a superior civilization based on human brotherhood.

PAPER 80 ANDITE EXPANSION IN THE OCCIDENT

80:5 THE ANDITE CONQUEST OF NORTHERN EUROPE

80:5.6 [maybe 6,000 B.C.] When the tribal council of the Andite elders had adjudged an inferior captive to be unfit, he was, by elaborate ceremony, committed to the shaman priests, who escorted him to the river and administered the rites of initiation to the “happy hunting grounds” — lethal submergence. In this way the white invaders of Europe exterminated all peoples encountered who were not quickly absorbed into their own ranks, and thus did the blue man come to an end — and quickly.

80:6. THE ANDITES ALONG THE NILE

80:6.4 The Egyptians very early assembled their municipal deities into an elaborate national system of gods. They developed an extensive theology and had an equally extensive but burdensome priesthood. Several different leaders sought to revive the remnants of the early religious teachings of the Sethites, but these endeavors were short-lived. The Andites built the first stone structures in Egypt. The first and most exquisite of the stone pyramids was erected by Imhotep, an Andite architectural genius, while serving as prime minister. Previous buildings had been constructed of brick, and while many stone structures had been erected in different parts of the world, this was the first in Egypt. But the art of building steadily declined from the days of this great architect.

PAPER 83 THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION

83:2. COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL

83:2.1 Primitive marriages were always planned by the parents of the boy and girl. The transition stage between this custom and the times of free choosing was occupied by the marriage broker or professional matchmaker. These matchmakers were at first the barbers; later, the priests. Marriage was originally a group affair; then a family matter; only recently has it become an individual adventure.

83:4. THE WEDDING CEREMONY

83:4.8 One of the most ancient forms of the wedding ceremony was to have a priest bless the wedding bed to insure the fertility of the union; this was done long before any formal wedding ritual was established. During this period in the evolution of the marriage mores the wedding guests were expected to file through the bedchamber at night, thus constituting legal witness to the consummation of marriage.

83:4.9 The luck element, that in spite of all premarital tests certain marriages turned out bad, led primitive man to seek insurance protection against marriage failure; led him to go in quest of priests and magic. And this movement culminated directly in modern church weddings. But for a long time marriage was generally recognized as consisting in the decisions of the contracting parents — later of the pair — while for the last five hundred years [,now about 580 years to date,] church and state have assumed jurisdiction and now presume to make pronouncements of marriage.

83:7. THE DISSOLUTION OF WEDLOCK

83:7.3 As the mores evolved, certain tribes developed two forms of marriage: the ordinary, which permitted divorce, and the priest marriage, which did not allow for separation. The inauguration of wife purchase and wife dowry, by introducing a property penalty for marriage failure, did much to lessen separation. And, indeed, many modern unions are stabilized by this ancient property factor.

83:8. THE IDEALIZATION OF MARRIAGE

83:8.1 Marriage which culminates in the home is indeed man’s most exalted institution, but it is essentially human; it should never have been called a sacrament. The Sethite priests made marriage a religious ritual; but for thousands of years after Eden, mating continued as a purely social and civil institution.

PAPER 84 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE

84:4. WOMAN'S STATUS IN EARLY SOCIETY

84:4.4 The sexes have had great difficulty in understanding each other. Man found it hard to understand woman, regarding her with a strange mixture of ignorant mistrust and fearful fascination, if not with suspicion and contempt. Many tribal and racial traditions relegate trouble to Eve, Pandora, or some other representative of womankind. These narratives were always distorted so as to make it appear that the woman brought evil upon man; and all this indicates the onetime universal distrust of woman. Among the reasons cited in support of a celibate priesthood, the chief was the baseness of woman. The fact that most supposed witches were women did not improve the olden reputation of the sex.

84:4.5 Men have long regarded women as peculiar, even abnormal. They have even believed that women did not have souls; therefore were they denied names. During early times there existed great fear of the first sex relation with a woman; hence it became the custom for a priest to have initial intercourse with a virgin. Even a woman’s shadow was thought to be dangerous. [Today, men have a much better opinion of women; but full understanding remains impossible both ways.]

PAPER 85 THE ORIGINS OF WORSHIP

85:6. WORSHIP OF MAN

85:6.2 Early man regarded all unusual persons as superhuman, and he so feared such beings as to hold them in reverential awe; to some degree he literally worshiped them. Even having twins was regarded as being either very lucky or very unlucky. Lunatics, epileptics, and the feeble-minded were often worshiped by their normal-minded fellows, who believed that such abnormal beings were indwelt by the gods. Priests, kings, and prophets were worshiped; the holy men of old were looked upon as inspired by the deities. [Jesus teaches us to call no man Father in the spiritual sense ! Yet, many confused humans still do !]

PAPER 86 EARLY EVOLUTION OF RELIGION

86:6. THE GHOST-SPIRIT ENVIRONMENT

86:6.1 Man inherited a natural environment, acquired a social environment, and imagined a ghost environment. The state is man’s reaction to his natural environment, the home to his social environment, the church to his illusory ghost environment.

86:6.2 Very early in the history of mankind the realities of the imaginary world of ghosts and spirits became universally believed, and this newly imagined spirit world became a power in primitive society. The mental and moral life of all mankind was modified for all time by the appearance of this new factor in human thinking and acting.

86:6.3 Into this major premise of illusion and ignorance, mortal fear has packed all of the subsequent superstition and religion of primitive peoples. This was man’s only religion up to the times of [Divine] Revelation, and today many of the world’s races have only this crude religion of evolution.

86:6.4 As evolution progressed, good luck became associated with good spirits and bad luck with bad spirits. The discomfort of enforced adaptation to a changing environment was regarded as ill luck, the displeasure of the spirit ghosts. Primitive man slowly evolved religion out of his innate worship urge [from an actual adjutant mind-spirit gift from the Holy Spirit] and his misconception of chance. Civilized man provides schemes of insurance to overcome these chance occurrences; modern science puts an actuary with mathematical reckoning in the place of fictitious spirits and whimsical gods.

86:6.5 Each passing generation smiles at the foolish superstitions of its ancestors while it goes on entertaining those fallacies of thought and worship which will give cause for further smiling on the part of enlightened posterity. [Needing a mere priest to connect you to God and to act as an intercessor is one ongoing fallacy of very many humans today.]

86:6.6 But at last the mind of primitive man was occupied with thoughts which transcended all of his inherent biologic urges; at last man was about to evolve an art of living based on something more than response to material stimuli. The beginnings of a primitive philosophic life policy were emerging. A supernatural standard of living was about to appear, for, if the spirit ghost in anger visits ill luck and in pleasure good fortune, then must human conduct be regulated accordingly. The concept of right and wrong had at last evolved; and all of this long before the times of any Revelation on earth. [The first real Epochal Revelation -- the first Planetary Prince -- appeared on earth about 500,000 years ago to 200,000 years ago. The second -- Adam and Eve Material Sons of God-- was about 38,000 to 37,000 years ago. The third -- Machiventa Melchizedek -- was from 1980 B.C. to 1886 B.C.. The fourth --Jesus Christ Michael -- was 7 B.C. to A.D. 30 Incarnate here. This printed Fifth Epochal Revelation came here about A.D. 1935. Many personal auto-revelations continue and increasingly as mankind is still evolving.]

86:6.7 With the emergence of these concepts, there was initiated the long and wasteful struggle to appease the ever-displeased spirits, the slavish bondage to evolutionary religious fear, that long waste of human effort upon tombs, temples, sacrifices, and priesthoods. It was a terrible and frightful price to pay, but it was worth all it cost, for man therein achieved a natural consciousness of relative right and wrong; human ethics was born! [Now the goal is for more personal God-consciousness directly -- Our loving Creator Father-Son-Spirit God to each human son of God -- and at all times and in all places !]

86:7. THE FUNCTION OF PRIMITIVE RELIGION

86:7.1 The savage felt the need of insurance, and he therefore willingly paid his burdensome premiums of fear, superstition, dread, and priest gifts toward his policy of magic insurance against ill luck. Primitive religion was simply the payment of premiums on insurance against the perils of the forests; civilized man pays material premiums against the accidents of industry and the exigencies of modern modes of living.

86:7.2 Modern society is removing the business of insurance from the realm of priests and religion, placing it in the domain of economics. Religion is concerning itself increasingly with the insurance of life beyond the grave. Modern men, at least those who think, no longer pay wasteful premiums to control luck. Religion is slowly ascending to higher philosophic levels in contrast with its former function as a scheme of insurance against bad luck. [Today, only ignorant and/or indolent humans ascribe natural phenomena as "luck", "chance" or "accidents". That was covered in 86:2.4 & 5]

86:7.3 But these ancient ideas of religion prevented men from becoming fatalistic and hopelessly pessimistic; they believed they could at least do something to influence fate. The religion of ghost fear impressed upon men that they must regulate their conduct, that there was a supermaterial world which was in control of human destiny.

PAPER 87 THE GHOST CULTS

87:6. COERCION AND EXORCISM

87:6.12 [On the false, primitive, evolutionary religions of fear:] Water was regarded as the best protection against ghosts. Holy water was superior to all other forms, water in which the priests had washed their feet. Both fire and water were believed to constitute impassable barriers to ghosts. The Romans carried water three times around the corpse; in the twentieth century the body is sprinkled with holy water, and hand washing at the cemetery is still a Jewish ritual. Baptism was a feature of the later water ritual; primitive bathing was a religious ceremony. Only in recent times has bathing become a sanitary practice.

PAPER 88 FETISHES, CHARMS, AND MAGIC

88:1 BELIEF IN FETISHES

88:1.9 Hunchbacked and crippled children were regarded as fetishes; lunatics were believed to be moon-struck. Primitive man could not distinguish between genius and insanity; idiots were either beaten to death or revered as fetish personalities. Hysteria increasingly confirmed the popular belief in witchcraft; epileptics often were priests and medicine men. Drunkenness was looked upon as a form of spirit possession; when a savage went on a spree, he put a leaf in his hair for the purpose of disavowing responsibility for his acts. Poisons and intoxicants became fetishes; they were deemed to be possessed.

88:1.10 Many people looked upon geniuses as fetish personalities possessed by a wise spirit. And these talented humans soon learned to resort to fraud and trickery for the advancement of their selfish interests. A fetish man was thought to be more than human; he was divine, even infallible. Thus did chiefs, kings, priests, prophets, and church rulers eventually wield great power and exercise unbounded authority.

88:3. TOTEMISM

88:3.4 The insignia of priestly and kingly office were eventually regarded as fetishes, and the fetish of the state supreme has passed through many stages of development, from clans to tribes, from suzerainty to sovereignty, from totems to flags. Fetish kings have ruled by “divine right,” and many other forms of government have obtained. Men have also made a fetish of democracy, the exaltation and adoration of the common man’s ideas when collectively called “public opinion.” One man’s opinion, when taken by itself, is not regarded as worth much, but when many men are collectively functioning as a democracy, this same mediocre judgment is held to be the arbiter of justice and the standard of righteousness.

88:6. THE PRACTICE OF MAGIC

88:6.2 There was both a public and a private phase to magic. That performed by the medicine man, shaman, or priest was supposed to be for the good of the whole tribe. Witches, sorcerers, and wizards dispensed private magic, personal and selfish magic which was employed as a coercive method of bringing evil on one’s enemies. The concept of dual spiritism, good and bad spirits, gave rise to the later beliefs in white and black magic. And as religion evolved, magic was the term applied to spirit operations outside one’s own cult, and it also referred to older ghost beliefs.


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