Transcript of Ed Rabel's Comments About Charles Fillmore's Later Perspective on the Nature of Jesus Christ
In 1992 Ed Rabel taught a class in Metaphysics using the second edition of Unity's Metaphysics material (the Blue Book). At the opening of the second lecture, he added a lengthy explanation of Charles Fillmore's later perspective of the nature of Jesus Christ. This page provides a video and transcript of what he said.
More information about this material is found in The Story of Jesus' Soul Evolution, his Correspondence With Georgiana Tree West and the Unity and Christianity page on Charles Fillmore's Two Options.
Click here to go to the original Metaphysics 2 Lectures.
Before we resume with our material, what I meant to share yesterday and forgot concerns Jesus. Mr. Filmore, as he grew and matured and kept up his prayer life and meditation, began to change his understanding of Jesus Christ. That is, the meaning of Jesus Christ and the true role that Jesus played in our life way. Many of the earlier thoughts that Mr. Filmore had about Jesus were conventional. They were based upon what most of the Christian churches say about Jesus: very, very run of the mill sort of thing. But as he began to mature spiritually and grow and rise in consciousness, he began to change much of his thinking about Jesus and many of the things that he said about Jesus and wrote about Jesus.
Now, the first Unity minister I had was in New York City after World War II. Her name was Georgiana Tree West. She was a very wonderful, wonderful minister and teacher and she was very, very interested in anything Charles Filmore had to say or write. She was also a friend of his, personal friend of his. She began to notice this change, this change of approach, this depth that were getting into Charles Fillmore's statements and writings. Many of the things that Mr. Filmore was now saying and writing concerning Jesus, she herself had come to this same realization prior to Mr. Fillmore's writing and saying it. She was changing her understanding and realization of Jesus also, at the same time, and intrigued her very much when she saw that Mr. Filmore was coming up with many of the things that were coming up in her own mind. So she wrote him a letter, which unfortunately we do not have a copy of. I have never seen her letter, but he replied to her letter with a very lengthy letter of his own, which I did manage to get a copy of and I have a copy of his reply to her here.
I'm not going to read the whole letter to you because it is very long and very complicated. It covers a lot of subject, but I have excerpt from it, the specific things that he says concerning Jesus, which were exactly the same as Mrs. West, my minister in New York, was realizing in her own mind. She was so happy about this that she gave copies of his answer to some of us in the church there who were interested. I'm going to read to you just some excerpts from it.
He says, "Dear Mrs. West: Your letter asking further light on certain points in the health and prosperity ..." This is dated 1936, friends. June 2, 1936. Now he goes into Jesus here.
"The relation which Jesus Christ bears to the human family on this planet ..." To remember something Jesus said in his ministry, he says, "I am the good shepherd and you are the flock," he says, "but other sheep have I that are not of this fold." That's Jesus, friends. I am the good shepherd, you are the sheepfold. But other sheep have I which are not of this fold. Could that possibly mean another planet? Could it? What do you think? I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I hope that's what it is.
However, Mr. Filmore said,
"The relation which Jesus Christ bears to the human family on this planet is somewhat complex and involved in even metaphysical explanation. But when we admit that he was one step ahead of us in his race evolution, we have a key that clears up many seeming contradictions."
Pause. When Mr. Filmore says that Jesus was one step ahead of us, it doesn't mean the same as when I say you're one step ahead of me because in that sense, one step just means one step, one level. The step ahead that Mr. Filmore is writing about is a whole dimension, a new dimension, not just a step in the third dimension. Are you hearing me? Not just advanced, but in a whole transcendent dimension. Jesus was a fourth dimension being. We are still three dimensional beings, so he was a step, a dimension ahead of us, is what Mr. Filmore means here. Okay, let's go on.
"The soul that incarnated as Jesus had already attained the glory of the Son of God consciousness, eons and ages previously, in another universe evolution in which he had attained Christ power."
In other words, Jesus didn't get the Christ consciousness in this incarnation. He brought the Christ consciousness, which had gained in a prior evolution that preceded the one we're in. He returned. He was sent. He never says "I was born here." He always says "I was" what? Sent. "I was sent. I am from above. I am from above. You are from beneath. I am from above. I go back to the Father who sent me. You can not follow me yet, but you will follow me, I go to prepare," so on and so on and so.
All right, one more paragraph. He says then, this is further in the letter, "Christ then began a series of physical incarnations beginning prehistorically." That would be prehistorically for us. For us. That simply means before written, recorded history, okay? "And ended with his incarnation as Jesus. To lift the race out of sins, he was compelled by the necessity of soul sympathy."
Jesus never uses this word, "soul sympathy". He calls it "The Father". The father sent me, soul sympathy sent me, the father who loves me, the father who loves us all. Soul sympathy, or if you prefer the word empathy. Okay, "Was compelled by the necessity of soul sympathy to become an intimate associate of the people he sought to help. As Paul says, he was tempted in all points as ye are, but without sin."
[TruthUnity note: Charles Fillmore talks about the "soul sympathy" between John the Baptist and Jesus in The Story of Jesus's Soul Evolution (pp. 28-33)]
Then he goes on and on and it gets more and more complicated, but the point is made here that, in his maturity, as Mrs. West did in her maturity, realized that Jesus was not just "one of the boys". Jesus was a product of a prior evolutionary cycle, a fourth dimension being who had gained Christ consciousness but returned to three dimensional physicality to bring what was needed to help us continue to grow and rise in spiritual awareness.
