We have been considering the basic theme of Heavenly Magic, and yesterday we shared meditation on three of the basic Functional Factors of Magic. I wonder how well you would do on an examination this morning on that subject. Perhaps we will not go into it right now. Do you all remember clearly, however, the three points? If I asked you, could you all name them, the three basic Functional Factors? Could I see hands of those of you who think you could name them? I have made a real impression on this Class!
The first one was acknowledgment. The second one was with respect to the four types of people in the world: those who are dead, those who are asleep, those who are awakening, and those who are awake. And the third was with respect to the process of function in the current of inspiration in relationship to the basic pattern: a recognition that personal interpretation of the impulse of the spirit might seem to direct an individual in one certain direction, and might in actual fact be doing so, but that the individual would be under the necessity of functioning in relationship to the basic design in order to share the building of the place to which the individual is moving; and if he or she refuses to function in relationship to the building of the place, then it is never built, so that the human being is in the position of trying to get into something which does not exist. Now if these three basic functional factors are borne in mind, much of the confusion, misunderstanding, resistance and tendencies to rebellion should be eliminated. And these three factors must be borne in mind constantly if you are going to function with any effectiveness in the field of spiritual psychiatry, or from the standpoint of Heavenly Magic.
Human beings have for so long been in the habit of trying to build a form in the outer sense, build a body, and then somehow to inject life and meaning into the body. Now this is the reverse of the divine process. The divine process is to provide the life, to provide the meaning, to provide the design, under control, and then to make it possible for the outer form to manifest around or in relationship to the already established factors of life, meaning, design and control. If you, in your own processes of living or service, remember this it will be easier for you, because it will make it possible for you to avoid the pitfalls into which human beings stumble when they attempt to build the form and then project the meaning into the form, as if you could do it with a hypodermic. It does not work.
So we are interested in the factors of life: meaning, design, control. Life appears by reason of the union of love and truth, so that means that at the very outset the creative triangle must already be established before anything else is done. And then meaning springs from relatedness. Relatedness is an aspect of cohesion. Cohesion in the vibrational, or inner sense, is one of the qualities of love, something which manifests in relationship to physical law and function in this realm, and in other realms, as gravity. In other words, the vibrational factors back of the working of the law of gravity are to be found in the cohesive or attractive qualities inherent in love. So, physically speaking, in the final analysis, it is love that permits you to sit on your chair without bumping your head on the ceiling. The centrifugal force of the earth spinning round and round would tend to throw you off into space unless it was counteracted, the surface of the earth traveling roughly a thousand miles an hour, a considerable speed. We are moving constantly, but because there is no point in the immediate sense to which we can relate that speed, we have no particular consciousness of it. Everything else is traveling with the same speed, and unless we look at the moon or the stars or the sun, we do not have any reference points by which to determine the fact that we are moving.
So there is the centrifugal force and the attractive force which we call gravity, and these stem from the working of the One Law—positive and negative aspects of being, the energies that are at work, or that were at work in relationship to the movement of the earth, which has two movements primarily—we can say three; there are three movements of the earth. I was thinking of it fundamentally in relationship to other objects in the solar system: the movement of spinning, the movement of the orbit around the sun, and the movement of what we might call the wobble on the axis. These are the three constant movements of the earth, all in action all the time.
The earth's movement in its orbit could properly be classified first; the earth spinning on its axis, second; and its wobble on the axis, which gives us our changes of seasons, is the third point. And all of these patterns of action are taking place all the time, constantly. So, we recognize the fact that even such movements as this are hardly perceived unless we stop and think about it, unless we know something of the principles involved. So if there is so little consciousness of these physical movements which are so meaningful to us, we can readily understand how man, centered in relationship to himself and physical things, has forgotten his capacity of awareness with respect to spiritual things or vibrational factors. Now, there are other fundamental functional factors in relationship to magic, but I think we will leave it at these three for the moment and go back to our text. But the points which we have examined were essential to a reasonably adequate understanding of the text.
We remember, beginning with the 12th verse of the 1st chapter of the Book of Magic: “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks.” You are in the process of turning. You have not yet completed that process.
“And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
“And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength [that is, at noonday]. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
“Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”
Here we have an outline in mystical language with respect to basic, fundamental factors of Heavenly Magic. Seven Churches. Does that mean seven groups of people and seven church buildings within a specific denomination? Or does it mean seven different denominations? Or what does it mean? Obviously it means neither of these two things which I suggested. It does not mean seven denominations and it does not mean seven churches within one denomination. The Seven Churches: the seven basic patterns of classification within the One Body of responding humanity, the whole world pattern insofar as there is response. And the Seven Spirits, or the Seven Angels, the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God, or the Seven Angels, which function in relationship to the Seven Churches. I believe that you have been studying something of the endocrine system in the human body, the endocrine glands, and the more you may study these more or less mysterious bodies the more you will realize there is to know and the more fascinating will the subject become.
I might mention that we have here in the Book of Magic a remarkable description of these seven bodies in the physical organism which are classified as the endocrine system. Perhaps we will have an opportunity to study that. In any case, the seven bodies, or the seven classifications of bodies—there are more than one in some instances in the particular groupings—but the seven classifications of bodies in your body are the Seven Churches of your body. In other words we have exactly the same pattern present in the world body of responding humanity as we have in your body as an individual human being. And these seven bodies are classified here as Seven Churches. The Seven Golden Candlesticks are the Seven Churches; and the Seven Stars are the Seven Angels, which represent the focalization factors of the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God. The Throne of God, insofar as you are concerned—a distinct, separate individual—is in relationship to your own God Being within you; that is, insofar as the physical factors are concerned.
Insofar as the consciousness factors are concerned you have to share with your own God Being the recognition of the next higher point of focalization if you are to function correctly in relationship to your own God Being, still assuming by such wording something of a separation between the two. But from the standpoint of the physical organism, the Throne of God is in your own body. From the standpoint of you as a being, the Throne of God is in the Body of which you are a part. If you try to establish the Throne of God within your own body in relationship to your consciousness as a being, you would thereby be declaring that you are not a part of the Body and Being of God. Do you see that? It is a vital point, one over which many, many people have stumbled and about which there has still tended to be considerable confusion in our own membership.
You cannot accept your pattern of relatedness to others—and that pattern of relatedness must be there if there is to be meaning and you are to share the cohesive quality that makes the Body a reality—you cannot have a pattern of true relatedness to others without sharing with your own God Being the centering of identity; for as long as you deem yourself, the outer "I", to be separate from yourself, the Inner Being, you have not begun to function according to your Divine Design, your heavenly purpose. Your purpose, insofar as the outer form with its capacities of consciousness, etc., is concerned, is to be the means of manifestation for that God Being within, so that they two shall be one, and as long as your outer consciousness is trying to accept a point of polarity within yourself, in relationship to your own God Being within, you are classifying yourself as being separate from your Inner Self and consequently you are not functioning in relationship to that for which you were designed.
The physical organism as such, must have, and accept, that point of polarity in deity within your own body. That is essential with respect to the physical organism as such, and is necessary to the reality of oneness of the physical body and the God Being. But the consciousness aspect, which calls itself “I”, must share something with the Inner Point of reality, and not be something or try to be something separate from that Inner Point of reality. So consequently, until you share and accept the reality of “I” as including both inner and outer as one thing, you cannot possibly begin to be what you ought to be, and you are not in position to share effectively in the functions of Heavenly Magic.
Therefore, as soon as you recognize this basic, fundamental functional factor—it is one—you can see that to maintain the working of the Law, immediately there must be the same acceptance in outer consciousness as there is in Inner consciousness of the next higher point of focalization, to maintain the balance of positive and negative factors. And this comes back to acknowledgment. Acknowledgment. The Inner Point of being, the focalization of deity in you, already has that acknowledgment. The problem has been to get human beings to respond to Inner reality enough to begin to share in consciousness that which is true of Inner reality, so that when you say “I” it will not in fact be something different from that which is of the Inner reality. Therefore the maintenance of the pattern of the One Law, the outworking of acknowledgment, is seen to reoccur. And so you have the acknowledgment in the outer consciousness which correlates with the acknowledgment of Inner consciousness, and you immediately thereby accept the privilege and responsibility of membership in the Body of Many Members. There is your pattern of relatedness which is essential to meaning. Otherwise meaning will always elude you.
The seven classifications of the endocrine system you have recognized as being essential to the development and function of the body, but you have noticed that certain of these tend to become atrophied and to cease external evidence of function as the human body moves toward maturity. We recognize two points of focalization in the glandular system in this regard, as primary evidences. One, the pineal gland, and the other the thymus. You have no doubt already noted that, in your studies. The thymus tends to cease giving evidence of outer function somewhere around seven years of age ordinarily, and gradually, by the time the child is what? nine, ten years of age? there is no remaining evidence. Sometimes it extends longer. And you have no doubt noted that when it does extend longer than the usual pattern, the child has a peculiar angelic appearance, generally with a very white or thin, transparent skin. Very often you can see the blood vessels with a greater ease than is ordinary, and in such a case there is, many times, other factors being equal, a more or less angelic disposition. Very often it is of this particular pattern that people have developed the saying, with respect to a child, a young person, “He or she was just too good to live.” Now of course that is not the case, but under the peculiar situation of this world, the vibratory factors impinging, generally speaking if the thymus gland continues its function longer than is ordinary the human being becomes so subject to the impulses of the surrounding vibrational fields that he or she is placed in extremes of unnatural tension, which tend to choke off the life pattern—a high sensitivity to vibrational factors.
And since man fell and forfeited his use of this functional factor through his period of maturity, he has to a high degree lost his ability to perceive the vibratory factors readily. So we have to in a sense substitute. We may note that there are certain types of paralysis, where the usual patterns of control factor do not reach the muscles and there is no control, but where it is possible to activate some uninjured brain tissue, etc., or brain cells, and gradually, by careful persistence, develop a pattern of control in a new locality or on a new basis. This is something that requires a great deal of patience and perseverance, both on the part of the individual himself and those who are working with him.
Now something of that same principle is necessary in our spiritual development in the world as it is, because under the present circumstance we do not have available to us, immediately at least, all of the natural or divinely ordained faculties. And this pattern of atrophy that appears in relationship to the thymus gland is a significant illustration of that. We have something of the same pattern in relationship to the pineal gland. And in that sphere we see how it is that human beings do not have an adequate consciousness of their relatedness to the Inner focalization of deity.
Now let us note that something of these factors—all seven of them, thymus and all—must remain in operation in the individual life or there tends to be the development of a completely animalistic pattern that is lower than the animal, and there follows annihilation. The point is, then, that although there is the process by which certain of the glandular bodies tend to atrophy, the vibrational factors remain; the focalization of spirit in relationship to the God Being is still there regardless of what takes place in the physical form through which those vibrational factors would ordinarily manifest. The Seven Focalizations of spirit are still there, and to some degree something of these particularized seven factors tends to manifest through the channel of other glandular formations; in other words, certain degrees of substitute function. If it were not for this degree of substitute function man would have been annihilated from the face of the earth long ago. But if man is to have, for instance, the right pattern of function in relationship to the thymus gland he must of necessity dwell in a realm of peace and harmony.
The full function of the thymus gland into the range of maturity would be impossible in the world as it now is. The very factors which we have in the world, the crosscurrents, the inharmonies, the fear factors, all of the ill vibrational factors impinging on the individual, begin gradually to cause this process of atrophy, and so it is a part of the outworking by which there is self-preservation. It is something that is permitted in relationship to the Divine Design so that man does not immediately destroy himself. He is given an opportunity to find his polarity, to reestablish the right vibrational pattern. So something of this vibrational factor of the thymus gland must be reawakened in you, the contact with the particular focus of the spirit of God must be allowed to begin to work in you, so that you begin to have perception, sensitivity factors which were before unknown to you.
And the same thing is true with respect to what is classified here in the Book of Magic as the Seventh Seal, the pineal gland. Here the process of atrophication is only partial. If it were absolutely complete, well the physical body would die. But it takes place to a degree which, broadly speaking, shuts out the consciousness of relatedness to God. The little child, not yet having reached the realm of logic and reason, not having reached the point of egomania, where he or she thinks that the thinking apparatus is all that is necessary, naturally has something of this divine sense of relatedness to Deity, without necessarily being in position to say it. Now many children brought up in harsh atmospheres, where they early develop the factors of being hard, lose this pattern of relatedness at a very early age, and at a very early age they begin to show the signs of age. They look hard; they begin to look old. Have you ever seen children who are under that particular pattern? And also, you will remember, this shows up with very marked emphasis in countries where there is war, famine, where there are those factors which force particularized centralization of thought and concern with respect to the physical body for self-preservation. So something of this pattern of relatedness is lost at too early an age, and then there tends to be a hardness. But this is something which can be gradually reawakened.
Now one of the problems I have in beginning to present some of these basic functional factors of magic arises, or may be clearly seen at this point, because for those who are willing to be even a little dishonest, a little evasive, there begins to appear a beautiful opportunity to have an extraordinarily wonderful excuse for being less than one could be, because here I am putting into your hands certain awareness, certain knowledge, or information, which can be twisted around by the self-active mind into an excuse: “Well my substance hasn't awakened enough yet. I'll have to wait. Meanwhile I can't be expected to be too good or to have too much awareness,” or this, that and the other thing; and if any of these factors are accepted as excuses in relationship to yourself in your own function, then you defeat yourself.
How is anything developed in relationship to the completed physical form? How is muscle tone developed? By a certain amount of exercise. How do you develop the capacity of your eyes? You use a certain amount of exercise in relationship to your eye function. In other words that which is not used tends to weaken and more or less disappear. Use involves exercise. A certain amount of exercise is essential to the adequate functional development of any part, and unless we live on a basis of constantly tending to overreach ourselves a little bit, a little bit more than we think we can comfortably do or easily do—now I am not talking about trying, and I am not talking about the development of strain; I am talking about the refusal of the individual to accept a lesser goal—unless we are reaching out to the full potential and pushing it a little all the time, we are not going to have an increase in the development of capacity. And here we have substance which must be to some degree reactivated in order to allow the full potential of the focalization of the spirits before the throne of God to have meaning in your own body, and the development of a constant, conscious awareness of relatedness to Deity.
When there is no consciousness of this particular pattern it is natural that there should be a consciousness of relatedness to other things, relatedness to external things, ill things, because they are manifest, because they are in one's environment. Here you begin to see one of the secrets of identification, because that with which you identify yourself becomes the controlling factor in your life. So, having lost the conscious awareness of relatedness to Deity, the human being was left in a position where he established a consciousness of relatedness to things, to circumstances, to ill conditions, etc.
Well now, these Seven Spirits, or seven aspects of spirit, have been given a certain amount of consideration before. I suppose that all of you could without any hesitancy name these seven aspects of spirit, could you? Let me see the hands of those of you who could name them. A few, a few. Good. And you have noted, in relationship to that, the seven opposite aspects of vibrational void; for that is what it is, isn't it?—not something real, but the vibrational void which appears when these seven aspects are not present in active manifest form. These seven aspects of spirit are the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God, and this is One Spirit; for the Seven Spirits are simply the manifestation of the aspects of One Spirit. The One Spirit we speak of as the Christ Spirit. The Christ Spirit is the focalized, or complete, or whole, manifestation of spirit, as we think of Love, Truth and Life. But these aspects of focalization extend into the various levels of being.
For instance, we can recognize the Trinity of Spirit and see the seven aspects of spirit as they are dominant or vibrationally focalized with respect to the specific levels of the trinity of spirit. Love, for instance. Now we cannot have love absolutely, completely distinguished, segregated, from truth and life. It does not work that way. But where we are considering love as the dominant aspect of the trinity, we can see the seven aspects of spirit, focalizations of spirit, in relationship to that particular level. The same is true with respect to truth, or the spirit of truth. You cannot in actual fact have the spirit of truth completely segregated from the spirit of love or the spirit of life. It may seem to limited human vision that it can be so completely segregated, but it cannot. It simply means that one is dominant, and so the aspects of focalization are seen in a different octave, shall we say, a different vibrational field, in relationship to the specific focalization of dominance. And then the same thing is true with respect to life. You certainly cannot have life without regard to love or truth; you cannot segregate the spirit of life from the other two, but you can consider the aspect of the Christ Spirit which we speak of as the life phase of the Trinity, in relationship to its dominance in manifestation or functional factors. And here again we have a specific octave, or vibrational pattern or field, in connection with the manifestation of the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God. While they are in all cases the same spirit, or the same focalizations of spirit, they have a somewhat different pattern of manifestation, depending upon which of the three phases of the trinity may be dominant at the moment.
And we have to consider these things in relationship to the trinity of man. There is a more or less vague recognition of a divine trinity. But we have seen specifically the trinity of man: the spiritual aspect, the mental aspect and the physical aspect, and interpenetrating the three we have the factor of the heart, or feeling nature, which makes possible the interrelationship and inter-function of the three. But if we are going to study the aspects of the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God from the standpoint of what we might call the spiritual level, we must of necessity consider that in relationship to the dominance of the love factor of the trinity. If we are going to consider the seven focalizations of spirit in relationship to the mental, or intellectual, levels of consciousness, the subconscious mind, etc., we must of necessity consider the particularized pattern of the seven focalizations of spirit as they appear when the spirit of truth is dominant. And again, if we are going to consider them in relationship to the physical body, as for instance in relationship to the endocrine system, we must see the vibratory pattern specifically made manifest in relationship to a focalization in the spirit of life made dominant.
Now it would be utterly impossible for anyone to reach a point of full or true comprehension of the significance of the endocrine system as it relates to his own physical body without having a recognition of these basic factors, without beginning to see that the focalization of the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God manifests under the dominance of the life current in a somewhat different way than it does under the other two points of dominance, and to see how this works in relationship to the Inner Point of focalization, that is, with the life factor dominant in relationship to you as a particularized individual. We have the pattern of the Seven Spirits before the Throne of God focalized in the endocrine system, with the life pattern dominant now, on a basis which makes the focalization of deity within you the particularized focus of the Throne of God insofar as the physical organism is concerned. But that particularized pattern never applies with respect to the dominance of the spirit of truth or the spirit of love. It does apply in the individual only under the dominance of the spirit of life, and it is with respect to that dominance that you must consider the peculiar patterns of function in the physical organism and recognize how it is that you as a being have a relatedness to the body, and what the relatedness of the body is to you once you have achieved a point of focalization in consciousness where “I” means both theInner and the outer, unless specifically indicated to be otherwise.
One of the factors which we might inject here parenthetically at this point, in order to be sure that comprehension, or the opportunity of comprehension, is clear, is this: Some people assume that the God Being as such, the inner point of being, is supposed as such to take care of every little detail of everyday life. Now, that is not the case. In other words the outer aspect of consciousness, being one with the inner aspect of consciousness, is supposed to take care of a multitude of details, the things that are worked out more or less automatically. As soon as there is a recognition in outer consciousness, so functioning, that something is getting out of pattern, something needs to be adjusted, there is an internal process by which the focalization of consciousness in inner deity is allowed to come into play to take care of that.
But the process of taking care of all the little details of life, of deliberately determining that now is the time to put on your shoes, or now is the time to take them off, or a thousand and one other things that you do in daily life, does not have any direct relationship to the focalization of inner deity within you, because the outer aspect of consciousness is supposed to be able to take care of those things without interfering with the vibrational factors of the inner. And as long as the outer aspect of consciousness, functioning in actual fact at one with the inner, takes care of these things without trying to assume control, on a basis that is harmonious to the One Law, harmonious to the divine purpose, etc., the God Being simply leaves it to what we might call the human being, without in actual fact establishing any differentiation between them.
But there is a point where, under pressure, or because of some factor getting out of hand, the movement back into the Inner Point of control takes place, and it is a direct expression from the inner to the outer. So you cannot actually divide the two at any point. But it is not, with respect to a lot of things that your outer mind is supposed to know, actually a movement of the inner point of reality out through the consciousness as a particularized expression; only a general pattern, so that the mind can function on a basis of intelligence.
Now if you expected the God Being to take care of every little detail, there would be no need of you having, in the outer sense, self-awareness, self-consciousness, would there? You are supposed to be the outer manifestation of the Inner, functioning on a basis of oneness. But suppose the central focalization of deity, which we speak of as the Lord of Love, or the LORD of Lords, were to particularly delegate to you some responsibility. You have some job to do from the standpoint of inner being and outer being. Well then, does that mean that every time you are to determine whether you should pick up a glass or set down a book, or do something else, so to speak, that you are to run to the Lord of Love and say, “Well now, Lord, what would you have me do about this matter? Really I … I want to just obey you, I want to do just what you want me to do, dear Lord. What would you have me do?” And so the great KING stops to consider all of these little matters and He tells you just what to do and how to do it, in every sphere of function. Why? It would be easier for Him to go and do it Himself and there would be no need of you. No.
When He delegates responsibility He expects you to do a job in harmony with the laws of His Kingdom, period. There may conceivably be some point at which you might need to have a consciousness particularly of established, what shall we say, vibratory interchange with that focalization of deity. But you were delegated to do a job, and if He expected to do everything, make every decision, work out every little detail, He would have gone and done it Himself. It would have been much easier. So this works in exactly the same way, just as the inner point of focalization of deity in you, functioning with the oneness, or full response, of the outer aspect of you, proceeds to do a job within the pattern of the Law, and unless something gets out of hand beyond the range of your proper responsibility, you do not refer back to center. You go and do a job. But you do it within the vibratory field, you do it within the Law, you do it within the patterns of the Kingdom. And so you, as a focalization, may have the privilege of providing centering for the factors of others. If you expect to go out and tell them how to think every thought and speak every word, and so on, it will not work. Well the same principle carries on out to you, the focalization of deity within and the outer manifestation of consciousness.
Now human beings, tending to recognize the fact that there is a God Being within, start out to try to work in the field of magic; but it is the outer phase of the mind tending to direct and to determine; it is not the outer phase of the mind working within the Laws and Principles of the Kingdom. And here we begin to have the difference between so-called white and black magic. And as soon as you, in outer consciousness, have accepted identity in and with inner consciousness, anything that is beyond the range of your true ability automatically begins to flow out from the inner point of being and will be met in the pattern of Divine Magic. But if this outer consciousness denies relatedness with the inner identity, it will try to do something which it is not equipped to do, and then there will be futility and failure.
There is a point, however, in every individual where the pattern of particularized action is more or less automatically established on the basis of the outer aspect of the one consciousness and it does not even enter into, or concern, the inner aspect of the one consciousness, so that you go ahead and do; you function without having the inner aspect of consciousness being under the necessity of particularly determining when you will put on your glasses and take off your glasses, and when you will put on your shoes, and when you will eat and when you will drink, and a thousand and one other things through the day. That is the right and normal pattern of living in the Divine State. But the easy flow, back and forth. When the pressures increase, instead of the outer aspect of consciousness breaking and becoming subject to the outer and trying to do something of itself, it just lets the pressure increase; it holds steady, it gets connected up with the Inner. The Inner comes into play and moves out through the outer, and it is all done—beautiful, wonderful, glorious, the working of Heavenly Magic.
