And so we come to our GPC Servers Training Class of June 3rd, 1953. We continue with our basic theme of magic. I wonder if any of you have felt any pressures of any sort since yesterday's class? A few of you indicate that you have. That is to be expected. We have been moving forward in the pattern of the contest. Remember this: We did not ask for this contest. From the standpoint of deity we did not ask man to fall. From the standpoint from which we function we did not ask man to resist the patterns of deity for twenty thousand years. From our standpoint we did not ask man to crucify our LORD and KING. From our standpoint we did not require that there should be any Gethsemane for Him. But there was, and when He drew His last conscious breath upon the cross, lapsed into coma, the command of the battle passed to other hands than His, hands dedicated to His cause. And we are here because of that.
Our purpose is to quell the revolution; for there have been those, and there are those, who revolted against the Kingdom of our KING and they have said in their hearts that they could succeed in their revolution and maintain their rebellion. But it is not so. Our KING g has been long-suffering and He has been patient, that any and all who would yield and respond might not perish because of the rebellion but rather respond and become citizens of the Kingdom. So we have not sought the battle that looms before us; it has come to us unbidden, as it is put in the Gita, "glorious and fair.” And when the pressures come it is time to give thanks unto God and to be thankful that the revolution of the rebellious ones cannot be maintained forever. The battle is being joined individually and on many fronts—the pattern of the world situation, all of the things that are at work in the world, on both sides. Those who at any level stand for that which they recognize to be right under God are a part of this in which we are engaged.
As you have begun to recognize, the adversary is versed in some of the distorted and reversed principles of magic up to a point, but within the realms of the revolt. They do not know and cannot know, they do not use and cannot use, the Divine form of magic which is granted to our use. So remember this whenever pressures appear, hold center and give thanks to God for the battle that is drawn. And remember what I have emphasized several times: It is not your business to contend with the black magicians or the patterns of black magic in the world; it is for you to remain centered and hold steady under pressure, for if there be no pressure there can be no victory.
If there be the manifestation of the power of the unreal in the world, the power in us must mount to a higher point than that power, and there can be no manifestation of power without pressure. These are unnatural and abnormal pressures because of the situation in the world mirage and the realm of illusion. But the things of this realm of illusion must pass away and those who are subject to them must make a choice and choose whom they will serve.
We have been using the Old Testament patterns to provide you with a setting for the true working of the power of God, true principles of magic, and so that you could more readily feel and know the fact that you are in eternity and that which was true two thousand years ago or four thousand years ago is true today, so that you may function from the standpoint of eternity and not from the standpoint merely of a moment of time in the cycle outworking, not limited to the concepts of a short cycle of existence on this earth. And you may recognize that the longings of your heart which would avoid the pressures that arise are legitimate; for we all long for that day when the Prince of Peace shall rule supreme upon the earth. But do not let them be used by the adversary to make you turn from the fray, or to yield your place of responsibility; for that would only prolong the agony and bring havoc to yourself and to others. We are not here to play children's games. We are here to be men and women, citizens of the Kingdom in the service of our KING.
Yesterday the world witnessed the pageantry, the symbolism, and the depth of meaningfulness in the hearts of millions inherent in the crowning of a queen, a queen in one of the realms of this world—and it is well. But if there be anything symbolical and meaningful in that, it suggests how much more meaningful is our endeavor which shall return this world to the Kingdom of our KING. In this pattern of outworking you will begin to see that the Book of Revelation in particular—the whole Bible is a Book of Magic, the magic of God's Love, the magic of Truth and the magic of Life—but the Book of Revelation in particular is a Book of Magic. The world patterns of black magic go back, as you have noted in our previous meditations, to the “Egyptian Book Of The Dead”. But the patterns of Divine Magic, which may in a limited sense be called White Magic—I have used that term only to convey an idea—consider not the book of the dead but the Book of Life, and the principles of that Divine Magic are outlined for us in the Book of Revelation; it is a Book of Magic. I would read to you a few words:
“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”
Now we have been watching that process for the past several hundred years, the processes of deception in the four quarters of the earth. In that period man became aware of the four quarters of the earth. He populated and supposedly civilized the earth. And the processes of deception have been at work in all nations of the earth, in the four quarters of the earth, and we see that this process of deception has penetrated into all of the religious beliefs, all of the concepts and philosophies and patterns of life. Speaking of black magic, we could point to the fact that Luther, Martin Luther, was one of the outstanding black magicians of the past centuries. That might seem to be a shocking statement, but if you examine history, if you examine the record, you will find that he was much concerned about devils, about the devil, that he was much concerned with what he conceived to be contests with the devil. We have the traditional statement that on one occasion when the devil appeared to him he threw an inkwell at the devil. And we recall that he took the attitude that there was no good thing in the flesh; the physical body as such was evil.
Now that is one of the basic precepts of black magic. Wherever you find anyone teaching, as it is put in the Roman Catholic Church, for instance, that the body is subject to what is classified as original sin, [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/universal-pattern-universal-priesthood.html] there you have one of the basic precepts of black magic, one of the basic essentials to the working of black magic. We might note that from the standpoint of the relatively higher developments of black magic the greatest and most powerful organization in the world in that regard is the Roman Catholic Church; it is an outstanding manifestation of black magic, and we see it penetrating into all religions, including the so-called Protestant religions. As long as the Protestant religions have no more of a firm foundation than to protest against something in the Roman Catholic religion, they are subject to the Roman Catholic religion. So the so-called Protestant churches of today are part of the Roman Catholic Church, even those who are most violently opposed to the Roman Catholic Church.
You will recall that in one of the texts I read to you recently there was mention in connection with the great whore: "The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.” Now there are certain religions—specifically we might mention the Seventh-Day Adventists—who take the attitude that the woman is the Roman Catholic Church and that the seven mountains here referred to are the seven mountains of Rome. That is their interpretation of that text. You can find all kinds of concepts and beliefs, turning this way and that, but that is not what it means. These seven mountains may be symbolized by the seven mountains of Rome, but let us not call them the seven mountains of Rome; there is much more to it than that. Just as surely as Martin Luther came out of one of the world's greatest organizations established in black magic, one of the greatest that the world has ever known—and he was, to begin with, a black magician, even in his protesting; we find him fighting with the devil, and as he was fighting with the devil he was subject to the devil; if he had not been subject to the devil there would have been no need for him to fight with the devil, remember that!—just so we find the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which is always talking about how terrible the Roman Catholic Church is, is subject to the Roman Catholic Church. Up and down the line!
This process of deception has been going on for quite a while. “And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.” Now sometimes human beings try to figure out of what nation Gog and Magog are. There have been those who decided that Gog must have been Hitler in Germany, and Magog must be Stalinist Russia. All kinds of concepts and beliefs have come out of the various vain imaginings of the evil hearts of men trying to understand the Book of Magic and not knowing the keys to an understanding thereof. But Gog and Magog are everywhere, and never assume that it means one nation somewhere. The factors and principles of Gog and Magog may come to focus in nations; as we see the black magic patterns in Russia, that is a focus of Gog and Magog. But what is Gog and Magog? Briefly, the physical (or material) and mental (or intellectual) levels in the self-active pattern of humanity. Wherever there is self-activity of body or mind in any man or woman, or in any group, that is Gog and Magog.
"And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.”
And you say, “Well this must be talking about the battle of Armageddon.” And you have heard people say, “Well maybe the last war was going to be the battle of Armageddon. Look what a big war it was.” And there were people who thought the so-called First World War was the battle of Armageddon. And there are people who say, “Well now if there is a war, that certainly is going to be the battle of Armageddon. If the Korean incident spreads and involves the whole world in conflict, that will be the battle of Armageddon.” And they are all wrong. It will not be the battle of Armageddon. What is the battle of Armageddon? What does Armageddon mean? Any of you know? Well we will pass that for the moment. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/by-thy-wordsarmageddon.html]
“And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
There is the final outworking, in symbolical language, with respect to that Program in which we are engaged. There is the climax of this contest in magic. Now of course human beings have tried to picture it on the basis of a little camp of saints out here somewhere—as far as the Seventh-Day Adventists are concerned it will be Adventists; as far as the Baptists are concerned it will be a little bunch of Baptists out here somewhere; the Methodists, a little bunch of Methodists, and so on you go. It would be too bad for everybody else. But in any case “the camp of the saints” will not be limited to one spot geographically. The camp of the saints. Who are the saints? You know, it is an interesting thing that under the black magic pattern of the Roman Catholic Church all the saints are dead, and you cannot become a saint until two or three hundred years after you are dead, at the very earliest—maybe five hundred years! The idea of a living saint? Oh, they begin to have the potentiality of sainthood while they live, but they never become saints while they live! The idea of a living saint? “All the saints who were living were back in the Master's time,” or something like that. How about some living saints instead of some dead saints? Are we concerned about the Book of Life or about the book of the dead?
So we are concerned about the workings of magic, and everything is magic. Human beings begin to take their blessings for granted; they cease giving thanks to God; they lose the Magic of Life and it turns into a humdrum existence. They begin to lose the Magic of Life because they have started to lose the Magic of Love and Truth, and then the colors are dulled round about, the beauties of the sunset are hardly noticed, the blessings which God has provided day by day are either taken for granted or ignored utterly, and lo, the Magic of Life is gone. So the individual is under the magic of death, the black spell of the grim reaper; for there are only two kinds of magic and no halfway realm between. It is a thin line between them. Not a broad expanse of no-man's-land, just a thin line; and you are on one side or the other with respect to every word and thought and deed.
If the Magic of Life is gone and things look dull and discouraging and the expression of existence is in the realm of rebellion and resentment, what do we have? The magic of death. And the magic of death appears by reason of what? By reason of the magic of hate and the magic of lies or falsity. Black magic has a triangle too. One point of that triangle is hate; another is lies or falsity; and the apex, the focalization of that, is death. There are only two magic triangles in the basic sense. There are many applications of those triangles, but in the basic sense there are only two magic triangles: one of Divine Magic, Love and Truth which come to focus in Life; and the other, hate and falsity, which come to focus in death. That is getting it down to the skeleton, to the bare factors, so that we can see it for what it actually is, without regard to the clothing or the shroud, or the appearance, or the mirage, or the illusion, or the delusion—to see it for what it is so that we can know it and remember it. And blessed ones, until we reach a point in dedication where there is one thing that means more to us than anything else, there is going to be a tendency to waver back and forth across that line, and wavering across that line is extremely dangerous. One might waver the wrong way once too often and never come back, and that is tragedy. There must be a dedication to one thing: that this earth, every part and parcel of it, shall be restored to the government of the Kingdom of our KING
I have had people say to me, “Well I don't see why you are concerned about saving human beings. Look what kind of creatures they are.” And basically I am not concerned about saving human beings. Basically I am concerned about serving my KING and restoring His Kingdom, and if I am going to serve my KING and restore His Kingdom to Him it will be a rather meaningless, empty gesture if there are no citizens in the Kingdom. So I want some people in it. So, incidentally, we will save some human beings. I have had people say to me, “I don't like pressure.” Well that depends. In the Divine Pattern of creative function there is pressure, but it always brings joy and pleasure and ecstasy and a realization of fulfilment and accomplishment. So there are those pressures which are of the Divine Pattern. But in this contest in which we are engaged there are pressures which none of us like. I have never felt any pressure from the pattern of the unreal realm that I liked, but liking it or not is beside the point; I thank God for it because it gives me an opportunity to do something.
If I couldn't work out a pattern in the realm of Divine Magic so that there would be pressure, an opposition from the realm of the black magicians, I would never get anywhere, I would never accomplish anything; and neither would you. I have no desire to drift for eternity in a senseless sea where nothing matters. So whether we like it or not is beside the point. From the standpoint of what we are going to accomplish we like it; not because we like the feel of the pressures as they are—they are not nice, they have all kinds of nasty things in them and we do not like them as such—but we thank God for them and we like them because this is a part of the way by which we get the job done. So we thank God.
As the Master said, “When men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake, rejoice, and be exceeding glad.” Don't say, “Well I don't like this. I don't like the accusations. I don't like the other thing.” Rejoice and be exceeding glad. That is the attitude that the Master told us to take, so let us take it. But let us note something very, very carefully: Any human being who can be enticed into fighting against the devil becomes subject to the devil, The devil has two primary policies: one, to make you crawl in subservient submission; failing that, to make you fight him. Either way you are doomed and damned.
We talk about a contest. Now who was it that was gathering together to battle? Was the camp of the saints busy in battle preparations? “Oh my, we are going to fight now! We are going to have a chance to really fight with the devil!” No. Who was it that was gathered together? “And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle.” They were the ones who were moving to battle. “And they went up on the breadth of the earth [the whole earth], and compassed the camp of the saints about.” They were the ones who were going to battle, not the saints. There is a difference. As long as the devil can entice you to try to use the devil's methods in the service of God you are really serving the devil.
And that is where so-called Christianity has fallen down, because satan, going out to deceive the nations in the four quarters of the earth, has deceived in the realm of religion as well as in other realms, and the methods of the devil have been adopted for the so-called service of God. So, while human beings shout that they are going to serve God, and they presumably carry the banner of Jesus Christ, they are subject to the devil, serving the devil, using the devil's methods, and that is not serving God. Now you may say, “That sounds like a harsh indictment.” I have not made the indictment. Human beings themselves have made it upon themselves. These are the facts, not because I like it to be so, but we have to learn to face the truth, for only the truth can make us free. As long as we have some limited concepts in mind, believing those things that are false, we are a part of the wrong triangle.
What is it the Master said? “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” And truth is one corner of that triangle—love and truth. But you can think you love God and have that other corner which should be of truth established in false concepts or beliefs, because you may think it is an attitude of charity or understanding or consideration: “We just have to be considerate of these people. After all, they are good, earnest, sincere people.” They are. I am not saying anything against them. I am merely pointing out that instead of having the corner of the triangle established in truth it is established in false concept. And when you come right down to it, what is the primary feeling pattern in the so-called religions of the so-called Christian world? Love for God? or hate for the devil? Which goes deepest? Which one goes deepest?
The pattern in black magic is: one corner hate, any kind of hate, even hate for the devil. If you can be enticed into hating the devil or hating anyone or anything, you are in the wrong triangle. Hate, which is the focus of such things as resentment, fear, etc., rebellious attitudes of all kinds. We do not have to rebel or be rebellious. Why? We are the servants of our LORD and KING, and if we are not rebelling against Him we belong to His Kingdom and there is no necessity for us to be rebellious. About what? We are serving the KING. We are citizens of the Kingdom and we do not need to rebel against anything. We are not the ones who are rebelling. It is on the other side of the fence. They are rebelling against our KING. Let them do the rebelling. We do not have to rebel against them merely because they rebel against our KING. Stay centered in our KING and we do not have to rebel against anyone or anything.
If you begin to see this point you begin to have the secrets of victory; for if there is resentment, or a rebellious spirit, or fear, these are the things that come to focus in hate, and hate is one of the corners of the wrong triangle, the devil's triangle—black magic. The other one is false concept. And if you do not have false concept you certainly will not have fear; and if you have fear you certainly have false concept. So it comes to focus in death. We look out into the world and what is it that we see? Human beings subject to death. Their great certainty is death and taxes, while they exist. That is their great certainty. What is our certainty? God, life, the beauties of being, the enduring qualities of truth, the wonder of God's love, and the reality of the Book of Life. You begin to see the difference, so that you cannot be enticed into rebelling. Rebelling against what? The only direction in which you can rebel is against God; so if you rebel, you are rebelling against God, even if you think you are rebelling against the devil. You aren't.
So this contest—it is a battle, yes, and there are going to be pressures, yes, but are we going to fight with the devil's methods? If we are we are going to be subject to him. If he dictates our methods, our patterns and our programs, who is our KING, I ask you? Let us remember that we have a KING, and our KING has no need whatever of the devil's methods. Believe it or not, He can win the victory without the devil's help, without any of the devil's methods, without any of the devil's wisdom or knowledge or understanding, strange as it may seem. Take an honest look and you begin to see how human beings anticipate God's victory but they are going to have to work and be practical now, be practical and really get the job done in a hurry. “We will have to use some of the devil's methods to win the victory for God.” And you see it permeating practically every field of human endeavor, up and down the line.
To take the attitude that you have to fight against the devil, no matter what your religious concept or background or belief, what is it? You have to fight against the devil? It is a declaration, “I do not trust God. I do not know anything about the power of God.” For if God is Almighty, why should you be concerned about fighting the devil, unless you are subject to the devil? And if you are not subject to the devil you are subject to God; and if you are subject to God, He is Almighty and there is no necessity of fighting the devil. It is as simple as that. The way is easy and the burden is light. Once the human consciousness begins to let go to these basic truths of being, we begin to move into a realm where there can be victory after victory for our KING. Human beings have failed and fallen in various ways so often, bringing His name into disrepute, to make it appear to the children of men that if you want to be on the victorious side join up with the devil. There it is. What is our choice?
“Now,” you say, “it sounds to me like there is a contradiction somewhere. You say we are in a contest, and yet we are not going to fight with the devil. How is that?” There is a battle drawn. You know, I am going to let you in on a very great secret; it is very simple, and I trust you have realization enough to appreciate it. There is a battle drawn in the four quarters of the earth; the nations have been deceived and they are gathering together to battle against the camp of the saints. There is going to be a battle, a contest; there is a contest now. If we stop fighting with the devil and so function that it makes the devil so afraid that he is going to start fighting with us, we have got him! You see? It is very simple. As long as he can make you afraid of him so you are fighting him, you are subject to him. Once you start serving God he begins to be afraid of you, so he forgets how effectively he has used this trick to delude human beings down through the ages and is driven by fear and desperation to fight with us. And God is Almighty.
Do we have to fight with the devil? Do we have to soil our hands by attempting some kind of a physical contest with the bloody demon? No! If we stand steady and are not afraid of him, if we are really serving God, we just love to see these servants of the devil gathering, sneaking up all around the camp of the saints. We watch them and let them come. Surely! Why not? They would not be trying to fight with us if they were not afraid of us, would they now? Would they not ignore us if they were not afraid of us? And if they are afraid of us there must be a reason. Let us not forget that reason: we are on God's side. So let them come. The more they sneak shows the more cowardly and afraid they are. After they get enough numbers, the whole breadth of the earth they are going to come up—all who refuse to respond and move toward citizenship in the Kingdom of God that is at hand. We will gather out of the world all who respond, but there will be a large rebellious army, and all patterns of rebellion are in the adversary's camp because our camp is that of the faithful servants of our LORD and KING. We have not rebelled against Him, and we are not rebelling against Him. And if we belong to Him there is no need to rebel against the devil, is there? No. We do not rebel at all. Rebellion is not necessary. Resentment is not necessary.
Should we resent? You know, speaking from the standpoint of inner being, the greatest test, shall we call it, that I ever faced was on that one point; the nearest I ever came to disobeying my KING was on that one point. Where I stood at the foot of the cross, I had watched the patterns of indignities human beings had heaped upon Him, and He had lost consciousness on the cross, gone into a deep coma, and the responsibility of what should be done was passed to my hands in that moment. And I almost let resentment against human beings and what they had done against my KING, the world of unreality that had treated Him so, against evil in all of its forms—I almost let it make me disobey. If I had, none of us would have been here; the world of humanity would not even be here. I could have annihilated the whole human race in that moment, the way the pattern was set. But what a futile thing that would have been. I would have been annihilated with it. What a terrible thing! On the face of it, it would have made everything that He did, His coming into the world and facing all these issues, to be absolutely worthless, absolutely futile, all in vain—that He should have been born and walked among men and proclaimed the truth, and all the things that He did, the way He had met the issues right down the line until He drew His last conscious breath upon the cross.
So, having passed that test in that moment, I cannot conceive of any other test. Why do all of these things in the world mean so little to me? Why the pressures? You say it has been patience. Yes, but I have been working for over twenty thousand years to achieve this result. The patience of an hour, a day, a few weeks, a few months or a year or two. Patience, yes. But why can these attitudes be maintained, as you have seen them done? Because having met that issue successfully there isn't anything on earth could make me feel like rebelling against humanity or against the devil or against the world of the unreal, or even resenting it. I despise it, the realm of the unreal—not the people in it, but the ugliness and the sordidness, the filth of it—but that does not mean that I resent. No! If you can be tricked into resenting, you are in that moment tricked into serving my adversary. And it does not make any difference what you think you are resenting; for the moment you give your heart and mind to resentment of anything, any person, any situation anywhere, that is one of the lines at least to the point of hate in the triangle of black magic, and moving toward that focus there are concepts and beliefs and ideas that are false in your mind, and you start saying things that are no more true than any of the devil's lies. So, immediately, you have a focus in the triangle of hate and false concept, and the other point of that triangle is death.
Our business is to help people over, over the line from one triangle to the other, where they may know the wonder of God's Love, the beauty of His Truth and the Glory of Life; for this is the Divine Creative Triangle of Heavenly Magic, the Magic of the Kingdom of Heaven that is at hand, the Magic of the Christ Spirit, through which our Master performed so-called miracles—the works of the Father made manifest, works which we are to do and which can be done in and through us if we remember who we are, where we are, and what direction we are moving, and to whom we belong. It might be well to remember that.
Always, if some feeling current, some deep impulse, wishes to take hold of your heart and to abide there, stop and look at it. You might be entertaining an evil spirit. But it is all right to entertain angels, the spirits of our LORD and KING, in your heart. If they fit the Creative Triangle of Heavenly Magic, let them in. If they don't, must you fight with them? If you do, you are subject to one of the devil's oldest tricks. He has a bagful of them. Most of them are basically the same, as I mentioned before with respect to black magic; but they have many different forms of manifestation. It is one of the devil's oldest tricks. Must you fight with the devil to escape from him and reach God the Almighty? You must think He is only partly mighty. He or she who has the courage as a man or a woman to turn his back on the devil and face God the Almighty finds that instead of providing a human shield to protect the devil from God he becomes an instrument through which the power of God works to meet the devil, and how the devil flees! As long as he can keep you fighting him he knows that God cannot do anything to him without hurting you, and God doesn't want to hurt you.
Respond to God the Almighty, stay centered, and the power of God begins to work through you, the Almighty Power of God. And O how the devil flees! So he will use every trick in his bag to keep you from doing the one thing that gives you freedom, the beauty of life, and lets the power of God work. We look out into the world and we see how satan has indeed deceived all nations in the four quarters of the earth. But when it comes to the contest in actual fact—whether it is you as a person, a small group, or all the responding ones on the face of the whole earth—when the devil becomes so afraid of you that he wants to fight with you, if you stay centered in God the power of the Almighty works through you, or as it is stated here, “And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” So let it be. Keep centered and remember your responsibility as a citizen of the Kingdom, a servant of the KING. Let us all be loyal. There is no place for traitors in the Kingdom of my KING.
