High Mysticism by Emma Curtis Hopkins
Chapter 9 — Ministry
Prologue
The Italian Flagellants of the 13th century lashed themselves and gashed themselves with thongs and scissors but they felt no pain for the zeal which arose from some central flame within them permeated them through all their flesh and of itself neutralized flesh sensations. Even their minds were so alive with the central flame that they sprang the bounds of self pity in unconsciousness of personal hurts.
Some people explained that it was innate Will rising to new action with a new sense, as “l willed and new sense was given me.”
The persecuted English Quakers of the 17th century declared that no blows or stones which their enemies administered upon them with ferocious energy were felt by them, for a central fire rose up in them neutralizing outward sensations by its ecstatic flame. They called it God willing in them.
Martyrs of old sang hymns in the midst of their enemies’ hot bonfires, and their faces were seen to shine with inward ecstacy even as Stephen’s face shone while the hurling stones were cutting him. They “saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.” (Acts 6:15) . The martyrs, like the Quakers, called the mystery of supernal sensation, “God willing them to will and to do.”
Some people have called that conquering central flame which can so overpower all human sensation and mental awareness The I AM of man. Some have called it The Spirit of man. This was Solomon’s name for it. Some have called it The Spirit of God. Ezra called it The Spirit of God. So also did Ezekiel the prophet who was named The Strength of Jehovah.
Jesus, the All-overshining Jesus of Nazareth, declared, “The Spirit of God is upon me.” He also said “I AM,” and transcended all other martyrs in the risen splendor of the central flame common to but hidden deep in all mankind. He knew the risen vigor as Will. “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven the same is my brother and sister, and mother.” He shouted of His glorification despite the wounds of the cross, and cried aloud of His almighty identification with Universal Spirit, “Into Thy hands I commend my Spirit.”
Socrates hundreds of years before the time of Jesus felt himself outshining himself in the face of threatening martyrdom, and said to the judges, “l go about trying to persuade both young and old, not to busy themselves about their bodies of about money more than about their soul.” “Manifestly it rules in us, a King.”
lt is no wonder then that over the cross of Him who picked Himself up out of martyrdom and showed Himself Indestructible Soul, they wrote, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of (the Soldiers of God, the lsraelites) the Jews.”
One historic life of this martyr-transcending King, lately written, lays such stress on the pains and torments of his martyrdom that people shudder and weep when they read it. And the supposedly greatest praise that has been lavished on an eloquent New York preacher reads: “We can almost feel the blood drip on our heads as we hear him preach the Cross.”
But the true printed Life of Jesus should glory in telling of his sense of outglowing all wounds on a still grander scale than the Flagellants and Quakers and noblest of earth’s martyrs, because He knew himself with ecstatic zeal as God Himself proving the rightful status of all mankind. “Thou being a man makest thyself God,” they said.
Mystical Science which shows how the Secret Flame can be wooed to rise superior to all human laws physical and mental, tells of an Over Splendor of attention toward us ever wooing our attention till its likeness in us rises into Oneness with its Splendor as Undefeatable Greatness — the greatness of Unconquerable Will.
“By so many roots as the marsh grass sends in the sod,
I will heartily lay me ahold of the greatness of God.”
“He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters” — even the waters of humiliation.
lt is not a matter of consciousness or unconsciousness of mind or body. It is not a matter of right or wrong of human calculation. It is the New Kingdom’s Super Life.
This ninth lesson teaches to stand by our Super “l” with its high language, till its language fruitings lay out before us our true life field. lt teaches to find that hidden Self! It teaches to speak from that! It teaches to choose what we truly will, and shows it as Universal Will as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, out of the reach of death and those shadows of death, the hurts of flesh and of mind.
E. C. H.
MINISTRY
Numbers were alive to the ancients. Notice Parmenides facing The One till form and differentiations disappeared, the cosmic order let go and he was alone as if he were The Alone. There is but One SELF and Thou art That Self.
Five was a living number to the Hebrews. It signified The Representative, as Joseph for Pharaoh, as Jesus for Jehovah. Its symbol was the sardonyx, which held the engraving of the royal “I Depute.”
Apollonius of Tyana would not allow his disciples to speak the number nine aloud, as it was to him the magician’s number — the number of enchantment. If sounded it was likely to hit the Super “I” having its location in a point back of the breast. To hit that “l,” or speak forth from that “I,” would be like wishing the words on somebody or something. Learn to wake the hidden “I,” but note the kindling mystery of it as the living black coal lingering in the breast waiting the bellows breath of right declaration.
To mankind the old “I” must aver according to appearance, as “I am sick,” or, “I am overworked.” This is its gospel truth. But the “I,” as kindling coal, avers, “I living vigor! I godly strength! I decree!”
Ye shall eat of the old fruit — ye shall eat of the new fruit, according to kindling or non-kindling of the words by recognition of the “I” Spark. “My spirit shall not forever ever be humbled in man ” — “I am the light. he that eateth me shall live by me.”
“I” is a fodder. Man shall eat of the old fruit till the ninth, or till willing to take up the Super “I’s” great sayings, the “I decree!” At the ninth, man is wiling to refuse the old fruitings. He declares as Christ in him, “I the Alive. I the Eternal, I the transfiguring and transforming all things by my “I decree.”
The ancients cherished the scarab that drops its seed into a dirt ball for universal atmosphere to stir it to break its covering and fly as winged creature. They named it symbol of resurrection of man as determining God Will from the encasement of shadow body formed of matter woven with mind threads, the stubborn web of hiding, “the shadow system gathered around the Me.”
“Rise my soul, and stretch they wings,
They better portion trace.”
Nine is the Assumption, the Joy of Mary, the taking for granted, the supposing of a thing without visible proof, the unwarrantable claim. The Great Assumption is the Great “I” Spark speaking in its own joyous facts, which come forth glorifying the outer man with new fruitings.
Nine stands for the closing of an old cycle and the opening of a new cycle, the old touching the new and the new touching the old like beads on a rosary. The great mystics have prophesied that the Messiah appears at the beginnings of some nine cycle as the old “I” giving way to the new “I”. The old “I” telling the truth of itself to the new “I.” The old “I” telling the truth of itself and others according to appearances, and the new “I,” and others according to appearances, and the new “I,” or the awakening “I,” telling truth according to the kingdom of the Super Spark, till it flashes its dominion over and inanimate. lt is the daring response of the Me, the “l,” praised, according to the fifth revelation, or the Fifth study.
lt is indeed the swift discovery with Hugo of St. Victor that the Highest God and the Inmost God is one God.
Acknowledge the Highest, the Great Countenance of the Absolute, and its “l” Seed awakes with the Assumption, the Unwarrantable Claim, the Word of the Lordship “very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it,” as Moses said to the children of Israel in the land of Moab. “l am as strong this day, as I was in the day that Moses sent me (into Eshcol of Canaan) . And now, Lo, I am this day four score and five years old,” declared Caleb son of Jephunneh, who stood with good report from Eshcol as easily manageable by lsrael, when others said there were unmanageable giants to meet.
The divine “l” that has its location in a point back of the breast, whose flame Apollonius asked his disciples to stir with good reports, is still alive in every breast on earth, and ofttime assumption of the things It sees, It feels, It knows, will cause them to show forth, brightening all the paths in which we daily move with the unprecedented, the unbelievable, the unexpected.
“Where is thy spark, Lanoo? Speak thou from that!”
The ministry of acknowledgment and recognition into which we are hurried, is wide and far reaching, or near and intimate in demonstration. according as our vision proceeds far or keeps close. “l will fetch my knowledge from afar,” said young Elihu. “Remember that thou magnify His work which men may behold.”
The forty Christians enrolled in the twelfth Roman legion lifted up their hands to God in high heaven, when the Quadi seemed about to destroy the legion. And Marcus Aurelius Antoninus wrote it down for all ages to notice, that a Roman victory was wrested from the Quadi by the God of the forty Christians, and not by the swords and spears of the vaunted legion.
The original Francis Schlatter cured thousands of people by sensing that his God was near at hand, close and compassing, with only just one kind and merciful streak in His mighty composition, and that it was His will to heal through the willing Francis Schlatter. His God would not let him be fed, or warmly clothed, or rested when weary, but He would touch Schlatter’s hands with curative balms for his neighbors.
The science of the recognition of the Presence of God in the Universe, by the uplift of the vision as to divine Beneficence, is the oldest science maintaining its stately march through the long non-acceptance of the human race. Abram, 1920 B. c. is told to lift up his eyes. Dante, 1265 A. D., declared that blessedness more depends upon vision than upon loving, for loving follows on after vision. it is told of a certain Bishop that his lofty character and great attainments were due to his ofttime gaze toward the glory of the Highest. We also may show forth lofty character and great attainments by ofttime gaze toward the Highest, the great Countenance of the Absolute, ever facing us.
“The Deity onlooketh thee, onlook thou the Deity.”
The one mystery of man’s accomplishing executiveness is that whatever he persistently recognizes and acknowledges surely comes forward and deals with him.
Recognition and acknowledgment are the “two-law” from which something must come forth, worth while or not worth while. Man must woo and woo the Majesty and Responsive Beneficence ever facing him. His wooing will be astonishingly rewarded. “Go away,” said the elder Gounod to his son; “burn your composition, the Muses have not called you.” What did the elder Gounod know about wooing the Muses till they gladly come with their music, or their statuary, or their architecture, such as this present world has not set eyes upon? Even the Moekel terrier disputes Gotinod’s position that the Muses neglect some people. The little dog did prove per contra that it is some people who neglect the Muses. By much wooing of the dog Rolf’s intelligence Mrs. Moekel caused intelligence to speak forth through him with amazing answers to mathematical and philosophical questions.
What wonderful music was closed down upon from expressing through young Gounod, when his father forbade his wooing the Muses! What enchanting singers have been silenced by teachers who did not help enlarge the smile of the song-muse the young voice was trying to woo — Voice that might have stayed the wars of empires!
“Muses” were ancient names for the Universal All- Power, demonstrating according to recognition and wooing.
Our eighth lesson urged recognition of the High and Lofty One as All-Power, and as the Universal,
ounded, Super Worth-While, into whose glorious oblivion all limitations and false estimates may be thrown, by casting them away, having nothing to do with them. “It is not so!” is the eighth lesson’s masterful shout to every word that disputes all Judah praise of the everywhere watching Amen Ra, or Brahma, or God. Even the values of man as good in contradistinction to bad are to be circumcised, sacrificed, rejected, on behalf of the High First Estate above the pairs of opposites good and bad, life and death, pleasure and pain. We must throw everything out to the ever present First Estate of the Universally Desirable.
This ninth lesson calls attention to the Undifferentiated, Ever-facing Original, which the Egyptian priests called Soul, the Magi called Self, the Hebrews sometimes called God and sometimes called Angel of the Presence, and which truly is Free Spirit, Free Beneficence, Free Zeus, Free Giver. It is that Dominant of which the ancients were speaking when they promised that whosoever should put away all words contending against high praises, should find Free Spirit, lmmortal Self, dominating.
Great promises have ever associated with the ministry of rejections, denials, sacrifices, circumcisions:
“Grace, mercy and peace from God . . . teach no other doctrine . . . neither give heed to fables . . . that thou mightest war a good warfare,” wrote Paul to Timothy, the boy Bishop of Ephesus. “For God bath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind — circumcision made without hands — putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ — quickened together with him, having spoiled principalities and powers.”
Did not Bhaskaranand of Benares find himself a powerful healer, after rejecting the influences of the world — “triumphing over them in himself,” as Paul noted of Christ?
Coming thus to our own free Self, our own divinity Spark, our own “I decree,” clarifies the atmospheres of false instructions. Heretofore hidden truth comes boldly forth. I the mighty Truth. I the awakener to life eternal. “The Highest God and the Inmost God is one God,”
“Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” So wrote Jeremiah in a moment of freedom from his own contentious complainings. He experienced the outward joys of Victorious Assumption, the living nine of Apollonius.
There are promises with hearkening to the Heights: “Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil” — “A friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly” — “I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”
Thus we are told how satisfying is “l” Truth! We always feed on the Super “I’s” great claims. lt affects our constitution much or little. As an eyelash falling into a pool affects it little, but a meteor falling in affects it greatly, so we are stirred greatly or slightly by the truths we hear and proclaim. Does it stir your life pool to be told that God is great and we know him not, as spoken through Elihu the Buzite? But if you should yourself hear one of the soundless truths that the great Ain Soph holds hidden in the etheric silence round about your head, especially waiting for your own ears only, promising that the desire of your heart is fulfilled this day, you would tremble from head to foot with joy. You would be found declaring, “Thy word in me is joy to mine own heart. I Joy, ray forth joy. I ray forth my own I Am, I Will, I Can.”
Joy that inwardly stirs by truth from on high is a healing energy, or Saviour, or Joshua. Joshua, or Joy, particularizes the spot or the scene of its triumphing “I decree.” Joshua stretches forth the spear in his hand toward Ai, the mass or heap of spoiling principles as the “l’s” old fruitings, according to its gospel truth speaking as things appear, that have gotten the better of man as sickness, sorrow, or despair; and Joshua, aware of the “l am Captain of the host of the Lord” facing him, taketh not back the hand wherewith he stretcheth out the spear, till all the inhabitants of Ai are utterly destroyed; or the spoiling principles annihilated; and in the precinct is no city save Beth-el, House of the Lord Uncontaminate.
ln ancient times the spear, the stick, the staff, the sword, the sceptre, were used to knight the commoner, or to transform the sick man into the sound man, the timid man into the bold man, the common man into the titled peer. Elisha’s staff was often used with this transforming effect. Kings to this day strike with sword or sceptre the shoulders of certain subjects of their realm; and Mr. Henry becomes Sir Henry, and my friend becomes Your lordship. “Take thee one stick and write .. . Judah (the unseen eternal) . . . then take another and write . . . Joseph (the manifest external) . . . and they shall become one in thine hand,” said the voice of the Lord to Ezekiel the most mystical minister among the ancient prophets.
Jesus did not take a visible stick or sceptre to touch the beautiful Judah Self of the Joseph self of the corpse body of Nain, to make the Judah beauty glow and gleam and glorify through rosy lips and sparkling eyes and stirring blood as living widow’s son at the city gates. He laid His hand on the Joseph self while steadfastly looking toward the ever-waiting Angel of the Presence, flying swiftly, mighty in strength, ministering Spirit, doing wondrously; and He told His disciples to thus lay hands on the sick that they might recover their seemingly lost immortal Judah Self, the ever-near Angel of the Presence. He drew the waiting glow and glory of man’s Angel of Life ever present, to gleam and gladden him as living strength, even when he seemed dead. “I drew them with cords . . . with bands of love and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws.”
“lf I keep looking to a gazelle leaping from rock to rock, I dance the gazelle dance so that people clap their hands,” says the child dancer of the New Age, harking back to the days of Aristoxanus, who taught to dance according to soul promptings and inward visioning.
“Keep your eye on the Eternal, and your intellect will grow.” “Honor and fortune exist for him who remembers that he is in the presence of the High Cause.” Therefore, “Unto thee, 0 my Strength, will I sing, animating my particular Self with Thy Universal Energy! 0 Thou I, and I Thou!”
“Glance up often,” writes Conan Doyle “to the spirits of the dead.” Hosea the prophet would say that the great writer is calling attention high, but not to the Most High. Practice of the Presence of the Most High, the Great Countenance of the Absolute, the Ain Soph, caused Nahum the prophet to cry out, “Watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy powers mightily!” For the loins do show strength by reason of high watch, and the “l Am Strength” is our giant truth.
“And . . . when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy (spoiling principles) , who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.”
It makes a difference who is reporting a miracle, as to whether the misery in its departure is mentioned, or the joyous state that remains is proclaimed. Luke the physician when reporting a case lays stress on the malady and its exorcise, as in the case of the “man full of leprosy,” which “leprosy departed.” So Joshua lays stress on the destruction of the spoiling principles massed as the old “l’s” gospel truth.
Mark, the founder of the Alexandrine Church, writes with burning brevity of the happy estate of unmolested cure: “And he took the blind man by the hand . . . and when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught . . . After that he put his hands again upon his eyes . . . and he was restored and saw every man clearly.” Mark does not say the blindness departed.
Again, notice the unction with which the physician Luke details the distressing condition of the synagogue worshipper: “And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands upon her; and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.” Notice how he threw the spoiling fruitings of the old “I” away into Universal Solvent!
So efficacious in drawing forth to visibility the Stainless Spark, or Judah Self of man, by the laying on of hands, was the Apostolic succession in Christian ministry, that for more than fifteen centuries the Christian minister laid with sacred tenderness his ordained hand upon the Joseph breast of his sick parishioner, whoever he might be, and repeated the accepted Christian formula for making the invisible Judah effulgence one with the outward body: “As with this visible oil thy body outwardly is anointed, so our heavenly Father, Almighty God, grant of His infinite goodness that thy soul, inwardly, may be anointed with the Holy Ghost, who is the Spirit of all strength, comfort, relief and gladness. And vouchsafe for His great mercy to restore unto thee thy bodily health, and strength, to serve Him, and send thee release from all thy pains, troubles and diseases, both in body and mind — through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And wonderful were the restorations of the Lord Self to the man or woman who had lost sense of vital oneness of Judah and Joseph in their own bodily form.
“Labor to keep alive in your breast the spark of celestial fire, the quenchless flame,” said some of the mystics. Remember the smokeless fire, the effulgent centre capable of infinite procession in extenso, of far extending radiance — “The Stainless Spark,” of which Dante writes.
When Jesus touches the leper and says, “I will. Be thou clean,” He is surely feeling the sweet fires running along from the God Self of Himself through the-palms of His hands and the tips of His fingers, as He sights with mystic energy the unseen Angel to wake joyous soundness where no waking seemed possible. “I drew them with the bands of love, and they knew not that I healed them.”
“Take thee one stick and write . . . Judah, then take another stick and write … Joseph . . . and they shall be one in thine hand.”
The Lord mighty to save stands stately and majestic everywhere facing us. “Two are ever in the field. One shall be taken, the other left.” Call, “Stand forth, life! health! strength! Come ye blessed of my Father! It is God’s will that you stand forth strong, and glad, and free! It is my will that you stand forth strong, and glad, and free! lt is your will that you stand forth strong, and glad, and free!” This memra, or Will Word, is the one harmonic chord stretching its soundless note, world without end, through men and angels, from the just, the mighty Will filling the universe.
Only he who has felt the blaze in his own breast can sense to the full the vital fire that burns in the breast of his neighbor, when his form seems lifeless, unconscious, past knighting with his own divinity. Therefore it is that all lessons of lneffable Mysticism return again and again to the relation of one’s own Lord Self to the High I AM, the Lord I AM ever standing before us. “l go to the king,” said Esther. To all previous outer experience it was death to go to the king; but Esther felt the celestial “I Go,” in her breast, and faced the lnvisible Lord standing masterful and majestic where other people saw only Xerxes the terrible.
“Old born drunk” who had never had any will or mind, laid his hands on his breast, where the Spark Celestial glows in all men, and said, “l am determined to find God.” And all the criminals and debauched of his part of London turned out with heads bowed and hats in hand, because “Old born drunk,” blear-eyed, will-less sot, found God!
“I praise God that I am healed!” shouted one who felt his Spark Celestial stir to speak as truth speaks by inner Lord despite outer diseased contentions. And though all the people sided with his outer contention, or diseased form, he spoke again more loudly still of the Lord Spark, burning truth in his breast, “Praise God! He has made me whole! I am healed!” And his truth of his own Lord Self transfused and uplifted and out-shone so that his outer frame glowed with the beauty of health, and all those who had sided with his previous showings were confounded. “Let them be confounded that are adversaries to my soul,” cried King David, sensing the glow of the Christ Spark in his bosom, the meeting place of the majestic Lord with every human form.
“I cannot retract — l am That!” exclaimed a young girl who had felt the glow of the Stainless Spark in her breast. And though she was held as untruthful, she fulfilled in herself all that she had said of herself “I am That!” She had spoken of the future as in the present tense, and that alone was her offense. Let us make no blunder here: The verities are in all tenses the same. The “I am That” belongs to us now as it was in the beginning, and always shall be, unabrogated forever. Whatever we will be we are, as Lord Self, ready to kindle the demonstration of “l am That,” according to our acknowledgment. “Take thee one stick and write . . . Judah, then take another stick and write . . . Joseph . . . and they shall become one in thine hand,” is our privilege. For the great things of our Judah Self are the things our Joseph self can manifest.
This has been called knowing the Self, or recognition of the pure Splendor inherent in all mankind as Omniscience, Omnipotence; Self Spark fearlessly waiting till I Am That be boldly spoken.
“Where is thy Spark, Lanoo! Speak thou from That.”
Joy follows hearkening to the voice of the ever-speaking Highest. “Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” And joy is strength: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” And strength is the bread of heaven: “Man shall feed in the strength of the Lord.” And joy in the Lord as strength is a healing radiance. “The merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” “The Lord loveth a cheerful giver,” or a giver of cheer. For they “tread on serpents.” That is, they bring forth health and strength and wise words from their neighbors as the sun draws forth the serpents of the stony fields. Serpents were in old days symbolic of health, strength, wisdom.
“Canst thou draw out leviathan?” asks the great Voice addressing Job. “Leviathan” is the strongest beast of the sea. The strongest constituent of man’s constitution is his joy chord. Canst thou make thy neighbor joyous? He is surely cured of all his maladies if thou canst wake the joy that slumbers unstirred in his being. Jeremiah had three diseases from grieving: “Mine eyes do fail with tears — my bowels are troubled — my liver is poured out.” No heart was ever stirred to healing joyousness in Jeremiah’s atmosphere. But a man in the Himalaya mountains felt the smile of God so ardently, that people went from miles around to get kindled into health by the mysterious influence of the far extending radio-activity of his smile.
No condemnation abides with the awakened joy spark. “l came not to condemn,” said the healing Jesus. “He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast,” said Solomon. “His barrel of meal,” his barrel of healing power, “stayeth not.” As the lily is not lessened in fragrance though a thousand people smell thereof, so the bottomless pit of the God Spark stayeth not, is not lessened, by much procession in extenso. “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth” is true of the I am That of myself, and of the Thou art That which I ardently proclaim to my neighbor. There is no limit to his joy fountain, his “I” with its divine fruitings.
“Go thy way,” respondeth the Mighty Lord of my neighbor’s presence; “eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.” “Ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord. Men shall call you the Ministers of our God.” “I will make thee a joy of many generations.”
This Ninth tells of the joy that comes by communing with one stronger than Nature’s forces and wiser than man’s mind. “And your joy no man taketh away.” “For he that communeth with me strengtheneth.” Gideon communed with the Lord God Invisible. He endureth year after year as seeing Him. “And the Lord looked on Gideon, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save lsrael from the hand of the Midianites … and the Amalekites, and all the children of the east lying along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude!” And Gideon, who knew not the law that might is roused by communing with the Mighty, answered from his Joseph or human sense of himself, “Oh, my Lord! Wherewith shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” But suddenly Gideon rose up with a new sense of himself, kindled by communing with One to whom great works are easy, and masterful deeds simple; and he stood boldly forth before the haughty army of Israel and said, “Look on me!” And all the powerful soldiers of Israel acknowledged Gideon’s right to untried martial leadership. He had touched the strength chord that stretches between universal Omnipotence and man’s omnipotence. lt is the joy chord also; and the love chord. It is the faith shout of “I Am Victory” in the hour of defeat.
The mystery of the victorious vision of Esther, and of David, and of Gideon, is our mystery of victorious vision by much communion with the same Victorious Lord.
Scientifically speaking they all cognized from the God centre of their being, struck back to God centre by much association with the Unseen Worker, ever offering himself as Almighty Ally without partiality, to all, high or low, rich or poor, wise or foolish.
As the actinic ray in the sun is the secret of its life- giving charm, so the joy of the Lord is his strength. And man may invigorate in that strength till he is royal magnet to the life of his neighbor, to the health of his neighbor, to the joyous smile of his neighbor, like Jesus to the ruler’s child, Peter to Tabitha, Paul to Eutychus.
Mystic joy of heart that draws forth the Judah Self of the sick, is the magnetic mystery which no man on earth exhibits in the plenitude of its attractive energy, because no man puts forth from the magnetic “l” centre of his being, the “l” Jesus hand that came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
At the magnetic Spark Centre of our being we are “the Sun of righteousness . . . with healing in his wings.”
As the sun draws the oak tree from out the acorn’s stiff cortex, up through the hard mold, past the tough grass roots, to centuries of forest life, so the hand that taketh the yoke from off the Judah jaws of mankind must move out from a central magnet stronger than death, stronger than Satan, or the non-alliance of the sick themselves. (There is no Satan except such non-alliance.)
No accusation abides at the magnetic centre of our being. If it is love, it is love that ministers, asking nothing in return. lt can wake to such might by our alliance with the Mighty, that it draws forth the integrity that hides like a giant asleep in the hearts of all men. The recognition of giant integrity waiting to be awakened annuls the disposition to condemn. There is no time to parley with would-be hinderings. The main business engrosses: “It is your will — It is my will — It is God’s will — Come forth!” And even Lazarus may not resist that King’s command.
It is lode-star to the Logos of man. It draws forth the axiom of his Sonship to the Father. lt wakes the key word to his diviner destiny:
“There is a message speaking within me from the heavens;
Whispering within me even in my sleep.”
It stirs the victorious I am That! “I am a writer,” said Balzac. Was not this word the chord to which his life vibrated? Did not that word act like a chain pump to the pool of genius hidden in his bosom? But there is a deeper and farther reaching adequacy lying at the root of our being than Balzac spoke.
There is an axiom that is bone of our bone and sinew of our sinew. It came with us when we hailed hither from our heavenly Father’s bosom. H we speak it forth, word for word and letter for letter, we are the sunshine and gladness of every life with which we associate. No situation daunts us. lt is the laughing topaz stone of fearlessness, because nothing hath power to hurt its self-existent verity.
No wonder that the true topaz stone, emblem of unkillable joyousness, is almost priceless in the gem markets of the world!
Inward buoyancy, kindling into speech, dissolves danger, animosity, failure. It puts them at disadvantage: “I have set the Lord always before me . . . Therefore my heart is glad — my flesh also shall rest in hope,” said David. He got his gladness of heart from setting the Lord always before his face. And the confidence of his flesh rose to such vigor that he set Goliath to one side, though a whole nation trembled at sight of him.
To this day the words, “I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts,” which David used when he faced Goliath, have something of the victorious self-executive David energized into them, even when the genesis of their energy is not noted. They are living examples of people who, though they have not set the Lord always before their faces, and therefore have not stirred the joy spark of their being, yet have been made mysteriously triumphant by repeating David’s words, “l come unto thee in the name of the Lord of hosts.”
The words turned their vision to the hard problems of their life as being met by that Unseen Ally who saith, “l will contend with him that contendeth with thee.” lt is a continuation of the shout of the lsraelites following on after the Ark of the Lord, as it led forward into the ranks of their enemies: “Rise up, Lord! and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee!” Their vision toward an Unseen Ally moving with irresistible might before them, worked havoc among their enemies; took the yoke of enmity off the jaws of their rightful safety, drew glad security to their plain view. “l was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws.”
Haggai promised that the “Desire of all nations shall come.” He meant that the glorious Lord ever facing shall be acknowledged, recognized, sound, free, wherever we look. “Like attracts like.” Magnetic gladness of heart attracts gladness of heart. This medicine divine stays waiting high watch, self recognition, joyous association with the Lord I Am of our neighbor, fearless of his hurting power, fearless of all hurting powers, heavenly hosts for antiphons —
“Harvest from seed that was scattered
On the borders of blue Galilee.”
“He that overcometh will I give power over the nations.” To overcome is to come over. To come over or above our circumstances and bodily feelings, by looking above to Him ever beholding hitherward, is to identify with power above the nations and combinations of delusions, as divine magnets to the strong, glad, free Self, even of multitudes: “Great multitudes came unto him, and he healed all.”
“From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain
They call us to deliver
Their land from error’s chain.”
“Him that overcometh will I make a pillar.” Pillar is strength. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Joy gives mysterious potency to the hands visible, and to the hands invisible. To stretch forth invisible hands and touch responsive strong Spirit, and say, “Come forth!” is to go into all the world and “lay hands on,” that multitudes may come forward repossessing their own wholeness.
“And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended.”
“And Joshua . . . was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him.” “And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.”
Though the Angel of man’s presence has shown ages long renitency to wails of woe, it springs in full-orbed splendor forth to greet the sceptred word of the joyous Shiloh spark of the New Healer — Qui mittendus est.
With vision cast downward, Mary was accusing some gardener of hiding her Lord; with upward vision she beheld the Lord, and no guilty gardener. She brought forth the Angel out of the heavenly spaces, and forgot that the guilty gardener ever existed. They shall “forget . . . misery … as waters that pass away.”
Thus with upward vision does the delusional age end, and the Reality age appear. Upward vision draws up from our native root of sincerity. By upward vision oft practiced every human being starts anew from his Sincerity Root, and drops the dry branches of lower attention, which have formulated into nervous prostration, decrepitude, poverty, discouragement, apprehension, and flourishes forth from his Sincerity Root of Vigor Everlasting; his Bottomless Life-Pit; his Healing Joy-Fountain; his Winning Bosom-Spark; gathering the Angel- hood of the universe to companionship. Is it not written, “Ruling all nations with rod of iron,” or with the irresistible pulling strength of magnetic iron? “I, if I be lifted up . . . will draw all men unto me.”
So, with divine allurements, again at the alphabet of Mysticism, we are brought with David to “lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens,” with sweet commandment, praying, “Turn thou us unto thee, 0 Lord . . . renew our days as of old.” This is the heavenly exhortation that makes our message as ointment poured forth. This causes the responsive nations to say with David’s son, for the Great Ministry’s sake, “Draw me, we will run after thee — Many waters cannot quench our love” of thy wondrous Word! — that Memra which created the world; which brought Israel out of Egypt; which brought the miracles recorded in the deep book of Exodus!
“From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.” ls it not always understood that darkness is ignorance? The sixth hour sets forth the law of spontaneous, or volitional calling after the Unknown and Invisible, to let lt take possession of us after lts own fashion. The seventh and eighth tell of forging ahead for our neighbor’s Unknown and universal Best Good to take possession of him, manifesting after Its own fashion. But the ninth in all ages treats of the knowing, the cognizance, the independent awareness by our own apperception, of the reality of the High Best Self of our neighbor, the great Angel of His Presence:
“What truth when number nine we see
Should we remember most?
The orders it should call to mind
Of all the heavenly host,”
the tantibility of the immortal and unspoilable Self, clothed, housed, fed, strong, glad, free, as the outward sign of our recognition of the oneness of his Judah and Joseph self. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.” This closes the age of darkness, of the hiddenness of the Self, and gives tactile value to the Angel of God’s Presence speaking to us and dealing with us, whenever a human being speaks to us or faces us. We appreciate that as there is but One Supreme Self in the universe, ever inviting each self to transcend itself by recognition of its own One Supreme Self, we are all brethren, because our neighbor’s One Supreme Self is our Supreme Self also. This is the genesis of the injunction to love the neighbor as the Self. It is the “Brahma Self, One Self, thou that Self,” of most ancient teaching.
Cornelius, a Centurion in the Roman Army, had lifted up his fearing vision Godward till the Angel of the High Supreme was tangibly present before him, conversing with him as man to man, lovely, masterful, wise. “At the Ninth hour of the day” it was, as we read, Acts tenth chapter.
“At the Ninth hour Jesus gave up the ghost.” He dropped the sense of a body or mind differentiated from the Supreme Self. He sent forth his divine influence untrammelled by form, to be contagioned by all men world without end.
The Levitical law of Hebraism reads that man shall eat of the old fruits till the Ninth. That is, we must stand by what we are taught as gospel truth of appearances, till we know to speak by our untaught Self. Peter is trying in his Second Epistle, to tell us that we have a native word of prophecy, “whereunto (we) do well that (we) take heed . . . until the day dawn and the day star arise in (our) hearts.” Day star is lodestar, magnetic centre, where the Original Knower in us waits our spoken I am That! and our neighbor waits our spoken Thou art That! and the very world waits our “I decree!”
“Look upon Zion,” says Isaiah, “there the glorious Lord will be unto (thee) a place of broad rivers and streams . . . And the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven.” Surely this is a precious treasure, this topaz stone of independent recognition, and independent speech. What reactions of new wisdoms lie quiescent in us till our eyes do look on Zion, and the Lord Supreme be the place of our vision’s glad rest! What consort with Angels our neighbors shall experience by our right view of them, as Mozart experienced new music by viewing angelic choirs!
Every other way of viewing our fellow-men exposes us to his shadow system’s discordant traits. Jeremiah speaks of a whole nation as having eye failure because of “vain watching toward a people that could not save.”
Balaam of Mesopotamia caught a cursing mind from associating with Balak king of the Moabites, who was filled with the cursing mind. So Balaam was willing to curse the Israelites or any other people Balak might suggest. King Balak had a psychological influence over his associates, like many powerful people of our own time. And Midian, his envoy, who also was under his spell to defeat whomsoever might oppose him, right or wrong, added his vocal persuasions to the king’s forceful psychology, and when Balaam got well into their swing he prayed God to make him strong to sweep the lsraelites off the earth. After a night’s communion with the I AM on high, he opened his mouth with sublime words of blessing and fore-telling for the Israelites:
“There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall arise out of Israel.”
Balak and the princes of Moab, with Midian, angrily reminded him that he had been hired and influenced to curse and not to bless; but Balaam, still under the bright sway of High Wisdom, caught by a night’s communing with The Transcending, could not enter again into their psychological aura, and despite their threats, being as it were in a trance, having his eyes still open, he pronounced the words of the High Deliverer:
“How goodly are thy tents 0 Jacob, and thy tabernacles 0 lsrael! Blessed is he that blesseth thee — How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy whom God hath not defied? For from the tops of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” Balaam saw the life of the Jews on earth three thousand years ahead of him, even up to this day, when the Sceptre of the Israelitish stock, the Star of the Son of Jacob is the morning magnet of the whole earth —
“The star that shone over the manger
Now covering the earth with its light.”
“He that overcorneth, and keepeth the word of my patience, I also will keep him.” Come over the personal hardships by looking up. Did not the Great Prophet say: “ln the days of world war and universal lamentation, Look up” (St. Luke, 21st chapter).
Keep the Great Name, or the Great Word, as set forth in the first study, and prove the promise, I will keep thee from the hour of temptation.”
A servant girl feeling the spark burning in her breast said, “l must be a missionary. With God all things are possible, and he has called me to be a missionary.” When the mission board received her application they told her she had not the credentials for foreign missionary work. But nothing can down the flame of the I Am That when once uttered and kept as precious truth! Is it any surprise to be told that when delegates of different foreign mission stations were in the United States, and heard her sing —
“Waft, waft ye winds the story,
And you ye waters, roll,
Till like a sea of glory
It spreads from pole to pole” —
and
“Still, still with thee
When purple morning breaketh,
When the bird waketh
And the shadows flee,
Fairer than the morning,
Lovlier than daylight,
Dawns the sweet consciousness,
I am with thee,”
they invited her to go to foreign shores with them, telling her plainly she could win more hearts with her singing than they could win with their preaching?
Keep therefore the high watch and the wonder- working Name, till the spark I Am That lets loose its executive splendor with its “l will and I decree.”
“Such are the Elect,
Who seem not to compete or strive,
Yet with the foremost still arrive,
Prevailing still;
Spirits with whom the stars connive
To do their will.”
Speak from the Spark Dominant and see its dominion! “For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” as Isaiah prophesied.
How reviving to mankind is the voice of the God- Will waking the silence of ages with the sceptred word addressed to the True Self of our neighbor: It is your will to be glad, and strong, and free! It is my will that you be strong, and glad, and free! It is the will of High God that you be strong, and glad, and free! Walk with me, acknowledging no other voice than the voice of The Supreme now chording all wills into lts One Will. I Am That will — Thou art That will — God is That will — There is but One Will!
“Man has become weary of his thoughts,
and seeks for higher power to free him from his mental prison.” — COREY.
“Look unto Me” — “I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.” — JEREMIAH
Exaltation of the mystic Visional Sense wakes recognition of our own hidden God-Seed; and inspiration fans our God-Seed to full exhibition as children of the Promised Golden Age.
E. C. H.