2. Seven Stages to Spiritual Unfoldment Though Tarot

You see before you the three Tarot keys that is on the lower row which allude to the second stage of spiritual unfoldment. You will recall last Thursday night when we took up the first stage of spiritual unfoldment, we tried to show you both the negative and positive usages of the principle, the agency or law through which the principle works, and then the result or effect of the above two, which also is called the first stage of spiritual unfoldment. Now actually, what we didn't mention to you at that time is that each of these sets of three keys, in a way, are like a little whirling circle. They whirl and whirl and whirl, so that, for instance, the final effect which we see with with the last Tarot key, actually immediately stirs the principle into action again. Like, for example, with Tarot keys 1, Tarot key 8, and Tarot key 15, which we took up last Thursday, you can see how that which we give our attention to, which is our life and death, Tarot Key 1, forms the suggestion, therefore the conditioning, of subconsciousness, shown by Tarot Key Number 8, which brings about the result or the effect seen by Tarot Key Number 15, or the phenomenon. That is the occurrence, a resultant from the other two. And the this very occurrence, this very phenomenon, does what? It immediately stimulates an act of attention.

Attention, as we know, because 15, if you recall, usually happens to be the problem. You know, it looks like the devil. That's why it's called the devil. And so we look at this problem, and by giving attention to it, we're right back again with key number one. In other words, we're right back with that same series of three. And so we can think of it as going round and round in a circle, but not stuck in that circle, or else, let's put it this way, let's hope not because some of us do seem to be stuck in that one groove of the needle in a record of course that we realize nevertheless sooner or later some phase of our life because we don't go ahead all together at once we do it in sections in different parts of our being sooner or later some phase of the result instead of bringing about the bondage as we showed you with tarot key 15, but the two figures having the canes around them. Instead of this, brings about the kind of seeing, because if you remember, it was attributed to fright as the organ of vision, brings about the kind of seeing that makes us recognize how ludicrous it is. Therefore, what? Humor. Humor comes to immerse, comes to the rescue. And the minute we have that, we have what? A broader perspective, because it takes a broad perspective to really have humor and wherever we lack a broad perspective there we are unable to see humor as surely you've noticed if we are very fanatical about our political affiliation we do not think it's funny if we hear jokes that are aimed against the political affiliation which happens to be ours if we are fanatical about a religious affiliation we do not think it's funny if fun is poked against that particular type of affiliation or attitude or idea. And if we happen to be sensitive, say, about the color of our hair, we don't think it's funny if someone should call us toe-head or carrot-top or something like that.

So you see, wherever we are in bondage, we cannot have mercy. And indeed, this often is a dead giveaway for ourselves. It helps us to see, to broaden the perspective and get away then from the bondage which we are usually in, in various ways. Sometimes lesser, sometimes greater, sometimes varied. Now then, as we said, there is this circle of motion you could think of that goes on rather continuously in our consciousness. The principle of attention brings about the suggestions, the subconsciousness bringing about the result or the effect, which is usually the devil, considering what we give attention to most of the time. And then the effect being something that is usually a problem our attention is given to it and there we are right back to key one again all right but then we also have another type of motion and that is what we can call the spiral motion it circles and returns to where it was but it spirals to the next set And here we have the next set.

Key number two is the principle.

Key number nine is the law or agency through which the principle works. Key number 16 is the effect or the result or the second stage of spiritual unfoldment. And remember, we're keeping the fool up there, not to remind us that we're all fools, though it would be nice if we could remember that, because it's so charming not to have to prove to other people how brilliant we are or smart or wise and so on and we we can be much more gay-hearted full of the light and the verve that is typified by the fool the gaiety of the sense of adventure which super consciousness instills in us most of the time whether we will or no and sooner or later gets through, even when we're quite bound, we get knocked out, like Key 16 shows. These figures are really being stirred and thrown and knocked about in a very intensive manner, wouldn't you say? So, again, I remind you that the fool, Key O, is really a part of all these tarot keys. And everything from 1 right through to 21 is really another aspect or a principle, an activity, or an effect of the functions of consciousness which really belong to the superconscious level of which we have representing here in terms of the fool.

Now, remembering that key one is attention, basically, you see, we're trying now to get our keys down to this type of shorthand and when we just say attention naturally we expect something in you sooner or later to start reacting not only to the idea of attention but to all the other ideas that are involved with attention like the pair of opposites that's assigned to that tarot key life and death showing you that your livingness is what you are uh give attention to and that which you're not giving attention to is naturally a sort of death to the consciousness. And the degree of concentration, again, is involved with the magician. The degree of self-consciousness is really your degree of livingness, as is the reverse when you lack those enough stirrings or intensities. Yes so realizing then that p1 is signifying attention of I wonder if harriet if it wouldn't be a good idea to ask the children to tell the children that uh unlike jesus we don't want to suffer the children to come into us at the moment later it would be fine because I don't want to disturb your concentration doesn't bother me though but I know lots of people can't listen to several things going on at once now then we said remembering key one is being attention life and death. TQ representing suggestion. The whole idea that is involved with the impact of the habit patterns within subconsciousness, the training of all our wild and undisciplined drive. That T15, that is the end result of that previous series is the result or the effect the appearance which is made because of those previous activities we now go ahead we let's assume that we're not stuck in the groove of the record and that we're going on to the spiral that we have mastered the positive side did you get hold of this of the roller risk-gaining one too. So we now come to this series of three, as I say, assuming that we are ready for our next spiral in the circle. And we come to the principle of memory, as as shown by key two.

Now, memory, Kabbalistically, is called the intelligence of unity or the unifying intelligence. It's assigned to that type of consciousness.

And we might ask, well, what would memory have to do with the unifying intelligence?

Well, in essence, if we think about it carefully, we will see memory has everything to do with the unifying consciousness. Because, for example, it is through subconsciousness that memory exists, the function of memory. And what is subconsciousness, basically? Here you see it represented in a high priestess in such a way that her robe turns to water.

And throughout the ages, subconsciousness has been shown in esoteric occultism as something that is fluidic, like a notion has been called. The great seas, the ocean of consciousness, and so on. And this flow of consciousness in its aspect of memory could be thought of as that which unifies all things in its way. For example, our modern scientists talk about the knowledge that the genes have. They actually call it that. They say the genes they say the genes have what they call a genetic knowledge so that the genes know exactly what to do in order to build exactly the kinds of vehicles that are known. And it's an interesting thing. The gene of a tree never tries to build the body of a blade of grass or a flower or a bush. Furthermore, the gene of a tree doesn't try to build any kind of tree except the kind of tree that it carries. In other words, it carries a genetic memory.

Its parent and its parent and its parent, where did it get the first memory? We might ask ourselves. So as to know what to do to build itself this definite special kind of vehicle, this special kind of body. Yet the genes, at least our scientists tell us that the genes have this memory. Of course, we as occultists do not say that this memory is in the genes at all. We know very well it isn't. The memory is in that part of our consciousness which is beginningless and endless, which is not subject to the physical changing aspects of life, but which is the cause of these aspects of life. And the memory being non-material, it of course attaches itself to that, shall we say, gene. Let's say that it's like a magnetic cord. Radio waves are here all the time, but only if you tune in to a specific station do you get that special station. And therefore the memory is something that is not dependent on anything physical, including whatever is meant by the gene.

However, another thing that occultism has taught regarding memory, and this is very important, is that memory is not anything private.

Now modern science laughed at this idea up until recently when they went in for a group of experiments in parapsychology. And once it was proven that telepathy, for example, is a fact. Certainly those who were willing to listen to the proof were able to say without any question that if telepathy exists, and it has been proven to exist, then the fact remains that there is something between consciousness and consciousness which is not dependent upon upon physical contact in order to get its idea across, or shall we say its memory? So, for example, we have certain psychics called psychometrists who, holding a certain article in their hands, get tuned into the memory of that article.

And they say, oh, I feel this and this happening to me. If it's a rock that was in an ocean. I feel the ocean sweeping me along in waves.

And they will give a history as though it's happening to themselves.

In other words, what have they done? They've tuned in to the memory of whatever it is they're in contact with.

So the unifying intelligence as assigned to memory here with the high priesthood has to do with the fact that memory is really not something that's only a personal possession. It's true that under the limitations of physical incarnation, we have the idea or the attitude, or at least we think, that whatever we do or think is something private and special to us in this manner that no one can ever know about it. This really isn't true at all because I'm sure all of you had the experience with someone rather close to you where all sorts of things that you thought were known by the other sometimes things you didn't want known and of course I know lots of men have quite a problem with their wives wondering how in the world they were able to tell but women are very subject to the development of this telepathic ability with their near and dear ones as our men but women just a little more readily because they have more of a focus on the personal relationship values and therefore they just give the concentration into it like our magician you know key one and therefore have those results more readily. Now in actuality, memory, although certainly there is something about it that is private, inasmuch that only you can have whatever the experience is or was, which becomes that memory, because each of us are unique senses for that primal one. At the same time even though each and every one of us are unique experiences for the memory anyone who reaches a certain stage of unfoldment can pick up that memory and know exactly what has happened to you in all sorts of ways like with Dr. Case when he was just a young man in his early twenties in Chicago at the time I I don't think I told this guy this little story, and it's a very true story, believe me.

He was on his way to rehearsal, being, as you recall, an orchestral director. He was on his way to rehearsal when a strange man stopped him just as he was about to get on the streetcar and asked him to sit down on the bench for a moment and speak to him, saying to him, you have at least half an hour before you go, which was absolutely true.

Well, this man who stopped him proceeded to tell him all about the various things that had happened to him, important things since he was a child, things he had done, things he had thought, things he had felt, things some of which no one knew, no one at all.

And you can imagine this struck Dr. Case as most impressive. Then after doing this, the man said, now the reason I have told you about this is because the ones who are my teachers asked me to come here and meet you. It isn't that I knew, I I didn't. This information was given to me by the one I call my master.

And he asked me to meet you at this point, at this time, describe you, and told me what to tell you. Because he said, in that way, I will get your attention. And in that way, you will know that he has knowledge of your comings and goings and thinkings and doings since you were a youngster.

And therefore you will listen more carefully to what he will have to say to the further message the further message being that Dr. Case was at a point in his life where he could go in two directions in one he would remain in the musical field all his life and have a rather successful career and lead a rather pleasant life in the other he would eventually give up the musical career and would have many hardships would undergo tremendous hardships indeed have many problems but on the other hand he would also be a channel or the source through which untold numbers of human souls of spirits would achieve to higher evolutionary levels receive this aid and they could promise him nothing except the satisfaction of knowing that and also the fact that in the final analysis just in the final analysis he wouldn't really starve to death though it might look like he was going to a few times which it certainly did, by the way.

Now, I tell you this why to point out to you again that those who have evolved to that level of true mastery certainly have the power to look into the state of consciousness of the disciples and or the aspirants. And certainly being able to do that memory cannot be secret.

As I pointed out, memory isn't even secret amongst ourselves on the whole. We pick up each other's thoughts all the time. Did you know that almost invariably inventors invent things simultaneously?

It's one of the most fantastic things. They attempt to get patents on things from different levels of life entirely.

Why?

Because there's a level in which consciousness is not so completely private and locked away, as in Paro-216, and the power, because consciousness basically, and therefore memory, because where does memory reside except in consciousness, is in essence something beyond, absolutely beyond the physical plane, something beyond the narrowness or the confines of appearance, something beyond our comprehension, really. Some of the modern neurologists have tried to say that memory has to reside in the brain because if a certain part of the brain is damaged, no more memory. That's ridiculous. Just like saying a certain broadcast isn't going out if if a certain part of the radio is broken, so it can't tune in. Certainly, or saying that if one of the keys on the piano is broken, it still should continue to play that note. It can't if it's broken. And the brain is an instrument. An instrument. But it isn't memory. Nor does it hold memory. Nor does it register.

It's an electrical and electromagnetic type of instrument. So you see, memory, being called the unifying intelligence or the intelligence of unity, is the basic principle, because here we're dealing with principles, that is brought into action as a result of the previous three tarot keys, as we pointed out, number 1, 8, and 15, because all that does what? It registers into memory, does it not? That which you pay attention to becomes what? A memory. The habit pattern, which are the laws or agencies or motions through which that attention of C1 works, brings about a result, which becomes what? A memory. Every result is a memory, isn't it? Whatever it amounts to. And under hypnosis has been found, but in a way there's no such thing as lost memory. It may be lost to our ability to recollect, but it isn't really lost. This is one of the reasons it's so important, though, to sharply pay attention to life in order to have sharp memory, and memory that is more in accordance with reality. So you see, memory of what has occurred, when when we consider it in terms of the previous parishes, becomes the principle through which the next series of developments comes about for the second stage of spiritual unfoldment.

Now, when we continue to remember our sorrows, our disappointments, our disillusionments, our betrayals, our unhappinesses.

This acts as what? Well, we showed you last week that this is your way of interpreting life and is received as a subconscious suggestion. Let's see it here in another way.

What happens with T9, which is the agency or the law through which this principle of memory works. All right now, key nine, the hermit, is assigned cabalistically to the intelligence of will. Intelligence of will. Now just before we even go further with the cabalistic interpretation, think for a moment. Doesn't every drive that come from you come about because of a memory?

Like something you like to eat, your will goes what? Is driven to eat that same food or to eat it all or in or if you had something that was enjoyable in terms of an expression your memory drives you to experience it again or to go again or to do again and even of course if it was unhappy if we hold it as a pattern memory drives us because it's like an electromagnetic magnetic element like iron filings to the magnet whatever we hold in consciousness automatically brings about response and response has to do with what we are going to will and so the next tabalistic uh attribution in key nine is response that's one of them which is a very important one what we remember is what makes up our basic response to ourselves and to life now we're not saying you've got to forget that you were betrayed that you were hurt that you were unloved that you were mistreated and so on that isn't the point because it isn't just the principle of memory involved remember we have dealt we have dealt with the other three keys, key 1, 8, and 15, and these cannot be separated away from those three.

And that's one of the difficulties in trying to bring together these groups, because you can't hold that many in consciousness at once until you have the fourth dimensional consciousness, which we're training you towards, as you well know. And many of you have flashes of it often, already, I know. But anyway, this response does not have to do with having to forget anything that happened in the past which was adverse or, shall we say, unhappy. It has to do with learning how to see it in another manner, in a different manner. Remember, key 15, that previous key from last week is the eye is the organ of vision. Remember? Learning how to see with perspective, but you see how they are just swinging in together in these groupings of 1, 8, 15, and now to this next group for the second stage of spiritual development.

Now, not only is this Tarot Key 9 assigned to response, but it's assigned to the union of opposite and incidentally to touch. Touch. And this is so important. In our previous class we pointed out to you, we want to remind you, that every sense we have is a sense of touch. Our eyes will remind you again because we need to remember this. When we see something with our eyes, it's really a vibration has touched that part of the camera in our eyes, which the consciousness has interpreted. When we hear something, a vibration has touched that mechanism in the ear, which the consciousness interprets as sound. When we taste something, there is a substance has touched the endings, the nerve endings, on our tongue. So you see no matter what sense you have it is a specialization of the sense of touch therefore it is your sense of touch with your memory with your world with your life which makes whatever is going to happen and which gives you whatever perception and whatever ability to express breath and whatever illumination or lack of illumination you have your sense of real touch now in essence most of the time we misinterpret what we touch do we not we have an ignorance involved we have contact say with somebody who's not very nice and that was a sense of touch.

We experienced a response. Again, paroxy number nine, which brought about a sense of touch in this manner that our reaction in response were to the sense of touch that resulted in relation to that person. Now, if that person was someone who was a very not nice type of person if that person was more or less evil or immature of course our reaction would have been very adverse would it not however there are various ways to react and that has to do with what we do with memory not only do we have to learn how to react in terms of our memories but but how to react, that is the response of canine, in terms of what's happening now, but that comes later. The first thing we have to learn to do is learn how to respond to memory. That's why you have this law and agency following this.

Before we'll even begin to learn how to respond properly to the adverse elements that come into our lives every day from other people and conditions. It just stands to reason. Now then, what is the attitude we need to develop in reference to memory itself? Well, over here, Tarot Key 16, of course, shows it very, very strongly.

We have to knock out the false, elusive, deluded ideas. Remember, this is the Tower of Babel. And the tower of Babel is built by words that's why this Tarot key number 16 the tower is also called the mouth the mouth is the organ of speech and the mouth is the organ of speech is always the result of the thought you think before you can speak and your speak is the result of memory and it's the result of your response to memory. This is what gives you the power of speech, which is really another plane for the intercommunication, or it is a way that we develop more and more of a sense of touch with each other. Like if I say, I love you. Now I am using speech in order to express that which is touch. And what is touch? Well, next week we'll take that up as love. We won't go into that this much because we're going to hang you on love next Thursday night because we will be taking up Tarot Key the Empress, who is Venus, you know.

And we will also, as the third card in the series, will be Tarot Key 17, the Star, which is another figure of the Empress, shown in a very special way. And so we're going to show you what that next stage of development has to do in terms of what love is and is not.

Because most of us have the most erroneous ideas in relation to love, as I think we realize. And this has to get knocked out of the power. First, we have to become awakened before we even begin to have a capacity for really loving and really using the creative imagination, which will come with the next series that we go into for next Thursday, of the next series of three. So why is it that we have to analyze our memories and learn how to develop a new response, T9, in order to knock down the false crown and to knock out the false ideas and attitudes in both our subconscious and self-conscious minds, which these two figures represent. It's necessary because it's necessary in the same way as if you are surrounded with a bunch of bricks, all you're going to see will be the bricks.

And you will not be seeing the light, you will not be in the light, you will not be experiencing the light. The degree of your ignorance, the degree of your incorrect responses to life because of your ignorance, brings about the degree of your imprisonment on this isolated tower. And this isolated tower is what? This idea of being a sort of separated something from the rest of life. You see, that has to get knocked out. That takes you right back again then to what? To Tarot number two, the unifying intelligence, memory.

Because the unifying intelligence, with its memory, has to do with the pair of opposites called peace and strife.

Now when we learn how to remember things as they should be remembered, it brings us peace. But most of us use our memory with which to bring ourselves strife isn't it so and then you have the strife here and the result tarot key 16 you see swinging through the response we keep swinging we'll swing right round and round you'll notice with each set showing them as they go along now why peace and strife all right uh as we pointed out to you before we'll have to do it again in as many different ways as possible. Because remember, we're not sitting here together to get a bunch of information.

We're really not.

So it may be that you can receive much information here that you will receive nowhere else. This we know. But you will receive much information in other places that you won't receive here, too. Some good, some bad, some indifferent, and so on. Even about the fact that you never even smelled really clean, you know, until you used this to something like that. But the gathering together is really not for the information, though the information is an essential part of what we're doing. We're gathered here together in order to do what? To share in a heightened manner the law or the agency shown here in Key 9, the higher self, sending the rays of light or guidance in order to help wash clean to... you can think of it as wash clean when you think of the water of subconsciousness, and also to give fire and flame and purification to your self-awareness, getting rid of the ignorance, we're gathered here together in order to bring about something that can only be brought about through group work. And that is an influx of a certain kind of energy, which comes only as a group. There's certain work you can do only alone and only at home. And there are other things in the work you can receive only through a group. That is why you've heard it said, where two or more are gathered in my name. Yet here we do something even more special and more intensive. Remember, what we're doing here is working on learning how to get tuned in because we're opening ourselves up with the receptive part here defensive touch together as a group we are able to form a larger receptacle or vehicle in and through which the light of the one identity but who is the real guide you you know, the real caretaker for all of us, and yet in a sense is special and unique to each one of us.

In order to get that higher self, along with the messengers of that higher self, the hierarchy, the masters, the other energies that are focused through the masters, to intensify our ability to do something, about our enemies, our enemies, our real enemies, which happen to be our memories.

Our memories, really. Did you know that they are perhaps our greatest enemies?

Our greatest enemies, indeed. That's why you have peace and strife. Now, the peace that can come from memory happens to do with the recognition mission that everything that has ever happened to you has been because of the impulse coming from that one identity, T9, the law or agency, that whatever you've been or done, as we've told you before, is it was an inevitable necessity for that day in your growth, no matter what what it was, and when you realize that, can you feel strife like you did before when you really realize it? When you realize that no matter what naughty things or evil things or bad things you have done, that these were just parts of an impulse from the source above growing you up, cracking the soil like the seed, the little nut cracks the shell around the seed, and then the little plant cracks the earth to come up out of the earth, always reaching and reaching towards something higher.

And we have to have been clumsy and immature.

We have to have had the impact of the false appearances as we saw in our previous series in order to have the memories that bring the peace of strife, that bring about the responses, canine, and therefore that bring about the results, the power which are assigned. Here we have the assignation, Kabbalistically, to grace and sin.

And so you see, the grace of God apparently looks like it's a very wild, thunderous, unpleasant kind of storm, doesn't it?

Apparently looks like it's a very wild, thunderous, unpleasant kind of storm, doesn't it?

And yet grace or sin. And yet the same thing could be called the wrath of God if we wanted to.

And then if we and then if we start thinking of the idea of God as something outside of ourselves we're making another terrible error because the higher self lives here in our own heart and is growing its own center its own vehicle and it's you you are the eternal one identity even if I am also that doesn't take it away from you I'm a mother but does that mean that you You aren't a mother. I'm a sister. Am I going to deny all of you the experience of sisterness?

Perish the thought.

And the same idea is involved with sharing that sense of I am-ness of this one identity. Now then, strife is the thing most of us keep stirring up for ourselves, mainly because, as we pointed out last week, we have let ourselves get into those habit patterns of responding to the unhappy part of our memory. Here we're seeing the whole principle with its agency, with its law activity, and with its result, both in its positive sense, and if you want to analyze it also, therefore, in its negative sense. Now, we haven't gotten into the really positive sense of this grace and sin yet, as we mean to, but we do want to point out to you that the tower of the false towers of Babel that we have built with our mouths, as shown here, Kabbalistically, is the result. This is something again we all share and it becomes a memory we'll go right back to key two which brings about our response to life to what is occurring which again brings about either are putting another brick on the false tower or opening ourselves up finally to the awakening to the grace instead of to the the storm and the fear that is usually a part of that kind of awakening.

Now there's another level, of course. We'll go into that in the next part of the class. I see now it's time for our little intermission. So during intermission, whatever else you want to talk about, if you don't want to talk and want to think, But we do want to point out to you that the tower of the false towers of Babel that we have built with our mouths, as shown here, kabbalistically, is the result. This is something, again, we all share, and it becomes a memory. We'll go right back to key two, which brings about our response to life, to what is occurring, which again brings about either putting another brick on the false tower or opening ourselves up finally to the awakening, to the grace instead of to the storm and the fear that is usually a part of that kind of awakening. Now there's another level, of course. We'll go into that in the next part of the class.

I see now it's time for our little intermission.

During intermission, whatever else you want to talk about, if you don't want to talk and want to think, just start thinking about the kind of thoughts, memories, you have permitted to keep you centered in certain kinds of responses which have then again brought about the, shall we say, sins or despairs of your lives.

Just think about that while we have a little five-minute stretch. And before that, I better announce that next Sunday morning my title will be Difference Between Astral and Mystical Awareness. And incidentally, on Sunday mornings we do very special work with...

During our intermission, I had a little special contact with our Master, Master R, and he thought that I should point out to you something which perhaps many of you don't realize, I don't know, in regard to this particular key, not key, but group of keys and the principles that are involved.

For example, we know how many souls are in incarnation at the present time, and certainly all of us know what terrible things are taking place all over the world. Incidentally, that includes our country. In our country, some of the things are more terrible than in others.

You know, I think outside of those that have tried to throw God out altogether, together like those very foolish, foolish, immature communists.

But he tried to point out that it's so hard to try to give words to the kind of contact where there's this direct perception. But I will try to explain to you that which I just received as a little extra special message, although, you know, usually it flows in its own way, but this was special. And it was mainly to this effect that at the present time we see the most extraordinary intensification of materialism that the history of the world has ever known, not only in this country, but everywhere in the world.

It is so intense that it's fantastic. As a matter of fact, it's truly the tower before the lightning has been struck. But getting ready to be struck, that was one of the basic ideas. That in actuality, though, this very condition that we have in the world right now, this this fantastic concentration on materialism, which incidentally is shown, as you very well know. The TV shows tell you you're going to die if you don't buy this. You're not going to face your neighbors if you haven't got a washing machine or a TV or the latest model car. The whole impact is on get, get, get. Get all the things whatever things you have it's not enough you want to get more things uh whatever things you already have that's not good either because you want the latest model so you want to go after that and so there's this tremendous intensification of this attention on getting and accomplishing in terms of the material plane not that there's anything wrong mind you, with material plane-having. That is not the point, because there is nothing wrong with it.

It is the value that is put on it. That's why, incidentally, this is called the exciting intelligence, Tarot Key Number 16. I'm putting that in as an aside, because it certainly is exciting the levels of consciousness which are fantastically materialistically oriented. Now, the actual reason for it is something I found rather interesting, and it is not only have we had this tremendous influx into incarnation of untold numbers of souls because of this new Aquarian age with the division about to take place, but what this division entails, where a group will be able to go on and another group, incidentally a much larger group, will not be able to go on. The Master told me to point out to you that although it may sound trite at this time, you may have heard it so often, the thing many are called but few are chosen is very apropos here, because in actuality we have become materialists without even realizing that we are. We develop guilt complexes because we can't measure up to the neighbor or the TV or radio advertisement or what mama or papa or sis or brother happen to think or not think about what we should be or do or accomplish and furthermore this whole idea of many are called but few are chosen really is in relation to the response that is being made and will be made I was I've never been given the time period involved except that from the massive point of view it's a very awfully short time but you know to them maybe two or three incarnations may seem short and to us it may seem long so I do not know whether it all takes place in one or several incarnations, whether this whole cycle isn't a perhaps several hundred year cycle, although I doubt that it is that long at all from everything else that I have been able to perceive inwardly.

Nevertheless, this impact of materialism is the result of so many souls being given a chance to make the grade and the response that's made to, in a way I hate to say it, God or mammon. You know, we took up mammon last time, key 15, appearance, but materiality. And it isn't loving and revering the material expressions of life. It's the value that we put on it, where we put our whole lives and our hearts and our souls into making so much money so we can have this luxury and that and the other and the other, as we all know. And it's become like a hypnotic shroud over the whole cloak of consciousness through that whole telepathic level of humanity. And this attitude has become so deepened, so much more profound, that it becomes far more difficult for aspirants to develop the discrimination to know how to respond, again with the key nine, to get their true value and see what's truly lasting.

And indeed this is the test not the only test there are several that are involved but this is one shall we say of the important test as to what value we are going to put there because look what's happening the master wanted me to remind you of this so you could see it yourselves the poorest homes they may may have nothing else, but they're going to have a television set or a radio, and they're going to then have brought into their homes this continuous impact, black magic you might call it, of get this and have that and enjoy the other, and it's being driven and driven through the laws of suggestion, which we took up last week, but we'll take it up again in in other ways, with the other series of three showing it from other classes. This has been going on. Then also this brutalizing of consciousness, where the gangsters and the boom-booms, the shootings and the warrings, and the murder mysteries, these are flooding, not only this country, incidentally, but the whole world in all various ways, or perhaps in some ways this country is certainly the worst at this time.

So that when you have your double impact of this complete materiality and being shown how wonderful it is to lull on a beach, to sit in a box that's a theater, to wear certain clothes and whatnot. None. And along with that, people are being educated in crime, because that's what all these criminal pictures are like, the whodunit. What of it if they make sure that the man gets caught at the end? They're still getting an education in crime, and a complete education.

And the consciousness is absorbing it. It's becoming a part of memory content. Key two. The response is going on, incidentally, in terms of the evolutionary level of these souls, with the consequences as shown through end results in Key 16, both in its minor and its major stages. Now the point is this. It's certainly, the Master asked me to point out to you, that naturally we all agree that none of us and he said that with a smile as I do naturally none of us are that materialistically oriented we think but on the other hand we better start watching and we might discover we're far more oriented that way than we know and finding it we'd better start doing things about it because telepathically we are just as responsible for what's being ushered into the whole mass mind and the few who see the principle and the agency and the result the few who are real aspirants it is up to us to do our part for the rest of humanity groups like ourselves and they're not so very many really because all sorts of groups though they may call themselves spiritual that doesn't make them so, does it?

Everyone seems to think their attitude or idea is the best and you know, I'll tell you something I labor under the same delusion.

So what are we going to do? I mean, it's a general attitude apparently.

However, where I'm concerned It's not a delusion, of course, because it isn't where they're concerned.

But you see, that is something that we do need to keep in mind, and I realized this when the Master pointed this out to me during the intermission, because we become materialistically oriented in ways we don't realize.

Some decide that they are going to give up everything materialistically and they turn their back on it, you know, going up to the mountaintop sort of idea. And these are just as materialistic-minded as the ones who go after these things as being the primary importance in life because they give it that much importance. God gave us physical living, the vehicle and so on, to use properly, to respond to, as shown in Key 9, with a true sense of touch, with a recognition that it's that higher self that is the real experiencer of this sense of touch with all things that exist.

And so it is up to us to bring a whole set of vital, intensive memories into our consciousness and into the consciousness, therefore, of mass humanity in order to help leaven, you might say, those few who could still make the grade. And you know, being chosen, as we pointed out, does involve more than just one, development of one set of values. We're living in an extraordinary age of miracles.

The Master just thought it wouldn't be a bad idea, since I am such a weakling, if I would point out to you, because I was disturbed at the thought, that even those who don't make the grade will make the grade eventually, it's just not now.

So it isn't that anyone permanently is left behind.

But we are prepared to enter a complete new age. And it is up to the very few of us to do everything we can together as a unit with our thoughts, with our minds, with our hearts, with each other, as well as at home, to bring about the needed changes in this mass consciousness.

And the only way you can do it is through your own, you see. There's no other way into it except through your own.

So, memory.

First of all, we already pointed out to you that the way we respond or react to the memories of yesterday determines what our whole result is going to be just how blinded, how ignorant we will be in terms of Tarot Key 16.

Therefore, to realize that whatever has happened, whenever memory comes up, was a blessing. To remember it was an inevitable stage to bring us to now is important in order to bring about this transmuted response.

This you'll hear us say more than once because you hear it and you agree with it but you forget it when you go home and that's all right, it's expected all of us do that's why we need each other to keep reminding each other through this method and to keep firing the idea so gradually there's a deeper and deeper core of ourselves which will finally react and respond and touch reality from the level of that higher self rather than from the previous levels that we pointed out, the little devil and the carnal-minded, just outer point of view.

Now, there's another aspect involved here with Key 16, grace and sin, that we wanted to bring up for the final part of tonight's talk. And it is this.

The lightning that strikes this tower, remember, comes from the sun. You see the sun up there. Therefore, it's coming from the higher source just like the light coming from the self, guiding the rest of us who are toiling in the lower valleys and on the path.

The same principle exists, except that here we're dealing with an effect.

And therefore, this has two levels, the grace and sin. The level of sin is where, well, we might just say really all hell breaks loose from the reaction to the devil, who is the king of hell, of the previous Tarot key in its end result. So that where people have become isolated, selfish, material-minded, have kept their values on material things, the result is always havoc.

Always the thing that they build falls apart because nothing in the physical world lasts, as we know. Everything in time dissolves. And so their values on the physical plane eventually must fall apart and they suffer the loss and the unhappiness and the repercussions, which is what is really meant, in a sense, by sin. It's really missing the mark. It's due to ignorance. It's due to the nonsense of the unevolved reaction. But on the other hand, there's the grace. Remember, this is grace and sin. We have together another level of the second stage of spiritual unfoldment, and that has to do with the grace of God.

That will suddenly bring a lightning flash of perception into the darkness of appearance of that previous parakeet, 15. Into the darkness of our false tower of Babel.

Into the darkness of ignorance.

This flash of perception where we start seeing that it is what we think and it is the way we respond that actually has to do with what happens. And not the other way around as we mentioned last week you see we're saying the same thing again in another way aren't we showing it through another phase but but bringing out very specifically that the false clown being knocked out knocked down here by this lightning from the sun is that crown not only of self-will that is the idea that the personality can step over other people or can have anything at the expense of others or make good at the expense of others that whole attitude or that whole feeling like someone I knew very well who thought of herself as very highly versed in occultism and spiritual things and is a truly fine spiritual teacher and had a lot of fine qualities finally her little devil got the best of her and she not once but often was heard to say well you've got to survive you've got to survive you know and actually she was saying in essence some things just like the communists do though she certainly wasn't a communist.

And what she was saying is the end justifies the means.

And you know what the end justifies? That this is what the communists say. And so they lie, they cheat. I mean, there are the little Bolsheviks all over the lot. They lie and they cheat. Because why?

Because they figure they have a real brotherhood of man that they are trying to bring to the world. And therefore since they want to bring beauty and goodness and security to life any method they use is okay but that's not proper thinking the same kind of thinking was done by those who absolutely certain that unless you believed exactly in the fashion religious wise as they did back in the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th centuries, I forget the exact period, and beyond that, why you would burn in hell forever. And so in order to save you from burning in hell forever, you were tortured, your nails were pulled out, your toes were burned, and you put on the rack, and plenty of you here went through such experiences in past incarnations, not in that period, other periods. And you see these misbegotten souls the end justifies the means they were out to save these people and so even if they had to destroy and cripple their bodies and have them scream with pain they were going to do it now is this proper thinking?

No and this is the thing we've got to realize that this kind of thinking is going on all over the world but in terms of our own personal growth you see, we fall into the same error as this woman who apparently has such spiritual abilities and talents the end justifies the means, she said and so she didn't hesitate to steal and to betray those who trusted her because she became frightened about her financial security and the prestige of her position.

Now, you see, it can happen to people, to people you never dream of, and we have to be on guard with our responses.

Then, the grace of God, as we learn to watch our responses in terms of parokinai, working with the law, and remember it has to do with what we permit our memory to do in terms of the way we feel about our memory, then the grace of God comes in and the lightning flash that comes that knocks off this false crown brings us a flash of realization of illumination of recognition that life is one this isolation is gone that's why these figures are thrown out they're being thrown out of the isolation sometimes it will involve a very catastrophic experience in our material circumstances but do you know what?

The true spiritual aspirant will say this is merely the washing away of the rubbish because I am being grown to a higher and better condition by my own higher soul and it is true it is true true. As the man thinketh in his heart, so is he. In a way, it would be better to say as a man respondeth to his everyday conditions and his memory contents, that is, to his past. So is he, and so becomes he. And not only he, but all those who are looking unconsciously on a level you never dream of to you for help. Because though we have a hierarchy, one more thing, though we have a hierarchy, it's true. It guides us from above.

Though it is true, I am a channel for a master who has conquered all the problems we happen to have.

And I figure in a thousand incarnations, maybe I'll begin to approach the level where the problems I have now will feed to him, to me as mine do to him at this time. The point is, you are part of the hierarchy too.

And through each of us, from level and level, flows this energy and this impact. And the more of us can get together with the work, with the techniques, with the thinking, the feeling, and pour out this kind of correct response that's in turn with the universal will, the intelligence of will, key nine. To that degree will we be serving God and man and helping to bring untold numbers of thousands of human beings into the next level for the development of the brotherhood of man, whom we never met in the flesh before, but we will someday and we will know and they will know and nothing could give greater satisfaction than to know that we have been able to help by doing the most difficult thing there is to do with the thought of the emotion the response with the willingness to be the lightning flash for those who need it from us as the Master is willing to be it towards us.

Now, in terms of technique, all we've been talking about, as you know, has been technique. So we don't need to give you anything extra except to remember to let your attention go round and round to the effect, principle, agency, so that it'll keep your mind in an energy mass and help it to develop more of that electromagnetic quality of attracting to itself the higher perceptions. All right, any questions? Yes? Can you put the 15 back into the pool and still using the spiral system to go from 15 15 and into the pool? You can if you want to. You can put the fool just before once, or you can put the fool into and through and after each key, rather than just you can put the fool after one, after seven, after fifteen, after two, you can put him any place and every place, because everything is a certain aspect of the superconscious being.

He gets around. You can see he's a traveler. And that's us. We're the way he travels.

So you see we're the vehicles of travel for super consciousness and we're on a grand adventure truly we are and we need to go out there and just say glory hallelujah you know there's nothing wrong I like the expression you know praise the Lord and all that sort of thing because I am a vehicle a vehicle through which the super consciousness is living its adventure of experience and beingness and that is the kind of response that will do more good than almost anything else any other questions? Well that's always good praise the Lord and pass the admonition and be in love with admonition yeah yes dear I've been thinking quite a lot lately about my own personal desires and about what I have a great desire for beauty around me and my surroundings and what I wear and so forth but it seems to me more than a a materially it seems to be memory of whether things were completely beautiful without materially yes that's a very interesting thing you point out there I meant to bring it out that's probably why you said that this idea of memory we long for things that we remember even though we don't remember it consciously for example how many of you have been in love and there was was a certain song that was part of that period of in love and then something happened or the love didn't last or or well if you fell out of love you won't feel that poignancy but if the other one did or betrayed you that's more apt to happen you hear this song playing on the radio or on tv and suddenly your heart will be filled with this poignant reaction and such a sorrow can overwhelm you and why are you sorrowing you're sorrowing because you you suddenly had the song remind you of a memory and the memory made you feel I have lost something and so you have this this feeling of sorrow then what is it what does it do your response then has been sorrow to loss because of memory and of course the result is you're going to have you see the loss all over again because So you're building.

As we pointed out to you before, it's the way we live our every moment life that builds tomorrow.

This is the whole secret of demonstration, of manifestation.

And naturally, those things that we have known and loved, we have a tendency to long for them. It's all right to long for something with a joyous expectation of working for it. But the minute we let ourselves long with sorrow and feeling of loss we're reinforcing uh emphasizing the negative uh you know they say accentuate the positive we're accentuating the negative so that's quite likely that you have the memory but it's good to have memory of beauty and to want to bring it about again there are lots of things we have memories of that we find are lovely and we wanted some more I remember I love the taste of a peach so I go out and buy some more peaches a present and I have all the joy of anticipation too I'm not going to sorrow because I tasted this peach yesterday and it's out of season this winter spring will come or summer or something yes because they know that suffering comes poverty.

Yes, but just as often as not, these people who have suffered great poverty, although they want abundance, they permit themselves to react emotionally to the memory of poverty, and they have a very tough time, most of them, unless they have brought over enough positive memory, pictures from a past incarnation, and have that positive feeling of joyous anticipation patient instead of uh you know the fear and anxiety that makes drives them uh but people who've really been poor and seen through it deeply will realize there are many things very much worse than being poor perhaps it's one of the least bad things in life provided you can at least manage to eat and get out of the rain with enough shelter over your head you know yes Well, yes, we pick up the memory from non-materialistic plane. I'm talking about past incarnations.

And that's really a non-materialistic memory, because there's no body that's held, that is in existence now with the memory. And of course, there's all kinds of types of beauty on the different planes, but always they tend to need to manifest on the physical plane. Always the drive is downward by the higher beings to bring it into manifestation on this planet.