THE 
 
 SEVENTH 
 
 SEAL 
 
 JEANETTE AGNES. 
 
Class. 
 Book.. 
 
 U23 
 
 
 
 GopightN°_ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
THE 
 
 SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 BY 
 
 JEANETTE AGNES 
 
 And when he had opened the seventh 
 seal, there was silence in heaven about 
 the space of half an hour. 
 
 Revelation 8 : i. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
 
 1 920 
 
s.." 1 
 
 *V»< 
 
 Copyright, 1920, by 
 The John C. Winston Co. 
 
 JUL 3G 1820 
 ©CI.A570882 
 

 *o 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 To All Men Everywhere 
 
 Have we not all one Father? 
 Hath not one God created us ? 
 Malachi 2:10. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I deplore any suggestion of cowardice which 
 may attach to my incomplete signature, but 
 for reasons which I may not state, it is fitting 
 that this be published under my given names 
 only. 
 
 Jeanette Agnes. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 chapter page 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 I. What Shall We Say of Matter?. . 13 
 
 II. The Lost Word 20 
 
 III. " Things Which Have Been Kept 
 
 Secret From the Foundation of 
 the World." Matt. 13-35 25 
 
 IV. Search the Scriptures 37 
 
 V. The Fire of the Lord 74 
 
 VI. A Glance at Fundamentals 122 
 
 VII. The Way of Attainment 140 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The object cf this brief treatise is to explain 
 the spiritual significance of the Levitical Law 
 in connection with the Holy of Holies of the 
 Tabernacle, and its relation to the truth that 
 souls are created with distinct male and 
 female capacities and powers: to show that 
 the soul may be at rest and the individual 
 ready for the development of powers which 
 transcend what are termed human possibili- 
 ties when the man and woman possessing the 
 dual expressions of the same soul have been 
 united in the one perfect love relation : That 
 it is possible when spiritual discernment has 
 been sufficiently developed, to know without 
 error the complement of one's own soul : that 
 the Bible teaches that the law of the creative 
 life energy, operating through the physical 
 sex of soul complements, is, through the 
 power of its spiritual reality, the way of the 
 refinement and spiritualization of the matter 
 of which our bodies are composed — the way 
 of emancipation from want, sickness, and all 
 imperfections of the human race; in truth, 
 the way of eternal life without the body's 
 passing through what we call death: that 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 concerning this is the mystery — the hidden 
 power in the meaning of the Holy Name — 
 the Lost Word which has been sought through 
 the ages: that both prevailing beliefs in 
 regard to matter must be altered before we 
 can be liberated from the bondage of materi- 
 ality; and briefly to indicate the kind of 
 spiritual development necessary thus to at- 
 tain to the Kingdom. 
 
 The statements made herein as truth, it is 
 needless to say, are my convictions of truth, 
 founded upon experience, thought, study, or 
 the testimony within me of the Spirit of 
 Truth Itself, which Jesus promised should be 
 given to lead us into all truth. 
 
 I readily grant that the claims made are 
 extraordinary, and I have reason to believe 
 there may be noble souls who, upon first 
 impression, will think my message not a 
 worthy one; but being convinced beyond all 
 doubt that these are the significant facts 
 underlying Biblical symbol and allegory, and 
 realizing the inestimable value in every way 
 to the human family of a right understanding 
 of God's plan for happiness, and the con- 
 tinuity of life, and the reason why these 
 never can be found until men seek the Lord 
 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 with the whole heart, you may appreciate 
 something of the urge which has impelled me 
 to speak; indeed, which will grant me no 
 rest until I have spoken, even at the risk of 
 any and all kinds of criticism in regard to 
 my sanity, my motives and my personal 
 character; and I would ask of every reader, 
 if these be not worthy objects which I thus 
 wish to further, what then shall we say con- 
 stitutes worth? 
 
 Nor can I heed the admonitions, though 
 all so kindly meant, of any who would stay 
 me from my task, even though I should incur 
 the disrespect of those from whom respect 
 would be most valued, for the dreariest out- 
 look can in no wise excuse one for shirking 
 what he clearly sees to be his duty and op- 
 portunity for service. 
 
 Know then, my friends, when in "The 
 Way of Attainment" I urge you always to 
 follow the highest light you have — know then 
 where it may lead you; know what deter- 
 mination to do the right under any and all 
 circumstances it may demand of you. But 
 follow it, alone if need be, "O'er moor and 
 fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is 
 gone." There is no other way. 
 
 11 
 
CHAPTER I 
 What Shall We Say of Matter? 
 
 AS the truth set forth in the following pages 
 is concerned with the fact that not only 
 ,is matter real, but that contrary to accepted 
 belief, it is a part of God Himself, I wish to 
 direct attention briefly to this subject at the 
 outset. 
 
 Both of the current beliefs, on the one 
 hand that matter is nothing; on the other 
 hand, that it is a thing apart from God, lead 
 to confusion and errors in living, because of 
 the fact that they give rise to the belief that 
 some part of our being may exist apart from 
 a spiritual reality. 
 
 We hear it commonly said that God ani- 
 mates matter, that God is in matter, but 
 this presupposes that God and matter are 
 two wholly different things. I say matter is 
 a part of God — God's body, so to speak, for 
 if matter is no part of God, then God is not 
 all; hence not God. It is evident that 
 matter is essential as a medium through 
 
 13 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 which God may manifest his life. If matter 
 did not exist, there could be no expression of 
 God's life; but if God needs matter through 
 which to manifest his life, and must go out- 
 side of Himself to have it supplied from some 
 other source, then God is not complete; He 
 must acknowledge obligations to another 
 power; therefore He would not be God. 
 That would be as if God had the executive 
 ability to organize and conduct a business, 
 but did not have the necessary capital to 
 invest, and must seek a partner. I speak 
 neither facetiously nor irreverently. The 
 cases are parallel. 
 
 Because all forms of matter are reducible 
 to one universal substance, and into such 
 form as to be invisible to the physical eye, 
 does not mean that matter can be destroyed, 
 as some are so ready to state, and that in the 
 name of science. When we place a piece of 
 ice in a pan, and apply sufficient heat to 
 turn it first to water and eventually to vapor 
 w r hich will float over our heads, we have not 
 destroyed the matter of which the ice was 
 composed, although we have transformed this 
 substance from a state of density in which 
 it was heavier than air, and by the law of 
 
 14 
 
WHAT SHALL WE SAY 
 
 gravitation would fall to the floor if released 
 from the hand, to a rarified state in which 
 it was lighter than air and would rise instead 
 of fall. 
 
 No physicist would think of saying that 
 when a piece of iron has been reduced to the 
 gaseous state, the material of which the metal 
 was composed before the law of molecular 
 attraction was overcome by heat, has been 
 destroyed; and it is no more reasonable for 
 him to say that matter can be destroyed 
 because it can be transformed into a state of 
 rarity and vibratory activity beyond the 
 domain of physical science alone to detect 
 and study. 
 
 If perchance the ultra-idealist, who will tell 
 you that matter is not real, but merely a 
 mode of thinking, has in mind the wonderful 
 facts of the transformation of matter, he 
 should make this clear, for even reducing it 
 to a point of strain between the negative and 
 positive particles of electricity does not make 
 it unreal. If we contend that a thing is 
 unreal merely because we cannot see it in 
 all its manifestations, we may as well say 
 Spirit is unreal. No one will dispute the 
 fact that organized forms of matter are not 
 
 15 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 permanent, but when we speak of matter, 
 we rightly mean the atom or electron, or the 
 infinitesimal divisions into which this may 
 yet be said to be divided. 
 
 All this apparently unintelligent substance 
 serves us, and is a certain manifestation of 
 God. Our clothes, our food, our houses, the 
 air we breathe and the earth under our feet 
 is God, as well as our mind and Spirit, and 
 our emotions of love and joy. And thus it 
 becomes literally true that "in Him we live 
 and move and have our being/ ' It is not 
 sufficient to say that God is in matter. It is 
 either a question of God and matter, co- 
 existent, eternal, or God as matter. If it 
 is a case of God and matter, God is not all. 
 There is no evading this fact for anyone who 
 is willing to give the truth right of way 
 against preconceived ideas. Of course to 
 those who have nestled in some form of 
 belief from which they would not be dis- 
 turbed at any cost, and hence are not willing 
 to meet the issue squarely with themselves, 
 there is as yet no means of appeal, but time 
 and experience, though it should require an- 
 other incarnation to accomplish it, will result 
 in the necessary mental honesty. 
 
 16 
 
WHAT SHALL WE SAY 
 
 I grant this view of matter is one for which 
 we have not the customary proof or conclusive 
 form of statement, yet which we know by 
 this process of reasoning must be true; as 
 for instance, the value of the decimal state- 
 ment of the quotient of 10 divided by 3. 
 By any rule of mathematics with which we 
 are now familiar, the quotient will be 3.3333 
 on into infinity. We cannot arrive at an 
 exact statement of the value in this form. 
 Nevertheless we know by a certain course of 
 reasoning that the value is §. And so I say 
 there are some things which, from the very 
 nature of the case, we know to be true, al- 
 though we may not be able to demonstrate 
 the fact according to customary methods. 
 Even yet the existence of ether is not a 
 demonstrated fact. I say this on the authority 
 of one of the prominent scientists of our 
 country. He told me they simply assume 
 that such a medium exists, because an in- 
 telligent and satisfactory explanation of the 
 phenomena of nature requires that such a 
 medium should exist. This, then, is a per- 
 fectly logical conclusion to which no one 
 need object, and while it is obliged to acknowl- 
 edge kinship to the processes of faith and 
 
 17, 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 intuition (however disconcerting this may be 
 to the materialistic scientist), it also satisfies 
 our reason. 
 
 The foregoing arithmetical analogy was 
 employed by the scientist of whom I speak, 
 in this same conversation, but it applies with 
 as much force to the belief that matter is one 
 manifestation of the Absolute as it does to 
 the belief in the existence of ether, which 
 scientists find themselves obliged to accept 
 though not demonstrated by so-called scien- 
 tific methods. Therefore, I say in words the 
 most untaught may understand, and the 
 erudite cannot gainsay — Matter is a part of 
 God because there is nothing else for it to be 
 if God is all. The following excerpt from a 
 lecture on "The Ether and Its Functions", 
 by Sir Oliver Lodge, makes it easier, I think, 
 to formulate a conception of how this might 
 be true, and brings us to the threshold of the 
 full realization : 
 
 "I have endeavored to introduce to you 
 the simplest conception of the material uni- 
 verse which has yet occurred to man — that 
 is of one universal substance perfectly homo- 
 geneous and continuous and simple of struc- 
 ture, extending to the farthest limits of space 
 
 18 
 
WHAT SHALL WE SAY 
 
 of which we have any knowledge, existing 
 equally everywhere, some portions either at 
 rest or in simple, irrational motion, trans- 
 mitting the undulations which we call light; 
 other portions in rotational motion— in vor- 
 tices, that is, and differentiated permanently 
 from the rest of the medium by reason of this 
 motion. These whirling portions constitute 
 what we call matter ; their motion gives them 
 rigidity, and of them our bodies and all 
 other bodies are built up — one continuous 
 substance filling all space, which can vibrate 
 as light, which can be sheared off into positive 
 and negative electricity, which in whirls con- 
 stitutes matter, and which transmits by con- 
 tinuity and not by impact every action and 
 reaction of which matter is capable." 
 
 We believe that God is all, but we cannot 
 harmonize this belief with evident fact, and 
 still ignore the existence of matter — the very 
 thing we find necessary for the expression of 
 the life of God — but rather by including it 
 with the power and usefulness belonging to 
 it, in God. And since this is true, it should 
 be lifted up and spiritualized, as we shall see 
 more clearly from the succeeding chapters. 
 
 19 
 
CHAPTER II 
 The Lost Word 
 
 IN explaining the hidden meaning of the 
 Holy Name, I shall quote at some length 
 from "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning", 
 by the late Judge T. Troward, for to him we 
 are indebted for the clue to the secret power 
 of the Lost Word. To me it was given to 
 know the interpretation of the mystery of 
 the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, but I 
 should not have known that this coincided 
 with the secret power of the Holy Name 
 except for the author's accurate work in 
 interpreting the meaning of the Hebrew 
 letters composing the word "YEVE" 
 (JEHOVAH). 
 
 "A point that can hardly fail to strike the 
 Bible student is the frequency with which we 
 are directed to the Name of the Lord, as the 
 source of strength and protection, instead of 
 to God Himself, and the steady uniformity 
 of this practice, both in the Old and New 
 Testaments, clearly indicates the intention 
 
 20 
 
THE LOST WORD 
 
 to put us upon some special line of inquiry 
 with regard to the Sacred Name. Not only 
 is this suggested by the frequency of the 
 expression, but the Bible gives a very remark- 
 able instance which shows that the Sacred 
 Name must be considered as a formula con- 
 taining a summary of all Wisdom. 
 
 "The Master tells us that the Queen of 
 ' the South came to hear the wisdom of Solo- 
 mon, and if we turn to I Kings X: 1, we find 
 that the fame of Solomon's wisdom, which 
 induced the Queen of Sheba to come to prove 
 him with hard questions was * concerning 
 the Name of the Lord.' This accords with 
 the immemorial tradition of the Jews that 
 the knowledge of the secret name of God en- 
 ables him who possesses it to perform the 
 most stupendous miracles. This Hidden 
 Name — the ' Schem-hammaphoraseh ■ — was 
 revealed, they say, to Moses and taught by 
 him to Aaron and handed on by him to his 
 successors ; it was the secret enshrined in the 
 Holy of Holies, and was scrupulously guarded 
 by the successive High Priests; it is the su- 
 preme secret, and its knowledge is the 
 supreme object of attainment ; thus tradition 
 and Scripture alike point to 'The NAME' as 
 
 21 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 the source of Light and Life, and deliverance 
 from all evil. 
 
 ''May we not therefore suppose that this 
 must be the veiled statement of some great 
 Truth ? The purpose of a name is to call up, 
 by a single word, the complete idea of the 
 thing named, with all those qualities and 
 relations that make it what it is, instead of 
 having to describe all this in detail every 
 time we want to suggest the conception of it. 
 The correct name of a thing thus conveys 
 the idea of its whole nature, and accordingly 
 the correct Name of God should, in some 
 manner, be a concise statement of the Divine 
 Nature as the Source of all Life, Wisdom, 
 Power, and Goodness and the Origin of all 
 manifested being/ ' 
 
 To summarize the explanation which the 
 author gives of the Hebrew Name of God, 
 " YEVE ", which in English is "JEHOVAH ", 
 he shows by successive, careful steps the 
 meaning of each part of the word. This is 
 found to be Essential Life and Derived Life, 
 standing in the relation of masculine to femi- 
 nine, Y indicating Essential Life, while the 
 second part of the Name — EVE — indicates 
 Derived Feminine Life. Now we see the 
 
 22 
 
THE LOST WORD 
 
 expression of this masculine and feminine 
 life to be combined in one name, therefore we 
 are wholly within the truth when speaking of 
 the one named as TWO IN ONE. 
 
 The author also gives a further explanation 
 of the word by which God's triune nature is 
 seen to be expressed, but we have long been 
 familiar with the thought of the Trinity. We 
 think of God as ONE and as THREE IN 
 ONE, but we have not yet realized the fact 
 that God is also TWO IN ONE, and herein 
 lies "the mystery of God". TWO IN ONE 
 may then be said to be the physical form of 
 the Holy Name which expresses its general 
 nature and power, and which may be passed 
 from lip to lip; but its vital power — its 
 spiritual reality — or let us say, its soul, as 
 far transcends its physical expression as our 
 Spirits transcend in glory our physical bodies, 
 and may not thus be freely spoken of, but 
 must be realized by each one as he is guided 
 into this truth by the Spirit. 
 
 With this light on the derivation of the 
 Holy Name, which, as we shall see later, shows 
 it to corroborate the revelation of the mean- 
 ing of the imagery of the Tabernacle, and 
 the ordinances concerning it, ascribed to 
 
 23 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 Moses, we now get the full force of Exodus 
 34:5. "And the Lord descended in the cloud 
 and stood with him there, and proclaimed the 
 Name of the Lord." 
 
 But even with this analysis of the meaning 
 of the letters composing the Sacred Name, 
 it remains simply a formula, and we con- 
 tinually overlook its practical application, and 
 the availability of its power to really accom- 
 plish the miraculous results for human-kind 
 without the correct solution of the symbology 
 of the Tabernacle. This power is said to be 
 "the secret enshrined in the Holy of Holies", 
 and the way in which the NAME is in- 
 separably connected with the altar, the ark 
 of the covenant, the cherubims, etc., furnishes 
 proof of the truth of this statement. 
 
 The explanation of the symbology of the 
 Holy of Holies and its furnishings, which 
 shows wherein the power of the NAME con- 
 sists, and how this power may really touch 
 our lives on the three planes of our existence, 
 transforming the race of men into something 
 more than men, will be seen by careful, un- 
 prejudiced study of the following three 
 chapters. 
 
 24 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 "Things Which Have Been Kept Secret 
 From the Foundation of the World. " 
 
 Matt. 13:35. 
 
 /'The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the 
 earth keep silence before him." Hab. 2:20. 
 
 IT is a well-known fact that the Taber- 
 nacle in the Wilderness and Solomon's 
 Temple typified the physical body of man. 
 Jesus emphasized this symbol by inverting 
 it, and calling his body the Temple, and 
 similar references to our physical bodies as 
 the temple of God are frequent throughout 
 the New Testament. But these figures have 
 not been generally comprehended at their 
 full value. The significance of the Holy, of 
 Holies of the Tabernacle has been over- 
 looked. Concerning this is "the mystery of 
 God" (Rev. 10:7), "the mystery of Christ" 
 (Col. 4:3), "the mystery which was kept 
 secret since the world began" (Rom. 16:25), 
 the things concerning which Moses gave testi- 
 
 25 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 mony "which were to be spoken after" 
 (Heb. 3:5). 
 
 Within the Holy of Holies we are told was 
 put the ark of the covenant, or the ark of 
 the testimony, whereupon was placed the 
 mercy seat, which was overshadowed by the 
 cherubims. The golden altar of incense was 
 before the vail of the Holy of Holies. Com- 
 plete accounts of the construction of the 
 Tabernacle, with its laws and ordinances, are 
 given in Exodus and Leviticus, but I would 
 direct attention to Exodus 25:1-22 and to 
 Leviticus 16:1-13, which furnish data for 
 further study and comparison of references. 
 Naturally the symbology could not afford an 
 exact counterbalance throughout, and still 
 permit the erection of a usable, material 
 structure for the Tabernacle, but a thorough 
 study of the references relating to this subject 
 throughout all parts of the Bible clearly 
 shows what a superficial glance does not 
 reveal — that the truth taught by the Holy 
 of Holies, its furnishings and ordinances, the 
 office of the high priest, the promises con- 
 nected with the ark of the covenant and 
 related references is that there is but one 
 true mate for each soul ; that the way out of 
 
 26 
 
THINGS KEPT SECRET 
 
 human limitation — from man to super-man — 
 the way of eternal life of the body in youth 
 and health, with its increasing refinement 
 and ratification, is through the office of sex 
 of such two individuals after their lives have 
 become sufficiently spiritual by setting God 
 first before their eyes, and by loving all 
 humanity so much that by the natural work- 
 ing of the Law of Life they are reunited in a 
 love so divinely pure and strong that it sees 
 naught but God in all his handiwork. 
 
 The ark of the covenant, the mercy seat, 
 the cherubims, etc., have reference to the 
 female genitals; the altar of incense, the 
 censer, etc. to those of the male. The 
 cherubims are the labia majora: the censer 
 is the phallus. The details of the analogy 
 become apparent from the inter-relation. 
 Aaron, the high priest, represents the male 
 complement, who alone is permitted access 
 to the Holy of Holies. Aaron's two sons 
 (symbolical of his ideas or thoughts, hence of 
 his resultant capacities or tendencies) Eleazar 
 and Ithamar, who were to offer sacrifice 
 continually with Aaron, typify by their 
 names the qualities of pure love and spiritual 
 understanding which Aaron must possess. 
 
 27 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 The sons of Aaron who were slain because 
 they offered false fire upon the altar (Lev. 
 10: 1-3) signify lack of self control, and a low 
 understanding that grasps only the material 
 phase of the sacrifice. These qualities must 
 be slain in every man before he can become 
 a high priest in this sense, which is " after 
 the order of Melchizedek ,, ) who was said to 
 be the priest of the Most High God long 
 before there was any Jewish Liturgy in exist- 
 ence. 
 
 The very meagre reference to Melchizedek 
 in the Bible makes it difficult for us to learn 
 much about him, but it is recorded that he 
 met Abraham when he was returning from the 
 slaughter of the kings who had carried away 
 Lot, and administered to him bread and 
 wine, symbolical of the understanding of the 
 Spirit, and of matter. We are also told that 
 he was king of Salem, which is interpreted in 
 the text as* 'King of Peace". While this would 
 be true, this is not the first meaning of the 
 word "Salem", which comes from a word 
 meaning whole. Therefore we can judge that 
 Melchizedek was one who possessed wholeness 
 in its full significance by being in possession 
 of the truth in regard to Spirit and matter, 
 
 28 
 
THINGS KEPT SECRET 
 
 and related facts. Again, in the seventh 
 chapter of Hebrews we read that Melchize- 
 dek's priesthood was a continual priesthood; 
 that he was without " beginning of days' ' or 
 "end of life", which corresponds to the truth 
 with respect to the soul complement, which 
 always has been and always will be the one 
 to stand in the relation of high priest toward 
 . its true spiritual mate. 
 
 To those who may be inclined to treat 
 lightly the idea that there exists a pomple- 
 ment for every soul, let me say that this is 
 no idle fancy adapted to satisfy the caprice 
 of the giddy or frivolous, for one must be 
 truly spiritual in his desires, and willing to 
 give up anything that stands in the way of 
 his finding God and doing the right before it 
 is in his power to know the complement of 
 his own soul, and the one of whom this is 
 true will not be neglectful of duty nor incon- 
 siderate of others. 
 
 This truth is the significance of the allegory 
 related in Gen. 2:18-25. The incomplete- 
 ness of the man without the woman is indi- 
 cated by the woman's having been formed of 
 a portion of the substance of the man's body, 
 which it must be admitted is a very good 
 
 29 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 figurative version of the biological facts re- 
 ferred to in Chapter V. Thus we see the 
 thought expressed is that neither is complete 
 without the other, the two being required for 
 an integral being. 
 
 Again, this is plainly taught by Jesus' 
 words to the Pharisees (Matt. 19 and Mark 
 10), the meaning of which has been entirely 
 overlooked because of a wrong interpretation 
 put upon his answer to the Sadducees (Matt. 
 22 and Mark 12). The Sadducees did not 
 believe in the resurrection; therefore it is 
 plain that their question was not asked with 
 the honest purpose of securing information, 
 but rather with the design to entangle Jesus 
 by suggesting a situation which, as they 
 thought, would necessarily arise in the event 
 of a life after death, in such cases as that 
 of the woman who had had seven husbands, 
 which imaginary dilemma they evidently 
 considered as conclusive proof that there 
 could be no resurrection of the dead. But 
 Jesus silenced this childish argument by let- 
 ting them know that the institution of the 
 cosmos is not governed by finite laws and 
 customs, and told them plainly that "in 
 heaven they neither marry nor are given in 
 
 30 
 
THINGS KEPT SECRET 
 
 marriage, but are as the angels of God in 
 heaven/ ' But these words, which have been 
 so narrowly construed, fall far short of saying 
 that no true love relation can exist or be 
 formed in heaven. They were only intended 
 to cover the particular aspect of the subject 
 of marriage with which the question of the 
 Sadducees was concerned, and their force 
 'was directed to correct the impression that 
 the conditions of earth must necessarily ob- 
 tain in heaven, hence the plain statement 
 that "in heaven they neither marry nor are 
 given in marriage." But what we do have 
 a right to infer from them (far from saying 
 that there is no marriage in heaven) is that 
 in the spiritual state existing in heaven, cere- 
 monies and man-made laws are not necessary, 
 but that this law of God which created them 
 male and female in "the beginning of the 
 creation", will adjust the true marriage. 
 
 The probabilities are that no one of the 
 seven brothers who had as wife the woman 
 in question was her real husband, but that in 
 heaven, provided she has mastered life's 
 lessons of love sufficiently, she would be 
 united with her true mate. Otherwise, she 
 would have to begin there just where she left 
 
 31 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 off here and learn to love everyone and to 
 forgive everyone before her spiritual powers 
 would be sufficiently quickened for her to 
 recognize her true mate. 
 
 That souls are created male and female is 
 too plain for controversy from the references 
 cited in Matthew and Mark. In the account 
 in Mark Jesus says, in speaking of the bill of 
 divorcement, "For the hardness of your 
 heart he (Moses) wrote you this precept, 
 but from the beginning of the creation God 
 made them male and female. For this cause 
 shall a man leave his father and mother and 
 cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be 
 one flesh: so then they are no more twain, 
 but one flesh. What therefore God hath 
 joined together let not man put asunder." 
 
 By careful reading the context shows that 
 it was against the principle of the separation 
 of what had been joined from the beginning of 
 the creation to which Jesus particularly re- 
 ferred, for while he expressed no disapproval of 
 Moses' granting them the privilege of divorce 
 under certain conditions, the restrictions and 
 limitations of which were designed to pro- 
 mote, on the whole, the highest development 
 of humanity while it had not yet attained a 
 
 32 
 
THINGS KEPT SECRET 
 
 sufficiently quickened spiritual consciousness 
 for it to be possible for each to know his own 
 true companion, yet he says, "But from the 
 beginning of the creation God made them male 
 and female/ ' and implies that God joined 
 particular male and female creations, for he 
 adds, ''What therefore God hath joined to- 
 gether let not man put asunder' ' although 
 he had just previously signified his approval 
 of Moses' action in allowing certain ones to 
 be put asunder under the then existing state 
 of enlightenment of mankind. 
 
 Now the force of this argument certainly 
 would not fit the circumstances of ordinary 
 life and marriage, because we know that 
 God never joined "from the beginning of the 
 creation' ' any two individuals united simply 
 by an accepted marriage ceremony of this or 
 any other age. Legal marriage ceremonies 
 are being performed daily, but how could any 
 of these be said to date l 'from the beginning of 
 the creation' 1 ? Hence it is plain that the 
 only male and female which could have been 
 joined from the beginning would be those 
 whom Jesus said God joined; in other words 
 — dual parts of the same soul. 
 
 This establishes the fact that this mas- 
 
 33 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 culine and feminine duality in unity is true 
 between souls of individuals the same as it 
 is true in the nature of each soul, and as we 
 see by the meaning of the Holy Name, and 
 observe in all forms of life, in the nature of 
 God Himself. But since souls were created 
 in the image of God, every completed (re- 
 deemed) soul must represent an individual- 
 ized part of God, or the power of Two In 
 One. Now it cannot be argued that this 
 condition is wholly met in the male or 
 female individual alone, else why male and 
 female bodies instead of a uniform type of 
 body among human beings, representing both 
 elements? for our souls most certainly deter- 
 mine the form of our bodies. 
 
 Someone may say, "You have just said 
 that each individual soul is masculine and 
 feminine in nature; then why does not this 
 satisfy the condition of a completed soul, 
 created in the image of God, who is TWO 
 IN ONE?" My answer is that although 
 there is a measure of masculine capacity in 
 woman and feminine capacity in man, these 
 powers are not present in each in such pro- 
 portion or manner as to constitute a com- 
 pleted individual, capable alone of reproduc- 
 
 34 
 
THINGS KEPT SECRET 
 
 tion, or of perfect equilibrium (rest and 
 happiness), and evolution from man to super- 
 man. The feminine capacity in the soul of 
 man is manifested in his body, in one par- 
 ticular, in the rudimentary male breast, but 
 this cannot function. On the other hand, 
 we know that the female breast could not 
 function except through the intervention of 
 masculine capacity. Now the soul capacity 
 of individual man and woman is not com- 
 plete unto itself any more than the individual 
 bodies, but the perfected power of a com- 
 pleted soul created in the image of God — 
 the power of the Two In One — rests only 
 with true spiritual mates who have been 
 willing to get so close to God that He has 
 joined them again in eternal benediction, his 
 overshadowing Spirit giving power to the 
 union of their souls and bodies. 
 
 Jesus was indeed a mediator between God 
 and man in the sense of teaching man that 
 God is not some power apart, to whom offer- 
 ings in a temple of wood or stone should be 
 made as from an individual to a God who is 
 distinct and separate from himself, but that 
 man's body is the temple of the Living God, 
 and the power of his teaching is destined 
 
 35 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 sooner or later to uplift all mankind to where 
 they can understand the mystery of the Holy 
 of Holies of this temple of the body, and offer 
 acceptable sacrifices therein. 
 
 The wisdom and efficacy" of God's plan of 
 creation and redemption of mankind is thus 
 clearly seen in the endowment of the spiritual 
 and physical faculties of which none are 
 devoid — the desire for love and companion- 
 ship (completion) that is within every soul; 
 and its material concomitant, the cognizance 
 of the presence of the Creative Life Energy 
 in the physical body, the correct under- 
 standing of which will eventually, in one 
 incarnation or another, cause every prodigal 
 son to come to himself and say, ' ' I will arise 
 and go to my Father." 
 
 36 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Search the Scriptures 
 
 'Unto the pure all things are pure." 
 Titus 1:15. 
 
 THERE may be some who will feel after 
 having studied the passages cited and 
 related references that this is not sufficient 
 to establish the correctness of the inter- 
 pretation which I have given of the Holy of 
 Holies. Of such I would kindly ask not to 
 form a hasty conclusion, but reserve any 
 adverse opinion until you have read not only 
 all of this volume, but the Bible itself from 
 Genesis to Revelation with this interpre- 
 tation in mind. I believe if you are honest 
 with yourself, and are not hopelessly fettered 
 by literalism, you will then agree with me that 
 the purpose of the Bible is not simply to 
 prepare us for death, but to bring us into our 
 divine heritage with all that means here and 
 now; to cause us to feel one with God at 
 heart, and to bring us into possession of 
 
 37 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 the paradise (not necessarily in a far away 
 heaven but begun on earth made into 
 heaven) which God has prepared for every 
 soul when it is able to receive it by being made 
 perfect in love, seeing God in all, and in this 
 purity of thought putting away entirely from 
 the life anything in which God may not be a 
 sharer; and that the presentation of these 
 truths which I am telling you in regard to 
 the Holy of Holies and the Holy Name con- 
 stitutes the substratum of the whole Bible. 
 
 This is the key to the proper interpretation 
 of the Old Testament (and with this the 
 New Testament is inseparably connected), as 
 it is evident that its ethical value consists not 
 in its biography, for the most part, nor in its 
 history, the high points of which are woven 
 into this marvelous collection of allegories, 
 employed by the Old Testament writers or 
 compilers as the parables were by Jesus, but 
 in the deeper truth intended to be set forth 
 in this manner, and in the cry of the prophets 
 in the same figurative speech for the recog- 
 nition of this truth, calling attention to the 
 suffering and privation of all kinds (char- 
 acterized as the " wrath of God"), which 
 exist in the world because of mankind's lack 
 
 38 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 of knowledge of this truth, their blindness 
 to the fact that God is all, and their neglect 
 of the commandment: "Thou shalt have no 
 other Gods before me." 
 
 It is written as though all that is recorded 
 had taken place, but the truth is that while 
 much of it did indeed take place, these 
 incidents were used in the grand scheme of 
 presenting to an awakening world the eternal 
 verities of God — a story told to children, as 
 it were, to point a moral— and instead of the 
 law's having passed away, it has never yet 
 been understood by the world in its true 
 significance. 
 
 All this is not apparent, and we miss the 
 value if we insist upon taking a literal inter- 
 pretation, and disregard the fact that the 
 purpose is to present in this form the simple 
 truth concerning God and man and life; and 
 that certain principles, capacities, qualities, 
 and a record of the spiritual evolution of 
 every individual and of mankind in general 
 is represented by certain characters and 
 incidents in their histories. We find it to be 
 a repetition of the presentation of the same 
 truths set forth in seeming historical record, 
 and the fact that we know some of it to be 
 
 39 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 accurate history, has constituted the blind 
 to its deeper meaning, because history and 
 allegory are so interwoven. But when we 
 get the clue to its real purpose and its 
 figurative style, we can see in it so plainly 
 the evidences of a Supreme Wisdom that 
 gave it to an undeveloped race in the form 
 of sufficient fact admixed with the Eternal 
 Truth itself to keep us digging through the 
 clay and gravel while our spiritual senses were 
 maturing to a point where we could appre- 
 ciate the value of the truth in its purity when 
 the subsoil should be reached, that we can- 
 not avoid the conviction that the Bible has 
 been preserved for us by an Over-ruling Love 
 to teach the world a happier truth than it 
 has ever dreamed, and because it is taught 
 in the form of parable or myth in no wise 
 detracts from its spiritual value. 
 
 St. Paul makes the definite statement that 
 he regards the historical incidents of Abra- 
 ham's life as allegorical. He says (Gal. 4:22- 
 24): "For it is written that Abraham had 
 two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other 
 by a free woman. But he who was of the 
 bondwoman was born after the flesh ; but he 
 of the free woman was by promise. Which 
 
 40 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 things are an allegory. " The statement is 
 plain and incontrovertible. In the revised 
 version of 1881 the translators have made 
 this read, "Which things contain an allegory." 
 This is taking great liberty, and clouds the 
 real meaning, for consulting the original text, 
 we find the verb which they have translated 
 " contain" is the present indicative of the 
 verb ' * to be " and simply means ' ' is ' ' . While 
 the King James version puts this verb in the 
 plural to obtain a smooth translation, it 
 preserves the meaning perfectly. The word 
 which is translated "allegory" in both cases 
 is the declined form of the participle from 
 the verb meaning "to allegorize" or "to 
 speak allegorically ". This is correctly used 
 as a noun the same as the participle in English, 
 so that an awkward rendering of the clause, 
 but one which gives the true meaning would 
 be, "Which is allegorizing" or "Which is (a) 
 speaking allegorically." 
 
 And if the account be allegorical in this 
 case, why not in most of the Old Testament 
 history? The fact that the writers chose to 
 use actual happenings in some instances, 
 makes the narrative no less allegorical in the 
 mai£~ Nor does this in any measure lessen 
 
 41 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 its spiritual value, but rather heightens it, 
 for anyone who claims he can receive inspira- 
 tion or uplift from a perusal of the greater 
 part of the Old Testament history and biog- 
 raphy, accepted literally, has certainly not 
 advanced very far in the true Christian 
 spirit. 
 
 And here let it be said that we are all too 
 ready to reject, as containing no principle of 
 truth, the myths and legends of other nations, 
 overlooking the fact that some of the most 
 valuable lessons of our own Bible are pre- 
 sented in the same manner. We know when 
 Jesus said, "Behold a sower went forth to 
 sow" he did not intend us to believe that he 
 was relating an actual fact in regard to a 
 farmer sowing his wheat or oats. This is as 
 truly a myth as any, and yet we see its pro- 
 found meaning from the interpretation which 
 Jesus gave his disciples later. 
 
 The truth concerning God and man and 
 nature is truth no matter in what way it may 
 be presented. Different races and nations 
 have different ways of expressing the same 
 truth, but the Pharisees of every age are 
 willing to reject the truth if presented to 
 them through any other channel than the 
 
 42 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 narrow grooves in which their minds have 
 worked till they have all but lost the power of 
 independent thought. If we regard all legend 
 as containing no expression of truth, what 
 shall we say of the 31st verse of the 38th 
 Chapter of Job? " Canst thou bind the 
 sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the 
 bands of Orion ?" A certain legend in con- 
 nection with these two constellations has 
 reference to this same mystery of God. 
 
 Doubtless these myths and traditions were 
 not, in their inception, intended to be under- 
 stood to relate actual facts any more than 
 the parables of our own Bible were so in- 
 tended, but were merely made the vehicles 
 of some phase of the simple truth concerning 
 life, realized in ancient times by the spiritual 
 teachers of the different nations, and clothed 
 in this form to be kept alive and handed down 
 from age to age. How the real truth in- 
 volved could easily have become distorted, 
 because only partially comprehended, and 
 made the ground for abhorrent practices of 
 later spiritually undeveloped adherents of 
 certain forms of belief, can be readily under- 
 stood by the record of the inhuman crimes 
 included in the history of the growth and 
 
 43 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 development of Christianity; the Inquisi- 
 tion, for instance; the Salem Witchcraft; all 
 religious persecution, in fact, not to mention 
 modern inconsistencies parading under the 
 name of Christ Jesus and his teaching. We 
 do not think of accusing Jesus of advocating 
 this standard of conduct because certain ones 
 professing to follow him were guilty of such 
 unchristian acts. No more can we with 
 certainty accuse the ancient teachers of other 
 nations of degeneracy and folly because their 
 followers, even including the priesthood, per- 
 haps failed to comprehend the spirit and 
 meaning of their teaching. And it must also 
 be remembered that Christianity being the 
 latest religion, humanity as a whole was 
 naturally at a higher level when it was es- 
 tablished than when the more ancient re- 
 ligions were founded, for as time goes on 
 the world becomes more capable of com- 
 prehending and practising higher truth. 
 
 "That both the Assyrian and the Egyptian 
 worship had a solid basis of truth is a fact 
 to which the Bible itself bears this remark- 
 able testimony: — 'In that day shall Israel 
 be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, 
 even a blessing in the midst of the land; 
 
 44 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying. 
 Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria 
 the work of my hands, and Israel mine 
 Inheritance ' (Isaiah xix. 24)." 
 
 Know this, that truth is eternal. Jesus 
 did not make truth, he taught it, and the 
 wisdom of the Sages and the Wise Men of 
 the East was no less wisdom because it 
 existed in the world before Jesus' day. The 
 truth ascribed to Moses, that had been given 
 to the world centuries before Jesus' time, was 
 comprehended by some great soul before 
 Jesus came to interpret and re-establish it. 
 For however or whenever the Levitical law 
 came into existence, we know that Jesus 
 knew the esoteric meaning of the outward 
 form, and referred to this when he said that 
 he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill 
 it, and that one jot or tittle would not pass 
 away until all be fulfilled ; because the letter 
 of the law was being fulfilled every day, afid 
 his whole life and teaching contradicted the 
 idea of there being any efficacy in the ritual- 
 istic ceremony. The truth to which Jesus 
 himself tells us that he came to bear witness 
 unto was the Eternal Truth that was already 
 in the world independent of his emphasizing 
 
 45 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 it, and independent of any organized body 
 of believers called "Christians"; and until 
 men are broad enough and honest enough to 
 acknowledge truth in whatever form it ap- 
 pears, they are only defrauding themselves by 
 setting limits for their own advancement. 
 
 From the study of the following references 
 and related texts, which can be traced in any 
 good reference Bible, certain truths will be 
 found to be set forth as clearly as is possible 
 to be done by means of an institution which 
 was both esoteric and exoteric. A systematic 
 study of the whole Bible from this point of 
 view would of course be more satisfactory, 
 but we may form some idea of the far-reach- 
 ing importance of the underlying truth typi- 
 fied by the Tabernacle and its ordinances 
 from some few texts bearing directly on the 
 subject. 
 
 It will be noticed by anyone studying the 
 matter carefully that we have a rough outline 
 of this truth (in symbolical terms, of course) 
 included in the first three chapters of Genesis, 
 carrying us forward to the present state of 
 the race, where it must remain until the 
 "mystery of God" has been made known 
 and the "Son of Man revealed"; that is, 
 
 46 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 excluded from the Garden of Eden, with the 
 curse of hard labor to win his bread resting 
 on the man, and sorrow and painful child- 
 birth on the woman, until they "return unto 
 the ground" — turn their attention to matter 
 — learn what it is, conquer it, give it rightful 
 recognition in the universal economy, and 
 thus transform matter itself, until it ceases 
 , to be the heavy burden it now is, and our 
 bodies becoming more rarified, absorb their 
 needed nourishment from the air, doing away 
 with the necessity of bread earned by toil; 
 this latter being the truth symbolized by 
 the pot of manna put into the ark of the 
 covenant (Ex. 16:33-34 and Heb. 9:4). 
 
 Beginning with the 4th chapter of Genesis, 
 it takes up the more lengthy task of develop- 
 ing the outline, giving repeated instances to 
 emphasize the same truths under different 
 circumstances. In this way we get a number 
 of persons and places referring to the same 
 general principle or thing, and we find the 
 same truths set forth in greater detail as we 
 proceed. For instance, Assyria, Egypt and 
 Israel symbolize everywhere throughout the 
 Bible the physical, mental and spiritual 
 respectively; but other things also sym- 
 
 47 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 bolize these same capacities or conditions. 
 However, the reverse is not true — that a 
 symbol signifies more than one thing except 
 in the sense of a modification, enlargement or 
 derivation from the one original idea. An 
 example of this is water, which embraces the 
 psychical realm, including mind, understand- 
 ing, knowledge, etc. Babylon's significance 
 is equivalent to that of Assyria, and the same 
 is true of Tyre, as well as other places, and 
 the evil associated with each is the evil of 
 separation — that is, lack of unity with the 
 mental and spiritual. But the passage 
 quoted from Is. 19:24 shows that "in that 
 day " (which is now dawning), Assyria, Egypt 
 and Israel are to be made one with God's 
 blessing. 
 
 To come to the texts referred to, the choice 
 of the whole tribe of the Levites to minister 
 unto Aaron, the High Priest of the House of 
 Levi, and to keep the charge of the Taber- 
 nacle, but not before the tabernacle of witness, 
 the altar, and the vessels of the sanctuary, 
 teaches that no one can expect to be elevated 
 to the office of high priest (be recognized by 
 his true complement) until he is first a 
 Levite (spiritually minded), or that the way 
 
 48 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 of attainment toward the office of high priest 
 is through spiritual development, as is seen 
 from the thought in the following references : 
 
 ''And I, behold I have taken the Levites 
 from among the children of Israel instead of 
 all the firstborn that openeth the matrix 
 among the children of Israel: therefore the 
 Levites shall be mine; Because all the first- 
 born are mine; for on the day that I smote 
 all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I 
 hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel, 
 both man and beast: mine shall they be: 
 I am the Lord" (Num. 3:12-13). 
 
 "Take the Levites instead of all the first- 
 born among the children of Israel, and the 
 cattle of the Levites instead of their cattle; 
 and the Levites shall be mine; I am the 
 Lord" (Num. 3:45). 
 
 "Then Moses stood in the gate of the 
 camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side? 
 let him come unto me. And all the sons of 
 Levi gathered themselves together unto him" 
 (Ex. 32:26). 
 
 "And ye shall know that I have sent this 
 commandment unto you, that my covenant 
 might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 My covenant was with him of life and peace; 
 
 49 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 and I gave them to him for the fear where- 
 with he feared me, and was afraid before my 
 name. The law of truth was in his mouth, 
 and iniquity was not found in his lips: he 
 walked with me in peace and equity, and 
 did turn many away from iniquity " (Mai. 
 2:4-6). 
 
 The truth that there is but one true mate 
 for each soul is sufficiently evident from 
 Jesus' teaching, and that the figure of Aaron 
 answers to this need hardly be questioned. 
 He stood the highest in privilege and author- 
 ity with reference to the sanctuary. He 
 alone was permitted to enter the Holy of 
 Holies and offer sacrifice within the vail. It 
 was Aaron's rod that budded which was to 
 be laid up before the testimony to take away 
 the murmurings of the children of Israel 
 against Moses (for food and drink), and also 
 that they die not. That is, with Aaron is 
 the power to overcome hunger and death, 
 for we read : 
 
 "And it shall come to pass that the man's 
 rod, whom I shall choose, shall blossom : and 
 I will make to cease from me the murmurings 
 of the children of Israel, whereby they mur- 
 mur against you. . . . And it came to pass 
 
 50 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 that on the morrow Moses went into the 
 tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod 
 of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded 
 and brought forth buds, and bloomed blos- 
 soms, and yielded almonds. . . . And the 
 Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod 
 again before the testimony, to be kept for a 
 token against the rebels; and thou shalt 
 quite take away their murmurings from me 
 that they die not" (Num. 17:5, 8, 10). 
 
 "And the Lord said unto Aaron, Thou and 
 thy sons and thy father's house with thee 
 shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary : and 
 thou and thy sons with thee shall bear the 
 iniquity of your priesthood. And thy breth- 
 ren also of the tribe of Levi, the tribe of thy 
 father, bring thou with thee, that they may 
 be joined unto thee, and minister unto thee; 
 but thou and thy sons with thee shall minister 
 before the tabernacle of witness. And they 
 shall keep thy charge and the charge of all 
 the tabernacle: only they shall not come 
 nigh the vessels of the sanctuary and the 
 altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die. . . . 
 And ye shall keep the charge of the sanctuary 
 and the charge of the altar : that there be no 
 wrath any more upon the children of Israel. 
 
 5i 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall 
 keep your priest's office for everything of the 
 altar, and within the vail ; and ye shall serve : 
 I have given your priest's office unto you as 
 a service of gift: and the stranger that 
 cometh nigh shall be put to death" (Num. 
 18:1-3, 5, 7). 
 
 The stranger represents anyone who is not 
 the true complement, and being put to death 
 is intended in the deeper significance to refer 
 to dying just as mankind has always done. 
 The fact that as long as strangers come nigh 
 the sanctuary mankind will continue to die 
 is again emphasized in these words : 
 
 "And thou shall appoint Aaron and his 
 sons, and they shall wait on their priest's 
 office: and the stranger that cometh nigh 
 shall be put to death. . . . But those that 
 encamp before the Tabernacle toward the 
 east, even before the Tabernacle of the 
 Congregation eastward, shall be Moses and 
 Aaron and his sons, keeping the charge of 
 the sanctuary for the charge of the children 
 of Israel; and the stranger that cometh nigh 
 shall be put to death' 1 (Num. 3:10, 38). 
 
 This is certainly intended to call our at- 
 tention forcibly to the fact that anyone but 
 
 52 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 the true complement has not the power to 
 overcome death. 
 
 Referring again to " Bible Mystery and 
 Bible Meaning", the author states in the 
 first chapter: 
 
 "The Bible is the Book of the Emanci^ 
 pation of Man. The emancipation of man 
 means his deliverance from sorrow and sick- 
 ness, from poverty, struggle and uncertainty, 
 from ignorance and limitation, and finally 
 from death itself. This may appear to be 
 what the euphuistic colloquialism of the day 
 would call 'a tall order', but nevertheless it 
 is impossible to read the Bible with a mind 
 unwarped by antecedent conceptions derived 
 from traditional interpretation without see- 
 ing that this is exactly what it promises, and 
 that it professes to contain the secret whereby 
 this happy condition of perfect liberty may 
 be attained. Jesus says that if a man keeps 
 his saying he shall never see death (John 
 8:51): in the Book of Job we are told that 
 if a man has with him 'a messenger, an 
 interpreter', he shall be delivered from going 
 down to the pit, and shall return to the 
 days of his youth (Job 33 : 24) : the Psalms 
 speak of our renewing our youth (Ps. 103 : 5} : 
 
 53 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 and yet again we are told in Job that by 
 acquainting ourselves with God we shall be 
 at peace, we shall lay up gold as dust and 
 have plenty of silver, we shall decree a thing 
 and it shall be established unto us (Job 
 22:21-23). . . . 
 
 "The first thing to notice is that there is 
 a common element running through the texts 
 I have quoted; they all contain the idea of 
 acquiring certain information, and the prom- 
 ised results are all contingent on our getting 
 this information and using it. Jesus says it 
 depends on our keeping his saying, that is, 
 receiving the information which he had to 
 give and acting upon it. Job says that it 
 depends on rightly interpreting a certain 
 message, and again that it depends on our 
 making ourselves acquainted with some- 
 thing; and the context of the passage in 
 Psalms makes it clear that the deliverance 
 from death and the renewal of youth there 
 promised are to be attained through the 
 'ways* which the Lord 'made known unto 
 Moses V 
 
 It is interesting to note how all of this, 
 though unwittingly on the part of the author, 
 points directly to the information which I 
 
 54 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 am telling you lies buried in the symbology 
 of the Pentateuch. 
 
 Further reference to eternal life we find in 
 Deut. 4:40: 
 
 "Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes and 
 his commandments, which I command thee 
 this day, that it may go well with thee and 
 with thy children after thee, and that thou 
 may est prolong thy days upon the earth , 
 which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for 
 ever. 11 : and in Hosea 13 : 14 : 
 
 "I will ransom them from the power of the 
 grave; I will redeem them from death: 
 death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will 
 be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid 
 from mine eyes." 
 
 We also read that this salvation and ever- 
 lasting strength is in the Lord JEHOVAH. 
 The original text must have been strongly 
 emphasized in some way to cause the trans- 
 lators to put the word "Jehovah" in large 
 capitals thus: 
 
 "Behold God is my salvation; I will trust 
 and not be afraid : for the Lord JEHOVAH 
 is my strength and my song; he also is 
 become my salvation" (Is. 12:2). 
 
 "Trust ye in the Lord forever: for in the 
 
 55 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength" (Is. 
 26:4). 
 
 This links the power of the Holy Name 
 "YEVE" with the prosperity and eternal 
 life to which our attention has been called, 
 and we also find the NAME of the Lord 
 associated with the symbology of the temple 
 and the ark of the covenant in the following 
 references : 
 
 "And David arose and went with all the 
 people that were with him from Baale of 
 Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of 
 God, whose name is called by the name of the 
 Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the 
 cherubims" (2 Sam. 6:2). 
 
 "If, when evil cometh upon us, as the 
 sword, judgment or pestilence, or famine, we 
 stand before this house, and in thy presence 
 (for thy name is in this house), and cry unto 
 thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear 
 and help" (2 Chr. 20:9). 
 
 Note the force of Deut. 12 : 11 in connection 
 with Is. 37:16:— 
 
 "Then there shall be a place which the 
 Lord your God shall choose to cause his name 
 to dwell there ; thither shall ye bring all that 
 I command you; your burnt offerings and 
 
 56 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 your sacrifices, your tithes and the heave 
 offering of your hand, and all your choice vows 
 which ye vow unto the Lord." 
 
 11 O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwell- 
 est between the cherubims, thou art the God, 
 even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the 
 earth: thou hast made heaven and earth.' ' 
 
 By Genesis 3:24 we learn that without 
 knowledge of this truth we cannot be granted 
 entrance back into the garden of Eden (free- 
 dom from suffering and limitation), for we 
 are told : 
 
 "He drove out the man; and he placed at 
 the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and 
 a flaming sword which turned every way to 
 keep the way of the tree of life/' That is, 
 this truth being the most unsuspected and the 
 last to be rightly comprehended, would 
 naturally include a right understanding of 
 other related truths necessary to be under- 
 stood, such as the right conception of matter, 
 and a knowledge of the spiritual significance 
 of the relation between male and female. 
 The latter statement is the truth emphasized 
 in Malachi 2:13-15: 
 
 "And this have ye done again, covering 
 the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping 
 
 57 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 and with crying out, insomuch that he re- 
 gardeth not the offering any more, or re- 
 ceiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet 
 ye say, Wherefore? (The answer follows.) 
 Because the Lord hath been witness between 
 thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom 
 thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she 
 thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. 
 And did he not make one? Yet had he the 
 residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? 
 (Again the answer.) That he might seek a 
 godly seed. Therefore take heed to your 
 spirit and let none deal treacherously against 
 the wife of his youth." 
 
 This passage has been interpreted to mean 
 nothing more than an admonition against 
 divorce or unfaithfulness to any wedded 
 companion, but in the light of the whole 
 truth it seems far more reasonable that "the 
 wife of thy covenant 1 ', and "the wife of thy 
 youth" refers, in its deepest significance, to 
 the one joined to the true husband from the 
 beginning, and that this is the information 
 that we were intended eventually to get out 
 of it. As long as we were unaware that there 
 is such a mate, naturally we would not see 
 this meaning in it, and it serves its first 
 
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SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 purpose by inculcating the lesson of faith- 
 fulness and kindliness, but this is an example 
 of God's method, through the instrument of 
 the prophet, of opening our eyes to the full 
 truth, through the only means which lifts 
 man from lower to higher — the putting into 
 practice the law of conduct nearest to the 
 truth of which he may at any time have 
 knowledge. 
 
 The question, "And did he not make one?" 
 "And wherefore one?" strongly suggests this; 
 and the answer, "That he might seek a 
 godly seed" is shown to be the means of 
 removing the "curse" mentioned in verses 
 1-4 of this same chapter: 
 
 "And now, ye priests, this command- 
 ment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if 
 ye will not lay it to heart to give glory unto 
 my name saith the Lord of hosts, I will even 
 send a curse upon you, and I will curse your 
 blessings : yea, I have cursed them already, be- 
 cause ye do not lay it to heart. (Note the force 
 of that sentence referring to the figurative 
 ' * wrath of God ".) Behold I will corrupt your 
 seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even 
 the dung of your solemn feasts ; and one shall 
 take you away with it. And ye shall know 
 
 59 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 that I have sent this commandment unto 
 you, that my covenant might be with Levi, 
 saith the Lord of hosts/ ' In other words, all 
 the blessings promised under the covenant 
 (the release from suffering and limitation) 
 can only be possible when the right conditions 
 have been established; that is, when the 
 high priest (who was always of the house of 
 Levi under the ceremonial law) is the only 
 one to offer sacrifices. This is the true 
 monogamy. This is the real science of 
 eugenics. 
 
 If anyone still doubts the interpretation 
 put upon the sacrifices and offerings, study 
 without prejudice Lev. 21:16-23. 
 
 "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 
 Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be 
 of thy seed in their generations that hath any 
 blemish, let him not approach to offer the 
 bread of his God. For whatsoever man he 
 be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach : 
 a blind man or a lame, or he that hath a flat 
 nose, or anything superfluous, or a man that 
 is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, or crook- 
 backt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish 
 in his eye, or be scurvy or scabbed, or hath 
 his stones broken; No man that hath a 
 
 60 
 
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 blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall 
 come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord 
 made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall 
 not come nigh to offer the bread of his God. 
 He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the 
 most holy and of the holy. Only he shall 
 not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto 
 the altar because he hath a blemish ; that he 
 profane not my sanctuaries: for I the Lord 
 do sanctify them." 
 
 Why should a priest be denied particularly 
 the privilege to go in unto the vail, or to offer 
 an offering by fire because he was deformed, 
 if this refers to nothing but ceremony and 
 ritual? It should be plain to anyone that 
 this is intended to preclude deformed persons 
 from physical union effective for procreation 
 for the sake of the race. 
 
 In explanation of certain passages that 
 have a general bearing on the subject, we 
 find that Jacob and Esau represent the 
 spiritual and material powers of man, re- 
 gardless of Jacob's deplorable trickery in 
 many instances; and the line, "Jacob have 
 I loved, but Esau have I hated" I think to 
 be as inadequately translated as the saying 
 of Jesus that if a man came to him and hated 
 
 61 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 not his mother and father, etc. he could not 
 be his disciple. While there is apparently 
 but one meaning given for the verb "miseo", 
 which is the word used in both the New 
 Testament references, we know it must have 
 had a different significance than our word 
 "hate", for we know that Jesus never in- 
 tended to teach that we should hate our 
 father or mother or anyone for any cause, 
 since this is the exact antithesis of the spirit 
 of his teaching. In this we have an example 
 of where the "anointing of the Spirit " teaches 
 us better than the written word itself, which 
 is equally true of many other passages which 
 may be taken too literally. 
 
 There are various instances in Jacob's biog- 
 raphy where the literal record has no moral 
 uplift, but when we remember that it is 
 merely a story to illustrate certain facts, we 
 need not concern ourselves so much with the 
 device used as with the facts it is intended to 
 point out. It was necessary to frame some 
 kind of excuse for Jacob's getting the birth- 
 right although he was slightly younger than 
 Esau, for the truth involved in this instance is 
 that the spiritual powers of man are destined 
 to rule over the material, even though de- 
 
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SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 veloped later, as we have our bodies and 
 physical senses before our spiritual life is 
 awakened. Again, the instance of Jacob's 
 method of increasing the share of the flocks 
 that was to be his, which was as unprin- 
 cipled as actual stealing, is intended to teach 
 the tremendous truth of the effect on phys- 
 ical substance of thought during sexual con- 
 gress. 
 
 As we follow Jacob's career, we find it to 
 represent the spiritual evolution of an in- 
 dividual toward the realization of the full 
 truth. When he wrestles with the angel, he 
 is struggling with the problem of the right 
 relation of Spirit and matter, which is a 
 corollary to the truth hidden in the meaning 
 of the Holy Name. Then we read of the 
 reconciliation of Jacob and Esau — Spirit and 
 matter — with all that this implies. 
 
 The twelve sons of Jacob, the heads of the 
 tribes of Israel, represent the capacities or 
 powers of an individual in their mental or 
 spiritual, and physical inter-relation. If any- 
 one thinks I am simply making an arbitrary 
 statement to suit my own purpose, then 
 answer what Jesus meant when he said, 
 11 Verily I say unto you that ye which have 
 
 63 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 followed me in the regeneration, when the 
 Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his 
 glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, 
 judging the twelve tribes of Israel' ' (Matt. 
 19 :28). Do you think he meant us to accept 
 that literally? He was using symbolical 
 language as he did constantly in his teaching. 
 
 Of these twelve sons, Joseph refers to the 
 sex function in its purity and spiritual reality. 
 His being sold into Egypt, which symbolizes 
 mental faculty or mind alone, independent of 
 spiritual understanding, represents our blind- 
 ness to the facts in connection with the 
 faculty typified by Joseph on account of our 
 incomplete conception of the truth. Joseph's 
 children, Ephraim and Manasseh, represent 
 the same thing only more specifically, Eph- 
 raim signifying the spiritual reality and 
 Manasseh the physical. Here again we find 
 the instance of the younger (spiritual) re- 
 ceiving the blessing of the birthright over 
 the elder (material), for it is recorded that 
 Jacob " wittingly " guided his hands and 
 placed his right hand upon the head of 
 Ephraim, and his left on that of Manasseh 
 when blessing Joseph's children (Gen. 48). 
 
 Judah represents our ethical and spiritual 
 
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SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 promptings — our wish to do the right and 
 shun the wrong — even though our under- 
 standing of right and wrong be imperfect. 
 
 David stands for the perfected spiritual 
 understanding in man, or the all conquering 
 kingdom of the Spirit, to which all other 
 powers, mental and physical, must eventually 
 render obedience. He represents the power 
 'of the right relation of body, mind and 
 Spirit, his stronghold of defense being the 
 power of sex uplifted. This explains the 
 meaning of the expression, ''the key of the 
 house of David' ' (Is. 22:22). Besides being 
 represented as king, David is also spoken of 
 as shepherd because of his spiritual under- 
 standing of the creative energy (the Christos), 
 which he exemplifies, and which is the power 
 that will, in the end, bring the last wandering 
 sheep back to the Father's fold. In Ezekiel 
 34:23 we read: "And I will set up one 
 shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, 
 even my servant David ; he shall feed them, 
 and he shall be their shepherd.' * 
 
 For this reason any exponent of this whole 
 truth of God concerning the union of Spirit 
 and matter in our bodies, whether Joseph, 
 David or Jesus, is spoken of as the shepherd, 
 
 65 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 This power is also referred to as the stone 
 of stumbling, because of the deep mystery of 
 God which it holds, and over it we continu- 
 ally stumble until we can view it from the 
 spiritual aspect; then the "key of the house 
 of David' ' unlocks the mystery. We find 
 such reference to Joseph in Gen. 49:22-24: 
 
 " Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful 
 bough by a well; whose branches run over 
 the wall: The archers have sorely grieved 
 him, and shot at him and hated him. But 
 his bow abode in strength, and the arms 
 of his hands were made strong by the hands 
 of the mighty God of Jacob ; (from thence is 
 the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)" 
 
 This is the stone which the builders of the 
 temple have always despised. Jesus' refer- 
 ence to this is proof of its application to this 
 interpretation: "Did ye never read in the 
 scriptures, The stone which the builders 
 rejected, the same is become the head of the 
 corner: This is the Lord's doing and it is 
 marvelous in our eyes?" What would be 
 marvelous about it in our eyes because it was 
 the Lord's doing, if it were not something that 
 our immature understanding had led us to 
 believe would not be the Lord's doing? 
 
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SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 But this is because the "Judah" in each 
 one of us is the lawgiver first, and when all 
 is said, this is just the way God ordered it. 
 We all have to come through this same ex- 
 perience of shock when this deeper truth of 
 God is borne in upon us. But we are told 
 that Judah and Joseph (or Ephraim, which 
 means the same), are to become one. 
 
 1 'Moreover, thou son of man, take thee 
 one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and 
 for the children of Israel his companions: 
 then take another stick, and write upon it, 
 For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all 
 the house of Israel his companions: And 
 join them one to another into one stick ; and 
 they shall become one in thine hand" (Eze- 
 kiel 37:16-17). And it is then we can look 
 upon this matter as God sees it. 
 
 If there still remains a shadow of doubt in 
 anyone's mind as to the accuracy of my 
 premises — the certainty that by the Holy of 
 Holies with its furnishings, the ark of the 
 covenant, the tabernacle of witness, or merely 
 the tabernacle in some instances, with the 
 associated sacrifices and offerings, are really 
 meant the organs of reproduction, their 
 functions, etc., then I shall be obliged to call 
 
 67 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 his attention to Lev. 15:31-33, where the 
 instance given of the defiling of God's taber- 
 nacle among us is not veiled, and to Is. 57:7, 
 where the prophet has interpreted his own 
 symbol. But let all men beware of thinking 
 as "natural brute beasts' ' because the most 
 sacred things of God are thus associated with 
 our physical bodies that the physical feature 
 has the same power as the spiritual attitude, 
 and mark well what I say in regard to the 
 right spiritual conditions in the following 
 chapters. 
 
 It is because we have thought that matter 
 is no part of God, and consequently that it 
 would not be possible for this bodily function 
 to be so closely associated with the Spirit of 
 God, that we have had wrong thoughts about 
 it, and have made it an obstacle to the attain- 
 ment of our highest life in God. On this 
 account we have wanted to be sure that our 
 will to control every part of our bodies would 
 not be enslaved by any desire, and this is 
 right ; it is just as God intended it to be, for 
 in this new understanding of this function the 
 primary emphasis is on perfect control before 
 we are in a position to use it rightly. This 
 control is one of the qualities developed under 
 
 6b 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 the standard of Judah, and we are told in 
 Gen. 49:10, "The scepter shall not depart 
 from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his 
 feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall 
 the gathering of the people be." After we 
 have learned control to the point of sacri- 
 ficing anything upon the altar of devotion to 
 our highest ideals of right, then God checks 
 that lesson off, as it were, and goes back 
 to take up another phase of our education 
 to teach us that He is all and in all, and to 
 remove some of the impressions that had 
 to be a little overdrawn in the first place to 
 cause us to get the point intended, and a new 
 lesson is assigned, the idea of which we get 
 from the following references : 
 
 "A son honoureth his father, and a servant 
 his master: If then I be a father, where is 
 mine honour? and if I be a master, where is 
 my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O 
 priests, that despise my name. And ye say, 
 Wherein have we despised thy name? (An- 
 swer.) Ye offer polluted bread upon mine 
 altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted 
 thee? (Answer.) In that ye say, The 
 table of the Lord is contemptible" (Mai. 1: 
 6-7). 
 
 69 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 (In this mention of "the table of the Lord" 
 we again find the same thought as that sug- 
 gested by the pot of manna put into the ark 
 of the covenant.) 
 
 "I have spread out my hands all the day 
 unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a 
 way that was not good, after their own 
 thoughts; A people that provoketh me to 
 anger continually to my face; that sacri- 
 ficeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon 
 altars of brick ; . . . Which say (Speaking to 
 God !) Stand by thyself, come not near to me; 
 for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke 
 in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day" 
 (Is. 65:2, 3, 5). 
 
 "Shall the work say of him that made it, 
 He made me not? Or shall the thing framed 
 say of him that framed it, He had no under- 
 standing?" (Is. 29:16). 
 
 1 ' Shall mortal man be more just than God ? 
 shall a man be more pure than his maker?" 
 (Job 4: 17). 
 
 ' ' Because Ephraim hath made many altars 
 to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. I 
 have written to him the great things of my 
 law, but they were counted as a strange thing. 
 They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine 
 
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SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 offerings, and eat it; but the Lord accept eth 
 them not; . . . For Israel hath forgotten his 
 maker and buildeth temples (Hosea 8:11-14). 
 
 "Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands] as saith the 
 prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is 
 my footstool : what house will ye build me ? 
 saith the Lord: or what is the place of my 
 rest? Hath not my hand made all these 
 things? Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in 
 heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy 
 Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye M (Acts. 
 7:48-51). 
 
 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
 neither are your ways my ways, saith the 
 Lord" (Is. 55:8). 
 
 "Know ye not that ye are the temple of 
 God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in 
 you? If any man defile the temple of God, 
 him shall God destroy ; for the temple of God 
 is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor. 3: 
 16-17). 
 
 But even the Master Himself had to learn 
 this truth concerning the Holy of Holies of 
 this temple of the body ere he realized his 
 full mission. It should be borne in mind 
 that the name of Jesus has a significance 
 
 71 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 similar to the name "Jehovah". My 
 authority for this statement is the late 
 Richard Francis Weymouth, M.A., D.Lit., 
 Fellow of University College (London), Edi- 
 tor of "The Resultant Greek Testament' * 
 and author of the "New Testament in 
 Modern Speech". I quote from the "New 
 Testament in Modern Speech", p. 4 (Third 
 Edition), Note 4: ". . . The full significance 
 of the name 'Jesus' is seen in the original 
 'Yeho-Shua', which means 'Jehovah the 
 Saviour', and not merely 'Saviour', as the 
 word is commonly explained. ' ' Thus Christ's 
 mission is indicated by the meaning of his 
 name, which we see to be associated with the 
 Holy Name. But we are told that even he 
 was made perfect through suffering, to which 
 there is ample reference; one in the sym- 
 bolical statement in Rev. 11:8. This passage 
 alone should be sufficient to disillusion any 
 who feel they must put a literal interpre- 
 tation upon all parts of the Bible. I repeat 
 that the Bible is an admixture of historical 
 fact with the symbolical teaching of this 
 mystery of the higher truth, which has thus 
 been preserved. This has given the Bible its 
 wide circulation, and will cause it to endure 
 
 72 
 
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 through all time. We know Christ was not 
 crucified in Sodom or Egypt, as here stated, 
 except in the sense indicated by these sym- 
 bols. And with these facts accord the words 
 attributed to Jesus, discovered only in recent 
 years: "Let not him who seeks cease until 
 he finds, and when he finds he shall wonder, 
 ,and wondering he shall reach the Kingdom, 
 and having reached the Kingdom he shall 
 rest." 
 
 73 
 
CHAPTER V 
 The Fire of the Lord 
 
 TO review in brief some of the facts al- 
 ready mentioned, it is as if the soul, as 
 we ordinarily use the term, is but a partial 
 expression of a soul that in the beginning was 
 a complete embodiment of masculine and 
 feminine power, but that the Creative Law, 
 when investing this soul with physical form 
 in which to work out its experiences, gain the 
 mastery over evil (which is equivalent to 
 gaining a right conception of the truth in all 
 its phases), and the capacity for unending 
 happiness, gave portions of the soul separate 
 bodies at an early stage in the evolu- 
 tionary process, endowing both with certain 
 similar capacities and certain complementary 
 ones. 
 
 The science of zoology supports this opinion 
 in the like development of the physical or- 
 ganism through asexual and hermaphrodite 
 stages toward the separate sexes. In the 
 branch Protozoa we find forms of life that 
 
 74 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 are asexual and reproduce by fission, budding, 
 etc. In the next higher branch — Poriferata — 
 we find in certain varieties of the sponges the 
 appearance of separate male and female re- 
 productive cells, but combined in one body. 
 Ascending through the various orders of the 
 higher branches, we see the male and female 
 cells becoming more distinct in structure ; in 
 some cases, as for instance the Portuguese 
 Man-of-War, both pedunculated, yet belong- 
 ing to the one organism, until finally in the 
 still higher branches they appear in separate 
 bodies.. 
 
 I realize the analogy is not complete, as 
 the ascent from the branch Protozoa is more 
 lateral than lineal ; that is, the sponge, is a 
 completed animal in its branch, having ad- 
 vanced along a path parallel to, we might say, 
 but not necessarily identical with the animals 
 of the higher branches; the same being true 
 of the Portuguese Man-of War. Neverthe- 
 less, these are examples of forms of animal 
 life still existing, which furnish the clue to 
 the evolutionary trend — the general course 
 over which man has ascended to his higher 
 goal from the particular protoplasmic cell, 
 the quality and nature of which I hold the 
 
 75 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 Creator must have designed to produce a 
 human being. 
 
 If any doubt the judgment of the scientist 
 concerning the mute testimony of the past 
 ages regarding the facts of evolution, then 
 let him listen with reason and honesty to the 
 ceaseless repetition of the record of the de- 
 velopment of the human being through lower 
 forms £>f life and undifferentiated sex, by a 
 living witness whose verity cannot be ques- 
 tioned — the human embryo. But to accept 
 the facts of evolution as true does not neces- 
 sitate the acceptance of the materialistic 
 theory as to the cause of these facts, as 
 seems to be the general impression. It is 
 the erroneous conclusions of physical science, 
 which overlook God as the intelligence back 
 of the evolutionary plan that cause a great 
 many people who have made no particular 
 effort to inform themselves on the subject, to 
 disbelieve actual facts as well as this theory. 
 For most people instinctively feel, and 
 rightly so, that there is something radically 
 wrong with the cheerless doctrine that all 
 life and attainment are the results of the 
 action of mechanical causes upon inert mat- 
 ter. But this mistaken theory, deduced from 
 
 76 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 observations which establish the physical 
 facts, comes from not consulting spiritual as 
 well as material evidence as to the meaning of 
 the facts. 
 
 It is the combined use of reason and 
 intuition that enables us to draw right con- 
 clusions from any given data. The materi- 
 alistic scientist who disregards the voice of 
 intuition is no more to blame, however, than 
 the moralist who disregards the voice of 
 reason. Neither is quite honest. For the 
 moralist to declare that he does not want to 
 be convinced of any given fact lest his faith 
 in God's love and goodness should be shaken, 
 is to admit that he is willing to be hood- 
 winked and live in a fool's paradise. We 
 need never be afraid to have the changeless, 
 eternal truth uncovered, and the greater 
 measure of truth we comprehend, the more 
 plainly do we see the happy goal toward 
 which all things are tending. 
 
 To fail to listen to intuition, which always 
 associates our existence with a loving Father, 
 is to limit our aspirations and happiness 
 because of the gloomy philosophy deduced 
 from physical facts alone. Likewise, to fail 
 to listen to reason as to the existence of these 
 
 77 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 facts also limits our aspirations and happiness 
 because of the narrowing effect it has upon 
 our outlook upon life, and the check it puts 
 upon advancement and expansion in all 
 directions, due to the failure to believe as 
 possible the developments and attainments 
 foreshadowed in the facts themselves when 
 rightly interpreted as to cause and trend. 
 
 In regard to the physical form, science tells 
 us that the evolution of our hermaphrodite 
 ancestors resulted in the dual expression of 
 male and female human beings. This being 
 true, we must, in the light of advancing 
 knowledge, also concede a cleavage of the 
 original soul capacity, which wrought the 
 subsequent selection of the distinct mas- 
 culine and feminine reproductive physical 
 substance and forms, by the respective mas- 
 culine and feminine complementary elements 
 of mind and soul. For if the physical forms 
 of our early invertebrate ancestors, and 
 possibly the lowest vertebrate, were hermaph- 
 rodite, and the separation of the sexes took 
 place through division of labor, the con- 
 clusion is unavoidable that when certain 
 physical functions were apportioned for ot> 
 taining better results, the corresponding 
 
 78 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 psychical elements must also at the same 
 time have been selected from the total by 
 both evolving individuals for performing 
 their particular duties. This at least estab- 
 lishes the reasonableness of a theory which 
 at first thought might seem wholly fanciful 
 or unfounded. 
 
 And it would seem in the case of the man 
 and woman possessing parts of the same soul, 
 that the power of recognition of each other 
 had been placed so deep within that they are 
 obliged to learn the lessons of life which 
 develop their spiritual senses, and to seek the 
 Spirit within themselves before they can re- 
 gain this power of recognition which was 
 wholly lost to them while living in either the 
 physical or mental state of consciousness. 
 Before they are sufficiently developed spir- 
 itually, they must have a genuine unselfish 
 love for all humanity — a love that seeks to 
 serve at every opportunity — and before they 
 can know without doubt or misgiving the 
 complement of their own souls, the dross of 
 all impurity of thought must have been 
 purged away to such extent that God can be 
 recognized as all, and all as God. 
 
 It should be remembered that the principle 
 
 79 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 of sex means more than physical sex organs 
 and passion. The underlying reality which 
 finds ultimate expression in the physical 
 bodies of individuals, is the principle of the 
 positive and negative forces of the Universal 
 Life Energy, which has brought all organized 
 forms into existence from the compounds of 
 mineral atoms to man. 
 
 This same upward drawing Power which 
 works through every individual life, causing 
 it to evolve from lower to higher physically, 
 mentally and spiritually, is, in the language 
 of Scripture, the Christos; literally, "the 
 anointed": hence one chosen for a special 
 service. After creating and perfecting phys- 
 ical forms of life, its service now is to estab- 
 lish the universal consciousness that God is 
 ONE; that the universal substance is a 
 manifestation of the Absolute as truly as is 
 the Spirit which pervades it; that certain 
 elements of this substance vibrating at a 
 rate sufficiently slow to be perceptible to the 
 physical senses, or what we speak of as 
 physical matter, is also God, and that every 
 natural function of our physical bodies was 
 made to be perfected until God can be 
 glorified through it. This is the Power 
 
 80 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 which has inspired the spiritual leaders and 
 seers of all ages and nations, which was 
 personified by David and was incarnate in 
 the man Jesus. 
 
 It is this principle, which was manifested 
 in greater measure in Jesus than in any other, 
 instead of the man Jesus himself, that we 
 should bear in mind to read understanding^ 
 either the Old or the New Testament. We 
 know that Jesus did not refer to his own 
 personality when he said, "I am the way, 
 the truth and the life : no man cometh unto 
 the Father but by me." Again, he says 
 plainly, "He that believeth on me, believeth 
 not on me, but on him that sent me" (John 
 12:44). This meaning of the Creative Life 
 Principle, or Christos, is made plain in Micah 
 5:2: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, 
 though thou be little among the thousands of 
 Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth 
 unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose 
 goings forth have been from of old, from ever- 
 lasting" 
 
 This Creative Energy operates through all 
 our talents and capacities, but its stronghold 
 for transforming the matter of which our 
 bodies are composed, and for purifying our 
 
 81 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 minds from misconceptions of the truth in 
 regard to all of God's universe is the sex 
 power in its twofold physical and spiritual 
 significance, enabling us at length to see that 
 all is God. The working of the Christos 
 through the sex centers on the substance 
 which constitutes our material bodies is the 
 fire of the Lord, so often mentioned in the 
 Bible. This is the import of John's state- 
 ment that Christ would baptize with the 
 Holy Ghost and with fire; that is with such 
 power of spiritual discernment as enables one 
 to see the Father in all his work, even in 
 this effect upon our physical bodies, which it 
 becomes very evident upon study, means a 
 combination of electrical and spiritual power 
 so closely united as to be inseparable. 
 
 Our attention is first called to this fact by 
 the allegorical account of Moses' face shining 
 when he comes down from the mount, and 
 the many references to thunder and lightning 
 about the mount, which holy mountain also 
 refers to the place of the sanctuary. This 
 evidence of the presence of electricity is 
 supplemented by the record of Ezekiel's 
 vision in the first chapter of Ezekiel. 
 
 To better understand the strange imagery 
 
 82 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 of this chapter, which is a setting forth of the 
 most sacred and profound truths of God's 
 creation, let us note first the meaning of some 
 of the symbols employed as they are com- 
 monly used throughout the Bible. Pure 
 Spirit is represented by light, the color white 
 and wind. The action of Spirit on matter 
 is represented by fire. Ezekiel mentions the 
 fact that the whirlwind came out of the 
 north. This is significant because the names 
 of the four directions have weighty meanings 
 in symbolical language, as do the signs of the 
 Zodiac, as anciently associated with familiar 
 facts of life. The north, which is associated 
 with the sign of the Bull (or ox), champions 
 the working out of spiritual conceptions in 
 matter, hence the bodily union of man and 
 woman. Without the qualities symbolized by 
 this sign we should be impractical, incapable 
 of accomplishing things in the material world. 
 In its lower aspect (separated from its spirit- 
 ual reality, for this alone is what constitutes 
 the lower aspect of any capacity of mind or 
 body), it genders anger, strife and lust; up- 
 lifted through spiritual discernment, it begets 
 strength and pure, ardent love and becomes 
 the chief avenue for the action of the Christos 
 
 83 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 on the substance of our bodies — the means of 
 their further evolution toward refinement, 
 rarification and eternal existence, through 
 transformation. 
 
 The East, associated with Scorpio, and the 
 Eagle (which means Scorpio uplifted), cham- 
 pions the soul union of man and woman in a 
 love by which they are made one through 
 the Christ consciousness, whereby the sex 
 force is discovered to be what it is in its 
 spiritual reality, and thus becomes uplifted. 
 
 The South, associated with the man, or 
 angel, champions the kindly, passionless 
 mother love that enfolds all the world in its 
 yearning sympathy. 
 
 The West, associated with the Lion, cham- 
 pions integrity, uprightness, and high pur- 
 pose, with a suggestion of severity in its 
 devotion to duty. From an abnormal de- 
 velopment of these qualities by themselves 
 we should get narrow mindedness, religious 
 intolerance, etc., but rightly balanced, are 
 summed up in purity and moral courage. 
 
 Now the qualities of no one of these signs 
 are sufficient of themselves. The Creator 
 did not intend it to be so, and the reign of 
 the ' * kings" mentioned by Daniel, which 
 
 84 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 come forth in solitary power from any of 
 these directions, is characterized by evil. It 
 requires the blending of all four into one for 
 the desired resultant — the high spiritual 
 understanding that puts the proper value 
 upon matter, sees it as a worthy servant — the 
 medium for the expression of the life of the 
 Spirit — and by this understanding and use 
 of it, transforms and spiritualizes matter 
 itself. 
 
 Returning again to the first appearance of 
 the vision, our attention is called to the action 
 of Spirit on matter by the presence of the 
 whirlwind and the fire. The significance of 
 the whirlwind's coming from the north has 
 been explained. From the description of the 
 living creatures we see (verse 7) that their 
 feet resembled calves' feet (in significance 
 those of the ox) , and that they sparkled like 
 the color of burnished brass. By verse 10 we 
 learn that they all had four faces (powers of 
 recognition) — the face of a man, a lion, an ox 
 and an eagle. It would take us too far afield 
 to speak here of every minute detail men- 
 tioned, which in interpreting symbols must 
 not be overlooked, but as an example, notice 
 the position of those four faces. The faces of 
 
 85 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 the man and the lion were on the right side, 
 and the face of the ox on the left side. He 
 does not definitely locate the face of the 
 eagle. This is also significant as we shall 
 presently see. How odd they must have 
 looked ! Their delineation would rival a spec- 
 imen of futurist art ; but it must be borne in 
 mind that the "living creatures' ' were just 
 an assemblage of symbolical entities to indi- 
 cate the qualities necessary to produce the 
 super-man, who will be aware of and able to 
 appropriate his inherent power of endless life. 
 We have already called attention to the 
 meaning and position of the four faces; but 
 what is the force of the fact that the faces of 
 the man and the lion were on the right side? 
 The right side symbolizes the initiative power 
 of pure Spirit, while the left represents the 
 stabilizing power of matter, which together 
 show forth the complete being of God (the 
 Absolute, who manifests as both Spirit and 
 matter as we ordinarily use the terms) in the 
 proper union of Spirit and matter. Notice 
 that the qualities of the man and the lion are 
 those of the soul and Spirit only, while those 
 of the ox have to do with matter, hence that 
 face is on the left side. It is of singular 
 
 86 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 interest that he does not tell us where the 
 face of the eagle is. It would not be con- 
 sistent for it to be on either the exact right 
 or left, for while the capacity symbolized by 
 the eagle has to do with matter in the sense 
 of discovering its rightful place and lifting it 
 up, it is a quality of soul or Spirit that is 
 above and independent of matter in its 
 initiative action. 
 
 To go back a little, why was the preference 
 given to the ox that there should be both a 
 face and feet of this type? Because among 
 the divine realities of existence which are 
 focused in and expressed through the phys- 
 ical body of man, the feet represent the 
 understanding, in the sense of a correct 
 mental comprehension, the hearing repre- 
 senting spiritual perception. This explains 
 the meaning of Jesus' act in washing the 
 disciples' feet — cleansing the understanding. 
 And before man can become anything more 
 than he now is, it is necessary to have a 
 better understanding in regard to the qual- 
 ities indicated by the sign of the ox, which 
 have been stated in connection with the 
 meaning of the directions, as we already 
 possess a clearer understanding of the value 
 
 87 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 of the capacities indicated by the other signs 
 than we have had of this. The fact that they 
 were the feet of a young animal shows that 
 it was the most recently acquired knowledge, 
 or the last necessary to begin the perfecting 
 of man. The significance of the fact that 
 they sparkled like burnished brass is in the 
 particular kind of metal mentioned. The 
 language of symbolism is marvelously concise 
 and expressive, and we may look for special 
 meanings in seemingly trivial details. Why 
 were the feet of brass instead of gold or silver, 
 for instance? In the analysis of the facts in 
 regard to this point we again find reference 
 to electricity, for brass, as we know, is an 
 alloy of copper and zinc — the metals used to 
 generate electricity in a simple cell. Bear 
 in mind that the knowledge possessed by 
 certain of the ancients, concerning the hidden 
 forces and laws of Nature will afford work of 
 investigation for modern science for some 
 time to come. The brass feet, therefore, 
 indicate that it is necessary that we under- 
 stand the scientific and physiological purpose 
 and explanation of the law of physical union 
 championed by the ox, and that its nature 
 and possibilities are electrical. 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 Coming to verses 13 and 14, we again find 
 this repeated mention of lightning, further 
 emphasizing the presence of electricity in 
 connection with this fire of the Lord. The 
 truth that furnishes the key to the higher 
 evolution of the race is contained in verses 
 16-21 of this chapter, and in verses 9-17 of 
 ,the 10th chapter, referring to the movements 
 of the living creatures. In the 10th chapter, 
 Ezekiel relates having seen the same vision 
 as the one described with the exception that 
 the face of the cherub was seen instead of the 
 face of the ox. He takes particular care to 
 tell us that it is identically the same living 
 creature, and the presence of the cherub 
 (equivalent to the cherubim) is wholly con- 
 sistent. Please read both chapters carefully. 
 
 In regard to the figure of the wheel so 
 often referred to, this word "wheel" is trans- 
 lated elsewhere in the margin as "whirling 
 dust". Here again we find the same idea 
 as expressed by the whirlwind and the fire, 
 mentioned in the 4th verse of the 1st chapter 
 — the action of Spirit (symbolized by the 
 wind), on matter, for he tells us the appear- 
 ance of the wheel was like unto the color of 
 a beryl. Now a beryl may be either green or 
 
 89 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 yellow, but evidently the yellow (flame- 
 colored) beryl is meant here. Now look at 
 the 13th verse of the 10th chapter: "As for 
 the wheels, it was cried unto them in my 
 hearing, O wheel.' ' For the wheel to be thus 
 addressed suggests the presence of a living 
 intelligence, indicating that the very Spirit 
 of Life Itself is inseparably connected with 
 this action of the Spirit on matter, which is 
 apparently just what the prophet is trying to 
 impress upon us when he recounts in so 
 many ways the movements of the creatures: 
 "And when the living creatures went, the 
 wheels went by them: and when the living 
 creatures were lifted up from the earth, the 
 wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the 
 spirit was to go, they went, thither was their 
 spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up 
 over against them : for the spirit of the living 
 creature was in the wheels. When those 
 went, these went; when those stood, these 
 stood; and when those were lifted up from 
 the earth, the wheels were lifted up over 
 against them: for the spirit of the living 
 creature was in the wheels' ' (Ezek. 1 : 19-21). 
 What does this portrayal of the inseparable 
 union of the Spirit of Life with material sub- 
 
 90 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 stance, so many times reiterated, signify, if 
 not that in the manifestation of the Universal 
 Life Energy next beyond or within electricity, 
 we contact the very Spirit of Life Itself in 
 connection with this electrical fire of the 
 Lord? The saying has been attributed to 
 Mr. Edison that we might as well spell 
 electricity "G-O-D", and we see how closely 
 he has approached to the truth, for I firmly 
 believe that all this is to teach us that it is a 
 combination of electrical and spiritual power, 
 functioning through the uplifted sex force of 
 soul complements that is to be the means 
 whereby we shall be liberated from the 
 grosser material of which our bodies are com- 
 posed, and gradually acquire the more etherial 
 quality of body that can receive from the air 
 the nourishment necessary for its sustenance. 
 
 'Tut off thy shoes from off thy feet 
 
 for the place whereon thou 
 
 standest is holy ground.' ' 
 
 The question naturally arises that if this 
 be true of one man and woman, why not true 
 of any man and woman joined in legal wed- 
 lock? Because, in the first place, this is 
 unquestionably the information intended to 
 
 91 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 be given by the symbol of Aaron's rod bud- 
 ding, and its having the power to remove the 
 murmurings of the children of Israel (the 
 impotence of the capacities or the powers of 
 man, which take rise from his ideas or under- 
 standing of the truth — the facts concerning 
 all life) that they die not, and the emphasis 
 laid on the fact that the stranger that came 
 nigh was to be put to death. But independ- 
 ently of this, by this new understanding 
 there is found to be present in the love rela- 
 tion of true spiritual mates, an element of 
 sacredness and worship which I believe you 
 will agree with me is anything but commonly 
 experienced. The chastening that the soul 
 has received before it is able to find its mate, 
 and the rest found in the union with the other 
 soul through the Christ consciousness, pro- 
 duces a quality of love that can exist only 
 between two such individuals, and is neces- 
 sary as the magnet to attract the current of 
 electrical and spiritual force, which alone 
 possesses transforming power. In this, as 
 everywhere throughout the universe, the 
 spiritual and physical are related, therefore, 
 the right spiritual conditions are necessary 
 before the right physical conditions can exist. 
 
 92 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 An interesting example of this inter-relation 
 of the elements of the universal substance 
 with spiritual realities, and the constancy of 
 this relation in all modes of expression is 
 brought to our attention in this connection. 
 For instance, we are told that the solar ray 
 corresponding to the planet Mars is red, and 
 its metal, iron ; and in this further example we 
 find the color red associated with the metal 
 iron. Red is the color corresponding to the 
 qualities typified by the sign of the Bull (or 
 ox), which in their higher aspects as seen to 
 be strength, and pure ardent love. These 
 qualities, Ezekiel, in calling attention to the 
 ox in his description of the "living creatures'' 
 shows us to be necessary to produce the 
 super-man, whose possibilities are seen, 
 through the meaning of the Holy Name, to 
 be evolved from his present limited life only 
 as he attains a right understanding of the 
 sex capacity, the physical power of which is 
 indicated by the different references to 
 lightning, to be electrical, and in this way 
 iron is again associated with the color red 
 through the qualities symbolized by this 
 color; for we know that a soft iron core (or 
 something that has been charged with the 
 
 93 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 drawing power of soft iron) for the armature 
 is necessary before electricity can be drawn 
 from the air by the dynamo. The armature 
 might be revolved indefinitely, but if the 
 magnetic core were lacking, no electricity 
 would be gathered. On the other hand, we 
 know that even with a properly magnetized 
 core, if the whole dynamo could be enclosed 
 under a glass case and a perfect vacuum 
 produced, there would be no electricity 
 gathered for the magnet could not contact 
 with the air. 
 
 Now that the union of the souls and bodies 
 of true spiritual mates forms the perfectly 
 equipped d3oiamo is no mere figure of speech. 
 It is an actual fact. But the union of the 
 particular souls and bodies which are partial 
 expressions of the same complete soul is 
 necessary for the right vibratory conditions 
 to exist both physically and spiritually; for 
 only the requisite quality of love, and spiritual 
 understanding of this power can produce in 
 the flesh the properly magnetized iron core 
 which is necessary to draw through the mind 
 to the body the transforming effects of the 
 Spirit. In this we glimpse the sweep of the 
 ancient wisdom which declares "that man is 
 
 94 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 the Microcosm, that is to say, the reproduc- 
 tion of all the principles which give rise to 
 the manifestation of the universe, or the 
 Macrocosm/ ' 
 
 The right spiritual conditions correspond to 
 the access of the dynamo to the air, for until 
 there is no thought or impulse that can serve 
 as a barrier between the man and woman and 
 the conscious presence of God during sexual 
 congress, the right conditions do not exist; 
 because the secret power of the Holy Name 
 abides in the trinity of dualities — God and 
 man; Spirit and matter; masculine and fem- 
 inine as Two In One, and in the magnet that 
 can attract the electro-living current which 
 has power to transform physical tissue, the 
 spiritual element predominates. 
 
 To the woman must be allowed the initi- 
 ative in recognizing her mate; this is the 
 working of the law, and when her soul has 
 found its rest, surrender is complete; but this 
 can never be until all the longings of her soul 
 for holy things are understood, appreciated 
 and supplemented by the spiritual aspirations 
 and God-like qualities in the soul of the man. 
 But such surrender does not imply the giving 
 up of individuality, but rather the establish- 
 
 95 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 ment of perfect equilibrium throughout the 
 whole being, because of the fact that each 
 finds his complement (complete-ment) in the 
 other. For this reason there can be the per- 
 fect merging of the two lives into one without 
 deterioration to either, but rather added 
 strength and stimulation for united service 
 and continuous development, which is the 
 plan of the Creator, to be worked out in the 
 spiritual evolution of the race. 
 
 But for these conditions to be possible, both 
 must possess a hunger and thirst after right- 
 eousness, for not till this continual prayer for 
 righteousness, and worship of the Father can 
 ascend unhindered through the absence of 
 dross in the soul of her mate, can a woman's 
 offering be complete and effective unto life; 
 for the offering of the body merely for the 
 satisfying of the flesh, without the presence 
 of the necessary spiritual impulse and aspir- 
 ation, possesses no evolutionary possibilities. 
 
 This furnishes an index to the kind of char- 
 acter the men of the world will have to 
 possess before they can hope to draw to 
 themselves their true mates. There can be 
 no feigning of genuine merit; no half-way 
 purpose entertained. The men as a whole 
 
 96 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 must "right about face" and realize that 
 spirituality is not a thing to be sought alone 
 by women; that spirituality in no wise de- 
 prives a man of any virile quality, but causes 
 him to lose only crude perversities, which 
 some apparently think an indication of mas- 
 culine valor. We cannot expect to receive 
 the blessings of the Spirit if we are ashamed 
 to acknowledge our allegiance to it. This is 
 not because these are withheld as a punish- 
 ment, but because we ourselves close the 
 channel through which they can come to us. 
 
 It is needless to say that these are not the 
 conditions generally existing with reference 
 to physical union. Indeed, for the most part, 
 it has probably not been thought of; nay, 
 more — with many, such sanctity in connec- 
 tion with this matter could doubtless not be 
 understood. It was of those in this material 
 stage of development that Jesus spoke when 
 he said, " Neither cast ye your pearls before 
 swine, lest they trample them under their 
 feet and turn again and rend you." But all 
 are destined to pass beyond this stage in 
 time, for the Father will draw all men unto 
 Himself. 
 
 Nor should the attainment of this standard 
 
 97 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 on the part of both men and women be 
 thought possible only at some distant future 
 time, or by some recluse; not that temporary 
 retirement may not be profitable for us at 
 times, but we are not intended always to live 
 apart from men. The realization of these 
 conditions centers in a most earnest desire and 
 undivided purpose to live the highest life, and 
 is by no means impossible in this century and 
 year, by men and women engaged in daily 
 occupation for a livelihood; but with the 
 vision — the vision that lifts the thoughts and 
 aims above and beyond material things and 
 the limitations of the physical senses. Not 
 that material things are not necessary and 
 beautiful at their right valuation; they are 
 absolutely necessary in their tangible rigidity 
 in our present state of development. But 
 until we can grasp the sense of the reality, 
 the greater importance, and beauty and sat- 
 isfaction of the life of the Spirit — the life 
 lived close to God — we are allowing material 
 things to fetter us and rob us of the sweeter 
 harmonies of life, rather than serve our high- 
 est good as they are designed to do. 
 
 Our greatest difficulty in believing such 
 attainment possible seems to be in actually 
 
 98 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 fearing to face ideal conditions — to get really 
 close to God and be convinced for ourselves 
 what happiness and possibilities are for us if 
 we take God with us into everything, and do 
 not limit "the Holy One of Israel", as did 
 the Israelites of old, which we are told by 
 the author of Hebrews (who it is evident had 
 such a perfect understanding of this whole 
 subject), was the reason why they could not 
 enter into the rest (liberation from toil and 
 privation, and rest unto the soul) prepared 
 for the people of God, "although the works 
 were finished from the foundation of the world" 
 And indeed as long as we insist upon measur- 
 ing the attainment of the future by that of 
 the past, and refuse to believe it possible to 
 realize any given ideal, naturally our own 
 refusal to accept it will necessarily keep us 
 from obtaining it. 
 
 Someone said to me not long ago— a min- 
 ister by the way — "What is the use of having 
 ideals if you are ever going to realize them?" 
 (No, I did not misunderstand him. I have 
 quoted him verbatim, I believe.) My 
 thought in this matter is, What is the use of 
 having ideals unless you intend to realize 
 them? Why should we be paralyzed with 
 
 99 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 fright because an ideal which we may be 
 willing to accept as possible "sometime" 
 becomes real? I admit the naturalness of 
 the feeling of awe, if not terror, when we 
 realize that God is actually talking with us 
 through our quickened spiritual comprehen- 
 sion, and like Gideon of old, we cry, "Alas, 
 Lord God: for because I have seen an 
 angel of the Lord face to face." But if we 
 really want God and do not turn away, then 
 to us as to Gideon comes the reassuring 
 answer, as from a tender protector leading us 
 through strange scenes and experiences with 
 which we are not familiar, "Peace be unto 
 thee; fear not: thou shalt not die." 
 
 Thinking of this capacity of sex as a weak- 
 ness of the flesh alone that must be yielded 
 to ever so moderately is not the right under- 
 standing in regard to it. We should make no 
 compromise with evil, and what cannot be 
 done with the conscious blessing, and in the 
 conscious presence of God should NEVER 
 be done. This life energy should be rever- 
 enced as an evidence of the presence of the 
 power of the Living God in our bodies. We 
 should not be ashamed of it, but control its 
 physical manifestation so perfectly and com- 
 
 100 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 pletely by a right understanding of its spir- 
 itual reality, by high thought and high pur- 
 pose that as far as our physical comfort is 
 concerned, it is negligible; then use this 
 uplifted power, referred to variously through- 
 out the Bible in connection with the "rod", 
 the "sword" and the "Tree of Life" only 
 when blended in harmony with all the qual- 
 ities and capacities corresponding to the 
 seven colors of the spectrum, to which we 
 find reference in the mention made of the 
 rainbow in the last verse of this first chapter 
 of Ezekiel. 
 
 This is the same lesson which is taught by 
 St. John's symbol of the four horsemen, 
 recorded in the 6th chapter of Revelation, 
 which, by the power of the real truth it por- 
 trays will outlive any profanation. 
 
 "And I saw when the lamb opened one of 
 the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of 
 thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come 
 and see. 
 
 "And I saw, and behold a white horse: 
 and he that sat on him had a bow; and a 
 crown was given unto him: and he went 
 forth conquering and to conquer. 
 
 "And when he had opened the second 
 101 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 seal, I heard the second beast say, Come 
 and see. 
 
 4 'And there went out another horse that 
 was red: and power was given to him that 
 sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and 
 that they should kill one another : and there 
 was given unto him a great sword. 
 
 "And when he had opened the third seal, 
 I heard the third beast say, Come and see. 
 And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he 
 that sat on him had a pair of balances in his 
 hand. 
 
 "And I heard a voice in the midst of the 
 four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a 
 penny, and three measures of barley for a 
 penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the 
 wine. 
 
 "And when he had opened the fourth seal, 
 I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, 
 Come and see. 
 
 "And I looked and behold a pale horse: 
 and his name that sat on him was Death, 
 and Hell followed with him. And power was 
 given unto them over the fourth part of the 
 earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, 
 and with death, and with the beasts of the 
 earth." 
 
 102 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 The word " beast' ' in this connection, re- 
 ferring to the beasts which spoke, does not 
 have a bad meaning as one might think. It 
 comes from the Greek word "zoon", meaning 
 "animal" or "a living being", and is ren- 
 dered in the revised version " living creature" 
 as in Ezekiel. The term "living creature" 
 does not necessarily carry the idea of an 
 animal of the lower order. It could mean 
 a human being or a superhuman being, as life 
 or something alive is the predominating 
 thought. It is not the word used in the 
 1st verse of the 13th chapter, which is 
 translated "beast", and which means "wild 
 animal". 
 
 This symbol emphasizes the same truth 
 as the vision we have just been considering. 
 The horse typifies passion in its relation to 
 the vitalizing principle in Nature. The first 
 horseman rides a white horse. This then 
 represents the spiritual reality of passion, 
 blended in the true proportion with other 
 necessary qualities, for all the rays of light 
 blended into one in the ether, which corres- 
 ponds to the realm of the Spirit, produce 
 white light. Notice that the horseman wears 
 a crown — the symbol of governing power— 
 
 103 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 and goes forth conquering and to conquer. 
 This is the power that will eventually con- 
 quer all evil and limitation (or misconception 
 of the truth, arising from our incompleteness), 
 and bring all into subjection to the Kingdom 
 of the Spirit. The symbol of the bow we 
 shall not desecrate with words. Its sanctity 
 is inviolable. 
 
 The second horse is red. This indicates 
 that the qualities typified by the seven solar 
 rays have been separated in the prism of the 
 psychical plane — mind — which is represented 
 throughout the Bible by water (hence the 
 prismatic power suggested in this figure), and 
 the red ray. standing alone, not balanced by 
 the others, will necessarily manifest in its 
 lower aspect; Therefore this horseman's 
 weapon could not refer to the sword of the 
 Spirit, but to the weapon of strife gendered 
 by anger and lust, which has power to hurt 
 in every way. 
 
 The third horse is black. Some might 
 think this to be an evil indication. Quite to 
 the contrary, it affords the key to the whole 
 truth. Black is the color produced when all 
 the colors are combined in matter. Paints 
 of the seven colors of the spectrum, when 
 
 104 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 mixed, will produce black. The truth taught 
 here is that physical desire — a quality be- 
 longing to the red ray — must not be the 
 first nor only cause for physical union, but 
 that a balance of all the qualities of character, 
 the corresponding colors of which produce 
 black when combined in material substance, 
 must be brought to bear upon matter before 
 any evolutionary effects can be produced. 
 
 It is needless to say that the response of 
 the physical organism must necessarily be 
 present in union for change to be effected in 
 the physical body, but not until the body has 
 been crucified and risen again — that is, phys- 
 ical appetite and passion brought thoroughly 
 under the control of the will, and permanently 
 subjugated to the mandates of the aspiring 
 soul, have we gained the mastery over the 
 flesh that is necessary to enable us to receive 
 the gift of a quickened spiritual consciousness, 
 and to comprehend the actuating motive and 
 power by which this physiological change can 
 be brought about. 
 
 Thus in the matter of our food, to count 
 eating our greatest pleasure, and burden the 
 stomach with quantities of food not necessary 
 for our nourishment, is gluttony; though 
 
 105 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 there is nothing wrong about enjoying our 
 necessary food. In fact, unless the food is 
 grateful to the palate, the digestive processes 
 are not properly stimulated, but the matter 
 of control is always an essential factor to 
 one's well being and self respect. And thus 
 the right use of the sex function centers about 
 control, associated with an intelligent under- 
 standing of its meaning, and with spiritual 
 aspiration. But these matters will naturally 
 adjust themselves through the spiritual 
 growth necessary to lead one to completion. 
 So we have symbolized by the black horse 
 exactly the same qualities as by the white 
 horse, but the latter refers to the spiritual 
 realities, represented by all the color rays 
 blended into white light, while the former 
 typifies the physical manifestation of the 
 qualities associated with these same color 
 rays converged again in matter (applied 
 to our bodies) after having passed through 
 the psychical prism — the mind — each being 
 rightly understood. And in this connection 
 we note with interest from the 8th verse of 
 the 6th chapter of Zechariah that it was the 
 white and black horses that went forth into 
 the north, which quieted the spirit of the 
 
 106 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 angel, as related in the account of this 
 prophet's vision in regard to this same truth. 
 
 The horseman carries a pair of balances. 
 This has no reference to famine or privation, 
 but signifies the exact equilibrium which must 
 exist between the forces of Spirit and matter 
 in this connection. And note the ratio of 
 the spiritual and physical. Wheat refers to 
 the spiritual reality of the fire of the Lord; 
 barley to the physical element. But three 
 measures of barley can be purchased for the 
 price of one measure of wheat; hence the 
 value of the spiritual element is seen to be 
 threefold that of the physical. The caution 
 is given to hurt not the oil and the wine, 
 meaning the light and understanding of the 
 life of the Spirit, three-fourths of the efficacy 
 of this capacity residing in the spiritual 
 actuating motive, and a right understanding 
 of the purpose of the existence of this law. 
 This constitutes its use as " HOLINESS 
 UNTO THE LORD'— the words that were 
 to be graven on a plate of pure gold, and 
 worn by Aaron upon his forehead. 
 
 The fourth horse is pale. This signifies 
 passion suppressed unduly or killed. This 
 has been considered the preferable course in 
 
 107 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 regard to this matter by some earnestly 
 desiring spiritual development. It is the 
 natural conclusion (when we have advanced 
 far enough for this matter to disturb us at 
 all) until our eyes are opened to the whole 
 truth. Then we find that desuetude of this 
 function is not the goal to be sought ; nor its 
 complete transformation into other channels 
 of creative work: neither is its sole purpose 
 that of procreation. When we are willing to 
 offer upon the altar of sacrifice anything 
 which we think stands in the way of our 
 spiritual growth, including this tendency of 
 the flesh, then as in the allegory of Abraham 
 offering up Isaac, lo, a voice calls to us out 
 of heaven, "Lay not thine hand upon the 
 lad", and a proper sacrifice is seen to be 
 provided, which we find involves the offering 
 of every atom of our physical bodies as well 
 as our souls, as a "living sacrifice' * upon 
 God's chosen altar, with the result of over- 
 coming hunger and death and hell (Hades, 
 the grave), which followed in the train of the 
 horseman on the pale horse. 
 
 It is just this necessity for the exact equi- 
 librium of the understanding between the 
 values of the spiritual and physical elements 
 
 108 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 of this sacrifice that makes the gate so 
 strait and the way so narrow, for while this 
 power must be used and not slain, the phys- 
 ical feature must be understood to exist not 
 as an end in itself, but as a means for the 
 proper working of the law upon the tissues 
 of our bodies. On the other hand, the re- 
 sponse of the sensory neurons must not be 
 thought of as wrong or impure in itself, or 
 the thought of guilt will become a barrier 
 between ourselves and God. This normal 
 activity of the sex organs was instituted by 
 the all-wise Father as truly as the normal 
 action of heart or lungs. Without this stim- 
 ulus in both male and female these organs 
 could not perform their work; hence fertili- 
 zation would be impossible, and consequently 
 the propogation of the race would be im- 
 possible. Then if it is intended by the 
 Creator, why should we attempt to destroy 
 it — that is, its high and rightful use? And 
 why have some most concerned about their 
 spiritual welfare felt they should destroy its 
 natural expression? Because, in the last 
 analysis, they have not yet grasped its highest 
 significance (their experience may not have 
 enabled them to do so), and consequently 
 
 109 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 have not felt it to be in accord with the 
 thought of God. Indeed, the almost univer- 
 sal conception of its use has not been in 
 accord with God's thought, and as long as 
 one sees in this capacity no higher significance 
 than mere gratefulness to the flesh, he may- 
 know he has not comprehended the divinely 
 beautiful truth involved. Only through the 
 worship of worth, and the longing to get 
 close to God, with the yearning to help every- 
 one else to want Him and find Him, can one 
 be led to the vantage point where he is 
 enabled to formulate a right conception of 
 this matter. But when we pause to con- 
 sider the attraction of sex in the light of its 
 origin, its most sacred meaning, and the 
 importance of its office, our pseudo-idealism 
 which causes us to pronounce God's work 
 unholy, is seen to reflect only our grossly 
 inadequate conception of its full meaning, 
 and assumes a humiliating aspect. 
 
 It seems reasonable to think that as our 
 bodies become less and less dense, approach- 
 ing the rarity of the spiritual body, the ex- 
 change of the electro-living current necessary 
 for their continued revitalization, through 
 stimulation of circulation and dissemination 
 
 no 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 of creative energy, could take place readily 
 by mere proximity, and that the law as it 
 operates now would give place to this method. 
 But the bridge over which the race must pass 
 from man to super-man — to be able to over- 
 come physical limitation, death and the 
 grave — is that hunger and thirst after right- 
 eousness, and the fulfilling of the Law of Love 
 toward all our fellowmen, which awakens 
 our spiritual senses, till being made perfect 
 in love, we are borne by this circumstance or 
 that, on the tide of that great Law of Life, to 
 which distance is no barrier, back to the one 
 perfect love relation for us, and we can see 
 as with the eyes of God, the purity of all his 
 works, and come to want God with us in 
 every thought and act of life, and thus be 
 able to use the law effectively as it operates 
 in our present state of existence. 
 
 That the physiological result is effected by 
 the union of electrical and spiritual power is 
 made clear enough. Just what the nature of 
 the process is cannot be so certainly affirmed, 
 but to me it seems reasonable to think of it 
 simply as a mild and gradual process of 
 electrolysis — disintegration by means of the 
 electrical current — finally leaving us in pos- 
 
 111 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 session of bodies of the more etherial sub- 
 stance that we are told occupy the interstices 
 of our coarser physical bodies. This power 
 of the electrical current over certain sub- 
 stances we know has been experimented with 
 in the medical world as a means of disinte- 
 grating tumors and calculi, but a prominent 
 specialist in electrical therapeutics tells me 
 that it is not practical for this purpose for 
 the reason that if a current sufficiently strong 
 to effect the diseased parts is used, it also 
 breaks down the surrounding healthy tissues. 
 But this effect is just what would be antici- 
 pated and required (produced of course by 
 an almost imperceptibly gradual process) to 
 liberate us from the grosser physical matter 
 of our bodies, and cause them to be trans- 
 formed into the spiritual state without being 
 put off in death. 
 
 A summary of the Biblical data as to there 
 being a complement for every person; the 
 reasons given why the measure and quality 
 of love necessary to work the transformation 
 of the body can exist only between two such 
 individuals; the purpose mentioned in the 
 2nd. chapter of Malachi of God's making 
 "one" being that "he might seek a godly 
 
 112 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 seed", etc. but serve to confirm and supple- 
 ment Darwin's theory of the importance of 
 sexual selection as a factor in the evolution 
 and progress of man. And the late Ernst 
 Haeckel, whom we know would not base a 
 conclusion on anything but the most material 
 evidence, says in "The Evolution of Man":* 
 "But if we bear in mind how extremely 
 important a part this relation of the two 
 sexes plays in the whole of organic nature, 
 in the life of plants, of animals and of man; 
 how the mutual attraction of the sexes, love, 
 is the mainspring of the most heterogeneous 
 and remarkable processes — in fact, one of the 
 chief mechanical causes of the highest de- 
 velopment of life — we cannot too greatly 
 emphasise this tracing of love to its source, 
 the attractive force of two erotic cells. . . . 
 So wonderful is love, and so momentous its 
 influence on the life of the soul, or on the 
 different functions of the medullary tube, that 
 here more than anywhere else the 'super- 
 natural' result seems to mock any attempt 
 at natural explanation. Yet comparative 
 evolution leads us clearly and indubitably to 
 the first source of love — the affinity of two 
 
 * Vol. II, pp. 695-696. 
 
 113 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 different erotic cells, the sperm-cell and ovum 
 (erotic chemotropism) . " 
 
 If Haeckel, honest in his conclusions from 
 tangible evidences alone, could have grasped 
 the fact that the spiritual reality is the first 
 cause of things material, these wonderful 
 results which he could plainly see to be the 
 effects of love would not have mocked "any 
 attempt at natural explanation. " Right in 
 this confession he unconsciously admits the 
 inability of physical science, unaided by 
 spiritual understanding, to fathom the mean- 
 ing of existence and light the way for the 
 continual advancement of mankind. 
 
 Does not this attraction between the maie 
 and female cells, of which Haeckel speaks, 
 answer to the attraction between the positive 
 and negative elements of electricity? And 
 have we not then in this "erotic chemotrop- 
 ism" of Haeckel; in the modern electro- 
 magnetic theory of matter ; in the allegorical 
 accounts of the thunder and lightning asso- 
 ciated with the Holy Mountain; and in 
 Ezekiel's symbolical reference to electricity 
 as the vehicle of the very Spirit of Life Itself, 
 a series of related evidences sufficient to con- 
 vince us of the unlimited re-creative, no less 
 
 114 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 than creative possibilities of this fire of the 
 Lord — this physical manifestation of the 
 Christos — when employed with an intelligent 
 understanding of its nature and purpose, and 
 under the right spiritual conditions as "HOLI- 
 NESS UNTO THE LORD" (LAW), even 
 to the extent of causing our bodies to attain 
 to the spiritual state without passing through 
 death? For if the scientist could trace to 
 "erotic chemotropism " — the beginnings of 
 love — such "supernatural" results in the 
 physical organism, through the medullary 
 tube (the earliest form of the spinal marrow), 
 what may we not look for from the principle 
 of sexual selection carried to its ultimate 
 issue in reunited soul complements, whose 
 love has been chastened and intensified, 
 whose Spirits must have found their home in 
 God ere they could recognize each other; 
 who thus in purity of thought combine the 
 power of the spiritual and physical reality of 
 this Creative Energy, and do not "limit the 
 Holy one of Israel" in power to fulfill his 
 covenant by refusing to believe it possible to 
 be done. And owing to the fact that this 
 power is seen to be available only through 
 spiritual development, is it not easy to see 
 
 115 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 the unity of physical and spiritual science; 
 to read a new meaning in life's experiences, 
 and catch the trend of the whole creation 
 plan? 
 
 We find the active principle and motive 
 power of life to be love, and its fruition hap- 
 piness; this in greater measure as we con- 
 tinually ascend toward the glories that "eye 
 hath not seen, neither ear heard", but the 
 vistas of which will open before us as we 
 make real in our lives the extent of the 
 possibilities just next beyond, which our 
 present light reveals along our path. 
 
 We are well aware that it was not Haeckers 
 thought that there was any spiritual power 
 manifested in the force which he terms "erotic 
 chemotropism ,, 5 but rather that the soul 
 itself was but the result of certain phenomena 
 of matter, and ceased to exist at death. 
 However, our interest centers not around his 
 conclusions, but rather his observations as to 
 the facts of the remarkable power of this 
 Creative Force, whose decision as to the 
 importance of such discoveries we know 
 would not rest on any but the most satis- 
 factory evidence from a materialistic point 
 of view, bringing more strongly into the 
 
 116 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 light the solid facts to stand an enduring 
 monument to the real efficacy of the Life 
 Force to accomplish its creative, evolutionary 
 and re-creative work in the world. Thus we 
 see the reference to the Christos, "whose 
 goings forth have been from of old from 
 everlasting ", descending into matter to re- 
 deem it, and lift up all to a consciousness of 
 God, is not merely a mystical phrase, but 
 does indeed denote the divine reality of a 
 scientific fact; and the scientist who is suf- 
 ficiently spiritual, or the religionist who is 
 sufficiently unbiased to study the subject in 
 its twofold physical and spiritual aspect, is 
 justified in drawing different conclusions from 
 the same facts than Haeckel has done. 
 
 For the sake of those who may yet be in- 
 clined to regard the belief that we may live 
 eternally without passing through death as 
 merely a visionary theory or feminine fancy, 
 may I be permitted to refer again on this 
 subject to the thought of Judge Troward, 
 whose opinions are held in esteem by an 
 international following. That he really be- 
 lieved this to be possible is clear from these 
 words : 
 
 "Now, evolution is a continuous process of 
 
 117 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 building-up, and what makes the world of 
 today a different world from that of the 
 ichthyosaurus and the pterodactyl, is the 
 successive building up of more and more 
 complex organisms, culminating at last in the 
 production of Man as an organism, both 
 physically and mentally capable of express- 
 ing the life of the Supreme Intelligence by 
 means of Individual Consciousness. Why, 
 then, should not the Power, which is able 
 to carry on the race as a perpetually improv- 
 ing expression of itself, do the same thing in 
 the individual? That is the question with 
 which we have to deal; in other words, Why 
 need the individual die? Why should he not 
 go on in a perpetual expansion? 
 
 "This question may seem absurd in the 
 light of past experience. Those who believe 
 only in blind forces, answer that death is the 
 law of Nature, and those who believe in the 
 Divine Wisdom, answer that it is the ap- 
 pointment of God. But, strange as it may 
 seem, both these answers are wrong. That 
 death should be the ultimate law of Nature 
 contradicts the principle of continuity as 
 exemplified in the Lifeward tendency of evo- 
 lution ; and that it is the will of God is most 
 
 118 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 emphatically denied by the Bible, for that 
 tells us that he that has the power of death 
 is the Devil (Hebrews 2:14). There is no 
 beating about the bush; not God but the 
 Devil sends death. There is no getting out 
 of the plain words/ ' 
 
 Anyone not familiar with that invaluable 
 book — "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning 1 ' 
 — should not fail to acquaint themselves with 
 it. The fact that to the author was not re- 
 vealed the exact method of this "Lifeward" 
 Law's operation (the reunion of soul com- 
 plements through spiritual evolution), which 
 brings about the conditions that make it 
 possible for the Law to act upon the substance 
 of the body directly as well as through the 
 mind, and that in consequence, his work sets 
 forth only an exposition of the general prin- 
 ciple in its universal application, in no wise 
 confutes the interpretation of the particular 
 application set forth in this volume; but 
 instead, strengthens the evidence of its truth, 
 in view of the fact that his conclusions drawn 
 from study along general lines only, coincide 
 so perfectly, as far as he has carried them, 
 with the underlying truth of the individual 
 application apparent from other lines of ap- 
 
 119 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 proach. His reference to the Devil as being 
 the cause of death is verified in the fact that 
 only by overcoming the Devil in this par- 
 ticular — wrong and impure thoughts in regard 
 to sex — can we lay hold of this power that is 
 provided for the continuous life of the body. 
 
 Does any doubtful one still say: "Would 
 you tell us that this of all things could be the 
 means of the eternal life of our bodies ?" 
 Remember that this was God's provision for 
 creating the physical body you now have; 
 and that this manifestation of his Creative 
 Power, when the evidence is in from both 
 sources — material and spiritual — should be 
 seen to be his plan for continually re-creating 
 it, need hardly be surprising. We see this 
 foreshadowed in the sign of the covenant. 
 Why should the phallus be chosen rather than 
 any other organ of the body to bind the 
 covenant between God and man? Does not 
 the time-honored rite of circumcision now 
 seem to point to the correctness of the reve- 
 lation of the symbology of the Tabernacle ? 
 
 Moreover, what is really more impractic- 
 able about living eternally than about living 
 one day? Life itself is the wonder; but we 
 do not stop to consider this because we see 
 
 120 
 
THE FIRE OF THE LORD 
 
 it about us continually; but one compelled 
 to speak could no more convincingly contend 
 that we may not live eternally than he could 
 accurately explain just how we live at all. 
 Yet we do live. Death is the unnatural 
 thing; and we have lived in the delusion that 
 men must always die. But this is only 
 following the natural order of physical, men- 
 tal and spiritual evolution, for "The last 
 enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 
 
 121 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 A Glance at Fundamentals 
 
 WITH certain individuals a satisfactory 
 standard of living may be sufficient to 
 inspire them to live to their highest, but with 
 others — many, I believe — a satisfactory 
 theory about life is quite essential to enable 
 them to find their poise, and thus be ready to 
 live their best lives. I am therefore pre- 
 senting my understanding of some few funda- 
 mental principles, which I hope may be 
 helpful to others. 
 
 In connection with the theory of evil and 
 its origin we frequently hear the expression 
 "mortal mind" as though it were something 
 that belonged to us as human beings apart 
 from God, and many of the explanations we 
 hear given of mortal mind and its effects are 
 very confusing to those inclined to weigh the 
 meaning of words. 
 
 In the first place, there is no such thing as 
 mortal mind. All the mind in the universe 
 is the mind of God; our mind is just a part 
 
 122 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 of that mind, and this so-called " mortal 
 mind" is only our limited appropriation of 
 the infinite mind of which ours is a part. 
 This limitation is due to our having evolved 
 from lower forms of physical life, and lower 
 stages of mentality, resulting as yet in an 
 incomplete state of development in com- 
 parison to what we are destined to become 
 as we approach nearer a realization of our 
 real nature as one with God. 
 
 Take for example the mind of an infant in 
 comparison with that of a mature man. It 
 is impossible for the babe to comprehend 
 everything at once. It has to develop its 
 faculties gradually through experience and 
 observation, but there is no blame in con- 
 nection with this undeveloped state of the 
 baby's mind. It simply has not had suffi- 
 cient time to develop. Neither is there any 
 blame in connection with our so-called 
 "mortal mind". It is only incomplete, and 
 has yet to unfold powers of spiritual under- 
 standing to greater degrees. 
 
 This explains the unreality of evil in the 
 absolute sense. Evil is nothing but the mis- 
 conception of truth in manifestation, and 
 arises from the varying degrees of incom- 
 
 123 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 pleteness of the perfect being that man is 
 designed to be. Everything done by him — 
 that which is called good or evil — is originally 
 caused by the urge of the Spirit within, seek- 
 ing for expression through an instrument as 
 yet very imperfect. This statement gives no 
 license to the evil-doer, for as long as he 
 gives expression to this lack of development 
 called evil, he must of necessity reap the 
 reward of this evil. Nor does it argue that 
 wrongdoing should go unrestrained, but that 
 such restraint should look not only to the 
 welfare of others concerned, but to the uplift 
 of the offender as well ; and not be established 
 or carried out on the principle that anything 
 is gained in any way through retaliation or 
 vengeance. 
 
 It all resolves itself into the fact that cre- 
 ation is not yet complete. God made the 
 world and brought man from lower beginnings 
 to a state of individual consciousness, and a 
 measure of intelligence, and now He is solicit- 
 ing man's cooperation to appropriate the 
 powers of infinite life which He has put 
 within each soul. He is striving to make us 
 realize his presence within ourselves, and 
 give expression to this divinity now, in this 
 
 124 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 life, not delaying it to an imagined distant 
 heaven. 
 
 Referring again to the little child, through 
 infancy and its early years the mother's 
 watchfulness surrounds it very closely, but 
 as it approaches years of maturity, she allows 
 it to depend upon itself; or if she does not, 
 the child's individuality and independence 
 will not be properly developed. It seems to 
 me just the same way with us as God's 
 children. Through all those ages while we 
 were developing an intelligence, God brought 
 us along the way without our knowing much 
 about it, I fancy. But having arrived at a 
 degree of self consciousness, it is as if God 
 said to each of us: "Now it is time for you 
 to put to use the power and ability I have 
 given you, that you may develop your own 
 individuality and higher states of conscious- 
 ness, until you come to the full realization of 
 what you are — an individual personality, yet 
 identical with the Universal God — and the 
 joy that this knowledge will bring. For if 
 you should not develop through use the 
 faculties already given, it would be impos- 
 sible for you to attain any higher state of 
 consciousness than you now have, and you 
 
 125 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 are still bound by misunderstanding and 
 limitation; your life is not complete and 
 joyous as I planned it for you from the 
 beginning. But you have a part to do. You 
 must work with Me from this time on, and 
 while you shall find eventually that all power 
 is from Me, yet you will see how we are one, 
 and still you may have an individual per- 
 sonality and consciousness, given you by 
 this method of development, which is the 
 only means that will obtain the desired end. 
 The meaning of it all may at times baffle 
 your understanding and distress you, but keep 
 faith in my good plan for you, and it will be 
 plain in time, and you will be grateful for 
 it all." 
 
 So I repeat it is this same urge from within 
 which causes different results — good and so- 
 called evil — in differently organized and 
 developed brains and minds, just as the same 
 white light will appear red, blue or green 
 through differently colored globes. This may 
 seem impossible at first thought, but that is 
 just what it amounts to when we think far 
 enough back. All of what we call the lower 
 emotions arise from, and are, in greater or 
 less measure, excesses of impulses that have 
 
 126 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 had their place in the creation of the human 
 being, in bringing us from the lower forms 
 of life to what we now are, and as we rise in 
 the scale of being and better realize our unity 
 with all life, these same tendencies become 
 transformed, until, for instance, we find the 
 highest outgrowth of the impulse of selfish- 
 ness causing a man to lay down his life for 
 his friends, because under certain conditions 
 he would rather do it than not. 
 
 This is why there is no evil in reality. 
 What we look on as evil is evil in a relative 
 sense, and is only the result of an incomplete, 
 growing condition, though we are apt to for- 
 get this as we look out over the turmoil and 
 sorrows of earth. Nor would I underrate the 
 fact that evil as we are accustomed to speak 
 of it is a lamentable thing with which to be 
 associated for those who have passed beyond 
 that stage of development in which the urge 
 of the Spirit causes men to do things, which, 
 to those higher in the scale, seem horrible, 
 terrorizing, but this is the only explanation 
 that is consistent with reason throughout, and 
 it certainly clears the atmosphere for me in 
 thinking of this big question. 
 
 In regard to our souls and their relation to 
 
 127 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 God, I can best explain my thought by an 
 illustration. Imagine a glass filled only with 
 air and sunlight. Let the glassful of air and 
 sunlight represent a soul, saying that the air 
 is God within the soul functioning as mind, 
 and the sunlight is God as Spirit. Of course 
 it is really all one and the same Spirit, but 
 manifesting itself in different ways. As the 
 air and sunlight in the glass would be just a 
 part of the air and sunlight in the room, 
 that in the room would represent God in the 
 whole universe. You can readily see then 
 what your soul is. It is just your individual 
 share of God's mind and Spirit to have and 
 use. This covers the definition of soul as 
 being the limit of consciousness, and shows 
 how at the same time you are in God and God 
 is in you. Your life is your conscious share 
 of God's life, and the fact that you have this 
 individual part of God to realize and enjoy 
 carries with it the responsibility of choice, 
 and of giving expression to this divinity 
 which is in you, or which you are. The 
 garden of your own soul is for you personally 
 to tend. 
 
 Thus we see we have a real part to take in 
 the perfecting of our lives, and in doing this 
 
 12* 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 we have many things to experience which 
 seem very hard when our conception of God's 
 plan is confused. But when from the heights 
 our eyes behold the completed circle of the 
 bright bow of promise, and we grasp the plan 
 in its entirety, we can see whither we are 
 tending and why, and the reward is seen to 
 be more than worth the struggle. Of this 
 we shall be fully convinced when we have 
 reached a certain point by following faith- 
 fully all the light we have. We gain more 
 light by deeply desiring more, knowing that 
 it is to be found within ourselves because 
 God is there, and that we can find it if we 
 earnestly seek for it, for "he that seeketh, 
 findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall 
 be opened.' ' 
 
 Salvation must come to mankind through 
 each individual's having a knowledge of his 
 own true nature as a part of God. His 
 failure to realize this, or the idea of separation, 
 gives him the belief in evil as a power or 
 thing of itself, and before man can begin to 
 live a life of unhindered progress, he must 
 realize that there is no other force in the uni- 
 verse but God, and before he can enjoy a rich, 
 full life, he must understand that God's will 
 
 129 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 toward him is always good; that God is 
 Love. Jesus taught us this, but we have too 
 largely disregarded it. We have looked upon 
 God as a being who could be approached 
 only through the merits of the vicarious suf- 
 fering and death of a mediator. God does 
 not want us to think we must go to Him 
 through such a mediator. In fact, we have 
 not found the vital sense of unity with God 
 as long as we feel that we cannot go to Him 
 direct. The only place in which a mediator 
 enters into the great plan of life is where 
 one with greater light gives it to his brother 
 man, as Jesus did, to enable him to recognize 
 for himself his identity with God, thus join- 
 ing in consciousness man and God. 
 
 Jesus taught us that we should glorify God, 
 but would you consider it to be glorifying 
 even a human friend to attribute to his 
 character such atrocious qualities as the 
 traditional interpretation of the Bible has 
 attributed to God? The crucifixion has been 
 taken to mean that Jesus was a sacrifice to 
 appease God's wrath, and make an atone- 
 ment for our sins, to save us from the con- 
 sequences of the "fall". But what was the 
 "fall"? Simply the process of our receiving 
 
 130 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 physical bodies through which to manifest 
 life. In this sense Jesus' life and teaching 
 does save us from the consequences of the 
 "fall", which consequences were a sense of 
 separateness from God, but no wrath on the 
 part of God. As said before, our unfinished 
 state in the evolutionary process has given 
 rise to the idea of this separateness from 
 God, and God's Kingdom cannot come on 
 earth as long as such a lack of understanding 
 of the wisdom and goodness of his plan of 
 creation prevails in the minds of men, and 
 they continue to consider any part of their 
 being — mind or body — as separate from God, 
 or anything that God has made or instituted 
 to be scorned as unholy. It was indeed 
 Jesus' mission to mediate between God and 
 man in this sense. The sacrifice of his body 
 was to teach us with sufficient force that it 
 might never escape the memory of man till 
 the understanding could grasp the fact that 
 God gave all, even his body (matter), that we 
 might enjoy the fullness of conscious life; 
 that our bodies being a part of Himself, are 
 consequently holy, and that we are destined 
 to inherit life eternal without death of the 
 body when we have been made perfect in 
 
 131 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 love, and everything in our lives, our bodies 
 and all their functions have been brought 
 fully into subjection to the Spirit — have been 
 "lifted up" and given back to God, redeemed 
 by the knowledge that all is God; that all 
 that God has made is good and pure in its 
 spiritual conception, and is thus to be trans- 
 formed by this thought about it. Jesus 
 realized this truth, but knew the world did 
 not; hence his willingness to make the sac- 
 rifice. God's nature is to give, not to with- 
 hold; He seeks to give to men through men; 
 and so perforce who sees the truth will give it 
 though he be scorned and spat upon, and per- 
 secuted even unto death. 
 
 The lower animal creation gives us the clue 
 to the beginnings of our physical manifesta- 
 tion ; Jesus lifted up upon the cross portrays 
 the tremendous truth that these physical 
 bodies are a part of God, and all their func- 
 tions therefore wholly pure; here the two 
 points that determine the line which indicates 
 the progress of mankind from its lowest 
 beginnings to its transcendent destiny. We 
 are told that at the moment Christ's great 
 sacrifice was finished the vail of the Temple 
 was rent in twain from top to bottom (the 
 
 132 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 mystery of the Holy of Holies of the body was 
 made plain for us to comprehend as soon as 
 our understanding, illumined by the Spirit, 
 could grasp the truth), and the earth did 
 quake and the rocks rent, emphasizing the 
 oneness of the universal substance. 
 
 When people realize that the Bible is telling 
 them that God and man are One; that the 
 Life Principle in the universe is the same 
 life and power that is in them, they may 
 learn to use this power to better all their 
 conditions of life. The power is there, infi- 
 nite in the sense that there is a limitless 
 amount to be used as we gradually learn how 
 to use it. This is the part of the evolutionary 
 process depending on us — to learn to use this 
 power rightly and cooperate with it. We 
 cannot be relieved of our part in this matter 
 and still have the joy of individual life and 
 growth. 
 
 It is also necessary to get clearly in mind 
 that the natural order of things in God's 
 plan is for good and nothing but good to come 
 to us, and that the only thing which keeps it 
 from coming is some obstruction in ourselves 
 originating in a lack of knowledge of the 
 whole truth about life. When we under- 
 
 133 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 stand that we were all destined to be happy, 
 and that the Law of Life is always working 
 for our highest good, even though it has to 
 work correctively at times, we will attract 
 good by our right understanding and think- 
 ing. People have not realized the possibil- 
 ities of the mind to work them good or ill. 
 It is essential that we understand ourselves, 
 and bear in mind that we are indeed made in 
 the image and likeness of God, with the power 
 of the Infinite at our disposal to work us 
 good when we understand it, or ill (correc- 
 tion) when wrongly used. We must realize 
 that God's plan from the beginning of cre- 
 ation is happiness for every soul, and that 
 everything we experience along the way of 
 life is simply coincident with the stage 
 through which we are passing; that trouble 
 and sorrow will pass away from us with the 
 coming of greater light, which enables us to 
 correct the errors in ourselves. But if we 
 hold the mistaken thought that we are help- 
 less, and have nothing to do about it, our 
 errors are not corrected. "And I say unto 
 you, Ask and it shall be given you; seek and 
 ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened 
 unto }rou." 
 
 134 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 A right understanding of God's nature is 
 the crux of the whole matter. When we 
 really believe that God is good, we shall 
 expect good from Him, providing we are 
 living in harmony with the laws of good. 
 When we seek the light within ourselves and 
 realize that God is the loving and all power- 
 ful Father that Jesus taught us He is ; when 
 we learn to find Him in the depths of our 
 own souls, to talk with Him, to go to Him 
 for help in everything (not failing to do our 
 part when we can see it) ; when we can 
 explain to Him every situation that troubles 
 us, no matter how insignificant or how great, 
 and if it be beyond our present knowledge or 
 power to control, leave it to Him to make it 
 all come right, and then TRUST and REST 
 in the assurance that God really is our friend 
 — that He wants to help us, and that his love 
 and power is more than equal to the occasion 
 so that all will be properly taken care of, 
 then we shall have reached a stage from 
 which we can proceed to gain greater light 
 and power without the suffering through 
 which we have passed to get to this point. 
 It is essential to banish from our minds com- 
 pletely the thought that we have to pray to 
 
 135 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 God to keep evil from coming upon us. The 
 thing that we are living in, walking in and 
 breathing in, and that is trying to flow into 
 us and through us is love and good of every 
 description. It is a question of our honoring 
 God with a sufficiently good opinion of Him 
 to believe and trust that He will do the vety 
 best things for us that we will let Him do. 
 
 Anyone might be willing to accept the 
 benefits of the Law without conforming to 
 the conditions under which good is naturally 
 attracted, but we do not draw good in that 
 way; and furthermore, the thing desired 
 would not prove to be good to us as long as 
 the condition in ourselves which obstructs it 
 were not discovered and removed. This is 
 the underlying truth of the belief that God 
 punishes us for our sins. The laws of God 
 (good) do of necessity keep from us the good 
 we seek as long as there is some wrong con- 
 dition existing in us which keeps the good 
 from flowing through us, but the whole plan 
 is remedial and kind in that it teaches us that 
 there is something in ourselves that will keep 
 us from happiness until it is removed. The 
 Law is unerring in its working. Good must 
 flow through us through force of desire (and 
 
 136 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 using the means at our hands, of course) by 
 the law that like attracts like, in just the 
 proportion that all barriers are removed from 
 within us. And by the same accuracy of the 
 working of the law, our good cannot be de- 
 layed after we are ready for it. "We can 
 never be free until we have thoroughly 
 learned the lesson that we cannot miss our 
 good. . . . No day can come or go without 
 enriching us to the full extent to which we 
 have developed our capacity to receive.' ' 
 The thing for us to give our attention to is 
 making ourselves right. 
 
 The hindrance within us may be found to 
 be one or more of many things. It may be 
 ill will toward someone — lack of forgiveness. 
 It may be anxiety or grief; it may be nothing 
 that we are accustomed to call sin; it may 
 be merely a great desire to help people when 
 we have not yet found the proper expression 
 for this desire, causing tension and restless- 
 ness. Good, in the broad sense, does not 
 mean only what has been considered moral. 
 God and Nature and Life are big things, and 
 we are invited to open our eyes and study 
 them as such. 
 
 The coming of the Kingdom of Heaven on 
 
 137 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 earth must be through the spiritually developed 
 individual, and this condition cannot be 
 brought about, except by man's right under- 
 standing of God's nature, and his relation to 
 God, and by his looking within for the light 
 and following his individual guidance no mat- 
 ter what persecution it may perchance in- 
 volve. There is nothing else of so much 
 importance as that one should be true to his 
 highest sense of right no matter what people 
 may think or say. It is not a matter into 
 which praise or blame enters. The impor- 
 tant thing to realize is that you have a 
 straight course to pursue — to follow the light 
 of the Spirit within you — and let the conse- 
 quences take care of themselves. This may 
 require that you stand alone many times, 
 and through seemingly dark days as far as 
 human encouragement is concerned, but you 
 will sooner or later find it to be worth the 
 struggle if you do stand, and what seemed 
 hard will become easy. 
 
 Learn to look for the truth within yourself; 
 develop your interior powers for perceiving 
 the truth by communing with the Spirit 
 within you. When everyone has learned to 
 do this, the world will be light indeed, for 
 
 13d 
 
A GLANCE AT FUNDAMENTALS 
 
 everyone will have found the light within 
 himself and will let it shine. We all owe it 
 to one another to be ourselves and contribute 
 whatever light we may get in our individual 
 way (for we are all just a little different from 
 each other), and thus do our part in helping 
 to enlighten all; and no matter how ideal the 
 standard raised aloft in the cause of the 
 immortal truth, not until attention is directed 
 from organization, system, church and creed 
 to the necessity for each one's applying the 
 truth individually and making himself over by 
 it as the only means of soul growth, shall we 
 be free from a repetition of the history of all 
 movements founded on the teachings of the 
 seers of the past — the light of the prophetic 
 message veiled in priestly ceremony, the vital 
 spark all but extinguished, and the masses 
 blindly groping for the way. 
 
 139 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 The Way of Attainment 
 
 WHEN a lawyer of the Pharisees asked 
 the Master which was the great com- 
 mandment in the law, Jesus answered : ' 'Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind. This is the first and great command- 
 ment. And the second is like unto it, Thou 
 shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these 
 two commandments hang all the law and the 
 prophets." And when this is said, all is 
 said, if we would but lay it to heart, for "Love 
 worketh no ill to his neighbor : therefore love 
 is the fulfilling of the law." But how earn- 
 estly do people generally heed this instruc- 
 tion, with all that loving their neighbor as 
 themselves implies? How thoroughly does 
 mutual sympathy, fair dealing and helpful- 
 ness on the part of all in every walk of life, 
 extend to every fellow-creature regardless of 
 his race or station, be it low or high? Yet it 
 is just this simple, all embracing love and 
 
 140 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 kindness that is required to fulfill the law 
 and develop us. In this we see the justice of 
 this great natural and eternal Law of Life, 
 whether written or unwritten. If its require- 
 ments were concerned with station, or even 
 with hard tests of learning, it would not be 
 fair alike to all. But the lowliest can forgive 
 and love, and rank and erudition of them- 
 selves^will not further us one step along the 
 way. 
 
 I would not advocate the practice of lying 
 sleepless in a warm bed at night, tortured by 
 the thought that doubtless many in the 
 world were at the same time suffering from 
 cold and privation, such as I was wont to do 
 before I understood the principle that sym- 
 pathizing wrongly with people's suffering does 
 not help them, and only incapacitates us for 
 rendering real service; nevertheless, the mea- 
 sure of love and sympathy for all our fellow- 
 men that impels to this solicitude for the 
 comfort and welfare of all is absolutely 
 necessary if we would enter upon the Way of 
 Attainment. As long as we are content to 
 seek happiness and comfort for ourselves 
 alone, we are not in the way of finding hap- 
 piness. God has created every soul for 
 
 141 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 happiness, and there is nothing wrong about 
 wanting it; the desire is wholesome and 
 right, but the Law of Life operates in such a 
 way that we cannot enter the paradise wait- 
 ing for us until we have been made perfect in 
 love and the simple explanation of this is 
 that universal, altruistic love is actually the 
 means necessary to develop our spiritual 
 senses to such a degree that we can be guided 
 unerringly to the one personal love relation 
 that means completeness for us — rest unto 
 our souls — and which produces a quality of 
 happiness and contentment that enables us 
 to give still more effective help and uplift to 
 the race. 
 
 Being made perfect in love implies an ex- 
 pansion of soul great enough to forgive any- 
 one for anything. Does someone say this is 
 impossible? No, it is not impossible. It 
 may be very hard at times, but the measure 
 of the effort required to do this is our own 
 confidential report on just how far we have 
 progressed along the Way. If you do not 
 feel in your heart that you can do this, work 
 with yourself until you can. There is no use 
 to try to build the superstructure of a beau- 
 tiful life on an imperfect foundation, 
 
 142 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 First reach a decision with yourself as to 
 what you most want to do. Is it your great- 
 est desire to live the highest life and form a 
 beautiful character, or are you more con- 
 cerned about securing vengeance — socalled 
 " satisfaction " — for every wrong, real or 
 imaginary? If this latter is your present 
 state of mind, you will probably have to 
 suffer in one way or another for awhile yet; 
 that is, until you have decided that to be 
 right in every way is the thing most to be 
 desired. If you already aspire to this, but 
 find it difficult under certain conditions to 
 relinquish all feeling of bitterness, then seek 
 a quiet place alone, become perfectly still, 
 close your eyes, let your thoughts retire 
 within where you can get a good perspective 
 of the whole situation, and think quietly. 
 Think of the truths mentioned in the fore- 
 going chapter; think of the greatness of 
 tenderness; the littleness of hate, and see if 
 you do not find your soul big enough even to 
 pity the offender, and to cause you to want 
 to help him find the Way. 
 
 Analyze your feelings on each occasion 
 that arises to learn just how you feel and why 
 you feel so. By doing this you will discover 
 
 143 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 just where your weakness lies, and will know 
 where your efforts for reform must be di- 
 rected. Then when you have gotten the 
 lesson there is in it for you, cease to think 
 of the incident. Do not be discouraged if it 
 takes hard work. The hard work in this 
 case will be in learning to let go of some feeling 
 of rancor you are tempted to cherish. But 
 continue to try until you feel that you are 
 master of your spirit, and can quickly let go 
 of any unprofitable impulse. "He that is 
 slow to anger is better than the mighty ; and 
 he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh 
 a city" (Proverbs 16:32). 
 
 To forgive, however, does not mean that 
 we must feel approval of the fault of the one 
 forgiven. We are not required to lower our 
 standard of right until it can include the 
 misdeeds of those less developed. But while 
 not loving the deed, we should, nevertheless, 
 love the struggling, evolving doer of the deed, 
 remembering the divinity inherent within 
 him, which is the common heritage of each 
 and all, though so often unrecognized and 
 unexpressed. But this is the very condition 
 which calls for kindly service on the part of 
 those who are farther advanced, to help him 
 
 144 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 find his higher self. If, while knowing an 
 act to be wrong, we can take the larger view, 
 and bear in mind the primal cause of the 
 act — the impulse for greater life and happi- 
 ness (which all alike are seeking), misunder- 
 stood and misdirected — and can look beyond 
 the deed, and wish to help the one whose 
 unenlightened condition caused him to so 
 act, then we may know we have truly for- 
 given. 
 
 The Psalmist tells us that the secret of the 
 Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will 
 show them his covenant. So here we have it; 
 just the same things we have had for two 
 thousand years, but have not used suffi- 
 ciently to gain the full benefit. Jesus said, 
 "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst 
 after righteousness, for they shall be filled.' ' 
 The mere knowledge of this statement will 
 not cause us to grow. We must feel the 
 hunger and the thirst for lightness, purity 
 and the virtues that we know to be necessary 
 for building a genuine character. But the 
 longing must be for the qualities themselves, 
 independent of any reward or punishment in 
 connection with the matter. When one 
 knows within his own heart that he would 
 
 145 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 rather live a wholesome, honest, helpful life 
 even though this might involve no reward, 
 instead of living a deceitful, common, selfish 
 life and receive a reward (if such conditions 
 could be possible), then he is on the Way of 
 Attainment ; and there is no use living on in 
 the delusion that any less earnest devotion to 
 the cause of truth and right, for the sake of 
 truth and right itself, will ever enable one to 
 attain this happiness of completion. 
 
 And it is not keeping the eyes fixed upon 
 the reward that will bring it, but rather the 
 searching of our hearts, and the repeated 
 endeavor (no matter how many times we may 
 have failed), to live to our very highest 
 standard of life. For if we think only of the 
 reward, the spiritual development is not being 
 furthered which alone can bring it, and we 
 are day dreaming of the possession of some- 
 thing we cannot have until we have paid the 
 price. When the heart and purpose is right, 
 the price is not hard, because a loving heart 
 and high purpose that impels to kind and 
 worthy deeds, with patience and trust that 
 keeps faith in God's love, and in the unerring 
 working of the Law, which will bring us our 
 good as soon as we are fully ready for it, 
 
 146 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 though it seem long deferred, is the price. 
 And if our spiritual aspirations are such as 
 they must be in order to give us the necessary 
 development, these are the qualities we shall 
 strive to attain independently of any reward 
 attached. We are justified, however, in 
 • thankfully resting in the assurance that high 
 purpose and endeavor does bear the fruit of 
 happiness. 
 
 The truth involved in this principle men- 
 tioned is, I believe, the chief reason why 
 "the mystery of God" is also veiled in the 
 New Testament ; the emphasis put upon the 
 cultivation of the virtues so often mentioned, 
 and the overcoming of our ordinary faults, 
 for this is what must be accomplished first, 
 in a sufficient measure, in any event; and 
 when we honestly strive to follow Jesus' 
 teaching, the "anointing of the Spirit" will 
 teach us the deeper meaning intended for us 
 when the circumstances of our lives call it 
 forth. I do not believe that Jesus even told 
 his disciples all things in plain words, or why 
 did he say in his last talk with them: "I 
 have yet many things to say unto you, but 
 ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when 
 he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
 
 147 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 you into all truth"? (John 16:12-13). And 
 again: "These things have I spoken unto 
 you in proverbs: but the time cometh when 
 I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, 
 but I shall show you plainly of the Father' ' 
 (John 16:25). Since this was the last time 
 Jesus talked with his disciples, he must have 
 meant that he (the Christos) would show 
 them plainly of the Father by means of the 
 testimony of the Spirit; and indeed, in John 
 14:25-26 we read: "These things have I 
 spoken unto you, being yet present with you, 
 but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, 
 whom the Father will send in my name, he 
 shall teach you all things, and bring all things 
 to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said 
 unto you." 
 
 And so we find it everywhere when we are 
 able to receive it, while the form of presen- 
 tation of the parables affords a lesson to 
 those as yet able to understand only the 
 literal form of statement. In fact, Paul says 
 in effect to the Corinthians that the reason 
 for his not speaking the hidden wisdom to 
 them was that they had not yet applied the 
 first principles of spiritual growth. He says, 
 in 1 Cor. 2:4-10, 14, and 3:1-3: 
 
 148 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 "My speech and my preaching was not 
 with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in 
 demonstration of the Spirit and of power : 
 
 "That your faith should not stand in the 
 wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 
 
 "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them 
 that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this 
 world, nor of the princes of this world, that 
 come to nought. 
 
 "But we speak the wisdom of God in a 
 mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God 
 ordained before the world unto our glory : 
 
 "Which none of the princes of this world 
 knew : for had they known it, they would 
 not have crucified the Lord of Glory. 
 
 "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen nor 
 ear heard, neither have entered into the heart 
 of man, the things which God hath prepared 
 for them that love him. 
 
 "But God hath revealed them unto us by 
 his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, 
 yea the deep things of God. 
 
 "But the natural man receiveth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God: for they are 
 foolishness unto him: neither can he know 
 them, because they are spiritually discerned. 
 
 "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you 
 
 149 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as 
 unto babes in Christ. 
 
 "I have fed you with milk and not with 
 meat : for hitherto ye were not able to bear 
 it, neither yet now are ye able. 
 
 "For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there 
 is among you envying, and strife, and divi- 
 sions, are ye not carnal and walk as men?" 
 
 It is a question of the honest effort to 
 make real one's ideals in daily living; the 
 j^earning for the consciousness of genuineness 
 in one's self, which is not satisfied with any 
 amount of commendation from others unless 
 one knows within his own soul that he has 
 met himself face to face, has learned wherein 
 his fault or weakness lies, has striven and has 
 overcome. 
 
 This, my sisters and brothers of the Roman 
 Catholic faith, is where your church puts an 
 obstacle in your way of attainment, which is 
 well nigh impossible to surmount, for it offers 
 3^ou in the confessional a substitute for this 
 independent, personal struggle. Do not 
 think this is said with the intent to wound. 
 God forbid. But I should not be kind and 
 fair to you if I did not endeavor to awaken 
 you to the fact that faith in anything to alter 
 
 150 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 the effect of a violation of the law of truth 
 and right, beside your own sincere purpose to 
 overcome the cause which exists in yourself, 
 tends to moral and spiritual blindness — the 
 very thing we must strive to overcome if we 
 are going to develop spiritual strength — and 
 the little falsehoods that you seem to regard 
 so lightly, thinking no doubt a confession is 
 all sufficient to overcome their power, will, 
 by the unerring working of this law, deaden 
 your soul to the recognition of truth, leaving 
 you without the consciousness of an inner 
 guide. But the Kingdom of Heaven is 
 within you, dependent on a state of con- 
 sciousness, whether in this life or the next, 
 and before you can find it, you must be led 
 into it by this inward monitor. So do not 
 kill it; do not quench the Spirit within you; 
 learn to listen for its leading. But whatever 
 may be the purpose, this is not the result 
 obtained by the confessional. 
 
 When we fail of our highest standards of 
 living, as we all do many times, we should go 
 direct to God with the sincere purpose of 
 receiving strength in the future. But when 
 there is the thought in the mind of the of- 
 fender that all can be made right by con- 
 
 151 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 fession whenever the offense is repeated, can 
 you not see how it turns your confessional 
 into a license for evil doing, and cheats you 
 of the personal effort that is necessary to 
 develop you ? For nothing else can take the 
 place of the individual searching of one's self, 
 and the talking alone with God, or waiting 
 with Him in the Silence to develop spiritual 
 strength. We might as well hope to gain 
 physical strength by letting someone else eat 
 our food for us, as to hope to gain spiritual 
 strength while thinking to evade the conse- 
 quences of our own thoughts and deeds 
 through the merits of any vicarious agency. 
 If there are souls of strength and sterling 
 worth among you, you are such because of 
 your own innate sense of right and wrong 
 unspoiled, as in the case of Luther, whose 
 sense of right could not tolerate the immoral 
 principle of selling privileges in advance for 
 men to commit sins — unspoiled, I say, re- 
 gardless of, rather than quickened because of 
 the fundamental teaching of your church. 
 For this lively sense of moral rectitude and 
 such a fearless courage are not the product of 
 the principle that underlies the confessional, 
 which benumbs the undeveloped souls of men 
 
 152 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 with the teaching that there can be in exist- 
 ence any power, vested in any man or insti- 
 tution, that can grant them absolution from 
 the law of justice and eternal right. 
 
 And may this further truth be borne in 
 upon the souls of priests and nuns who are 
 worthy in purpose, who in a mistaken idea of 
 the way, have been willing to sacrifice all for 
 the sake of their highest sense of duty, and 
 to gain the highest spiritual good; that God 
 created all men alike for this completed 
 happiness, and instead of being gained, the 
 highest good is lost by continuing to go 
 counter to God's plan. 
 
 Perhaps someone feels that his particular 
 lot is just a little too hard to make possible 
 any progress while in it. I wish I might 
 impress upon each one the truth that the 
 circumstances in which we find ourselves are 
 just what our particular stage of develop- 
 ment calls for. There is some benefit to be 
 derived from it; some aspect of the great 
 Eternal Truth to be made plain to us; some 
 quality to be developed ; some life lesson in 
 it for us that must be mastered before we are 
 through with it. I mean by this that we 
 have at some time drawn this circumstance to 
 
 153 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 us, or may be even now drawing it to us on 
 account of some incompleteness in ourselves, 
 resulting in the inability to handle such a 
 situation patiently and masterfully. It seems 
 as though the inmost purpose of our souls, 
 which lies so deep that we do not always 
 recognize its presence, is demanding a chance 
 to meet and gain a conscious victory over 
 some weakness for which this or that par- 
 ticular circumstance affords just the proper 
 field of endeavor. When w r e once realize 
 this, and are convinced that the way to re- 
 move the undesirable condition is to examine 
 ourselves and see wherein we manifest im- 
 perfections of character, and inefficiency in 
 dealing with the situation, then we are work- 
 ing along the right lines to free ourselves from 
 it. But as long as we hold the thought that 
 we are helpless to change circumstances, and 
 allow ourselves to drift instead of standing at 
 the helm ; or as long as we fret at any cir- 
 cumstance, and do not give our time to 
 developing the power to meet it patiently, 
 and to overcome our faults which it brings 
 into evidence, we are only wasting our time 
 and putting farther away the day when it 
 will leave us, not to return in the same form 
 
 154 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 or in some other guise with the thumbed 
 page of the old lesson turned up for our 
 perusal. 
 
 This should in no wise be taken to mean 
 that because an adverse circumstance has 
 good in it for us that we should accept it as 
 a final lot, thinking that if it is good for us 
 we should not try to change it. Get the 
 point that the only good adversity has in it, 
 after it has broadened our sympathies for 
 all classes and conditions of men, and given 
 us a lesson in values and proportions, is 
 the opportunity for developing the power 
 to work ourselves out of it, thereby increasing 
 our total of merit and efficiency; and when 
 a failing has been overcome, we will no longer 
 attract the adverse circumstance coincident 
 to it. Have an ideal; work toward it con- 
 stantly; never lose sight of it except as it 
 may be replaced by a higher ideal, but be 
 patient in overcoming the difficulties that 
 arise in your path of attainment. 
 
 But by patience I do not mean a passive 
 attitude that encourages people to impose 
 upon us, which is quite as unjust to them as 
 to ourselves; but rather what we might think 
 of as the resultant of equal parts of forgive- 
 
 155 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 ness, courage and hope. Courage is not 
 averse to gentleness. Indeed, it must accom- 
 pany all endeavor if we expect to bring to 
 pass things worth while. This lack of prac- 
 tical courage to take the necessary action is 
 as likely to be the failing as anything else 
 that keeps one in some undesirable circum- 
 stance. This is why many apparently kind 
 hearted, well meaning people are oppressed 
 by this or that condition. One's difficulty 
 may be nothing that is ordinarily looked upon 
 as a fault of character. Nevertheless, Nature 
 has in mind for you the pattern of a com- 
 plete, well rounded being, and your incapacity 
 in any line will attract an opportunity for 
 you to make that good. This should not be 
 looked upon in the light of a punishment. 
 That is not the idea. It is rather an oppor- 
 tunity brought right to your door to attend 
 the great school of experience without a 
 tuition fee. Here again we see the kindness 
 of the Law, for I believe there is nothing else 
 which will develop you quite as thoroughly 
 and effectively as just the patient, cheerful 
 meeting of the daily trials in the home, office, 
 school-room, factory, or wherever your oc- 
 cupation calls you, looking upon every 
 
 156 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 annoyance as an opportunity for the perfect- 
 ing of your character; never so much en- 
 grossed in your own trials as to forget to 
 sympathize with others. We are not all in 
 a position to give such service as we should 
 like to give, but anyone can serve with a 
 kindly word and smile — the cup of cold water 
 — to cheer another on his way, and this is 
 truly acceptable service. 
 
 In the training of children, if the teacher or 
 mother will take a philosophical view of the 
 matter, it will be much easier to be patient. 
 Stop to think what it is that causes the child 
 to act thus or so. What is it that causes one 
 child to strike another if perhaps its toy has 
 been appropriated? or one lad to pommel 
 another if there has been foul play? It is 
 the child's sense of justice finding expression 
 without its being modified by the qualities of 
 tolerance and forgiveness. But time and 
 experience are required to mature these loftier 
 qualities in the child. When we take this 
 more comprehensive view, it is easier to be 
 patient while we explain to all the young 
 offenders the principle of ethics involved. 
 Their wishes have been interfered with and 
 they have made a demonstration of temper. 
 
 157 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 How much better are we doing if, because 
 our wishes have been interfered with by 
 their acts, we also make a demonstration of 
 temper? Someone may say, "But mine was 
 a just pro vocation.' ' The child also thinks 
 his a just provocation, and this excusing of 
 ourselves in our own sight instead of striving 
 to bring ourselves up to the standard of hold- 
 ing a right spirit under all circumstances, 
 regardless of what anyone else may be doing, 
 is just what will cause us not to grow. 
 
 But suppose there may be someone who 
 cannot honestly say within his heart that he 
 feels this deep concern for the welfare of 
 others, which I have mentioned — someone 
 who does not feel the drawing of a high ideal 
 of character building and attainment. 
 Wherein lies help for such? Must he des- 
 pair utterly? By no means, for God is in 
 every soul He has created, only some have not 
 yet become acquainted with their own souls 
 and with God within. When they do, they 
 too will feel this same love, this same aspira- 
 tion, this same hunger and thirst after right- 
 eousness, for which there is no substitute. 
 
 How then, and where can such a one begin? 
 We always have to begin just where we are; 
 
 15S 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 we can omit no step, but the thing to do is 
 always to follow out your highest impulses. 
 Good impulses allowed to die may be tardy 
 in reviving : good impulses fulfilled put you 
 farther on the Way with every hour. Even 
 such impulses as the first feeble urge felt by 
 primitive man to keep himself clean, ful- 
 filled, is uplifting, and lays the foundation for 
 a higher impulse to be felt. Such motives as 
 this we are accustomed to think of as being 
 only material; nevertheless, it is the urge of 
 the Spirit working through an instrument as 
 yet not sufficiently perfected to register a 
 higher impulse, and because of this Spirit 
 within, one good impulse along any line, when 
 fulfilled, will leave place for a higher to follow, 
 and thus the Father draws us to Himself. 
 
 None are left helpless, no matter from what 
 point they have to start. Everyone has 
 sufficient promptings toward the right to lead 
 him eventually straight up to the full light if 
 he would follow them; if in the battle with 
 himself between right and wrong, he would 
 always choose to follow the higher impulse. 
 Here is the starting point in the matter of 
 character building. The individual must 
 choose his course. If he is to advance, he 
 
 159 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 must first aspire, and then decide to follow the 
 path along which his aspiration leads, and all 
 his decisions must be made with this in mind 
 The responsibility of choice is an accompani- 
 ment of his individual personality, and the 
 pivotal point in the matter of the attainment 
 of character is the realization that progress in 
 the right direction begins with the individual 
 choice of a right ideal, independent of the 
 standards or motives of any or everyone else. 
 Whether he will sacrifice his wrong impulses 
 to his attainment of happiness, perfection and 
 peace, or whether he will yield to them to his 
 continual misery and blindness, his own 
 choice determines. When he reaches an agree- 
 ment with himself, and deliberately chooses 
 to let go of any purpose of retaliation, no mat- 
 ter what an offense against him may have 
 been, the tide of the battle has turned in his 
 favor, and he has conquered his arch enemy. 
 Many lives seem to be a record of inter- 
 mittent effort in the right direction, and 
 wavering from the true course of progress 
 apparently because they are not sure that it 
 always "pays" to follow ideal standards of 
 living; but if all would adopt the standard 
 of right for the sake of right itself, regardless 
 
 160 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 of whether immediate results seemed pleasant 
 or unpleasant, and heed the promptings that 
 urge them onward and upward, which 
 promptings are in every soul, they would not 
 be alternately gaining and losing ground, 
 resulting in such a slow and meagre progress. 
 This it is to seek first the kingdom of God 
 and his righteousness; in other words, to hold 
 your friendship with God, and simple 
 lightness in all ways as uppermost in your 
 life, letting all your affairs adjust themselves 
 in accordance with this standard, and not 
 allowing any other interest — financial or 
 otherwise — to hold the uppermost place and 
 determine how much of rightness you can 
 afford to employ in your living. 
 
 It seems we must make real in actual daily 
 life each successive step of our ideal of char- 
 acter building, before we can get more light 
 from within ourselves. If we listen to the 
 urge of the Spirit within us, and always follow 
 the highest light we have, we must. ascend 
 continually; so do not sleep, do not stagnate. 
 
 A high impulse may at times find through 
 you but very imperfect or incomplete ex- 
 pression, and perchance being misunder- 
 stood, be met with rebuff on the part of 
 
 16) 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 someone, tending to intimidate you from 
 again giving expression to the highest prompt- 
 ings within your soul; but do not be dis- 
 heartened by such a result when you know 
 your motive to be right, for every sincere 
 effort to follow the urge of the Spirit consti- 
 tutes a right act for you in the sight of the 
 Father, no matter how misjudged by others. 
 And remember the cause of most hurts lies 
 no deeper than misunderstanding, and when 
 this is done away, the universe will be seen to 
 be one at heart. 
 
 And do not make the mistake of suppress- 
 ing the impulse of gladness and mirth, 
 thinking it will hinder your spiritual develop- 
 ment. Some appear to think that if they 
 were to live close to God, they would of 
 necessity be sad, denying themselves every 
 pleasure they naturally feel inclined to enjoy. 
 But this is very wrong. We are cautioned 
 against this very thing in Malachi 2:13: 
 "And this have ye done again, covering the 
 altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping 
 and with crying out, insomuch that he re- 
 gardeth not the offering any more, or receiv- 
 eth it with good will at your hand." 
 
 You are a part of God, and sometimes you 
 
 162 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 want to laugh. Well, that is God wanting to 
 express mirth through you. If God did not 
 want to laugh, you would not want to, for 
 God is all. God makes you want to sing and 
 dance sometimes, too. To move the body 
 rhythmically to music is a holy pleasure, 
 provided it is done wholly unto God; that 
 is, if you realize that God gives you the 
 impulse to want to dance, and simply thank 
 Him for the pleasure of it. We are told 
 repeatedly in the Bible to rejoice in the Lord, 
 and are exhorted specifically to praise Him 
 in the dance; and in Phil. 4:4 we read: 
 "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say 
 Rejoice.' 1 So do not think that being spir- 
 itual necessitates being sad. Sadness is in- 
 jurious to health; it is sinful. We are all 
 sometimes sinful in this way, but we should 
 strive to overcome this as much as any other 
 fault, and should not associate sombre 
 thoughts with worthy qualities, Life lived 
 close to God is the happiest, most cheerful 
 life that we can live. Of course there are 
 states of mind higher, and more sacred and 
 more enjoyable than those impelling to 
 laughter, but that is no reason why we should 
 suppress an impulse to laugh if we feel it. 
 
 163 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 The honest thinker will say at once that if 
 God makes us want to laugh, then we will 
 have to say that God makes us become angry 
 too, and in a way he does; but think just 
 what I said in regard to that before. I said 
 that the urge of the Spirit is the original cause 
 of everyone's doing what he does. But this 
 urge has yet in many cases to come through 
 minds but slightly developed — an incomplete 
 understanding of things. It is not the ulti- 
 mate purpose of the Spirit to make you 
 become angry, but It has to let you become 
 angry temporarily, while you are getting 
 experience which will enable you to better 
 comprehend all phases of the truth, because 
 anger may be the only form of expression you 
 have yet learned to give to an impulse which 
 in itself is high, as in the example given of a 
 sense of justice without tolerance. For let 
 us get clearly in mind that creation is not 
 yet completed; it is continually going on, 
 and when the understanding is more highly 
 developed, the same urge will not cause the 
 same result. When we understand how we 
 are all just in the process of making, it is an 
 easier matter to forgive if someone does what 
 at one time might have greatly offended us. 
 
 164 
 
r 
 
 THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 But when we stop to think that the reason 
 people do wrong is that their understanding 
 is not yet sufficiently enlightened to cause 
 them to do otherwise, the impulse we feel 
 toward them is not just to censure, but to 
 help. 
 
 To broaden your horizon and gain a more 
 comprehensive outlook on life, get acquainted 
 [With the literature of the New Thought, if 
 ty&& are not already familiar with it. This 
 $3f£w philosophy of life, or Truth, as it is 
 sometimes called, affords an uplift that will 
 change despondency to hope. But in saying 
 this it is also necessary to mention the fact 
 that there is much that may be found in 
 book stores under this general caption which 
 must be discriminated against as really harm- 
 ful. " Prove all things ; hold fast that which 
 is good." And among the diversity of 
 opinions, beware of the error that the whole 
 of life can be worked out on any two of the 
 three planes of our existence— -physical, 
 mental and spiritual. The writers who, 
 while no less spiritual, are also rational, and 
 recognize the divine and eternal purpose of 
 our triune nature, will be found most helpful 
 to read after; for a conception of the truth 
 
 165 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 no less broad than this is what must even- 
 tually bring order out of the confusion that 
 seems to exist in the minds of many authors, 
 and teachers of the Truth. 
 
 I have heard it said that one's intellect was 
 a hindrance to his understanding of the 
 Truth ! Of course the teacher who said this 
 was anxious to help those seeking light, but 
 did not in this case make a correct statement, 
 and such mis-statements are likely to be 
 very confusing and discouraging to some. 
 The failure to realize the value and impor- 
 tance of spiritual perception is a hindrance to 
 your advancement in the Truth, for this 
 transcends mere intellect, but even spiritual 
 perception could not function independently 
 of intellect. The two together might be 
 likened in a w&y to the powerful telescope in 
 the observatory — the intellect the bulky ma- 
 chinery that holds the lens in place, and 
 spiritual perception the lens itself — but it is 
 evident that either one without the other 
 would not be a perfect instrument. Our 
 intellect is of God just as much as any other 
 part of us, and was given to us to use. The 
 point is to use it to the highest purpose, and 
 develop spiritual perception by going at times 
 
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THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 into the Silence, quieting the physical senses 
 as far as possible, and letting the mind retire 
 to the stillness within. Then listen to be 
 taught of the Spirit concerning the truth of 
 life, and carry this knowledge back to the 
 outer consciousness, until more and more the 
 whole mind becomes illumined by the light 
 within. Thus grows the sum of our knowl- 
 edge of the Truth— the Truth which trans- 
 forms men — the Truth (facts) which we shall 
 know that will make us free. 
 
 And do not fail to study the Bible for its 
 deeper meaning. Your eyes will surely be 
 opened, and }^ou will realize as never before 
 how plainly God is speaking to his children 
 through this wonderful Book. This is where 
 my beloved fellows of the liberal faith have 
 thus far fallen short. In their interpretation 
 of the Bible they have done nobly in defend- 
 ing the name of God from infamy, and one 
 would think that glorious Credo a compen- 
 dium of Holy Writ, but they have missed the 
 pulse of life that makes alive those pages, in 
 having failed to. listen for the heart that 
 throbs beneath the symbols. 
 
 If people would but realize that what Jesus 
 taught us is the way to transform this life, 
 
 167 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 making it continuous and eternal, they would 
 get the full benefit of his teachings; and all 
 the years of man's life after he has reached 
 a certain age would not be wasted, and effort 
 for continued growth, attainment and service 
 paralyzed by the thought of approaching 
 old age and death, instead of the gradual 
 transformation towards the spiritual body 
 and the paradise awaiting him, which he 
 should willingly forego until his services to 
 those of earth who are following on, and 
 earth's service to him is complete. 
 
 No one who has faith in the glories of the 
 heavenly life would wish to linger indefinitely 
 on earth in age and decrepitude. Far better 
 lay down the worn out instrument and be 
 rid of it under such conditions. Indeed a 
 little short-sighted selfishness might cause us 
 to want to depart in early life to that fair 
 home, leaving behind the toil and stress of 
 earth. But we all have lessons that must be 
 mastered on this earth plane, and we may as 
 well continue to apply ourselves to the work 
 now until we have finished it. More than 
 this, the world needs to be made over. 
 People on earth need all the help that can 
 come to them from those who have grown 
 
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THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 wise, and capable of giving saving help ; and 
 the ability to retain youth and vigor while 
 knowledge and experience valuable to man- 
 kind are accumulated year after year by 
 benefactors of the race, instead of such pur- 
 suits and services being cut short by death, 
 can readily be seen. This, far more than the 
 beautiful thought of the continuity of life, is 
 the real value of this knowledge. 
 
 Eternal life and abundant happiness and 
 prosperity are promised as the blessings of 
 the covenant, to which Jesus tells us we 
 shall attain by keeping his saying. In other 
 words, keeping Jesus' saying — earnestly try- 
 ing to practice his teachings, not just knowing 
 them — will cause us to be able to obtain the' 
 blessings of the covenant through the only 
 way which insures them in full measure ; that 
 is, the possession of the spiritual power to 
 recognize the soul of which one's soul is a 
 part. 
 
 Until men realize that their bodies and all 
 their bodily functions are holy, and to be 
 used as "HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD" 
 (LAW), they will continue to lay down the 
 physical body after a certain number of years, 
 and if they have not worked out all of life's 
 
 J 69 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 lessons sufficiently well to satisfy the Spirit 
 within them, they will reincarnate and come 
 back to earth to work out their experience in 
 matter until they have conquered it — 
 brought it into subjection to the Spirit. But 
 as the spiritual senses of individuals become 
 sufficiently developed for them to be re- 
 united with their soul complements, their 
 bodies may live in continual youth, becom- 
 ing lighter and less burdensome, eventually 
 drawing nourishment from the air, and 
 warmed by their own electrical vitality, as 
 they are gradually released from heavy phys- 
 ical material and approach nearer to the 
 spiritual body, the vibratory rate of which 
 makes its more etherial substance invisible to 
 the physical eye. But the development of 
 the spiritual powers through altruistic love 
 must come first, simply because it is only by 
 means of them that we can obtain this bless- 
 ing. This is wherein God is the Lord (Good 
 is the Law). God tells us that every knee 
 shall bow, and every tongue confess, and with 
 this new understanding of the truth, it is as 
 if He had added the final Q.E.D. to the 
 proposition which He has been demonstrating 
 through all time. 
 
 170 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 Ere this the thought has doubtless been 
 in the minds of many of my sisters: "What 
 assurance can I have that my mate is living 
 in the world today?" This, however, is a 
 question that no one can answer definitely 
 for you, and there is no way for you to 
 answer it until you may be drawn to that 
 mate and the right spiritual conditions give 
 rise to the necessary knowledge. Then you 
 'will know, and will know that you know. 
 Your mate may not be living. He may have 
 passed on before you; but even if for this 
 cause, or any cause whatsoever, the happiness 
 of perfect companionship be deferred to the 
 spiritual state of existence, is it not a great 
 deal to know that it awaits you somewhere 
 in your ascending career when all conditions 
 are right? On the other hand, there is no 
 more reason to think that one's mate is not 
 living than that he is. The probabilities are 
 that most of the people alive today could be 
 truly mated if they were sufficiently developed 
 spiritually to recognize each other; but this 
 great problem can only be worked out by 
 individual devotion to duty and high ideals. 
 To be right in all ways should be our first 
 concern, and only through our efforts to this 
 
 J71 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 end are we lifted above the physical and men- 
 tal, to the spiritual heights where the Law 
 works unobstructed and adjusts this relation 
 as originally planned, whether it be for us in 
 this life or after we have passed out of this body . 
 
 When all conditions are right there will be 
 evidence which will convince you beyond any 
 doubt, for it will be more conclusive than 
 the customary feeling of fondness for another 
 which is usually accepted as sufficient ground 
 for marriage. Never proceed on the sup- 
 position that someone is your mate until all 
 doubt has been removed by this proof. With 
 it will come "rest unto your soul' '—its tire- 
 less quest rewarded — -and you would be will- 
 ing on the strength of this assurance to pass 
 cheerfully this way alone, if for any cause 
 this might be necessary, rather than be united 
 with any other. 
 
 Beyond this I may not tell you. If I did 
 it would fail to be a sign unto you. Or, to 
 state it differently, it would disqualify you 
 for recognizing this evidence from the Spirit. 
 Further, things of such inviolably sacred 
 nature may not be bandied about in print. 
 This, when it comes, will reveal to you what 
 I mean by the soul of the Name. 
 
 172 
 
THE WAY OP ATTAINMENT 
 
 Do not be tempted foolishly to seek advice 
 from fortune-tellers or mind-readers, or even 
 friends; for this assurance you may have 
 that when all conditions are right, every 
 lingering doubt will be removed through 
 your own interior powers, and depending on 
 any source of information except your own 
 awakened spiritual senses, will only delay 
 your development. No power outside of 
 yourself can give you correct information in 
 regard to this matter. It will come to you 
 directly from the Spirit if the one in question 
 is your mate, and you walk close enough to 
 God to understand his thought. 
 
 So do not seek a proof, for it will come all 
 unsought under the right conditions. Relieve 
 your mind of it entirely; be grateful that 
 God has made you for such happiness, and 
 go about your living with the definite assur- 
 ance that it is worth while to be your highest 
 self under every circumstance. And be 
 cheered by the thought that every battle 
 fought and won in your own soul has helped 
 some other one, perhaps tired and disheart- 
 ened, also to win; for thus is all the world 
 knitted together by "the penetrating, radiating 
 power of thought. 
 
 173 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 There should be men whose hearts are 
 pure enough and courage strong enough to 
 unify and teach this truth, with precept 
 emphasizing the necessity for scrupulous per- 
 sonal examination, and self reliance in the 
 matter of spiritual advancement, for this is 
 the gospel that must be preached in all the 
 world to every creature. But let any such 
 beware lest they make known the finished 
 mystery without emphatic warning to all 
 men; for should the mass of men who might 
 be incapable of appreciating the spiritual 
 purport of this message — whose stage of 
 development enables them to understand only 
 the physical element of this function — think 
 that because the sex power is thus approved 
 of God, that it means less of self control 
 instead of more, and abandon themselves to 
 the thought of the physical, even in one- 
 instance of cohabitation, they would, because 
 of the capacity of the masculine body, 
 surely bring upon themselves the torments 
 spoken of in Revelation IX, which stands 
 as a warning for safe-guard against the 
 revealing of this truth of which I speak. 
 The language is figurative, but the physical 
 torment (through the power of thought to 
 
 174 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 effect chemical change in physical tissue) 
 would be real. 
 
 Do not think Revelation to be merely an 
 altered Jewish apocalypse, but hear the word 
 as written: "I Jesus have sent mine angel 
 to testify unto you these things in the 
 churches (avenues of approach to God, 
 whether individual or universal). I am the 
 root and the offspring of David, and the 
 bright and morning star." Revelation is a 
 disclosing of the divine mysteries, and a 
 prophecy written after Jesus' time — a store- 
 house of information which only the "key of 
 the house of David" will unlock. It is a 
 masterpiece of symbolism, some of its most 
 terrorizing imagery being simply statements 
 of inspiring truths. However, the reference 
 to the 9th chapter should be heeded as I 
 have cautioned you. I beg each man in- 
 dividually not to think this merely speculation, 
 nor that I am surely cautioning some one 
 else. I mean every man. I HAVE WARNED 
 YOU. And let each reader make it his 
 personal care to communicate no discon- 
 nected part of this information to anyone 
 without the accompanying warning I have 
 given. 
 
 175 
 
THE SEVENTH SEAL 
 
 The curtain thus drawn aside, affords a 
 long look ahead. We see God's plan for the 
 continuity of life, and a paradise of happiness 
 eventually for every soul; we see the hopes 
 and aspirations of youth, and the desire for 
 the cultivation of our God-given faculties not 
 abandoned in discouragement if unfulfilled 
 in early years, but enriched and ennobled 
 by experience and increasing knowledge of 
 the Truth, and inspired by the thought of 
 opportunity for continuous development 
 along all lines, being realized in greater meas- 
 ure with the added years. For we find the 
 road leads not to the crest of the hill for 
 half the way, and then dow r n on the other 
 side, but is an ever ascending path that 
 grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect 
 day, when "The kingdoms of this world are 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
 Christ/ ' 
 
 It is of perfected earthly conditions that 
 the vision is related in Revelation XXI, 
 when this tabernacle of God will be with men. 
 Notice it is to be with men, not referring to a 
 state of existence with which we are not 
 familiar, and the promise is that there shall 
 be no more death. The promises have been 
 
 176 
 
THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 preserved for us, secure against attack, 
 through our long night of misunderstanding; 
 let us now go forth into the glad morning of 
 the new day just dawning, cheered and re- 
 freshed by the reasonableness of the hope for 
 conditions of life and happiness on this earth 
 that have hitherto been thought too ideal to 
 be made real. 
 
 1 'And I heard a great voice out of heaven 
 saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with 
 men, and he will dwell with them, and they 
 shall be his people, and God himself shall be 
 with them and be their God. And God shall 
 wipe away all tears from their eyes; and 
 there shall be no more death, neither sorrow 
 nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
 pain : for the former things are passed away. ' ' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 177 
 
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