THE ESOTERIC.

A Magazine of Advanced and Practical Esoteric Thought.

VOL. II.]

JUNE 21 TO JULY 22.

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UNITY OF DESIRE-PRAYER.

[No. I.

In the April number of THE ESOTERIC we asked all classes of thinkers to unite with us in soul aspiration for a more perfect state of human existence on earth, and gave the Lord's prayer as expressive of a desire that all classes of thinkers could unite in, without violence to any creed, if they but take the words for what they really mean without any superstitious garbage around them. Thereby would be brought about a concentration of all truly honest and devout souls in the one direction.

Not that we expect to change God, or alter the purposes of the Infinite mind, but that we may apply the law and enjoy the benefits derived therefrom. While we are told that Jesus recommended this prayer, yet he united with all his predecessors in teaching that God is Spirit and unchangeable, and that all law, -i.e. natural-is His law. Therefore any edicts, statutes, or ecclesiastical traditions are worthless, unless they teach the methods of Divine law.

After Jesus had finished his work on the earth plane of his physical existence, he instructed his disciples to remain in Jerusalem, until they were endowed with power from on high, to go into all the world and preach the gospel, or God's Spell, -the psychic power with which His Spirit endowed them to the extent that they could raise the dead, cast out demons, heal the sick etc. They were all to remain together in constant prayer with desire for that endowment of spiritual power, which came, after forty days, in such a wonderful manner that it surpassed all their expectations.

The external reasoner has concluded that there must have been some Man God who was persuaded through their devotion to change his ordinary course, in order to accomplish some design through them, which does not agree at all with the Bible teachings of an unchangeable God. Then others will say, "If God is unchangeable, then his natural laws certainly must be, therefore, what is the use in our making any effort? we cannot change anything!"

It is true that God and his laws are immutable, and it is among the many methods of those laws that the ground should bring forth grain and vegetables for man's use; but man must prepare the ground and sow the seed,

or he can not reap the harvest. Again the river runs down the decline into the great ocean and we cannot hinder it, but we can dam up and turn its course and cause the persistent waters to do our work for us. So we might cite hundreds of cases where God's unchangeable laws are made to serve man, and their service is efficient because of their unchangeableness; for if the water when dammed up would cease to flow, then it would be of no use; or if the water when heated in the boiler, would not force its way out by an irresistible power, it would be of no service to man. It is the unchangeableness of the natural laws that makes them serve the devices of man's intellect.

Jesus came to bring the knowledge of the methods of utilizing Gods superior laws; those that find expression in the soul of man, through the operation of the spirit upon the body. Love is the activity of life, and desire is the product or effect upon the intelligence. Man loves the kind of food that the body needs, and the consciousness of that need produces a desire for it and an effort to obtain it; the life in the grass needs the nourishing elements of earth and air and these are drawn to it, and absorbed by it, and thus it grows through the effectual power of love; for "love is life in motion"; the cessation of motion is death. Jesus taught that the desire produced by love was the most potent to draw in,-inspire the qualities desired; for he said "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching ANYTHING that ye shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." Mathew chap. xviii., verse 19th. Low is this reconcilable with the unchangeable God of law? It is this: His Father and ours is spirit from which all things originated; the pure elements of all things are in God, and as "God is the fullness of him that filleth all in all" (Eph. I. 23.), all space is filled with God, known to the ancients as the" Astral light." These qualities are all invisible to the physical senses, but they exist and are subject to natural law as much as is the silver that, dissolved and put into clear water cannot be seen; but apply the creative law of the positive and negative forces of all creative life, electricity, and it can all be collected out of the water and re-substantiated as solid silver again. A sympathetic piece of silver or copper placed on the negative pole of the battery, will gather every particle that is in the water to itself, no matter how small the piece may be that was used as an attractor; all that it wants is the active principle of love which is magnetic. All that there is in nature is held in equilibrium by a balance of the two forces positive and negative, the qualities of which are expressed as Love and Wisdom, “God is Love." Yes, all things in nature, being of God, are good, and to be in sympathy with these natural principles requires the person to be good, otherwise there would be repulsion in place of attraction.

What do we mean by being good? God is good, and to be good is to be like Him. He (and She, if you please) in great wisdom has so arranged all laws that everything works together for good, i.e. for the elevating of man, to be like Him in everything; any good thing misused or preverted, is evil.

There is no envy, strife, or hatred in God: there is nothing hidden, or deceptive, or false; then, before we can become a magnet for gathering and organizing these Divine qualities, we must be free from all those discordant elements, and when we are "pure in heart," thought and desire, then we become like the piece of copper that gathers to it the pure silver. But why are two required to agree? why does not the desire of one obtain? Because all persons are selfish in their un-enlightened condition; each acts individually from his nature and cannot really unite with another in anything, because all selfish desires are illusions, that cannot meet a true echo in another's heart. Therefore, if two really unite, it is because they are unselfish; and then their desire, vibrating in harmony with the reality of truth, will draw down the power of the Spirit, clothe it with the magnetic aura of their individuality and send it out on its mission. But where three, ten, or ten thousand are united in one thing, the power increases proportionally to the number, and the intensity of the desire, and also the purity of the hearts thus desiring. That desire reaches into the "Astral Light,”—into God's spiritual body whence we were taken, by the same law under different methods of application, and calls down the especial qualities desired; and as that is only accomplished by the negative pole of the battery, so this is only accomplished by the interior spiritual soul, perfectly submissive to the Supreme Will. There cannot be a single reserve! If there is, it will close the door of perfect sympathy, and this effectual prayer is impossible. But when the soul is open and "The Father of Light" is invited in with an intense desire for some object, then, when the spirit desired comes, it possesses your soul and body.

The time has come that this planet might be, and will be, deluged by the "Holy Spirit," or the spirit that is superior to the present earth conditions, as the prophet Joel said, "And it shall come to pass, that I will pour out of my spirit upon ALL FLESH; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, chap. i., verse 28th. This prophecy is now being fulfilled in every direction, and who is ready to receive it and be profited thereby? The church, so far as it has any virtue left, has Devotion which is the greatest virtue on the negative side; but she rejects her husband, Knowledge, therefore she is a spiritual "adulteress," as the prophet Hosea chap. iv., verse 6th, said "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast REJECTED KNOWLEDGE, I WILL ALSO REJECT THEE, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children." Because they have "forgotten the law of God;" yes, they have all known, and do know, that throughout the records of the manner of God's revealing his will to man it has always been through angel visitation and through dreams and visions; yet they wilfully reject God's law of spiritual teaching and guidance and repel his angel messengers, and will not listen to the spirit of prophecy, and say "that used to be so, but that is past." Why is it past? has God changed?

or is it your unwillingness to hear the word of God when he speaks? Are you not, through that, justifiying the words of the prophet Isaiah chap. lxv., verse 12th "Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not." Thus they close up every avenue by which the spirit might approach them and instruct them.

Another class have not refused to hear the angel messengers; they have gladly listened to their words, but instead of obeying them, they thought it delightsome to get word from the spirit, and imagined they were especial favorites of heaven and began to require those celestial "guides" to amuse and gratifiy curiosity, and to show their power for money. Then those heavenly visitants forsook them, and the low "elementals" and earth bound spirits came and played with them and deceived them," and the last state is worse than the first." This is another way the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'

Still another class are destroyed for their one-sidedness; they are those who, with an inherent love for the spiritual, have no devotion, and are wholly in the intellect. These have read all the old books and searched the histories of Orient and Occident until their mind is stored with knowledge; yet they are soul-starved and spiritually frozen to death, in the darkness and cold of intellectuality.

Now all these things are good if wisely used. Can we not form a fourth class out of all the truly good of the others; a class that has all the true soul devotion of a most loving wife to her husband; and a love of knowledge that will cause them to accept the Truth, no matter from what source it comes; and that will receive the angels of God as his messengers whilst recognizing the fact of their own Divine son-ship. When these are united in the "Truth" — which is only a knowledge of that which is, in contradistinction to theories and doctrines handed down by men-and in the true soul desire for the Divine humanity to be manifested on earth, they will be able, by that constantly active soul desire, to draw down to earth such an army from the heavenly world, and with them so much of the spiritual atmosphere, that license, sensuality and crime would melt before it like the frost before the morning sun.

Then, let every true soul unite with us in prayer, to our highest conception of God, every Wednesday evening at the same hour,* that we may have added power to draw to earth this superior quality of Spirit, to take control of our life and make of us a spring, a living fountain for the Divine Power, until there is prepared a clean place on earth for these pure souls to gather where they can "tarry until they are fully-endowed with power from on high" to do the will of the Highest perfectly. This would constitute the "Ideal city," "the Temple of God," where "the angels of God would be seen ascending and descending upon the Son of

*See June number, page 465.