5. Sealed Unto the Lord
A Course of Lessons for Advancement in the Spiritual Life
Especially dedicated to those who desire to go All the Way with Jesus Christ
“Labor not for that meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.” —John 6:27.
“In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more.”—Matthew 22:30 and Luke 20:36.
THE triumphant mastery over disease and death comes through abolishing all corruption from the mentality, and thereupon all fermentation from the body. The fires of love bring this to pass, and then the sealing of God keeps the candidate immune to the end of time. Jesus spoke of the freedom from marriage and from death in the same breath, because the key to immortality is the same as the key to regeneration, which key is freedom from generation.
Our bodies are to become hermetically sealed just like a jar of fruit, which then can be kept for a long time, even an indefinite length of time. The process of preserving fruit is a good parable to describe the way that regeneration preserves even this physical body. The good housewife chooses fruit, fine fruit without any imperfection or decay in it, and then she puts it through the process of heating, adding sugar and purifying it to a state that is perfect, and as it rises to a certain point in heat, she knows that all the corrupting influence of foreign matter has been expelled, and then she seals it perfectly. This fruit does not ferment or “work.”
Bread which was unfermented or unleavened became the figure by which this mystical process, and its results, were described to the Hebrews, to signify the way that they were delivered from death at the time of the Passover, and would eventually come out from under the curse that was declared in the Garden of Eden, by the Voice within them.
As long as man is disobedient to the spiritual Voice within, in the use of his generative powers, to labor hard is good, for it becomes a safety vent, by which this creative energy can expend itself in the least harmful ways; while woman’s painful labor in childbirth also becomes a brake or limitation upon the perverted, ignorant or disobedient use of the creative energies. Unleavened or unfermented bread is still eaten at the Passover as a perpetual reminder that there is a day when man is delivered from the curse of work and woman from the pains of child-bearing.
In the regeneration, work is no longer a curse but a joy, for one is not obliged to “work for a living,” but works for the love of it. We turn all our seeking and energy to finding the fruit of immortality, which Jesus Christ says the Son of God will give to us (John 6:27) “for him hath God the Father sealed.” The student of Truth who has accepted the lessons thus far and is practicing them is truly sealed unto the Lord both physically and psychically.
Every babe that is normal, when it is born into the world, is sealed in the generative organs. The male foreskin is closed to the smallest opening, just sufficient for the purposes of emiction, while with the female, the hymen is the seal. According to the old Hebrew law, these seals should never be broken except in marriage. On account of the liberty which was given the male, and the greater liability to accident than the female, an ordinance was instituted by the Hebrews called circumcision, whereby the seal of the male was sacrificed to his Lord, in cutting off of the end of the foreskin. This is a very old religious rite and was not introduced by the Hebrews, but was among the Egyptians and the Babylonians and away back in history with people who brought the beginnings of civilization. By performing that act upon their boy, parents gave him to their God and believed that his seed, or offspring, would be especially favored in consequence. It was as though the whole organ of procreation was offered to the Lord. Even this ordinance is not perfectly fulfilled until, in spirit and in truth, the whole creative nature is offered in the regeneration, which Paul describes as being “circumcised in the heart.” With the coming of Christ, the old external form was abandoned because its reality came into understanding and observance.
All nations who are advanced in spiritual understanding have made a great point of preserving the seal in their daughters, that they may go perfect to their husbands—a virgin—the seal of the hymen to be broken only in the marriage act.
But just as fruit, when the jar is unsealed, is liable to ferment and become spoiled, so also when the seal is broken in man or woman, death is liable. Just as the contents of the jar can be spilled or begin to ferment when the cover has been removed, so the body which is like a jar, holding the precious contents of the seed within, loses its creative essence with the sex act of the male; and with the female fermentation sets in through the working of pregnancy.
Whoever begins to consecrate his, or her, generative powers to God, is finally sealed of God the Father, and nothing can break the seal but God. In Him is the “meat which endureth unto Life everlasting, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed,” John 6:27.
“A garden enclosed is my sister-spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.”—Song of Solomon 4:12.
“Grieve not the Holy Spirit whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”—Eph. 4:30.
“And I saw another angel ascending from the East having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom was given the earth and the sea, saying, hurt not the earth neither the sea nor the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”—Rev. 7:2, 5.
In the psychic body there is an opening at the top of the head, here called “the forehead,” which is kept closed until opened by the Spirit and it must ever be guarded from imposition from the psychic plane. If it has been lawlessly or prematurely opened through adulterous relations, then there are experiences which come to the candidate, which are not desirable or profitable. When one becomes truly sealed of the Lord, they are sealed physically and they are sealed psychically also, and they cannot be hurt though all things are being hurt round about them. Our physical bodies are enclosed in a mental womb whose opening is just above our heads. This womb aura is like an inverted horseshoe, and the opening should be kept closed and no influence should be able to approach it but the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was baptized in Jordan, this holy auric womb opened to the influx of the Holy Spirit, which descended like a shaft of light and impregnated his whole consciousness.
When the life of the candidate has been lawless, and there has been much mixture from the influx of psychic influences, then he, or she, must be patient, for they are being cleansed, preparatory to being sealed and made ready for the joys which await them when they have become truly virgin.
The spiritually minded student is sometimes impressed with the fact that almost all his, or her, thoughts are bent upon sex. Having associated the thoughts of sex with a sense of impurity, such feel it to be a torment if their minds are so absorbed with, to them, this unspiritual topic. But—we cannot repeat it too often—one must be set free from the thoughts of impurity about it and realize that it is, indeed, a most important topic and worthy of their meditations, if they will begin to connect it with the spiritual life. All self-condemnation must pass away and any contempt for others who are continually turning to matters of sex must also be taken away.
There are four reasons why people dwell so much upon sex when they are passing from generation to regeneration: two of them are on the mortal side, and two are on the spiritual side. The first reason is prenatal influence, especially the sex-thoughts which parents have while their child is in the tender, unborn state, easily influenced by thought. When one realizes how much thought and feeling about sexual matters were spent by one’s parents at the time of his conception and during his gestation, it is no wonder that their offspring is filled with questions concerning sex, and searching after the understanding of its mystery. These prenatal influences are especially noticeable in the eldest children, who seem to be abnormal at times, because of their parents who indulged themselves to excess before their birth, and meditated oftentimes night and day upon the mysteries with which they were engaged. In these days of the coming forth of the science of eugenics, much attention will be given to the prenatal education of children. And how much misery will be saved thereby! [This is considered at some length in Mrs. Militz’ book, “Child Unfoldment.”]
The second mortal reason why human minds are given so to absorption upon questions of sex, is the habit of suppressing this knowledge from the young. Natural questions which arise, being met by evasion, or shame, or mystery, cause the intelligent youth to make it a matter of undue importance, and they have wasted much time in unnecessary inquisitiveness and curiosity. The mentalities of the young can be easily satisfied early, if one is candid and pure in one’s replies, not feeling bound to give more than is asked for; therefore it is a great pity that such knowledge should be suppressed. But until parents can offer regeneration to their children as well as generation, there will be more or less shame and reluctance about giving these great facts to them.
Many children will understand instantly that they do not need to follow in the footsteps of their parents in bringing forth offspring after the flesh. They will understand that they can be regenerated, and take the higher stand for reproduction, developing the divinity within themselves, and this will be a glad message to many, to whom the office of fleshly reproduction is not welcome, because of certain terrible subconscious memories. For many a woman-child shrinks and dreads the office of motherhood, and refuses it the best she can, because of the awful experiences of a past incarnation. We must not be too severe upon the race because they refuse to have offspring. Many a man-child has the memory of trying to make the attainment in the past and, having failed, he desires above all things to succeed in this life. This is one of the reasons for the bitter grief that is upon certain men when first they lose their innocence.
The third reason begins to enter upon the spiritual plane because it has to do with the old, even prehistoric processes of sex-worship. There is not a religion, which has persisted in the history of the race, but has had its department of sex-worship. The subconscious mentality of the race is thoroughly saturated with these memories, and many of the modern orgies and practices of prostitution are but survivals or repetitions of these old religious rites.
Many of our past incarnations have been as priests and priestesses whose whole time has been given over to practices and teachings concerning reproduction. Serpent-worship, tree-worship, the worship of animals, religious orgies and mysteries were all engaged in presenting the wonders and the pleasures of the real God of the universe, the great Creative Principle. These religious rites are still continued by certain of the belated races whose civilization is greatly retarded thereby.
The Hebrew religion is a continuous expression of sexuality, and had there not been prophets and great sages among the Hebrews who rose above the sexual perversion of its degenerate creeds, the Jews could not have survived as a race long enough to carry the great message that should usher in the Christ. But the prophets knew the meaning in their hearts, of these sexual symbols and religious practices, and though they talked in language that seems gross, even to obscenity at times, yet interiorly they knew the mystic meaning and denounced and exposed the false ways and so saved the religion.
The generative organs were continually copied in the monuments and in their symbols. Our modern monuments are but survivals of the representations of the phallus, and our Church spires are but the natural descendants of this old symbol. So also our cupolas and the mosques of the Mohammedans are but the breasts of woman in symbolism. We are surrounded by forms and images which are the remains of old phallic worship, and it is not strange that we have suggestions springing up from within us of memories which are exceedingly sexual. Therefore we should continually make these things a ladder, an avenue by which we open ourselves to the spiritual meaning of them all.
The fourth reason for our minds dwelling so much on sex matters is that almost all of the language of regeneration is of that nature. Even the Holy Christ used it so much—the bride and the bridegroom, the bridegroom’s friend, the marriage feast, the making of marriages, and so on, and only a thorough education in these things from a spiritual standpoint can explain to us the accuracy of his parables and the depth of their meaning.
It is a singular fact that the Spirit requires us to be as fearless and as abandoned on this matter of sex as little children, and to be as pure. Neither asceticism nor indulgence belongs to the way of Life. We have sailed through a very narrow place with the Seylla of sex-intoxication on one side and the Charybdis of asceticism on the other. Oh! to be skillful mariners and escape the wreckings that others have experienced.
While living outwardly the life of a pure monk or nun, one’s inward nature should be as abandoned and generous, free and fearless as a little child. Many a courtesan has a heart as generous and universal as a noble saint, and many a libertine has a mind as free and abandoned as a little child, and when such put aside their errors and do not go into mental asceticism, they become candidates who are more easily admitted into the kingdom of heaven than the Pharisees who think they have always done the right thing.
Jesus said harlots and publicans go into the Kingdom of Heaven before certain Pharisees who, in their self-righteousness, are bitter and intolerant, and too warped and acid to learn the great secret of the regeneration. Better the abandonment of the lawless than the hidebound rigidity of the law-keepers.
There is an Oriental saying that the bridge over which one must pass into the Kingdom of Heaven is as narrow as a knife blade. So while our minds are being set free from the old ideas of sex, let us not fall into the sophistries of those who do not follow the Christ, nor yet the atrophies of those who call themselves Christians and yet enter not into the heavenly life themselves, and even prevent others from entering in. To such Jesus Christ spoke when he said, “Woe unto you, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge. Ye entered not in yourselves and them that were entering in, ye hindered.”—Luke 11:52.
When one has perfectly repented of an old false life, such are like the contrite Mary who washed the feet of the Christ with her tears. When this selfhood melts utterly into tears and goes down to the foot of the cross in all meekness and lowliness and is perfectly abandoned as to the old life, leaving it utterly behind, then comes forth the alabaster box of sweet perfume of a good name, a name that survives all the misunderstandings and the false actions of the past and covers and preserves even our physical form with living unguents so that it cannot decay.
The embalming fluids of the old Egyptians with which they kept the bodies of their dead, represented this subtle something that is the preservative of our flesh while we still live. Jesus spoke of the mystic work of Mary as a power to preserve his body for the burial. Solomon says in his Book of Proverbs, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,” and in his mystic “Songs,” that Book of the Regeneration, he speaks of the name of the King, “Thy name is an ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.” A good record in the heavenly region will manifest eventually as a good reputation on the earthly plane, a power to preserve one’s body from corruption, like the spikenard Mary poured forth on Jesus’ head and feet.
The desire of a man to make a name for himself, to leave an immortal name, has its root in this consciousness that there is power in such a name to preserve one. The immortals are sealed in their foreheads with the name of the Almighty. The fear of what people will say is the shadow of a godly fear concerning that immortal name. Who lives the highest and best he knows, the purest and truest, and seeks to please God, will not fear the tongues of men. It is written of him, “Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue.”
The perfume of a pure and holy name is that which emanates from the bodies of the innocent, and also from the bodies of those who are preserved, even after death, for there are certain bodies that do not decay, and it is claimed that their pure lives were the secret of the preservation of the body after death. To live in, the sanctity of a pure mind is to have a body radiant of the perfume of violets and roses, and a presence that is divinely sweet and acceptable even among the angels.
“So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.”—Milton.
In this holy consciousness one lives in the world and yet not of it, a dynamo, insulated, and yet at present “not too good for human nature’s daily food.” Protected by this divine atmosphere, one passes through anything and everything, absolutely immune. It is written of such, that the prince of this world coming to them will find nothing in them. They know no disease; they know no contamination; they can enter into any place and associate with anyone and not receive anything but good. Though their bed were made in hell, they would make a little heaven there, and make it heavenly for other people. This it is to be sealed unto the Lord. This it is to walk upon the earth, an immortal, dwelling in heaven even now.
