THINKING AND DESTINY

Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER X

GODS AND THEIR RELIGIONS

Section 5

Interpretation of Bible sayings. The story of Adam and Eve. The trial and test of the sexes. “Fall of man.” Immortality. St. Paul. Regeneration of the body. Who and what was Jesus? Mission of Jesus. Jesus, a pattern for man. The order of Melchisedec. Baptism. The sexual act, the original sin. The Trinity. Entering The Great Way.

As stated in the Foreword, this section is added to explain the meaning of what seem some incomprehensible passages in the New Testament; and which will also be evidence supporting statements about the interior earth.

It is likely that the original teachings of the New Testament were about the Triune Self, as the individual trinity; that they told of the departure or “descent” of the doer part of that Triune Self from the Realm of Permanence into this temporal human world; that it is the duty of each doer, by thinking, to become conscious of itself in the body and to regenerate the body, and thus to become consciously one with its thinker and knower as the Triune Self complete, in the Realm of Permanence,—which Jesus spoke of as the “Kingdom of God.”

The books of the New Testament did not become known to the public until some centuries after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. During that time the writings passed through processes of selection and rejection; the rejected are the apocryphal books; those which were accepted make up the New Testament. The accepted books, of course, had to conform to the doctrines of the Church.

Concerning “The Lost Books of the Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden,” mentioned in the Foreword, it is said in the Introduction to “The Lost Books of the Bible”:

In this volume all these apocryphal volumes are presented without argument or commentation. The reader’s own judgment and common sense are appealed to. It makes no difference whether he is Catholic or Protestant or Hebrew. The facts are plainly laid before him. These facts for a long time have been a peculiar esoteric property of the learned. They were available only in the original Greek and Latin and so forth. Now they have been translated and brought in plain English before the eye of every reader.

And in the “First Book of Adam and Eve” in “The Forgotten Books of Eden,” we read:

This is the most ancient story in the world—it has survived because it embodies the basic fact of human life. A fact that has not changed one iota; amid all the superficial changes of civilization’s vivid array, this fact remains: the conflict of Good and Evil; the fight between Man and the Devil; the eternal struggle of human nature against sin.

One critic has said of this writing: “This is we believe, the greatest literary discovery that the world has known. Its effect upon contemporary thought in molding the judgment of the future generations is of incalculable value.”

and:

In general, this account begins where the Genesis story of Adam and Eve leaves off. (Permission has been granted to quote from these books, by the World Publishing Co. of Cleveland, Ohio and New York City.)

The Bible story of Adam and Eve is: The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And God named the man Adam. Then God caused Adam to sleep and took from within him a rib and made a woman and gave her to Adam to be his help-meet. And Adam called her Eve. God told them they might eat of any of the trees of the garden, except of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; that in the day they ate of that fruit they would surely die. The serpent tempted, and they partook of the fruit. Then they were exiled from the Garden; and they brought forth children, and died.

So far, that is all that the public at large has known about the story as told in the book of Genesis. In the “Book of Adam and Eve” in “The Forgotten Books of Eden,” the version given is said to be the work of unknown Egyptians, which has been translated into other languages and finally into English. Scholars have had it for centuries, but not knowing what else to do with it, it is given to the public. It is mentioned here as in part corroboration of what has been written in these pages about the interior earth; of the original oneness of man; of his division into two, male and female at the trial to balance feeling-and-desire; and, later of their appearance on the surface of the earth. According to the story, Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise, the Garden of Eden. They came out to this outer earth crust by way of what is spoken of as the “Cave of Treasures.”

Let Adam and Eve speak for themselves, and of God’s voice to them:

Chapter 5: Then Adam and Eve entered the cave, and stood praying, in their own tongue, unknown to us, but which they knew well. And as they prayed, Adam raised his eyes, and saw the rock and the roof of the cave that covered him overhead, so that he could see neither heaven, nor God’s creatures. So he wept and smote heavily upon his breast, until he dropped, and was as dead.

Eve speaks:

O God, forgive me my sin, the sin which I committed, and remember it not against me. For I (feeling) alone caused Thy servant to fall from the garden (Realm of Permanence) into this lost estate; from light into this darkness . . . O God, look upon this Thy servant thus fallen, and raise him from his death . . . But if Thou do not raise him up, then, O God, take away my own soul (form of the breath-form), that I be like him . . . for I (feeling) could not stand alone in this world, but with him (desire) only. For Thou, O God, didst cause a slumber to come upon him, and didst take a bone from his side (front column), and didst restore the flesh in the place of it, by Thy divine power. And Thou didst take me, the bone, (from sternum) and make me a woman . . . O Lord, I and he are one (feeling and desire) . . . Therefore, O God, give him life, that he may be with me in this strange land, while we dwell in it on account of our transgression.”

Chapter 6: But God looked upon them . . . He, therefore, sent His Word unto them; that they should stand and be raised forthwith. And the Lord said unto Adam and Eve, “You transgressed of your own free will, until you came out of the garden in which I had placed you.”

Chapter 8: Then God the Lord said unto Adam, “When thou wast under subjection to Me, thou hadst a bright nature within thee, and for that reason couldst thou see things afar off. But after thy transgression thy bright nature was withdrawn from thee; and it was not left to thee to see things afar off, but only near at hand; after the ability of the flesh; for it is brutish.”

And Adam said:

Chapter 11: “. . . Remember, O Eve, the garden-land, and the brightness thereof! . . . Whereas no sooner did we come into this Cave of Treasures than darkness compassed us round about; until we can no longer see each other . . .”

Chapter 16: Then Adam began to come out of the cave. And when he came to the mouth of it, and stood and turned his face towards the east, and saw the sun rise in glowing rays, and felt the heat thereof on his body, he was afraid of it, and thought in his heart that this flame came forth to plague him. . . . For he thought the sun was God. . . . But while he was thus thinking in his heart, the Word of God came unto him and said:—“O Adam, arise and stand up. This sun is not God; but it has been created to give light by day, of which I spake unto thee in the cave saying, ‘that the dawn would break forth, and there would be light by day.’ But I am God who comforted thee in the night.”

Chapter 25: But Adam said unto God, “It was in my mind to put an end to myself at once, for having transgressed Thy commandments, and for having come out of the beautiful garden; and for the bright light of which Thou hast deprived me . . . and for the light that covered me. Yet of Thy goodness, O God, do not away with me altogether (re-existence); but be favourable to me every time I die, and bring me to life.”

Chapter 26: Then came the Word of God to Adam, and said unto him, “Adam, as for the sun, if I were to take it and bring it to thee, days, hours, years and months would all come to naught, and the covenant I have made with thee, would never be fulfilled. . . . Yea, rather, bear long and calm thy soul while thou abidest night and day; until the fulfillment of the days, and the time of My covenant is come. Then shall I come and save thee, O Adam, for I do not wish that thou be afflicted.”

Chapter 38: After these things the Word of God came to Adam and said unto him:—“O Adam, as to the fruit of the Tree of Life, for which thou askest, I will not give it thee now, but when the 5500 years are fulfilled. Then will I give thee of the fruit of the Tree of Life, and thou shall eat, and live for ever, thou, and Eve . . .”

Chapter 41: . . . Adam began to pray with his voice before God, and said:—“O Lord, when I was in the garden, and saw the water that flowed from under the Tree of Life, my heart did not desire, neither did my body require to drink of it; neither did I know thirst, for I was living; and above that which I am now. . . . But now, O God, I am dead; my flesh is parched with thirst. Give me of the Water of Life that I may drink of it and live.”

Chapter 42: Then came the Word of God to Adam and said unto him:—“O Adam, as to what thou sayest, ‘Bring me into a land where there is rest,’ it is not another land than this, but it is the kingdom of heaven where alone there is rest. But thou canst not make thy entrance into it at present; but only after thy judgment is past and fulfilled. Then will I make thee go up into the kingdom of heaven . . .”

What in these pages is written about the “Realm of Permanence,” may have been thought of as “Paradise” or the “Garden of Eden.” It was when the doer of its Triune Self was with its thinker and knower in the Realm of Permanence that it had to undergo the trial to balance feeling-and-desire, in the course of which trial it was temporarily in a dual body, the “twain,” by the separation of its perfect body into a male body for its desire side, and a female body for its feeling side. The doers in all human beings gave way to the temptation by the body-mind for sex, whereupon they were exiled from the Realm of Permanence to re-exist on the crust of the earth in man bodies or in woman bodies. Adam and Eve were one doer divided into a male body and a female body. When the two bodies died the doer did not thereafter re-exist in two bodies; but as desire-and-feeling in a male body, or as feeling-and-desire in a female body. Doers will continue to re-exist on this earth until, by thinking and by their own efforts, they find The Way and return to the Realm of Permanence. The story of Adam and Eve is the story of each human on this earth.

Thus can be epitomized into a few words the stories of the “Garden of Eden,” of “Adam and Eve,” and of the “fall of man”; or, in the words of this book, the “Realm of Permanence,” the story of “feeling-and-desire,” and that of the “descent of the doer” into this temporal human world. The teaching of the inner life, by Jesus, is the teaching of the doer’s return to the Realm of Permanence.

Immortality has always been the hope of man. But in the struggle between life and death in the human body, death has always been the conquerer of life. Paul is the apostle of immortality, and Jesus Christ is his subject. Paul testifies that on his way to Damascus with a band of soldiers to persecute the Christians, Jesus appeared and spoke to him. And he, blinded by the light, fell down, and asked: “Lord, What wilt thou have me do?” In this way was Paul chosen by Jesus to be the apostle of immortality to man. And Paul took as his subject: Jesus, the living Christ.

The entire 15th chapter of First Corinthians composed of 58 verses is Paul’s supreme endeavor to prove that Jesus “descended” from his Father in heaven into this human world; that he took on a human body to prove to mankind by the example of his own life that man could change his mortal into an immortal body; that he did conquer death; that he did ascend to his Father in heaven; that, in fact, Jesus was the Forerunner, the bringer of the Good News: that all those who would, could come into their great inheritance by changing their sexual bodies of death into sexless bodies of everlasting life; and, that the changing of their bodies should not be put off to a future life. Paul declares:

Verses 3 to 9: For I delivered unto you first of all that which I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And that he was buried, and he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. After that, he was seen by above 500 brethren at once; of whom the greater part remained unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Paul has here stated his case, giving as evidence that according to the Scriptures, the physical body of Jesus died and was buried; that on the third day Jesus rose from the dead; that over 500 persons saw Jesus; and, that he, Paul, was the last to see him. Based on the physical evidence of witnesses, Paul now gives his reasons for immortality:

Verse 12: Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

All human bodies were variously called the dead, the tomb, and the grave, because 1) human bodies are not of continuous undying life; 2) because they are in process of death until the conscious desire-and-feeling within stops breathing and leaves the dead body, the corpse; 3) the body is called the grave because the desire-and-feeling self is enmeshed in the coils of flesh and does not know that it is buried; it cannot distinguish itself from the grave in which it is buried. The body is called the tomb because the tomb is the form of the body it is in and holds the flesh, and the flesh is the compacted dust of the earth as food in which the self is buried. To rise from the dead and be resurrected it is necessary for the self of desire-and-feeling to be conscious of and as itself while it is entombed in the body, its grave, until, by thinking, the self changes the form, its tomb, and the body, its grave, from a sex body to a body without sex; then the twain desire-and-feeling self has become one, by changing, balancing desire-and-feeling, itself; and the body is no longer the male desire or the female feeling, but is then Jesus, the balanced doer, the acknowledged Son of God, his Father.

Verse 13: “But,” Paul argues, “if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen.”

That is to say, if there is no change or resurrection of or from the human body, then Christ could not have risen. Paul continues:

Verse 17: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain; ye are yet in your sins.

In other words, if Christ did not rise from the grave there is no resurrection from the body nor any hope for life after death; in which case every human would die in sin, sex. Sin is the sting of the serpent, the result of which is death. The first and original sin was and is the sexual act; that is the sting of the serpent; all other sins of the human in varying degrees are consequences of the sexual act. The argument continues:

Verse 20: But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.

Therefore, the fact that Christ has risen and has been seen by more than 500 people, and become the “first-fruits of them that slept,” is the proof that for all other desire-and-feeling selves (still sleeping in their tombs, in their graves), it is possible to follow Christ’s example and also to change their bodies, and rise in their new bodies, resurrected from the dead.

Verse 22: “For,” as Paul argues, “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

That is to say: Since all bodies of sex do die, so by the power of Christ, and with the doer of desire-and-feeling, all human bodies will be changed and made alive, no longer subject to death. Then there is no more death, for those who have overcome death.

Verse 26: The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Verses 27 to 46 are the reasons given by Paul to bear out the foregoing statements. He continues:

Verse 47: The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is of the Lord from heaven.

This shows the human body to be of the earth, and distinguishes the desire-and-feeling of the human, when it becomes conscious of itself, as the Lord from heaven. Paul now makes a startling statement:

Verse 50: Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption.

This is equivalent to saying: All human bodies are corrupt because the seed of sexual bodies is of flesh and blood; that those that are born of flesh and blood are corrupt; that bodies of flesh and blood must die; and, that no flesh and blood bodies can be in the kingdom of God. Were it possible for a human body to be transported into the Realm of Permanence or kingdom of God it would instantly die; it could not breathe there. Because flesh and blood bodies are corrupt, they cannot inherit incorruption. How then can they be raised? Paul explains:

Verse 51: Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

And, Paul says, the reason for the changing is:

Verses 53 to 57: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This means that all human beings are subject to the sin of the sexes and are therefore under the law of sin, which is death. But when the human thinks, and wakes to the fact that as the doer in the body, he is not the body in which he is encased, he weakens the hypnotic spell cast on him by his body-mind. And he begins to see things not by the light of the senses but in a new light, by the Conscious Light within, by thinking. And to the degree that he so thinks his “Father in heaven” guides him. His body-mind of the senses and the sexes is his devil, and it will tempt him. But if he refuses to follow where the body-mind would lead him by its thinking; and, by thinking of his relation as the Son of his Father, he will eventually break the power of his devil, the body-mind, and will subdue it. Then it will obey him. When the doer of desire-and-feeling in the body controls his thinking, and by the thinking of his desire and feeling minds also controls the body-mind, then the body-mind will change the structure of the mortal body of the sex into a sexless body of immortal life. And the conscious self in the body as Jesus the Christ will rise in the glorified body of its resurrection from the dead.

Paul’s teaching, to all who will accept it, is: that Jesus descended from his Father in heaven and took on a mortal body to tell all mortals: that they as conscious doers were asleep, entombed and buried in their bodies of flesh, which would die; that if they so desired they could wake from their sleep, could appeal to their Fathers in heaven, and discover themselves in their bodies; that they could change their mortal into immortal bodies and ascend to and be with their Fathers in heaven; that the life and teaching of Jesus set them an example, and that he was the “first-fruits” of what they also could do.

The Gospel Story

Scholars assert there is no authentic record that Jesus Christ of the Gospels lived on this earth; but no one denies that there were Christian Churches in the first century, and that our calendar began with the date that Jesus is said to have been born.

Earnest, honest and intelligent Christians of all denominations believe the story that Jesus was born of a virgin and that he was the Son of God. How can these claims be true and reconciled with sense and reason?

The story of the birth of Jesus is not the story of the ordinary birth of a baby; it is the unrecorded story of the conscious self of every human who has regenerated, or will in the future regenerate and change his mortal body into a sexless, perfect, immortal physical body. How? This will be shown in detail in the next chapter, “The Great Way.”

In the case of an ordinary baby, the doer that is to live in it for the span of its life does not usually enter that little human animal body until from two to five years after its birth. When the doer does take possession of the body, can be marked when it asks and answers questions. Any adult can approximate the time he entered his body by the earliest recollections, memories of what he said and what he then did.

But Jesus had a special mission. If it had been for himself only, the world would not have known of him. Jesus was not the body; he was the conscious self, the doer in the physical body. Jesus knew himself as the doer in the body, whereas the doer in the ordinary human cannot distinguish itself from its body. People did not know Jesus. The 18 years before his ministry were spent in regenerating his human body into the stage of virgin—virgin pure, chaste, stainless,—neither male nor female,—sexless.

People believe in the story of Jesus chiefly because it appeals and applies to their own conscious selves as desire-and-feeling. The story of Jesus will be the story of the one who, by thinking, discovers himself in his body. Then, if he will, he literally takes up his body-cross and carries it, as Jesus did, until he accomplishes what Jesus did. And, in due time, he will know his Father in heaven.

Jesus, and His Mission

The non-historical Jesus came at the due cyclical period and told all who would understand that the desire-and-feeling in the man or in the woman is in a self-induced hypnotic sleep in its breath-form tomb, in the flesh body, which is its grave; that the doer self must wake from its death-like sleep; that by thinking, it must first comprehend and then discover, wake, itself in its mortal body; that while discovering itself in the body, the doer self will suffer crucifixion between its male desire in the blood and the female feeling in the nerves of its own body, the cross; that this crucifixion will result in changing the physical structure of the mortal into that of a sexless physical body of everlasting life; that by the blended and inseparable union of desire-and-feeling as one, the doer abolishes war between the sexes, conquers death, and ascends to the knower of its Triune Self in the Realm of Permanence—as Jesus, the Christ, ascended in his glorified body to his Father in heaven.

His mission could not have been to found a religion, to institute or order the building or establishment of a universal church, or any temple made with hands. Here is some of the evidence from the Scriptures:

Matthew 16, verses 13 and 14: When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

This was a perplexing question. It could not have been a question concerning his lineage for it was said that he was the son of Mary. Jesus wanted to be told whether people considered him to be the physical body or as something different from the physical, and the answers indicated that they considered him to be a reappearance, the re-existence, of any one of those mentioned; that they believed him to be a human being.

But the Son of God could not be only a human. Jesus questions further:

Verses 15 to 18: He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Here Peter’s answer tells his belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God,—not the physical body in which Jesus lived; and Jesus points out the distinction.

The statement of Jesus “. . . and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” did not refer to Peter, who was not proof against the fires of hell, but to Christ himself, as the “rock.”

By church, was meant the “Lord’s house,” the “temple not built with hands, eternal in the heavens”; that is: a sexless, immortal, imperishable physical body, in which his Triune Self could be and live in its three aspects as the knower, the thinker, and the doer, as explained in “The Great Way.” And such a body can only be built on the basis of the indwelling self, which must be as a “rock.” And each human must build his own “individual” church, his temple. No one can build such a body for another. But Jesus set a pattern, an example, of how to build,—as told by Paul in First Corinthians, 15th chapter, and in Hebrews, 5th and 7th chapters.

And further, Peter was too unreliable to be the “rock” on which to establish the church of Christ. He professed much but failed in the test. When Peter told Jesus that he would not forsake him, Jesus said: Before the cock crows twice thou shalt deny me thrice. And that did happen.

The Order of Melchisedec—the Immortals

It should be seen from the foregoing that Jesus did not come to save the world, or to save any one in the world; that he came to show to the world, that is, to the disciples or any others, that each one could save himself by changing his mortal body into an immortal body. Though not all that he taught has come down to us, there is enough left in the books of the New Testament as evidence that Jesus was one of the “Order of Immortals,” of the order of Melchisedec, one of the Order of those who had done what Jesus came to demonstrate of himself, to mankind, so that all who would could follow his example. In Hebrews, chapter 5, Paul says:

Verses 10 and 11: Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.

Melchisedec is a word or title in which so much is included that it is hard to tell all that the word is intended to convey, and those to whom he speaks are dull in understanding. Nevertheless, Paul does tell a great deal. He says:

Chapter 6, verse 20: Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Chapter 7, verses 1 to 3: For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace; Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.

Paul speaking of Melchisedec as King of peace explains the saying of Jesus, Matthew 5, verse 9: Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God (that is, when feeling-and-desire of the doer are in balanced union in an immortal sexless body, the doer is at peace, it is a peace-maker and thus in union with the thinker and knower of its Triune Self).

Here are three strange verses in Ephesians, chapter 2 (which likewise refer to the union of feeling-and-desire, in an immortal sexless body):

Verses 14 to 16: For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.

“Breaking down the middle wall of partition between us,” means the removal of distinction and division of desire and feeling as the difference between the male and the female. “Enmity” means the war between feeling-and-desire in every human, while under the law of sin, of sex; but when the enmity is abolished, the sin of sex ceases. Then the commandment “to make in himself of twain one new man,” that is, union of feeling-and-desire, is fulfilled, “so making peace,” and the great work in hand of “redemption,” “salvation,” “reconciliation,” is done, is complete—he is a peacemaker, a “Son of God.” Again Paul says:

II Timothy, Chapter 1, verse 10: But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

In “Lost Books of the Bible,” II Clement, chapter 5, headed: “A Fragment. Of the Lord’s kingdom,” it is written:

Verse 1: For the Lord himself, being asked by a certain person, When his kingdom should come? answered, When two shall be one, and that which is without as that which is within; and the male with the female, neither male nor female.

What this verse means is clearly seen when one understands that desire is the male, and feeling is the female in every human being; and, that the two disappear in their union as one; and, when that is done, that the “Lord’s kingdom” would come.

Desire and Feeling

The vital importance of what the two words, desire and feeling, represent, seems not to have been considered before. Desire has usually been regarded as a longing, as something unsatisfied, a want. Feeling is believed to be a fifth sense of the body touch, sensation, a feeling of pain or pleasure. Desire and feeling have not been linked together as the inseparable, undying “twain,” which is the conscious self in the body, the doer of everything that is done with and through the body. But unless desire-and-feeling are thus understood and realized, man will not, he cannot, know himself. Man is at present the unconscious immortal. When he finds and knows himself in the body, he will be consciously immortal.

No mention is made in the Gospels, of Jesus after he talked in the Temple at the age of twelve, until eighteen years later, when he is again mentioned as appearing at thirty, to begin his three years of ministry. It could have been possible that during those eighteen years he had prepared and changed, metamorphosed, his human body so that it could have been in a state somewhat like a chrysalis, ready to change, as Paul explains in the 15th chapter, “in the twinkling of an eye” from a mortal to an immortal body. Jesus in that form-body could appear or disappear whenever and wherever he willed to be, as is recorded that he did, and in that body he could have it so that anyone might look at it, or to have it of such radiant blinding power that it would affect a human, as it did Paul.

The changing of a human body should not seem more wonderful than the changing of an impregnated ovum into a baby, or the changing of a baby into a great man. But the historical mortal has not been observed to have become an immortal. When that is known to be a physical fact, it will not seem to be wonderful.

Baptism

Baptism means immersion. The doer-in-the-body in the ordinary human, is only one of twelve portions, six of which are of desire and six of feeling. When in the course of its development and transformation other portions are enabled to come into the body and the last of the twelve portions has entered, the doer is entirely immersed, baptized. Then the doer is fit, recognized, acknowledged, as the “Son” part of God, his Father.

When Jesus began his ministry, he went down to the river Jordan to be baptized by John; and after he was baptized, “there came a voice from heaven saying ‘this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’”

The narrative story of Jesus after his baptism would reveal much if one had a key to the code which Jesus used in his sermons and parables.

The Trinity

In the New Testament there is no agreement concerning the order and relation of the “three persons” of the Trinity, though the Trinity has often been spoken of as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. But their relation is apparent if placed side by side with what is herein called the Triune Self. “God the Father” corresponds to the knower of the Triune Self; “God the Son,” to the doer; and “God the Holy Ghost” to the thinker of the Triune Self. Herein they are the three parts of one indivisible unit: “God,” the knower; “Christ or Holy Ghost,” the thinker; and “Jesus,” the doer.

The Great Way

It is not impossible for one who desires to travel The Great Way, which is dealt with in the next chapter, to begin at any time, but then only if he wishes to make it an individual course for himself, and unknown to the world. If one should attempt to begin The Way “out of season,” he might not bear the weight of the world’s thought; it would be against him. But during the 12,000 years, which cycle began with the birth or the ministry of Jesus, it is possible for any one of those who will, to follow the path which Jesus came to show, and of which he himself set the pattern, being, as Paul says, the first-fruits of the resurrection from the dead.

In this new age it is possible for those whose destiny may permit, or for those who make it their destiny by their thinking, to go on The Way. One who chooses to do so, may succeed in overcoming the thought of the world, and build a bridge from this man and woman world across the river of death to the other side, to life eternal in the Realm of Permanence. “God,” the knower, and Christ, the thinker, are on the other side of the river. The doer, or “Son,” is the carpenter or bridge builder or mason, the builder of the bridge to be. When one has built the bridge or the “temple not made with hands,” while remaining in this world, he will be a living example for others to build. Each one who is ready will build his own bridge or temple and establish his connection between this man and woman world of time and death, with his own thinker and knower in the “Kingdom of God,” the Realm of Permanence, and continue his progressive work in the Eternal Order of Progression.