"The Bible has been given to the Western World by the Recording Angels, who
give to each and all exactly what they need for their development.
— Max Heindel — Reference: Genesis Chapter 3
In connection with the study of Genesis, let us consider "the Fall," which
is the backbone and sinew of popular Christianity. Had there been no "Fall,"
there would have been no need for the "plan of salvation."
When the Earth came out of chaos, it was at first in the dark red stage
known as the Polarian Epoch. There humanity first evolved a dense body, not at
all like our present vehicle, of course. When the condition of the Earth
became fiery, as in the Hyperborean Epoch, the vital body was added and man
became plant-like, that is to say, he had the same vehicles as our plants have
today, and also similar consciousness, or, rather, unconsciousness, to that
which we have in dreamless sleep when the dense and vital bodies are left upon
the bed.
At that time, in the Hyperborean Epoch, the body of man was as an enormous
gas bag, floating outside the fiery Earth, and it threw off plantlike spores,
which then grew and were used by other incoming entities. At that time man was
double-sexed, a hermaphrodite.
In the Lemurian Epoch, when the Earth had somewhat cooled and islands of
crust had begun to form amid boiling seas, then also man's body had somewhat
solidified and had become more like the body we see today. It was ape-like, a
short trunk with enormous arms and limbs, the heels projecting backward and
almost no head — at least the upper part of the head was nearly entirely
wanting. Man lived in the atmosphere of steam which occultists call fire-fog,
and had no lungs, but breathed by means of tubes. He had a bladder-like organ
inside, which he inflated with heated air to help him leap enormous chasms
when volcanic eruptions destroyed the land upon which he was living. From the
back of his head there projected an organ which has now been drawn into the
head and is called by anatomists the "pineal gland" or the "third eye,"
although it was never an eye, but a localized organ of feeling. The body was
then devoid of feeling, but when man came too close to a volcanic crater, the
heat was registered by this organ to warn him away before his body was
destroyed.
At that time the body had already so far solidified that it was impossible
for man to continue to propagate by spores, and it was necessary that he
should evolve an organ of thought, a brain. The creative force which we now
use to build railways, steamships, etc., in the outer world, was then used
inwardly for the building of the organs. Like all forces it was positive and
negative. One pole was turned upward to build the brain, leaving the other
pole available for the creation of another body. Thus man was no longer a
complete creative unit. Each possessed only half the creative force, and it
was therefore necessary for him to seek his complement outside himself.
Man was not at that time the wide-a-wake conscious being he is at present.
He was more awake in the Spiritual World than in the physical; he hardly saw
his body and was not conscious of the act of propagation. The Bible statement
that Jehovah put man to sleep when he was to bring forth is correct. There was
no pain nor trouble connected with childbirth; nor (because of man's
exceedingly dim consciousness of his physical surroundings) did he know
anything of the loss of his dense body by death, or of his installment in a
new dense vehicle at birth.
But at that time, "their eyes had not been opened," and the human beings of
that age were unconscious of each other in the Physical World, though well
aware and awake in the Spiritual World. Therefore under the guidance of the
Angels, who were particularly fitted to help them in respect to propagation,
they were herded together in great temples at certain times of the year when
the lines of force running between the planets were propitious, and there the
creative act was performed as a religious sacrifice. And when this primal man
Adam came into the intimate sexual contact with the woman, the spirit for the
moment pierced the flesh and "Adam knew (or became aware of) his wife"; he
sensed her physically. It is this which the Bible has recorded, using that
chaste expression all through its leaves, for we are told that "Elkanah knew
his wife Hannah, and she bore Samuel." Even in the New Testament where the
angel comes to Mary telling her that she is to be the mother of the Savior,
she answers, "How shall that be possible seeing I know not a man?"
Sin is action contrary to law, and while humanity propagated under the
guidance of the Angels, who understood the cosmic lines of force, parturition
was painless, as it it now among wild animals, which propagate only at the
proper time of the year under the guidance of the group spirit. But when man
acting on the advice of certain spirits (the Lucifers) half-way between
humanity and the Angels, undertook to create at any and all times of the year,
regardless of cosmic lines of force, that sin, or "eating of the tree of
knowledge," caused the painful parturition which the Lord God proclaimed to
Eve. He did not curse her, but simply stated what would be the result of the
ignorant and indiscriminate use of the creative function.
The Lucifers were a part of the humanity of the Moon Period; they are the
stragglers of the life wave of the Angels, too far advanced to take a dense
physical body, yet they needed an "inner" organ for the acquisition of
knowledge. Moreover, they could work through a physical brain, which the
Angels or Jehovah could not.
These spirits entered the spinal cord and brain and spoke to the woman,
whose Imagination had been aroused by the training of the Lemurian Race. As
her consciousness was principally internal, a picture-consciousness of them
was received by her, and she saw them as serpents, for they had entered her
brain by the serpentine spinal cord.
The training of the woman included watching the perilous feats and fights of
the men in developing will, in which fights bodies were necessarily often
killed. The dim consciousness of something unusual set the imagination of the
woman to wondering why she saw these strange things. She was conscious of the
spirits of those who had lost their bodies, but her imperfect sense of the
Physical World failed to reveal these friends whose dense bodies had been
destroyed.
The Lucifers solved the problem for her by "opening her eyes." They revealed
to her her own body and that of the man and taught her how, together, they
might conquer death by creating new bodies. Thus death could not touch them
for they, like Jehovah, could create at will.
Lucifer opened the eyes of woman. She sought the help of man and opened his
eyes. Thus, in a real though dim way, they first "knew" or became aware of one
another and also of the Physical World. They became conscious of death and
pain and by this knowledge, they learned to differentiate between the inner
man and the outer garment he wears and renews each time it is necessary to
take his next step in evolution. They ceased to be automatons and became free
thinking beings at the cost of freedom from pain, sickness, and death.
That the interpretation, of the eating of the fruit as a symbol of the
generative act is not a far-fetched idea, is shown by the declaration of
Jehovah that they will die and that the woman will bear her children in pain
and suffering. He knew that as man's attention had now been called to his
physical garment, he would become aware of its loss by death. He also knew
that man had not yet wisdom to bridle his passion and regulate sexual
intercourse by the positions of the planets, therefore pain in childbirth must
follow his ignorant abuse of the function.
It has always been a sore puzzle to Bible commentators what connection there
could possibly be between the eating of fruit and the bearing of children, but
if we understand that the eating of the fruit is symbolical of the generative
act whereby man becomes "like God" inasmuch as he "knows" his kind and is thus
able to generate new beings, the solution is easy.
In the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch when man arrogated to himself the
prerogative of performing the generative act when he pleased, it was his then-
powerful will that enabled him to do so. By "eating of the tree of knowledge"
at any and all times he was able to create a new body whenever he lost an old
vehicle.
We usually think of death as something to be dreaded. Had man also "eaten of
the tree of life," had he learned the secret of how to perpetually vitalize
his body, there would have been a worse condition. We know that our bodies are
not perfect today and in those ancient days they were exceedingly primitive.
Therefore the anxiety of the creative Hierarchies lest man "eat of the tree of
life also," and become capable of renewing his vital body, was well founded.
Had he done so he would have been immortal indeed, but would never have been
able to progress. The evolution of the Ego depends upon its vehicles and if it
could not get new and improving ones by death and birth, there would be
stagnation. It is an occult maxim that the oftener we die the better we are
able to live, for every birth gives us a new chance.
We have seen that brain-knowledge, with its concomitant selfishness, was
bought by man at the cost of the power to create from himself alone. He bought
his free will at the cost of pain and death; but when man learns to use his
intellect for the good of humanity, he will gain spiritual power over life and
in addition, will be guided by an innate knowledge as much higher than the
present brain-consciousness as that is higher than the lowest animal
consciousness.
The fall into generation was necessary to build the brain, but that is, at
best, only an indirect way of gaining knowledge and will be superseded by
direct touch with the wisdom of Nature which man, without any cooperation,
will then be able to use for the generation of new bodies. The larynx will
again speak "the lost Word," the "creative Fiat," which, under the guidance of
great Teachers, was used in ancient Lemuria in the creation of plants and
animals.
Man will then be a creator in very truth. Not in the slow and toilsome
manner of the present day, but by the use of the proper word or magical
formula, will he be able to create a body.
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