CHAPTER I.

Creation.
The allegory of Creation contained in the open- ing chapters of Genesis is worthy of careful consider- ation, if for no other reason than that it is the effort of a thoughtful mind to explain the unexplainable. The fact that God spake the world into existence is made possible of acceptance by the under- standing, through recent discoveries in hypnotism, Where suggestion by word, or unspoken thought, is found to be the moving factor in hallucinations, and in causing or healing disease. The power and in- fluence of a word, which is a symbol of thought, in its action and reaction, is beyond calculation.
" In the beginning was the Word " ; that is, the Word is the beginning of expression or manifesta- tion, which is synonymous with " Creation." Thought without expression, like faith without works, is dead, or unmanifest ; but the expression of thought is not limited to concrete manifestation.
" In the beginning was the Word an4 the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the same was in the beginning with God." This declaration of John is philosophical, for the
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Word is the seed from which all things are pro- duced. Spiritually considered, a man's word is himself ; the beginning and substance of his man- hood.
The psychological influence of a man's words upon himself, too often unconsidered, is enormous. In fact they are his creator. He who thinks a lie vitiates every atom of his body and plants the seeds of disease and death.
Note the influence of heartfelt, earnest prayer on the believer, as well as on those who listen. For the time it reconstructs and rearranges the atoms of soul and body ; but the word, the symbol, without the vitality of the thought it represents, is void of power.
The Creative Word had a deeper meaning than the vocal expression of thought ; it is impossible to conceive of Deity as speaking in this sense of the word. There was never a "beginning" of any- thing except in appearance, and it was on the ap- pearance of the world out of the Invisible that the assumption in Genesis is based, and from this arose the concept of a supernatural being speaking to himself the command, " Let there be light ! "
What was that power which held light fast-locked in primordial darkness awaiting the divine com- mand to appear t It was Chaos, the primal Disor- der, that enveloped all, that was all, when "the earth was without form and void."
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What was the nature of that light which first glowed on and brooded over the world's expanse ? It was the Christ spirit^ the Builder, the Word, the Seed^ poured out from the Father into the womb of Chaos, the primitive Mother. " In the beginning was the Word [ Seed ] and the Word was with God [ the Seed was with Love ] and the Word was God [ the Seed was Love ]." This is in harmony with Nature, as we know her laws, and their operation. The Seed of Creation was the first cell of a geo- metrically progressive series in Nature, for nothing is madcy all things grow. The Word is prolific ; the parent of progress, of art, of literature, of ideas, the beginning of speech, the center from which flows all external manifestation. It is like a grain of corn in which is stored the food supply of millions. The grain parts with its form and disappears in the darkness of the moist earth, there to divide itself, project from itself whole fields of com.
The word or seed is a universal spirit, the life and light of the world, and it " becomes flesh " in every person born on the earth. In Genesis that personal form of its appearance out of the invisible is named " Adam." Adam was and is the Univer- sal Christ, which, being made flesh, is particled or individualized, thus creating in man a living soul. " The Word became flesh and dwelt among us " ; these bodies are temples of the living God, who is Love, or The Seed.
14 Regeneration.
Love is the door through which the invisible enters the visible, and puts on the garments of fleshly appearance. The Great Spirit being All, to "create" anything must be to make it from himself; hence in the creation of man he be- comes human. Thus we see why Jesus, even if he were the Deity, in the sense many believe him to be, could truly style himself the Son of Man. The Word contains within itself the masculine and feminine potencies, and from it the soul is evolved.
The life of seed is Spirit, and the seed that ges- tates the astral form, which lives on after the death of the flesh, is the spirit of our words. As already stated, words or suggestions mentally expressed exercise a potent creative influence, bringing into manifestation that which was hitherto unknown, and un create. When God said **Let there be light," some- thing not before manifest appeared, and the creation of the universe was begun. Darkness is uncreate ; it was and is an effortless, primordial, formless spirit holding in solution all forms. This, too, is God, for he is All.
Prior to creation there could have been no an- tagonisms — only an universal oneness of sub- stance, perfect, silent, dark, homogeneous ; not a thingy but all things in essence. Creation divided the 010 into the many, separating the seed, the liv- ing jWhciple from the substance, which remains as primordial darkness. " God created the heavens
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and the earth," — the light and the darkness, spirit and form, but he is between them, even as the soul in man is between spirit and body, looking both ways, the center of action and reaction. So we see in Creation itself the godhead revealed in a trinity of expression ; Fatfier, Mother, Offspring ; in other words, Masculine, Feminine, Love, — the seed of manifestation evolved from the action and reaction of these principles.
The light which was separated from the dark- ness was the Astral Light, that impenetrable, all-pervasive substance which, obedient to a sug- gestion, will manifest in material form, as when the multitude was fed by Jesus, or when Elisha increased the store of oil in the widow's cruse. So, today, the fakirs of India cause a mango tree to spring from the seed and bear fruit in an hour. The manna of the Jews was a form of astral light ; the body of Jesus was composed of it, and he could with truth declare that he was the bread that came down from heaven. Bread is made from grain, a form of seed, and all matter is spirit having a slow rate of vibration. The real value of food is not in its bulk, flavor, or taste; but in the volume of its spirit, or life, that we are able to appropriate. The doctrine of transubstantiation is based on the power of spirit to materialize itself. Meat does not give life; it is the spirit of the meat that sustains spirit, or life in us — that spirit which is the seed of
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the body, the " Word that maketh whole," or that poisons the entire being, bringing forth disease, crime, and death.
The Word, which is God, is made flesh in man ; but man being also able to create, or bring into manifestation, has brought that flesh to putrefaction and decay, by profaning God, who dwells within and without all things. If he curse his brother, it is tantamount to cursing God in himself, for he and his brother are one in God.
Certain thinkers ascribe personality to God ; but how is that possible } No one in thought, even, can transcend nature. No picture can be made by thought, word, or pencil, of a void or expanse in which nothing exists ; such a void is beyond the power of the mind to comprehend, because where nature is, there must be objects, forms. So if God exists he must be a natural God, but tran- scendently natural.
Mind cannot conceive of a Maker without a pur- pose; purpose involves will, and will admits an op- posing force. There is then something to over- come which requires Intelligence, or Wisdom ; Wisdom admits of mistakes, imperfection. Will, so far as we know, cannot be without an opposing force, and there must be some state, condition, principle, or object to be wise about.
Still God exists ; but he exists /;/ the things t/iat are. He is the actuating principle. He is
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the thing itself, and further, He is the oversoul in which everything has its being. He is triune in all manifestation ; the object, its motion, and the medium in which it moves, Space or the Oversoul.
Motion inheres in that which encloses, or com- prehends. To comprehend is to surround, to be greater. No one can comprehend that which is greater than himself. Mind comprehends; mind creates ; mind is thp motive power in motion. To it belong Will, Wisdom, and Love. Are these principles within us, or are we immersed in an ocean of spirit of which these principles are the constituent elements.? It is said: "The highest knowledge possible to man is a knowledge of God." The only way to that knowledge is to find him in the soul. Self -study discloses the mind within the body and the soul within the mind. Soul is mys- tery, not seen, but felt, and known to the conscious- ness chiefly Vhen it has overpowered the mind and become the ruling factor in the life.
The mind is like a radiant, brilliant, far-flashing light of varying colors, imprisoned in an opaque substance which may be defined as dormant, un- awakened, or unappropriated thought. In the center of the mind, this flashing, scintillating light, is the soul, dark, silent, unknown, a fragment of that mysterious infinite night, the unknown, unex- plored Oversoul of the universe. That which is
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uncomprehended by us is dark. The soul is so little known that its existence is often doubted or denied ; it is scouted as less than a phantom in airless space.
The nature of each soul is the same, because each soul is a fragment of the Oversoul, all incom- prehensible and, therefore, dark to us. Soul is feminine, and its offspring is the masculine mind ; a spark struck out by effort from the opaque wall of matter surrounding it. It is like a chick that breaks the shell of the egg in search of light and another life. Every effort, every thought strikes sparks of fire from the impenetrable Oversoul, which, adding themselves to the mind, increase its light. The Oversoul may be likened to a granite wall whose substance is fossilized thought, the petrified re- mains of all that has been, or is, or can be. Out of such fragments as we can possess ourselves of in our explorations, we construct our monuments of art, science, and literature. This wall of dormant thought or matter imprisons the mind within us. We may look out of our prison, but we behold only forms of matter. We clothe our thought with it, and God himself is generally conceived of as an embodied mind.
Man is ever essaying, with mental pick and crow- bar, to demolish his prison wall and be free ; he styles this proceeding, "scientific analysis." Its efforts are directed mainly to disintegrate and dissect the
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wondrous structure and properties of the outer walls. It rarely turns toward the study of the marvelous nature of the spark within, which lights this structure.
The soul is so much greater than the mind, that it cannot be comprehended by mental effort. This opaque spot within the mind reveals itself as infinite. The soul expands as the light of mind increases, and in its expansion the consciousness gets glimpses beyond the horizon of the mind. ' The material wall disappears and the soul mingles its essence with the universal soul ; the mind is swallowed up, thought ceases, and intuitive percep- tion takes its place with an influx of power. The soul and mind in union become the oversoul of the individual cosmos. There is then no need to " take thought for the morrow,'* for all the machinery of life becomes automatic, self-regulating, arid demand and supply are equal, while through the door which opens Godward we pass, and bask in the smiles of Infinite Love.
"God is Love." He fills and surrounds all things : there is no room in him for hatred or any passion. Love demands an object and, being Ally God loves himself. Creation is his family ; his acts are his children. He loves and provides for the least and the greatest equally, for with him is no great nor small. The ego, the self, the soul, is the noumena back of all phenomena, underived,
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free, possessor of all things which it can compre- hend, and the victor in all strivings and effort. God works unremittingly, eternally, and woric is the only happiness, and the only salvation, — the evidence of God within.
God peoples the universe with his offspring, his acts. And our acts people the cosmos of which we are rulers and makers. God*s acts are perfect ; the smallest thing in creation reflects him as com- pletely as the building of a system of worlds; but our children, our acts, are weaklings ; deficient, in- complete, deformed, of which we are heartily ashamed for the most part, and which we would gladly hide and forget if we could. We repent be- cause we know there is greater excellence, a higher way, something above us to which we may and ought to attain. But there is nothing above God ; his work is perfect ; the crooked tree is a perfect crooked tree ; the deformed thing is perfect in de- formity. Each object fits into its niche perfectly.
We travel different roads to perfection. The great purpose in creation seems to be individualiz- ation. If the Great Designer had meant that all should express the lines of the same mold, then the perfection of monotony would prevail. The place and period of perfection is here and now, and its distant seeming is but the mirage to lure us to effort, by creating unrest and dissatisfaction with the present attainment.
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Because we are cowardly and weak, our faces are turned away from God. But where shall we find him ? Look yourself squarely in the face. Search out your offspring, your acts, and see what you have created. Is there loveliness or perfection in them ? No ! God viewed in your mirror is a monstrosity. If life has been given to violence and hatred, there is nothing lovely in the children brought forth.
*' Except ye be born again, ye can not see the kingdom of God'' Regeneration is the open door through which all must pass who enter that king- dom. Viewed in that mirror which reflects only order and beauty, the most deformed child of the soul becomes an image of beauty, a link in the divine chain of being, something without which that self-knowledge which is God-knowledge is im- possible to man. The kingdom of heaven is peace, love, perfection, and it is in the soul of all things. Search for it, strive for it earnestly. Watch and pray to enter into its glory.
Creation, then, is conceived of as the union of sexual potencies, of the positive and negative principles of Deity in activity, — impregnating, con- ceiving, and bringing forth the visible universe.