We have been considering the magic of life. And I would like in this hour to change our theme. I believe we have reached a point where we can do so and make it mean something. And so let us begin a little series of meditations on the Magic of Creation. When you first began your studies in this Class, we considered some of the principles of creation: creative power, creative patterns; but you were just beginning. Now do you suppose if we go back and make an approach from a little different angle it can mean something more to you? Because when you are giving an attunement you are sharing God's creative power. If you are not, you are not giving an attunement. But you are beginning to know the reality of the working of the power of God through you, beginning to know the reality of the working of the spirit, or the Shekinah Pattern of Being. So let us change our theme, and we will make it so difficult for those who have to go. We will make it just as tough for them as we can. I see some heads shaking. Well bless your hearts, better to have a little of it than none, so we will make a start. The magic of creation, of sharing on earth in the kingdom that is at hand, the reality of God's creative power. To make our start I am going to go back to the beginning of the record as we find it in the first chapter of Genesis. We will not dwell perhaps quite so long on some of these points, but I trust that you will find things that we have studied before connecting up in our present meditation.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” In what beginning? In any beginning. Now human beings have tended to get into a state of mind where they think of the beginning as meaning merely the beginning of the creation of this earth and the things that are in it. That was the beginning of the creation of this earth; but the beginning of the creation of your body, the time of your conception, the beginning of anything that is to appear: “In the beginning God created …” If we would begin something or let something begin, we must start where we are. We cannot go back to some past point to begin. We may observe past points which have meaning in relationship to the present, but if we are to begin, it must be now. There is no other place to begin but now. If you say, "I will begin in the future," the future has to become now; and if you are always putting it off in the now for the future, it keeps getting put in the future and never gets here. “In the beginning God created …” If we are going to share God's creative activity we must make a beginning. There must be a starting point. And we must accept it in relationship to ourselves in this present moment. In the beginning, what did God create? He created the heaven, and then He created the earth—not the earth and then the heaven. We have recognized in past meditations that if we are going to have something created in form, in the sense of physical substance, there must be a heaven created for it first. It must have a heaven. We have begun to realize that every physical form has a heaven—a heaven! All of these heavens put together make the heaven, unless we are talking about the heaven of a specific form. In the overall sense there is the heaven, but every form has its own heaven. There cannot be a form come into manifestation from the standpoint of God's creative power, or from the standpoint of anything growing, or gestating in the womb, without the heaven taking form first. There must be the heaven.
Now the heaven takes form on the basis of the truth, the elements of design and control, and on the basis of the pneumaplasmic substance which makes the heaven meaningful. You remember that after the reality of conception, that which is formed at first in the womb is alike, whether it is for a human being, a bird like a dove, a horse, or a lizard. Some of you may not have heard that before; but that which is first formed in the womb, or as with the bird, in the egg—that which first takes form is so much alike that even an expert cannot tell for certain. If you take that embryo at about, say, three weeks and put these embryos—from the human being, from the horse, from the dove and from the lizard—in a box without any label to indicate what they are, the expert will have trouble telling them apart, telling which is which, identifying them. There is meaning in this, vital meaning for us. Why? We recognize that this first form that is generated is for one purpose: to make possible the generation of the pneumaplasmic substance, pneumaplasm, and that the pneumaplasm that is generated properly takes form according to the pattern in spirit as established by the design and control factors of truth. Like begets like. Very soon that embryo of the horse or the human being begins to look very different; but at first, during the period of the development of the pneumaplasmic substance, they look very much the same. Now there has to be the reality of the heaven for this early embryo before it can take form in substance, and that is achieved through the sperm and through the ovum. So the actuality of the mechanism to permit the manifestation of the pneumaplasmic substance is there right from the start, and it must be handed down from generation to generation. Then after enough pneumaplasm has been generated to make possible the development of the heaven of the form that is to be, there is the beginning of the change of the embryo; because the embryo is the starting point, moving from the known to the unknown. So after the pneumaplasm is generated, the physical substance of that early embryo begins to be the starting point for the formation of the physical substance which is being caused to conform to heaven. Every development on earth that is to have any meaning must conform to something in heaven. If it does not it will not have real form; it will not be a living thing.
So in the beginning, any beginning, in the beginning of you, in the beginning of any cycle, in the beginning of your ministry—it has already begun; we have been generating the pneumaplasm of your future pattern of ministry; we have been generating something of the substance of it; the embryonic pattern has been taking form and it will be born one bright day. But even when you are a server out there you will be still one of my servees, and the pattern that has been generated here, and is established in pattern, will tend to extend out through you, and the attitude that you have toward me will tend to control or establish the pattern for the attitudes of others toward you as you serve, as you minister. Everything must be started this same way. It cannot be done any other way. And so you can look back now, through the weeks and the few months that we have been together and you can see how I started out on the basis of the design, on the basis of the control factors in spirit, in truth, generating the essential pneumaplasm so you could begin to feel yourself related to me and that which I was offering you. Gradually it began to take on some meaning in your consciousness, in your awareness, and then step by step, after this pneumaplasmic body was provided, it began to take form and it began to have meaning inside of you. Every creative cycle must work on the same basic principle or it will not come to fulfilment in life. There will be an abortion. Either there will be nothing or there will be an abortion, unless the laws and principles are followed. No man can change them; they are absolute, whether the human being thinks he likes it or does not like it. We must share God's creative function in bringing forth that which is to appear. So “In the beginning God created …” But let us not project it back to some vague distant beginning of this earth. Let us recognize it in relationship to ourselves and our present patterns of living. He created heaven first, and if you do not create heaven first you will not be successful in bringing forth the form by which the earth, or the physical substance of the thing, may appear, no matter what it is—your ministry, your pattern of life and living. We must create the heaven first. The Master emphasized this. He said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God," the kingdom of heaven that is at hand, "and his righteousness”—right function, right control under that divine design—and all of these things of heaven shall be added unto you in the realm of form. So the Master used these principles. He taught them, exemplified them, and there is no other way. And do not ever try, because you will just be wasting your time if you try to do it without regard to these laws and principles.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” To start with, what was the state of the earth? It was not; it just was not. And that is true with respect to all the things you start to bring forth. You do not have something yet in form that is to appear in relationship to your life and ministry. “The earth was without form, and void”—it was an empty place—“and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” And for us, what is the deep? It is the deep of the future. Insofar as the earth was concerned it was the deep of space—the deep of space. But for us at the present time, in these cycles of outworking, it is the deep of the future. And darkness was upon the face of the deep of the future. But in relationship to this, we are to start something, doing something, letting the creative cycles work.
“And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Water is the symbol of truth, the symbol of the design pattern. Movement suggests the reality of control. Spirit, the power, the intelligence, the reality that is being brought forth, moving upon the face of the divine design in truth—that movement relates to control.
“And God said, Let there be light.” Now remember, it is presented in the first chapter of John in a way that makes this so clear:
“In the beginning was Shekinah, and Shekinah was with God, and Shekinah was God” [in manifest action].
“And Shekinah, the same, was in the beginning with God.
“All things were made by Shekinah; and without Shekinah was not any thing made that was made.
“In Shekinah was life; and the life was the light of men.”
“In Shekinah was life; and the life was the light of men.” Now the starting point with respect to the actual processes of manifestation here is: “And God said, Let there be light.” But all things were made by Shekinah, the Presence of the One Who Dwells, and the evidence of His Presence: the Fire that burns, the creative Fire of God's love; and the Light that glows, the truth, the design and control factors relating to intelligence; and Life, the cloud of glory. And the life factor in Shekinah is the light of men. Now as soon as human beings begin to respond, you, as an instrument in the hand of God, or as an extension in the hand of God, begin to act on earth, or you let God act through you so that you act so that God acts. You let the divine action appear. And what are you doing? As you begin to help any person, giving an attunement, doing any creative thing, whatever it may be—of course there is the pattern in reality, the Shekinah Pattern of Being—but the first step in actual manifestation is “Let there be light.” And what is this light? “The life of Shekinah is the light of men.”
As you look back along the way, how did I start with you? Try to jam you into some pattern or other? Make you be thus and so? Give you rules and regulations to follow? Some of you were quite tantalized because I did not give you enough rules and regulations, tell you what to do. Oh you wanted to know what to do, and you were bothered about it because I did not. No. What did I do? I began to let light be for you. Generally speaking it was something I said, perhaps coupled with something I did; but it was something I said. There was an openness of mind, an inquiringness, and I said something to you so that you could understand it, so that it would have meaning, logic, reason—something that would be sensible, something that you could comprehend. And so as you began to have light in your mind in relationship to the point I was talking about, so that you could understand it, we had begun the creative cycle in you and through you.
But the first step of the first cycle is “Let there be light.” That is the first step in actual action. But now: “And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
Have you found that being true here, having light divided from the darkness in your own consciousness? Has it been a process at work? Yes. In other words if I had not functioned according to these principles, we would not even have this Class. You would not be here. If you had come you would have gone away again; it would have been scattered and it would not have had any meaning. But you find that everything I do is based upon these same basic laws and principles. And it is up to you to learn to share God's creative action on earth. The more of us that do it in actual fact, the more the manifestation of power will be.
“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”
Now this was not a twenty-four-hour day, as we have noted. Some people tried to say that it was. But if they say that, they say that God is a liar. Remember this point, because there will be those who will try to convince you it was a twenty-four-hour day; but if they say that, they take the position that God was a liar. For God said to Adam, according to this story—we recognize its allegorical significance—but God said to Adam and Eve, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” “In the day.” Now Adam lived to be nearly a thousand years old, so obviously God was not talking about a twenty-four-hour day, because if He was talking about a twenty-four-hour day, then Adam should have died within twenty-four hours from the time he let Eve persuade him to bite the forbidden fruit. We will get to a little further study of that later. But consider that, and remember that, because there will be those who try to confuse you. God was not talking about a twenty-four-hour day. By day here, He means a cycle of time. We do not need to go into that too much at the moment, but you know, as you recall, that that cycle of time in the first creative day was roughly speaking 28,850 years, as we count years today. We will not go into the whys and wherefores of that for the moment. But no one can say that it was a twenty-four-hour day without calling God a liar, because He likewise said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” and Adam did not die in twenty-four hours. So here we have the manifestation on the basis of what? Light, the light that glows relates to what? The truth. And truth is symbolized by water.
Now let us recall to mind the reality of the symbols of the four forces. We recall water, air, earth and fire as the symbolic names of the four forces. The first is water, and water relates to truth, and truth relates to light, the light that glows. So we begin to realize that this is the step with respect to water. Every creative cycle must start with water dominant, which is to say, truth dominant. In every creative step all four forces are always in action, but one of the four must be dominant. And every creative cycle must begin with water, or truth, dominant. Water symbolizes the nature of truth. Man cannot pick up the ocean and carry it away in his hands. Neither can he do so with the truth. So the first step in the manifestation of light is with respect to truth, which is symbolized by water. Here we have the dominance of water, the beginning of the creative cycle. Remember that every creative cycle that is opened must, without exception, begin on this basis, or it will fail; if anything manifests, it will come to an abortion. These are absolute laws and principles which cannot be successfully violated by man. Under this water pattern, “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”—upon the face of the vibratory patterns of truth—“and God said, Let there be light.” As you began to respond to the creative cycle that we are sharing in this ministry there was the beginning of the manifestation of light because I presented something to you in some way that would let you begin to see something more clearly, so that you could begin to understand something with respect to yourself or someone else. And as you serve, remember to keep it in this pattern.
Now there are those who imagine that they have to start with the fire of God's love; but remember, that is the fourth of the four forces. If you start with that, trying to emphasize it, trying to love people into this state or that, as the saying goes in some religious circles, you will fail! Many people try to start with fire and it fades. You must start with water. Of course fire is there, as are the other four forces, but it must be water, or truth, that is dominant. And with the recognition of truth there begins to be light. The light begins to be divided from the darkness for you today, and in the cycle of your service to others there will be that which they cannot yet see, which is yet darkness, but they will begin to see the light and they will begin to distinguish between the light and the darkness. So, “The evening and the morning were the first day.”
Now God did not say, and it is not written here in symbolical portrayal of creative principle, that the morning and the evening were the first day. Remember that. Never. “The morning and the evening were the first day.” In every instance it is “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Everything that is going to work out on the basis of a true creative cycle starts in the evening. Now that does not necessarily mean that, in the recognition of our cycles of day and night and so on, that you should never start anything in the morning. This could be carried to some kind of ridiculous extreme. But if you are really going to open up a creative cycle, it will start in the evening of our days. You may not realize that it started in the evening; you may think you started it in the morning; but if it is true, it will have started in the evening. Why? Why is it written here, with respect to the situation after man was created, that “the Lord God came walking in the cool of the day”? What is the cool of the day? It is the evening—in the evening. The vibratory patterns of attunement for the beginning of things, the beginning of the coordinated outworking of cycles and patterns between heaven and earth, are always in the evening. We could take a whole hour on this one point without any difficulty. So do not jump to any conclusions, but recognize the point.
“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.” Now what is the firmament? It is the air, the envelope of the earth's atmosphere, the earth's air. And air is the symbol of spirit. Here we have the second of the four forces. First, water; second, air. And so in the second cycle air must be dominant; that is, spirit must be dominant. And what does spirit do when you begin to let it be dominant in the creative cycle according to the divine plan? It separates the waters from the waters—the waters that are above, from the waters that are below. Now, there are some clouds in the sky, so from a physical standpoint we can say there is some water up there. And there is water down here. And what is between? The air. Man has, revealed—with respect to every one of these basic principles—he has revealed for him right here in nature the basic principle itself, and the reason for it, and man has consistently ignored it. But, the waters that are above from the waters that are below—immediately our minds revert to that remarkable examination.
How many of you would like that examination today, the examination that the Lord presented to man through Job? How many of you would like to take it today? Let us see your hands. You are smart to keep them down. But in this examination He said, “Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?”—the ordinances of heaven, the laws, the principles, the governing factors of heaven: “canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?”—their control patterns in relationship to physical substance. That is one of the points. Now when we begin to think about the action of the second force in dominance, the dividing of the waters from the waters, and we know that water is the symbol of truth, we recognize that there is a level of truth with respect to the heaven—I am not just talking about the sky—a level with respect to the heaven and a level with respect to the earth. It is the air of the spirit that not divides but connects, not separates but unifies. Actually, in the process the waters that are above are divided from the waters that are below, aren't they? By what? By the firmament—the air, which is the symbol of spirit. But if we have something that divides, it also unifies. If it separates, it also connects. Let us remember that. So the truth with respect to the invisible realms of so-called heaven and the truth with respect to the earth and the physical substance of being are not a different truth, but that which separates them is the air of the spirit. So we begin to see that God said, as the second step, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.” Not to divide. God made the firmament and divided the waters, yes—a heaven and an earth—but the heaven came first, every step of the way. And it must with you. So there is the firmament in the midst of the waters—the reality of spirit, with truth above, the truth of the heaven, and the truth of the earth below. And it is the spirit that connects them up. So in our cycles we begin to establish what? A firmament. Why do we give an attunement? What is an attunement? It is a process by which we begin to establish the firmament—something that has been said, that has already begun to give a glimmer of light somehow, to the individual. There must be some light before there is the action of developing the firmament. Why would the individual even come to you for an attunement? Even if you do not stop to talk about it very much, you probably say a sentence or two to clarify something. But there is the light, and then the attunement itself begins to establish the firmament of the spirit in the individual, so that the waters, the truth of his reality, may have a correlation with the truth of his body.
Now the ill conditions do not reveal the truth. They are the evidence of the presence of a distortion, something that is spoiling the true pattern. But there is a pattern of truth for the body, a pattern of truth for the invisible reality. And you begin to project, by reason of an attunement, the reality of the firmament, the air of the spirit, which is in the midst of the waters, so that the water that is above and the water that is below may be connected up, and the reality of the Divine Design that is in the realm of heaven may manifest through the pneumaplasmic layer without distortion on the underside of the pneumaplasmic layer and have meaning on earth in relationship to physical substance. Is that not simple? See how easily it all connects up? You begin to know what we have been studying about for so many months.
Now some of you have not heard all of it, and that does not sound simple to you. Do not jump to the conclusion that it is not really simple. It is—and easy. Take it easy and you will know what we are talking about. But you can begin to see something of it, because here is a revelation of the four forces. Water. Now there is air. And then we come to the next step: “Let the waters under the heaven …” Not under the sky! Physically it works out here, in pattern, so that we can say that it is in relationship to the sky; but it says “under the heaven.” Never confuse the sky with heaven. People talk about "the heavens" sometimes, when they are talking about the sky and all the stars that are beyond the sky. But how far out is the sky? How far out do you have to go before the sky is no longer blue? Not very far. Not very far! You get out there twenty-five or thirty miles and there is no light, in the middle of the day. You only have to go out from the earth's surface twenty-five or thirty miles and it is night in the middle of the day. A hundred miles out it is just plain black night—in the middle of the day! You can check that from a scientific standpoint. Why? Because there is nothing to reflect the light. You do not actually see the light that is coming from the sun. Of course you contact it, because it is already being reflected by the earth's atmosphere. So you have the sense of seeing it coming from the sun. But you go out beyond the earth's envelope of air which extends out and it is very thin out about seventy-five miles, and you have no air, nothing to reflect the light, no earth there to reflect the light. Though you might conceivably see a spot up there that looks something like a star, the sun would not have the same appearance to you one hundred miles out from the surface of the earth. It is dark night! You go straight out there, toward the sun even, and it will be dark night one hundred miles from the earth's surface. You can check it up for yourself if you wish, but that is the way it is.
The light has meaning on the basis of reflection. It is being reflected by the earth's atmosphere, and we begin to have the sense of sky when we look up toward the sky, because of the pattern of the light. There are various explanations as to why it is blue; we will not go into that at the moment; but blue is the symbol of truth. In the color range, blue is the symbol of truth, so whatever scientific explanation you choose, why that is all right; but blue is the symbol of the truth. But you get out there very far, you get even five miles above the surface of the earth, and do you think the sky is blue anymore? No. Five miles above the surface of the earth and the sky is not blue anymore. It begins to be black. Up where the jet pilots fly, it begins to be black. So you begin to realize that in this earth and up in the sky, the earth's envelope of atmosphere, we have some very interesting things—very interesting, fascinating. And they all mean something in relationship to our life function, our relationship to God—the creative forces. So the sky is black when you get out just a little ways; it is not blue anymore. The blue of truth, the design, the living factors, are all right here on the surface of the earth. If you go up five miles you had better take oxygen with you. From the standpoint of movement out from the earth's surface, you get ten thousand feet above sea level and you begin to need oxygen, if you are going to maintain the same pattern of coordination and control that you have at sea level. From the standpoint of the airlines, they start the air pattern change at nine thousand feet. They do not wait until ten thousand. These pressurized cabins that are used in the big airliners function on the basis of air as of nine thousand feet above sea level. Well now, the light, then, depends upon reflection. You cannot see the light from the sun until it is reflected. It must reflect somehow before you can see it, and if you were out a hundred miles from the earth's surface it would be dark midnight in the middle of the day. "And God said, Let the waters under the heaven"—under the heaven; that is, in relationship to the earth, or what is to become the physical form—“be gathered together unto one place.”
Now what have I been working to do here? One of the primary factors through the entire period of this Class has been to get the truth of you gathered together in one place. As it is put with respect to the day of Pentecost: “They were all with one accord in one place. And there came a sound as of …” It was not a rushing mighty wind. “And there came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto each of them as if it were cloven tongues of fire.” Now it was not fire; it only appeared as if it were. It was not wind: it only had a sound as if it were a rushing mighty wind. And all of this happened when they were with one accord in one place. We have been letting the light shine; we have been gaining a deeper understanding of all the principles. But here we come to the third step. It is the step with respect to the third force, which is symbolized by earth. But what must take place before the earth appears? Earth is dominant in this third step, yes, in the outworking of the cycle; but it is beginning to refer to the physical substance of your own body, or of the world around you, physical substance as a fact. But that physical substance appears after something happens. Let me read you the text: “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.”
“And let the dry land appear” is a creative command that follows something else: “Let the waters be gathered together unto one place.” Until we get the focalization of truth in relationship to the physical realm of things drawn together unto one place we are not going to have the manifestation of power, and we are not going to have the real manifestation of earth, the substance which is to provide the form for the beauty of design established in truth, or “the waters.” Now here God used, right in the beginning of the creation of this earth—and it must be used in relationship to every true creative cycle—the same pattern that we find appearing in relationship to the manifestation of power, the beginning of the manifestation of power, at the day of Pentecost. But how quickly it disappeared! They violated it. They did not follow out the creative pattern; and so instead of that being the beginning of the manifestation of God's power, that it might increase and become greater and fill the earth, almost immediately we see impulsive Peter rushing out to use it according to his own concepts. And within a very few years, what had happened to that Pentecostal power, as it is called? That power was gone, so that the Christians, as they were called, were thrown to the lions and burned at the stake and all kinds of terrible things happened. And people look back and think about what wonderful days they were when there were martyrs! It was not our Lord's intention that there should be martyrs like that. If they had not violated this cycle, they would not have been thrown to the lions or burned at the stake. It was a violation of the laws of God that permitted the manifestation of these atrocities. They were not required by God. They were not a part of the plan. They violated it and lost the power.
The power manifests on the basis of the laws and the principles and the creative cycles. And here we see how it begins to work; that which is required of you, yes, here. You have been gathering toward one place, the place of being with one accord IN one place. But you have not reached it yet. This creative command is still sounding for you. And when will you let it have meaning? We shall see. “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven”—under the heaven. The waters—the truth of heaven that is at hand, available, as the Master said, that which is good news, to remind man that this is true. The waters are under the heaven; they are available, within reach, something that you can accept in relationship to yourself. And He said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered unto one place.” After that is done the second command will take effect: “And let the dry land appear”—let the earth substance appear. Now the earth substance is not going to appear until we have the gathering of the waters. They must be gathered unto one place. We see the symbol of it in the ocean, but seeing the symbol of it is of small avail unless we know the reality of it at work in our own lives. When are you going to let this creative command of God that relates to the third day of creation have meaning in you? It needs to be done in this Class, before you go your several ways. Unless you let the waters be gathered together unto one place you will be going out there not fully equipped, not equipped the way the Lord wants you to be, the way I would like to see you, the way you can be. That is the command that is established for you now, God's command to you. And when will you obey it? When will you let it take form? "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,” so that you may be truly with one accord in one place, and then the dry land of the physical substance will begin to appear and the power manifest; for this is the third step. And the fourth one comes after the third one.
This is where you are as a Class, in this third step. I am waiting for you to obey that Divine Command: "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place." And when you do that the next command will take over and the dry land will appear, and then we will be ready for the fourth step. Let us touch for a moment on this fourth step: “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years …” and so on. The earth's atmosphere had cleared to the point where the light of the sun could begin to reach the earth for the fourth day of creation, in the actual cycle of the development of the earth. But what is the character of this? The sun symbolizes what? Fire. And fire is the symbol of God's love, the reality of power, the reality of the creative power of what we sometimes call the creative fire. And that comes on the fourth day. Now what do you suppose is on the fifth day? What is dominant on the fifth day of creation? It goes back to water. Water is again dominant on the fifth day. What is dominant on the sixth day of creation? Air again. And so forth. Every creative cycle has these four forces working out over and over again, and every particular step in a creative process has one of these four dominant. That is the story here in Genesis. It is the story in life. It is the story wherever you turn. And this Class has reached the point of the third step. Not the fourth; the first half of the third step. What are you going to do about it?
