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March 9, 1919
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.
St. Luke.
Let me write a few lines tonight as you are in better condition,
and I am able to make a rapport with you and deliver my message.
I was with you today at a meeting of the New Thought people and
saw the impression made upon you by the speaker in his efforts to
show that God is within man, and that only the opening up of the
soul or mind of man to the development of that God is all that is
necessary to bring that man into a perfect at-onement with the truths
of God's will. Well, I have to say that this speaker, when he comes
to a realization of himself in the spirit world, will find that
God is not in him or in anything that he may have possessed in his
earth life; and that his development of the kingdom within him,
as he termed it, was a mere delusion and a snare to the progress
of his soul, in its career through the earth life, as well as through
the heavens or spirit world.
He is mistaken when he announces that the Kingdom of Heaven is
within him, or that he has that within him which can, by its development,
lead to the condition of the perfect man, in the sense that he spoke
of. He is following a false way, and all the efforts that he may
make will not lead him into the paths that end in the perfect man
that partakes of the Father's Divinity.
He is also mistaken when he asserts that God is everywhere - in
the flowers and in the thoughts of men and in the heart - for God
does not find his habitation in any of these things, and men do
not live and move and have their being in Him. He is a distinct
and individual entity, and is not spread over all His universe,
as the preacher proclaimed, and can only be found by the longings
of the soul, followed by a development of that soul in His Love.
No, God is in His Heavens, and man can reach Him only by the persistent
longings of that soul for the inflowing of His Love. These things
that the preacher declared were the presence of God are only the
expressions of His being, and they do not declare His presence in
any other sense than as the evidence of His existence - in His habitation,
from which these expressions flow and make known to man His presence,
as these things reflect it. I am sorry that this speaker has not
more knowledge of the true God, and of His seat of habitation, for
then he would realize that these things upon which he places so
much belief as being the very God, Himself, are but the expressions
that flow from Him.
Man has within him that which has in itself wonderful possibilities
- I mean the soul. And it may by the observance of the way that
transforms it into a Divine angel, become Divine itself, or it may
only by the slow process of renunciation become merely the perfect
man with his natural love in a pure state, which was the condition
of the first parents. If men will listen to the call to their souls,
they will realize this possibility and receive this Divinity, and
with it, immortality; but without this transformation they never
can become other or greater than the perfect man.
I know that men teach that there is implanted within the souls
of all men, that which is capable of being developed into an existence
like unto God; that man needs only this development in order to
become a God, and that there is nothing else necessary to make a
human soul a part of the Soul of God. But in this teaching men are
mistaken, and will find themselves, at the stage of their highest
development, nothing more than the perfect man. Man has within him
only that with which he was created, and can of himself add not
one thing that will change him from this condition of his creation.
It is true that he can by a right course of thinking and living
renounce those things that have tainted his soul and alienated it
from the Father, and made it sinful and disobedient; but when this
is done, he is still only the perfect man, and nothing of the Divine
is in him. Jesus was the perfect man and, as such, was an exemplar
of what all men will ultimately become; and if Jesus had never become
more than the perfect man, he would not now be an inhabitant of
the Celestial Heavens, and the beloved Son of the Father.
Yet he became more than the perfect man, and it
was only after he attained to this condition of excellence, that
he could say, "I and my
Father are one," for it was then only that he possessed
the Divine Love to that degree which made him at-one with the Father.
Only he is at-one with the Father that realizes that he is possessed
of the very nature and Essence of the Father, and there is only
one way in which this can be obtained, and that is by the inflowing
into the soul of the Divine Love. Jesus could not say to the multitude
that they were at-one with him and with the Father, for they had
only the natural love and had not experienced the transformation
of their souls; and such sayings as this were addressed only to
his disciples, or to those among his hearers that had received this
Love.
The speaker spoke of the New Birth, but had no conception of what
it meant, and like many other teachers, in and out of the churches,
believes that a mere condition of the purification of the natural
love constitutes this New Birth, and that that is all Jesus meant
when he taught the necessity of being born again.There is only one
way in which this New Birth can be brought about, and that you already
know.
As to the moral truths taught by the Master - such as are referred
to in the Sermon on the Mount - undoubtedly they will, if observed
in the heart, bring about a regeneration of the soul that will lead
men to the glory of the perfect man and make him at-one with the
laws of his creation. This condition is devoutly to be wished for
and sought after by all men, and when they attain to this condition
they will experience the beatitudes that are mentioned in the sermon;
but this is only the state of the perfect man, and nothing of the
Divine enters into their condition.
"New Thought",1 as it is called, has in it
something that is an improvement on orthodoxy, and men will be the
better if they will embrace some of its teachings. The great stumbling
blocks of the Trinity, and the vicarious atonement and the blood
would be moved from the worship of men, and they would then rely
on the moral truths in the development of their souls for salvation,
and would not rest supinely in the belief of the efficacy of the
vicarious atonement. But some other things that it teaches are all
wrong, and its followers will find when they come to the spirit
world that there is a God to be worshipped, and that man has not
within him that God to be developed by his own thoughts and deeds.
I know that according to the orthodox teachings
too little is thought of the natural goodness of man, and too much
emphasis placed in his innate depravity, and that nothing in man
is worthy of the release from the sin and disobedience in which
he is now living; and that of himself he can do nothing to bring
about his purification and restoration to his original condition
of the perfect man. This is wrong, for very largely upon man's efforts
depends his redemption; "and
as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." He is naturally
good, and his present condition was brought about by his permitting
his soul to be contaminated with sin, and to become again good he
needs only to pursue that way that will remove sin and its consequences
from his soul. Man created sin, and he will have to remove sin,
and the process will be slow, but ultimately it will be accomplished,
and by the efforts of man himself. He will be helped by spirits
who are God's ministering angels in these efforts, but upon him
depends the removal of that which he created and imposed. And here
let me say, that unless man wills it, he will forever remain in
sin, and God will not, contrary to man's desires, make him a pure
and undefiled being; and man's belief, unaccompanied by striving
and seeking, will not be sufficient to bring about this remedy.
The speaker is a good man, and has experienced to a large degree
the workings of his own will upon the conditions of his soul, and
knows that his own efforts have caused him to renounce many things
that tended to defile him and cause doubt, and in this condition
realizes much happiness, and thinks that he is of himself sufficient
to attain to that which will bring him into a perfect unison with
the God that he thinks is within him. In this he is deceiving himself,
for what he thinks is God is only an unusual condition of soul development
in its natural love, that gives him a happiness which causes him
to believe that God must be in and a part of him.
As you have been told, the happiness of the purified soul is beyond
all conception of humans, and the nearer a man approaches to that
condition of purification of his soul, the greater becomes his happiness,
and the belief that God must in some way be in that happiness and
form a part of it, when the fact is that this happiness is only
that which was bestowed upon man in the beginning. As the soul becomes
purer and relieved from the defilement of sin, man becomes what
he was in the beginning, and has regained only that which by nature
is his. He does not receive any part of the Divine, nor does the
Father bestow upon him anything that was not his at the creation,
and he must realize that by the removal of sin his soul becomes
more and more in harmony with the will of God, and less and less
in harmony with his own perverted will.
Let "New Thought" progress until men may realize that
they are at-one with themselves, their created selves, but let it
not teach them that what they experience as a removal of sin from
their own souls by their own efforts and thoughts, is evidence of
a development of any supposed God within them, for it is not true;
but is merely the development of their own natural created selves,
freed from that which defiled and made them unnatural.
The speaker said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within all men,
and needs only for men to realize that fact, and declare its truth,
and that then they will become pure and like unto God, and find
themselves in the presence of God, and see Him face to face. Well,
in this he is all wrong, for the Kingdom of Heaven or Celestial
Kingdom is not within men, though it may be, and neither is God
in their souls and capable of being seen face to face. These men
- who teach purification of their natural love and a superior state
resulting from that purification and nothing more - will never see
God, and they will always remain in the mere image in which they
were created, a merely purified man made in the image of God, and
nothing more. The Father will then be the same unseen Creator as
he is now, and men will worship Him in faith only, for their soul
perceptions, which are the only eyes of the soul that can see God,
will not exist, and to them God will still remain the unseen and
unknowable being that exists today in the knowledge and belief of
men.
Well, I have written enough for tonight, but saw that you were
somewhat interested in the teachings of the day, and thought it
best that I should write you as to the truth of the subject of which
he discoursed and evidently believed.
With my love to you, and the hope that our messages may now continue
without interruption, I will say, good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Luke
1 New Thought promotes the ideas that "Infinite
Intelligence" or "God" is ubiquitous, spirit is the totality of
real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a
force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking"
has a healing effect.
Although New Thought is neither monolithic nor doctrinaire, in
general modern day, adherents of New Thought believe that their
interpretation of "God" or "Infinite Intelligence" is "supreme,
universal, and everlasting", that divinity dwells within each person
and that all people are spiritual beings, that "the highest spiritual
principle [is] loving one another unconditionally ... and teaching
and healing one another", and that "our mental states are carried
forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living".
The New Thought movement is a spiritually-focused
or philosophical interpretation of New Thought beliefs. Started
in the early 19th century, today the movement consists of a loosely
allied group of religious denominations, secular membership organizations,authors,
philosophers, and individuals who share a set of beliefs concerning
metaphysics, positive thinking, the law of attraction, healing,
life force, creative visualization, and personal power. The three
major religious denominations within the New Thought movement are
Religious Science, Unity Church and the Church of Divine Science.
There are many other smaller churches within the New Thought movement,
as well as schools and umbrella organizations. (Source: Wikipedia)
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