Melchizedek, as a word or term, is all-inclusive in that it means "my Kingdom is of righteousness," or "of the righteous," hence those belonging to the "kingdom" or "exclusive" circle, are naturally and Divinely "God's chosen people."

These few words contain all of the religion in the world. They are a philosophy or way of life, not in the sense of being a creed, but as a means of attaining the "kingdom," or becoming one with it. This is the Arcanum of the Priesthood.

This Kingdom co-existed with the beginning of the world. More properly speaking, it descended with the first innocent Soul into the world of matter. For that very reason, the creation of the world, OUR world, and "let there be Light," and the establishment of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, were spoken of in the very beginning of Genesis, i.e., Genesis 14:18.

Melchizedek in turn conferred the Priesthood upon Abraham, while Abraham and his people rendered tithes to Melchizedek or the Priesthood, and were continually for it. Because of their obedience thay were, or became, "God's chosen people." This Priesthood has continued in one form or another by the Schools of Initiation; also in the Lesser and Greater Mysteries, and the revelations as taught in the Arcane of these Schools.(1)
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(1) The term "Priesthood of Melchizedek" has not been in general use by the Fraternity, except among the Initiate Brethren. Instead, an Arcane designation has been used, VIZ: the Priesthood of Æth, i.e., Priesthood of Light ("Let there be Light,") or "Let thy Light descend upon men." In the outer Church or Church of Illumination, men properly prepared, are ordained to the Church as Priests of Melchizedek; Philosophic Initiates alone being admissible into the Æth Priesthood. A Monograph PRIESTHOOD OF ÆTH, PHILOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, QUAKERTOWN, PENNA., gratis on request.
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The secrets of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, together with its blessings to mankind, have been lost to all but the very few. The Bible itself, though it contains the "key" to becomingone of God's chosen people, is regarded as a sealed book; its mysteries impenetrable; its knowledge unfathomable; the key itself lost; except to the few already mentioned.

Even its miracles (great works) have been so excluded from scientific research that they have become invested with a supernaturalism which forever separates them from the possibility of human understanding and rational interpretation, unless man returns to the original concepts and obedience of the very simple rules laid down by Melchizedek, King or Priest of Salem.(2)
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(2) See PROLOGUE of this volume.
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In the midst of this new age and revolution of thought and rebellion against creeds lacking spiritual interpretation, it is not strange that theology and institutional Christianity, i.e., Churchism(3), should feel the foundations of their authority slipping from beneath them; while a new, broader and more spiritual thought relative to man and God taking their place. All this is a part of the general awakening of mankind.
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(3) Not an accusation; a statement of fact apparent all about us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------

It is the beginning of a RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS AND OBEDIENCE TO SIMPLE LAWS. This concept, which is consistently growing, has its basis in MANHOOD and PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, and a SEARCH FOR THE INDIVIDUAL LIGHT.

The Soul is eternal and will not forever permit itself to be hidden and dominated by other than the Laws which have Godhood in view, and which seek to justify or vindicate its own unfoldment.

Many, all too many, see in this REbirth of world-old concepts the annihilation of church and state. Those who have found the Light see more clearly. They realize that the "chaff and dross," that part of mankind which refuses to seek the Light and assume responsibility for its every action, are being gradually, but surely, separated from the "wheat and gold," those who sincerely seek for truth (actual fact), and that finally only the best; the select; "God chosen" will remain.(4)
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(4) Here in this paragraph is a great mystery. The sincere seeker for truth should not only read it time and again, but study it until he comes into full comprehension of its mighty import.
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It is a great pity that the church as a whole should gradually weaken in its influence for good. If only the churches would see the Light of the Divine Truth and revise their creeds, theologies and rituals to meet the present and progressive needs of the human Soul, then would they come into a full understanding of the one all-important fact; that RELIGION DOES NOT DEPEND FOR ITS EXISTENCE UPON THE CHURCH; THE CHURCH DEPENDS UPON RELIGION.

The moral and spiritual teachings of the Bible are revelations only because they are based on unrecognized truth. TRUTH THAT APPLIES TO THE ACTIVITIES OF LIFE alone determines the spiritual substance of revelation, and such revelations must find an echo in the human heart.

All that is known historically of Melchizedek is contained in the Bible in Genesis 14:18, Psalms 110 and Hebrews 5,6 AND 7. The incident which connects him with Biblical and man's history is the story of how Abraham, returning to his own country with the spoils captured from Chedorlaomer, who was battling Lot, his sons and his tribe, and whom Abraham sought to rescue, gave tithes to this superior functionary, Melchizedek, High Priest of rightiousness (not of any mere human institution), and king of Salem; Salem meaning the city or abode of peace (heaven), or of righteousness.

It relates how this God-selected and anointed priest of the Most High God refreshed Abraham with bread and wine (the substance of body and Soul), and then bestowed upon him his blessing, making him also a priest of his own order.

The Biblical phraseology which invests Melchizedek with historical authenticity disguises his real self or Divinity in order to make his reality understandable. Melchizedek, symbolically and in the Arcane, typifies the personification as well as impersonation of the Holy Ghost.

This is in reality the "Light descending from heaven" upon the Soul coming into Consciousness. It is the Holy Grail for which all men should search.

In Genesis Melchizedek was mentioned for the first time in human history and was made the representative emblem of man's Divine heredity and Providence. Thus, in the Arcane sense, the order of Melchizedek was formed as an Hierarchy supreme and irrevocable in the Spiritual Spheres, and then transformed to the sublime consciousness of awakened man, who was first enlightened as God, father of Abraham, who, after Melchizedek, became the first entirely human Priest or Hierarch of the spiritual Order of Melchizedek within the Priesthood.

The sense of exalted, dignified exclusiveness, separateness and august Divinity which clothed that personality of the ancient prophets, was founded upon the spiritual relationship which Arcanely connected Abraham with Melchizedek. Worthy in body and mind, heroic and true in their consecration to truth, they became high priests of the Order of Melchizedek, and through them was preserved not only the letter, but the spirit of the human vision and the spiritual Ideal of the possibility of divine perfection, which in the process of time, came among men as the Christos, or self-Revelator.

It is no longer denied by scholars and sincere investigators that there is a "Secret Doctrine," or more correctly, an Arcanum which was known to the schools of the Greater Mysteries.

This Arcanum has been ignored in the modern world by all but the comparatively few, and glimpsed only by certain God-conscious, Illuminated Souls. It is this doctrine or Arcanum which was hinted at by Paul in his reference in Hebrews to the Order or Priests of Melchizedek.

In the metaphysical analysis of "Ehye Asher Ehyse," that is, I am that I am, spoken by the Voice that was hidden in the Light, the hidden source of the (a) self consciousness is contrasted with the (b) consciousness (Illumination) of the Divinity or Christos within.

The former is conditioned and free. In the one, the Divinity, its Christos hidden within; in the other it is awakened and conscious of the Christos.

In the ARCANUM of the Bible it is taught that there are four elements and four principles, as well as four manifestations and expressions of life.

These four elements, and this is in accord with the teachings of the Initiate Alchemists, are: (1) fire (oxygen); (2) water (hydrogen); (3) air (nitrogen); (4) earth (carbon), all necessary to the organism or manifestation. The four principles are (1) divine or spiritual, (2) mental, (3) physical, and (4) Soul; all necessary to expression.

Mind, body, spirit and Divinity of Soul constitute the four corner stones of a full life and have reference to the North, East, West and South, on which, broadly speaking, the foundation of Solomon's Temple is built or becomes established.

This was implied in the plan itself of Solomon's Temple; the outer court for the profane, the inner court for the Initiates, and the Holy of Holies for the Initiate High Priests or Hierarchies, where the fourth, or Divinity, is realized.

Fire among the Initiate Alchemists and all Philosophic Initiates was symbolized by the sun (prototypic of the Light of the Soul), as water by the moon, i.e., the emotions; the one masculine (having the rose for its floral emblem), and the other feminine (the lily being its symbolization).

Fire is positive, while water is negative or receptive. Fire has its metaphysical correspondence and symbolization in the active mind, the senses, the objective, active life, while water symbolizes the passive, receptive mind, the affections, the subjective life.

The sun germinates and generates life in the seed by transforming the life cell into its living potential form. In that sense it is an Alchemist, but the seed does not germinate until moistened by water.

Manifestation is outer and physical (Phenomena), while expression is inner; first mental, and then spiritual (neumonon); hence it can be truthfully said that the expression of the Soul is to the sphere (the Winged Globe), what manifestation is to the plane of life. This must continually be kept in mind if the seeker for spiritual truth, as contained in the teachings of Melchizedek, is to master the Arcanum in the Bible.

For how will he otherwise understand the occult sayings of the one known as Hermes Trismegistus? "As it is above, so is it below; as it is within, so it is without," and "whatever exists upon the earth in an earthly from, exists in the heavens in a spiritual form."

Also the profound saying of Iamblichus: "The day time of the body is the night time of the Soul; the night time of the body si the day time of the soul." Spheres thus reflect their contents and substances on corresponding and kindred planes, according to the law of expression and manifestation.

The Soul, in fact, all life, essentially spirit, functions on the four planes and in the four spheres, designated by the terms: physical, mental, spiritual and Soulual. The Soul is of the one essence in all forms of expression and manifestation; forms differ, principles do not.

The Soul and spirit do not create matter. THEY USE IT. They vitalize cells, attract and arrange atoms, determine and dispose of the quality of the physical substance, and by thought, feeling and DESIRE, and by type or character, build or destroy forms and transform them into the images (or desires) they love. Thus the physical body and the human personality are related integrally to the Soul and Divine Entity.

It is a well-known teaching of the Arcane Science of the Bible, that the ladder on which Jacob (the Soul in its expression of manifestation) saw angels ascending and descending, applies to the Soul's own powers or spiritual faculties.

The Soul powers transcend the sphere and limitations of the senses and faculties of the natural man, and afford a means of delivery from time and space and the obsessions of the human brain, to bask in the infinitude of eternity, where time is not, and where the Soul itself is free to live untrammeled for the time being.

On the plains of Mamre, Abraham realized that the soul is never born (in the ordinary sense) and never dies. This knowledge came to him following his Initiation, or as a result of his Initiation as Priest of the order of Melchizedek, who honored him by placing upon his shoulders the mantle of authority like his own, the symbolization of his Illuminated Soul Consciousness and so made him a High Priest of spiritual revelation.(5)
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(5) In this Spiritual temple of Melchizedek there are three courts: the first court is for the profane; the second court is for the Princes and Princesses of Melchizedek, and the third court is for the Initiate Priests of Melchizedek.
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Jacob symbolizes the Soul in the act of expressing as well as unfolding itself, while Isaac is the symbol of all personal and physical sacrifices which each must and will make who aspires to become one of "God's chosen people," a high priest after the Order of Melchizedek, or, who having obtained membership, now serves as a Prince or Princess at the altar of truth, to help others toward the same goal.

To the knowing ones, it is strange that the meaning of the word "miracle" should have been confused or associated with the word "supernatural," for the two words become meaningless in human psychology (SOUL Science).

What the Soul cannot do, but which God can do, makes the Soul's efforts seem helpless and hopeless. When the Soul's Divinity is recognized as a part of God, both being of one essence, Will, intelligence and life, the words miracle and supernatural become intelligible. Supreme divine results are attained by supreme divine efforts.

The divinity of the Soul can and does express its divine attributes; omnipresence, omnipotence and perfect love. These are attributes which are potential qualities of the Soul and demonstrable on the four planes of expression.

If supernaturalism suggest the idea of deus ex machina (a deity outside the machine). and the word miracle, an act of such a deity, then the idea is unnatural and erroneous. If the Soul can and does express its divinity, so that it sees, hears and feels beyond the powers, law and limitation of the physical senses, these results are not to be accepted as miracles or supernatural, even if they are classified as supernormal (above, or higher than the normal), because they occur under Divine Law.

The Arcane Science in the Bible assures us that the inner sense, the esoteric of the Scriptures depends upon the use we make of our Soulual and spiritual powers. Only the Initiate, who realizes that his Soul`s divinity and its powers alone are a lamp (Light) to his feet and to his intelligence, has a right to use his powers and personality in this divine activity.

If the Arcanum of the Bible makes demands upon us, and if these demands when obeyed, bring about desirable results, he would be foolish who expected to stand in the outer court of the temple, and receive the blessings which belong only to those who have prepared themselves to be worthy to enter the inner, or Holy of Holies - the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Even those who are admitted to the inner courts see the vision of truth and hear the inner voice only according to the degree of their spiritual attainment, but no matter what degree of spiritual attainment has been developed, they must also prepare themselves for the still greater things yet to come.

Mere intellectuality, culture and refinement, desirable as they are; or self-love, egotism and ambition, lead to a fool's paradise; and yet, without intellectuality, culture and refinement, the Neophyte cannot attain or master the Arcane Science.(6)
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(6) For this reason the Arcane fraternities must forever be opposed to every form of Totalitarianism. Man is created to become a God; a Gnostic; ALLKNOWING; hence must aspire to all culture. He is not a mere cog in a machine unless he himself permits himself to become so. Man is a unit, and as a unit he becomes God-like; the ultimate of all that is or is yet to be. Not a slave, but a Master. Not a groveling serf at the command of egomaniacs, but "standing upright," his feet on the ground; his vision in heaven.
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Truth is not simple, but becomes so to those who are Gnostics - who KNOW everything; and this is the attainment for which men should seek. The more we know, the more we are forced to confess how little we know. How silly to think that truth can be known in one short span of life!

The truth of Sir Isaac Newton's statement is recognized by all learned men: "I seem to have picked up but a few shells along the seashore - the great ocean of truth still lies infinitely before me." As we overcome human nature on the physical plane, learn the folly or evils of self-indulgences, achieve self-mastery and the enlightenment of our senses, we pass from the outer curt (earth plane) of the UNInitiated, to the inner court of those who have gained wisdom.

It is necessary for some to study the connection, relation and correspondence between the Soulual and mental planes for a long time, before they actually realize, that to make supernormalism a beneficent power, EACH SUPERNORMAL FACULTY AS WELL AS THE WILL, MUST BE CONSCIOUSLY UNDER THE CONTROL OF OUR DIVINITY.

To indulge in supernormalism (generally known as psychicism) for itself alone is as dangerous and reactionary as to indulge the senses.

Obsession must yield to self-possession; out-ward attractions to personal choice of divine freedom
and sovereignty. No one can be a Master who allows self-interest, curiosity or self-indulgence to
control his thoughts or actions.

The impersonal enjoyment of the spiritual life will guard and protect one from the blind alleys and temptations which lead to darkness and misery. Among those who have been delegated and called, only a few are "chosen" to become the disciples, to say naught of becoming perpetual High Priests after the Order of Melchizedek. If the Soul must be REborn of water (the AWAKENED mind), and Fire (Light), the physical man (Vitality) becomes transmuted into the divine man. The active physical, when passive, becomes the passive spiritual, so that the physical is transformed by the spiritual becoming active.

This is the Arcanum of the Three Degrees of development: (1) the finding of the Center from whence cometh the Light; (2) the spiritual baptism, and (3) finally the Gnosis of the Æth (Melchizedek) Priesthood.

This is the Arcane Science hidden in the Biblical narrative concerning the spiritual, or "RE-borning," which Nicodemus, as a materialist, could not grasp. John, the simple or singled-minded beloved disciple, readily grasped the meaning, because in his gospel he taught this Arcanum of the REbirth, announcing it to the Initiates in the very first chapter. This is the logos, which when received as a result of the Illumination, qualifies one as a Prince, or Priest after the Order of Melchizedek.

The profane ask: What was and is the purpose of the Arcane Science, a secret teaching of a spiritual nature which has endured throughout the ages, stood firm against all manner of persecution; perpetuated by the prophets, is communicated only in silence and is the foundation of the spiritual Order after the Priesthood of Melchizedek?

The Holy Spirit, Ghost or Grail undefinable to profane (uninitiated) intelligence, is the ever-present spirit of truth, indwelling in ALL spiritually minded and Illuminated Souls by which the truth is revealed concerning spiritual realities. The august presence of God could not approach nearer to man than does this Holy Spirit.

There is concealed and revealed a divine Technique in the Bible, called the Gnosis or mystery of the Christos, which the Nazarene tried so ardently to teach by means of the parables of the Five Talents and the Five Wise Virgins, and which Paul hinted at in II Corinthians 11: 15. Obscure and veiled as their textural meanings are, the Arcanum explains their hidden meaning in unmistakable clearness.

Divinity, the Christos, central in the Soul, can Illuminate the mind and life, enlighten the senses, add a divine range to sight and hearing and so permeate the Soul itself, with its radiant and pure Light, to transform ecce home (Lo, the human!) into ecce deus (Lo, the God!).

This is to be accepted, not theoretically, but practically as a principle to be spiritually demonstrated. This possibility was voiced in the time of the Nazarene when God Himself spoke: "Lo, this is my beloved Son," and again when it was pronounced: "Lo, man has become as one of the gods." This is, in truth, the process of "Mortality having taken on Immortality." Who can deny this statement?

The Arcanum of religion articulates one central fact: that life is essentially spiritual and divine. It is not born of matter, although associated with it. It is eternal, and therefore, the Soul is Immortal; "Mortality in a sense having taken on Immortality." This is the ever-recurring theme of : "I am the resurrection and the life," "I am the Christos awakened and brought to life."

To prove our Divinity and make of it a conscious, helpful principle in life, is the supreme end of true religion. All of its prophets declared this message. The martyrs died for it; the believers gave freely of what they had to keep it alive.

Despite this fact, today a false metaphysics and theology advocated by creeds, has made the spiritual fact of the survival of the personality after death a basis of belief, and the innate potential divinity of the Soul a gift from God to the few, a miracle of salvation, and NOT THE GREATER FACT OF UNIVERSAL, HUMAN, DIVINE POSSIBILITY FOR ALL.

In metaphysics and psychology (mental science falsely so named) "God has been hitched to business," as though any kind of ill-begotten prosperity is of his Will and Providence; despite the fact that the Nazarene chose to be poor (in worldly goods) that he might the better devote his entire time to divine service and be rich in his Godliness and toward his God; in short, that he might the better avoid being influenced or obsessed by riches or the power riches can direct.

Any sophist who makes God (who is no respecter of persons) favor one class has an effete, tribal conception of God. Money, prosperity, wealth and their opposites, are largely matters of desire and effort, labor and ingenuity, knowledge and wise direction. This interpretation is endorsed by the Nazarene. He gave us a luminous exposition of it in the parable of the five talents, emphasizing the law of thrift and effort (work) in the accumulation of money or material means.

The five talents wisely used resulted in an increase of talents, but he actually condemned the man who hid his one talent (made no effort) in a napkin in the earth and as a result of his indolence (inertia, laziness), and stupidity, had even that taken from him.

There is no denial of the fact that justice, kindliness, fair dealing and right thinking are a part of the business of becoming prosperous. We may be all of this, but if we only trust in God (faith without works) and seldom or never work to become prosperous, expecting prosperity to come miraculously as a result of our (unreasonable) trust, we will remain where we are the rest of our natural lives, representing the Biblical parable of the unfruitful fig tree, accursed by the Nazarene as having no right to existence.

Not a few foolishly imagine that righteousness is in itself a sort of hocus-pocus or magic lamp by which one is favored and blessed and another dishonored and afflicted.

As it is with a seed before and after it is put into the soil, so is it with our ideals, desires and thoughts. GOD HELPS US THROUGH CONDITIONS; He HELPS THOSE WHO SEEK (make every effort) TO HELP THEMSELVES.

No sophistry is more heretical of truth, more insidious and deadly in man's life than the assumption that God is a respecter of persons and not a respecter of his own Divine Law; that he can and does favor one class which disobeys the law in practice, while disfavoring another class obeying it in theory only, and, more especially, that he is partial to the lazy, inert, shiftless - the drones - who are to be supported by the hard-working, frugal and thrifty.

Mere affirmations, vain repetitions, ecstatic phrasing of texts which are repeated but the intent thereof not practiced, count for naught. These are just so much faith or prayer WITHOUT THE COMMANDED WORKS OR EFFORTS.

The Arcanum in the Scriptures first of all established a reign of Law ON ALL PLANES OF LIFE, and our attainments and obtaining result from strict compliance with spiritual and scientific conditions, established by the Law itself.

"The natural man receiveth not the things which are of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." - I Cor. 2:14.

Could this not be well paraphrased: "Unto Caesar is rendered (by the Law) that which belongs to Caesar; and unto God that which belongs to God." Indeed, such is the relationship between cause and effect and their resultant causes and effects, that the Law of Justice or Retribution is not mocked, each Soul reaping whatever it sows, not in the sense of reward or punishment, but in the deeper sense of spiritual and natural consequence, or sequence.

The Christic Arcanum begins with the divine and ends with the human order of Will, intelligence, feeling and living. God's Will is expressed in the Universe as LAW, not caprice; Order, not chaos; intelligence, not chance or accident; love, not hate; life, not death.

The result of our Willing, thinking and feeling (as each one Wills, thinks and feels), is registered in the character of our life, The Law not only governs and finds its supreme justification in man's possibility of divinity, whence he originated, but in humanity; not only in the spiritual, but the natural world as well. Our divinity is in our humanity. The character of humanity is a negative or positive expression of divinity.

The same Law governs the divine and natural man in the spiritual and natural world. The Christic Arcanum pledges Divinity as the fundamental key to the solution of the problems of life. It builds its technique on spiritual facts and knowledge. It proves its propositions by supersensuous or spiritual evidence.

These evidences to the natural man, the "profane" man, who has not yet become Enlightened or Initiated into the Arcane, are so much foolishness; but facts are stubborn things and persist until properly tabulated in the category of spiritual realities.

The Arcane and scientific connection between humanity and Divinity is established by the awakened Christos. This is a process of becoming; a process which ultimately proves the Soul's Immortality.

Supernormalism signifies the scientific, spiritual (Soulual) operations, faculties and results, when man functions on the subjective or spiritual side of his nature; but only when such functioning is dedicated to divine and unselfish (benefiting the many) ends can it be qualified as the application of the philosophy of the Christic Arcanum; dealing as it does, with the method and process of awakening the Christos WITHIN.

While these facts can be detached from physical causes and laws, they are none-the-less closely associated with them by causes which govern and interpenetrate them, as the ether and Æth Fires interpenetrate matter in time and space.

What is needed by the Soul is the Spiritual vision, which, centralized within the Soul's Central sphere, becomes, as it were, fused into one and the same life and Consciousness, revealing the unmistakable difference between the objective power and life of man and the same power and life when governed by and proceeding from his divinity.

The Arcane Science affords a near vision and realization of the essential self, man's divinity, mystically uniting the Soul with God - "This is my beloved Son." The supreme and Absolute Intelligence is lawfully fixed (as matter) in time and space, but lawfully free in spirit. It can be transformed and made manifest to the higher, more sublime uses of the divine in Will and power, coordinating with the lower mental faculties and powers, revealing the occult and divine ends, which the physical and chemical laws of matter observe.

This explains how the seeming miracles and supernaturalism of the Bible, as displayed by the Master Initiate at times, are NOT suspensions of natural law, nor violations of Divine principles, but the clear and undeniable evidence of the law in operation under the Conscious Soul's own divine sovereignty.

This Arcane communion between our higher self or Divinity and God concerns the ego or self-self in the divine life; in the super-consciousness, rather than in our use of supernormal powers on the normal or supernormal plane. Occult experiences must be and are universal and unique. Many have enjoyed them, such as the prophets, philosophers, poets, avatars and Philosophical Initiates. These experiences are called "religious," because they concern the divine WITHIN and God. THEY ARE OF THE SOUL.

They must not be confused with merely supernormal experiences. While they are most useful and inevitable in the attainment of spiritual realization, they are not directly and integrally of the impersonal spirit or of God consciousness. Such experiences are individual, and concrete.

They relate both to the Divine Guidance and human needs. They are distinctly of the Soul, as was the vision of the Christos to Paul while he was on the road to Damascus.

Singular as such experiences are, they are of the universal Spirit, and whether in the form of vision or voice, they enter the Soul only when the Soul is either ecstatically in communion with God, or, as in the case of Paul, when the time has come for the Soul to end its futile search after what it has concieved as truth and, instead, reshape life to harmonize with the divine conviction, while an Illumination permits it to enter joyfully and freely into the larger, Christic and Apostolic service.

The meteor, as well as the sun, rolls on orbits concentric with the ellipse, where the light and darkness separate forever. He who would find HIMSELF must move toward the CENTER WITHIN HIMSELF where God is and where the two Wills, human and divine, unite and become as one, and where the Soul at last feels: "Not my Will, but thine be done."

It is supremely important that if one is to Become a Prince or Priest after the Order of Melchizedek, or the Æth, that he THINK, LOVE AND WORK in the outer Court first, that later he may enter and serve first, in the inner Court, and then in the Holy of Holies. One Light, that of the Divinity or Christos, must be made to burn in singular purity in whatever he does or wherever he is.

It is not at all strange that the words mystery and mysticism, in common use , should have been derived from the same root. He who incredulously and blindly permits the ego to function on only the sensuous, objective plane of consciousness, ignorantly repressing the Soul's inner, larger and deeper expression of life and power in the sphere of its supersensuous, transcendant, subjective and subliminal consciousness, will naturally deny the reality of spiritual and occult experiences.

The moment the ego is disenthralled from the senses and liberated from the self-imposed obsessions of its desires, and these desires transmuted, then the ego is free, as was Paul, to enjoy consciously the reveries, ecstasies, visions and voices of the Soul and of the Hierarchies as permitted by God - a part of his divinity and destiny.

To seal the lips (of gossip and small talk), close the eyes to evil, and the ears to what is not elevating - this is the first need in concentration or centralization. This process concerns the center of being and divinity, and not any one particular subject or object of consciousness and life.

Such centralization of thought, first, and then of desire, helps to release the soul from its bondage of purely sense attractions and attachments, mental habits and reactions of undesirable types, and fortifies it against similar, sensuous temptations.

A divine feeling (love) and thinking (feeling) and being (as from God) transforms the nature of the Soul and, by its divinity, "it is on the earth, but not of (the nature of) it." Man lives a normal life as an Initiate, under the Christic principle, and no longer as the obsessed, controlled slave of the carnal life and those stronger than himself. To this end the Arcanum of the Soul Science (not psycho-ology) leads, and as it does, the Soul awakens and establishes a union between man (itself) and God.

The practice of the Arcanum leads to final divine realization and Illumination, the becoming of a Philosophic Initiate or Prince of Melchizedek. Its supreme purpose is to clear the consciousness of all veils, shadows, mists, obsessions, inhibitions, habits, prejudices, objective and subjective obstructions, which deflect, but do not reflect, Divinity. A realization of our own Divinity is tantamount to the attainment of God Consciousness, frequently called super-consciousness, because it is paramount to all other forms of consciousness.

The Arcane Science, often called the Secret Doctrine, would not be either secret or sacred, were it to be divulged, and this could only avail the charlatan in his schemes of selfishness. Herein lie its safeguards and peculiarity. The knowledge it reveals is supernormalism, plus occultism. A free use of supernormal powers and forces employed for purely personal or selfish purposes is often possible, but it leads to the blind alleys of spiritual occultation. This is discouraged, if for no other reason than that it frequently leads to some form of acute negativism of dementia.

Whether Neophytes or not, those who ignore or defy scientific and divine warnings of seers, Soul Science (even psychological) experts, and teachers of occultism, and refuse to obey conditions imposed, "rushing in where angels fear to tread," have no one to blame but themselves if disaster overtakes them.

Arcane Science is both exact and severe in its demands that the spiritual life is of paramount importance among students seeking the Soul's attainment. This life is impersonal, THOUGH THOROUGHLY PRACTICAL, universal and Cosmic. It is the foundation on which man must build the Conscious perception of spiritual revelation, divine realization and final Illumination.

Supernormalism is the opposite of mediumship. It affirms positivism, self-possession, freedom and conscious sovereignty against all forms of obsession, control and every form of unconscious dependency.

The phrase "spiritual gifts," employed by Paul in I Corinthians 14:1, refers to supernormalism, NOT to mediumship or supernaturalism, and NOT the supernaturalism as used by theologians, implying an accidental or sporadic happening impossible under natural and spiritual law, traceable to an alleged fiat of God, to whom spontaneity of action is a privilege inexplicable to human reason, even in the absolute perfection of the Divine Will.

Evolution, in a divine sense, implies involution, but does not deny the innate, potential, ultimate perfection of the Soul. Creation suggests RECREATION; generation, REgeneration.

Supernormalism signifies no accidental fiat of God, because His eternal plan failed or because the Soul from birth in matter could, but would not, save itself from ignorance, weakness, sin and sickness, as does the word "supernaturalism," but affirms the unfolded, involved potentialities of divine being, which, when expressed, prove one's divinity and Arcanely associate man with God.

The impersonal, divine use of powers, whether normal or supernormal, makes the degree of difference between the meaning of words, which the word "supernaturalism" does not convey except to make confusion more confounded.

Supernaturalism implies miracle, while supernormalism implies the generally unknown, but which Arcane Science can explain. To see, hear and feel spiritually so that we may function on a higher plane, receive inspiration and revelations consciously, heal, interpret visions and the Law, and know the deeper things of God; to do these things will appear mysterious to those who do not understand, but they are not miraculous, as a knowledge of supernormalism will readily explain; hence it is ignorance which makes supernormal attainments appear as miracles, but it is knowledge which quickly dissolves the mystery.

The connecting link between man and God, morals and revelation, the lost key, the stone which the builders rejected, metaphysically conceived, the Arcane Science which was the lost word and discovered cabalistically mixed with chimera, fantasy, parable, myths, symbols, conceits of all kinds, in supernormalism, which furnishes the true foundation on which divine realization is founded. This the Arcanum hidden in the Bible recovers for the sincere seeker and restates it in intelligible language so that no one need grope in darkness or ignorance.

Melchizedek, so long mysteriously and remotely connected with man's earliest life, thought to be the first to glimpse the Light and destiny, is no longer to be esteemed as merely an historical personage, without birth and lineage.

He is also to be recognized as one who attained Divinity; who is personated as the Holy Spirit, or the spirit of Truth, which is indwelling WITHIN every human Soul and awaiting AWAKENING, and preparing humanity for its highest orders, TO BECOME A PRINCE OR PREPARED PRIEST AT THE DIVINE ALTAR where, as in the Holy of Holies, in the innermost Sanctum Sactorum, the pure white Light burns with an Ineffable and inextingushable glory. The lamp may become useless, the oil be burned up, the wick die down to a mere bit of carbon, but the Soul with its radiant, eternal Light will shine on and on forever.

Arcane Science is a lamp to man's feet. It directs his mind to the Cosmic scheme, and attunes his heart to the celestial rhythm or vibration. It reveals to him his eternal infinity in his Divinity. It explains the reason of Law and the Law or reason. It proves the Bible to be as the fig tree, concealing the fruit under the shadow of its literature, or as the cocoanut, containing the water of life within its historical shell.

This is the science of eternal life. Mere existence as lived by the mass is not really life. Divine realization is everything. The Conscious knowledge that in the sovereign power of Divine Love the Soul discovers God, as in the passion of selfish love it loses God, is the sublime and perpetual revelation of creedless religion.

The occult explains this as the maculate and immaculate conception of the incarnation of God in the human race, and reveals it as the inhibition and exhibition of the super, or Soul Consciousness, the Christic life wherein our own Divinity must bear witness unto God.

Man in the microcosm and God in the macrocosm are of one Divine being. The Soul's awakening the triumph over the carnal of the flesh and the carnality of the mind demonstrates its celestial origin and destiny.

Melchizedek, without birth or death, Abraham (historical man) with the mantle of his majestic and sovereign Divinity, typifies that our Divinity, the Divinity of man, the Christos WITHIN, like the lily bulb buried in the mud, may rise to express the Christic being, affirming: "THIS IS (I AM) THE RESURRECTION (the Christ) AND THE LIFE." NOT BY WORDS, BUT BY DEEDS; BY LIVING THE LIFE AND OBEYING THE LAW, DOES MAN ACHIEVE HIS DESTINY.
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