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Bible Self-Study Supplement

The Garden of Eden and Life In The Etheric Regions

   The spirit became indwelling. Breath here signifies a portion of the Universal Soul which entered the created form. "If the breath be taken away the animal dies, but the breath is immortal." The Septuagint version translates dust as sperma, the spirit under sway of desire. Adam means "red dust."

   Biblical writers have located the Garden of Eden in various parts of the Earth. But the Garden of Eden had no physical location; it was situated in etheric realms. The river that watered this Garden was the light that streamed from the World of Life Spirit, or Plane of Christ Consciousness, and was reflected on the etheric plane. Its four branches are the four differentiated streams into which etheric substance is divided. The River Pison compasses the land of light, the land of gold and the onyx stone. It symbolizes the highest or reflecting ether. The River Gihon compasses the land of Ethiopia or darkness. It is the lowest or chemical ether. Hiddekel, which flows east toward the light, is the light ether. The Euphrates, largest and most important river of Western Asia, typifies the life ether which, in humanity's present stage of development, is the most important of the four ethers.

   Astrologically, the four branches of the river in Eden represent the four turning points of the year, namely, the Winter and Summer Solstices, the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes.

   Max Heindel, an Initiate of the Rosicrucian School, states that the chemical ether vibrates to the seed atom of the dense body, located in the heart; the life ether to the seed atom of the vital body in the solar plexus. These two ethers maintain the life of the physical body. The light ether vibrates to the seed atom of the desire body, located in the central vortex of the liver, and also to the pituitary body in the brain. Before man lost his spiritual vision and succumbed to the lure of his lower nature, this ductless gland (pituitary) vibrated to the seed atom of the desire body. The reflecting ether vibrates to the seed atom of the mind, located near the frontal sinus, and to the pineal gland which, like the pituitary body, is also located deep in the head.

   Chemical ether is related to the masculine principle in humanity; life ether to the feminine. The next higher (light) ether is also feminine when purified through regeneration; and the highest or reflecting ether is masculine when redeemed. The blending of these through transmutation becomes the light that is the life of the world, and without it "was not anything made that was made."

   Adam and Eve are generic terms referring to early humanity "made in the image and likeness of God," whose first habitation was in the realm of the ethers. From this it follows, of necessity, that they could inhabit it only in etheric bodies. To etheric sight these bodies appeared as formed of a cloudlike mist. Certain ancient inscriptions concerning Adam and Eve can be understood only in relation to the above facts.

   As previously stated, early humanity was androgynous. The masculine and feminine poles of spirit functioned equally within one body. Concerning this, Plato, the Grecian Initiate, wrote in his Banquet, "Primitive man was masculine-feminine, a single being, but God separated the masculine from the feminine and formed two distinct beings; notwithstanding, there are yet two beings in the actual man which are separated from one another through continuance in sin."

   The masculine is the will, the feminine, the imaginative or formative principle. When the two function harmoniously in one body they produce a god-man. Such a being possesses spiritual attributes that characterized humanity before the Fall — as they will redeem humanity of the future. They are lost to the human race of today in consequence of its division into sexes, its illusion of separateness, its overindulgence in the sense life, and its submergence into materiality.

   Adam, the Edenic race-man, possessing the dual principles of Will and Imagination and functioning in the subtler realm of the etheric forces, was capable of molding them into any form desired. He could manipulate the vitalizing principles in nature as scientists can the chemical elements of Earth. The creative force in his body had not yet "fallen;" it had not yet been misdirected and misused. Consequently, it was available in its undivided power for creative work on a level above the physical.

   This ability to wield the subtler forces in nature gave Adamic man control over the lower kingdoms. This fact is implied in the statement that "whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." Not only did he name the creatures, but through his knowledge of vibratory values he was able, by pronouncing the name, to control them.

   It is to be observed at this point that when man was functioning in the ethers, the animal kingdom was being taught how to build bodies from the substance of the astral world. This substance, as plastic as emotion, was readily amenable to the control of the spiritual Adamic man. Since service is the law of progress, the assistance that man rendered to animals at this stage of their evolution not only accelerated their progress, but advanced his own.

   The Tree of Life represents the perfected masculine-feminine body as described by John in Revelation. The sprig of acacia placed by Masons on the casket of a departed brother symbolizes this tree and points to the time when the birth and death of physically generated bodies will cease; when man will, instead, build for himself a perfected masculine-feminine vehicle that shall know no death. This will be the body of the future, the celestial body referred to by Paul.

   Madame Blavatsky calls the Tree of Life the Rod of Caduceus. Of it she writes: "The two serpents are spirit and matter whose two heads grow from one head, the two tails joined on earth into one (reality and illusion) — this is the great illusion, Oh Lanoo."

   The sleep that fell upon Adam refers to the state of initiate consciousness when this is focused exclusively in higher spiritual realms. The word translated "rib" also means side. The passage is descriptive of the process whereby man became unisexual. One side, or aspect, of spirit was withdrawn from active functioning, with the result that henceforth spirit used a body that was single sexed, either masculine, or feminine.

   The separation of the sexes occurred in the Lemurian Epoch many million years ago. Transition from the androgynous stage extended over a long evolutionary period and involved many intermediate stages. The separation did not occur simultaneously in the whole of humanity. It commenced with the more advanced and, in course of time, embraced those less developed. Mysteries concerning this transformation were taught in Lemurian Temples of Initiation to racial pioneers. Such were admitted into high knowledge pertaining to the division of inner principles while in a disembodied state. This is the meaning of the deep sleep, or trance condition, into which Adam passed when the feminine (Eve) side (rib) was removed from him, and the human race became divided into two sexes.

 — Corinne Heline

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