Chapter XVII W. John Murray
THE LAW OF VIBRATION
The Realm of Reality
Divine Science Publishing Assoc.
New York, 1922.“Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, came Jesus and stood in the midst and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.”
–John 20:19
[193] It is said that wherever any of God is, there all of God must be in His or Its entirety, totality, completeness. Some explanation of this statement of science, philosophy and true religion may be in order at the start. This agrees perfectly with the theological idea of the indivisibility of God. We cannot conceive of God being broken up into fragments, so that a little is in one place, and a little in another place. Wherever any of God is, there all of God must be, on the principle of mathematics that wherever mathematics is, there all of that principle must be in its entirety, totality and completeness.
This will appeal to the rational minds of all. Wherever any of God is, there all of God must be, and because of this, wherever any of God’s reflection is, there all of God’s reflection must be [194] in its entirety, totality and completeness. And for Jesus to realize this was for Jesus to know that wherever any of him was, spiritually, or mentally, there all of him was physically, so-called, because there could be no divisibility between mind and mind’s manifestation.
It is for this reason, then, that Jesus, completely understanding that wherever any of God is, all of God must be, could be physically wherever he was mentally or spiritually. This is not an incommunicable secret, nor an impossible phenomenon. It is merely impossible to us, by reason of the fact that we have not yet reached the point where we can demonstrate what we can intellectually perceive.
There could not be demonstration before there was perception, not even with Jesus. For Jesus to perceive that wherever any of mind was, all of mind, in its totality and completeness, must be, was for him to set about beginning to demonstrate it in the degree he realized it, until the day came when he could demonstrate it in its fullness. And so we find him appearing to the disciples on the way to Emmaus, abolishing time and space and communicating with them, not telepathically and from afar off, but from close proximity.
We are dealing with the appearance of Jesus on the evening of that eventful day in the room with his disciples when the doors were closed, “for fear of the Jews,” it is written. This attitude was based upon the belief that their philosophy was not understood and, since the chief [195] leader of the cult of that day had been safely put away, it was an easy matter to deal with the disciples of this rapidly growing, but, nevertheless, insane group.
That was the New Thought of that day, and so they locked themselves in, and Jesus appeared in the midst of them. We have placed this in the category of miraculous, not to speak of spectacular, performances. We have declared it was done once, but could never be repeated. But is it not a profound belief, with the most scientific mentalities, that whatever has been performed, at any time in the world’s history, may be again performed, under similar conditions and according to the same identical law, if law is back of it?
What is the law, then, back of this phenomenon? Modern science is revealing many strange truths, based upon past investigation and discovery. There is none being revealed to the inquisitive minds of our day that is more susceptible of demonstration, more entrancing in its investigation, than is the law of vibration.
This is a twentieth century of discovery of a law that is as ancient as the universe. We have seen it at work again and again, but never thought to inquire into it. We have watched its strange manifestations with pleasure, but we never sought until very recently to inquire into the predisposing cause. For instance, never until the last forty or fifty years did we have such an instrument as the ideophone. This was quite unknown to the ancients, notwithstanding the law of vibration [196] was as much in operation in their time as it is in ours.
The ideophone is a delicately constructed sound instrument which records with mathematical precision every vibration of sound. Stretched over a thin parchment in this marvelous machine, there is a receiving paste and, when sounds are made into it, on this sensitive paste are traced the most wonderful manifestations of the glories of the earth–trees, flowers, ferns all begin to manifest according to certain chords, according to certain musical tones. Let there be a discordant tone, and immediately this paste begins to ruffle up and crumble and present the most disorganized mass of peculiar marks. But, it is said, if instead of using paste, sand is placed therein and the same sounds sung, the sand will assume entirely different shapes; instead of conforming to natural objects, such as trees and birds and flowers and ferns, there will be geometrical figures. If, however, a discordant note should be sung into the mouth, the sand will run around, like some fidgety little people, breaking up the formations.
In this way we are beginning to see, by mechanical means, how the law of vibration works. There is that other manifestation of this same law which you have seen every time that you have breathed on a window pane on an early winter morning. When your cloud of breath upon the pane freezes to ice crystals, have you not noticed all the delicate markings of ferns, and trees and other forms of nature?
[197] The inference drawn from this, by the most profound students of vibratory law, is to prove that all visible manifestations, our own bodies included, are nothing more or less than the clouds that are sent off from the invisible values of the universe and, through processes of condensation, become trees, birds, plants, human bodies and bodies of other objects, assuming shape in a cold world, so to speak. This contention at first sounds rather fantastic, but it is not. On the instrument they record scientific methods of procedure, and so it is we are going to attempt in our way to use this law of vibration to explain the method by which our Saviour appeared in the room with his disciples, when the windows were barred and the doors were locked.
I remember being told something relative to this many years ago by a lecturer who had become interested in this philosophy and wished to reveal the supremacy of mind in the material world. He had set aside in his own home a room, to which he frequently invited a well-known, though not professional, spiritualistic medium, a dear old lady in regular standing in the church, who, nevertheless, believed in spiritistic communications. There was nothing in the room to indicate any possibility of concealment. It was rectangular and there was no furniture save a center table and two chairs, and no lights. During one of these evenings, my friend informed me, he found moist things falling over his head, dropping softly and gently; and when the doors were opened [198] afterwards and the lights shone in from the hall, he found the room strewn with sweet pea blossoms. The medium told him that these flowers had come from his own garden. He went out and found that the flowers had been gently plucked from their stems.
I brought my knowledge of the law of vibration to my aid, because I could not explain it on any other theory. Whatever it was, whether it was a discarnate spirit, the spirits of just men made perfect, or so-called mortal mind, operating on the plane of the invisible, I do not know, but the method I think I can explain. Whatever force it was which resolved the sweet peas into their original constituent elements of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, etc., was able, in that form, to bring them into the room and resolve them back by the same law of vibration into flowers.
Perhaps it is the same thing that is back of this peculiar phenomenon in our Saviour’s experience. How else shall we explain the appearance of a human body, which he takes pains to show is a human body? When they say, “It is a spirit,” he says: “A spirit has not flesh and bones as I have. Look at my hands and feet and side (which he showed Thomas later). Behold it is I, I myself.” Naturally the question would arise: “Whence came thou and how crept thou in hither?” There he was. There was no means, physically speaking, by which he could stand before them without having come through a window or door. But he could be there on the principle [199] that wherever any of mind is, there all of mind must be. And, since the body is mind made manifest, then the mind made manifest in Jesus’ body could be there, in all its perfectness, totality and completeness, on the principle that whatever God is, man may be, when working in co-operation with God’s eternal law.
We find these strange things taking place at this time and, for this reason, call your attention to the text, because, it seems to me, if we examine it closely, it explains the phenomenon. “He that ascended, what is it but that he first descended?” We are not trying to account for the ascension of our Saviour; we are trying to find if there is law back of it, and what it is, if we may become intelligently acquainted with this law, and thus ourselves ascend first of all above our sins and sickness and sorrows, and then above all matter, through mental dominion.
“He that ascended, what is it but that he first descended?” You have the secret. Here you have the explanation of this peculiar statement made by Dr. Humshacker, the noted German scientist, “It is said that as the clouds of one’s breath condense on a pane of glass into flower shapes, so, after a like manner, the whole flora and fauna of the globe come from the nebula cloud.” This is not Divine Science at all. It is a statement by a student of unusual phenomenon. There is that nebula cloud, which corresponds to the clouds of your breath on a winter morning, that universal breath that goes out from the great [200] center of the universe and gradually condenses as it approaches the planets and, in its process of condensation, takes the form and shape of ferns, birds, flowers, or what not.
Now we have this scientific explanation of the strange phenomenon attributed to our Saviour, and this we believe. “He that ascended, what is it but that he first descended?” on the principle that that which goes down comes up, as, for instance, the moisture which comes from invisible vapor becomes visible vapor, then moisture, then rain, or snow or ice, and then falls as dew in the early morning.
Jesus came down, we believe, by personal consent. The reincarnationists tell us that he consented, for the sake of humanity, to incarnate himself in the flesh, but what was the process of the reincarnation? It was that of mind’s descent into material conditions, through which there came this condensation of the nebula cloud, or the breath of God becoming condensed, as it descended into the region of the cold, unreceptive world, as a physical body, which became manifest to us as Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary. It vibrated on such a plane as to enable you and me and the wise men to see this condensed spiritual vapor of Christ, manifesting itself in the physical Jesus.
We are told that he came down to redeem a sin-sick, sorrowing world, but he had to come down through processes of condensation. Thought had to descend into material conditions [201] before it could assume material shape and, when this material shape had served its purpose, Jesus, gradually realizing mind’s supremacy over matter, just as he had power to come down, had power to go up. Hence his words when he said, “I have power to lay down my life and to take it up again.” “I have power so to reinvigorate the constituent elements of my being, operating at such rates of vibration that I shall be apparently a physical person, but I have power also to heighten or increase my vibrations as to make my body, which is dense and opaque, translucent and transparent.”
It was all a question of vibration, which, in its final analysis, is not a physical thing at all. What the scientists are thinking of, perhaps, in the construction of their instrument, is physical, but that does not change the fact that it is not a physical thing, and the German scientist has arrived at the conclusion that the thing proceeds not from anything that is physical, but from something back of that. It is the breath of the Almighty, reduced by processes of condensation into the visible manifestation, especially in the person of Jesus of Nazareth; then, through the development and evolution of his own soul, comes the gradual ascension above matter. So, first of all, he takes possession of the so-called material body–not a material body, but a mental one–and, by heightening the vibrations, causes the [202] body to assume lightness which is not customary, but is according to law.
Does this contain any lesson for you or for me, or shall we be forever just emphasizing the strange, miraculous appearance of Jesus of Nazareth in the closed room with his disciples? Did he do it merely for spectacular purposes and to prove to the doubting Thomas that he was real?
Shall we regard all of these manifestations of the law of vibration as things of no spiritual significance for us? To do so would be stupidity. We live in a veritable universe of miracles. The appearance of ice crystals is as much a miracle as the appearance of Jesus in the room with his disciples. It is just as much a miracle and is governed by the same law. What does it mean, then, to you and me? Have you ever seen it work in the physical body? I have seen it, time and time again. How often a man comes to Divine Science, desperate almost to a point of suicide, the victim of a habit he cannot control–a self-confessed drunkard, bloated, bleary, sluggish. He has tried the rest cure and the gold cure, swearing off and taking the pledge, all to no avail.
And then he turns, as do most of us, to that last resort, God–to Christian Science, Divine Science, or any other phase of the new philosophy. He is given something to read. He is encouraged in the belief that he can overcome this habit through mind’s supremacy over the law of propensities. This is not a question of taking something, but of realizing that he can actually [203] think himself out of his malady. He reads and studies. He takes treatment; he prays, he affirms his exemption from everything that is unlike God. Yesterday he considered himself a beastly sot. Today he believes he is, despite all appearances, the son of God.
Does the change take place immediately? Sometimes the mental change does. Do the bloat and the purple and the blear and the sluggishness of movement disappear instantly? I have never seen it, but I have seen, as that soul has come into a fuller conviction of the unity of God, the gradual disappearance of all these physical manifestations or correspondences of his mental state.
The spiritual explanation of it is that he has become transformed by the renewing of his mind. But what of the physical change? Vibration. When a man sins, and when the brain becomes cloudy with the vapor of intoxicants, the body expresses correspondence. The vibrations become lower and lower. When a man comes into a fuller realization of what he is, he rises above all this, not through will power, nor gold cure, nor signing the pledge, but through the inner realization that the son of God is not a drunkard. When he gains this conviction, he returns to his Christian athletic perfectness; fat gives place to muscle, inflammation yields place to clarity, and sluggishness disappears.
Whenever the mind is sinful or sorrowful or sordid or selfish, the bodily atoms are operating at such a rate of vibration as to make for density or [204] stupidity, or sluggishness; and the ideophone merely illustrates what actually takes place every day in the physical organism. It all depends on the kind of song you sing into the ideophone of the mind as to what kind of vibrations will take place on the delicate manifestation of the mind that you call the body. If you sing harmonious tunes of your unity with God in the ideophone of the mind, there will be only beautiful manifestations symbolized by ferns and flowers and trees. Again, if you make other sounds and use sand for the purpose, you will find those beautiful geometrical figures of bodily symmetry, as a result of mental exactness. All of these correspondences take place in the very body, because it is to the mind what this sensitive paste is to the song that is sung into the ideophone.
So vibration, while not a physical law, is a spiritual manifestation of a physical law. That accounts for the whole visible, physical world. It is comfort to have a scientist, who does not profess to be a Divine Scientist, assure us of the fact that the whole visible, physical world is nothing more or less than the condensed nebula-breath of the universe and that, if that could change, the whole physical world would disappear. This is corroborating the statement of Peter that in his day the world could be rolled up like a scroll and disappear like a cloud, because the physical world is nothing more or less than the condensation of nebula clouds. But we take it to [205] be the whole thing; but once let him change his course and the vibrations, going up and up, produce physical correspondences almost immediately. In the degree the drunkard grasps it, to that extent will the understanding be translated in his body. It is for him to grow more and more and more in the Christ consciousness; so the clarity of his eye will proclaim the health of the mind. Shall we say the law has fulfilled its purpose, because it has brought the drunkard from two hundred and fifty pounds to a trim figure? Is there not a point to which it may still go? It was just at that point that Jesus began, where most people leave off. This same man may still go on spiritualizing his consciousness, until his body becomes lighter, more tenuous, less dense, and less opaque, for it is not enough for today to destroy the disease which manifests itself in the body, nor enough to destroy brutality and carnality. We shall not stop there.
There is no division in man any more than in God. It is we who divide. We say, “With my mind I can be in the room, but not with the body.” Jesus said, “With my mind I can be in the room with my disciples, complete.” It all depends on who places the limitations. God never imposed them. Wherever any of you is, there all of you must be; and when you grasp the significance you will understand the miracle.
The thing that is true of Jesus is true of you. When you ascend it will be merely because you [206] have descended first. When you rise it will be merely because you fell in the first place and, when you attain to this spiritual perfection of the person of God, you will not be anything that you haven’t been, but only what you have always been, but have forgotten for a time to be.
Thought has descended into the material, and ascension is nothing more or less than the elevation of the mind above materiality. This is your ascension, even as it was the ascension of our Saviour. When this takes place, you will see that the body is merely condensation of thought, operating on a low plane of vibration, and you will see it dissolve and disappear. You will realize that you are a breath of the Almighty, gone out from the great warm mouth of God, having become congealed and condensed through material thinking, forming beautiful pictures of yourself, and sometimes ugly ones. You will understand that you are precisely the result, on the physical plane, of the law of vibration, according to certain spiritual states of consciousness.
Theology has not sought to explain the ascension of Jesus. All it ever thought to do was to say that he has ascended, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church,” and so on, but it was belief without knowing. That, of course, is good. It is better to believe without knowing than not to believe at all, but what was it concerning him that ascended, but that he also descended? What was it when he appeared in the midst of his disciples in a room, but that he [207] had so heightened the vibrations of his body, through spiritual thinking, that he would appear and then, lowering his vibrations, could stand before his disciples with the same identical body? The same, because that body represents his states of consciousness at certain periods of evolution. If he had come without scarred hands, Thomas would have said, “That is not my Lord and Master at all. Here is some trick.”
Spirit is not matter; but thought descending becomes materialized, and ascending becomes spiritualized. There is no matter. All is mind; all is thought,–so that Huxley, the physical scientist, when he says: “What is the material thing called matter but thought that we have poorly constructed for ourselves?” is verifying every statement of our Saviour.
Perhaps it is enough for us to use this law of vibration in a physical way, by so heightening and elevating thought, so lifting it into a spiritual world, governed by spiritual law, that all carnality, bestiality and all grossness will gradually subside, in the degree that the mind is elevated above material things, until the very figure itself by the renewing of the mind will become transformed into estheticism, charm, beauty and purity. Thus, gradually, we shall ascend above the material into the esthetic world and then, by a steady process of evolution, gradually ascend and sit with Him in the enjoyment of that nature which has never become touched or tainted or corrupted by material conditions, until we shall [208] get back of all that tends to condense itself in the slightest degree, into the great heart of the infinite, to live as that imperishable and eternal form of God, which Man is.
The ascension of Jesus is wonderful, especially when one considers it from a standpoint of vibration. Who shall say that Jesus is not here? Many declare he is not. But again the law of vibration helps us tremendously, for it tells us that there are things operating at such a high rate of vibration that the most powerful microscope cannot detect them. Have you ever taken a board on the end of a string, as a youngster, and twirled and twirled it, until it gained such speed that you could see nothing but the string going through the air? Have you ever watched the huge spokes of a ship’s wheel in the engine room, moving with such rapidity that gradually, as the speed increased, they disappeared?
You have noticed the blades of an electric fan disappear, of course. What accounts for it? Vibration. There are multitudinous bodies in the world today that are operating at such a high rate of vibration that science cannot detect them. So it is, possibly, with the rarefied, spiritualized form of Jesus, operating at such a high rate of vibration. There are moments when the soul can see, just before it passes into the great beyond. May it not be that there are other moments when it becomes so refined that it can perceive, because [209] there is less materiality? Times we can catch a vision of that which we cannot see at any other time? Do you not recall that the youthful Stephen, when they stoned him to death, looked up and said, “I see Jesus seated on the right hand of God”?
How do we account for these ecstatic moments just before one falls asleep in that which we call death? Shall we wave them aside and say it is delirium? Oh, no. The ordinary, material world is delirium and, when we catch a vision of the Christ, we call it delirium; in reality we are insane all the rest of our lives.
How shall you explain the phenomenon of the transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah appeared talking to Jesus? You say it is just hallucination in the minds of Peter and James and John. May it not be that this thing worked in two ways? I am merely asking questions because I am very curious. I do not merely accept transfiguration. I am like Paul–I want to know how and why; and if a church cannot tell me, I want some good book to tell me, and, if a book cannot, I want the spirit of a just man departed to tell me. I want to know if the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration is something that we are just going to accept and let it go at that, or if we cannot, then to have an explanation.
The law of vibration works two ways, by descension and ascension. Was it not possible on that morning for Moses and Elijah so to reduce [210] their vibrations as to allow them to appear to Jesus? Is it not possible that the minds of Peter and James and John became so elevated, and their vibrations so high, that they could see that which came down?
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The Realm of Reality
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