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January 16th, 1916
Received by:James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, St. Paul, of the New Testament.
I come tonight to tell you of a truth that is important for men
to know, and which you must place in your Book of Truths.
I have written you before
on my alleged writings as they are contained in the Bible, and which,
as I have said, were not written by me as they there appear.
I desire tonight to write for a short time on the subject of the
"Resurrection," because, as I see, the church doctrine of the resurrection
is founded more on what is ascribed to me than on the writings of
the Gospels, though the latter also contain a basis for the doctrine.
I never said there would be a resurrection of the physical body
nor of the individual clothed in any body of flesh, but my teachings
were that man at death would rise in a spiritual body, and that
not a new one made for the special occasion of his departure from
the material body, but one that had been with him through life and
that came into an individualized form when he first became a living
being. This spirit body is necessary to man's existence, and is
that part of him which contains his senses and is the seat of his
reasoning powers.
Of course the organs of the physical are necessary for the utilization
of these senses, and without these organs there could be no manifestations
of the senses, which are inherent in the spirit body. Even if a
man should lose the perfect workings of his physical organs of sight,
yet the power of seeing would still exist in him, although he might
not be able to realize that fact; and this same principle applies
to the hearing and the other senses.
So when man loses his physical organs which are necessary for him
to see with, he is dead as to sight, just as dead as he ever becomes
with reference to all the other organs of sense when the whole physical
body dies; and were it possible to restore these physical organs
that are necessary to enable him to see or hear, he would be able
to see and hear just as he was before their loss. The restoration
of these organs does not, of itself, bring him the power to see
and hear, but merely enables the faculties of sight and hearing
to again use the organs for the purpose of manifesting the powers
which are in and a part of the spirit body.
When the whole physical body dies the spirit body, at the very
time of death, becomes resurrected, and with all these faculties
of which I have spoken, and thereafter continues to live free and
unincumbered from the material body, which, these organs being destroyed,
can no longer perform the objects of its creation. It becomes dead,
and thereafter never has any resurrection as such material body,
although its elements or parts do not die, but in the workings of
God's laws enter upon other and new functionings, though never that
of reuniting and forming again the body that has died.
So the resurrection of the body, as taught by me, is the resurrection
of the spiritual body, not from death, for it never dies, but from
its envelopment in the material form which had been visible as a
thing of apparent life.
There is a law controlling the uniting of the two bodies and the
functioning of the powers and faculties of the spirit body through
the organs of the physical body, that limits the extent of the operations
of these faculties, to those things that are wholly material - or
which have the appearance of the material - and when I say material
I mean that which is grosser or more compact than the spirit body.
Thus these faculties of sight of the spirit body can, through the
organs of the material body, see what are called ghosts or apparitions
as well as the more material things, but never, in this way, see
things of pure spirit. And when it is said that men or women see
clairvoyantly, which they do, it is not meant or is it a fact, that
they see through the organs of the physical eyes; but on the contrary,
this sight is one purely spiritual, and its workings are entirely
independent of the material organs.
Now when this body - the material - dies, the spirit body becomes
resurrected, as it is said, and free from all the limitations which
its incarnation in the flesh has imposed, and it is then able to
use all its faculties without the limitations or help of the physical
organs, and, as regards the sight, everything in nature, both material
and spiritual, becomes the object of its vision; and that which
the limitations of the material organs prevented its seeing, and
which to men is the unreal and non-existent becomes the real and
truly existing.
This, in short, is what I meant by the resurrection of the body;
and from this you will realize that the resurrection is not to take
place at some unknown day in the future, but at the very moment
when the physical body dies, and, as the Bible says, in the twinkling
of an eye. This saying of the Bible attributed to me, I did write
and teach. This resurrection applies to all mankind, for all who
have ever lived and died have been resurrected, and all who shall
live hereafter and die will be resurrected.
But this resurrection is not the "Great Resurrection" upon which,
in my teachings, I declared the great truth of Christianity to be
founded. This is not the resurrection of Jesus that I declared "without
which is our faith as Christians vain." This is the common resurrection,
applicable to all mankind of every nation and race, whether they
have a knowledge of Jesus or not. And many times in many nations
has it been demonstrated before the coming of Jesus, that men had
died and appeared again as living spirits in the form of angels
and men, and were recognized by mortal men as spirits who had a
previous earth existence.
So I say, this is the resurrection common to all men; and the coming
and death and resurrection of Jesus, as taught by the churches,
did not bring the Great Resurrection to the knowledge or comfort
of men, and did not furnish the true foundation upon which the true
Christian belief and faith rest.
Many of the infidels, agnostics and spiritualists assert and claim,
and truly, that the resurrection of Jesus as above referred to,
was not a new thing and did not prove to humanity a future life
any more convincingly than had been proved before his time by the
experiences and observations of men and followers of other sects
and faiths, and of no faiths at all.
The great weakness of the church today is that they claim and teach
as the foundation of their faith and existence this resurrection
of Jesus as set forth above; and the result is, as is plainly and
painfully apparent to the churches themselves, that as men think
for themselves, and they are doing more than ever in the history
of the world, they refuse to believe in this resurrection as sufficient
to show the superiority of Jesus' coming and mission and teachings
over those of other reformers and teachers who had preceded him
in the world's history of faiths and religions. And as a further
result the churches are losing their adherents and believers. Christianity
is waning and rapidly, and agnosticism is increasing and manifesting
itself in the forms of free thought societies and Secularism, etc.
Hence you will see the necessity of making known again to mankind
the true foundation stone of the real Christianity that the Master
came to teach and which he did teach, but which was lost as his
early followers disappeared from the scene of earthly action and
practice, and men of less spiritual insight and more material desires,
with their ambition for power and dominion, became the rulers and
guides and interpreters of the church.
There is a Resurrection though that the Master taught, and his
apostles, when they came into a knowledge of, taught, and which
I as a humble follower taught, which is vital to man's salvation
and which is the true foundation of true Christianity; and which
no other man, angel or reformer ever before taught or has since
taught.
It is too late tonight to explain this Resurrection, but I will
come again very soon and try to make it plain to you and to the
world.
I will now say good night and God bless you and
keep you in His care.
Your brother in Christ,
Paul
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