Pioneering Mystic Sermons, 2003

Basic Training

Linda Mihalic Palm Sunday, April 13, 2003, Cleveland, Ohio, Luke 6:12-40

  “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles; Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor. And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases; and they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” – Luke 6:12-40

  War fills the news these days, and the slant is always on how it affects us, our economy, our investments, jobs, unemployment. We speak of our troops, our boys and girls in the military, and that’s appropriate because most of them are under age 21, the average age is 19. Each of them received six weeks’ of basic training. During basic training you first learn to take orders. If you are overweight, they put you on a diet. If you’re not in shape, they put you in a Physical Conditioning Platoon until you can do three pull-ups, forty sit-ups in two minutes, and run three miles in twenty-eight minutes. That’s so you’ll be able to travel ten miles a day by foot and still be ready to fight. You will have to memorize the general orders and core values of your branch of service, and be able to recite them on command. You learn your weapons, how to use them and how to care for them. You learn drills and ceremonies until you can perform them in your sleep.
  Earthly military training covers only our first three Degrees: Neophyte, Disciple and Adept. Our basic training work covers those Degrees, but continues to officer candidate school, the remaining Degrees of Mystic, Master, Priest and Christos. Wars begin with a declaration of attack and end with cessation of hostilities, euphemistically called a peace treaty. Victory on earth is when one side wins enough battles to make the other side want to quit for a while. In God’s terms, victory is when He has all His children home again with their minds stayed on Him. “I will keep him in perfect peace who keeps his mind stayed on Me.”
  To understand what’s happening on earth today, we must consider Adam and Eve and their sons. Cain kills Abel and leaves home, founding a dynasty in Nod, the land of sleep. Adam and Eve have another son, named Seth. He founds another dynasty, which includes Noah. “The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives.” The dynasty of Seth saw the dynasty of Cain and they intermarried. Then “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” God did not declare war, the sons of Cain did. First we had the flood, after which Noah’s son Shem headed the dynasty. Then came the tower of Babel.
  Nine generations later we meet Abraham, who came from the city of Ur, in what we call Iraq today. His wife, Sarah, was a princess who was barren. They were descendants of Noah’s son Shem, sons of the Name. Sarah gave Abraham her Egyptian maid, Hagar, as a concubine to beget an heir. Hagar, who was a descendant of Cain, became proud and haughty, was hostile toward Sarah, who threw her out. Thus, Abraham became the father of Ishmael, who in turn begat twelve sons, whose descendants today are violent peoples, for Ishmael was a “wild man; his hand will be against every man.”
  Every commander in chief begins war with a battle plan. God has His Plan. A battle plan is like a chess game. You must have an overall strategy for winning the game and make many interim moves, called tactics. Some of the moves are strategic attacks and call for heavy fire power. Tactical units then dig in and hold the ground gained. When Abraham was 99, the Lord God appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be perfect.” This was God’s declaration of war: “Walk before me and be perfect.” Abraham then had to choose to be as God is. The war raged for thousands of generations. God would choose a likely officer candidate, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Rachel, Moses, Miriam, and so on, strategically placing them down through the centuries. God advanced His tactical units through the twelve Tribes of Israel, and leveled the playing field.
  God’s next major strategic move was to send His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, who represents a culmination in the Divine Dynasty, fast-tracked for promotion through the ranks. Jesus finished officer candidate school, recruited a platoon of shock troops and prepared for the attack. Today’s scripture is all about basic training for the higher degrees, and describes what Jesus did and said just before he sent the twelve on their first mission. First he spent the night in prayer—all night, not just an hour or two—and he spent it on a mountain, which means the high place in consciousness.
  After Jesus had chosen the twelve candidates for officer candidate school, he went and stood on a “level place” with them, and the multitudes gathered to hear him and be healed. The “level place” means he balanced their consciousness. The disciples needed to ground themselves and the crowd needed to be uplifted in consciousness. Then “the Power went out from him and healed them all”—not a few—all. Then he “looked up toward his disciples,” which proves that they were still in a high state of consciousness. They had finished their basic training. His teaching that day was their graduation address.
  He taught four Beatitudes and four “woes.” The Beatitudes are rules of conduct governing our relationships with God and humanity. The woes are stern warnings against the pitfalls of an earthy consciousness, a code of honor. These blessings and woes remind us of how to keep our creative tools of imagination, thinking and desires clean, polished and ready for battle. Earth’s greatest religions are all monotheistic, that is they say they believe in one God. Yet, in seeking to reconcile the apparent conflicts in life on earth, they have all developed a dualism, such as good versus evil, God vs, the devil, peace versus war.
  If we truly believe in One God, then we cannot have God and the devil, good and evil, or peace and war. We must push back through the truth of appearances to the ultimate Truth of Reality, which is that only God is. We, ourselves, have created the duality throughout the ages—the conflict between the desire to please the self, or the desire to please God. The war is taking place, not between opposing cultures, religions, sets of values, or for economic reasons. This war is happening in the minds and hearts of every soul on earth presently inhabiting a body. Young or old, male or female, religious, agnostic or atheistic, everyone is fighting the war internally.
  The war is between God and any lesser self-generated idea or desire. The prize of this phase of the Armageddon is the domination of men’s minds. Emotion now preponderates when clear cogent thinking is required. Emotion masquerading as thinking is prejudice. Opinion is reaction, posing as thought, but crystallized into a dead, useless form. Imagination, the kingly faculty, is usually running amuck.
  The remainder of today’s text is a how-to manual for waging war in God’s style, and Jesus, our Lord and Master, who was then earning his Christos Degree, began by saying: “But I say to you who hear.” Those who can hear are those who have special ears to hear with, “long” ears that reach all the way to God’s Throne Room for battle orders. Two thousand years have proven to us that the preparation for Christos Candidate School is infinitely more difficult than any boot camp, Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. Divine Battle Readiness is so tough that the Lord of Hosts still has to depend primarily on Michael and the Heavenly Legions.
  Yet God has sent us here as a tactical combat unit, specially chosen, trained, and armed to dig in and fight. We are such good adepts that we are always on the lookout for an enemy, someone at work, someone at home, someone in Korea, Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East. The only enemy that anyone on earth can have is self—their own self or someone else’s self, pushing, pushing, pushing, always using force, subtle or overt. Everyone wants their own way, which is perfect, if it is God’s way. So many people are so very sure that they can read God’s Mind and predict His way. Since half the enemy idea is within us, our only hope for speedy reinforcement is through prayer, as Jesus did it, all night if necessary.
  Jesus taught the way to the final victory over self through nonresistance: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who treat you badly. If someone strikes you, don’t hit back. A person who tries to steal from you is so spiritually bankrupt that you ought to make a prayer donation rather than slide down to his level. Give to everyone who asks of you, hoping for nothing in return. And if someone tries to cheat you, don’t get involved. Jesus topped off his list with the Golden Rule: Treat others just as you want them to treat you. Walk before God, and be perfect.
  The Master really attacks the hypocrisy of shallow obedience to law, people who feel so smug about their own goodness. “What credit is that to you?” he asks, for even sinners do something to feel good about. God is kind unto the unthankful and evil. God is perfect, and He is asking us to be as He is, not to be as we are and serve Him. We serve God by being as He is. God can’t change His laws because we’re too weak and petty to live up to that high code of honor. If you stop unrighteously judging others, law will not have to judge you. If you stop condemning others, Law will not have to condemn you. If you forgive others, law will forgive you. If you give, law returns it to you “in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.” All this describes the law of correspondence, which Jesus applied when he said, “With the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” What you give will be put into your “bosom,” meaning your heart. The good love, mercy and kindness you give will water the love seed God planted there. Your unrighteous judgment, condemnation and harsh words will wither your love seed.
  This is your battle plan for winning over self: Walk before God and be perfect, using every Law you know, remaining conscious and praying all night if you must. Keep your thinking clean: “I will keep him in perfect peace who keeps his mind stayed on Me.” If you have God and, you’re worshiping the enemy of self in you or in another. Keep your desires burning bright. Your personal candle flame of desire is destined to become the mighty conflagration of God’s Love Divine, but you must fuel it with praise or you fuel only self. Imagine the fabulous Glory of the Infinite Good. Picture healing for all and see the Master’s face. We must consider how we affect the war. Never dwell on the horrors of war or what others say or do that is less good.
  This is your battle plan for winning over the self in others: Bomb them with Light. Assault them with mercy and kill them with kindness. Ambush their nastiness with praise. Be aggressive for God. Storm the bastions of hatred and evil with assault rifles of love, using perfect declarations as ammunition. Strike at the heart of darkness by declaring it good. Invade enemy territory with Light, and plant new love seeds wherever you go. We have driven in the wedge of Light. God has already won the war for our hearts and minds, for He is our Creator and created us in His image and likeness. Our creed is love, God’s Love, not the petty likes and dislikes of earth. Our path is to serve God, not self, through selfless sacrificial service. Our goal is God, to become like Him as He is, not as we imagine Him to be.
  “Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master.” Our Master asks us to wage peace through love. Imagination, focused on God, becomes peaceful. Thinking, stayed on God, creates peace. Desire, lifted to God, rests in the bosom of the Divine Mother. Shalom Aleichem. Peace be unto you.

Make Room to Receive

Linda Mihalic, Pentecost, June 8, 2003, Cleveland, Ohio, Malachi 3

  Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.–Malachi 3
  I was my father's son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.–Proverbs 4:3-9

  Malachi means “My Messenger.” An ancient tradition says that the prophets, Malachi, Haggai and Zechariah, accompanied the seer Daniel, when he had his visions. They were the three young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, who were cast into the fiery furnace.
  Daniel could see, but was not a prophet. Haggai, Malachi and Zechariah did not see, but were prophets, who carried “the burden of the word of the Lord.” Being the bearer of less than good news is a burden!
  Prophecy is like surgery, and being a prophet is like being a surgeon, one who diagnoses and operates to remove deformed or diseased parts of the body. The Word of the Lord is the scalpel, which excises spiritual deformity or disease. The third chapter of Malachi is a spiritual surgical diagnosis and operation.
  Who can stand when the messenger appears? People ask, “are you sitting down,” before they deliver shocking news, and the doctor always says, “Please, be seated,” when he gives his diagnosis. People’s knees buckle when they are under stress and strong emotion. The shock always comes from above, and presses them down. We have all experienced the sensation of “knowing it was coming” before we heard it, whatever it is. Today, we all know “it’s coming.”
  Malachi tells us that the messenger will be “like a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap.” Instantly we can imagine these word-pictures, but we need a little more explanation. A fuller is a person who prepares woollen cloth, and uses fuller’s earth, which is a clay-like substance that absorbs the excess oily lanolin in the cloth. A refiner of silver or gold removes the impurities or dross from the fine metal, using heat, holding the metal directly in a flame to cause the dross to surface and fall away. We call this the fires of adversity.
  The messenger comes to “purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.” The ordinary translation of “Levi” is “the priesthood,” but that is too exclusive. We need always to adopt the universal view, which informs us that the “priesthood of Levi” is “My heart.”
  “My” here is a royal pronoun, meaning that our heart, which we imagine is ours, really belongs to God. Even the engine of our individual lives is not ours, but belongs forever to our Creator. God himself will purify our hearts of the oily residue of emotional prejudices, and the hardened dross of intellectual opinions. Then are we, as a priesthood, ready to “offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.” To do this, we must be aligned uprightly with God, not with the world, which is bent, like the reflection that we see in still water.
  The oily residue in the heart is emotional desire to the self and for the world as the source of satisfaction. The ashy hardened dross is intellectual Will, bent to the self for gratification of the self’s desires. The Lord of Hosts delivers the diagnosis of heart disease because of sorcery, adultery, perjury, exploitation, and uncharitableness or insensitivity. Sorcery is using Power as force to bend others to do your will; it’s black magic.
  Adultery is so much more than sexual licentiousness—it is any way we lower a higher vibration, and includes killjoys, put-downs and one-upmanship. Perjury includes lying, or misleading another, but also refers to breaking promises or not keeping your word. Martha Stewart is an up-to-the-minute example of perjury. Employment today is a form of indentured servitude, which is the exploitation of wage earners. Inflation has eroded benefits and the wage gap widens to an abyss between workers and dubiously performing management.
  According to The Conference Board, the ratio of CEO pay as a multiple of average worker pay has grown from 41 to 1 in 1960, to 411 to 1 in 2001. Total compensation for companies’ five highest-paid executives was highest in financial services at a median $1,936,000. That spells greed. Is any top management worth this much more in annual compensation than those who produce the goods and services? Widows and orphans are the defenseless or powerless ones; consider Social Security. Uncharitableness and insensitivity? Consider hate speech and crimes, “us” versus “them.”
  How have these diseases of the heart becomes so widespread? The great Diagnostician says that it is “because they do not fear Me.” How confusing. People think fear is always a bad thing, a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by danger. Imagination breeds more fear than it creates joy! People fear poverty, a stock market crash, a depression, war, poor health, catastrophes, terrorism. Fear, depression, and anxiety are all symptoms of unpaid vows. “Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts.” If we held true fear of the Lord, which is extreme awe and reverence of His Supreme Power, we would not fear reaping what we have sown in the world. So returning to God, and paying our overdue vows is how to eliminate our fears.
  The passage on deceiving God is fascinating. According to the earth-view, a tithe is a tenth part of one’s annual income, donated voluntarily or due as a tax (Pentecost means “ten times”). If everyone in the country earned only the minimum wage, then tithed sincerely, plenty of money would be available for charity. Instead, we are “cursed with penury,” and now taxed on average of 30 percent to provide for the poor, the widows and the elderly. Viewed universally, a tithe is a spiritual commitment, praise and prayer for instance. What miracles could we work in our life and consciousness, and for our loved ones if we spent a mere ten percent of our waking time in sincere prayer? If we annually paid up an extra ten percent of our past broken and unpaid vows before the altar we would be home with God in a minute. Finally, we all try to deceive God whenever we think “it won’t matter, just this once.” When we deceive ourselves as to the truth of reality versus the truth of appearances, we practice deceit toward our Creator.
  If we gathered all our misused, wrongly invested Mind, Substance and Power, into the storehouse, our Oversoul Star, we would have abundant Mind, Substance and Power on which to draw in our time of need. Miracles would come from every direction. Joy would rain down. “Prove Me now in this,” says the Lord of Hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”–Malachi 3:10. This is perhaps the greatest verse in this whole reading, and it was one of Edna Lister’s favorites. To “prove” means to test or to try something to prove whether it is real or strong enough to endure. God is asking us to test this free method, tithing in prayer and praise, and wait to see the results! We have nothing to lose, and everything to gain!
  The final condemnation of self is how we blame God for what goes wrong in your lives, all the difficulties, situations and events that we have created. A free translation of this passage could read, “You have tired God with your attitudes! You ask, ‘How did we tire Him?’ And the answer is, “Because you said whoever does bad is good. It’s a waste of time to serve God. What do we get for serving God?” Now we are looking up to criminals, and the wicked are prospering. They have tested God and escaped penalty.
  Think of shady accounting practices, Enron and Ken Lay, Kmart, Tyco and WorldCom. Consider insider trading, and IMClone and Samuel Waksal, who also conspired with an art dealer to dodge $1.2 million in sales tax. These are examples of criminals, whom others admired until they fell from grace. No one may forever reap where they have not sown. No one eternally escapes the penalty for wrong actions or gets away with anything. Debts are debts, and we must pay every jot and tittle, in this life or in another. All arguments to the contrary are sophistries, which are plausible but misleading or untrue arguments.
  We must cleanse our trinity of will, desire and action, surgically removing self-will, self-desires, wrong actions and procrastination. Soul must command the self, not sometimes, but always. We are in command of this. We choose whom we shall serve, self or God. Our greatest God-given faculties are imagination, thinking and desire. To cleanse thinking, declare, “Thou wilt keep me in perfect peace, for I have stayed my mind on Thee.” (See Isaiah 26:3.) To cleanse imagination, declare, “Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, Lord God of Hosts. The whole world is filled with Thy Glory.” To purify desires, declare, “All my desire is before Thee, O Lord.”
  Thus do we become “those who fear the Lord.” The Lord will listen (He is always listening) and will hear us. A recording angel shall write our names in a Book of Remembrance for this Age. “They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of Hosts, “on the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.”–Malachi 3:17. Each of us is a jewel in our Father’s crown. What part of us becomes that jewel? Our hearts. God writes His Laws upon our hearts as we become those Laws. What is written there is ours forever, unless we misuse it or throw it away in scorn. Our purity and adamantine nature grow with every upwardly excelling incarnation we live.
  Our Master, Jesus, did all this and became the Christ. He said, “What I have done, you shall do also, and greater works than these.” (See John 14:12.) He said becoming Christed is possible and doable. He did so, and so can we. We must do it. We must be it, the real thing in itself, no pretense or sham. Return to Him and He will return to you. “Prove Me now in this,” says the Lord of Hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”–Malachi 3:10.
  Let us clean out our hearts and make room to receive. The flames of the Holy Spirit have descended for days now, to immerse earth in a Baptism by Fire. Open your heart and let this Divine Fire purge the dross.

To Stand, to Hold, and to Know

Linda Mihalic, August 10, 2003, Cleveland, Ohio, Exodus 17:8-13, Hebrews 12:12-13

  Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek: and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.–Exodus 17:8-13
  Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; 12:13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.–Hebrews 12:12-13
  Jewish mysticism teaches that every living soul has two inclinations or tendencies implanted within it. Your mind is the battleground between the inclination to do good and the inclination to do evil or the not-good. This duality or dichotomy is obvious in the stories of Cain and Able, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob. The brothers were born to families who allowed them to choose their soul's direction and life path, good or evil.
  To read these stories as distant in time and in space is beguiling, but untrue. You carry the dual inclination within you, to do good and to do the not-good. You must choose hundreds of times daily. Usually, people fail to recognize the moment of choice until it is too late. Too often they choose some crippling form of mental or emotional malpractice such as resentment, irritation, impatience. The desire to hide something unlovely about yourself easily leads to lying.
  We are obviously in the midst of a global conflict between good and evil. People automatically assume that others are waging this struggle "out there," separate from themselves. Perhaps you imagine that you are merely a distant observer, who helps by praying and declaring for the Light to win. Yet each wages this universal conflict on a personal level, within. Your mind and heart is the current battlegrounds, not somewhere else. By direct extension, if your mind and heart are involved, so is your body.
  All conflict originates at the spiritual level, invisible to the ordinary senses. Yet inner conflict directly colors your thinking. Your thinking or lack of it, in turn, permits your emotions to run wild. Thus, the conflict rages within you, as it has throughout the ages. If you listen to the voices within your own thoughts, you learn to distinguish the voice of your inclination to good clearly, which Abraham Lincoln called "the angels of our better nature." The inclination to the not-good begins with the whiny, petulant self and ends with listening to absolute darkness, which speaks of revenge, spite, malice and the pleasuring of the self.
  Conflict in the world causes war, within a family it causes quarreling; within you, as an individual, conflict causes chronic or acute disease. The degree of inner conflict that you entertain dictates your state of health or lack of it. This burden of responsibility falls squarely on your shoulders, not on anyone else. You embody the conflict at work in your consciousness, which reflects itself in your life, your health or your lack of vitality. You must let your Oversoul enlist your rational soul's full and willing cooperation and bodybuilding appetitive soul to support God's divine will for you. Never stop or rest in a place of weakness, or you open yourself to your not-good inclination.
  To release Power, you must first fill yourself with Light, so raise your hands to form a chalice of Light, for Light as Love-Power to fill you. Verbally invoke the Light to fill you by saying, Let me be filled with Thy Light and Power, oh God!
  If your knees are weak, you cannot stand before God to release Power. You weaken your knees when you permit "little me" to keep you from kneeling in adoration before God. A person who goes to God last in case of need will find himself at the end of a long line! Going to God last means that you are trying to do it your way first. In a crisis, most people first mentally cry, What can I do? They spend hours, days or weeks seeking horizontally, asking friends, family and professionals (doctors, lawyers, or consultants) what they should do. Too often, they only go to God when all else fails.
  Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.–Isaiah 35:3. If you are often on your knees in praise and adoration of the One, you will thereby strengthen your feeble knees and always find the endurance to stand until God provides your answer. If you have disciplined rational soul and appetitive soul, you will find a cushion of Light to rest upon. Your hands will not be "heavy" as you raise them.
  Lift your vision to fulfill God's will and desire for you, which is always perfection, never any lesser state. The Light moving through will then straighten your path to understanding. The confusion will clear, the snarls will untangle, and the right course of action will magically appear before you. Perhaps God will send an Agent with your answer. The answer can come from any direction, but only if you hold fast to high vision in Light and know that He will work everything together to fulfill all good for you.
  Stand and reach up to God. Hold fast to His hand and your high vision. Keep knowing that He is your ever-living, ever-loving, ever-present Eternal Father, who always answers your prayers and cares for your every need. To stand and hold and know this melts, dissolves and absorbs every inner conflict. Divine Light will flood you, filling every cell, molecule and atom. Your bloodstream will begin to glow with the golden Light that heals.
  Your task is to lift everything that is unlike God. Lift all fear and guilt, all anger, hatred and revenge motives. Lift the idea of loss, of shame, of resentment, of unrighteous judgment, criticism and condemnation. Lift the vibration of self-righteousness and self-exaltation, all the taints that rise to strike you from the rear, in moments of weakness.
  Our God is the God of All, who wants all His children to come home. Decree and declare and establish this as law now, before all worlds, throughout all universes: I serve the One God, of whom everything is but a part, the God of Light, of Love, of all-inclusiveness, who is indivisible by man-made creed or dogma. Only Light can stand or hold, and in Light I know that we are One whole, perfect pure and complete now.

Universal Magical Power

Linda Mihalic, October 19, 2003, Cleveland, Ohio, John 1:1-5, 1 Corinthians 13,

  Every generation produces its own literature, which inspires or influences, according to its own nature. When it also appeals to younger generations in their turn, it finally becomes Great Literature. Hollywood versions. When I was a teenager, the most influential series was “Lord of the Rings,” by J.R.R. Tolkien, and more recently it is obviously the “Harry Potter” series by J.K. Rowling. Both authors are from the British Isles, a land rich in magical tradition.
  Some literature lives down through the centuries, because it is read by all generations. Chief among the great works is the Bible, though few people read it as literature, but it is. No one writes a book without first having a vision of what that book will accomplish. The Creative Impulse within the author literally drives him or her to produce that vision, seen in imagination, bringing it into concrete form. This takes a combination of the three great principles, desire, will and action. You have the desire, then must put your will into action to create.
  The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is similar in some ways to a mystery school, though such a school would produce creator priests and priestesses. Hogwarts’ basic training takes seven years, and you must pass exams to reach higher levels. The mysteries require that you pass Seven Degrees of Initiation: Neophyte, Disciple, Adept, Mystic, Master and Christos, and it may take seven to 700 hundred lifetimes to complete. Both schools require much study, practice and discipline.
  Successful characters in any book are archetypes, and their roles are universally familiar. The unloveable, unlikeable Dursley family members show no love for their fellow man: Uncle Vernon, the high pressure salesman, is sounding brass; Aunt Petunia, the shrew, is a clanging cymbal, and Dudley is the classic the bully. Their God-given gifts produce nothing, nor do their actions. The characters who show love include Albus Dumbledore, Prof. MacGonagle, Hagrid, Harry and his parents, James and Lily, Hermione, the Weasley family, Harry’s Godfather, Sirius Black. Harry’s mother’s love for him is his protection.
  Love is long suffering. Love is kind. Love rejoices in the truth. Love thinks no evil. Love bears all things. Love believes all things. Love hopes all things. Love endures all things. Love never fails.
  Love does not rejoice in iniquity as did Lucius Malfoy. Love does not envy as did Draco Malfoy, who personified discontent, resentment; covetousness; envy of others' possessions, and jealousy of their status. Love does not parade itself as did show-off Prof. Gilderoy Lockhart, who flaunted, strutted, boasted. Love is not puffed up [proud and haughty]. Love does not behave rudely as did Crab and Goyle, who were crude, ill-mannered, and ignorant. Love does not seek its own, but Prof. Snape played favorites. Love is not provoked, as was Filch, the Building Manager.
  Harry Potter’s world paints a pretty accurate picture of the world today. Magic is unacceptable to most people, who either do not believe at all—or if they do, they fear it, thinking it is of the devil. Just as Hogwarts is accessible only to magical people, so are the world’s schools of magic open only to a few. Nothing that advertises itself as a true school is a true school. True Mystery Schools are even rarer yet, and open to even fewer true seekers. The motto of such is “To dare, to do, and to be silent.”
  “But prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, knowledge will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part.” This where we are today. Truth is buried under a mountain of opinion and prejudice. Religions have failed and lost their magical mysteries. Secular humanism has nearly replaced God, which has bred born-again, fundamentalist madness in all the world’s religions. People want the mystery back in their lives. They seek a spiritual dimension, but are not finding it in churches; young people find it in Harry Potter. Harry did not know who he was. He did not know he was magical. Neither did we, who are older now, nor do the young ones today.
  We all seek identity, as Edna Lister said, with a Source greater than self. Who are we? Why are we here? What are we to do with our lives? These questions are critical today, more than ever, since today we are all newborn, and can, from here on, make of our lives what we will. We are more free than at our first birth because we can all think and consciously make choices now, which we could not when we were infants.
  “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things.” The childish things are the negative manifestations of love: Lucius Malfoy and his gang, headed by Lord Voldemort, the archetype of evil. We have no more time for rejoicing in evil, envy, boasting, false pride, rudeness, favoritism, snobbery, resentments and nastiness.
  “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” Bobbie Burns wrote “Oh the gift that God could give us, to see ourselves as others see us.” We don’t see ourselves clearly—usually only what’s wrong, rarely what’s right. Sometimes we see ourselves as much better than we really are, usually much worse.
  “But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.” The worst thing about the Harry Potter series is that it still plays on the old model of the adept using Power to fulfill self-will and self-desires. We all do that pretty well anyway. We’re all great adepts. Yet using Power always creates force that separates the Three-as-One—Mind, Substance, and Power. Mind forgets, and we can’t remember who we are or why we are here. Substance becomes diseased and we become ill or the body ages. Power becomes force and we must take it back through our bodies or affairs. Using Power to work your own will, to gain your selfish desires always creates force. This creates a debt that you must pay.
  All the schools that advertise self-development, magic, wicca, martial arts, medical schools, in fact schools of all kinds, are merely creating adepts—people who are willing to pay money to become adept at something. People buy the promise of health, wealth, success, happiness, and above all, power, because they feel powerless, not in control but at the mercy of others. They want meaning in their lives, a better place in the universe. Some want to control others, to influence or manipulate them. Desire comes in all shades, from white to gray to black. Few have the necessary ability to focus their will into action, which is why most people’s results are mediocre.
  Even religion has fallen for this. Prayer, the ways most of them practice it, is by rote, boring and trivial, uninspiring to them and certainly boring for God to have to listen to! Abracadabra! Fill my bag! Gimme, send me, do for me. The real question is, what you are willing to do for God?
  For some time now, there has been a new School on earth, though it does not advertise itself. This School is dedicated to surrendering to the Power, to be used by God, to be spoken through by God the Father, Mother and Son. This School abhors using the Power, understanding that we can go home only through surrender to Divine Will, Divine Love rather than self-desires, and acting in accordance with and obeying Divine Law.
  “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” Our faith, hope and love are the first casualties we experience in our misuse of Mind, Substance, and Power. Faith wanes, we lose hope and finally feel that we are not loved, so we retaliate by not loving others. But this message says that faith, hope and love abide. That means that they exist eternally, whether we acknowledge them or not. Faith, hope and love simply are, and they don’t depend on us. We depend on them.
  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it” (John 1:1-5). These five verses form an entire credo of Light, the credo meant for Christianity 2,000 years ago. Not knowing what it meant, the Church glossed it over and finally lost its meaning. What a shame, since it tells us everything that we need to know today.
  The first act in Creation was speaking the Word, “Let there be Light,” followed by “This is good.” Good is God’s name on earth. Whenever we call it good, God can move in. If we don’s, He can’t. This makes us all powerful and very magical.
  Be like Glenda the Good Witch in Wizard of Oz: Pray for Light to surround those who act poorly, until they can overcome. Here is an incantation of the Spirit for agreeing with an adversary: “Darling, you are wonderful. I love you.” You comply with Law while Love holds the other person in bonds until their condemnation ceases.
  Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Patronus Spell. Call on your Patron: the Lord of Light, Jesus Christ. When something seems untrue or appears black, say, “Let the Light shine! Unveil thyself,” and it shall be so. Use the word, “Let,” and whatever you pray can be made legal, even if you use the wrong words otherwise.
  July 30, 1948 Edna Miriam gave the Incantation for Wholeness: Pray first—your prayers should always be a love message to your Father. Zip yourself in a Sphere of Light. Afterward say, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, let my body be a living oblation and sacrifice before the altar. I declare that every force in my body that has been misused is completely sublimated under the Kiss of the Serpent. I declare a sublimation in which there is no darkness. I declare that my body will be completely renewed and all centers revitalized. I am the High Priest/Priestess of my Temple. Depart from me all ye forces which seek to disturb the harmony of my life. I drop a curtain of Light between me and thee. In the name of Love, it is finished.”
  Edna Miriam said, “We have one incarnation in which to scoff, an incarnation to hear about it, to sit and think about it a good deal, talk about it and force everyone else to become it. Then your path is open to become a seeker after Law, with full Illumination, the stage where you say, ‘What am I doing wrong?’”
  Our time has come. We’ve scoffed, sat and talked about it and have tried to make everyone else be perfect so we can be happy. In the latest Harry Potter book, The Order of the Phoenix, he’s a ticked off teenager who’s feeling pretty sorry for himself. He’s mad at everyone, feels abused and misused, resentful, angry and vents his temper repeatedly on his best friends. Some adults have said this book is “dark” in tone. Well, so are many people! Rowling’s characterizations give young people a way to identify them.
  Harry is as typical a teenager as any of us were, or are, and will be again. That’s what makes his character so real and so great that it will live down through the ages. How interesting that Rowling chose the Order of the Phoenix, the creature that dies in flame and arises from its own ashes, a tail feather of which is encased in Harry’s magic wand. The phoenix is a symbol of the magical soul. It dies in the flames of surrender to love and arises from the ashes of a dead self. This we all must do, not once, but daily.
  After all, Lord Voldemort has a phoenix feather in his wand, too, which says he died to self at least once. Yet one choice is never enough — we must choose moment by moment, every day of every year we live on earth. Only one who was originally great could have Voldemort’s capacity for evil.
  In the beginning today, we said that we would explain why Edna Miriam turned down the offer to head that great Order of White Adepts. The man who told us the story was from London. He said, “She was the most powerful woman in the world, but she would not use her Power.” Think of it, “the most powerful woman in the world,” but few people alive now have even heard of her. His tone was awed and utterly respectful, yet puzzled. If he had such power, his tone said, he would have used it!
  The answer is simple, deceptively so. First, Edna Miriam knew that the Power was not hers, but belongs to God and to God alone. Second, she understood and taught us that the Power is not ours to use. Our role is to be used by the Power. All Power comes from above. All we can ever do is to release it, or to use it, and in our Order of Mystics, we vow not to use the Power, but to release it selflessly. How often we fail to keep that vow is what creates our debts to Law.
  Today is a glory! The start of a new Age of Dispensation of Forgiveness and Love. Love rules the world today. Will we share in Love’s Reign? Or will we hold out to the self? The Love Seeds already planted in your hearts have sprouted, and even now the Light is coaxing their green shoots up to flower and spread. New Love Seeds are yours to plant wherever you see the need, in anyone who appears to be unloving.
  The only Power that is legal for us to use is the Power of Love itself. When we use the Power of Love, the Lord of Light places a magic wand in our hand, and we may then speak the Word, which is Light itself moving in. Light, once invoked upon anyone or in any situation, must and shall convert that person or situation into Light. This Law of the Universe is infallible and irresistible. Love is the magic, Love is the incantation, Love is the spell that binds the soul to God. Love is the Creator, and when we love, we are Creators.
  Light always wins because it is the essence and Substance of Love, which always wins. The old ways of magic by use of force and self will are obsolete for those who want to go home to God. Love, the Universal Magical Power is always there for us to use, so use it lavishly, always thanking God that He sends it through you. As the Power of Love moves through you, it changes you into itself, pure Love and Light. Let there be Light!

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