To this end did they scheme. Jesus knew this. But he understood the Divine Law, he realized that they could do him no real harm. He understood the possibility of spiritualizing, or Ethizing, the body-a truth in which he had thoroughly trained himself under the guidance of the Law itself. He knew that, if the body was sufficiently purified, and if the powers of body and mind had been used faithfully to build an Immortal Soul, efforts of others to take his life would be futile. They might put him through something that resembled death; but he realized that the Conscious Soul within, which was the true power of his universe, would lose consciousness only for the moment. He knew that he would be able to raise up the body since it was really become part of the Soul. He knew that true Mastership enables one to call together the disintegrated and scattered elements of the body, if need be; for, through a prolonged process of purification, they become pure Eth

essences.

This knowledge, this consciousness, this realization, preserved Jesus in tranquility of Soul, even when the narrowminded rulers were plotting to take his life.

What Jesus foresaw as his experience, actually took place. The climax of opposition that resulted in the crucifixion, became for Jesus the climax of glorification. Though crucified, dead, and buried, his body was only passing through the final fires of purification. It stood the test. The elements composing the body had passed from the realm of the physical to the realm of the Ethic, or the ethereal. They had become pure Eth. Only for the moment of transition, did the Soul lose consciousness. Had the body been mere physical substance, had it still contained carnal elements, he could not have raised it. But there was nothing carnal remaining. The earth principle had been completely transmuted into qualities of Eth, or Soul. Its essences had been thoroughly transmuted into qualities finer, lighter, purer, and more ethereal than the physical; consequently, the body was not of the earth. Through the process of purification, it had become lighter than the earth

so that he could take it up and use it at will. It is recognized as a chemical law that only that which is as heavy as the earth can be held to the earth; that which is lighter tends upward, continuing to go upward according to its lightness-that is, according to its spirituality, or better, its souluality. The lightness and the purity and the fineness of the essences composing the body make them submissive and obedient to a call or command from the Soul that has been consciously using them as a vehicle on the earth plane.

We are told that Elijah "ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire.' What was this chariot of fire? What, but the spiritualized essences of a purified body? What, but Ethic substance? What can be a chariot of fire other than the cloud, or the aura, of pure Æth that envelopes the Soul that has attained Christhood and complete Mastership. This, the climax of Illumination! This, the goal of Christhood, to ascend to the Father in a chariot of fire! This, the ultimate end and aim of the Great Work-transmutation of the gross and the earthly into the fiery cloud of purity and divinity!

When Mary Magdalene first recognized the risen Christ, he said unto her: "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto my Father." Why did he say, "Touch me not"? Because his newly arisen body, like a battery freshly charged with electricity, was alive with pure Æth Fire. To touch it at that moment would have incurred danger, as there is danger in touching a live electric wire. As the risen Master mingled among earth conditions, his body became enveloped in grosser elements which served as a shell of protectiona protection to bodies of inferior development with which he came in contact on the human plane before his final ascension to the Father.

To the many, these deeply esoteric truths are veiled; for the undeveloped soul cannot comprehend them. But, to the Illumined Soul, they throb with life and power. Remember, esoteric truth reveals itself to the understanding in proportion as the Soul itself has become a dynamic center of life and power.

Thus, Jesus exemplified full and complete Mastership. We are to accept it as an historic fact that he was crucified, that he literally passed through the transition called death, and that his body was buried in the tomb. Furthermore, we are to accept it as an historic fact that he literally and truly raised his body from the dead and that he took it up again as a vehicle of communication among men. Further still, we are to accept it as a fact that Jesus thus demonstrated to the world a power that belongs potentially to all men, and that the possibility of full and complete Mastership is given to all. Such Mastership is offered to all alike -mastery over the self, mastery over one's own thoughts and feelings and words and deeds, a mastery that insures such purity and nobility of thought and motive that the earth principle may be transmuted into pure Æth.

A mastery that interferes with the freedom of other lives is promised to no one. Jesus did nothing to prevent the taunts and the mockery of onlookers; but he manifested Christhood and true Mastership in the tenderness and the compassion that enabled him to say: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." A charlatan, or a mere wonder-worker, might have exercised an abnormal and perverted will-power to coerce or to restrain or to prevent the jeers and the taunts of disbelievers. The superiority of the Christ is seen in the fact that, in the midst of mockery, he preserved a tranquility of Soul that enabled him to “lay down the body and to take it up again."

All this Jesus did, not to demonstrate a power reserved for him alone among mortals, but to prove and to illustrate to the world the power that belongs by divine right to mankind generally. This he could do only because he had been scrupulously obedient, even in minutest details, to the Divine Law of his own Being. This he could do because, in small things as well as in great, he had been obedient to the Law of Love.

Let each one who reads these lines, ponder well their import, and seek to understand the Christic Law of his own

Inner Being; and, in so far as he understands the Law, let him obey. Thus will the light come to him. Thus will the Christ Flame radiate its warmth of love and its light of understanding throughout his Soul.

LESSON FIFTY-THREE

Esoteric Interpretation of the Crucifixion as it concerns Mankind generally.

Man is placed on earth through his earth parents. His parents give him a body. God gives him the breath of life, which is called the spirit. God also places within him at birth a tiny spark, or seed, of the divine nature. This, the divine spark of a soul, is a part of God. It belongs to God so long as man does not develop it or make use of it. Man also has a mind; but the mind is the result of the combination of body, spirit, and the divine spark of a soul. It is not immortal, or eternal, as an entity. Accurately speaking, the mind is the workman that is to build a house, the Immortal Soul. It is at liberty, however, to build on the sands or upon a rock.

The mind of man receives impressions from two sides, the soulual and the fleshly. Through association with people and ideas, it becomes awakened to the Divine Law in its ethical and moral aspects and in its standards of right and justice and fair dealing in the practical affairs of life. On the other side, it is influenced and actuated by impressions and desires that originate in the flesh and in the fleshly personality. This dual receiving of impressions gives man a dual nature, so to speak, and leads to a conflict within himself.

The desires of the flesh have the better of the conflict in the beginning, because they always pertain to things that can be seen and felt and heard. Therefore, through the dominant inclinations of the flesh and of the fleshly personality, it is said that man is following the flesh. The "di

vine urge" within is quickened and active to an extent, and seems to beckon to higher and better things; yet it cannot point to anything tangible or outwardly visible that it desires. Therefore, the carnal man is prone to consider the promptings of "the divine urge" as foolish. These promptings from two sides result in a discordant nature, and man is in the unhappy state of inner turmoil and unrest. He is uncertain which voice to believe, and which to follow. This is carnal man. The more sensual he is, the less he recognizes the divine promptings within silently beckoning him to nobler and purer and more profitable things. Indeed, it is possible for him to give the lower tendencies such supremacy in his nature and to live such an ignoble life that "the divine urge" is lost to view or covered up altogether. But of this point nothing more need be said here.

To follow the other possibility, the possibility of giving supremacy to the soulual side of his nature: the more man heeds the warning and the guidance of the inner prompting, the more he comes to realize that fleshly and perishable things have for him no sure help, no sure reward. Through suffering, losses, sorrow, illness, he comes more and more to seek help and comfort and guidance from the Within, the Divine Center, or from some superior Power to which he prays (for he may not yet have recognized that the superior power to which he prays has its center within his own being). He looks more and more beyond temporal interests for light and solace and knowledge, until finally his mind is fully convinced of the fact that all superior and satisfying interests are connected with the Soul and with the Inner Light. He sees that the flesh is perishable; that the mind is perishable; that the Soul is the only feature of his existence that possesses the possibilities of eternal life. As these truths dawn on him more and more clearly, he tries more and more to live in harmony with them.

In time, he comes to see that the standards of right and justice and love in the world of activities are but one aspect of the Divine Law-the Law of the universe. Hitherto, he has been considering ethics and morals and justice and un