(Back) Satan or the Devil The Wedding at Cana (Next)
This is a series of lectures given by Mr. Edward Rabel, member of the faculty of S.M.R.S.
Winter semester 1976 - 2nd. Yr. Class. Part of Lecture 4 given on January 19, 1976
Bring into mind the presence of spiritual awareness, which is directly connected into the all-knowing level of Mind, the Christ Mind, the Super-consciousness, your portion of it as your activated, quickened, illumined spiritual awareness. Get this into your thinking and then let this choice or these choices be made through you, and you will find that you will duplicate Jesus here. Now, the question comes, and quite sensibly so, what if Jesus had in any of these three cases yielded; then, what would it mean? Well, in the first place, remember that we interpret the Bible according to what it does say, not according to "what if"; for instance, "What if Eve hadn't eaten that fruit?" Then there would have been no Bible written, and you had not problem about the "what if" because the question would not come out. So this "what if" does not really hold, but just as a matter of discussion, I gave you an example already of a "what if": the individual in the Unity movement who did succumb to the second one and interrelated with the others, too. I told you what happened: he did fall, and he did recieve a terrible shock and a very rude kind of awakening, but the angels did grab him. They caught him, and he was saved and was brought back to himself. He is now doing fine, a little worse off for wear, but still doing well.
In the next page of our Harmony, page 23, John begins the various accounts of Jesus' choosing His disciples. It begins here, now, remember that no single Gospel contains an account of His choosing of all twelve. His choices scatter throughout the Gospels. We are not sure of the sequence they were called, and I do not think we should make a big deal about that. The actual circumstances of Jesus' choice of disciples as began here and continued in subsequent sections does not seem to me to warrant too much consideration as food for metaphysical interpretation.
I want to read something to you from notes I wrote between twelve and fifteen years ago. I want to explain that in those days I was not very much interested in the twelve powers. I had found Mr. Fillmore's book boring and unsatisfying. I did not like the idea of the locations of the faculties in the body structure; this had always turned me off and still does, to a degree, when I think that people are taking it literally. Then I want nothing more to do with it; but if we realize that we are taking that arrangement only as representing something, rather than actually is something, a representation within the body ideas, then I go for it 100%. The point is, back in these days, the Twelve Powers of Man, to me, was just a nebulous thing. It was there. I've read the book. I had even taught a class on it, but in no way was I convinced as to its importance. Nor did I have any real insight into its absolute magnificence, and even then, listen how the Spirit of Truth was jumping ahead in me and was not even matching my personal state at the moment. This was about twelve or fifteen years ago when I wrote: "The actual circumstances of Jesus' choice of disciples as began here and continued in subsequent sections, does not seem to me to warrant much concern as food for metaphysical interpretation. The metaphysical significance of the twelve as a whole is the most important thing, not how did He get Bartholomew; where did he see Phillip, how did he get John, and in what order and all that. The meaning of the twelve as a whole is the most important thing, and I can hardly believe I wrote this: "Twelve powers of man is the great metaphysical fact here, and a good knowledge of the twelve is a great asset or even necessity to a Unity Bible interpretor", and that was not Ed Rabel's state of consciousness in those days that wrote that. It was his future Ed Rabel development, or, let's say, spiritual awareness development in Ed Rabel that foresaw this and wrote it down. How glad I am that I did! I could have stopped and argued with it, but I didn't. Then I wrote, "In our MBD under the word 'faculties' we have the list."
We designate the feet as the location of understanding as a faculty. A very dear friend and co-minister, Scott Sherman and his wife Judy, while I was in Denver two weeks ago, had his father-in-law's second leg amputated, and Dan Perin and I went to the hospital. I did not see the father-in-law, but when Dan came out, I asked how he was doing. Dan said, "Well, considering the terrible shock to his soul and to his body, he is doing beautifully. He is really making every effort that he can to reconcile himself to what has happened and to be as peaceful and courageous as he possibly can because he knows that some good is going to come out of this." Now, if that is not understanding, I have never heard of understanding. If the understanding is in the feet, then that guy should lack understanding, and you have a have a man with both legs gone and is choosing the most understanding attitude that one can imagine. So, we have to realize that that business of placing a faculty in a body location is a representation of something, it is a mental illustration or diagram of something, rather than a physical fact.
Text of the original transcript from paragraph 3 on page 24 through paragraph 2 on page 25.
Transcribed by Mark Hicks on August 8, 2013
