Transmutation

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In considering the lessons given by Jesus, recorded in the New Testament, and symbolical, we are constantly asked: “Do you repudiate the historical accuracy of the Bible?” In answer to that it is sometimes a question in our minds, but that that point does not hinder us from getting the real lesson.

There are points in the first miracle of Jesus, at Cana in Galilee, which, if taken historically, and applied literally, would meet with many objections and questions in the orthodox church today. For example, at the marriage feast, where Jesus turned water into wine, we read that there were six firkins of water, or six water pots, rather, with two or three firkins to each. According to the old Jewish measurement, these water pots contain 25 gallons, and six of them would be 150 gallons of wine to supply a little company of people. 150 gallons of wine—and good wine it states! Enough wine to intoxicate a whole regiment.

Jesus Christ had allied himself with the knowledge of all Mightiness, and must have known what the disastrous results of wine-drinking would, sooner or later, come to pass. Does it then seem consistent, that in the very first miracle he performed, that he would turn distiller? We think not. This has no reference whatever to Jesus Christ as a maker of wine in the outer sense. It refers to a change taking place in man’s regeneration. Jesus Christ was a type of regenerate man, and in all of these symbolical pictures which we have of his life, there was a representative in these symbols of what is taking place in the mind and body of the man.

As we analyze the inner meaning of the places and the persons, we find that every incident in the Bible symbolizes some process which is going on in the activity of Spirit, soul, and body. In those days, psychology, as we understand it, was unknown; psychology had no part in the mind of the people, and these truths had to be given in rough symbols that the people of that day could comprehend. And as a rule, the same condition prevails today. If you were to go into one of our medical colleges you would hear very little about the action of the soul, of the mind, and the word “Spirit” would be ignored altogether. Doctors are taking up hypnotism to an extent, but Spirit dominion, the realm of the absolute, is not touched upon by Physiologists. Then, it seems that the people who believe in the religious or spiritual part of Christianity, and know also something about the mind, and in a measure, have an understanding of physiology, are to unravel these wonderful lessons.

We are told that it was on the third day that Jesus was in Cana of Galilee, attending the marriage feast, and that their wine ran out. His mother told some of the people to fill up the water pots, and then she made a motion to Jesus, or communicated with him in some way, and indicated that he should turn the water into wine. At first he objected. He said: “Woman, what have I got to do with you? My time has not yet come!” but she said to the servants: “Do just as he tells you.” All at once the water was turned into wine, and better wine, the Ruler of the Feast said, than they had had at the beginning.

If we study into these symbols, we find that the third day means the third step in the action of the mind. First, man has an idea of a thing. Then that idea begins to work in his consciousness. The first concept is the first day—the first consciousness of an idea. For example, take an inventor. He perceives a need. This is the first step. Next, he begins to form an invention in his mind that will meet that need. He says: “I can meet that need with an invention.” Then he works out that invention, in his thoughts. This is the second step. The third step is to make the model, which he has first figured out mentally.

The third step here, you can see, is the one of execution, setting forth, making manifest in the outer. Jesus had been a teacher. He knew the Truth. He saw it in his mind, but he had not expressed it yet. We go through exactly these same steps. We find under the instruction of Spirit that the idea comes into consciousness. We say: “That is true; that is true; and that is true,” and then we work out the idea in our minds. But, when it comes to the application, you say: “I don’t know about that. There are lots of things I run up against when I try to apply the principle.”

But, intuition, the soul, the woman in us indicates to us that we have the power. But the important point is to see to it that we do not oppose or resist the activity of the soul and the mental power in the activity of outer things. We must bring ourselves right up to the activity in the realm in which we live. We must feel, in the body, the change we conceive as true in the spiritual realm.

There are many sources of wisdom open to man, especially when he lays hold of the great universal Intelligence. We are often asked: “Shall I listen to intuition? Or, shall I listen to God? Or shall I listen to the Holy Spirit?” We answer: “Listen to all of them.” When once the descent of the Holy Spirit comes to one, the consciousness is quickened; every faculty is quickened. The faculty of intuitive knowing is quickened. A great desire for knowledge will manifest, and knowledge will come in various ways. But the intuitive center, that all-knowing something of the soul, will begin to push one out into new avenues of expression. If one is a businessman, he will have a better understanding of things. One will intuitively know the character of people he meets. One will say: “The first impression is always a sure guide for me.” So it is, when the faculty of intuition is quickened. I have heard it said that the finest financiers were those who developed intuition. They didn’t communicate with the more external elements in business, but they secluded themselves and cultivated that realm of the mind that just few knew through the intuition, the soul process. It is soul knowing. But back of that is the solid foundation of spiritual understanding, and spiritual understanding quickens the soul.

It was the descent of the Holy Ghost into the mind of Jesus, at his baptism, that caused the mother in him, or soul, to know how to carry out all these details in the body. And this is the body-process that we are studying.

Now, Cana means a place of reeds. It refers to the little reeds (cords) in the larynx (throat). It is the place in which we formulate ideas and express them outwardly. In Galilee means activity. It means really to whirl a wheel. The old Hindus have a system of teaching of the different wheels in the body. We call them nerve centers. Ezekiel refers to the wheels within the wheels, and gives chapter after chapter there of the description of wheels, the working of wheels.

Now, that all refers to these centers of consciousness, or nerve centers of being back of the nerve realm of the mind. Don’t lose yourself in the physical, but get hold of the mind.

When Jesus went to Cana of Galilee, he went in consciousness. All the I AM which is the Jesus there was at work in this center in the Throat, or in the larynx, if you are looking at it from a physiological standpoint; but back of that is the idea of Power. All power is expressed from this center. And you will notice that when you feel full of vigor and power, your voice is strong; and if you feel weak and wobbly, your voice goes down, gets weak and wobbly. If you have a consciousness of vital energy it will express itself in the whole system through that center.

There is a change goes on in the body, through this consciousness of vital force. The Higher Principle, the Spirit, meets the nerve fluids at this point at the throat, and a transmutation, a refining of the nerve fluid at once occurs, and the whole system is filled with a fine soul essence. You can’t see all of the forces that circulate around and through your organism.

We are told that we all have this aura, and some of the physiologists have pictured it and taken photographs of it. When you are in an exuberant state of mind, you express a beautiful strong violet aura. When you are in a depressed, sorrowful state your aura sinks down and extends but a very little distance from your body, and becomes dark gray. And if you are of a very spiritual, high state intellectually, you will have an aura about your head, and your body will be depleted, and so on.

Now this, in a measure, is all true. But back of it is the power of man to change and make according to his will all of these appearances. Don’t lose yourself, then, in the study of appearances, but get at the idea lying back of them.

What we are studying is how to change the waters of life. The nerve fluid in the body is a negative element. It must have another union. There must be a marriage, and that is what the lesson teaches us primarily here. The central idea in the lesson is that there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee. In other words, there was a joining here at this point of the fluids of the body with the consciousness of mind of power; and when you acquire the ability to concentrate your attention upon the idea, first of the universal power and the universal substance, and throw your mind right here into your throat, you can generate this new element, this union of the two. The fluids of the body (all of which flow throughout the organism, being centered there) will be transmuted, just as you take water, put it into a boiler and, through the application of the fire, make steam of it, throw it into a higher rate of activity.

Exactly the same thing takes place in the body. When you enter into the realization of Spirit, you must have your mind on Spirit as the power. You must have the Galilee consciousness. When Jesus said: “I go away into Galilee. I will meet you there,” what did he mean? He meant he was going into a higher state of mental activity.

Our lesson is to take advantage of the Spirit, and through that activity of the higher forces, transmute, lift up, raise to higher activities, all of our powers. Jesus had all of his faculties in action—the 12 disciples—the 12 faculties of the mind, but only six of them were filled with this water of life. Only six of his functions were used. He was in the early steps of his ministry. He had not yet quickened all of his powers. In other words he had not instructed all of his disciples. That came a little later in his ministry.

So, you will find that in the beginning of your work, you will take the six centers of consciousness, which here is the Life, and the Substance, and the Love, and the Power, etc., which you will find all in the body of man, and his mind circulating in and through his body, above it and below it, and bring them into manifestation.

The foods you eat fill your body full of a refined essence. You know, if you have studied physiology, how the food is split up in the stomach, and it goes through the various processes in the organism, and every department receives its share. But there is always a reserve force. Each of the great centers have stored up in them a certain reserve force. That is the water pots that are filled. But, supposing you merely keep that material substance in your body, what is the result? It stays on that material plane of consciousness, and gives you a certain amount of life it is true. You can live. But there is a gradual old wearing out process, we will say. There is none of that finer essence in your life. You don’t know about Spirit. You have very little consciousness of the soul. Why? Because you haven’t transmuted that water of Life. You haven’t entered into the union; the marriage has never taken place in you, between the higher, and the so-called lower.

It is necessary that you enter into spiritual consciousness in order that you know this marriage; that you have this inner quickening; and then a third quality, or a new consciousness of Life will come to you. That is the wine. And this wine, we are told, is better; it is a better quality of wine than they had at the feast in its beginning. Why? Because a greater potentiality has entered into it. You have thrown the force of Spirit into Substance, and when Substance and Spirit meet, you have the expression which is called the activity of life, the real activity of life. And the real activity of life is that life which endures; it is one with the universal life. It has no element of corruption in it. Then, through the power of Spirit, you have turned the negative elements of the body into life; you have put out all thoughts of “impure” in your life. Can you have any impurity of body when your life is renewed by Spirit? No, certainly not. Isn’t it then the very best blood purifier that you can have? It is. You can’t find a better blood purifier than that of the Spirit.

When the Lord Jesus Christ said: “This is my life. Drink it,” he brought into the whole human family a new element, a consciousness of spiritual life. He sent into our bodies the elements of eternal life in its absolute purity. He purified and spiritualized, he transmuted his life to this mental or spiritual plane, and we can every one of us enter into the spiritual Life and we can become one with it if we believe in it.

So, with the substance, Jesus said: “This is the Substance. This is the pure substance of my body.” He gave his body. Sent it right out into the race consciousness that we might have a pure substance, like a serum which the doctors are searching for, which comes into our mind and our bodies. When we take the pure substance of the Christ into our minds and meditate upon it, and realize our body temples are composed of it, we transform every cell of the body. As this process goes on, we become new creatures in Christ Jesus. Paul saw all of this, but he did not work it out, because there was not breadth of understanding. Men couldn’t enter into that step in which they consciously went through these changes of mind.

We have come into a time when we can lay hold of the powers of mind and the powers of Spirit; when we can change every part of the body, transform the man, through the activity of the Spirit and mind.

As representatives of the new race, understanding these laws, knowing how man is to come into a new world here and now, it stands us in hand to apply the law. Then every day we should have this marriage at Cana of Galilee. We should know first that man has the power, the I AM, Jesus. Some of us may not have come into the consciousness, but if you will go down into your subconscious where you will find Mary, the soul, she will tell you the way. But each must get busy, and do the work for himself

Many of us have developed these powers up to a certain point, but when it comes to their application in the outer, the transformation of the body, the effect upon our affairs, then we balk. “Oh” we say, “too many things in opposition,” or, “I have wrong family relations,” or, “This is in opposition, or that.” Put it all aside. The spirit of the soul in you knows intuitively that you can bring about the transformation, and it is saying constantly with you to the servants (the servants represent the soul forces, the elemental forces, of the organism). They are constantly carrying forward the work. This intuition, if you would give it the opportunity, if you will set it free, will set into activity for you, through all your acquisitions in it, all these powers that will transform and bring about the new mind and the new body. Then, listen to your intuition; get still and hold that you are willing that this transformation, the transmutation of soul and body, should go forth and be fulfilled in you, through the power of the Holy Spirit.