The Mystic, the Fourth Sacred Degree

By Linda Mihalic

A mystic is a follower of a mystical way of life, an advocate of a theory of mysticism, someone who believes in the existence of realities beyond human comprehension. Mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God, through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight.The Oxford English Dictionary


“The Mystic consciously communes with God directly.”—Edna Lister


A mystic practices a given form of mysticism or believes in the possibility of direct communion with the divine. In the degree of the Mystic, we develop our prayer life into an active and dynamic conversation with God as a personality, our Father, to whom we may always turn, knowing He will answer and comfort us, no matter what. The Mystic’s key word is praise. Praising God frees you to pray with fervor at the heart center. Acceptance, surrender, obedience and praise are the paths to Transfiguration and levitation.

The Mystic asks, Is this all there is? then begins the wider, deeper, higher search for truth. The Mystic steps into the abyss of the unknown, willing to leave the dubious safety of intellectual knowledge in pursuit of the glory that he or she senses lies just beyond the veil covering their soul vision.

The great mystics of history have blazed a path through the abyss, leaving signposts along the way for those few adventuresome souls for whom mundane belief in God is insufficient. At this degree, as rational Mystics, we step beyond formulaic prayers and liturgies into the abyss of creatively speaking the Word for God as His mouthpiece and servant.

A caveat: Mysticism is the path of the soul, not the self, of the mind, not the body. A true mystic is also a candidate for initiation into the mysteries of heavenly realms, not some hedonistic garden of earthy sensuality. A mystic is not a pleasure-seeking hedonist, not a foodie epicurean pandering to his appetites, or a near alcoholic oenophile. A mystic highly values a clean heart and mind, so does not indulge the emotions, cater to drama, or use any mind or consciousness altering substances. In brief, a mystic does not pander to bodily appetites or injure the body through starvation-fasting or self-flagellation.


Edna Lister on the Mystic Degree

The mystic consciously communes with God directly.—Edna Lister, January 30, 1933.


Jesus was a great scientist, the greatest philosopher of the ages, the great physician, the greatest mystic the world has ever had. He walked and talked with God, ascended his body, was an all-around man, all-developed, and every bit of him expressed as the Son of God.—Edna Lister, February 2, 1933.


A mystic communes with God. Mystical means "of God."—Edna Lister, Mystical Government, March 6, 1934.


Thousands seek the mystic way, yet never find it, for it reveals itself only to the earnest enduring one.—Edna Lister, The Single Vision, January 30, 1935.


The fifth degree of breath is pure ozone, a fiery essence that would burn the lung cells in an unprepared person if breathed undiluted. The four lower outer breaths transform this substance down to a lower degree, or rate of vibration, so it produces no harm on the lowest earth level. East Indian fakirs live on the fifth breath when they are buried alive. This is also the breath people touch in revivals, ecstatic voodoo dancing, other forms of mass hysteria, and insanity.

As the first spiritual breath, the fifth breath touches the universal divine Mind that is "in all, through all, as all." It causes action in every cell. We use the fifth degree of breath in all lifting, prayer and sublimation, for it draws the physical inward and upward toward higher Realms. It consumes the physical dross, raising the vibration, making the body light. Knowledge and control of the fifth breath are essential to create mastery.—Edna Lister, Seven Breaths in One, March 28, 1936.


The Mystic may pray in the outer and inner courts of the Temple, but the soul may enter the Holy of Holies only through complete mastery. The Mystic sees the glory while standing before the altar. The Mystic’s initiation is Transfiguration.—Edna Lister, The Divine Scale of Twelve, February 18, 1937.


To pray effectively as a Mystic, who communes in Spirit with God, you take several steps in preparation and action. Your first steps include awareness, recognition and surrender. You must become aware of the need to pray, recognize that you are the agent God has on the scene, and act for Him to speak the Word. Then lift your self in surrender to the Light, and lift everything that comes to mind. Then visualize freedom and healing for everything and everyone you have seen with the eyes of soul, declaring, "Let Thy Power move forth, Father. Let the Light go forth to heal and make whole." Finally, praise and offer gratitude that God has already answered your prayer: "Let these words go out and accomplish that whereunto Thou dost send them, and let them return to me fulfilled."

Prayer is gratitude and praise, a powerful treatment, overcoming darkness and changing it into Light. As a Mystic, you enter the silence to see and hear God, not with your ears, but by listening with your brain cells. The silence is the uttermost stillness that earth can conceive, and in the silence, God is everywhere evenly present and available. You can enter the silence anywhere for it is a state of heaven-consciousness. You enter the silence to hear and interpret the Voice of God as words, or as symbols that you see with the mystic eye of God.—Edna Lister, Prayer and the Silence, May 25, 1939.


Life itself is your challenge to live life more fully, to be constant in your effort to ascend each day, to be determined in your efforts every hour of every day. When you really make sacrifice of self and surrender it to become law, then the Father can use you more than if you were speaking to crowds of thousands, because more Power moves forth unselfishly as God. When full sacrifice of desire here accompanies inner initiations, the physical body reacts to the point of feeling blistered by the high fire initiations. This is not imagination, but proof you are passing your tests. When you only imagine them, you experience no physical reaction.
  Any teacher of laws of the mystics can tell exactly what grade, phase, realm of inner work an aspirant is in, or if it is only imaginary, because of much reading backed by desire of self. It is really very simple, once you have become law. You just know because you have earned the right to know. Nothing can be hidden from the one who understands, meaning that once you have ascended, you see all below where you now stand. The higher the ascension, the more is opened to you. You just cannot avoid knowing if you ascend.—Edna Lister, December 28, 1944.


Seven Degrees to transformation progress from self awareness to soul consciousness: The first three degrees, the Neophyte, Disciple, and Adept all practice varying degrees of self-control. The Mystic stands at the center point of balance, the fulcrum between self and soul. As a Mystic, you commune directly with God, needing no other intervening agency, creed or dogma. The final three degrees, the Master, Priest and Christos all deal with soul conquering through absolute responsibility, service and surrender of the self to the soul. You work on all seven degrees always.—Edna Lister, April 13, 1945.


You have been touched with divine mystic Power with which you may create anything you now desire in your life. Yet, you must pay a price to use this Power of love — your full-time, full-hearted effort of loving, praising, singing joy and faithful, steadfast effort in advance, onward and upward. Only by the conquest of self may this mystic gift fulfill itself in and through you. Therefore, you must be determined, persistent and faithful in your efforts to ascend.—Edna Lister, March 22, 1948.


As you lift your hands and look up in Spirit, you open the mystic eye. Raise your hands, palms inward to include your eyes and ears before you speak in prayer. Never use this method of prayer selfishly or to put someone in bondage to do your will instead of God’s will for them. This would be a terrible misuse of Power as black magic. If one misuses the Power of mystical prayer, the veils of illusion descend as doubt, fear and negative emotions. Eventually the selfish one destroys himself.—Edna Lister, The Twelve Tribes, June 22, 1948.


You err if you do not worship God as both principle and personality on the Mystic Degree. When you align your relationship with God, you can easily align your relationships with others. God as principle provides you the reasons for being. God as personality, Father or Christ, satisfies your longing for security and identity, and is the Mystic’s guide to greater Light. The mystic truth of God as personality and your relationship to Divinity are mysteries. Some know "who, what, when, where, why and how" with an intellectual-mental rather than a devotional-spiritual approach. Yet no soul can be perfectly content unless it has a balanced relationship with God as principle and personality.—Edna Lister, From Light to Form as a Creator — Seven Breaths, August 2, 1949.


The Mystic presides over the church of Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-29) at the heart center, which includes the celestial quadrant of Cancer, Leo and Virgo. You fulfill the promise of the morning star when you praise from the heart. The vagus nerve (pneumogastric nerve) presides at the solar plexus and extends to the stomach (Cancer), heart (Leo) and lungs (Virgo). Virgo is the house of unleavened bread. Cancer represents the faculty of desire. Leo represents the faculty of will. Virgo represents inspiration, imagination and the second surrender of desire and will at the mental level.—Edna Lister, The Seven Churches, December 13, 1949.


Everyone is ascending, at least in part. Sometimes you recognize your soul debts and help another. At other times, you do not see and may withhold aid. Helping the other fellow lift, no matter what, is the Christos work. When you work from this standpoint, you become a Christos Adept. As a Neophyte, you hear about ascension of the body. The Disciple talks about it and tries, haphazardly. All control, manipulation and formulaic demonstration is under the Adept Degree. The Mystic communes directly with God. The minute you surrender to the Almighty Father, you become a mystic.—Edna Lister, October 2, 1950.


The Seven Degrees of Ascension, on which you are climbing, include the Neophyte, Disciple, Adept, Mystic, Master, Priest and Christos. You can enter the major Seven Degrees only through seven lesser degrees under each. An illiterate Neophyte can be living a Christos life. Thus, you pass through 49 Degrees from Neophyte to reach Christos, just as earning a doctorate requires having passed all the lesser courses of study.—Edna Lister, June 14, 1951.


Until you raise the creative fire from the sacrum to the crown center to sublimate it, the mystic eye will not open. When you open the nerves of the midbrain, Light strikes the optic thalamus and you spiritually see with the midbrain neurons, which fill the convolutions of the brain. The Mystic simply stands before the altar and recalls the glory of the Presence to commune with God. You do not release much Power unless you commune with God. Some people are proud that they can commune with nature, which is but a fraction of God, who is the cause behind nature. Praying to nature is no more than an Adept’s fancy.—Edna Lister, The Seven Churches, November 20, 1951.


To ascend to the Mystic Brotherhood, you must first accept responsibility for everything. Second, you must believe in Jesus the Christ as the Only Begotten Son. Third, you must give up all self. "Take up thy cross" means to give up all self and to accept everything that comes. All vows, goals and laws black out at the moment we lose sight of the Path of Ascension.—Edna Lister, October 17, 1954.


To open the mystic vision requires driving, steadfast and continuous effort, a real struggle to silence earth’s clamor, distractions, frustrations, obstacles and hurts long enough really to see clearly. Then, forgetting the outer is easy because you see that it does not matter. You forever lift the ballast and the soul rises on wings of Light to soar above earth’s petty hindrances. No one can ignore this glory, which is more than worth every effort, struggle and letting go of every personality that seeks to tie us to earth. By "letting go," I do not mean letting down. Hold them up higher than ever, on a cloud continent of Light, where they cannot touch you.—Edna Lister, October 1, 1956.


Every time you pray as a Mystic, you touch the higher degrees of ascension, even if you are still a Neophyte. Only prayer will take you through the Gates of Light to become a mediator between earth and heaven. The Mystic communes with God, alone in the silence, from the heart center, which is the respiratory rate of balance among the lower and higher centers.—Edna Lister, Conquering Space, October 20, 1957.


Mysticism is the soul’s quest for truth that which is mysterious, obscure, unknown, veiled, hidden, as yet unprovable by science but revealed by personal experience and observation. A Mystic is one who communes with God as personality, directly. God is the source of all personality. All our difficulties are traceable to our relationship with God and man through personality. Mysticism is the study of God’s personality, and deals with heaven as a place.
  Your photographic memory cells are always ready for you to open and use. They record what happens on the inner at night and can later unfold the memory of all you have seen and learned there. This is one important form of mystical revelation. Science cannot yet prove the experiences of mysticism. Each proves mysticism for himself through observation and personal experiences.—Edna Lister, How to Cultivate Photographic Memory — Five Categories of Expression, November 19, 1957.


The Mystic’s goal is to achieve the respiratory rate of balance between inner and outer at the heart center, to stand between heaven and earth. As you achieve this balance, you begin crossing out self, expressing as "I-me-my-mine" at the throat center of speech. This opens the mystical "third eye" at the brow center. Then you are ready to enter the Garden of Eden for the first marriage of the Lamb, mating self-desire with God’s love and self-will with God’s will. Self-desire is covetousness, and self-will creates force. You must lift this self completely before this marriage can take place.—Edna Lister, Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes, November 4, 1958.


You can take the mystic eye to the grocery store with you and see what not to buy. Seeing with mystic vision is just natural when you live by God’s laws. The mystic eye focuses us on the original Light substance in cells, molecules, atoms and electronic charges. It is invisible, but I have taken you there by speaking the Word in description. When you turn your imagination upward to vision, you see with the mystic eye. Beware: You see all the pain and disease with the mundane physical eye. Look beyond the pain with your mystical eye, and use imagination to visualize the perfect.
  Direct your vision to what God can do through you if you stand. If you look at someone with self’s eyes, you see horns and a tail. Look beyond and see them as perfect. Look behind the mask they are wearing, and see the beauty and love they really are. The world may accuse you of wearing rose-colored glasses, for the mystic eye is the promise of all romance. Life has no romance without the use of the mystic eye. Physical eyes see all the detriments, but the mystic eye sees the source of love.
  The heart center, associated with the Mystic Degree, separates the three upper from the lower centers. From here we can pass through the Gates of Light that separate the lower planes of consciousness from the realms of heaven. Thus, we call it the point of balance between the higher and the lower rates of vibration. The Mystic must go through the Gates by uplifting the self to go to God and face Him alone. You surrender self by becoming. Surrender is not forceful doing, hearing or talking about it, for here you are at the point of becoming all your potential. Your Guards escort you from the Gate of the Mystic Mediator and through your initiations only through prayer.—Edna Lister, February 17, 1958.


Only the Mystic can commune with God, pass the Gates of Light and travel the path of ascension through the etheric currents that separate heaven realms and the world. [The heliosphere and the Van Allen radiation belt of energetic charged particles (plasma) are examples of the etheric currents.] Prayer and devotion guard us on the path, and you cannot be a Mystic without devotion. The love of God is the burning desire that takes you through the Gates. The moment you say you love Him, you ascend higher on your own path of Light.—Edna Lister, May 8, 1958.


Anything of the little self fogs your heavenly vision and you cannot see clearly with the mystic eye.—Edna Lister, A Charted Heaven, October 21, 1958.


Mysticism reveals God’s hidden nature as personality, and that God speaks as personality through personality to personality. A mystic communes directly with God or philosophically stated, with divine Mind. The mystic prays to God, knows God, accepts God and longs with all his heart and soul to return to God, the Source of All Light and life. A pioneering Mystic passes beyond intellectually practicing metaphysical mental science that holds him stuck within his skull. Mental science is good but to ascend in consciousness, your burning desire must flame beyond the ceiling. The true Mystic has the soul ambition to return to God under sacrificial surrender as a selfless servant of all Power. A true pioneering Mystic is single-mindedly determined to ascend after spiritual rebirth and resurrection from old beliefs and ways of living.
  As you obey principle as law, you begin to pioneer in the new high territory of ascension of consciousness. The Mystic uses the soul faculties of intuition — related to love—and illumination—related to wisdom — to commune directly with God and become all law received through this communion. The pioneering Mystic becomes the law of humility, which is God’s wisdom and love in perfect balance as compassion. To the pioneering Mystic, conquering is becoming all the laws received through initiations under the great Seven Degrees.
  A mystic ascends under criticism without paying attention to what others think or say. God and all the Heavenly Councils care nothing for another’s opinion or judgment of you. Councils judge you on what you are and the lights and colors of your aura. Criticism provides a stage for your initiations to ascend in consciousness and to lift.—Edna Lister, The Pioneering Mystic, May 5, 1959.


The pioneering Mystic is learning to achieve a perfect balance of love and wisdom. Using the soul faculties of intuition and illumination, the Mystic communes directly with God and works to become the law received through this communion. The Mystic Degree requirement is contemplation of the glory of God. Standing before your altar in the golden silence, you contemplate the glory concealed by the fourth veil of illusion. Standing in the golden silence, the Mystic maintains a constant contact with the Source and names all things good and very good. The materiality of self falls from the soul and his face shines as pure joy. The Mystic Degree rules the thymus and the cardiac plexus at the heart center.
  The thymus is the gland of eternal youth, and is the immune system architect. [Located in front and above the heart, it grows until puberty, when it atrophies and is replaced by fat and connective tissue; its atrophy may be the source of aging. The cardiac plexus innervates the heart along with vagus nerve fibers (tenth cranial nerve, it slows the heart‑rate). The vagus also innervates the pharynx, larynx, carotid body, bronchial muscles and lungs, stomach, liver, pancreas, kidney, colon and thoracic and abdominal viscera.]
  The heart center (of the Mystic Degree) is the respiratory rate of balance between the lower creative center and lower vital centers and the entrance to the higher vital centers and higher creative center, which is the Mystic’s citadel of soul conquering in the Promised Land. The Mystic possesses the Promised Land by perfectly balancing love and wisdom. The Mystic learns high prayer and praise (you cannot pray successfully without praise in your heart). To develop your spiritual gifts you must achieve balance at the heart center by completely conquering the drag of emotion and mere intellect.—Edna Lister, The Pioneering Mystic, May 5, 1959.


No man can hide anything from one who has earned the right to know. Ours is a Mystic Order. The first law of our Order is a principle — honor above all things. Your solemn obligation under honor and loyalty to God is to lift evil the minute you hear about it and love the who or what into the Light. Follow your own high code of honor regardless of what the world thinks or says.—Edna Lister, May 7, 1959.


Transfiguration is the Mystic Degree initiation. A catalyst brings together two different substances and transfigures them into a new, common substance, which is a mediator, the vibratory rate of balance between the visible and invisible worlds. When Jesus transfigured himself, he recalled and integrated his prior incarnations as Moses and Elijah, whom his disciples saw. Transfiguration raises the cellular vibratory rate of balance from the coarser material to the radiant electronic fire body.
  The Oversoul descends in the fire body under transfiguration, causing the outer sheath to radiate the white Christ Light. Jesus had often disappeared—called translation—but his transfiguration was his fire body vibration shining through his outer physical sheath. All materiality fell from him. His face glistered with the Light from within, visible and brilliant as the sun, even his clothes shone. Yet only three of his disciples could see his white fire body.
  

You do not instantly transfigure yourself completely, but a bit at a time. Every time you pray as a Mystic, you transfigure a little. Hatha yoga—the yoga of breath—teaches this, but may require that its Adept to concentrate on this phase for thirty-five years. Use prayer to redeem the life sparks and draw them in from the world where you invested them. Surrender to the Father and Light will transfigure your physical body as you ascend. At night, to open your body for Light to permeate it, declare, "I commend my spirit unto Thee, oh Father. Let Thy Spirit move through this body. Let it be healed and purified into Light." When you declare perfection before going to sleep, you open yourself to God’s energy and substance and awaken light and happy.
  In the morning, breathe deeply and declare, "Move into your body, Name, and take charge to occupy it for the day." Do not dangle halfway between here and there. Stand ten feet tall, open yourself to the River of Life and say, "Let the Spirit of God as Light move through me." If you close out God’s Power, you push 14.7 pounds per square inch of atmosphere before you, but if you open yourself, it flows through you.—Edna Lister, Transfiguration, Resurrection and Ascension, May 19, 1959.


The fourth degree represents the vibratory rate of balance between inner and outer, between doing and being the law. Mercury the messenger rules the degree of the Mystic who communes directly with God in prayer. You become only under prayer that is eloquent, mercurial, quick (Mercury rules quicksilver) and transfiguring to be effective. This is how you reach transfiguration. Prayer is how to pass each test quickly, the only way to cross each abyss.
  Under the negative mental-intellectual Mercury vibration, you just think about it, analyze and rationalize it to death. Intellectual prayer sinks into the body and your consciousness remains within your skull, under the ceiling. The Mystic is under Mercury because prayers are mercurial in nature and sometimes only half there, between doing and being. You can become a Mystic only by praying.—Edna Lister, Transfiguration, Resurrection and Ascension, May 19, 1959.


Hearing mystically is a matter of alerting every brain cell in the golden bowl, opening every station of nerves, pointing consciousness in but one direction, God-ward. Hearing is not hard, but the training to become and remain conscious is. The training must be rigid and is doubly difficult in this age because you must train self yourself, then submit to rigid and constant soul discipline. Your capacity is limitless. To retreat for a few days, where nothing interferes, would suffice to polish hearing. Yet interpretation would still be off 90 percent of the time because the self would still be claiming hours of attention while doing nothing to lift darkness from earth.
  Balancing earth experience with heavenly illumination is essential to the attaining the Mystic Degree. We call this tying earth to heaven, lifting our consciousness and lines of responsibility into heaven, not dragging heaven down to earth. All your past training has been for this one moment in time. You are ready for the polishing, and earth is in travail to receive it. Now is the time.—Edna Lister, May 22, 1959.


The Mystic serves God day and night, inwardly singing. Praise frees you to pray with fervor at the heart center. The heart center is the respiratory rate of balance among the three lower and three higher vital centers. Transfiguration, the Mystic Brotherhood initiation on this degree, is drawing in and ascending the physical life sparks to the desire, mental body and spiritual bodies. You transfigure yourself under service to God only.
  The Mystic’s power of being is setting aside gravitation, becoming too light to be held by earth gravity, walking on light-beams, a raised and indrawn atomic mental body vibration. You must sublimate emotions to levitate or walk on water. Acceptance, surrender, obedience and praise are our paths to transfiguration and levitation. You lift the "little self" into I AM, the Christed consciousness, under praise, thankfulness, gratitude and devotion.—Edna Lister, Eight Great Powers of Being, June 23, 1959.


More people are seeing and hearing spiritually, feeling and knowing their Guardians Angels are near. Many are thus practicing mystic vision, seeing and hearing extended into higher ranges of vibration. Many more are becoming steadfast in the practice of all virtues, thus earning rewards of comprehension that include hearing and seeing beyond the outer visible. God can deny no one who desires with burning, flaming glory to enter inner worlds, to make soul flights to high realms, cities, and suns. Yet, it requires greater sacrifice of self than ever, a soul-searching period in which you may indulge in no self-delusions of already being perfect. Nor yet can you tell yourself that "it does not matter because I meant no harm." To compare yourself only with Christ can lift the soul from earth’s weight and toils, from bondage to the need to overcome and lift past misuse of Mind, Substance and Power.—Edna Lister, February 26, 1960.


Mysticism is the Mind of God as personality, ordering all things. Principle can think and plan as Wisdom but must order, nourish and control as personality. Personality sends substance where needed.—Edna Lister, How Can I Help Myself? May 31, 1960.


You must seek a middle road of balance, not Adept control, but more to the middle for the Mystic conquering of self. Stop looking for results in the other fellow. Drop a pearl of wisdom like a seed, and withdraw. Watch then — the other fellow will pick it up and offer it as his own. Forget the bigheaded "me." That’s all we are as Mystics, seed droppers. If you want knowledge and wisdom for personal gain, you kill the seed before you drop it, thus sowing unfertile seed.—Edna Lister, October 13, 1961.


The heart represents zeal, burning desire and is the rate of equilibrium between the lower and higher centers, between earth- and heaven-consciousness. As a Mystic, you have zeal, burning desire but not always common sense. Thus, you still can go soft on sentimentality. At this point, many souls feel the creative fire ascend, then go overboard as evangelists. They push everyone into heaven ahead of them, but using force, don’t get in themselves. Get up there first, before you think to proselytize, and learn to entice souls to God without forcing your will.—Edna Lister, The Seven-Branched Candle Stand, October 17, 1961.


Our truth is not negative in any way, shape or form. How can you be negative if you follow the Mystic Brotherhood of Jesus the Christ? You couldn’t touch the Path of Ascension with a pin point’s worth of intolerance or blame.—Edna Lister, January 4, 1962.


Keep the mystical eye turned upward. You must leave the worldly eye of mind and ascend to the mystical eye of revelation.—Edna Lister, April 30, 1962.


The fourth degree of breath is the working breath of the Crown and represents the Mystic who communes with God by prayer. Its seat of power is the heart center, and it represents 36 soul virtues.—Edna Lister, December 17, 1962.


The Mystic initiation is Transfiguration, such as Jesus underwent, and described in Matthew 17:1‑9, Mark 9:2‑8, and Luke 9:28‑36. Peter describes the Transfiguration, which he witnessed: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I AM well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount."—2 Peter 1:16-18.—Edna Lister, The Fiery Furnace, March 19, 1970.

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884—1971
The original Pioneering Mystic,
Christian Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.


Edna Lister


Etymology of mystic: Old French mistique, spiritually allegorical, pertaining to mysteries of faith, from Latin mysticus, from Greek mystikos secret, mystic, from mystes one who has been initiated, an initiate of a mystery religion.


The Mystic is the fourth Degree of Ascension. From Neophyte to Christos, an initiatory degree, is a step or stage in a process, in an ascending or descending scale, a relative condition or state of being. The degree is the relative intensity, extent, measure or amount of a quality, attribute or action.


Thyatira: The Mystic’s Church

And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I AM he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have already hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.—Revelation 2:18-29.


References

Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2024.

"Heart." Science Museum of Minnesota. [Accessed April 17, 2021.]

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

The Nag Hammadi Library. James M. Robinson, ed. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.

The Oxford English Dictionary: Compact Ed., 2 vols. E.S.C. Weiner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1971.


Related Topics

Bridging the Abyss

Praise

Prayer

Transfiguration

On the Tablet of Your Heart: Linda Mihalic sermon transcript; August 7, 2011.

The Fearless Heart: Linda Mihalic sermon transcript; October 16, 2016.