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In John 13:18 in our New Testament, it is
stated: "He that eats my bread hath lifted up his
heel against me." Luther, who translated it in
Germany, and was not tied up by any of the
restrictions of the translators of the King James'
Bible, put it: "He that eats my bread trampled upon
me." We do trample, at every step we take, upon the
Earth Spirit, and that Spirit's body and blood is
consumed among us, and that Spirit is waiting for
the day of redemption, when we shall be lifted so
far from our material conditions that it shall be
possible for the Earth Spirit to become liberated
from its present cramped and dense existence.
The Christ Spirit, then, is the first incoming
of a direct spiritual impulse. We know that at the
time when the Sun Spirit is in the northern regions
we have all the physical impacts upon the Earth. We
get all the good there is in the Sun along physical
lines; that is the time when the grain and the
grape are ripening, and when everything is bringing
forth in the Physical World. Then the spiritual
impulse is abrogated for the time being; but when
the Sun goes into the winter solstice in December,
the spiritual impulse is strongest. Also, we have
the spiritual impulse stronger in the night than in
the daytime, and we can see that at the time when
the days are shortest and the nights are the
longest--on that Holy Night that we speak of, when
the Christ was born, as a Sun, who was to lighten
our darkness--the spiritual influence is then
strongest and can be reached easiest. It was this
great truth that is at the bottom of the Star in
the Holy Night, illuminating the longest and
darkest night of the year.
In the olden times, before the Christ came,
only a chosen few could follow the path of
initiation. Nobody could seek that path except a
few chosen ones, such as were the priests and
Levites. These were brought to the temples and
there herded together. They were married to one
another in a certain way, certain people were mated
with a definite end in view, namely, that they
might develop the proper laxity between the vital
body and the dense body that is necessary to
initiation. A separation has to take place in order
that we may lift the two higher ethers out and
leave the other two. That could not be done with
ordinary humanity. They were yet much in bondage to
the desire body. They must wait until a later time.
Even with those people who were around the
temples, it was very dangerous work to free them.
It could be done best at certain times, and this
longest night was one of those times. When the
greatest spiritual impulse was here, they had a
better chance to get in touch with it than at any
other time of the year. So on the Holy Night which
we call Christmas, it was usual for the Wise Men
(those who were beyond the ordinary humanity) to
take the ones who were also becoming wise, and
therefore entitled to initiation, into the temples.
Certain ceremonies were performed and the
candidates were entranced. They could not at that
time be given an initiation in their full waking
state, it had to be done in trance. When the
spiritual perception was awakened in them, they
could look through the Earth, which became
transparent, as it were, and they saw the Star at
midnight, the spiritual Sun.
Do not think it shone only at that time. It is
easier now than then to see it, for when Christ
came He altered the vibrations of the Earth and has
been changing them all the time since. He "rent the
temple veil" - He made the Holy of Holies, the
place of Initiation, open to "Whosoever will!" From
that time on no more trance is needed, no more
subjective states in order to go through
initiation. There is a conscious going forth into
the Temple by everyone who wills to come.
We have one more thing to consider: the gifts
these wise men brought - the gifts that were to be
laid at the feet of the Savior. The legend tells us
that one brought gold, one brought myrrh, and the
third brought frankincense.
The gold we always hear spoken of in symbology
as the emblem of the Spirit. The Spirit is
symbolized thus in the Nibelungen Ring, for
instance. There in the opening scene we see the
Rhinegold. The river Rhine is taken as the emblem
of water, and there the gold is seen shining on the
rock, symbolizing the Universal Spirit in its
perfect purity. Later it is stolen and made into a
ring by Alberich, representing mankind in the
middle of Atlantis, when the Spirit had drawn into
them. Then the gold became debased, was lost, and
was the cause of all sorrow on the Earth. Later
still we hear of the alchemists who tried to
transmute base metal into gold; that is the
spiritual way of saying that they wanted to purify
the dense body, to refine it and extract the
spiritual essence.
Therefore, the gift of one wise man is the
Spirit. The next one brings myrrh. Myrrh is the
extract of an aromatic plant that grows in Arabia,
a very rare plant, very rare indeed. Therefore, it
symbolizes the thing that man extracts when he
cleanses himself. When he has cleansed his blood of
passion he becomes plant-like, chaste and pure.
Then his body is an aromatic essence. It is an
actual fact that there are men and women so holy
that they emit an aroma from them. It is said of
some of the saints, and it is true. Therefore, the
myrrh stands for that soul essence that is drawn
out of the experience of the body. It is the soul.
The third gift was incense. Incense is a
physical substance of a very light character that
is often used in religious services. It serves as
an embodiment for the ministering unseen forces,
and thus symbolizes the body.
This is the key to the three gifts that were
offered up by the Wise Men--the Spirit, the soul,
and the body. As Christ said, "If you want to
follow me, you must sell all you have. "You are not
to keep anything for yourself." You are to give up
body, soul, and Spirit, everything for the higher
life, everything for the Christ. Not to an exterior
Christ, however, but to the Christ within. The
three Wise Men are said in the legend to be yellow,
black, and white, representatives of the three
races that we have on Earth: the Mongolian, the
Negro, and the Caucasian. Therefore we see that it
is very well shown in the legend that eventually
they will all come into this beneficent Christ
religion. "To Him every knee shall bow." To Him
each one will in time be led by the Star.
1] What help did Jehovah and the archangels
render man in the middle third of Atlantis?
2] Why was it necessary that the Race
religions be abrogated and the Christ come?
3] How can man be a law unto himself?
4] Explain the difference between the
spiritual influences from Jehovah and those from
the Christ.
5] What vital difference did the coming of
the Christ make in regard to initiation?
6] State the difference between initiation
prior to the coming of Christ and afterward.
7] Explain the symbology of the Wise Men and
their gifts.
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