Chapter VIII: The Mental Supplants the Physical

Chapter VIII: The Mental Supplants the Physical

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IT IS SELF-EVIDENT that both the physical and metaphysical sides of life are capable of manifold expression. Some metaphysicians contend that all is mind and matter is the negative of mind or nothingness. However, contemplation of the tremendous possibilities infolded in the earth makes us pause when we hear that assertion. Here beneath our feet is a crust of substance upon whose pages like a mighty book is written a record of the earth's evolution during the aeons and ages through which it has passed from mist to matter. In it the geologist finds the fossils that tell him of its physical history, and the trained psychic can hold in his hand a piece of inanimate rock and it will tell him its evolution from ether to matter. The souls of all forms from mollusk up to man have left a certain memory essence upon the substance they handled, and that essence is preserved ready to be redeemed and raised to higher levels by the minds that gave it form. Although the body of

"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay Might stop a hole to keep the wind away,"

its soul essence endures and will in the final judgment, or justification, of man's work be merged into the perfect body. Daniel pointed to this when he wrote, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake."

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The purchase by Abraham of the cave of Machpelah as a grave for Sarah involves this mystical soul essence. Machpelah means infolded, winding, spiral, symbolizing a condition in which great possibilities of expression are involved. Not only Sarah but Abraham himself, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah, and Jacob were buried there. All these were spiritually quickened and therefore impressed their soul qualities upon matter more definitely than the children of Heth; but all are to undergo judgment, through numerous incarnations, at the end of the ages, "some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." "And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."