CHAPTER 1

STRANGE VISITOR

Most people will have experienced that queer sensation when you feel there is someone in the room, and you are equally certain that its sole occupant is yourself.

I am not an abnormally sensitive type so when I became conscious of the idea of another presence while working in my study I just gave myself a metaphorical kick and went on sorting the pile of notes from which I hoped to evolve another book. My last one was in print and I had recovered from that exciting interlude which follows such an event; sheer necessity compelled me to get down to the business of preparing the next one.

I had long had a pressing desire to write about what I believed to be the origins of mankind, more nearly approaching reality than the symbology of Genesis or the half-truths which Science, inspired by Darwin, has built around the theory of natural selection. Certainly they couldn't both be right. To this end I had read widely and thought deeply over many years, going to considerable lengths to get authentic information and fresh inspiration from every possible source, not excluding those hidden in myth and legend, inscription and papyrus. From these I discovered an amazing similarity of ideas and legends evinced by peoples who dwelt in widely separated parts of the globe and between whom there was then no known means of communication. On mountain and in cavern, on monolith and on pottery, are to be found the same symbols pointing to a high degree of civilisation and culture though not the same kind as our own - so far into the backness of history that the mind can scarcely reckon the centuries, periods when Science would affirm that man was in his stone age, with poor mind development.

Where and how did man start, and how to reconcile his sad history of struggle and defeat with any idea of Spiritual Goodness? These were thoughts that had dominated my mind. There seemed to be some key that was missing in the sequence of events, if that could be found it might be possible to unlock further doors to our understanding.

I think I gave a little sigh of exasperation, when almost immediately I felt again that sensation of not being alone. I felt I was being watched. If you gaze intently enough at a person, however deeply he may be engrossed, sooner or later he will look up. Loath to break the continuity of my thoughts I raised my head and looked over at the door.

With my mind still adrift on a sea of conjecture I gazed uncertainly at what must surely be a figment of my imagination; one of those figures of ancient times, whose activities I had been studying so intently, must have come into subjective vision. For standing in the shadows of that corner of the room was the figure of a man. It was a dull afternoon and my reading lamp was on so that at first I could not make out the exact appearance of my visitor. But gradually my eyes adjusted their focus and my scattered wits came tumbling out of the past to grapple with this novel situation.

To my astonishment the figure gave a deep, almost oriental bow, and I perceived a smile on the features of this strange being. Although he wore a small beard the man was, I should say, about middle-aged, with features finely cut and revealing the subtle wisdom of the seer. His eyes were dark and of a luminosity that did more than reflect the light of my lamp, they had a magnetic quality that held my gaze. He was dressed in a belted robe of some indeterminate material that was rich and skilfully cut. But the outstanding quality of this man was the radiant power that emanated from him; banishing my first sense of fear, and compelling trust in him.

Having bowed his dignified greeting the stranger moved forward and instinctively I rose to my feet. “I give you good day,” he said, and I was immediately struck by the melodious quality of his voice, one which inspired confidence. It seemed to indicate a power that was not of this world. “I ask your pardon,” he went on, “for this unceremonious entrance but I beg just a moment of your time.”

I suppose I must, in the embarrassment of the moment, have indicated a chair, for the stranger glided towards it and sat down, with only the rustle of his garments to indicate the movement. As his features came within the aureole of the reading lamp I too sat down, but hurriedly and in some trepidation. For it was becoming evident that my visitor was no flesh and blood mortal but either a figment of my imagination or a manifestation from some other world.

The stranger seemed to sense my confusion for he put out a hand which I grasped and found to be naturally warm and firm. Accompanying the gesture he smiled, in so intimate and friendly a fashion that my growing fears fled in confusion. In some queer way it seemed that I knew this man, though of course it couldn't be so - or could it? I wondered. But before I could follow up that thought my visitor dropped his gaze to my desk, with its untidy clutter of papers and notes. “Forgive my impertinence,” he observed, “ but you are writing another book?”

I wondered how he knew I was a writer. I replied, deprecatingly, that it had scarcely got as far as that yet, that in fact there seemed to be insuperable difficulties which I could not yet see my way to overcome. I explained the nature of the task I had set myself and added, “ I believe so implicitly in the goodness of God and in the benign purpose of Creation and I want to show that man's history has a benign meaning and purpose, rather than being a dreary record of soulless evolution. I believe that the answer lies in prehistoric history but there seems to be a missing key which I cannot trace.”

My visitor nodded his head gravely and thought for a moment before he spoke. “I was aware of your predicament and have ventured to call upon you with the object of helping you in your task.”

My eyes opened in astonishment as my gaze roamed over his unworldly appearance. Hastily he went on. “I have some knowledge of the period of history to which you refer and I have access to records that will be beyond your reach. It would give me great pleasure to assist you in linking those periods into a coherent order that will I hope impress your readers with a new understanding of what human existence is all about.”

I could hold back my inquisitiveness no longer. “Pardon me,” I asked, “but would you mind telling me who you are?”

Most cleverly he parried my question. Perhaps it was a trick of the eyes but without seeming discourteous he made me satisfied with only a partial answer. “My name is Zerros,” he observed, “ and I have been taking a considerable interest in your work. I belong to an organisation which aims at presenting to the world just those aspects of life which lie behind the subjects on which you are engaged.”

“ And I am trespassing on their preserves?” I suggested.

“ On the contrary. We have been looking for a channel by which we might give our work concrete form and in you we find just what we were looking for. We could be of much mutual assistance should you feel inclined to co-operate with us.”

My eyes must have goggled with the excitement I felt at this remark. It was all so extraordinary, so incredible, that I could hardly take in the implications. “What sort of society is this?” I asked, more for the sake of gaining time than for any other reason.

But he who named himself Zerros refused to be drawn at this juncture. “If I gave you that information it would mean little to you and might confuse the issue, let it suffice that your subject and ours are identical. You will have guessed that I, strange in appearance and garb to you, am not now a physical being. Nevertheless I assure you that I am in close touch with events in your world and my sole desire is to be of assistance to you and those who think like you.” A momentary pause and he went on. “ I see in your mind that you have advanced ideas on the spiritual realities that underlie the troubled existence of present day humanity. You realise that there are states of being on planes of experience other than your own and that it is only by a comprehensive survey of all possible planes of experience that you can hope to solve the enigma of human existence.”

I nodded, my mind racing too fast for coherent speech.

“Let me assure you that my visit has a very real purpose, in fact you would not believe me if I told you how long this contact with you has been under consideration by myself and my colleagues, nor of the vast amount of work that has been put into the preparations. Your world has, reached a point in mind development where it is ready for new ideas and a new rate of understanding. Such knowledge will eventually change the whole course of human existence, and demonstrate a new way of life, quite at variance with the old?”

“And how do you propose to help me in this? Will you dictate the book?”

Zerros looked at me very closely before replying. “I must ask for your trust and confidence,” he said at length, “for I am going to present to you a possibility that you may find it very difficult to accept. Your complete faith in me and my power to carry out what I propose will be essential if we are to succeed. Pray listen very carefully to what I am going to say.”

There was silence while Zerros seemed to be marshalling his thoughts. “ You are aware, I think, of how the events of the terrestrial world are recorded automatically by their impact on what I might term the plastic ethers surrounding your Earth, rather in the way your recording machines work.” As I nodded agreement he continued. “Every event which has taken place on your Earth, every vibrant thought, has been imprinted on its ethers. You cannot tap those records for you are too closely veiled in human flesh to be able to tune in to such attenuated vibrations. But on the plane where I work we can use them and to a considerable extent view, and even reconstruct, that which has transpired in the long eras of earthly history.”

I gasped in wonderment. I knew that it was possible for some acutely sensitive people to glimpse fragments of these records of the past, but to read whole histories, to rebuild pictures .... ! “ Do you mean to tell me that you can see events like the Battle of Hastings, or the burning of Rome or .... or .... the story of Adam and Eve?”

Zerros smiled understandingly. “Certain aspects, yes. Yes even that strange symbology of Adam and Eve, but not in the literal form your interpreters have conceived. But not only can we see the past, we can to some extent unroll the scroll of the future and produce a synthesis of tendencies which will give some idea of how events will work out, though that will depend on the level of events which is under review. You see, as you rise in outlook, as your thoughts are lifted from the mundane to the spiritual, what you call 'time' merges into the eternal, or if you prefer to name it timelessness. The lower you get, the nearer to the mundane, the more does free will enter into the picture. At the top of the scale free will must have merged into the Will of God and ceases to affect the issue, there divine law is free from interference, and a clearer picture can be obtained. On that supernal level prophecy is an exact science, but the more free will encroaches the more is prophecy distorted.”

From my studies I was well aware that time is not what we claim it to be, it is rather a prison of the mind, constricting our viewpoint and providing a bar to understanding. But I must confess that I was not prepared for such a sweeping assertion. “ Surely,” I protested, “you cannot just go along the pathway of time and know how whole nations, for example, are going to rise or fall?”

“ You must realise,” said Zerros, searching for words in which to convey reasoning based upon values unfamiliar to me, “time belongs to your physical universe, to your sense perception, it is an extension into the material from the ethereal realms where it begins to merge into timelessness. You can measure any object but you cannot measure Spirit. If you study astronomy you will find your time melting away into something else for which you have to invent strange terms to convey your meaning, such as 'light-years.' “

“Have I got to explain that to my readers?” I asked anxiously. Zerros laughed, merrily, like a schoolboy. “I do not propose to tax your credulity, nor theirs, to that extent. It will not matter what conception they have of time. I was but emphasising my ability to transcend what is, after all, but a physical law. And I do not intend to dictate your book for you, I have more impressive proposals to offer than to make you a mere amanuensis.” He glanced keenly at me as he went on, and he put the question in the utmost seriousness. “Are you prepared to embark with me on an adventure the like of which has never before been offered to any human being?”

“I am all for adventure,” I replied, “ especially, if it is going to help me write this book. But I should like some more information first.”

Zerros now spoke with a depth of meaning in his voice not lost on me. “Suppose, instead of my describing to you, however graphically, the tremendous saga of earthly history from its very inception, I were to enable you to visit, as it were, the very scenes where those events of cosmic importance took place, in short, to witness the events in retrospect. How would you like to accompany me into the depths of space and time, and witness, say, the very birth of this planet?”

“B .. b .. but that is not possible,” I protested, feeling I was letting go of my sanity. I am accustomed to travelling through aeons of time in imagination, but to go in person, to see .... to bring back .... no, no, that was unthinkable. I looked at my visitor doubtfully, it was as if he had asked me to go and live like a fish in the sea!

Zerros divined my perplexity but made no effort to expand the idea which had shocked my sensibilities. He just sat there looking at me with his kindly expression, I could feel the power radiating from him to me, calming, soothing, yet making no attempt to influence my decision. Yet curiously I could not help thinking that the decision had already been made by me, perhaps on some other plane of experience. While my rational mind discarded the whole idea as fantastic and not to be taken seriously, something irresistible within me compelled acceptance. I began to know that I must do what he asked. There was no hypnosis about it, I felt that here was the theme of my life, the reason for my existence. I had come to Earth to do this thing.

Almost unawares I heard his voice, speaking gently and persuasively, impelling confidence. “Let me assure you that you will be in reasonable safety, though I will not deny that there may be risks to your physical body, which must obviously be left behind. But rest assured that every eventuality has been most -carefully considered by experts and the risks reduced to vanishing point.”

I will not weary my readers with the discussions that followed.

Zerros told me much, both of his own life and work and of the history of this planet. In the end I agreed to the proposal, not because my rational objections were overcome but because of that inner urge that would not let me say no. Finally Zerros asked me if there were any questions I would like to ask concerning my book.

I thought for a while, there were so many. Then suddenly my mind fastened upon the one question of all that was troubling me. “How is the biblical story of Adam and Eve to be reconciled with what we know of the theory of evolution?”

Zerros answered without hesitation. “They were not of course individuals, few today would accept that all the evils of the world could be traced to the first man and the first woman. Your Genesis contains a mystical and poetical interpretation of something that could not be expressed in terms of Human understanding. We might say that Adam stands for the Adamic Race, the first true men of Earth. But it also stands for the masculine element in creative intelligence, for you must realise that in pure Spirit there can be no differentiation of sex, that could only come about through the process of manifestation. For every Adam there is an Eve and in the realm of pure Spirit they are one in their homogeneous being. It was during the descent into experience that the sexes became separated, and many were the stresses that were engendered by that bifurcation, rendered necessary by the exercise of self-will. But I will not labour that point now, it is my hope that you will come to a realisation of the truth through what you will observe for yourself.”

Loath to leave this absorbing subject I said: “I suppose the Earth was always intended to evolve as well as mankind?”

“ You must try and rid yourself of the idea that the Earth, as you know it, was originally part of the divine Plan. Immense effort has been expended in trying to explain why God should have prepared an environment for His children which offers little beyond frustration, suffering and prodigious labour even to exist. It could not have been His desire that millions should have to scratch a bare living amid conditions that were biased against success. - But a fallen race of spiritual beings rendered it essential. You can only find a meaning to life by regarding Human existence as a long, long saga of rehabilitation from a cosmic fall, the dimensions of which are beyond your understanding. There is a creative Plan, sublime and merciful, perfect beyond your imagination, and it is my purpose to try and unfold for you the fringe of that Plan so that you may comprehend the utter Goodness of Him who designed it.”

After some further discussion concerning future visits Zerros stood up, as if to indicate that he must depart. “My friend, I cannot promise to make clear to you the fullness of Truth, no Human mind could achieve that, there is much we shall have to leave unsolved. But what has been ordained by the Supernal One must triumph in the end, it could not be otherwise. Now I must be gone. May the blessing of the Eternal One hold you in His Infinite Love until we meet again.”

I do not know by what process Zerros managed to disappear from my vision; one moment he was there, radiating love and confidence, then he was not. Perhaps that was because his delightful personality lingered long after he ceased to be visible. Before leaving he had given me certain instructions I must follow. Now I went over these in an attempt to quieten the emotional thrill that filled my being. I dared not even think about what was to be. That I, a nobody, was to experience what must be the strangest adventures that could fall to the lot of man.

CHAPTER 2

JOURNEY INTO SPACE

On the day appointed for Zerros' next visit I was atwitter with an excitement I could scarcely control. I had not the strength of mind to confess to my family what had transpired on the momentous occasion when I first learned what Zerros had in mind. I am sure they would have feared for my sanity or dismissed the whole thing as the result of a pleasant afternoon nap. Whatever the reason, however, they all had outdoor appointments on that afternoon. Subsequently I enlightened them and though they stoutly maintained their loyalty, what I told them must surely have strained their credulity to the utmost.

To quieten my nervous excitement I busied myself with the notes for my book, so that it was once more a shock when a voice broke in upon my vagrant thoughts. “Greetings my friend, I beg you to relax.”

I started violently. Perhaps half of me had derided the idea that I should see Zerros again, that I was a fool to expect anyone, that it was all a hallucination. Yet here he was, imperturbable as ever, standing as before just inside the door. In a moment I was on my feet, wildly excited, tremendously pleased because my intuition was right. But though I indicated a chair Zerros made no attempt to leave his place by the door. “You are in a great state of mental excitement,” he observed reproachfully, “please realise that to an ethereal body such as mine the emotional vibrations of a Human being are somewhat trying.” He smiled engagingly as he added, “To me you take on the nature of a furiously boiling kettle. It is difficult to approach you.”

Instantly I controlled my excitement and made my apologies.

Zerros made a slight gesture of his hand as if to dismiss so unimportant a matter and with a gracious acknowledgment came forward and took my hands in his own. Immediately I felt a flow of power entering into me, quelling my nervous excitement and leaving me with a sense of serenity and peace.

“ That is better,” said Zerros, letting my hands go. When we were both seated he continued. “We could hope for no good results while your mind was in such a state of agitation, though it was quite understandable. But you will realise that what we have ahead of us will require the subjection of the normal physical emotions so that you may be free to leave your body for undimensional travel. And now my friend, are you still of the same mind concerning the proposals I made to you on my first visit?” He looked keenly at me as he spoke and I sensed that my decision would mean a great deal to him.

“ Yes indeed,” I replied without hesitation, “ it is my dearest wish to learn the secrets of Man's origin and this tremendous adventure you offer me excites my imagination. I realise fully the honour you are doing me and my only hope is that I may do justice to it.”

Zerros gave a little sigh of satisfaction and then we had some further conversation concerning the methods to be adopted, after which he announced his readiness to commence.

Can you imagine my feelings; almost did I panic. My trepidation must have showed itself. Here was I, an obscure writer, about to make an experiment that would have caused banner headlines in all the newspapers of the world - if they could believe in it! At Zerros' request I locked the door and drew the curtains. Then I sat in my chair and closed my eyes, striving to relax. But in this I failed. Naturally every conceivable detracting thought raced through my mind, as if my subconscious were afraid and unwilling to permit the experiment. With all my will I strove to banish them until .... I felt cooling fingers smoothing my brow .... quietening my thoughts .... bringing peace .... thinning out consciousness ....

It seemed that a voice had been speaking to me for ages and ages, soft yet clear and insistent. It was telling me to wake up, to open my eyes. Was it really time to get up, had I overslept? I opened my eyes - and realised that I must still be dreaming. I shook my head in an attempt to bring back consciousness. Then I became aware of an unaccustomed stillness and an absence of feeling, I seemed to be volatile and free from all restrictions, yet never had I felt more awake. I looked about me for some object that would restore my sense of integrity. Then suddenly memory rushed in with a great revelation, I found myself alone, poised in the high untrespassed sanctity of space, terribly alone, frighteningly alone!

There was nothing to touch, nowhere to set my feet - had I any feet? I wasn't seeing very clearly, there was no scenery about me, all was emptiness and darkness, no, not really dark, not quite empty. For all around me were stars, like no other stars I had ever seen, they were brilliant with a strange light, tremblingly alive in a way I cannot find words to describe. The way they twinkled made it seem as if they were talking to me. Then an actual voice broke in upon my thoughts. I could see no one nor hear with my ears, yet the words formed in my mind as if I were reading. It was the voice of Zerros.

It was a tremendous relief to know he was there. His thoughts continued to pour into my mind, soothing, strengthening, telling me to get used to this strange method of contact, to look about me and let the reality of what I saw sink into my consciousness. I did so and at once confidence returned and I began to be more at-one with this tremendous expanse of what seemed to be emptiness but which was taking on, more and more, an aspect of reality. The sense of isolation vanished and I felt more at home. Soon my first feeling of lightness and freedom came back, my sensations were like no dream that I ever had, there was reality and power present everywhere which entirely made up for any lack of scenery. All that I saw seemed to be imbued with wonderful harmony, as if nothing could ever go wrong with it.

I was poised in a darkness that in some queer way was transparent, most friendly and giving no hint of any possible hidden menace. As I gazed I felt my vision expanding further and further; above me, the starry array seemed to have endless depth and substance. I glanced below me and saw with mixed amazement and relief, the familiar globe of Earth where my physical body still rested.

Away to my right was the Sun, shining as I had never seen it before, no longer searing the eyes with its terrible intensity but glowing with a golden radiance that was lovely to look upon. I could have gazed at that beauty for hours on end! To my left was the Moon, a silver well of reflected glory, no longer cold and dead but thrillingly alive. I became aware that I had a body, but so disinterested was my mind that I could not determine whether it held any resemblance to the physical. I was capable of feeling yet had no sensation of heat or cold. But what did that matter when my mind was so vitally, gloriously alive. I felt splendid, brilliant, free, yet immensely humble amidst great influences which I could sense but not perceive. Around me were worlds, worlds, and I felt somehow that I was part of them, every moment I felt my life melting into theirs, becoming part of the great symphony of Life that was manifested before me. No longer were the stars inaccessible and unknown fragments of matter, with a meaning only for those who studied them through the obscuring haze that surrounds the Earth; in some curious way they seemed to have a soul of their own, and it was this soul, this universal livingness, which made the link between them and me.

All those heavenly bodies appeared to have a life of their own. Oh! if only the Earthly astronomers could have stood here with me and seen the reality behind the mere shadow they beheld through their telescopes! Here in this living, glorious expanse of stars they seemed like a friendly concourse of people, winking messages to each other like a mighty fleet at sea.

Thoughts came to me again from Zerros, though he was still invisible. “This is perfect Creation, not as you know it on Earth but perfect with the Creator's perfection. Even now you can only see the outer husk of the inner reality, for the realities of Creation cannot be seen, they have to be absorbed and entered into, as you are trying to do now. Thus gradually, as you grow to it, you begin to become at-one with Creation and are able to appreciate its glories and its wondrous purpose. The Earth is surrounded by such a flocculence of dark thoughts that its atmosphere has become opaque and the minds of men so dense and circumscribed that it is impossible to see the universe as it really is. Now I would like to show you an even rarer aspect of what you are looking at, and to do that I shall have to divest you of some of the veils that still limit your perception. Please close your eyes.”

As I did so I felt once more the smoothing control of Zerros' influence, together with the impact of a will far more powerful than I had believed to be possible; I felt as though I were slipping out of a clinging garment. Then stillness, a stillness beyond even silence, an absolute quietude of mind. At last an order to open my eyes. And oh! what wonder! Can you imagine a man who has been blind since birth suddenly receiving his sight and beholding some lovely Earthly scene? For a while I could not take in what I saw. What I had beheld before bore no resemblance to this renascent glory of light and colour. No longer was I looking at a myriad pin-points of light, each travelling upon an ordered course; in an instant the whole system of stars had expanded outwards, as it were, each one developing graduated rings of iridescent colours, spread out into a tremendous area of surrounding space until the whole of it seemed to be filled with rhythmically changing shades of colour. It reminded me a little of the aureole of a street lamp in a fog, only infinitely grander.

“What has happened?” I cried in amazement.

It seemed to my heightened senses that Zerros chuckled. He began to explain. But oh how can I find words in which to express all that he said. It seemed that he had also unveiled my consciousness so that I could now comprehend his wordless thoughts in a way impossible to Human speech. Breathlessly I drank in all he implied, assimilating it all with a sense of the goodness of God which pervaded the whole concept. I gathered that the concentric rings of light were really planes of being, each shade representing a higher octave of being, with the hard core of what we call the physical universe as the lowest level. Each star stands alone in Human sight but with each uncovering of spiritual vision it expands and opens out towards an ultimate unity, harmoniously into a wonderful whole, as the physical and geographical aspects fade into unreality. Then the spiritual origin of the whole absorbs all into an unbelievable wonder that is the manifestation of the Creator. But how can I express such a Unity in mere words?

As I pondered over these revelations that invested the whole scene with a wondrous holiness Zerros caught my thoughts and swung them up into a condition of ecstasy. Like shafts of revealing light word pictures began to form in my mind. “You are beginning to sense the real meaning of the Cosmic Christ, something man has yet to comprehend, Him whom you call the Saviour of mankind. Yet He is so much more than that, for He is an expression of the glorious Creator about whom you have only the vaguest notion. How could you limit Him who said: 'Before the world was, I AM!' and 'Except through Me none may enter the Kingdom of Heaven!' Think of those words and what they must mean! Try and visualise your Beloved as Spirit, undimensional and absolutely unlimited, almighty with the Might of His Father, who created all this! Oh how you Human beings have shut out this Supernal Glory, this wonderful livingness which was meant to hold your lives within steady growth towards a divine fulfilment! You have enclosed this Splendour, and so much more besides, within the narrow walls of creedalism, you have enshrined this Magnificence within the tiny manifestation of His Incarnation. Wondrous though that divine sacrifice was, sad as was its necessity, you see your Christ only as a Man, not as a Spirit, with all that that implies. Behold a reflection of His Reality, a glimpse of how this Glorious Spirit holds the wide universe within His Love, holding to His Heart the lives and loves, yes, even the hates, of the Father's erring children in all these endless ranges of living space, that they might not be lost for ever.

“You can see now that the Earth you know is but one phase of an existence which is rising again, after a cataclysmic fall, into the eternal life where it has its real being; it does not belong to time. For Life, real Life, is unending, it can only experience death as an illusion within the mists of time. The very word wars against eternal Life, which is something all possess and from which they cannot be divorced. Death is a lie into whose embrace a whole fallen race has drifted; soon, like the phoenix, it will rise again from the ashes of its dead past. Human life is but one scene from a drama already written and produced, complete with its happy ending; how could it be otherwise with a Great Dramatist who cannot fail! You could have no life on Earth without the Livingness of this Son of God, manifesting into the density of the lowest form of existence, reaching with the Everlasting Arms of Love into the darkest pit, that not one soul might be lost. What a Divine Tragedy is being enacted here, almost outside your awareness. Note how each star catches a reflection of the Creator's Life and rays it forth in living incandescence upon its own individual note, see how these cosmic rays are flung from star to star, each giving of itself and taking back that which it lacks, that the whole may be in harmonious sympathy.

“Can you realise now that the universe is one whole conception of the Creator, each part interwoven with the rest, no one heavenly body having any existence separate from the others? Cosmic rays are eternally flowing from one star to another, entering each other's atmosphere, there to be transmuted into chemical form. How could one single star escape the influence of Omnipotent Mind or alter the course designed for it by a Mind which is Omniscient?”

Zerros once more directed my attention to the Sun. I gazed at it with a sense of adoration, it was so tremblingly beautiful, sounding a note of triumph and joy. It seemed to know all the secrets of the universe, unheeding the petty chaos which disturbed the rhythm of one small unit that had fallen by the way, as if it knew that the fallen one must soon be lifted again to make the divine symphony in tune once more. It was not graded in rings like the other stars but radiated a special golden glow that seemed to penetrate throughout the heavens. No wonder the ancients sensed this divine aspect and worshipped this life-giving globe. Now I knew that it gave me far more than life, for it radiated Goodness, in which no dark thought could live. Try for yourself and visualise some dark thought as having meaning within that burning Light; it is impossible!

As I watched, entranced by all that I witnessed, I began to 'hear' the sound of music, like no other music I have ever heard. It had more of rhythm than melody and it flowed over that living silence like the lapping tide, stealing into the mind as if it had been eternally there but was only now making its presence felt, like the creative Thought of God echoing through the vaults of space. Zerros made me realise that where the last faint notes of audible response begin to fade there steal the first strains of the heavenly symphony. “It is upon these soundless waves that consciousness of your reality and your oneness with the Christ of Love is born into your understanding. Never can you absorb His real meaning with your intellect alone.”

Slowly the rhythm gathered strength as it began to fill my mind, reverberating through the universe like the thrumming of some giant power station, incalculable power held in leash, until little by little I felt myself in sympathy with it, melting into its vibrations as one's feet might carry one into a lilting dance. At last I knew what at-one-ment could mean, this is what I really am, all I long to be, no individual but a part of all this. I knew I could achieve no real happiness away from this divine unity. I felt an overwhelming need to give myself into the absorbing embrace of that alluring sound, to drown myself in its ecstasy. But instead I felt a slight chill, and I knew instinctively that an unbridgeable gulf remained between me and that wonder of Unity, I was not yet fit for that divine reunion. Someday - but not yet. With a deep sense of loss I turned away, and the whole kaleidoscope seemed to slip and I found myself regarding the galaxies as I had first seen them. But now I had some inkling of what lay beyond them, which I knew to be only an external manifestation of the never-ending wonder that was hidden within them.

But I had gained something from my experience; in recompense for any loss my vision was keener than before, so that I could now become aware of objective life around me. I perceived moving shafts of light that emanated from beings which themselves seemed to be all of light, whose spiritual power was being rayed down to some point on Earth. These, I thought, must be spiritual beings of a high order, doing the Creator's Will. And there were other beings of a lesser brilliance to be seen, but at this point my concentration began to falter, I began to tremble and to lose consciousness of my surroundings. Zerros quickly noted my condition and took charge, intimating that it was time for me to return. I was just able to catch his words as they formed themselves in my mind. “You have witnessed what few human beings have ever witnessed before, you have had a glimpse of God's emissaries at work, you have seen the wheels of destiny turning. And you have drawn near, for one moment, to that ineffable mystery which is the Love of God. You have not been shown all this without a reason.” With a last longing glance at that vast concourse of living, meaningful points of light I closed my eyes and let myself go .....

I opened my eyes to the familiar scenes in my study, the walls seeming menacingly close after the infinite expanse of space I had so lately experienced. Of Zerros there was no visible sign. As my faculties came back into consciousness I began to wonder whether I had not been dreaming or whether the whole experience were not the product of an over-exercised imagination. Yet the memory was so deeply impressed upon my mind that I could not accept such a rational explanation. Determined not to lose one iota of the epoch-making experiment I seized my pen and made notes of the salient points in my adventure, a record that was to extend to many pages beyond my wildest dreams.

CHAPTER 3

THE BIRTH OF A WORLD

On his next visit to my study Zerros enquired after my health with an air of solicitation, but there was a twinkle in his eye which indicated previous knowledge of my well-being, that I had suffered no physical ill effects from that tremendous change in consciousness.

When I had assured him I had never felt better in my life he said: “Then if you would like to do so we will make another little journey through time and space when I will fulfil my promise to show you a picturisation of the birth of your planet, and how it was invested by the Spirit of the Cosmic Christ from the moment it took form.” So calmly did he make his announcement that I scarcely comprehended at first the implication of what he said. But I was becoming accustomed to his incredible powers though to this day I do not know whether he showed me an actual record of those primal events or a visual image culled from his tremendous store of knowledge .

“The birth of a world is well known to your astronomers,” he observed, “beginning with the formation of a nebula from essential gasses, then a shaping into form through rotation, until the mass cools into the form of a planet. If we can regard this light-energy or gas as the manifestation of Creative Thought, and remembering that matter and energy are continually changing into one another throughout the universe, then we begin to get a glimpse of the divine creative process. As the energy slows down into matter it takes on a chemical and electrical form, which eventually makes organic life possible as a vehicle for cosmic intelligence to manifest. All matter is atomic in construction and each atom is electrical in nature, another way of expressing divine life.”

“It has not occurred to your theologians,” he went on, “to connect the Cosmic Christ with astronomical processes in order to lift them nearer to reality. Yet there could be no Solar System without the Christ, who, clothed in His Father's Power, created it in the divine pattern. Remember He is not only the Christ of the Christians, that would be a limitation, but the Christ of every living soul, whether they are aware of it or not. No one can deny the Christ in truth any more than he can deny ever having had a mother! For every soul is born through the maternal aspect of the Spirit of Christ, in the same way that a beam of pure light is broken into the spectrum through a prism. Pure Spirit emanates from God, is received by the Christ and through Him is given identity in the myriads of souls which are born into experience. Christ is the Divine Prism for humanity. If that thought troubles your intellect do not worry, just let it sink in.”

After some further discussion Zerros stood and made a moving dedication of our proposed journey into eternity, asking a blessing on its purpose. As I sit in my study trying to put on paper what I recall of that supremely beautiful cosmic experience, witnessing in retrospect the birth of our planet, I find it almost impossible to find words in which to frame it. Yet I know I must try, for even I can see the importance of that wonderful baptismal ceremony. For it cradles the whole significance of the life we humans are called upon to lead and provides a key to the seeming injustices with which almost every aspect of our existence is invested. I can now see our Earth, not as a habitat for a blindly evolving race, devoid of meaning or purpose, but a feature of a wonderful plan of rehabilitation for a fallen race of beings, spiritual in nature and origin, with nothing forgotten, nothing without purpose. I see our workaday world as shot through and through with divine Life, with wonderful redemptive powers, both educative and rectifying. The destiny of man is that he must rise again, however long he delays that consummation through the exercise of his free will.

In an attitude of deep humility and wonder I prepared myself for this transcendent experience. Once more I was told to relax, lifting my thoughts to the highest level possible to me. Again I felt that swaying sensation and a gradual lightening of the body, then consciousness left me .....

Once again I found myself poised in space, bereft of support, but this time I was more prepared, recollection came to me quickly and the feeling of instability soon left me. I soon located the Sun, a dear familiar sight, then I looked for the Earth I had just left; it was no longer there, nor was the Moon!

Zerros dissipated my alarm by reminding me that we had come to witness the birth of the Earth so that it could not yet have any concrete form. It was a sombre thought, I must have slipped back beyond reckoning, I was timeless!

Now Zerros drew my attention to where something was happening. Before my wondering eyes a mist was beginning to gather, it seemed that some superior Power was drawing essential forces from all quarters of the universe. How shall I explain it? It was as if someone were plucking blooms of rare beauty from this planet and that, to make a posy of surpassing beauty. Swirling atoms of iridescent energy began to glow with nascent life, which invested them with meaning and purpose. I could imagine that myriads of angels were' at work upon a pre-conceived plan of creative purpose. Gradually the mass took form, first an ovoid and later a complete globe of incandescent fire.

Once again the mind of Zerros influenced my own. “Within that glowing mass are all the elements necessary for the purpose of the Earth right through to its finality. Within its potential are the substances that will, under creative aegis, form organic life, cause primeval forests to become beds of coal for twentieth century grates, and the metals for your machine age. The diamonds that glitter on the bosoms of your matrons found inception here, nothing was omitted, even to the rectifying qualities of the soil which enable it to transmute the putrefying organic matter you consign to it, into rightful chemical constituents. Because the inhabitants designate were a fallen and perverted race you must not blame the Creator if that perversion entered into the very fabric of the Earth and affected manifestation of its chemical nature, so that its natural life became' red in tooth and claw,' and poisonous plants and minerals found place in the environment in which man was to find himself again. It all represents a wonderful example of a Love that will not let you go. Your Christian creed and worship rest upon an idea of hope, but here is exemplified a certainty, the Everlasting Arms that will not be denied. Because Creation is perfect, and God cannot fail!”

That lovely thought so filled my being that I felt uplifted as if by the finale of some great symphony. How could one fail to worship a Being who could not be prevailed upon to abandon the children He had created, however great their sin, however persistent their denial of Him. Now I felt better able to comprehend what was taking place.

As the glowing mass took shape I became aware of sound, not a melody but like the working together in perfect harmony of great cosmic forces. It was tremendous in its potential yet soft and subdued as the whisper of spring. It seemed as if all the elements that were to be, the wind, the waves, flashing sunlight and dancing branches, had recognised their potential birth into expression and were glorifying their Creator. Surely it was the “Sons of the Morning shouting for joy!”

Then began an event of such cosmic grandeur and importance that I scarcely dare to report it, the Incarnation of the Earth by the Spirit of the Cosmic Christ! St. Augustine must have had a glimpse of this Baptism when he declared that Christianity must have existed since the world began. Surely he was thinking of the wider aspect of Christianity based on the Infinite, secure in the certainty of a Plan made by a Perfect Creator to whom failure was impossible

Uplifted by the powerful spirit of Zerros I now began to 'see' with heightened senses, obscure meanings became illumined so that I understood their import. From the depths of the universe there began to gather an Influence - I can think of no better word for it. Can you imagine a great Love becoming objective and weaving itself into a Personality? Benign yet immensely powerful, gentle yet irresistible, with all the Power of Creation behind Him, so Bright as to consume all thought of darkness, yet understanding and forgiving all? Just as the Cosmic Son of God incarnated as the Son of Man, so this wondrous Spirit took shape as a Personality, gathering to Himself divine attributes from the vast reservoir of Spirit, clothing Himself with the Power of His Father, the Creator of All. As a soul enters and takes possession of a human embryo, so did this Oversoul embrace and hold the newborn world, indemnifying all the fallen souls which were to seek rehabilitation within its growth. Now I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the destiny of the Earth and of humanity was sealed from that moment. The Everlasting Arms were about it and would sink with it into whatever degradation befell its inhabitants, so that they could never fall beyond redemption. It was an awesome thought but a glorious one. In the language of Spirit mankind was already saved in eternity, only within the mists of time could defiant man continue to hide himself from the searing light of Truth, which must eventually bum its way through to the errant soul and free the spirit within. All was being done in Love and perfect Justice.

More and more did this radiant Personality assume a reality that was almost a Form, until I could imagine I could discern features within an aureole that would have blinded Human eyes. Mysteriously beautiful, radiating love and compassion, of such purity of Being that I felt an inrush of its influence which I knew would never leave me. I was profoundly moved that the waywardness of man should have motivated that prescience of compassion; how the sins of humanity must rend that Loveliness and besmirch that beautiful Countenance! Day by day we crucify Him again and again, He who is all-Love!

Presently it seemed to me that the Cosmic Christ, this great Reality of the Saviour we pretend to serve, took the infant world in His Arms of Love and blessed it, and as He did so He made upon it the sign of its destiny and purpose, the ancient symbol of the Cross within the Circle, emblematic of redemption, sacrifice and wholeness. Man was now to rise upon the wings of pain, because that was the only way in which he would respond.

Love! What a shameful personal interpretation have we not created out of that divine emotion, a selfless Power beyond anything we have known, the greatest Power in the World. No wonder as we clutch at its shadow we find it a fleeting passion which bums and sears in its swift passage, leaving cold ashes in its wake. For here was the pristine Reality, generating more power than it consumed. As I watched, its power filled the renascent globe until the glowing nebula seemed to swell and throb with a new life, individual and purposeful, absorbing the Will of the Personality that held it, breathing in His Goodness. Our world had become ensouled. And at long last I knew what Love meant!…..

I have no memory of how that incredible experience ended. Later, thinking over the events I had witnessed, I began to realise the full meaning of those statements we have puzzled over, “ Before the world was, I AM!” and “ The Kingdom of Heaven is within you!” Yes, indeed, born in us, living in us, buried within us. How could such dynamic truths be confined to single creeds? Every living soul, incarnate or discarnate, must surely be heir to that wondrous Love that will not be denied. None can escape it, however long they dally on the shores of time, afraid to enter into the eternity where they have their real being. As man defies it or drags it down into perversion it blazes up into a Consuming Fire that bums him, but as he suffers, a new understanding is born and the Fire dies down once more into the gentle warmth that means growth. Now I could see what a great lie death was, for how could that crowning glory of Creation, Man, die, when nothing else in the wide universe could meet anything but chemical change? Death belongs only to the mists of time and space.

If only Man could be aroused to a sense of his own reality and the unreality of his environment, the world would leap in response and the calumny with which the Sacred Name has been loaded would vanish with the dawn.

I long so much for words in which to clothe my impressions of that glorious spiritual Being which I beheld, so essential to our being, so far beyond our limited conception of the Christ, yet so very close to the eternal part of our being. But there are no words. I can only hope that my halting description may awaken some response in the reader's heart, where the truth of it all rests. This dearly Beloved, this intimate Spirit of Love who drew to Himself all that was precious in me, showed Himself to be so much more than any of us have ever dreamed, for there is not that within the Christian portrayal which could begin to compare with that, oh so lovely Intelligence and Givingness which I was privileged to glimpse for one unforgettable moment. Yet it was the same Spirit which manifested in Jesus, which hung upon the Cross, which is invested in us and in our world. And I feel that the message I brought back is that we should lift our eyes from the Cross of suffering to the Cross of Victory, already achieved, waiting only for a Perfect Moment to be shown to us.

As I sat in my study, with bowed head, the force of this revelation crowded in upon me until the burden of it was intolerable. How we have clamped down upon this lovely Being the limitations of one aspect only of His universal activity, He who is eternal and would have us be eternal too! For one ghastly moment I felt the whole burden of Man's sin and ignorance upon my shoulders until I saw again, in retrospect, the glowing mass of that new-born world, with that lovely Personality. Then it seemed to me that the warm glow of that forgiving Love stole out and wrapped itself about me, soothing away my misinterpretation, lifting the weight from my shoulders .... Then I realised that all was indeed good, that all suffering and frustration were to be distilled into a wonderful resurgence as man was born again into the life that he should have lived.

It was some days before I was able to collect my thoughts of this experience, much less put them into words. I know that I have failed lamentably to picture for you what really transpired. I can only plead that word forms do not exist in which to convey the subtlety of that beauty which had overwhelmed me with its grace. I looked round my study walls and began to realise the oneness of all creation and the Unity that held all mankind in one manifestation of the Creator. A picture without edges, a mass of humanity, myriads of beings, all forming one great Idea of God, yet each being an identity by itself which could never be lost and which could have no separate existence apart from the whole! What a thought! What a revelation! It explained so much, resolved so many problems, filling the whole picture with meaning and purpose. I began to see our identity as something given to us that we might be educated in the art of learning to love God, yet something to be surrendered to Him for our progress. For who could plan better for us than He who knows all, who controls all? But the Christ cannot invade the sanctity of the soul, wrapped closely in the garment of free will, lest He delay rather than speed its progress. He can but send forth the rays of His Father's enlivening Love, that in time must bum through the defences and awaken the soul within. And if the ineffable glory of the Christ of Love could be so overwhelming, what awe-ful Might and Majesty must there not be in the Father of us all!

CHAPTER 4

THE GARDEN BEAUTIFUL

For the succeeding chapters I shall have to ask the reader's indulgence for there may be much to conflict with established ideas, much that will be difficult to accept. But this is not a history book, rather is it a picturisation of the meaning of Human existence, with an underlying message of love and understanding to illumine its reality.

We are told that the Kingdom is within us, thus understanding can only come from within, not from any external explanation. I cannot have faith for you, I cannot love for you, I cannot understand for you, I cannot teach you; these you have to do for yourself from the illimitable sources within you. These you can trust and that trust can broaden and grow into a faith that cannot be broken. Every human soul longs to be loved, yet there is no Love so fine and so satisfying as the Love of the Father. I submit that Love, in its finest aspect, provides the key to all progress, unlocking every door at the proper moment. It is the greatest power in the world!

In preparation for our next flight in time and space Zerros gave me further enlightenment on the origin and development of mankind. There were, he explained, two aspects of evolution to be considered, the evolution of the Human body, together with the growth and evolution of the Earth itself, and the far more important aspect of the evolution of the soul of Man.

“ It will be a help,” he observed, “if we try and grasp the essential difference between God unmanifest and God manifest. It is sometimes asserted that God, being Perfect, cannot know imperfection and therefore cannot know of man's sufferings. That is a purely intellectual argument, it is not true. God is Perfect and Eternal, that is to say He exists in timelessness and spacelessness, He is in no way limited. But Divine Intelligence permeates everywhere. No created thing could exist for an instant were it not held in being by the manifested Will of the Creator. At any point in the whole universe you can touch Him and be aware of His Love and Influence. In His pristine Glory He is Unmanifest, Perfect, Complete. But if there is to be experience, if His Creation is to learn of His Love, it must be subject to experience, it must be a little less than perfect. For you cannot paint a picture with only white paint, there must be colour, contrast. So the pure white beam of Perfection passes through the Prism of manifestation into its myriad colours and shades. That is the nearest we can get to comprehension of the mystery of Creation, for the finite mind cannot contain the Infinite.

“Do not think of God as an individual, for that it is a limitation, but rather as an Origin, the superlative of all you hold precious. You speak of man as an entity, but his spirit is universal, he shares it with all creation, where there can be no subdivision. Is that too hard for you to grasp? Remember that Spirit is fluid, like the atmosphere, you cannot subdivide it, it is the raw material of Creation. It is the life in an atom, in an animal or a stone, as in the Human soul.

“ Let us say that the Intelligence of God caused atoms of His Intelligence to individuate as souls, each growing in His Love and gathering to itself more and more of what Spirit is! Bound to Him by the bonds of Love these souls developed and grew in consciousness, utterly giving themselves to their Father. If a man truly loves a maid he longs to surrender his whole life to hers, making them one. It becomes an agony if they have to separate. So, as you grow in understanding, will it become an agony to separate yourself from the Will and Love of God, you will long to melt within the Glory of His Being in a Divine Consummation, still holding your identity but giving it eternally into His keeping. That is the real Kingdom.

“ At first the newly established soul is in a state of innocence, lacking experience, lacking the ability to generate Love or to accept it, just as a babe has to learn to love its mother through the mother's love for it. Through its experiences the soul grows in individuality, which is an eternal quality, not to be confused with the transient nature of personality. It would be folly to suggest that a Human soul commences its life at Human birth, it could never face the intolerable conditions of human existence which too often meet it, it would flee the body in horror at what it beheld, so antipathetic to what it knew of the reality of Love. First must it acquire wisdom and be armoured against the harshness of Earthly life. So as it descends in experience it dons garments that shield it from gross contact, and has to 'drink of the waters of Lethe,' before it can incarnate into the world of men, thus leaving behind the memory of the glories it once knew, which could only provide a drag on its progress. But never is it bereft of the Love of the Father which sustains it, even though that Love be denied.

“ God could not desire a race of robots, dancing to His tune, so He gave His children the Divine gift of Free Will, through which they might climb upwards to reality. But Man can never possess absolute free will, there are limitations, there are thorny hedges of suffering to prevent him from straying too far. Suffering brings him to a halt, stuns the senses and allows his spiritual nature to assert itself and eventually gain control.

“ One more factor I must stress for your understanding. There are two aspects of man, masculine and feminine, and each individual expresses a bias to one side or the other, irrespective of sex. A man may be feminine in outlook and vice versa. There is not that sort of bias in the soul, which is sexless but .can assimilate masculine or feminine characteristics. The further the soul descends towards Human incarnation the more does it express itself the one way or other. Throughout its experience the soul is animated by these twin influences, the magnetic pull of desire, the feminine characteristic, or the masculine lure of ambition, the creative attraction of power, which when misused can wreck such devastation. You can see how much you have to learn.

“ Between these two poles of ambition and desire man grows in experience and develops character and what he learns is carried over into his soul life as individuality. All this time he is adding to his spiritual strength, which enables him to turn his selfish ambition into givingness, his desire for self into higher channels. For as he learns of his own reality so the Power of Love enters into and illumines his being. That is much more important than the evolution of his brain. There should not be conflict between man and woman for they are one at heart, two halves of a perfect whole, not equal but complementary, one gives what the other lacks. Separate they are meaningless, together they are creative.

“ In its pristine state the soul is androgynous, male and female in one, but in its descent into incarnation it comes to a point where it meets the mystery which you call original sin. It is a long, long story, impossible to deal with here, but there was a rebellion in Heaven, desire beckoned to ambition and together they trod a path among forces they were not ready to control, thus they were thrust out of the Eden of perfect living in the sight of God, and they entered the mists from which mankind is still being rescued. Incarnation became a painful process, spiritual freedom gave place to the restrictions of Human existence, memory of the perfect life had to be erased, and a veil drawn between the two. As I shall try to show you, the soul found it more and more difficult to incarnate as a whole entity, and inevitably came the bifurcation of the sexes, with man and woman as separate identities. This was naturally a terrible experience to the soul, which had hitherto known only perfection and wholeness, and you may feel that it is unfair for the souls of the present to suffer for the sins of ancient days. Yet remember that humanity is really one entity, it has no real life apart from that which emanates from God, in Him it finds reality, apart from Him its life is transitory and synthetic. No one soul can race ahead into Heaven by itself; first it has to find that part of itself which has been living a separate existence, and oh the joy of that reunion! But Heaven is not an Elysium for honeymoon couples, it is not enough to love one another nor even to love their Father. Before they can appreciate the true depth of their mutual love they have to learn of their unity with all other souls, for in the purity of Spirit there is no space between one soul and another! They are all One in God! That may seem difficult of understanding but try and remember this truth during your forthcoming experiences and it will assume shape and reality.

“ Your two great Christian Commandments, to love God and each other, are not ideals but dynamic necessities for your advancement. Only when you have mastered them, as you grow from time into eternity, will you be ready for your reunion in fullest measure with that which you have lost in the mists of endeavour.” As Zerros spoke it seemed as if a great light was being shed upon my understanding, the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle were being assembled to show a picture of a magnitude that amazed me, so wonderfully alive that I felt drawn into it.

“There must be no misunderstanding about what I have said,” Zerros went on. “Soul unity has no relation to sex as you know it. To realise that you have a soul partner implies no disloyalty to the one with whom you may be linked in Human experience, for Love, in its highest expression, is like Spirit, it has no direction, no possessiveness, no limitation, no jealousy, it is universal. Before you are ready for this divine reunion there must be no living soul outside your love; only then can you taste fully of the joy of your re-marriage with that from which you have been separated through the ages.

“ During its incubation period the nascent Earth was plastic in nature and inhabited by angelic beings who prepared it for its destiny. There was no water in its fiery constituency, but the elements of water were combined with other elements to form an ethereal plane far above what would now be its surface, somewhere in your stratosphere. This ethereal belt formed an environment for equally ethereal beings who incarnated there from the realms of Spirit, lovely souls which were descending into experience.

“We may term this almost perfect race the Adamic Race, offspring of Spirit with matter. They possessed powers of which you do not dream today, for they were very close to the Creator of all. But as the cooling Earth enabled organic life to exist there came to its actual surface, first the Animal Kingdom and then a race of indigenous inhabitants in dense material bodies, little more intelligent than the animals amid whom they roamed. These were they who had expressed self-will in the realms of Spirit, defying the Love of God, and thus been cast out of His sight which they could no longer endure. It was an act of mercy that they were enabled to seek relief from the terrible results of their disobedience by this alternative of physical incarnation.

“ Thus there were two races incarnate, the shining ones in the Edenic realm above the Earth who were descending in experience, and the darker souls who were seeking an upward path, back to the uplands of Spirit where they belonged. And the shining ones took upon themselves the task of visiting the indigenous inhabitants of the misty lands below to minister to them and aid them in their rehabilitation.'

Much, much more Zerros told me which I cannot stay to record here. But it was to this ethereal world in the stratosphere that I was next translated by the spiritual powers of Zerros, to witness the lives of a strange people of unbelievable beauty dwelling in a state of Edenic bliss, the first true men of Earth.

It was indeed a setting of wondrous beauty. Imagine a scene of pastel-shaded loveliness, the colours, the infinite shades, the brilliant flowers with a livingness of their own, with a clearness of atmosphere that enhanced a perspective of such grandeur that the mauve-tinted hills, however distant, seemed to be outlined with a detail that was unreal. I can scarcely find words to describe its elfin appeal, this Garden of Eden, so much more real than any human fancy could depict.

Everywhere was Nature exemplified in its purest, most exotic beauty, undefiled by the hand of man and his perversions. Nowhere did I see signs of cultivation though fruit trees of many unfamiliar kinds abounded. The colours and scents that pleasured the senses were beyond any that we know, and the animals we saw were obviously unafraid as they stepped their dainty way through the trees. The birds combined brilliant plumage with tuneful song in a way which we rarely witness.

Then the people; how shall I describe them? Zerros was now perfectly visible to me but neither of us had any contact with the inhabitants of this Garden Beautiful by way of communication. They had no knowledge of our presence. They were all seemingly of one sex, a curious admixture of feminine grace and manliness. Their clothes appeared to be shaped to their bodies in some clever way, as if they were part of them, and shone as if lit by some inner light. The colours were lovely but self-colours, there was no sign of embroidery, nor was there any need. All were fair of skin and walked with an effortless grace that was lovely to see. I saw no children and asked Zerros about this.

“Why should there be children?” he queried. “Why enclose a soul within an ineffectual body when there is no need? These Adamic people are born as adults with their brain faculties complete, needing only education and experience. I see over there some sort of ceremony about to take place, I think it will explain what I mean.”

Taking me by the hand Zerros enabled the pair of us to travel over the intervening space and at speed. We drew near to where, in a grove of trees, an altar stood, and about which a crowd of people were gathered. Beside the circular altar stood a man of unusual height and appearance, he seemed to be a priest for he was giving an invocation as we approached. Then he turned and faced the congregation, of whom each pressed forward to lay same small offering an the altar. Some gave fruit, same produced small objects they had picked up, it seemed that the nature of the object was immaterial. When all had contributed the priest turned to the altar and after a prayer, raised his arms and immediately a ray of intense light shot downward and in a moment the objects were reduced to nothing.

Zerros explained that this was the origin of sacrifice, a demonstration and a reminder to the people that all came from God. It was a way of keeping in touch with Him. The consuming of the gifts in the Flame of Spirit signalised the rising of the Spirit out of mortal matter, the flame of immaculate desire lighting the soul into the Presence of God. We left the priest explaining the symbolism to his people.

Once again we travelled across country as my companion expanded further upon the subject of birth in this pristine land, observing that we were now to witness such an event. This time we alighted at the entrance to a great building of symbolic beauty of design. I stood entranced, every facet of it seemed to have a message, though I could not interpret any known meaning. It stood at the foot of a great mountain, stretching so high into the sky that it seemed to have no summit. There was something mysterious about it, it seemed so aloof yet it was vibrant with importance. It did not surprise me when Zerros explained that this was the Holy Mountain of which mythology speaks so often. Far same moments I stood gazing up at those sombre heights, shrouded in mystery. But the mountain remained loftily aloof, it had no message for me.

At his bidding I followed Zerros through the great doorway, with its delicately scrolled designs and motifs; there were no doors fitted. Up the steps and into the dim sanctity of a hall so vast that I could scarcely discern the carven roof, supported on pillars that spread out like great branches at the apex. The lighting puzzled me, for there were no windows, yet the whole was lit as if by sunshine. I never succeeded in discovering how it was done; Zerros could be quite inscrutable when he chose.

At the far end of the hall were grouped same two hundred people, almost lost in this vastness. Something was obviously about to happen, for all were gazing expectantly towards a doorway at the end of the hall which was covered by a rich velvet curtain. Presently there was a stir and as the curtains swung noiselessly aside a procession entered the hall, to take up position by a small slab of greenish stone. First came the principle actor in this drama of prehuman birth, the parent-to-be, arrayed in spotless white and wearing a rapt trancelike expression that spoke of the strenuous nature of his preparation and his dedication to its fulfilment.

At this point Zerros murmured, “You should emphasise in your narrative that these people were androgynous in nature, they still retained their masculine and feminine characteristics in one form. They were created male and female, dual in nature. Here was no marriage or mating, with all its difficulties and disillusion, these beings could love each other without restraint, without any intervention of sex.”

The subdued chatter ceased, hushed by a sensitive awareness of what was to come. Then in front of the curtain a golden haze began to appear, to resolve itself into Human shape. Gradually a shining Being took Human form, so radiant as to be almost blinding to the eyes. He radiated an inner power that streamed from him and affected us all, I could feel its benign influence from where I stood.

Zerros explained that this being had come from a higher realm to take part in the ritual, which was designed to keep ever before the minds of the people their unity with spiritual realities they might otherwise forget.

Now the whole tempo of the proceedings was speeded up. As I watched I noted a curious haze beginning to gather about the visitor's head, evidence of the tremendous power he was drawing upon. No doubt this light accounted for the haloes depicted above the heads of saints in medieval pictures. By way of welcoming the celestial visitor the people began to chant in unison, it was not a song in words but rather of ritualistic intonation, subtle inflexions that rose and fell like the murmur of the ocean. There was unutterable longing in their voices and some flung out their arms in a gesture of supplication. The song died, and the watchers stood perfectly still, quiet and alert.

The Teacher began to speak. With such a voice that any actor would long to possess. Perfectly modulated, it had a quality of perfection that enhanced the words he said and gave them added impart. Though I could not understand the words I could well guess at their meaning. He spoke lovingly and understandingly to the people, as if they were very dear to him. It seemed that this race of lovely people was incarnating on a mission of great importance which even they could not as yet comprehend, for they were being prepared to descend into an even deeper phase of existence where they were to help the indigenous inhabitants to rise out of the pit into which they had fallen. The two races were to meet and fuse on the surface of the cooling Earth below them, thence to rise together into the Light once more, a magnificent epic of redemption which a benign Creator had planned before ever the Earth was born.

After a pause the Teacher spoke of the importance of the ritual about to be observed. Then one who was to stand sponsor stepped forward and made a salutation, while the parent-to-be was by now almost in a state of trance. I will not attempt to describe the ceremony for its ritual meaning was lost upon me. But presently the rapt parent became enveloped in a golden haze which gradually deepened and slowly gathered into form about his solar plexus. At length it could be seen that this was assuming a Human form which finally separated itself from the parent.

The celestial visitor now took charge and guided the form to a recumbent position on the low altar. The singing had now re-commenced and it appeared to take the form of a species of midwifery, with the onlookers contributing power through which this divine birth might be concluded. At last, with a final paean of sound, the birth was completed. There, on the altar, lay a perfect specimen of manhood, newly-born and adult in size, but needing much care and attention before he could take up his new life. Gently the sponsor bent and lifted the supine body, offering it to the celestial one, who blessed it. Then the figure was covered with a cloak and carried from the hall.

As we left the hall I asked Zerros why this method of birth was denied to modern Man. He shook his head gravely. “That is another matter, which I will try and make to clear to you on another occasion.” So saying he took hold of my hand and once again propelled the two of us swiftly across country. We landed this time at the entrance to a building quite different from the first. It was more utilitarian and the decorations were much simpler than those we had already seen. Here again we found many people being instructed by a celestial visitor. He was instructing them in the meanings of ritual dancing, with two neophytes to demonstrate the movements.

At the conclusion of the talk the whole gathering moved out into the open, a sort of amphitheatre set against a background of trees. There was something familiar about the happy gathering with their animated movements and subdued laughter, much as we would expect from a dancing class in our own age. But at the appearance of the teacher all noise ceased. He raised his hand and as at a signal, a thrumming of drums began, seeming to come from within the belt of trees. Louder and louder it got until its rhythm communicated itself to the dancers and immediately they swung into step and formed themselves into rings and other forms. How graceful they were, there was none of the jerky posturing that so often characterises our own dancers. Their whole bodies seemed to respond to the rhythm, and the delight on their faces showed the extent of the pleasure it gave them.

There were many movements to the dance and I felt sure that each had some symbolic meaning; there were moments when the unison was broken into pathos, moments when the swaying bodies swept apart and met again in a passionate demonstration of reunion. No longer was this a concourse of individuals but a moving panorama of contemporary life, a great unity of agreement in expressing the symbol of divine Unity. It was impossible to watch this dramatic scene and not be moved by its message, never equalled in any ballet we have known.

As these lovely creatures danced and weaved and swayed to their emotions the light about their heads grew in intensity until it wove a concurrent pattern above them, crystallising the symbology of the dance into visible form. That woven fabric of light postulated no mere chimera of the imagination but was clearly the weaving of dynamic magnetic forces into meaningful expression. In that divine ecstasy I felt drawn into at-one-ment with the dancers till I was part of them and they of me, my whole consciousness momentarily expanded until I felt that I belonged to all creation, and all creation had part with me. It took that dance to bring this transcendent truth home to me.

Finally the dancers resolved themselves into a set piece and came to a palpitating rest upon a cessation of the thrumming. And the design of the set piece was the ancient pattern of the cross within the circle, the symbol of sacrifice redeemed which is the hall mark of our Earth. But here it did not seem to breathe of sadness, suffering and revolt, but rather of a garland of flowers epitomizing immense love and forgiveness, scintillating because of the quivering of the bodies, until at last they were stilled, and the light coalesced into ethereal form, somewhat like the domes and minarets of some vast temple of exquisite design. It seemed that Beauty itself was crowning the dancers with applause.

Everywhere I went in this strange and beautiful land there was this educative inspiration, presenting mystical realities in simple, symbolic terms. Thus was taught the first lesson between light and shade, so soon alas to deepen into good and evil, eternally at war. Here indeed was a testing of spirit, the building of an inner conviction of realties that would steer this people through the testing times ahead when they would be called upon to take part in the struggle of human minds against the Great Mind of the Universe. Maybe the hints of a chosen people that grace the pages of the Bible had their genesis in what I had just seen.

Many were the talks I had then and later with Zerros upon this difficult subject, the origin of sin. How I wish I had the skill to interpret all he told me. “You must not think,” he said, “that the Creator could possibly have designed a Creation that could fail, nor that He purposely planned the gradual evolution of intelligent form through endless ages of suffering and strife. That is a by- product of the gift of free will without which your progress would be that of robots. Divine prescience must have foreseen the fall of spiritual man and his continued fall through defiance of Goodness. And the history of man is that of divine forgiveness and regeneration, forever forestalling man's divergence and bringing him back, through suffering, to the way of divine destiny. Mankind rises on the wings of pain because that is the only way man will rise.

“The soul of man changes as he advances and gains an accretion of what Spirit is, that which could never be changed or destroyed. Death has no meaning in the ultimate idea of Creation, it is an aspect of the fallen nature of Man and the world in which he lives. To this Adamic race death never comes unheralded, they do not see it as an enemy waiting to catch them by the heels, as you do. When the allotted span draws to a close the fortunate one knows he has accomplished what he set out to do, and is the subject of congratulation. There is no regret, no sadness, just the gentle laying down of the garment no longer needed, and then the departure into a joyous freedom. The body merely disintegrates. “

Not once but many times did Zerros and I return to this wondrous realm, and widely we roamed. I have not space to tell of all we saw and it is difficult to put into words events that have no corollary in human experience. It is difficult too for us, who have to labour so hard merely to exist, to comprehend an environment in which labour has no imposition to make. But, as Zerros explained, man has become a fighting machine with militant instincts to enable him to fight his way out of the impasse into which he has fallen. As he rises in consciousness he will lose those predatory instincts and be amenable to gentler issues.

It was an incredible thought that this whole environment was to descend, in total, on to the hard surface of Mother Earth, there to play its destined part in redeeming and unifying the whole. Incredible too that all this creative assembly, as in the wide universe, was held in being only by the Creator's Will, without which it would rush into instant dissolution, back into primal energy. Here in the fineness of life there were no sexual differentiations, yet these souls too were to be subject to bifurcation ere they could be allowed to descend into the dense, harsh conditions of Earth proper, a sacrifice that was essential in order to provide the urge that would ensure their ultimate return to their pristine condition. How sad a thought that was, that the love of man for woman had to be expressed as such an incoherent and untamable form of emotion, belonging more to the animal than the spirit. How much do we not owe to these great souls who came to the rescue of fallen man, only alas, to fall victim to the viciousness inherent in the indigenous race of the primitive world.

Even as I looked at the lovely scenes for the last time I could not imagine its inhabitants becoming besmirched with the inky stains of evil, yet even then perhaps a tiny cloud of misunderstanding may have been passing across their thoughts, herald of a turning inward to their personal being, away from their outward receptiveness of spiritual influences. A shadow that would presently touch a thousand hearts with its cold fingers and draw a veil of forgetfulness over minds which as yet remembered only Love.

CHAPTER 5

THE PRIMAL FALL

Zerros sat in my study and began to talk. He spoke of the mystery of the Primal Fall of Man, that initial fall from Grace of spiritual beings, but he stressed that in no circumstances could he enable me to witness any reconstruction of that epoch-making occurrence.

“ There is a great mystery here which you can only have in parable form,” he explained. “Were I to try and show you the reality you would find yourself floundering in a sea of conjecture concerning that which is infinite and not finite. I could give you little idea of the environment, the purpose and the nature of those pristine beings. As I have tried to show you, evil is a great lie, manifested by a turning away from the Light towards a darkness that exists only in mind, not in reality. Were there no minds in creative existence there could be no evil! Thus to God evil is a lie, illusory and unreal; to man it is finite and real as long as his mind accepts it. And in his manifested life it can be terribly harmful and degrading. But such is the depth of man's fall that the road back from the darkness into the Light is long and arduous, for where there is darkness the path cannot clearly be seen.

“ In order that there might be experience there had to be shadow, against which the' Light might be perceived, the imperfection that would show Perfection as it really is. For in Perfection there can be no experience. You could not perceive your sunlight were there no shadows, no daylight unless there were specks of dust in your atmosphere. Let us then say that in the dim past, before time was, this pristine race expressed too strongly their creative urge and sought too eagerly to obtain knowledge which they were not able to control. Thus through aeons of time they became introspective rather than expansive. Until there came a time when self-will overshadowed their inherent innocence and they fell out of the sight of God. That is the parable, you must be content with that. But the dreary history of Man is not that of an experiment that failed, never think that. As a bird in flight stoops to drink of the waters so did man stoop too swiftly to drink of the waters of experience. You are all part of one whole; without the inclusion of the least reputable of Human beings Heaven would be incomplete. Can you accept that?”

I thought for a while before I answered. Then I asked: “ But why could we not have been told all this before?”

“ Nothing has ever been denied or hidden from you. The Sun is always shining though at times in your winter you feel that it has gone from you for ever, you see only clouds. The Truth has always been available to Man but for his own good, when he was in the Dark Ages of his experience, it was obscured in myth and symbol that he might not use it to his own destruction. Your books of Genesis and Revelation are examples; when you are ready to comprehend their meanings you will find understanding of them.

“ But now Man's spiritual nature is in the ascendant through the terrible sufferings of the past fifty years. A great deal has been happening behind the scenes of his renascence. Think how the so-called backward countries of your world have increased in intelligent understanding through the last decade or so, it is out of all knowledge of what they were. You will say that it is because of the triumphs of Science, yes indeed, but who allowed that scientific knowledge to percolate through into the world? You know that cosmic rays are constantly pouring forth into your world. Does not Revelation say: “I will pour forth My Spirit upon all flesh?” And you know what the promised result would be? Intense disturbance, great fear and insecurity, and seeming great loss, but in reality great gain. That is your situation today. The Light is penetrating into the darkness in Men's minds and driving it out into expression so that it might be transmuted and destroyed. It had to be. God is indeed intervening in the affairs of men, fulfilling the work begun by His manifestation in the Son of Man two thousand years ago.

“ Yet the conflicts in your world are as nothing to those in the realms contiguous to it, those dark realms where you send your evil doers in terrible procession. You are sadly mistaken if you imagine that death puts paid to a life of selfish and evil deeds. Yet the soul of the most intransigent rogue is as precious to the Father as any other. And most of your upheavals are but reflections of greater ones occurring in the unseen realms of darkness where the Light has such terrible effects.”

“ But it all seems so unjust,” I burst out, “ so many innocent people having to suffer with the guilty!”

Zerros thought for a moment before he replied. “I know there are some who think that those who suffer are paying for the misdeeds of a former life. To some extent that is true but you would be greatly mistaken if you were complacent about it. The whole concept is incomprehensible as long as you regard the person as an individual, existing alone. Only when you ponder over the universality of mankind, regarding yourself as well as all others, as having no separate existence, no possibility of living by yourself, can you begin to find justice in what seems to be so unjust.

If you sin you drag the whole of Humanity down with you, if you achieve a spiritual triumph you uplift the whole of Humanity by that extent. God cannot save you by yourself, He can only save the whole of Humanity, with not one missing. And suffering is inseparable from redemption. Moreover there is a law of compensation by which those who give themselves into the arms of remedial suffering achieve a greatness not obtainable by any other comparable means. There can be no injustice in Perfection, and the Father IS Perfection!

“ Do not lose heart, all is in perfect order, you can only delay the ultimate consummation in time, not in eternity. And God's patience is surely not endless. So you must not regard yourselves as pawns in a titanic game, or the victims of a blind evolutionary process. The end is sure and benign in the eyes of the Heavenly Father who could not possibly connive at chaos without meaning. Try and forget the present and take the long view I have tried to show you, the rescue of the whole of Humanity rather than a select few. Many many thousands are working behind the scenes in the world of spirit around you, working against the defiance of Mankind exercised through its free will, but with all the power of Omnipotence behind them. Take comfort from that thought. It is this long slow climb back to nobility of mind that has puzzled your anthropologists and made it difficult for them to see beyond the physical.

“ Those who took part in that spiritual rebellion were so driven out of the 'Sight of God' that they could no longer live in terms of Spirit and were thrown back upon their own inadequate resources. They fell into darkness and were given this supreme mercy of forgetfulness in Human incarnation, albeit the only bodies which could sustain them were of necessity crude and unintelligent. These were the indigenous inhabitants of the Earth, brute man, whom your Genesis describes poetically as the 'Daughters of Men,' while to the lovely beings in the Garden Beautiful who descended to their aid, it gives the name of 'Sons of God.' Thus there were two races upon the Earth at the same time, one ascending out of the pit of darkness on a redemptive are, and the other descending upon the evolutionary are, a spiritual are, and offering themselves for the task of helping their fallen brethren. Both races belonged to the spiritual conception which you call Man.

“ The fallen race, which postulated a fallen world, were not evolved from the Animal Kingdom, as some assert. The four kingdoms are linked in spiritual reality but not in physical expression, they did not evolve out of each other on the Earth. To evolve a Human being through association with an animal would be a poisonous mating and against Natural Law, as I shall try to show you in due course.”

Once again the time had come for Zerros to depart, always a moment of sadness to me. For I had come to love this great soul who was doing so much to illumine my understanding of spiritual matters. There was a bond between us that made it easy for him to express meanings to me that might otherwise have been obscure. With that smile of intimate sincerity that endeared him to me he began to fade away from my sight, back to that wonderful realm where he had his real being.

CHAPTER 6

THE FALL OF MAN

On a subsequent occasion Zerros continued his discourse.

“ That which your ancient records refer to as the Fall of Man was quite different from the Primal Fall. The latter took place in eternity, in spiritual realms, the Fall of Man was a continuation of that process and took place in 'time,' in other words within the dimensional world of time and space, when the defiant ones were not in the pristine nakedness of Spirit but clothed in dense bodies. Thus the harm done to them by their continued defection was not so deep or severe as that which hurled their spiritual being from the sight and guidance of the Spirit of God.

“You will recall the symbolism of your Biblical teaching, how the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men that they were fair. And how they intermarried. It means that the Adamic Race descended to the surface of the Earth through incarnation and for many centuries aided the fallen race. But as time went on they became infected with some of what you call 'original sin,' that dark stain which had perverted the souls of the sinful race, although while incarnate they were not conscious of it. Yet it seeped through their physical minds and infected all with whom they came in contact. It had to be, this wonderful sacrifice made by the Adamic Race implied that they must face and endure this infection, for it was the only way in which free will could be transcended and guided in the right direction. Where evil is impregnated within the soul the only way in which it can be got rid of is by some process of externalisation so that it may be recognised and overcome. Where you have poison in a limb you have to draw it out so that it may be destroyed.

“ But not only did the Adamic Race descend upon the Earth, as the aeons of time went on, but their whole environment fell with them. The Garden Beautiful literally melted from the stratosphere and rained down upon the cooling surface of the Earth. You must understand that in the early stages both the fallen race and the Adamic Race held bodies that in your understanding would be termed ethereal in nature, for the world was still far too hot and humid to permit of oxygen breathing processes. It was during this period that the perverted Animal Kingdom began its slow laborious processes of evolution from primeval slime. The chemicals which, in their finest expression, formed the material from which the Garden Beautiful was constructed, were those which you associate with water, hydrogen and oxygen, plus other ethers which you do not yet know. As the Garden form broke up these two chemicals were precipitated upon the heated Earth in the form of water, and this formed the primeval mists of which your records speak, the water meeting the molten soil and rising in hissing streams into the air. In a similar way your oxygenated atmosphere took form. It was much much later that the bodies of the indigenous inhabitants crystallised into Human flesh, yet they were already in existence upon this globe which was to form their terrestrial habitat through so many centuries of broken history.

“ In the early stages of physical existence the Earth was still subject to violent adjustment of its surface as the crust cooled, so that there were many and frequent earthquakes with resultant floods and subsidences. It was not strange that with all this chaotic expression of natural events together with the inherent perversion in the people the Adamic Race had come to help, they too should be overcome by this novel and difficult experience. So it was that the Garden Beautiful ceased to be expressed in form, yet its pattern, or reality, still exists, up there in the stratosphere, on a spiritual wavelength, waiting like the Sleeping Princess for the awakening kiss of the Prince of Peace, when once more it shall awaken to its real destiny and be the habitation of a rescued race of people.

“The first point of focus upon which the two races met and fused upon the Earth proper was the vast continent which existed under the collective names of Lemuria and Atlantis.” The very mention of these fabled continents aroused by instant attention, for I have always been interested in the famous story.

“As the two races crystallised into Human form more as you know it,” Zerros went on, “ there was an interchange of character, degenerative to the Adamic people, and evolutionary to the indigenous people. The fallen race killed animals for their food and subsisted entirely upon flesh and roots. The Adamic beings for a long time subsisted on the fruits of the earth and their special capacity to draw in etheric sustenance from the clear atmosphere. But in time this capacity faded and as intermarriage increased they too had recourse to animal foods and thus coarsened the fabric of their bodies, causing a further indrawing of the perversion of the fallen people through the poisoning of the bloodstream.

“ It is interesting to compare the symbology of your story in Genesis with what actually happened. You have seen how the procreative system was established in the Garden Beautiful, with all its beauty of expression. Compare this with your symbolic fable of the birth of Eve through Adam's side. But as crystallisation of the physical body set in, this method could no longer hold good and childbirth took much the same form as you know, through labour and danger.

“No longer were newcomers born as adults but perforce had to take infant form, in the initial stages being born as twins. I have told you of the parturition of the sexes on Human incarnation, well this is the point at which it became necessary. It must have been an agonising experience for the souls concerned, to be split in twain, as it were, only half of their corporate being. Yet it had to be, not only because of the system of birth into flesh but to inculcate that divine urge for reunion that was to form the life-line back into pristine state. The birth of twins meant that the separation was not wholly complete and the two halves, the masculine and the feminine principle of the whole being, were enabled to remain in contiguous existence for a varying period. But as life coarsened and the experience deepened, this merciful provision had to be withdrawn and single births became the general rule. When you reckon on the impure and difficult nature of human existence, with its proximity of good and evil, the one rubbing shoulders with the other, you can see how impossible it would have been for the complete soul, naked in all its glorious innocence, to hold and retain a physical body, with all its inherent impurities and its often terrible environment. It would have fled the body in horror. But in its bifurcation it was bereft of much of its spiritual memory of what it really was, and thus was armoured against this harsh experience.

“So each must seek the other through the endless arches of the years, unwittingly providing the urge for reunion which is that urge to regain the heights that is the ultimate destiny of all. When each severed half of one soul has learned the great lesson of Creation, to love the Creator and the Creation, which includes every living soul, then they will be ready for that divine consummation at the glory and wonder of which you can only guess. But you must not think that this divine drama of affinities was in the nature of a punishment, for Perfect Love cannot punish. It was imposed by necessity, not in the divine Plan at all. Spiritually bereft, man longs for his lost soul-mate, part of himself, but having 'drunk of the waters of Lethe,' he remembers not the real facts and so seeks union with the woman of his choice, and too often with any woman.

“You must not assume that there is any disloyalty in a man and a maid falling in love and marrying; it does not mean that they are soul-mates reunited, though that sometimes happens. For the reunion of the soul is something far far above what you call sex. And even though soul-mates may meet in incarnation during their search for Truth, they can never taste of the reality of their reunion until they have achieved that breadth of understanding wherein they could not love each other did they not love all others as themselves! Ponder that thought for it means much; if you lift the whole conception into the supreme Love of God, you will not find it so difficult to grasp. Heaven is not a Paradise for honeymoon couples! There, all is Unity, all is Perfection, all is Love! In such a conception you could not visualise a possessive love, any sort of division or separateness, any contrast. Yet in it there could be nothing static, all is a melting glory, ever fresh, ever new. But then that is something a finite mind could not possibly encompass. That is for the future.”

For a while there was silence as I pondered over the endless avenues of conjecture that opened out from this presentation of so difficult a concept. Tactfully Zerros too remained silent, his thoughts invading my mind with an illumination to light up the dark comers.

At length he spoke again. “Since that time man has never ceased to war against himself, against his environment and most of all against his neighbour. Civilisations rose and fell, often it seemed as if nothing had been accomplished, yet retrospectively it is clear that each time all that was valuable was carried forward, if not in this world then in the contiguous spiritual realms, where lived those who had tasted of human existence and profited by its lessons. Nothing is ever lost under divine planning.

“As the process of incarnation of sin-tainted souls went on, so was the evil flocculence, accumulated in those darkened realms, allowed to manifest through them, and thus was the infection gradually lessened. Through the Human body, through its processes of gestation, through its manner of excretion, was this evil accumulation given exit into the bosom of Mother-Earth, there to undergo the rectifying process into its constituent elements, a process with which you must be familiar.

“ Within the recesses of every Human soul the Light of Love burnt on, none was ever bereft. Stagnation was obviated by the divine urge that wrestled with every fainting heart, till the restless soul reached out again and again, to overcome, to conquer, to achieve that which seemed ever beyond its reach. Such was the Mercy of God.

“ Many many times has the Fall of Man been repeated in the ages that lie between. But the key to progress in this world of overcoming is to strive, to, fall, to rise again. It is better to put a foot wrong than never to put it anywhere at all. Man must fall in this difficult world, the point is that he rise again and profit through experience. Man rises on the wings of pain!

“ But do not despair my friend, man has come a long way since those primeval days, rising out of all consciousness of what he was. And if it seems to you that the darkness is deeper than ever before, remember that with God all things work together for good. The dreadful tale of your own era is but the final working out into manifestation of the remaining evil that forms the anchor holding you back from a true knowledge of the glories that await you. Already that evil is being recognised for what it is, an inhibition of the mind, and being recognised it is already losing much of its strength for no longer do the majority believe in it, they are learning that it is something that can be destroyed and dissipated. With each passing day evil means less and less in the final analysis, and with that consummation there will remain only the need for eager minds to learn the truth of their own reality. Then .... the Kingdom comes!”

Such a dazzling prospect must have left me in a dream of conjecture, for when I came to myself Zerros had gone, and only the aureole of his presence remained to comfort me in my loneliness.

CHAPTER 7

THE CRUST HARDENS

So far my visitor from other realms had shown me how intelligent life had descended into a near-physical existence on the Earth. Now he was promising me that I should see something of this primeval life.

The Earth has never been without intelligent life in charge of its progress. Always there was the throng of angelic and elemental beings weaving divine purpose into its cooling fabric, while ever and anon members of the Adamic Race would flash downward to make some imprint of their own lovely world upon its surface.

Over measureless periods of time the Mineral, Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms responded to the Divine touch, expressing something of their own beauty even through the distortion engendered by contact with the dark environment in which eager but fallen souls were waiting their chance to seek easement through incarnation into this new world. When we consider our dual descent from these widely differing races of beings, the darkened souls of the indigenous inhabitants and the splendid beauty of the Adamic Race, we can recognise the origin of the dual characteristics in ourselves, our basic lower self, the natural man, and the higher self, the nobility that too rarely shines out through adversity. There is constant struggle between the two, the one belongs to the Earth and seeks union with it, the other belongs to Spirit and ever strives for reunion with Spirit. The one lives by instinct, the other through inspiration. Between the two poles man lives and learns and progresses, suffering endless tension, yet in the main tending always upward.

As the Earth's crust hardened it became more objective and at this point Zerros was able to take me once more to see a world in the making. Changes that must have been slow, and mutations that must have covered endless generations, were swift and kaleidoscopic to us through our numerous visits over great periods of evolution. And I was able to see how, through endless cycles of birth, life and death, the evil miasma inherent in the lower Astral realms was being manifested into physical form and passed harmlessly into the soil, there to be transmuted. And it was borne in upon me that the compassionate Love of the Cosmic Christ was woven into every atom of this assembly, enshrining all in divine purpose. It became clear to me that such a sorry manifestation of living space could never have been the intention of Perfect Love but was rendered necessary by the defection of Spiritual Man. Though there was much beauty and wonder in this new-born world there was nothing to compare with the pristine beauty and ethereal charm of the Garden Beautiful. Yet because the Living Christ invested it I knew that in terms of eternity, if not in time, the days of its shame were numbered and its redemption certain.

“All is ordained in Love,” observed Zerros as he summed up his description of this primal epoch. “How could it be otherwise when a God of Love, to whom nothing is unknown and who forgets nothing, is the reality behind it all? To postulate that this grand vista of divine redemption is the process of a blind evolution is only to epitomize the narrow viewpoint of the purely intellectual outlook, based upon material values. Your able scientists demand proof, but here the proof lies in another dimension. And when you consider how the very nature and density of matter has changed since those far off days, how could any proof remain through the aeons of change and crystallisation of every constituent in your world?

“This rescue of a fallen race is a gargantuan one, beyond all knowledge. The whole Earth is invested with the Love of God, and as long as Man recognises it and strives to live in its light so long does he achieve peace of mind and sure progress. But where he opposes it with his free will Love ceases to be a warmth and becomes a Consuming Fire which burns him and causes suffering, not merely to the individual but to Humanity as a whole. But in the end nothing can stand against the all-powerful Love of God, so stupendous a Power that if it were not veiled it would burn up the planet upon the instant.

“Even when Man gains some small knowledge of these immense cosmic forces and turns them to ignoble use, thus perverting their natural characteristics, Love steps in, passing through the Prism of the Cosmic Christ, to overturn and rebuild. Small wonder that suffering ensues. Can you not see how God only seems to be careless of His Creation? It is only your lack of understanding of what is being done; the Plan is so much vaster than you can conceive, it is not tied to incidentals. Evil is eternally being righted, the world itself is being lifted in vibration, little by little, so that with each generation it is more than it was.”

Many times Zerros and I wandered through these uneasy swamps and in spite of the embryonic nature of all that we saw we could not help sensing the 'goodness' that seemed to pervade it all. The breath of Divine understanding and goodly purpose seemed to integrate and leaven the plastic soil in a way that could never be in our own day. In the splendour of a dawn, in the soft glow of a sunset, or in the ethereal beauty of the growing vegetation even in the rumble of an earthquake or the crash of a storm, one could sense a Presence, a radiant manifestation of Life, hidden only by the façade of matter. It has all gone now, for the crust has hardened and the senses of Man have become veiled beyond the vibrations at which such divinity could be perceived. The very atmosphere has condensed until its opacity distorts Human vision to the realities that lie beyond it. Only in some unfrequented spot, some high mountain top or the seabed momentarily uncovered by the falling tide, can that elusive sensation of extreme purity be regained, when you know what it is to hold all creation in your arms, and to feel the Arms of the Creator about you.

Back in my study I questioned Zerros about the relationship of the Human body to the Anthropoid Apes, upon the evidences of which so much reliance is placed by those who postulate a blind evolution.

Zerros sat for a while in deep thought. “That takes us into rather deep water,” he observed. “Your researchers hold that man consists of a body, brain and growing intelligence, derived purely from mutational evolution. And they admit that there are great gaps in their theses which they are unable to bridge; they look to find these in the future. But there is no missing link in the physical sense, they will never find it on that level. The fusion of Human and Animal flesh is against Spiritual Law, such unions could only produce a perverted species which could not be ensouled. Never did Man assume form of an animal nature through procreation.

“You will recollect that we left the erring beings who fell from Grace, confined within the density of the Lower Astral plane which surrounds your Earth, waiting for a chance to incarnate. You will understand that these beings still retained a memory of the great creative powers they had once possessed, terrible powers if used wrongly. For they had once wielded forces beside which your atomic fission is but a toy. So their very intelligence had to be veiled while they were incarnate.

“The manner of Creation, wherever it is met, can be seen to be in the form of patterns. The galaxies, the stars, every manifestation of life on your planet, presents itself in patterns. The seeding of a tree, Human generation through heredity, all is done by patterns. And these divine patterns have their real blue-prints in a dimension beyond your ken. An ape is born, like all else, from its own pattern, which may change according to environment but always remains a pattern, and it was from this undimensional pattern that the original form of Man was created, because it was the most suited to the purpose. When the form had reached a suitable stage the darkened souls were permitted to incarnate in these bodies. They were not brute animal forms but to your present understanding they were almost ethereal, quite unsubstantial, and it was only through aeons of time that they followed the trend of the Earth and became solid flesh. But of necessity they were of a very low degree of what you would recognise as intelligence.

“As these creatures progressed and became more and more fleshly, the inherent urges that filled their soul being began to manifest, urges made all the more rending by the sex separation I have already described. Prompted by the tremendous desire-force in them some of the males sought union with the anthropoids, which only now, long after the Humans, were reaching a state of physical evolution. And because there was an affinity between the two, in the pattern, monstrous creatures were born of the union. These could not be ensouled and soon died out. Thus there are evidences of ape-men, the remains of which have been discovered and have led to false conclusions. Has it not struck you how few of these there are? The bodies of the primitive men and women were not yet of such a coarseness that their remains could endure so long and so none have been found.

“It is of great importance that you should try and realise the truth of what I am trying to impart. For there is no concept so destructive to the idea of benign Godhead than this terrible thought that a God of Love has experimented with Humanity, dragging Man up through endless centuries of suffering, privation and frustration, amid a Nature which is hostile and destructive.

“I fear that you may find it difficult to make all this sound convincing in your narrative. The difficulty arises because tradition looks for concrete beginnings to Human evolution, whereas the beginning, if you can use such a word in relation to the infinite, rests upon spiritual factors. There was a mergence of the spiritual into the physical, not only of Man but of his whole environment, the descent of an infinite concept into a finite. At no point could you say that the spiritual ended and the material began. But at least you can say this, that in the cold, rational theories of evolution there can be no sort of meaning at all, while in the real story of the Earth meaning shines out with the promise, nay the certainty, of a glorious fulfilment. It is for this reason that you have to live, at present, largely by faith.”

I promised Zerros that I would ponder the whole subject before committing myself to paper. I realised then, as I still do, that Truth must be allowed to speak for itself, we cannot hope to defend it by theoretical argument. But I am convinced that there is something within us that will respond to truths which cannot be couched in words.

Time and time again, during our visits through time and space, and also as a cardinal point in his discourses, Zerros reiterated the need to recall the universality of Man which he held to be the key to understanding. “As long,” he said, “ as you hold that Man is an isolated individual, responsible only for his own integrity and capable of achieving the ultimate aim of his existence by his own efforts, so long must you flounder in a muddy sea of conjecture. But once you can instill into your consciousness that Mankind is a homogenous whole then many problems are resolved. It is natural that man should cling unduly to his personality, that he should identify himself too much with his physical being, but neither of these is immortal. The personality can change in a single lifetime, through an operation or through some deep emotional experience. Your personality is not what it was when you were a child. The fruits of experience are found in the personality, but the goodness of those fruits, or otherwise, is absorbed by what you could better term the individuality, a much more permanent attribute of the spirit. The personality may not long survive the dissolution of the body, but the individuality of the spirit goes on and on.

“This idea of unity in diversity is the principle of Creation, for after all, if God created all there is, every diverse manifestation of that creation can be traced back to the one Source. A grain of sand is but a concourse of atoms, vibrant with the Creator's Life, manifested for a purpose, the same Life which is your life! But you must not think that thereby you will someday lose your identity and be swallowed up in the primal Essence. There can be no ending of the essential 'you', for there are no such limitations in eternal Life. But as you progress you will learn so to surrender your free will to the Will of God through the utter longing of your whole being to be part of Him, that any idea of separation would be anathema to you. That is the best I can do to present the infinite in finite terms. But it is very important to try and encompass the idea with your understanding.”

I should like to describe what we saw of these early men, though that too is difficult. In the still slightly ethereal environment in which they found themselves they seemed solid enough, but they bore little resemblance to the more backward races we know today. They were enormous in stature and hirsute in appearance, and they wore a puzzled, vacant stare as if they found their surroundings difficult to comprehend. They lived mainly on fruits and roots, not yet having learned to hunt animals for food.

They were as far separated from any idea of divine creation as an empty shell is from a living crustacean. Clearly the greater part of their intelligence was in a state of torpor, they wandered about like lost souls. It was hard to believe that these poor creatures had once been glorious spiritual beings with incredible powers of creation. Such was the extent of their fall and such was the mercy of their Creator that they were given this comparatively easy way out of the pit into which they had fallen.

Once more Zerros emphasised how in their fall from high estate, they had brought with them the terrible odour of perversion which had its baleful effect upon any environment in which they found themselves. But their lack of intelligence prevented them from manifesting it except unconsciously, through the natural functions of their crude bodies, with the co-operation of the elemental beings in the soil upon which they had their being, absorbing, transmuting, rectifying the chemical perversion which had been wrongly assembled.

So, with infinite slowness, through endless generations during which these souls incarnated again and again, the upward climb began, as they were in some measure freed from the clinging miasma of their erstwhile sin. The urges engendered by the bifurcation of their souls strengthened the need to overcome their harsh environment, filling them with spiritual vitality as they became accustomed to their surroundings. The males fought and conquered a nature biased against them, while the females brought forth young in labour and pain. Together they learned the rudiments of family responsibility through the proddings of instinct. And between the two sexes there flashed the first gleams of human passion, the same pristine love they had once known but dragged down to the level on which they were now forced to live.

“While all this was happening,” Zerros explained, “the Adamic Race was already beginning its errand of mercy, descending into incarnate life, but not yet of it, manifesting in forms not visible to the fallen race. With their superior intelligence they were able to lift the thoughts of the fallen ones and inspire them with something above the purely material. These were not yet capable of faith, but they could respond to its opposite, superstition, the other side of the penny, as it were. So gradually they became aware of a power outside of themselves, a factor enhanced by the terrestrial upheavals which still shook the cooling crust of Earth. And so began the system of worship, which has never been entirely lost through the ages. Naturally its early form was crude and inspired by fear, taking the form of propitiation. In time it crystallised into organised religion; the visiting entities, which later on became actually visible to them, were given names and attributes, and thus was born the pantheon of gods which illumine the mists of mythology, whose antics, pictured by contemporary minds, have so often amused later generations.

“Presently a desire to capture and possess such contacts, which made a great appeal to the dim understanding of these people, led them to erect stone cairns and monoliths at the places where these visitors were accustomed to manifest. In this way, it was felt, the entity could be worshipped whether actually visible or not. These were gradually enlarged and decorated, and given shelter from the elements, and thus the idea of church or temple grew.

“And all this time the process of passing through the defilement which was the cause of their situation, went on, entering the soil and being dissipated there. Who is to say whether they might not have attained their goal without further aid, but evidently divine prescience knew that the process could be speeded by the introduction of a fresh and undefiled race of beings, providing a new test of their spiritual strength, far greater than their struggles against natural forces, and without which they might have lost hope and stagnated into inertia. For they were destined to meet and merge with the Adamic Race which was already incarnating into Human bodies, though infinitely superior to those inhabited by the indigenous people of the Earth. Already the Garden Beautiful was melting its environment on to the surface proper, perhaps because its pristine elegance had also been invaded by the perversion that was evident in the hardened crust below.”

It was becoming clear to me that there must be something very wonderful about Man, for the Creator could so easily have destroyed this rebellious section of Spiritual Man and allowed the remainder to grow in His purpose and design unhindered by this defection. There must be something in man which even He could not destroy, because it was part of Himself. And because He was Love itself He could only go on loving that which had sought relief in the illusory fastnesses of its own mentality. There could be no reality in the material life these people encountered, because it was so much less than 'good,' so out of touch with Divine creative beauty. So was born in me the conviction that Man is a spiritual being in reality, the only part of him that really matters, that really is immortal, that never began and could never end. And the sense life he leads is so ineffectual because it has no real meaning beyond being a stepping stone to a life beyond his imagination. And as he rises to this understanding so must his environment rise too, for it has fallen into materiality only to match his own fallen nature, held in that state only by the merciful Will of a Creator who cannot fail and whose Love will not let him go.

I cannot resist a sigh of peace and happiness at this revelation of the purpose of the Earth's destiny. How petty and transient all its material problems become when one views the prospect from this wide perspective! How Infinite the Love of the Father, while the measureless descent of the fallen race can be made the yardstick of the extent to which Man, and his environment, can and must rise. Above all the terrible thought of Divine injustice which clogs the understanding of so many seekers after Truth, was utterly annihilated. I began to see the Creator in a new light, one that was almost frightening in its immeasurable intensity.

All this and much more Zerros explained to me, emphasising the main features by actual visits to these primeval scenes. One vivid experience I call to mind. We were standing on a rocky headland looking out over a vast forest of strange, fernlike trees, immensely high. There is something rather peculiar and terrifying about primeval life. One is so close to raw nature and primitive instincts, and we found a very definite aroma of - what shall I call it? - evil intelligence? - in the atmosphere. It might have been the dark undergrowth with its hints of forbidden things, but I had an unmistakable feeling that in this seemingly peaceful scene evil lurked, I was sure of it. Zerros told me that it was because I was sensitive to the perverted creative forces which had to be employed to produce a living space in which perverted Humanity might seek its release.

Suddenly we were startled by a low vibrant murmur. It seemed to come from the air as if a great fleet of menacing bombers was approaching. We looked up expectantly as the sound increased. The harsh vibrations grew to a rhythmic roar and a moment later, over the tops of the trees, came an enormous aerial reptile; I simply could not call it a bird. As it threshed its horrid way towards us I could see it was colossal in size. It had a scaly body which shone with a sickening sort of oily iridescence, its feet hung down terminating in huge talons, while its yawning beak displayed rows of vicious teeth. Clearly a carnivorous beast.

The monstrous head yawed this way and that, as if seeking for prey; there was nothing of animal grace in any of its movements. For one ghastly moment it seemed as if our eyes met, its baleful gaze, cold and hateful, caught and held my fascinated stare. There was something utterly cruel and malignant behind those soulless eyes, it was evil incarnate, and the beast carried with it the stench of putrefaction. The thing passed above us and threshed its ponderous way onwards towards the horizon, uttering tremendous croaks that echoed over the forest. I turned and faced Zerros, horror in my eyes.

His face held a look of infinite compassion as he answered my unspoken query. “That creature was not deliberately created by God. But because of the wholesale perversion of the Earthly environment by the sinful souls imprisoned in its astral surround, every attempt to create In terms of perfection was of necessity frustrated. The evil flocculence had to be got rid of through physical means, that was the only way. That is why the early animal life and vegetation was monstrous in size and a denial of the Goodness of God. It had its purpose and fulfilled it, by passing much of this evil vibration through into the rectifying processes of the earth. As these animals lived and died they deposited in the soil their excrement and in the end, their bodies. The very chemicals of the soil were planned by Omniscient Mind for just this purpose, that they might purify and reconstitute all the poisonous matter consigned to their operations. In this the tiny bacterial life played its part. Do you not see that even in your day when you putrefying matter to the soil in the form of manure, in a short time it is rendered wholesome and fit to speed the growth of your food. Do not judge these animals for they also served their God.”

CHAPTER 8

LEMURIA

Many attempts have been made to establish the locality and proofs of the existence of this fabled continent, said to have been situated in the Pacific, but with little impact on scientific beliefs and geological evidences. The fact is that Lemuria, more than any other part of the Earth's crust, had an existence more in the ethereal than in the physical. Zerros had tried to explain to me how the Garden Beautiful literally melted into a physical condition, a whole realm descending into material constituency.

I am fully aware how difficult many must find this to accept, especially if they have any idea of geological formations and prehistoric events. We must just accept that unacceptability as evidence of how far we are from any real understanding of our true nature and that of the seemingly solid world in which we live. Our knowledge of the atomic theory has done much to explode our medieval notions of the nature of matter, but tradition and inhibited ideas die hard.

In Lemuria we have to deal with an admixture of races, where the ascending race was making rapid progress along material lines, and the descent to their rescue of the Adamic Race which was already coming under the dark spell of a people whose intellect was growing sufficiently to enable some memory of their past to invade their consciousness, bringing with it age-old desires for experiment, for conquest, for some expression of the great powers they once possessed. The task of the Adamic ones was to lift this consciousness as far above the mundane as possible so as to prevent the returning knowledge from being put to evil uses. This they did educationally and by the example they demonstrated to the inferior race. To these the shining ones from a spiritual world must have seemed as the saints do to us in our day. For not only were they beautiful by contrast but they held their clairvoyant powers and their innate wisdom. Some of them became priest-kings, holding great respect and great power over the darker peoples. Thus the embryonic minds grew towards intellectuality, and became subject to reason rather than instinct. It was from this land that the legend of the 'Third Eye' emanated, and in primordial carvings of gods and goddesses this organ is often depicted, located in the centre of the forehead. It was never biologically visible, being present only in the etheric body of an advanced soul.

But the progress was not constant or always upward. The symbolism of sacrifice often degenerated into blood sacrifice. The initial idea was that of the liberation of the spirit from the flesh, but the value of the offering soon took greater place in the minds of the celebrants than the mystical meaning. There is a deep psychic significance in the shedding of blood, lost to our materialistic understanding, which released considerable psychic power in those far-off days. Adepts soon realised this and employed these powers to impress the worshippers, thus gaining much power over them. Till finally, through a terrible perversion of the law of love, they found that by sacrifice of their most treasured possession, the eldest son, immense effects were produced.

I had many glimpses of this rapidly developing race, increasing in numbers due to the steady rise in the standard of living. It is not easy to recall what I saw of this people nor of the earlier races, because of the somewhat ethereal nature of matter as then manifested. The world was still not quite physical in relation to our rate of vibration and so were the bodies of the people a little out of focus to my vision. It was because of the wholesale destruction of this continent by volcanic disturbance and subsidence that so little evidence remains of its erstwhile existence, though many feel that Easter Island holds the secret of its later culture. For the rest we have to rely upon myth and legend and certain geological characteristics for any proofs of its locality.

The giant Lemurians built great cities of lava-like basalt, hewn by their great muscles into slabs beyond the capacity of modern brawn. Yet because it was then not so concrete as now the effort would not be so great. In China and Mongolia there are relics of unbelievable antiquity thought to be associated with these peoples, while the Polynesians are thought to be their direct descendants. In those days everything was proportionately bigger than what we are accustomed to, and the great size of buildings, etc., and the giant forms of vegetation may have given rise to more modern notions that size means greatness.

As the seasons changed the Lemurians responded with appropriate ritual and ceremony, thus marking their growing acknowledgment of divine rhythmic processes of creation. Slowly they were becoming aware of a great Power outside of themselves to which recognition must be given. Generation by generation enlightenment grew as the process of reincarnation enabled the sin—stained souls to seek rehabilitation in the remedial experience of Earthly life.

But as the intelligence of the incarnate souls grew so did the dim memory of their one-time creative knowledge emerge into their consciousness. And some were not slow to put this knowledge to evil use once again. Zerros assured me that this had been foreseen, it could not be helped. The race had to be redeemed even though some strove still to plunge it into fresh disaster. The indications were small at first, the self-confidence of a conqueror leading to overweening desire for power, the psychic powers of the priests giving them immense stranglehold over a superstitious people. Man had fallen through the misuse of his free will and only through his free will could he be brought back to the fold. So the infection had to be allowed to spread, even though it meant ultimate disaster to this particular civilisation. Spiritual beings in charge of this doomed race strove mightily to keep the evil within bounds, but these efforts were as flames to the fires of eager desire. Soon nation fought nation for mastery, tribe fought tribe within the nations, perversion and black alchemy were practised until the situation deteriorated beyond hope. Destruction which man has hitherto achieved in small ratio with gun and bomb, was exceeded many times by these powerful people.

“ In considering the powers exercised by the Lemurians,” Zerros put in, “you have to remember the pliability of matter, unknown to your day. Moreover although these people were not what you would call in a high state of industrial civilisation, nevertheless they had power that you might envy, they had some degree of control over matter, mental control over atomic adhesion to which your materialists would never admit. Can you wonder that this degenerate civilisation had to be destroyed because of the illicit expression of their knowledge, which was filtering back with their dawning intellect?

“ Yet you may be sure that from the divine point of view nothing of value was lost. Millions of incarnations were cut short, but to Deity death is not something to fear, it is release, promotion, a new phase of life and experience. All that was best in that continent was carried forward to a new existence by souls who remained true to their destiny.”

In the end the unhappy land was riven by earthquakes and literally burnt out by volcanic action. Vast masses of land subsided during the lengthy period of this blasting of a continent, until eventually only pitiful remnants of a mighty race remained clinging desperately to mountain tops, which are now numbered among the new lands constituting the archipelagoes between the land masses of Asia and Australia.

Only the more advanced souls were inspired to emigrate and under divine guidance these were led to new countries where it was intended that new light was to be fostered among indigenous inhabitants already forming the rudiments of a new civilisation, one of the most famous in the history of the planet, the fabulous continent of Atlantis.

Thus was consummated another 'Fall of Man.' Already faded from Earthly memory it was a seeming triumph of evil over good, yet quiet reflection shows that it was otherwise in the eyes of a Loving Father. An immense amount of 'original sin' must have been dissipated through the growth and the struggles of the Lemurian peoples and also in the trembling foundations of the erupting soil. Though this might be counted as a set-back if one thinks in terms of time and the incidence of physical death and disruption of family life, in reality there was unbroken progress, for life went on in other realms, the climb was but translated to other spheres of influence. Nothing of enduring value was lost and much of no value at all was destroyed. Thus it happens in the disappearance of all the great civilisations from the broad face of the Earth, destiny plays its part amid the grim enactments and the supreme Love of God ensures that everything works together for good. It is only in our limited understanding that we can see loss in the fall of empires. Such was the lesson to be learned from the rise and fall of that great community, the Land of Lemuria.

CHAPTER 9

ATLANTIS

(“ Those islands of the blest, so far away.”)

So far Zerros had given me glimpses of those two races of Mankind, so divergent in condition and with such a different destiny, the one to rise after a cataclysmic fall, the other to descend on a divine mission of rescue. He now informed me that we were to witness the final mergence of the two races during the famed civilisation of Atlantis.

“ In what we have already seen,” he observed, “ you will have discerned the utter Goodness of what you term God, in His wonderful handling of the battle between the power of Good and the chimera of evil, to which the fallen race had given itself. Yet all was accomplished without ever invading the secure territory of man's free will, his most precious gift from his Creator. For it is within the sanctuary of that free will that the Spirit of God dwells, the Kingdom of God in Man. It is only in separation from God that Man is cut off from his own spirit in some degree, and instead of seeing freedom as the wondrous attribute of Godhead, he sees it as some alluring figment in which God plays no part. He is enmeshed in his own delusions. God's battle is won before ever it is joined, for on the one hand there is Omnipotence and on the other delusion, only the veil of man's self-will is drawn between them. The battle is fought in the dimension of time; undimensionally it has no existence at all. It is as simple as that.

“ It was a delicate operation which was undertaken in Atlantis. The descending race of Adamic peoples had spiritual power and some wisdom, but not great experience. The ascending race had experience latent in them but little spiritual expression. Now the two races were to meet and make an exchange, as it were, of their two attributes, from the one knowledge of how to live in the harsh conditions of incarnate life, and from the other how to express their own spiritual nature in all they experienced.

“ On this vast continent we are about to visit you will find the indigenous inhabitants, led to some extent by emigrants from Lemuria who had brought the fruits of that civilisation with them, and among them there will be the incarnating race from the Adamic realms, the Garden Beautiful. It will not be easy for your understanding to imagine a whole environment being lowered, like a scene in a theatrical production, into contact with a much more material environment, yet such was the case. Of course this transition took millions of years to complete and its manifestation would not have been visible to Human sight; perhaps the manifestation of Human birth would be a good simile for it was not accomplished without labour and was fraught with danger to the Adamic Race.

“ While the inhabitants of the Garden Beautiful were in their natural realm nothing was hid from their eager questing minds, just as nothing had been hid from those spiritual beings who fell from Grace. God hides nothing, but a growing intelligence is not able to assimilate all it encounters, the finite cannot encompass the infinite, yet all is there, awaiting a readiness to understand, a breadth of mind to conceive the undimensional perspective that the Creator employs. Ignorance holds no place in God's purpose but just as your infants cannot absorb what is clear to the maturer students, so the souls which are younger in experience cannot absorb the greater truths. So the instruction has to be given on a lower level, made more simple, and where it is enshrined in love there can be few minds which cannot grasp the fundamentals of spiritual life, just as you have them in your Christian ethics, they are not new, for Truth is ageless.

“ Nevertheless the true Atlanteans, the Adamic people, were accustomed to Fourth-dimensional truths, yet they had to try and lower these into Three-dimensional teaching for the benefit of the worldly minded from the fallen race. The Adamic people were spiritually alert but were not skilled in manual dexterity like their darker neighbours, so it was they who provided the inspiration for the buildings and other forms of cultural expression, while the tribesmen provided the labour, glad to serve these lovely beings who were to them in the nature of gods. Slowly the great civilisation was built up under the aegis of those who had brought with them the memory of their pristine life in the Garden Beautiful. In return the indigenous inhabitants became their servants and tillers of the soil.

“ Just as in the Garden Beautiful celestial visitors used to manifest at the temples and guide the instruction, and these points of spiritual contact became seats of learning in matters long denied to our three-dimensional understanding. Despite their protests images of these visitors were placed in the temples and elsewhere, and became focal points for psychic power, just as in the olden days of Lemuria .

“The Adamic people were a race of astrologers, taking the subject on a far higher and more spiritual level than we do. They knew something of the cosmic rays and inter-planetary influences, and they knew how to blend and control these influences at the right season to benefit the crops. And they had some control over the atomic nature of matter. Some of your priests still bless the crops today, but that is supplication and not control.”

“But,” I put in, “how is it that all record of such powers has been lost, surely some knowledge of such incredible powers would have filtered through?”

“You must remember what immense periods of time we are dealing with. Also there was little writing at that time, except by the gifted few. There was little need for it because a permanent source of knowledge existed in the celestial visitors during their frequent appearances. Imagine that you had an atomic war that was world-wide and destroyed most of your records, and then suppose that twenty thousand years later, when a new kind of civilisation had been built up, that scientists began to unearth the prehistory of your day. What would they find of your knowledge from the fragments of your contemporary history dug up from the ruins? How would they assess the thinking of your day? How much would be ascribed to folklore and legend?

“To you Atlantis is but a lovely memory, most inadequately authenticated. In the most unlikely places in widely separated parts of the world you will find references to it such as the 'land of the blest,' or the 'Golden Age.' And thus it was for it held men and women of great beauty of form and character, radiating divine love in a way that your intellectuals would find unacceptable. It represents the nearest approach to an earthly heaven that it is possible to produce in material form. Yet, as you shall see, even these lovely people had to pay the price of their service, in that they too came to choose self instead of God until in the end they perished in the most degrading infamy the world has ever known. “

By this time I was quite accustomed to the sudden changes in dimension essential to timeless exploration. Accustomed as I was to wondrous visions on opening my eyes I was quite unprepared for the scene that· I surveyed, my first glimpse of the lovely land of Atlantis.

In previous experiences I had encountered that difficulty of focus that I have mentioned. But here, in this lovely landscape, I found a clarity of vision that amazed me. In this gloriously warm sunshine and freshness was surely the land of our dreams, indeed a golden environment. Wide spaces and fertile plains showed how everything had crystallised into a new and sun-washed definition.

We were standing on the slopes of a hill looking out over a plain, which was watered by several rivers. I felt a thrill as I located a number of small villages here and there amid patches of cultivation. I longed to set out and investigate but something held me to this hillside, savouring the warm-scented beauty spread out before us. I felt so good that I told Zerros that I could have here the strength of two men.

He smiled at my enthusiasm. “I am glad you sense the inherent beauty of this land, which God had prepared for his children to live in and learn to know of His Love for them, but alas … However, we will not spoil this first glimpse. Come, let us travel and see more of it.”

With my hand held firmly in his we travelled at our accustomed swift pace over the intervening country until we came to the first of the villages. This was composed of wattle huts of quite a large size, very cleverly made. When I saw my first Atlantean I knew why. He must have been seven or eight feet tall, dark in skin, for he was one of the tribesmen who tilled the land. His skull was low and sloping with a broad projecting chin and he wore a longish beard and hair. His clothing consisted of a loin cloth. He walked erect and with an air of confidence that contrasted well with the uncertain movements of his ancestors. He entered a hut and so we turned to where some children were playing, in the way that children of all ages have played. They at least, I mused, have not changed much. Then we perceived a little group approaching along a track.

First came a man, like the other, of considerable stature, leading an animal harnessed to a sledge. It was something like our llama but larger and coarser. The use of the sledge showed that these people had not yet learned the use of the wheel. Seated on the sledge were two women in bright clothes, surrounded by a number of bundles. The women were dark-skinned like the men but with smaller features and bright eager eyes, one was wearing earrings that might have been of gold, the other held a babe at her breast. Other children played about the sledge, dropping behind and then running to catch up; it was a pleasant domestic scene. Once the man turned his head sharply as if he heard some untoward sound from the adjacent forest and peremptorily called the children to him. Evidently, I thought, this smiling land is not without its stings. The abounding forests must harbour dangerous beasts while no doubt there were poisonous reptiles among the luxuriant vegetation.

Gorgeous plumaged birds there were in plenty while once or twice we heard deep snarling sounds from the depths of the forest but we did not see any beasts. As we moved on swiftly over hill and dale the forest land gradually gave way to open grassland, with frequent patches of cultivation. Then presently, with a thrill, I caught the glint of sunshine sparkling with reflected glory from some buildings on the horizon. These I soon found came from the domes and minarets of a city and Zerros intimated that here was indeed none other than the famous City of the Golden Gates, that dreamlike city that has graced a thousand tales and legends.

This prehistoric city, enshrined in the mists of antiquity, has lived so long in our unconscious memory that it still influences our dreams of a Golden Age when men knew not war and lived in harmony with their surroundings. Poets wrote of it and singers clothed it with a desperate longing, an age when Love ruled. It still dwells in the background of our ideals, colouring our pageantry, the pattern of our castles in the air, our dreams of Utopia.

I looked eagerly for the three legendary peaks, yes, there they were, behind the city, the centre one crowned with a temple that seemed to be of solid gold. Its domes were covered with gold leaf shining with that unmistakable reddish tint that betokens the precious metal. The walls were of a pinkish stone that served to enhance the glory of the glittering roofs.

Down from the centre hill cascaded clear waters from some hidden spring at the summit and, as I afterwards discovered, these served to feed a system of canals that provided traffic routes for the city. We stopped on the lower slopes of this hill and I saw that the city was divided into districts by these canals which encircled it three times before being drawn off by a channel to the sea. In the centre were the larger buildings, probably minor temples and offices of importance, while in the next area were residential quarters. Beyond the second circuit of the canal system were obviously business houses, for here were many barges of rough timber tied up to wharves. Beyond again were small huts or shacks in which no doubt the tribesmen who served the city, lived with their families.

After a while we descended into the city, entering it by one of the immense golden gates of legendary fame, only at this period they were only gateways; the need for the protection of gates had not yet arisen. As we passed through the gateway we were faced with a magnificent vista of a broad avenue that indicated a high degree of civic planning. This then was the great capital of Atlantis, that in some form or another was to last many thousands of years, with a long and chequered history. As we traversed the city I saw no signs of mean side streets or dark alleys that hover behind the fair avenues of our modern cities. Though there was wide contrast of palace and humble dwelling it was clear that there was no intolerable division of rich consequence and utter degradation with which we are so hauntingly familiar.

It was high noon when we entered the avenue and probably the hour of siesta for there were few people about. But some were obviously of the Adamic Race. These were fine in the extreme, in strong contrast to the tribesmen, their clear white skin unmarked by strain or labour. Their eyes were blue and of a piercing keenness as if to indicate the intelligence and strange powers of their owners. Most were dressed in gay colours in draped robes. Naturally we had no means of intercourse with any of these people nor they any knowledge of our presence, we were separated by an immense dimension of time.

In expansive mood, as if he were enjoying a return to a scene he had once known, Zerros seated himself on a stone bench beside the road in the shade of a large tree, and I joined him. At our feet strutted pigeons, for all the world as if they had alighted there from Trafalgar Square. “You see,” he said, gazing unseeingly at the pigeons, “this descending race had to leave behind much of the glory of their real being when they descended from the Garden Beautiful. What you see of them here gives no idea of their erstwhile beauty or culture. And you must not blame either of the two races for the fall of this wonderful civilisation, it had to be, for the good of mankind as a whole. It was a difficult situation, and fraught with danger as the lower race began to evolve.”

“ How did they worship at this time?” I asked.

“ The Sun was always the focus of worship on Atlantis; through the visible glory of the Sun the people, especially the tribesmen, were able to visualise the Supernal Glory of that which they could not see. They could feel the warmth of Spirit through the rays that vitalised their bodies, for here, you understand, the atmosphere was not yet vitiated by evil emanation as it became in later times. The Adamic people gave to the fallen race the message of love that was inherent in them from their own Eden, they taught of the love and beauty that they knew, of their unity of being and of the Father-Mother God whom they revered. And they demonstrated their psychic powers with an adept manipulation which the tribesmen regarded as magic. On the other hand the tribesmen had something to offer the superior race, they had experience of good and evil, right and wrong, bought dearly through close contact, an experience of some value to beings who had known only the good, with no contrast to show the difference.”

Our conversation was broken by a disturbance further down the street. There was some singing and shouting in the distance, and as the sounds drew nearer I could see that a crowd of people was advancing, mostly of the darker race. At their head strode a figure, striking in appearance; a head taller than most he was dressed in a robe of azure blue edged with silver while on his head he wore a fillet of gold fronted with some emblem I could not distinguish at that distance, and on his breast there was a large gem that sparkled as he walked. He radiated vitality that I could feel even where I stood and he seemed the very embodiment of spiritual strength and grace.

Zerros, too, stood in respect and as the stranger passed threw out his arms in glad salutation, and immediately the visitor turned his head and a lovely smile of recognition lit up his features, his eyes shining with love and joy. It was a thrilling moment, for such was the understanding between these two that they had been able to bridge the gap of thousands of years that divided them, destroying the illusion of time in one blinding moment of Truth. Even I got caught up in that shattering moment for the royal figure glanced at me and his keen gaze searched my very soul, then he smiled at me too, and his eyes filled with an eloquence I can scarcely describe. Can man love man? If so then I loved this man, this stranger who was strangely known to me, a part of my life, geared with me to the wheel of events.

Before I could recover my sense of time he was gone, with the crowd of jostling, admiring followers in his wake. With all my heart I longed to join them.

The voice of Zerros broke in. “That was one of the great leaders and teachers of Atlantean times,” he observed, “ I cannot give you his name in eternity and his name in time has been lost to posterity, though it was perpetuated in the later pantheon of so-called gods, those travesties of the Shining Ones who were held to have disported themselves with human antics on Mount Olympus. But as you have seen they were beings of very real beauty and power, never wholly incarnate, yet living amongst the people they had come to aid.”

I begged for further information about the kings of Atlantis but Zerros had little to say about these. “If I were to tell you of Melcarth-Hercules, twin rulers of Atlantis, whose deification was later commemorated by the twin pillars of bronze in the temples of Western Europe dedicated to them, you would try and trace their dynastic era, only to find disillusion. You cannot connect these great beings, more ethereal than physical, with your conception of kings and priesthood, any more than you can connect the Neptune, with his antics on 'crossing the line,' with that great King of Atlantis who once ruled from the Golden Temple in this City of the Golden Gates. The realities were neither physical kings nor mythical deities so you will have to be content with that.”

As he spoke there was a sudden vibration beneath our feet. I looked up and felt rather than heard, a distant rumble travel round the hills. “Thunder?” I echoed. But an instant later the supposition was lost in a thunder and a roar the like of which I had never heard. A few people screamed, while the birds rose in perturbed flight, squawking their fears. Once more the ground heaved, thunderous noises smothering all others. Even Zerros looked momentarily alarmed.

The earthquake passed as suddenly as it came. There seemed little trace of damage, no doubt because of the still plastic nature of the crust which enabled the shocks to be absorbed.

Soon after twilight descended and to my surprise the city remained aglow. The light came from high pylons which I had noticed, at the top of which was a glowing light, which Zerros informed me was atomic in nature, generated by a process lost to us. Then he led the way into a compound in the centre of which was a house, somewhat like a Roman villa in design. It was a two-storied residence, surrounded by verandas. In one of these a family sat at a meal. With some trepidation I drew nearer, until I remembered that our presence held no relation to the susceptibilities of these people. They were white Atlanteans, two women, a man and two children. The wooden bowls they used seemed rather clumsy to my notion but otherwise it might have been a family party gathered in some colonial bungalow of our time. Dark-skinned servants waited and handed round the dishes, while the family sat on low stools and ate with their fingers. The dishes held what appeared to be curds and honey, while a great dish of fruit occupied the centre of the table. One servant brought in a jug of sparkling liquid which he poured into wooden mugs. There appeared to be no distinction between employer and servant, no sign of servitude. It seemed that each race was conscious of the advantages of their mutual association.

I would not however like to maintain that Atlantean society of this period differed little from our own contemporary society. For one thing there was an air of unsophistication, a lack of assurance, that characterised these people, as if they found their environment difficult with no traditions to fall back upon. Life in the Garden Beautiful must have unrolled for them like the pattern on the nursery carpet does for our children, nothing to fear, only to enjoy. But now they had to build their own traditions without any deep experience to aid them in moulding their lives. They had only their spiritual strength to fall back upon. It was a poignant thought that these lovely innocent people were destined to succumb to the evil, inherent but not yet manifest, in the very soil they trod.

Zerros explained that the rhythmic ebb and flow of the spiritual power that manifests the universe brought them succeeding waves of spiritual strength, which ebbed away so that they might be led to depend upon its return flow. Such too is life in our day, when exaltation so often is followed by depression, though naturally to a less extent than these people experienced.

Such was the condition of the two races which were meeting and merging in this lovely land. As the young men of the fair race grew in vigour they were looked upon by the adoring daughters of the tribesmen and many succumbed to the age-old urge of Humankind, and so began that fatal admixture of the two races, the one divine and ethereal, the other so coarsened that intelligence was dimmed, that was to have such dire results for the greatest civilisation this world has ever known. Perhaps it had to be, being part of the testing of the spirit of both races, part of a great plan of rehabilitation for the fallen race of Man.

Zerros and I paid many visits to this rare and wonderful city at varying stages in its history, which has been calculated to have lasted over three quarters of a million years, in one form or another. Its story is like that of a man, born in innocence, growing in stature and knowledge, faced with the temptation of self-indulgence and ambition, put to the test at every point in his progress, until at last he lays down his material body, his mission completed. Its gradual decline and the catastrophic ending of the whole continent was due to the emergence into manifestation of the latent evil created by the fallen race, so that it could be objectified and thus transmuted.

As Zerros put it: “God does not make mistakes; with Him all things work together for good. If you break His laws He immediately sets forces to work to rectify your mistakes. He does not interfere with your free will, for that is essential to your progress; instead He projects His Divine Love in such Power that it bums out the dross in the offender and his environment. Thus there is suffering.”

Quite clearly the Golden Temple on the three-pronged hill behind the city was the dominating factor in its life, and almost certainly the source of its spiritual power. In the earliest, almost ethereal conditions in which it was created, so holy were the vibrations manifested that it was almost etheric in nature and only initiates were allowed within its precincts. There was a wall of etheric power surrounding it which only an adept could pass.

But when Zerros and I first saw it the actual temple was in the form of a cross surrounded by circular gardens, thus epitomizing the sign manual of the Earth, the cross of sacrifice within the circle of redemption. The cross was formed by four great halls branching off from the central dome, so vast that St. Paul's Cathedral could easily be contained within it. As there were no corrosive elements in that clear atmosphere and matter was not so dense and cohesive as it is today, buildings of this description lasted for incredible periods of time.

Exteriorly the temple was exquisitely designed, with the central dome covered with gold of a redness unknown to our geologists, and with an array of slender spires that were covered with silver, seeming to stretch like fingers adoringly into the azure sky. The main approach was from the east, up cascading flights of steps, punctuated by level platforms on which were flanking statues and sculptured designs of mystic interpretation. Before the main entrance was a broad open hall of pillars, with a floor of wondrously designed mosaic, while fountains played unceasingly to add to the cool comfort of the shade after the heat of the sun-drenched exterior.

Feeling like pygmies we made our way into the interior. The High Priests were, at this period, also the Kings of the Atlantean Empire, so it had a temporal as well as a spiritual character. Zerros explained that the first great hall was the one devoted to governmental affairs. It was without windows, being lit by the same method as used on the pylons in the city. The walls were decorated with wonderful sculptured designs and mural paintings out of consonance with the poor artistic ability displayed in other parts of the city. Passing through this hall into the centre nave I gasped in amazement, for under the great dome, whose loftiness extended almost beyond my vision, was a colossal statue of the deity whom we know as Poseidon, fashioned, heaven alone knows how, in solid gold. The figure was driving a chariot drawn by six horses over a sea of golden foam.

How can I do justice to such a stupendous creation? I could not even conjecture how it came to be erected, nor the astronomical value of the metal. But it was so exquisitely fashioned that life and vitality seemed to radiate from it, the leaping horses, the boat-like chariot, the curling waves, but most of all the virility derived from that powerful figure, all seemed to melt into a message of power. I could well imagine that it formed a transforming station for divine power, slowed down to meet the lower vibrations of this mundane kingdom.

Regretfully we passed on to the further hall, only to experience the same sense of wonder. For here there was no decoration at all except for a golden sunburst in the roof. Below it was a low stone altar. The light was dimmed here and helped to create an atmosphere which met you at the entrance and enfolded you with a mysterious sense of something exquisitely beautiful and holy, not to be embodied in form. I felt nearer to God in this holy sanctuary than anywhere I have ever known. One felt holy here, touched by that divine stillness that is such a benediction to the soul. One could almost hear the words: “Come unto Me.” The loveliness of that moment was such that I could not estimate how long we stood there, in adoration of THAT which was within.

But we could not stand there forever and presently Zerros drew me to a side hall which was broken up into sanctuaries, libraries and living quarters. In the libraries were books, not very many, with pages of paper-thin metal, bound in leather. The writing was in ideographs, complicated in character. The hall on the opposite side was much the same but included what appeared to be public offices. In one part of the temple we found a garden of gold, such as Montezuma displayed to Cortes. Exquisitely formed flowers of gold, with insects and tiny birds of the same metal, flutteringly poised upon golden twigs, were set in gold-dust soil. The golden effulgence and richness of the effect was beyond description.

On another occasion we were privileged to attend one of the civic ceremonies in the great entrance hall. This was at a later period and there were some small changes to be noted. Now a gay crowd of chattering townsfolk was thronging the approaches or sauntering in the quiet gloom of the pillared hall. Temple servants in liveries of black with the insignia of the Temple, a red cross worn on a white circle on the breast, marshalled the people into the Great Hall. All was done in order and dignity, for these burghers seemed to take their duties seriously. There was music of a sort to enliven the proceedings, but it was somewhat crude in character, being limited to a few conch horns, drums, cymbals and simple stringed instruments.

Presently the conch horns sounded a fanfare and an air of expectancy stilled the assembly. A procession of priests and notables entered the hall from the central nave, wonderfully garbed in azure blue edged with silver, with the same insignia on their breasts, except that in this case the cross was of gold. Some priests wore a headdress of gold with a shining gem set in it. In the centre of the procession came the King-priest, more gorgeously appareled than all the rest. Atlantis was still in a state of enlightenment and I could see that this was a great soul, sent on a divine mission. I will not attempt to describe the ceremonial for it was beyond my interpretation. There were presentations of petitions, delivery of decisions by the King, the promulgation of announcements and a number of speeches. Zerros reminded me that this was a theocracy, in which the King-priest was held to be a channel of divine guidance, God ruling direct through man. A fact true in those days though only its shadow has followed monarchy into modem times.

At length justice was done, in seal of which the King drank ceremoniously from a goblet of chased silver, clustered with precious stones. Then the court withdrew to another fanfare and the crowd flowed out into the sunshine again, eagerly discussing what had transpired.

It seemed to me that religion among these people of mixed race was general rather than particular. Worship of one God, usually through the medium of the Sun or through temple ritual, seemed to form the background of their lives rather than a thing apart, as in later civilisations. Away from the capital religion was a different matter. In the provinces the Adamic influence was not so great, and with poor communications the white missionaries had difficulty in impressing the tribesmen in the more distant and sparsely populated regions, so that secret inhibitions held the people captive and prevented their spiritual development. Though they outwardly accepted the teachings and were absorbed in the psychic demonstrations they witnessed, they were hardly moved by them. It was in the soul that development was slow, for its awareness could only be cautiously awakened because of the occult knowledge that was latent there and which would undoubtedly be misused. So it was not easy to impress the villagers who would not leave their own villages; for them natural manifestations of seismic or volcanic origin had far more powerful demanded propitiation of an exacting nature.

Such was the profound difference between the two races at these early stages in the history of the continent. Yet the white race strove hard to fulfil their mission and they accomplished much by force of example. The tribesmen would nod and chatter when they witnessed psychic demonstrations at the temples, but they would rather possess a reputed chip off one of the sacred statues in the Golden Temple than touch the hem of a white teacher's garment.

In time many of the dark-skinned people became educated and demanded entry to the priesthood, and thus became adepts in the use of the mysterious psychic powers. It was inevitable that their sorry inheritance must overshadow their natural desires and soon the malignant influence of the dark forces in the lower astral realms sought to use this opportunity to extend smudging fingers of evil into this lovely land, until a growing number of junior priests had come under the subtle control of a force that was difficult to identify and which could not be stayed.

If one surveys the tragic history of man right down to the present day, it is clear that the Atlantean civilisation could not be expected to succeed. The cleansing of the fallen race was far too weighty a matter to be settled by the sweetening of one Augean Stable. Divine Prescience must have realised that many civilisations must rise and fall before this Herculanean task could be accomplished. Yet because Spirit is omnipotent and evil has no existence outside the free will of man the end was certain and the experience imprisoned within the thraldom of time.

The White Atlanteans were endowed with a genius for colonisation. Quite early in their history steady streams of colonists went forth to far quarters of the globe, carrying to the indigenous inhabitants tales of these golden 'Isles of the Blest,' which survive in so many local legends in widely separated areas. Nearly all these stories have a common basis, of the arrival of large canoes or rafts, from which stepped white-skinned bearded men, wearing black robes with the insignia of the cross upon the circle. Always were they credited with psychic powers, and they spoke of a Sun God who dwelt in a golden land, far beyond the spreading ocean.

Meanwhile the degeneration in the main continent increased as the centuries grew into millennia. Born of the two races, a new people came into being, proud, fearless, accomplished in the arts of war. Perversion began in the many sects that split theocracy into controversial elements. No longer were spirit teachers able to manifest in the temples, though a residue of their psychic powers remained and was used by the priests to extend their power over the people. In appearance the new race, which I saw in later visits with Zerros, was not unlike the North American Indian, but with a more sloping forehead. But of course there were many strains in this bi-racial people, including the Negroid type.

New gods were worshipped and these talked to them of power, of conquest and of all the things that make a man's heart swell with pride. And hints were thrown out of matters that could not be spoken of openly but which were done in the dark recesses of the forest, bringing a maddening excitement all their own. The eyes of men glinted as they talked of mysterious doings in caves, the first hint of a soul-destroying sadism that was to eat away the heart of man.

The blight was beginning to fall upon this splendid land and only needed receptive minds to make its slow eroding conquest. Thus began yet another 'fall of man', one that could not be prevented if Man, as one whole conception of the Creator, was to purge itself of the incubus of sin and stand erect once more.

CHAPTER 10

THE GREAT CATASTROPHE

There are many stories extant concerning the end of the Atlantean civilisation but few of these record the truth, that the subsidence which marked its end had really been going on for thousands of years.

Commencing as a vast continent, considerable portions broke away and were swallowed up by the encroaching ocean at such great intervals that the story of each disaster had become a myth by the time the next one occurred. In the end all that was left was an island, and it was this island which, according to legend, disappeared in a day and a night.

As the two races merged into one during the long history of the great continent, there came many changes in the characteristics and appearance of the resulting peoples, not one homogeneous race but many tribes differing in colour and habits according to the predominance of the Adamic or indigenous influences. Over all there was a growing materialism and most of these people were clever and cunning in battle, while they employed many strange weapons unknown to our armouries. In general they were still handsome in appearance, but already showing signs of the flat faces and high receding foreheads of later known anthropology.

Even the vegetation of the land changed during this period of hardening of the Earth's crust and crystallisation of its elements. The people were almost all flesh eaters by now, which added greatly to the coarsening of their bodies and their susceptibility to disease. Into their own nature they drew some of the animal nature through the flesh they consumed, together with animal fear and aggressiveness. Through heredity the resulting toxins were carried on in the bloodstream, causing a cumulative degeneration of mental outlook and receptivity to spiritual influences .

In this vitiated atmosphere the celestial visitors were unable to manifest; instead the field lay open to entities whose intentions were the reverse of spiritual, for there was a residue of psychic power at the temples and monoliths where the spiritual teachers had been wont to instruct and lead the people. Excited and misled by what they took to be more powerful gods, many became maddened by lust, with a desire for conquest of any kind, including foreign wars and enslavement, for power of any kind.

So it was that the influence of the Cosmic Christ receded from the forefront of men's minds, though it still upheld and inspired the souls of those who would open their hearts to its benign influence. Faced with this rapid growth of degenerative influences, the priesthood, or at least that part of it which remained loyal, foresaw the need to conceal the powerful knowledge which they possessed but were unable to express. So it was enshrined in myth and symbol, over which we still puzzle to this day where it has been disclosed in ancient documents, abortively because we lack the key to understanding. Thus man was left to wear his 'coat of skin' and labour with his hands, and to puzzle over the eternal problem of his plight, because he had shut himself off from the fountain of knowledge through his own self-will.

But through it all the Divine Plan was at work, under the aegis of Love. The flocculence of evil formed in the lower astral planes by the perverted thoughts of those who fell from high estate, had to be dissipated in the only way possible. Created and sustained by powerful but perverted mentalities, it could only be destroyed by releasing it through other mentalities, preferably in the limited circumscribed conditions of human existence. The whole history of Atlantis may be seen, not as a gigantic experiment that failed, but as a lengthy process in which the rebellious minds of men were used to release vast quantities of this evil miasma into manifestation, where it could be met and transmuted into its proper chemical constituents. We know so little about the world in which we live.

Meanwhile, in this slow but steady retrogression, the lights began to go out all over Atlantis. Though many brave souls incarnated and through great labour and suffering strove to raise the flag of Truth once more, their influence was ephemeral and could not have stayed the general decline. Yet never in its long history, even in its ghastly physical ending, did the Everlasting Arms fail to uphold the doomed continent, turning evil into good and sacrifice into spiritual power, giving and forgiving as always. The Love that would not let them go.

Zerros showed me how the solemn ritual of sacrifice, so wonderfully demonstrated in the Garden Beautiful, degenerated into loathsome imitation among the renegade priests. Instead of a simple offering to be immolated by atomic fire, there were offerings of value, to be taken for the benefit of the priests or the temples, having the effect of bribes. Then came animal sacrifices, where the letting of blood was found to release accretions of psychic power, up to the triumph of perversion wherein it became possible to create astral replicas of Human or animal forms, possessing little short of concrete existence. These could be materialised and sent upon nefarious errands by their evil creators. I was not allowed to see any of these grisly creatures nor did I wish to do so.

Many will find it difficult to accept the veracity of this statement, for we admit of no such magic in our day, though rumours and tales abound. But these are not proof. We have to remember the considerable difference in the vibration of atomic matter between those days and our own times when the crystallisation of matter is complete. Added to which the men of those days possessed a control over atomic forces which is lost to us. Only now are we coming to realise that it is not so much the crystallisation of the actual atoms of matter as the coarsening of our senses and their relation to their environment.

It was after one of the tremendous seismic disturbances that characterised life in those days, that a black emperor from one of the outer regions of what remained of Atlantis, no doubt deprived of his kingdom by subsidence, led his fear-maddened people on an invasion of the last stronghold of enlightenment, the City of the Golden Gates. Though the inhabitants of this city had become materialists to a degree, there was not the extent of degradation evident in the provinces. Vast hordes of black warriors, aided by fearful and uncanny weapons, with all the forces of illicit power behind them, overcame and enslaved the inhabitants of the city. But not even the arrogant power of the black emperor enabled him to establish his seat of government in the Golden Temple upon the hill. Some power beyond his ken held him back.

So he built himself a palace within the city and from there set up a regime of sadistic horror that could not bear the light of print. It was about this time that the priests were inspired to increase the streams of emigrants which for some centuries past had been establishing trade routes across the known world; not merely one symbolic Noah set forth in an ark.

Now were sent forth the last remaining loyal priests that the teachings of this once marvellous civilisation might not be lost to the world for ever. Enshrined in the Mysteries, known only to the initiates, was the knowledge of creative power over the elements and the subtle forces of the Earth, to be preserved for future generations when man should once more be able to stand erect and pure in heart.

There were four of these streams of refugees, moving along the prepared routes leading north, south, east and west from Atlantis, thus mystically symbolising the sacred emblem, the cross within the circle of the Earth, and giving rise to the legend that there were four rivers leading but of Eden.

So was saved from the doomed continent all that was worth saving, dispersing and preserving a sure message of hope and faith that was to bear fruit upon another historic occasion. For it was this esoteric Christianity, with which the Earth was impregnated at its birth, which enabled its more temporal manifestation in Palestine, when the Cosmic Christ projected His universal Being into a Personality and made His immortal sacrifice. It was this esoteric Christianity which later spread like a hidden peat fire below the material minds of the people of that period, stirring the souls of men to a new understanding and setting on fire the hearts of people so ignorant that they could not possibly have comprehended abstractions which have caused controversy among theologians to this day. It was a soul fire rather than a mental one, owing some of its combustibility to those emigrating priests from Atlantis who set up spiritual centres in isolated parts of the world, lighting flame after flame from that which had burned so steadily in ancient Atlantis.

No matter what folly man commits, the Cosmic Christ intervenes to smother the spreading fires of corruption, fighting them with the Divine Radiance in which all fires must fade. With God all things work together for good. Such was the lesson of Lemuria, of Atlantis, and repeated again and again through the chequered history of mankind.

Meanwhile the madness which had seized upon the Atlantean mind grew apace until the very atmosphere became redolent with evil emanation. Outwardly the people remained a fine-looking, if cruel and rapacious race, making frequent aggressive expeditions to widen their territories to accommodate their growing population and serve their material needs. Great plunder and riches of slaves and merchandise came to the Golden City. And if the terrestrial upheavals, as prophesied by the astrologers, came with ever increasing frequency and severity, what mattered it so long as the city survived and there was wine to drink and women to please the returning warriors. Were they not the greatest people in the world, with nothing to fear? Who could prevail against them? But as they turned further and further from the Light the fruits of knowledge became unripe to their lowered standard of morality. And so was established a vicious circle of poisoned minds begetting poisoned bodies, which in turn postulated 'poisoned minds again, and so the dark influence spread beyond control. A Frankenstein monster was created which devoured its creators.

There is no need to dwell upon the frightful orgies and obscene festivals that marked the last days of Atlantis. We know from modem experience how whole nations can become enslaved by sadism and cruelty, though where modem tyrants torture the victims' bodies they can rarely reach their souls. But the Atlantean leaders besmirched the very souls of their fellows, so much more open to infection because the human frame had not crystallised to the extent that contemporary human flesh has done. Thus it was that the whole civilisation had to be removed from the Earth in the greatest holocaust the world has known.

In the island empire the Golden Temple alone remained inviolate, though divine wisdom was no longer able to manifest there. The last of the initiate priests, their duty accomplished, awaited with calm the storm they knew must soon break.

The final disappearance of this once lovely land was a terrible event. Zerros showed me glimpses of the seismic upheavals that preceded the final submergence, I witnessed the horror of the inhabitants as the evil flocculence which saturated the very soil was disinterred during those last ghastly moments, when inhuman phantoms fled in panic from jungle fastnesses. In that terrible break-up of dark astral forces, the physical and the lower astral planes of being met and clashed in one hideous moment of time. As volcano after volcano burst into violent eruption and belched forth suffocating flames and fumes it seemed that the foetid breath of the lowest hells was sweeping forth to smother all in its path.

Not all the inhabitants were evil. We read in myth and epic poem, some of which survived as our fairy tales and folklore, how valiant heroes (spiritually strong men) rescued fair maidens (pure hearts) from the clutches of noisome monsters, slaying giants of terrible habits. For the sake of the children these terrible stories of very real, and to us, almost unbelievable tragedies of ancient Atlantis, have been emasculated. But no tale, however horrific, could compete with the reality of that awful ending.

Climb with me to the temporary safety of the Golden Temple, still serene in the sunshine. It is a still, peaceful day after the drenching rain of the past few months which has left great lakes of flood water over the landscape. The citizens of the capital have emerged from their dwellings thankful for a dry day to get some of their clothing aired. There had been a series of earthquakes, more violent than usual, but people were accustomed to these and already gangs of slaves were at work repairing the damage. No one thought of further subsidence, for the last occasion was already but a dim memory. And such was their faith in the eternal quality of their city that they felt that nothing untoward could happen to it. So the warriors and merchants consoled themselves with banquets and the many sensual pleasures in which they delighted.

It is sadly evident how this lovely city has altered since we first met it. Bristling battlements now enclose it and armed soldiers pace the streets, while the famous golden gates are closed at night. In dark pockets in the residential area a vastly increased population overflows in regular rabbit warrens.

Drunk with power and lust of conquest these city dwellers wait for news of the great onslaught on the Mediterranean border lands, which is to provide a jumping-off place for the final subjugation of the whole known world. They tarried over their feastings while the trash that were their slaves groaned under the lash. In the bazaars they chaffered and cheated, in their homes they dined and wined, in temples they sacrificed to the gods of wealth and power according to the fashion of the moment. And at times some slipped away into some ruined temple for heaven knows what bestial and sadistic rites.

Night comes, and with it a sudden rise in temperature. Then a hot breathless morning greets the Sun, while a deepening haze obscures the distant hills. The day grows more and more sultry and there are ominous rumblings and earth tremors. As dusk gathers and people emerge from their houses in search of cool air, there is a sudden crash and the storm bursts upon the doomed city. Great tongues of flame streak the darkening sky, and then with a roar and a thunderous crash the volcanoes add their hungry voices to the din. Even through the darkening haze of dust and rain and smoke the lurid streams of lava can be seen as the craters vomit their contents.

The first reaction among the public is a sudden panic, to be followed, as they become accustomed to even these fierce manifestations, by a fatalistic resignation. With fearful glances over their shoulders they go about their normal tasks, with only a sense of irritability to show their inward fears. But the omens of disaster drew the people together as they realised that this was no ordinary occurrence. Master and slave, warrior and clerk, foregathered in a common sentiment and unity. As minor quakes shook down buildings here and there one could see how the soul of man shone forth. Amid scenes of growing horror there were examples of heroism, even to the extent of some proud warrior risking his life to save that of a miserable slave, such is the leveling effect of imminent danger.

With nightfall an added horror was felt as huge boulders and other volcanic debris fell upon the stricken city, maiming and killing and setting buildings on fire. Aid was organised but even this faded as the situation got completely out of hand. Maddened with a fear that spread as quickly as the flames, people grew hysterical and rushed down to the quays and boarded the vessels there, regardless of the fact that the waterways were already choked with debris.

The fury of the elements abated somewhat as dawn rose on the dreadful scene, with its pitiful evidence of carnage and destruction. Great areas of the city were already laid waste and a foulsmelling haze hung over it. The news from the city outposts, where there was any, was not encouraging. The calamity seemed to be nation-wide and some coast towns were reported to be entirely submerged, with wholesale loss of life.

As the Sun climbed high into the heavens the diabolical manifestations began again and slowly mounted to a new crescendo of fury. Great balls of phosphorescent fire fell from the skies forcing the people to seek shelter, only to be driven forth again by fresh earth tremors. Out in the open they screamed as they beheld what the terrible skies disclosed. Men hurled themselves from roofs rather than face what was to come. And now, above the roar of the volcanoes and the eldritch screeching of the wind, could be heard a dull booming as mountainous tidal waves rose into the air and crashed down upon the distant beaches. Thousands of bodies of men and women and children were washed inland or sucked out to sea, as the waters piled themselves ashore in utter defiance of the forces of gravity. Soon they rushed inland and failed to retreat. Enormous areas of land were submerged and the very hills trembled as the weight of waters shook their foundations. Only the tremendous generators of volcanic eruption continued their fearful cacophony of sound, belching forth their boulders and balls of flaming lava which burst into livid streaks of fire.

Most of the city was under water when the end came. The lowest crater shuddered and sank into the greedy ocean which swept into the fiery cavern. There was a mighty roar as the two elements fought for mastery, but the end was certain, for though wave after wave was turned into terrific explosions, the weight of water gradually overcame the mighty fires with a smother of steam. One after another the mighty ones were subdued, each adding fresh convulsion to the shuddering earth. Scarcely a Human being was left in sight. Finally the merciful elements drew a curtain over the last scenes of the slaying of a continent. As the last peaks sank into the boiling seas only an impenetrable mass of oceanic mud was left where this once glorious land had been. This viscuous waste withstood oared trireme or bellying sail so that those who would have searched the site were unable to approach. Nothing was to be snatched from this land which had fallen under the mandate of the great law of Love, manifesting through cause and effect. Thus Nature performed her obsequies in decency and isolation. And a sentinel was placed at the gates of this one-time Eden also, so that the cleansing waters might wipe the stains of evil from the very atmosphere.

Thus passed a great race, perhaps the greatest the world has ever known, in the greatest cataclysm in the world's sad record of wreck and ruin. Through struggle and seeming failure it blossomed, and then died, receiving its redemption in the healing bosom of the earth. Who can calculate the plethora of evil influence that went down into those steaming waters to be transmuted into divine energy once more. For evil is but the Love-power of God perverted by incarnate minds, twisted into the opposite of goodness.

CHAPTER 11

ATLANTEAN COLONISATION

It was a few days after our last visit to the ill-fated Atlantis that Zerros sat in my study once more. Now he summed up the real lessons of the Atlantean episode, for it was no more than that in the eternal progress of humanity.

“ The loss was only on the physical plane,” he said, his keen eyes searching mine as if to note whether I had absorbed the real meaning of what he had shown me, “the real gain was on the spiritual level. Fallen man was able to take a great step forward, relieved of the incubus of a great amount of evil which had hitherto dragged at his heels.

“ In the lesson of Atlantis you can see how the testing of the soul was not only necessary but filled with possibility. We may all thank those who suffered in Atlantis, as in other later civilisations, for the Light which, through their sacrifice and endurance, streamed into a darkened world. In the measure of what they suffered is seen your salvation, as in the measure of your overcoming can be seen the liberation of future generations. In the world-wide chaos and suffering of your own times can be discerned a quickening of the redemptive issue that should raise your hopes to their zenith.”

Presently he went on. “The four streams of emigrants which went forth to the four comers of the Earth from decaying Atlantis carried with them a power of which your scientists are yet ignorant. It was a form of magnetism that was expressed through the teachings they brought to the indigenous inhabitants of the world, still held in the thrall of superstition and fear. This meant that the powers which had been channeled through the spiritual centres in Atlantis were now spread abroad so that their influence could be felt in wider fields. It was all part of a preconceived plan. You could call this power the Power of Love of you like, but remember it is a dynamic force, far removed from the emotion which so often man misuses, it is creative, burgeoning with impulses that will not be denied.

“ It was this same power which, in olden days, was used for instantaneous healing of the sick, for blessing the crops with wonderful results, for controlling the weather and for producing the magical results which have puzzled your research workers. It is all gone now, since the very soil of the Earth has settled into more crystalline form and your intellects have submerged the deep understanding of natural forces which made these demonstrations possible. Have you not wondered why your Christians accept, without question, the strange events chronicled in your Bible, yet which your professors of physics would say were quite impossible? So they are - today, but in olden times conditions were such that they would have altered all your scientific concepts. All that knowledge had to be concealed in what are known as the Ancient Mysteries. Only today are the keys to these mysteries being given back to man, one by one.”

“ What would you say those keys are?” I enquired.

“ To begin with most world religions are only now beginning to emerge from medieval inhibitions. Christian thought no longer pins its faith to a first man and his dependent female, and it is seeking escape from the clinging notion of a vindictive God.

“ It is well to exercise your imagination as to what God must be. If He is an omniscient, omnipotent Creator, working through Love, then you can enrich your thinking with the idea that He is the Generator of a Love that is all-powerful, dynamic, creative. You have no idea of what this Love-power can do. It is all-sufficient to regenerate the whole of Humanity, and much much more. It is so potent that when opposed by its opposites it becomes a raging Fire that bums all dross. Were it to be released in all its splendour the whole of your Earth would be incinerated on the instant. That is why you have to be veiled from it, in mercy. You have a glorious destiny, your original destiny, to become part of the Fire of Love, creative, burgeoning forth in eternal wonder. But few could hold the reality of that thought!

“ In the meantime the soul of man is like a bird on the wing which stoops to drink of the water of experience, some souls stoop too low and become temporarily immersed in the' waters of Lethe.' But none may drown, God is not mocked, He cannot fail in His ultimate purpose.

“ The keys to knowledge are not material ones and only when you have freed yourself from the clinging strands of materialism can you find them. Those ancient colonists had them, they possessed the inner understanding of the realities behind the life they lived, and were able to use those forces for the betterment of mankind. They were great souls, freedmen of time, they were born of the volatile currents of Mercury, they had basked in the warmth of Venus, they had meditated in the cold, impersonality of Saturn, they understood the electrical and chemical nature of matter, and the laws governing it. They came to awaken, to teach, to lead, to prophesy.

“ Life, which is Love in expression, is so much more than the material mind can ever know; its loveliness, its warm comfort, its joys, are unintelligible to the cold contemplation of intellect. Yet the simple soul can appreciate them. You cannot argue about them, only by opening your heart to them, to the revealing Light of Spirit, can you make them your own. The mysteries of God are part of Creation, impossible of acceptance by the materialist, yet babes can understand them, for God is Simple, it is the human mind which is complex.”

There was a silence before Zerros went on. “So the Adamic Race really did fulfil their mission, they did not fail. The broad streams of enlightenment which flowed out of Atlantis owed their inception to this sacrificial descent into a distorted world, and they fertilized and irrigated Human thought as no other method could have done. And in no other way could men's minds and souls be prepared for that final flashing descent of the Christ of Love into incarnation, which set a seal upon the destined redemption of a fallen Humanity.”

“ But there were many failures before that,” I put in.

“ Yes indeed, civilisation after civilisation rose and fell, and many accounted them failures from the aesthetic point of view. But from the spiritual point of view they were not failures. Like the Atlantean epoch all that was best in them was saved and passed on, only the dross was destroyed. All that is best in your own civilisation can be traced to its elements expressed in olden times. Your dreams of the future rest on foundations built by civilisations of whose very existence you are ignorant. They made you what you are, just as you are making the men and women of the future.”

“ But as far as we know, no other civilisation has had such a terrible ending as the Atlantean.”

“ That is true. But you must remember that the very nature of those people was different to your own or those of later days. By the time the two races were intermingled they were hopelessly perverted in their soul life, their bodies were much more tenuous than your own, and they had to deal with an accumulation of powerful perverted impulses that had to be released from the lower astral realms, impulses born of perverted spiritual knowledge quite beyond your understanding. What went down with Atlantis was something which the world has never known since, neither the ethereal beauty of the Adamic Race nor the horror of the later perversion. At that moment of submergence a fresh veil was drawn over the minds of men the world over. Thus modem men can sin more deeply without such enduring hurt to their souls, because of this veil, a veil that must soon be drawn again to disclose the naked soul of man to the Light of Truth. For some that must be an agonising experience.”

“ What a terrible thought,” I mused aloud.

Zerros smiled understandingly. “Your orthodox ideas of a Judgment Day are an insult to the Creative Love of God; how could Love judge and condemn and punish? I tell you that the greatest punishment you can ever experience will be the exposure of your soul to the judgment of your own spirit, the dark stain of human frailty held up to the searching Light of Perfection. None will ever judge you but your own implacable spirit, than which there can be no more terrible trial! But that is where the warm Love of the Cosmic Christ finds its opportunity. At the moment of man's deepest realisation of his own inadequacy it can step in to redeem, to uplift, to set him on his feet once more, supporting him with a new courage and determination born of his bitter experience.

“ Medieval misunderstanding mangled all the lovely promises and explanations into the terrible exposition which lives to this day in many desperate hearts. And modem thought seeks to dislocate them still further by 'rationalising' them. It was this glory of Love which held the balance between the two races in Atlantis, it illumined the four streams of emigrants going forth from the doomed continent, and it shone radiantly through the lovely Easter Story, when the Cosmic Christ descended into incarnation that He might seal Himself into the very fabric of material life, so that the Everlasting Arms might uphold man from falling out of reach.

“ From the beginning of Earthly time the life of Man has been planned by Omniscient Power, there has never been any doubt as to the outcome. His redemption has only been delayed in time, never in eternity. Always his life has been epitomized by the ancient symbol, the cross within the circle of completion, demonstrating the immortal nature of man and the glory of God.

“ In ancient Egypt, in olden India, in pre-historic China and ancient South America, in England itself, may be found this primal symbol of the cross within the circle. Does not your Britannia seat herself upon the symbol in your coinage? Osiris had it, and he held his life from Ra the Sun god. Always the Cross and the spiritual Sun blaze together. Christianity has taken the Cross from the Circle, divorcing it from the sign of completion, of promise, leaving only the suffering, meaningless and filled with doubt. But in its original conception the symbol implied a certainty of completion and fulfilment.”

After a while Zerros continued. “I have traced for you very sketchily the mystical evolution of mankind, I have not touched upon the historical or anthropological aspects which belong to the physical evolution, for there would not be the same lessons to learn, nor would they widen your understanding of the realities, which is what is so badly needed. But if you take your Cross at the centre, where Love is, and hold it aloft in your lives, remembering that it is encircled by the symbol of fulfilment, you will have helped to bring that salvation nearer. And if you feel that the Atlantean story has brought you a bitter heritage to redeem, recall also that it made the world safe for goodness to blossom. And far more than that it was a safety valve through which much original sin was allowed to manifest and to be transmuted. Your Creator does not make mistakes, nor is He subject to the limitations of time and space, as you are.”

“ Would you say that our modem troubles are due to the fact that man's intellect has outstripped his spiritual understanding?”

Zerros thought for a moment before replying. “That is partly true, but you must not forget that generation after generation has continued to reinforce that sink of iniquity in the lower astral planes. As evil personalities died and passed into those dark realms they added their quota to the forces of evil. Yours is not the only world, though it is a peculiar conceit of your thinkers that such must be so. There are many realms of space in which a varying degree of goodness or badness is able to express itself. Remember that God redeems through free will, not so much of the Human mind which is not very effective, but of the soul, which is where the real effect is manifest. It is in the soul that man believes, whether it is incarnate or discarnate, in the great lie of evil, that terrible delusion which holds man's existence in its fateful thrall, a lie that Man himself created and invested with the semblance of truth until he has come to believe in it.

“ The later Atlanteans were intellectual in many ways, but their civilisation degenerated into an era of brute force, and intellect died. Earlier men lived through intuition, through spiritual guidance, but in your own day, through false logic, it has given way to an age of reason. But reason is nothing by itself, it is merely argument, and if the premises are not true then reason must fail. But then the growing intellect uncovered such knowledge as the atomic theory, the indivisibility of human existence, the menace of global war. These broke down the fixed nature of materialistic ideas and many cherished theories, leaving you once more at sea, with no harbour to which to steer.”

A new note of enthusiasm crept into his voice as my companion concluded. “A wonderful New Age is dawning upon your world, an age in which war will be impossible because men will know that they would be going to war against God ! Your understanding of Christianity will blossom out into a new concept that will not be limited by the name of religion. There will be no creeds, for creeds are boundaries set by fear of the unknown. It will be a vista that will stretch out into the future, beckoning in such a way that no man would deny himself the joys it offers at every step of the way. Then your intellectual capacity will come into its own, not to rule your outlook but to serve it. To see a great Light and to worship it from within the false security of ignorance is one thing. But to see that Light and recognise it for what it is, that is something quite different, for then you are not apart from it, you belong to it and understand it. Then no man can stand between you and it, or seek to distort your understanding of it.

“ Evolution, whether of the soul or the body, never stops, it is always advancing, always changing. The backward races of today are not tomorrow's intellectuals, they are fulfilling their part in a great Plan of redemption, and their reality is spiritual not physical. They have their place alongside the most advanced peoples. All are manifestations of the Most High and are being used in the vast programme.

“ It is man's purpose and destiny to work out this programme under Omniscient direction, but he must not expect to solve the mystery in the light of his material knowledge alone. He must work on until the very soil of his world must be uplifted as his own vibrations are raised. Then, with that glorious consummation, the Cross of Suffering will begin to fade, leaving only the timeless Circle of Completion, of glorious fulfilment, the seeds of which were sown in Atlantis. Your world is rapidly approaching a renascence of which your thinkers are not yet conscious. That is what Jesus foretold when He said: “ I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.” Note the all-embracing meaning of that promise. There is nothing in the past of man to point his way into the future that awaits him.”

CHAPTER 12

THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY

On a later occasion Zerros and I took up the question of the Christian era and its place in Human history. He reminded me that in the truest sense of the word the Earth was impregnated with Christianity from its very inception. I scarcely needed this reminder, for my first experiences with him had been to witness this divine baptism.

“ Just as the physical world had, of necessity, to descend into material existence from the spiritual, so did the Cosmic Christ have to accompany it, for it is a part of Him, the two could never be severed. The world's history covers a period when Spirit wrestles with materialism for the soul of man, a struggle born of man's freedom to choose which way he will go, and is deeply affected by his repudiation of that spiritual support without which he cannot reclaim his destined status.”

With a glance at my formidable pile of notes he added, “ I will not weary you with the development of Christianity for you have plenty of historical data concerning its spread. But I would like to enlarge upon what lay behind the Easter Story. There was not one reason for the mission of Christ but many. There is a separate reason upon every plane of thought on which the matter is considered. But there is one over-riding aspect which applies to every plane, for He brought an entirely new conception of Love, a new ray of that golden Power which the Eternal One pours upon the children of His Heart through the being of the Cosmic Christ, a source of inspiration and help which had been denied to man since his fall from Grace. Whereas in the Garden Beautiful he had been able to absorb Love as a child absorbs it, without question or understanding what it was, Love was now brought down to his conscious mind so that he could observe and understand it, and know it for what it was. He realised that it was something which could transform his life.

“ Your theologians have got into such an impasse in their interpretation of the Gospels that I would like to paint a picture that might help you to visualise the King of Love as He really is. You cannot get at the reality behind Christian teaching by literal interpretation alone, you must have the right background. You must widen your vision from the parochial to the universal.

“ I described the Absolute Perfection of God as a Beam of White Light, and I likened the Cosmic Christ to a Prism through which this Light was passed and broken up into a myriad colours. The White Light would be perfect beyond measure, darkness would be instantly destroyed in its Presence, there could be no contrast with it. So attractive is it that anything it creates, and is therefore separated from it, longs ceaselessly for reunion with it, so great is the ache of separation. Yet there must be separation if there is to be experience, there must be the contrast of shadow if the Light is to be known for what it is.

“ Because its radiations would be too great for created Mankind to bear it is passed through the Christ Prism and broken up into its constituents, each with their destined influence upon growing man, each identifiable yet in reality being only part of a perfect whole. But this contrasting environment has nothing to do with what you call evil, for the shadow is real and evil is ephemeral, having no existence on its .own.

“ Now let us imagine that the glorious colours from the Prism are falling upon a tray of gems of all kinds, some large, some small, some cut, others uncut, some almost dust. The cut and polished gems reflect the rays of colour and radiate them to all around. Those gems in the rough do not reflect, they are not yet ready to do so. Yet each holds a potential ability to shine, they only need cutting and polishing.

“ We may take the White Beam as the Creative Power of God, the Prism is the Cosmic Christ and through Him the Beam is broken up into many different colours, many far beyond human vision. The gems are the Life of God manifested as souls having individual existence and freedom of choice that they might learn to know themselves for what they really are, they have no light of their own, only that which they can reflect. Being born through the Cosmic Christ Spirit, only through Him can they return to their Source. Many do not yet know the Light and cannot reflect very much but in time the Divine Cutter will work upon them. And His tool is Love.

“ Suddenly a new ray of Light flashes forth from the Prism, a Golden Ray falling upon the gems and setting them alight with a new fire, not their own. This ray we may take to be the Incarnation of the Christ in the Person of Jesus. Like man the Christ has no existence by Himself, for He too is part of the Supernal One. Did He not say so? This Golden Ray was a new experience for the gems, which had hitherto experienced only the cold hard radiance of the colours, with little warmth in them. But now all is changed, for the Golden Ray infuses them all, illuminating them with new meaning.

“But the radiance of the new Ray was so powerful that it was rejected by many and had to be withdrawn, but it left an after-glow that has never really died away, for its memory lives on in the spirits of men and women who are reminded of something they once knew.

“ You could have no existence without the Cosmic Christ, for He is the Mother through whom you were born, whether Christian or not. Now can you see what is meant by opening the heart to Spirit, for it allows the Light and the Love of God to enter in through its destined channel, to transform and renew the whole being. Even the scratching of an uncut gem can have this effect, a tiny ray of Love can enter in and begin the divine transformation. But with many it needs the rough usage of suffering to wear away the grime that encrusts the surface and allow the· Love-Light to enter. Can you wonder why people have to suffer?

“ Many have tried but it is not possible to separate the Christ from Jesus the Nazarene, any more than you can separate the Cosmic Christ from God. And equally you cannot separate a single soul from either Christ or God, for all are. One in reality, the whole idea of separation is an illusion into which man has sunk until he has come to believe in it. Thus the Christ of Love is the Spirit of God made manifest, the only Saviour of all souls, and the Elder Brother for all who see Him best as such.

“ In this little picture you will find all the Ancient Mysteries, all the divine messages of the ages, all you need to know to remove the ache from the heart of man, and show him to himself for what he really is. With all the complexity of manifestation, complex because of man's fall from the Light into the mists, is not God Simple? Absolute Perfection seems to you such an unattainable idea, so far off, yet time and space are not realities, there is no distance, so that it really is the background of your existence and your being. No space exists between you and another soul, for both are undimensional in reality, they only use dimensions in order to experience. In reality they are a part of God who is all there is! So as you are willing to be nothing in yourselves miracles can be accomplished through you, without restriction of time or space. A good thought flashes through the ethers, undying because it meets with no resistance. An evil thought encounters the atmosphere and is soon expended. So is it not clear that man holds the power to release himself from the thraldom of evil? Only an ignorance of the realities holds him.

“ In the great open fire of the Sunlight Christ is giving Himself to you, absorb and reflect His Light, for like Love it cannot be stored up, if it is static it will dissipate, let it flow forth and it will be replenished in full from the eternal reservoir. That is the Law. Love comes to you, not through reasoning or events, but through the heart, rising rising, burning its way through the dross, breaking through the crust of each Human soul. It is Christ at work, the Living Manifestation of God!”

It was upon another occasion that Zerros spoke again of esoteric Christianity.

“ To be absorbed by the soul,” he said, “as opposed to the brain, Christianity has to be spiritually discerned. No doubt it was for this reason that Jesus left no writings. Had He done so His teachings would have been intellectually analysed and so denigrated. Their inner meaning cannot confine Truth in mere words. But because of His infinite wisdom He was able to touch the words with His magic, so that even when translated they retain much of their illumination. Their inner meaning is not imprinted upon the matrix of each Human mind freshly created, but it calls forth something that is already there, a dim memory that filters through from the spirit within.

“ It was because His golden message caught an answering gleam from a race memory implanted by Atlantean colonists of ancient days that His message of Love continued to spread long after He had passed from living sight. The reading of books will not bring you wisdom of itself, it can only call forth a wisdom that is already there, implanted in the ages that are past. You gather true wisdom in your soul, not in your mind. But of course such an idea would be unacceptable to those who do not believe in the pre-existence of the Human soul.”

I agreed that that was clear to me and accounted for a lot that had puzzled me. “I see now,” I said, “ how Christianity spread so amazingly among hard-headed people who would not ordinarily have accepted a message of Love and sacrifice, but why did it stop, why does it not do so today?”

Zerros spoke gravely. “That is because the pure ray of Love had not then been overlaid with theological doctrine. Love is like a shaft of light piercing a mist, but if you dress it up with mirrors and reflectors it will stop short at the intellect, it will not reach the soul, where alone it can have its real effect. For there it can be fed and renewed by the Presence of the Cosmic Christ, who is shut out of the intellect. The infant cares nothing about the pain and suffering its mother has endured on its behalf, but it responds instantly to her love.

“ The Earth which you know had not known this ray of Love until Jesus gave it new meaning and showed it to be the food of the spirit, the Power which unites man to man and man to God. Without it they remain isolated and alone, and love can hardly flow, there is no food for the spirit, or unity to draw them together. “

“ People often ask why Christ could not manifest again,” I asked, “ and so put men's doubts at rest, why does He not do that? “

“Because, as I have already explained, man must release himself, otherwise he would be but a robot and lose his freedom of choice, which is his only ladder out of the impasse into which he has sunk. He has been shown the way but he must not be propelled along it against his will. The Christ has promised to manifest again when the moment is ripe, but there would be no object in incarnating again. Man would only reject Him once more, just when he is on the verge of being ready to accept a more spiritual notion of his existence. Maybe that sublime moment is nearer than many imagine, none of us knows. But we may judge that the perfect moment might be when man's spiritual understanding has grown to such an extent that it matches the growth of his intellect. At present his intellect is appreciably ahead of his spiritual understanding, but there is a great hunger apparent for spiritual knowledge and that is a most heartening sign.

“ But realise that the Christ will not come to judge, as some fear. He will come, as He said, to make all things new, and that does not imply destruction. It is in that terrible newness, terrible to those minds which have become innured to selfishness and domination, that the stains in the soul of Man will become apparent to all, and he will see himself and judge himself from his own spirit. For some the experience will be unendurable and the soul will flee the body because it can no longer bear the Light, which will be visible to all. It is all there now, in the ethers, it is only that man's perceptions are so case-hardened that they cannot sense them. But when the veil is tom away man will know himself for what he is.

“ Men have sought the Holy Grail of Spirit through the ages, it is the Light of the Cosmic Christ they seek, in their inner consciousness they know it is there, but their minds recognise only what they can prove objectively. Try and think always of Humanity as a unity, a whole complete conception of God rather than as a collection of individuals. In their spirits they are all one, only in their souls do they possess isolated identity. The divine harvest is for all Humanity, not for a few chosen individuals; what a contradiction of Love that would be! That which God has created is real and cannot be destroyed, only that which Man has evolved out of himself must be left behind to perish.

“ Surely you can see that during the last fifty years of your time the barriers of unreality have broken down, one by one. Indivisibility is becoming an accepted principle of the life of mankind. Barriers of class and creed, of pride and prejudice and fear, have been tom down after the terrible conflicts which have shaken your civilisation to its insecure foundations. Nothing that man attempts which does not have the seal of goodness has any enduring success; how can you find peace and security in such conditions?

“The truth is that the influence of the Cosmic Christ is intervening in the affairs of Man, destroying the false façades hid so much misery, preparing the ground for a new world, when all things shall be 'made new,' when all men shall bow the head to the rule of the Christ of Love. Obviously He is not coming to Christians alone, He will not claim anyone Church for His own, His Church will be the hearts of men and women, one great Heart beating with love for Him. And that must clearly include all discarnate souls as well.”

Zerros stood up and it seemed as if he filled my small room with his presence. He spread wide his arms as if to include all of Humanity.

“ My son, the lives of men are not broken on the wheels of chance, for all are participating in a great redemption. For the Father's sake be tender, because of the broken heart of the past, be strong to help the soul of the present.”

Already his physical body was beginning to fade, giving place to a more radiant form which shone so brightly that I could scarcely bear to look upon it. His voice became inexpressibly tender and sweet.

“ Heavenly Father, Eternal One, strong to help and swift to save, may Thy Love enter into the hearts of all Thy children, flashing from soul to soul, awakening the spirit to a new revelation of their divine nature. May those who suffer feel the warm glow of Thy Christ's healing Light. May they take up their cross of suffering and fix their minds upon its emancipation and its power to redeem and release.”

For a few wondrous moments the shining form stood silent as waves of spiritual power radiated from him; for one eternal moment we were both wrapped in unutterable peace. Then he faded from my sight. Somehow I knew that my room would never be the same again.

CHAPTER 13

THE NEW WORLD

By this time Zerros had ceased to make appointments when he wished to renew our experiences. He had now linked his mentality to mine to such an extent that he was able to make his desires known without physical contact, and to receive my acquiescence in return.

He and I were old friends now for we had made so many excursions into the past and adventured in thought so many times that I no longer felt any strangeness in our difference in dimension. Our minds met on one plane of thought and after all that is what really matters. He had often hinted that a link existed between us springing from the past, but nothing would induce him to expand upon that subject nor would he allow me to glimpse any part I might have played upon the stages of past existence.

“ I suppose my past is too murky to be told,” I would suggest, jokingly, hoping to spur him into some personal revelation. I have only myself to blame in that he would neither give assent nor dissent to that suggestion but merely smiled inscrutably, inferring that any such knowledge could not be for my benefit and might endow some~ particular phase of our record with undue distinction.

In the early days of our adventuring I had usually experienced some discomfort and nervous strain as I embarked upon, and returned from, some travel out of time. But as the months rolled by these physical effects diminished so that I was enabled to slip out of physical consciousness as easily as out of an old suit.

In the incredible adventure in time and space which Zerros had used so adroitly to make known to me, not only the real history of man but the reality behind his existence, I had come to regard him with a deep and abiding affection. It now seemed to me to be the most natural thing to look upon him as my constant companion and adviser.

At the appointed time I would regard his chair, instinctively knowing that he would already be there, preparing to slow down his intense vibrations so that I could make sense contact with him. Now a rather special occasion had arrived, for I knew that we had finished with the past, and future visits outside of my accustomed dimension would be in violation of our accepted principles of time. I knew that the further astronomers peer into the depths of space the more does time evaporate into timelessness or becomes purely relative, but I was still held in the limitations of a three-dimensional mind. Prophecy was something I could not understand. So it was with a thrill of conjecture that I awaited his next visit.

Yes, there he was, the first faint impress on the padded seat as his form slowly became subject to gravity. In another moment he had 'arrived,' as naturally as if he had just stepped into the room. In my eagerness I told him how excited I was to have reached the threshold of 'new' time.

“ Ah! time,” he smiled back at me indulgently. “It does confuse you I know. Yet to live in timelessness, as we do, saves a great deal of trouble. We think only in terms of progress, that is our form of time. But then we do not have to struggle to feed and clothe our bodies. So I will give you a little picture to aid your understanding.

“ You sometimes go to the cinema and take your seat in the stalls. A picture is shown and perhaps it covers a great period of time, representing several generations of the same family, but with an unbroken theme. And you, in your stall, are so impressed that you link yourself with the events depicted, you become part of the story. You are that hero or heroine, you identify yourself with him or her. Yet you have not moved in time or space, you are still in your stall and only an hour or two has passed.

“ A soul incarnates, putting on a Human garment as a means of contacting the conditions of the environment it is about to enter. Although standing still in eternity, not moving in infinity, the soul observes all the events marching by, to such an extent that it feels it is taking part in them. It is as if the soul were watching over a loom in which myriads of threads were being woven into a fabric, with a specific pattern, and having some little control over it. Its destiny lies in the pattern being made, but it can alter that pattern slightly, for good or for bad.

“ But here is the point, you do not each have a loom of your own. The loom is so large that its pattern applies to every living soul, each of which is interwoven with that of the others, there is mutual influence between them all. You have your personal destiny, which you can affect by your actions and which is built up out of your experiences of the past and the action of your free will; and there is heredity and environment which provide you with another form of destiny; and then there is your national destiny, the fate of the country to which you belong or to which you give yourself; and finally there is world destiny, the destiny of the whole race of mankind.”

I expressed my appreciation for this helpful picture. “But,” I queried, “ I do not see how you can show me the future when it does not comprise a completed pattern.”

Patiently Zerros replied. “You and I have travelled together through a portrayal of the past, that was comparatively easy because the events had crystallised into form and made their pattern. We merely recaptured them. The future we shall see will be a synthesis of events built up by those who can see a great deal further than you can. It cannot be exact because it deals with destiny within the toils of time. I can tell you with exactitude the destiny of the Human race, which is to be reunited with its Creator, because that is a consummation existing outside of time. It is already there, in existence at this moment. Only in your prison of time, your experience, are you still travelling towards it. In Spirit you do not travel anywhere, you are where you wish to be.” He smiled at me. “You cannot grasp that? Well never mind, it does not really matter. But remember that God exists and plans outside of time, you could not possibly imagine Him wondering what is going to happen next! He creates in whole complete Ideas; in His Mind the Earth has already reached the end of its destined career. He cannot fail. You may say that the Earth has already passed the nadir of its destiny, which was to aid the rehabilitation of mankind, the fallen race. Now it is on the upward arc of its redemptive purpose.”

“ It doesn't look like it, from all appearances,” I protested, somewhat cynically.

“ Only apparently is it so. In the past man has accepted defeat after defeat, refusing to learn the obvious lesson. But now at long last he is beginning to see the light. There is a widespread search for new understanding of what life and its problems are all about. Conditions have improved so much that events in some obscure native village become known the world over. Your world is shrinking. And so opportunity arrives for a far greater measure of divine intervention. Time is coming to mean less to you than it did, though you might not think so.

“ Try and realise what God is trying to accomplish, without enduring harm to your souls. He aims at becoming conscious in the hearts of men and women. And owing to the darkened nature of man's soul that is something which must be attained very slowly and carefully, lest the soul be destroyed. He accomplishes this through His Incarnate Son, the Prism which steps down His tremendous Power so that it heals but does not harm. In this way the whole community, incarnate and discarnate, is being redeemed and uplifted from the degradation of what you term original sin. Nothing worth while is being lost. And as man is being restored towards his former pristine self so is the Earth itself being lifted in vibration to what it was intended to be.”

I spoke my thoughts aloud. “That is almost too wonderful to be true, but I still have a feeling that it is unjust to blame the whole of posterity for the sin of the original souls which fell.”

Zerros answered, patient as always, choosing his words with care. “If you have a united family and one of its members commits a crime or defrauds, does not the whole family unite to restore the family honour? Each member is an individual, but there is something greater than the individual, the family of which he forms a part. Without the sinner the family is less than it might have been. Even though the law may punish the culprit the family usually wishes to make good the loss. And are not all souls members of the family of God? Can they be a perfect unity as long as one remains outside? And if we postulate that the progress and prosperity of the whole family depends upon that unity, then we can see how each soul which is aware of its position would be ready to make the necessary sacrifice.

“ It is essential to grasp this truth of the unity of Humanity if you would find any sense or justice in what God is doing with His Creation. Without it all is unjust, cruel, meaningless. If you cling to the notion that a soul commences its existence at human birth it is just as bad as supposing that any soul which refuses Christian doctrine is doomed on Judgment Day. Survival presupposes pre-existence. You cannot have the Brotherhood of Man for which you long without accepting its implications.”

“ It is going to be very difficult to bring this idea home to people,” I said, soberly regarding my companion.

Zerros nodded. “It would be impossible for you to accomplish alone. But remember what you are about to do is part of a resurgent movement, set in motion by powers not of this world. The whole world of men and women is crying out for spiritual understanding, they have freed themselves largely from the rigid doctrines of their various religions, but there is nothing to take their place. We have to play our part in supplying a new understanding. The upsurge is already in progress, it is part of the preparation for the future.”

“ But,” I put in, “ I have noticed that there is an insidious implication in modern thought that man is an animal in origin, having evolved through mutation into an intelligent being. You can find that being implied in radio talks, in school teaching, in technical books, even in some churches. The finest thinkers in our time accept it. How are we going to combat that?”

“ That is very true. But it is a passing phase, it is the swing of the pendulum from the orthodox ideas of past ages where it was thought that man was descended from one man and one woman. Science has much new knowledge along biological and anthropological lines, and has interpreted that knowledge in the only way possible to intellectual understanding. But already such thinking is meeting with difficulties, Science, on the higher levels of research, is finding itself lost in conjecture, for its dimensional understanding is merging into the undimensional so that all its findings have to be reconsidered. Scientists are finding that the Cosmos knows not the meaning of beginnings and endings, and they are pondering how man himself, the cream of creation as far as they know, can have a beginning or an ending.

“ The key to all this is the knowledge that the Cosmic Christ is working through the minds of men the world over, bringing to them a new revelation which is slowly filtering through into their consciousness. The time is coming when there can be no arrogant assertion that one particular faith or religion is true, and all the others false. It is the age-old esoteric Christianity coming back into focus, with all that that implies.”

“ You mean that something new to our experience is occurring?” I put in, as I tried to set our own moment in time, into this new advent.

“ Yes indeed,” replied Zerros with enthusiasm. “It is something very new, quite novel to what Mankind has known in the past. The Might of the Creator is pressing through the Cosmic Christ into the minds of men and women the world over. Every nation, every tiny village, every individual, is responding to it in many various ways, according to their interpretation of what it means. To some it means new discovery, to others a wider appreciation of how the other half of the world lives, yet again others interpret it as a need for some ideology. They glimpse the truth but for them the vision is distorted and they interpret it in terms of self and perhaps express it through domination. It may seem strange to you that some of the ideas expressed through totalitarian regimes, often cruelly and despotically, owe their inception to the influence of God. It is not His fault that they are misinterpreted, for He has to pour out His Spirit upon humanity, that is the only way in which they can be redeemed, from within themselves. But the wind has to be tempered to the shorn lamb, otherwise man would be destroyed, it is a long slow business, but now it can be speeded up, as is evidenced by the increasing tempo of your lives.

“ This invasion by Spirit stimulates both good and evil in the mind of Man, you cannot inspire one without the other. Evil flocculence, that is to say the distortion of the elements of the Earth, has long been hidden within its chemical nature, it was latent in tradition, in inhibition, it was dormant in the subconscious, but now the time has come to release this wrongful flocculence into manifestation so that it might be recognised for what it is and eliminated. Some parts of the Earth were saturated with it and no enlightenment could be hoped for while it was able to exert a contrary influence upon Mankind. It had to be disinterred, so it is that it has been stirred into violent eruption during the past fifty years or so, with all the sad results you know. There is meaning in all that occurs, the Divine Goodness in Creation working always to defeat the ends of injustice.”

How true that was, I thought, though one could never prove it as if it were an equation. It is clear that the principles upon which human reasoning is based will have to be radically changed before we can begin to assimilate the truth. At present one has to absorb truth through an inner recognition of verities, yet undeniably that conviction is a powerful one.

“When you really begin to understand divine principles misunderstanding and strife will cease. At first strife will be lifted from the material to the mental plane, a war of words instead of weapons; that is already happening. Your world is changing so rapidly that none could postulate the conditions of life even a. decade hence. Already your scientists know a great deal, often much more than they are prepared to admit, even to themselves. They are getting to the heart of problems of weight and density and are finding their conclusions most disturbing. Very soon they will be able to suggest means of overcoming gravity. Metaphysics will emerge as a new science; already its boundaries with physics are melting away. But for this aim direct inspiration is needed to overcome the resistance which rational understanding offers. The very word rational will have to be stepped up in meaning. No scientific experiment or discovery can ever be really or fully successful where it is not in tune with a desire for goodness. Your knowledge of atomic energy could have done nothing but benefit Humanity to untold lengths had it not been first directed to destruction.

“ A growing recognition of this strange intervention into Human affairs must cause an eventual change of heart in every race and every individual whose soul is awake. It is because the mind of Man, of Humanity, has reached a stage in its development, in its unveiling to a knowledge of what it really is, that the Cosmic Christ can and must take over the reins of government through direct inspiration. You cannot hope to build a new world along purely material and scientific lines; the evil latent in Mankind will always operate to defeat such altruistic ideas. The animal nature in Man must first be eliminated. The present trend suggests men as saying: “ You tell us we are evolving from animals, well let us have our animal enjoyment, we like it.” Can you not see how such an outlook must denigrate any hope for future peace? Such perverse thinking must soon reduce a community to the lowest ebb.

“ But of course that cannot be. All is under direction and control. For despite the growth of so-called rational thought it has not gained hold of the majority of people and will not do so. If you recall that you are living dual lives, the life of the spirit and that of the Human mind, at one and the same time, you will see what I mean. The one is inarticulate but transcendentally obedient to divine will, the other is vociferous but its logic is skin deep, for it is not based upon realities.”

“ Do you think this change will come into fulfilment soon?” I asked, all eagerness for the answer.

Zerros smiled, a smile that seemed to come from deep within him. “How impatient you are. You get your world in a mess and you want it all straightened out in a moment. The present era is still part of the dark ages. The immediate future may be known as that of destruction, the breaking down of powerful defences erected by the ignorant minds of those who think they can defy Omnipotence. There is a deep distrust of anything new that might upset the even tenor of existing life, a tenor that is already broken by unseen causes. That distrust is due to ignorance of the insight and understanding that might be yours, because you pin your faith to material things which you know and can analyse. In proportion to the speed with which this relation filters through into Human consciousness sufficiently for a fresh step forward to be taken, so will the Perfect Moment draw near when the veil of ignorance and misunderstanding may be drawn.” A mischievous smile lit the corners of his mouth as he added: “You can work that sum out for yourself! “

His voice became serious as went on. “There is of course the possibility that Man will still reject the message, and in that case there must be terrible catastrophe. You cannot oppose such a tremendous sweeping Power as the Will of God, without injury. It is omnipotent and must sweep over the minds of men and women where it is not allowed admission through the free will. The scales of Divine Justice are absolute and cannot be deflected, only in 'time' does it seem that they are out of truth, even as a straight reed in the water seems to bend. Warnings of this eventuality have been given from time immemorial and should be heeded. In the highest realm of all prophecy is an exact science, in the realm of Perfection where all is known, where there is no chance, no beginning or ending, no time or space. Only as you descend into manifestation and gather the chains of time and space and dimension about you, does prophecy become distorted by what you term chance. And I am nowhere near the top of the scale, so I cannot tell you what will happen. But remember that to the Mind of God every event is known and prepared for, even to the falling of a leaf.

“ But that is only a short-term view, I prefer to take the longer view in which the splendid fight of man against self, the noble against the ignoble, is preordained to succeed. It can be delayed in time, but what is time to Creative Mind? The consummation is certain, all souls created are to be recovered, that is what matters, and they are not really lost, it only seems to be so. None can be lost for their spirit is at home with God, and they have not the power to sever themselves from their own spirit. Through defiance of the Good they 'separated' themselves from it, through suffering they must return, that is the only way.

“ This renewal of Human existence will be astounding and quite beyond the present limits of Human understanding. For one thing man will have to realise that he shares his divinity with all created things, and that includes the Animal Kingdom. He has taken terrible toll of the animal creation and it has infected his instincts with an animal nature. Not only must he learn to divest himself of this illicit impregnation but must give it back to the Animal Kingdom through love, thus sharing in the redemptive plan. To a lesser extent he will have to learn to understand the realms of vegetation and the Mineral Kingdom and to co-operate with them, for they too shared in his fall, thus they will become less crystallised, more loosely knit, with a progressive change in character.

“ You are aware that there is a vast range of Angelic beings, some of them quite elemental in form and intelligence, which will need to be taught to love and be loved by Man, where between them there has only been fear or derision. Without them your natural world could not exist and you could not live. You owe them a deep debt of gratitude for you have imposed upon them an intolerable burden of work, restoring and rectifying that which Man has done wrong.

“While all this regeneration is going on there will be a progressive elimination of all that is noxious to Human existence. The harmful animal life, the poisonous bacteria, the barbs and traps of natural creation, will gradually disappear or change their nature so as to be helpful instead of harmful. The lion will lie down with the lamb in very truth.”

Overcome with this dazzling prospect, so marvellous that it surpassed the bounds of reason, I made no comment. Yet, I thought, why not? If man is to swing up the arc of his salvation there must be some such transcendent movement. If man's evolution is to take a leap upwards surely his environment must follow suit.

Zerros' voice broke in upon my thoughts. “I am telling you this so that you may be prepared for what you are about to witness in future visits. Remember that Man is but a perambulating mind, his body is but a vehicle through which he may make contact with his environment. If his mind is to be released from its bondage it could surely make little progress if it were still to be hampered by a malignant Nature, besetting him at every step. There could be no point in it. Man is already growing up and stepping out of the age of authority into the age of reason. It remains now for right values to be substituted for those false ones upon which he has based his reasoning. Creedalism, whether in religion, politics or social economy, must give place to a growing understanding which knows no ceiling.”

I asked Zerros how he saw the governments of the world operating in the future.

“ I do not see any sort of World Federation coming into being, there would be no need. Federation is a sort of lining up against adversity. Instead there will be, as now, a democratic form of government through enlightened choice. And how can the choice be anything but the right one when men's minds are illumined by Truth? Once man realises what he is and how useless he is in himself, how dependent upon Divine Guidance, then all difficulties will be removed. There will be no more war. As I have said none would be prepared to go to war against God. But there will be a colossal ignorance to cope with. There will be much rebuilding to be done, both mental and physical. Instead of your armies warring against each other they will go forth to war against all that holds Man back from gracious living, to tame Nature, to teach the people how to live the new life, to inspire and to heal. Yes, it will be a sort of Divine Theocracy, God governing through the receptive minds of men. For how could man plan for himself better than his Creator, who knows all? Half the troubles of your world would vanish overnight if there was a change of heart due to a new knowledge of what Man is.

“Inevitably there must be loss of Human life, due to the fact that the darkness in the hearts of some will not let them face up to the new life, the new brightness. But they will start life anew in other surroundings, for God's Love spares none. The key to the new world lies in the words: “You and I and My Father are One! “ Remember those words. Once they are realised the channel opens right from the Source of life, down into the recesses of Men's hearts. However far Man has fallen it is not too far for the Light to penetrate into the darkness, if only he will permit it to do so. For the Christ of Love comes to make captivity captive, thus releasing the soul into the sunshine.”

I smiled to myself as I said: “ That is a very different idea of Heaven to a state of unalloyed bliss.”

“ The idea of static bliss is appalling to a Human nature which has had to be endowed with fighting qualities, the demand for action, for speed, for overcoming difficulties. These qualities were essential for a fallen race in order to equip them for the fight against the stranglehold which evil forces had over them. Once that fight is over the need for such qualities will disappear and other qualities will take their place. When there is no longer any struggle to live, because conditions are so much easier, the contemplative life will replace the life of overcoming. Human existence was never designed to drop to such a low level as is at present displayed. At the outset you have pure spirit, undefiled but inexperienced, not conscious of Love because there is no contrast by which to judge it. And at the end of the journey, powered through free will, and supposing there can be an end to such a journey, you have a spiritual being returning to its Source, having achieved a triumph of identity and learned to merge that identity with the Source, enriched by experience. That mergence is not loss but gain, it is a divine companionship, a unity of being without which Life would hold nothing.”

“ And now,” he went on, “are you ready to adventure with me into the future and see how the New World is fashioned out of the old?”

His words took me unawares. Prepared though I had been, I was so engrossed in the stupendous picture of a transformed world that the prospect of actually seeing some of these prophetic states made my mind reel.

“ I will try,” said Zerros, smiling at my evident confusion, “ to take you on a visit to your country some hundreds of years hence. You must realise that a great deal will have happened in the meantime which I am not permitted to disclose. There will be changes in land surfaces, natural boundaries will have little importance, while climatic changes will have helped to alter the way of life. You will find big differences.”

He talked on with the object of calming my natural excitement at the idea of witnessing events which had not yet happened in time. Gradually I came under the spell of that magnetic voice and I felt my mind becoming stilled and empty. My spiritual consciousness became more active and ceased to motivate the senses, refocusing its vision on to a higher level. I ceased to be aware of my physical surroundings and .....

It seemed as if I had awoken in a foreign land when I opened my eyes again, like emerging from a dream. For some time I was unable to concentrate my faculties. Where was I? Why was I here? Then the familiar shining figure of Zerros emerged from the mists of unconsciousness and I realised what had happened, the thrill of adventure rushed back into my mind and I knew that we had left the past far behind and were now conscious in a future which .... which had not yet happened, a distracting thought.

Quickly my gaze swept round over an unfamiliar landscape. We were on the banks of a river, in a town of some sort. The water glittered in the sunlight, with a strange translucence. There were noble buildings on both banks, none of which struck any chord of memory, functionally they were quite strange to me. Clearly their design held more of aesthetic influence than subservience to utilitarian needs. There was beauty of line and concept and a fine discrimination in colour.

The banks of the river were lined with trees and gardens, beautifully laid out and stocked with an immense variety of flowers. There could be no smog nuisance here, I mused, as my eyes took in the cleanliness of the pastel-shaded materials used in building. My gaze swung away from the river and - I gasped! For at the far end of gently descending terraces, surrounded by gardens and lawns, stood none other than dear old St. Paul's Cathedral a familiar friend from the past. There could be no doubt about it for although the fabric had been cleansed from its stains the venerable pile had an unmistakable air of antiquity. I turned in amazement to my companion.

“This is indeed the London of the future,” said Zerros in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he might have been describing some model at an exhibition. “It is a synthesis of what time will bring forth, constructed by those with vision and knowledge of all the converging trends.”

I looked about me for people. There were none of the hurrying throngs with which we are familiar. But there were plenty of people about, strolling in the sunshine as on a leisured Sunday afternoon. There was something different about the scene, a sort of unreality to my three-dimensional notions, but then there was indeed a difference in dimension. It was hard to accept that this busy scene had not yet happened in time.

The people wore brighter colours than in our own day and their clothes were more in the nature of robes than the close-fitting garments with which we are familiar. I gathered from Zerros' running commentary that sex equality had been attained and then transcended by a new and better understanding of what each could contribute to the common good. I pondered over the mighty effort that must have been exerted to bring about these immense changes in an existence which had crystallised over the centuries into a characteristic. And surely it must have been echoed throughout the world.

We moved upstream and presently I found fresh evidences of the London I used to know. Westminster Abbey still stood, though its environs too had given way to open spaces. The tower of Big Ben was still there but much of the old Houses of Parliament had gone. Nelson still gazed out from the top of his column, guarded by his lions, but the surrounding buildings had all receded, giving place to flowering shrubs. What changes he must have witnessed through the years! Nowhere did we see any sign of dilapidation or drab rows of little houses. Planning seemed to have reached a zenith of imagination, made possible by immense changes in technique.

But a part of one street was still under reconstruction and Zerros took me to where a monster machine stood brooding over chaos. It was labeled 'Disintegrator.' Zerros informed me that it used a form of atomic fission to disintegrate used materials into their chemical constituents, and then reassembled them into predetermined matter. To prove his point there was a mass of pinkish powder at the rear of the machine while at the front was a broad maw into which no doubt the debris was drawn.

Leaving London we travelled far and wide over the country. I wish I had space to relate all that we saw. The old life, with its drab patterns, had disappeared and in its place remained a lovely land as Nature made it. Everywhere we found evidences of care and attention to detail, as if these people valued their work highly. There were a few roads but no sign of railways though in a few cases embankments could still be traced. I suppose the most important changes in the vista were to be found in the lay-out of the residential areas. Where the cities were less densely populated, the country areas were more in communities than in isolated buildings. Wheat was ripening but there was little evidence of cattle or other farm animals.

Presently we lighted upon a doorway set in a mound, surrounded by orchards. With an amused little smile Zerros· announced that this was the entrance to a large factory. Bewildered, I followed him down some stairs. I was accustomed to shocks by this time but I was scarcely prepared for the amazing sight that met our entrance into an immense factory area, lofty and wide. For the whole scene was filled with humming machines - and scarcely an operator was in sight! Here, I thought, was automation at its height. Some sort of machined parts were being made, and I noted how each was machined, gauged, and passed on for further processing without any handling by Human effort. Truly man had mastered the machine at last and was no longer its slave.

In no other part of this delectable land did I notice the aroma of holiness than in a hospital we visited. There was a radiance which pervaded its corridors that must surely have been a healing power by itself. The patients seemed to be those suffering from mental strain rather than physical ailments, and indeed Zerros informed me that physical illness was largely disappearing though mental disease was more difficult to overcome.

We entered a cathedral, venerable with age but not one familiar to me. But gone were the trappings of traditional worship, gone were the ancient tombs, while the altar was situated, as in olden days, in the centre of the nave. It was covered with cloth of gold, and I felt somehow that from this central position teaching would be given by beings, perhaps not of this world. For one sublime moment I felt that here, at this hallowed spot, the Light of the World was in contact with Human souls as He had not been since those far-off days in Atlantis.

It seems that, having at last come to know the composite nature of their own being and the immaterial nature of their environment, the enlightened men and women of the future had set themselves the task of becoming living examples of the new understanding. That implied a tremendous responsibility and statesmanship, for not all the world was so easily converted. First the men and women, chosen in great numbers from those nations which were ready for this spiritual conquest of the world, had to set themselves stringent tests to prove their fitness, mentally and morally. Where great armies had stood, armed with the latest in lethal weapons, new armies were recruited, armed and trained with weapons only of reconstruction, of healing, of re-education in the redemption of the natural world which the sin of man had defiled. Then they set forth to the ends of the Earth on a divine mission to rescue their fellows from the chains of material thought, helping in the work of making all things new. And as they went they sang songs of praise such as this workaday world of ours has never heard, filled with the joy of constructive creation…

It seemed to me that I caught some of the joyful refrains of these songs of the ethers as I opened my eyes once more in my study. Back to the old dreary but lovable city that, as yet, knew not its dramatic and wondrous destiny.

CHAPTER 14

CITY OF THE FUTURE

The next occasion of our travels through time and space aroused in me intense excitement, for it was to be to an era when life had assumed such novel features that it had little relation to the one we know and feel to be so enduring.

My glimpse of an England-to-be whetted my appetite for further revelations of what the future might hold in store. On his next visit I asked Zerros how far ahead in time this new adventure would be.

He smiled a little ruefully as he replied, “Can you never learn to think outside the limitation of time? Time is such a drag upon the understanding. You must realise that the whole world will have changed in almost every respect. Not only the minds of men but the very atoms and molecules that form matter will have changed their cohesion. Life will be quite out of focus with what you know. Naturally your materialists would ridicule such a thought, they cannot hold the thought of such a speed-up in evolution. But then they do not reckon with the Infinite Power of the Creator, if indeed they concede His existence. His Will is not subject to Human logic.

“ In the age we are about to visit the revolutions of the Earth will have quickened, the axis will have altered as will the orbit of your planet. If I were to give you the numbers of years to the era we are about to visit I should have to do immense calculations and even then I doubt if the result would have any meaning for you. It would be like trying to get time and timelessness to coincide.

“ Let us instead use a different yardstick and think in terms of progress and fulfilment of an age-old Plan thought out by Omniscience long before the world was created. Let us view the prospect from the freedom of Spirit in which there is no fear, no failure, only a seemingly endless projection of wonder opening out of wonder. Could an all-powerful God of Love do less for His children, so dear to Him? It all comes back to that; if you believe in God you must submit to His Will, you must not try and make Him conform to your limited outlook. A century of evolution at its present rate is not comparable to one hour of the goodly experience I am about to show you. It will be the same Earth but with that omitted that was never intended to be, an Earth of surpassing beauty and charm in which the demands of the lower self will be sublimated by the emergence into consciousness of spiritual power within each Human soul.

“ Try and think of your present world with all the principal causes of strife and fear and opposition removed. A world in which there can be little insecurity of life and limb that cannot readily be put right. How would such a world appeal to you?”

A smile flickered over the loved features of my companion as he spoke. I knew he was trying to educate my mind to these novel conceptions, to raise my consciousness so that the scenes I was about to witness should not come as too great a shock to my sensibilities. “I think it would be a wonderful experience,” I replied solemnly. I knew somehow that it was going to be difficult to abandon the reliance upon an existing order of physics which had for so long excluded the need for doubt. “I know you will say that Man's condition will be different, but somehow I feel that something will have gone out of his life, there will be something missing.”

Zerros nodded in agreement. “To you, yes, who are equipped with a mentality specifically designed to enable you to exist in a combative environment. But suppose you no longer regarded the product of your labour with the satisfaction born of the effort you had to make. Suppose someone came along and produced the same result with a fraction of the effort; would you still feel pride in your achievements, or would you express envy?”

With a laugh I agreed that I should be consumed with envy. “And I should soon be intolerant of the effort I had made to accomplish the same result,” I continued. “I quite see that I shall have to stand right outside of time, as we know it, in order to comprehend what is meant by the world of the future. But it is strange to think that our clumsy old world is to change from a Three-dimensional life to what must be nearer the Fourth Dimension.”

Zerros confirmed this when he said: “ In the age we are about to visit man will have transcended many of the limitations that make his life so burdensome at present. Now he has to labour hard to think out his projects, assemble the labour and materials, often at great cost, and then produce with great effort. Can you lift your thoughts to an era when many of these intermediary processes can be short-circuited? Already you are beginning to do so, but imagine creation by the power of concentrated will!

“You know a very little about atomic fission, matter is not so defiantly cohesive that only the application of heat or pressure can bring about a molecular change. If you are careless you can turn your Sunday joint into carbon with ease. But supposing you could bring about such changes by simple concentration of the will upon the atoms of an object or material, and holding the thought of the change you wished to bring about. Such atoms can be controlled and it is only the supreme conceit of your scientists that would make them ridicule such a suggestion.

“The artisan of the future will assemble the necessary elements, if necessary from the atmosphere, by the power of thought alone, sometimes by the concentrated power of many minds, and then fashion them into the desired shape by the same process. Do you not see that much of your machinery will thus become unnecessary, the production of all your needs will be so simple that you will have ample leisure for other pursuits, and indeed one of your future problems will be the most suitable way of employing that leisure. But first you will have to get rid of many inhibitions and fixed ideas.

“ Again, Man will not have to reason out his problems on a hit or miss method. His intuitive sense of what is right will develop so rapidly in the rarer atmosphere that he will be able to form proper conclusions without difficulty. He will have his own private oracle as it were. And discoveries such as you have never dreamed of will await your attention. And above all, Man's basic nature will have been lifted above the level where hitherto it had been his master. He will know the truth and truth shall make him free. But remember that Truth is an infinite quality, you can never plumb its depths. Therein lies its fascination.”

Once again I was unprepared for what met my gaze as I opened my eyes upon a scene so far into the distant future that it seemed as if time itself had been transcended. I could not help comparing the lovely land spread out before me with that of ancient Atlantis. There was the same faint unreality about the whole aspect which had characterised our first view of that wonderful land. Yet there was a livingness in all I saw that dispelled any idea of a synthetic creation. And gradually I began to detect a difference which I find it hard to describe. Could I say that this land had, as it were, grown up, while Atlantis was beautiful but immature? One felt very close to Creation here and very conscious of its goodness and of its lovableness. I reached out to touch a flower resplendent with vivid colour and to my astonishment it leant caressingly towards me. For the life of me I could not have picked it.

Zerros and I moved across the undulating country with our accustomed swiftness. The people we encountered were handsome, and that goes without saying for there was a radiance about them which spoke of their innate goodness. One could hardly ascribe to them any negative qualities. Though there was sameness in the kind of clothing they wore it was some inner quality each possessed that made differentiation easy.

I gathered that these wonderful people had a very high standard of thought and deed, by contrast with our own, yet they were by no means of a common level in their moral or intellectual being. The need for education in these qualities was still essential. All this progress had been made possible by the gradual and continuous raising of the gravitational density of the Earth, which, among other results, had affected the bloodstream of Humans and animals considerably, not to mention the flora and the minerals of the soil.

Although I saw a number of people who were elderly in a distinguished sort of way I did not observe any who were careworn or deficient in their faculties. N or did I notice any cripples or sick persons, evidence of a guilty civilisation.

It was true, what Zerros had told me, that thought creation had almost superseded machines and manual labour. And such is the effect of Human nature that when abundance was provided demands sank to a much lower level. Everything needful for happy and peaceful existence was at hand, without the pressing need to hoard against threats or other adversity, so where was the need to conserve abundance? It is difficult for us, with our many preoccupations and need for constant labour and provision, to contemplate an existence from which it seems all the spice of life has been removed. But I recalled that Zerros had assured me that Man's fighting instincts would dissipate with the need for their use, to be replaced by a more contemplative and infinitely more effective attitude of mind. We know so little of the power of thought, though we are beginning to compute its effects on our lives. No doubt the greater knowledge had to be withheld for obviously we should have misused it. And after all, divine creation is just what I was witnessing in this advanced culture, it was the realisation of their divine nature that enabled these clever people to employ the same creative principles to their needs.

In this world of the future it was clear that the need for a density of environment sufficient to hamper the expression of extreme negative impulses no longer existed, and so the environment could be lightened, as it were, to allow more freedom of spiritual power and more knowledge of its potential uses. I could not help thinking that already we are reckoning in terms of life on other planets entirely out of focus with that of our own. Our one-time conceit that we were the only form of intelligent life in the universe is slowly evaporating. In a universe that is obviously manifested out of the Thought of the Creator it is surely reasonable to say that thought creation should extend into every phase of its manifestation, wherever it is found.

Thus it is that the men of the future will subject materials to an intense mental bombardment until their atomic structure comes under its influence and assumes the desired form.

Zerros and I moved over great portions of this strange land, observing its many features, many unfamiliar but all in accordance with some principle of beauty. At length we perceived on the distant horizon what I can only describe as a dream city. It was not so much the elegance of the architecture which held our attention as we drew nearer, but in some queer way the appeal was to the aesthetic sense. While the City of the Golden Gates in Atlantis radiated its own beauty of form and colour, it was more in the form of a divine example, a single expression of godly form, supreme throughout the land. But here I found myself possessed with the idea of fulfilment, it seemed that the ultimate in creative design had been reached. I can imagine nothing beyond this superb example of what a city might be when lifted above the purely functional. And we later found that this was but one of many. The only building which holds, for me, any comparison with this subtle distinction is the Taj Mahal at Agra in India, a mausoleum built out of the suffering of a broken heart. To stand close to its great dome and towering minarets is to realise its great size. Yet to stand a few hundred yards away and view it in the light of a full moon, is to be transported to another world. It is so perfectly proportioned that its size ceases to have any meaning, one feels that outstretched hands could take it in their grasp. Its elfin beauty tugs at the heartstrings, as if the suffering that gave it birth emanated from the very marble of which it is built.

I wish I could convey some idea of the entrancing beauty and sense of meaning that was inherent in this lovely city. It was there, radiating from the very materials of which it was constructed, yet I could write no more of its real meaning than I could of some exotic scent from a bottle. No harsh contrast was visible, every detail seemed to dovetail into every other.

There were no walls to this open city and it seemed to welcome visitors along its broad avenues. I noticed that there were no embellishments or ornamentation on the buildings, no hint of ostentation, no suggestion of personality. Nothing to distract from the sheer beauty of line and colour and design in its most perfect form. Here and there were fountains quietly splashing crystal-clear water, not to quench an imaginary thirst but to give depth to the sense of quietude and peace. In fact tranquility seemed to be the keynote of all we saw. Trees and shrubs, plants and flowers, abounded, seeming to bloom eternally. The whole atmosphere seemed to be designed to appeal to the soul rather than to an intellectual sense, offering an appeal that could not be resisted. It was the perfect hospitality. I felt that here I could assuage all the inarticulate longings that had ever struggled for expression in my life.

It was clear that there could be no inequality or inferiority in this dream city, no uptown or downtown, no privileged preserve or expression of possessiveness. It had the true communal air about it which could owe allegiance only to the highest Source of all. As we wandered down the vistas - I could not call them streets I noticed there were stalls of fruits and other commodities, unattended, from which I suppose one could help oneself. I could imagine that very little food was required to sustain life in this rarified atmosphere, which itself held much of the forces which the body required and indrew through inhalation.

Perhaps because of my constant stream of questions Zerros led me to a large building which we found to be a vast library. Room after room was filled with books and there were many objects forming a fair sized museum. Most were in a language beyond my understanding, but after much search Zerros found me a book which proved to be a child's encyclopedia, in a language somewhat resembling English. As I glanced through the pages and studied the illustrations I became aware of a peculiar quality about the words, they seemed to attune my mind to that of the writer so that I comprehended what he was trying to convey much better than through the mere words.

This text book of the future child, elementary matter no doubt to adults of that period, was an eye-opener to me, I found it fascinating. What would be beyond the grasp of our most brilliant minds seemed to be simple to these young people. I knew nothing of their history or standards or culture but it seemed certain that they had been born with a brain capacity far in advance of our own. I was amused to find pictures of appliances of our own day shown as examples of an outmoded existence. There were Hogarthian pictures of worthy citizens consuming vast quantities of meat, travelling in slow boxes called motor cars which collided with each other and ran people down, and in aeroplanes which sometimes fell out of the sky. Warfare was dismissed in a few horrified sentences as we might deal with slavery.

Later I came upon a description of the new industrial revolution, when man overcame the machine and then found means of disposing of the machine altogether. Human senses began to respond to an infinitely wider range of tone values, in all forms of art, of music, of design. Gradually men drew closer to other coincidental worlds and established contact with them. There appeared to be a series of natural catastrophes that broke the tension which had held the material world inviolate from the spiritual worlds and this allowed a new stream of benignant influence to enter and transform the world of matter. With the heightening of Man's sensibility and the increasing vibration of the Earth itself the actual soil underwent a change so that crops increased in speed of fruition and quality of produce. New forms of comestibles appeared.

In the sequence of events I read that Man began to know himself for what he is and this knowledge engendered many changes in his habits and outlook. He ceased to eat meat and turned to the direct produce of the soil for his sustenance, and with this change his desires for great quantities of food subsided. The currents of Man's whole life were to a great measure reversed. In this way Man and his environment rose in condition until they became a whole stage higher than before. The elemental life which had been caring for vegetable growth came under the benign influence and was able to encourage new species and new spores from existing stocks, far better suited to Man's new needs than their prototypes.

Nor was this change, limited to food production, for the cold intellectual outlook of Humanity which derived from the crystalline nature of the Mineral Kingdom upon which man had lavished his interest, softened as the vibrations of the very soil quickened. From the unsympathetic rock and the brilliant hardness of the diamond he had drawn his brittle outlook which could see only in terms of physics. His growing knowledge of metallurgy tended to smother the roundness of his inherent creative ability. Such distortions had isolated his intellect from the softening illumination of Love, the Power which was the theme of all creation. Thus he had lost his appreciation of divinity and squandered his spiritual heritage.

But now he began to give back that hard core of his thinking to the Kingdom from which he had drawn it, which involved a surrender of his self-will. Divine Life began to flow in his veins once more. All this, and much much more, became clear to me as I stood, reading this fascinating record of Man's resurgence. Through the magic of the words my mind absorbed much more than this meagre reconstruction could convey. There was so much mysticism in what I learned that mere words can never reproduce it.

In a sudden revelation it came to me how very close we are to this complete change of life, and yet how far. It needs only a change of heart, an infusion of the divine essence of Love into the soul of Man, for a whole reversal of Man's way of life, his attitude towards his fellows, and for the subjugation of his negative impulses. It requires only a working majority to experience this uplift for the whole to be transformed. It could happen overnight. We stand closer to it than we know, yet fear holds us spellbound. Even the mightiest nations feel insecure, a fatal despair holds us immobile. Many feel the position to be hopeless and drug their minds with the pursuit of pleasure.

Yet it is possible to postulate the means by which this change of heart might be initiated, for the desire, the longing, is there. Never before in the known history of our world has there been such a longing for spiritual enlightenment. Though it is dominated by the massive clouds of cruelty, oppression, distrust and fear, it is there, flowing strongly below the surface. First we must know what we are, in which case our doctrinal teaching needs overhauling. Then must come the realisation of the survival of the Human soul, and all that that implies. And because no such realisation could endure did it not rest upon eternal verities, it is clear that survival implies pre-existence. With this would come the knowledge that while we are all 'brothers' in Spirit, we are not necessarily born equal, a conclusion which, under the law of Love, imposes responsibilities upon those with greater capabilities. Next would come a new insight into the nature of matter, of the natural world, and the interrelationship of the many planetary forces that go to the mechanism of the universe. There is an immense field for research here, with fascinating possibilities. For to understand these forces is half-way to bringing them under control.

From all this would be born a new wonder at the immensity and splendour of what we call God, for surely no research of such imponderables could be profitable without recognition of the Source and inspiration of them all. Soon we should be able to accept as reasonable and normal the immanence of other worlds and conditions coincident to our own, and the existence of forms of life in our own environment upon whose co-operation and activities we should have to reckon.

Finally we should be able to look back down the vistas of time and visualise something of the immense story of Man's resurgence from the pit into which Man - and that includes ourselves - had fallen, and the wondrous Love of God which had engineered our recovery through ages of benign influence acting upon our defiant free will.

If we can build up that inspiring picture of the past we can surely trace the progress of the future, the pre-ordained flight into the promised land which has been kept inviolate against our return to its joys.

I broke off my reverie for there were unmistakable signs of weakness which meant that I must return to my inert physical body. I looked out of the window and tried to fix in my mind the wonderful changes that must have occurred as that strong wave of regeneration swept over the men and women of the future to give them their first faint recognition of what they had lost for so long. Surely at this time the masculine element in Humanity must have shone forth to meet the feminine element in its whole being, a divine proposal for their reunion in a spiritual re-marriage of souls. From the distant peaks of time, from the mighty mountains of Spirit, must the Love-call have echoed through the vaults of space, hailing the demolition of separation, inviting men and women to the glorious consummation of their selfless love. None who were ready could fail to hear it!

Surely now the glorious voices of the 'Sons of the Morning' must be rejoicing at the approaching end of the long long saga of redemption, shouting together that lovely Angelus whose chimes ring out: “You and I and My Father are One! Amen and Amen!”

CHAPTER 15

ETHEREAL EARTH

“As above so below; that which has been shall be again.” (From an ancient prophecy.)

How shall I begin to describe what we experienced on our last visit into the future, a condition so utterly divorced from anything anyone has ever imagined that I can scarcely find words in which to express what little I can recall? I would need to set a little lamp behind each word which appears in cold print in order to illumine them all to something approaching their real meaning.

Zerros had warned me that this flight out of 'time' would be our last, that his mission was drawing to a close and soon he would be leaving me to digest and record the tremendous experiences he had brought within my reach. But he promised that although he would no longer be making objective appearances in my study he would continue to inspire and enlighten my efforts to translate those experiences into readable form. Only since I have attempted that task have I realised to the full how difficult it would prove to be.

Thus my anxiety increased as I realised how soon he was to depart from conscious contact with me, and I recalled how much I still wanted to know. However I was more than thankful that I was to have the unseen guidance of my dear friend in the days that lay ahead; how to translate the reality of those ephemeral experiences into words which did not rob them of any coherent meaning. I had grown to admire and to love this being of such deep wisdom and knowledge, yet who was so humble and understanding in his approach to the Human outlook.

Our last glimpse of evolving Mankind was to be of an era when Man had transcended his purely physical state with an almost complete spiritual ascendancy, having attained once more that Edenic bliss from which he had fallen so completely unthinkable aeons of time ago. “You look at life through a keyhole,” Zerros had said, in his apt way of putting fundamental problems in a nutshell. You peep at realities through a tiny hole in the wall of materialism, and wonder why you cannot understand what you see. You try and measure that with your senses and analyse it by finite means. What you can measure with your five senses forms but a small waveband on the spectrum of infinity. You observe what your senses tell you and think that that is all. Yet your physicists know that there are many degrees of vibration above and below those to which human senses respond. Have you not got whistles which you cannot hear yet which a dog at a great distance can hear clearly? Have you not got radar telescopes which can 'see' stars through thick fog which can never be visible to the eye? You are learning fast but not so fast as to overcome the inhibitions to which you cling so hard. I ask your pardon for labouring this point for until it is firmly established there can be no Human understanding of what I am trying to present to you, no freedom from the thraldom of time and space, no sense of reality .

“ You will remember the occasion when we stood, out there in space, and watched the unfoldment of the real, multiple nature of the Earth, how it opened out into progressively rarified planes of existence, glimpsing for a moment planes which are invisible to the restricted waveband of Human vision, but clearly defined and solidly substantial to those who are equipped to dwell therein? That alone is a tremendous step for anyone who had pinned his faith to a geographical universe, a multitude of empty worlds spinning in empty space. Now you know that empty space is a misnomer, there is no such thing as a vacuum in the fullness of Creation.

“ The denser these planes become, as they cling close to the hard core of the physical expression of a planet or star, the more limited they are in expression, but the rarer they become, the more tenuous their consistency, the more do they expand until they draw near to mergence into infinity, so that the whole of Creation, on that level, tends to become a great Unity. That is an idea that must be pondered over and allowed to sink into the consciousness before it can become acceptable to most. Yet if once it can be encompassed it will be found to provide a background to your thinking which will unlock many doors and help you to realise why Humanity is a Unity too.”

I felt that any comment was uncalled for. And my mind was busy trying to relate this difficult concept to what I knew and understood of Creation. To see before me, as I had been privileged to do, realms within realms, separated from each other by different rates of vibration, yet all forming a comprehensive whole, was one thing. But to absorb that transcendent fact within my intellect so that I could write about it convincingly, was something quite different. I trembled for the fate of my book.

A sudden thought made me catch my breath. Perhaps it was some magic on Zerros' part, but in a flash I had a realisation of what 'God' meant. All this variegated expanse of Creation was God in action, this is what He really was, at least that aspect of God which a finite mind could grasp. In the whole wide universe there was nothing else but God, His expression as tenuous matter, as solid density, as fine intelligence, was the reality of the whole of Creation. Anything else must therefore be unreal, illusory, figments of Human acceptance which had been manifested into form by the defiance of Man's will. Oh for the pen of a genius to express in words all that came to me in that blinding flash of illumination! All this great expanse in which I had travelled with my beloved mentor, crossing the boundaries oftime again and again, was the Creation of Love, a work of Love! Never more could I see evil in any created thing without recalling that the distortion was the work of man and not that of God.

Obviously there could be no particular point at which to look for God. He is omnipresent, whether manifest or not. He is in all places at all times, knowing all because it is all part of Himself, all-powerful because there could not possibly be anything that was outside of Him. There could be no way of hiding from Him except in the illusion that one was apart from Him. Just like the sunshine and shadow, you withdraw into the shade for relief from the heat of the Sun but the shade has no real existence of its own. Throughout this narrative I have tried to make this a fundamental point, but this was the moment when its realisation forced itself upon me.

In the face of this shining thought all conceptions of historic experience faded into the background, Man's fall from grace and his long story of redemption was set, like a single sequence, in the endless stride of eternity. All ideas of physical reality and permanence became ephemeral, fading into something terribly near illusion, real only in specific episodes for those attuned to such vibrations, a passing interlude in the story of Creation. For in this background of shining ultimation - if such a word is applicable - covering all of space, absorbing time within itself, freed from the trammels of geography, was the real Life, the real home of the Spirit of Man. In this glorious environment he had his place and his identity, part of a transcendent whole. From here his consciousness is projected into experience, from here he fell into the mists of his own gathering because he 'thought' of the possibility of separation from all this wonder, and thus created the environment in which he still struggles for existence, ignorant that he cannot cease to exist even if he desires to do so.

During his travels, in deepest and bitterest experience, even when his soul is darkened beyond recognition, his spirit has not stirred one iota in space, it is still there, in the highest heaven, connected with his busy experimenting soul and mind by a silver cord that he himself cannot break. For his spirit is part of God and cannot be separated from that with which it is integrated. The soul of man is on its way back to the Spirit of God!

I do not know what broke my reverie, nor to what extent Zerros had continued to invade my consciousness with his illuminating thoughts, but when I came back to Human consciousness he was gone. But in his place was a wonderful golden glow which even my physical eyes could perceive. It had a benediction all its own, a voice which blessed without words, eyes which, unseeing, shone with love, formless hands which healed, radiating a spiritual strength and authenticity which I had never known before .....

So we came to that final episode in our wonderful association. His ever smiling self, Zerros made his usual appearance in my study, and made his usual enquiry after my well-being. This little ritual completed, he warned me of the immense change in dimension we were about to undergo. “I will not disguise from you that there may be some additional strain upon your consciousness. If you would prefer it we can dispense with this adventure and I will try and tell you the story of Ethereal Earth in my own words.”

But not for a moment would I accept that offer. By this time I was so completely enthralled by all I had learned, and so confident in Zerros' power to protect me from unwanted influences, that nothing would dissuade me from this final achievement.

Before we settled down to the necessary preparations Zerros had one final word to say. “I want you to remember that in the ethereal state we are going to see, Man will have become androgynous once more. That glorious reunion of the two severed halves of one being had been reached and transcended. For in this perfect environment there could be no hint of strife, no need for the sexual urge to ensure that Man's flagging desire for reunion did not lean towards stagnation and inertia. These beings had now fitted themselves for the glorious work of Creation in which they were engaged, especially in the rectification of that which had been so wrongly distorted in the Age of Darkness. Surely you can see that such a consummation is worth all the weary struggle, all the heartache and sacrifice needed to purge man of the stains that had besmirched his pristine self.”

So it was that I sat back in my chair and, at Zerros' behest, tried my utmost to release my consciousness from the grip of my Human mentality. I know that it is quite possible to discard the physical senses for a brief period and find expression through the finer senses of the soul, for we do this every time we appraise and become absorbed in, some object of beauty that captures our attention. The artist, the statesman, the seer, are well accustomed to this dual expression of thought on two planes at one time. The subconscious is quite capable of looking after the needs of the body and even of its locomotion, while the attention of the finer aspects of the mind is concentrated elsewhere.

So, as I managed to do on that wondrous occasion, let us quieten our clamorous physical senses and command them to peace, while we adventure in the realms of Reality, and visit this Garden Beautiful re-create, this ethereal realm which exists unseen in the stratosphere at this moment, awaiting the kiss of the Prince of Peace which shall awaken the sleeping beauty and cause it to emerge into the growing consciousness of Man of the future .....

When the transition was completed and we stood in a world of wonder almost beyond my power to describe, I found I had almost severed the link which bound me to Earth, I remember that I could hardly recall what my material being was nor any details of my familiar environment. I was in a new world and I belonged to it, or so it seemed at that moment.

Later, in my study, Zerros tried to help me to understand this great difference in dimension. “Try and convey the idea that spiritual life and environment is more a state of being than a location, a spirit being has form but it is far less dependent upon it than a soul is upon a Human body. The incarnate soul has to make contact with very dense conditions and so has to identify itself wholly with its senses, but the spirit being is freed from any such incubus. It only has to 'think' of some location and it is there. So the nearer the soul gets to that purely spiritual condition the freer it is and the less does it depend upon its vehicle.

“ You look up at the night skies and are appalled by the immensity of it all, the idea of endless space. That is because your mind is a prisoner of time and space. But if you could travel with the speed of thought the universe would be too small to hold you. The ethereal Earth you have seen is an environment which surrounds the surface you know at present, which by that time will have become dead and cold like the Moon's surface. Yet the Moon has a living space fully populated, though your Human senses can make no sort of contact with it. Nothing in God's universe is 'dead,' as you understand the term.

“ So I suggest that you ask your readers to call imagination to their aid. The imagination is a wonderful servant, though it must be governed by reason, you could not progress without it for it is a means of probing into propositions that are beyond analysis, and finding out if they are likely to be true. It should be employed with common sense free of prejudice or preconceived ideas, just as the scientist uses the X of unknown quantity when probing into unknown dimensions.”

So it seemed to me that I was conscious in a world upon which God had cast His Image when I awoke to Zerros's promptings. So lovely were the surroundings that every aspect seemed to breathe pure Spirit. Here were the meeting points of cosmic rays from, it seemed, every point in the universe, a sort of interchange of the many forces that go to make up the manifestations of life on the cosmic scale.

In my supersensitive consciousness I could actually discern the coloured rays of living force that impinged upon the soil, even as do the colours at the rainbow's end. There was a lovely sense of givingness in this interchange of power under the aegis of Love. The particular shape or size or colour of any object that met the gaze did not seem to matter, only its sense of livingness or radiation. And the more you gazed at and longed for the beauty of the landscape the more it seemed to advance towards you and you to melt into it. The horizon was where I was - how difficult it is to describe what I felt!

And as I pondered over this presentation of the Glory of the Creator I began to sense the Presence of the Christ. Now how can I suggest to you this experience? We think of Him as the Nazarene, the Man of Sorrows or the Elder Brother, we immerse Him in our own troubles. But here He seemed to manifest in every aspect of Life, He was this or that object. Somehow I knew beyond doubt that it was His Loveliness which animated every atom of that scene, one met Him every step of the way. One saw Him in every flower, He spoke on the whisper of the wind. He was the glory that sets alight a sunlit sea. He walked beside you.

To a lesser extent I felt the same towards Zerros, we seemed to be united and could speak together without uttering a sound, we had almost merged into one being. Now I really began to comprehend the meaning of the idea that all Humanity is one in Spirit, I simply could not exist apart from Zerros in this rarified atmosphere.

My encounter with these beings - and I must emphasise that they were androgynous souls, having met and fused once more with that lost half of their being - who inhabited this lovely realm was an amazing experience. They too seemed to be united in some strange way as if they were of one united family, though I could not participate to the same extent as I did with Zerros, whom I knew so well. As I gazed into the eyes of the first ethereal man, man and woman in one, I felt I understood all that it means to be a man, and as I looked deeper I knew what it was to be a woman, something I could never know with my Human brain. How futile that looks in print, yet how vivid it was in reality. This composite being, although he could not see me through the veil of time dimension - or could he? - radiated a love that was full of strength, yet full of femininity, with no hint of weakness. This, I thought, was surely how the Christ loves, it was of such beauty of expression that I could not even bring myself to speak of it to Zerros, it was too intimate. But in that divine instant I had fallen in love with - all Humanity.

The people of this land held bodies that glowed with an inner radiation that robbed them of any sense of solidity, and they moved with a gliding motion that seemed out of consonance with the ground. I gathered that their bodily organs had largely become vestigial through gradual mutation, and a flow of life-force had taken the place of the bloodstream. This ethereal form was all that Man now needed for the completion of his destined evolution, for he had acquired wisdom, judgment, capacity for selfless love and other divine qualities through the complete mergence of his will with that of his Creator. For him life and religion had merged into one transcendent experience. Life called to each with a thousand voices, drawing from them the joys of worship which our limited understanding could not grasp. There was scarcely any sense of separation between soul and soul, for they had reached a degree of unity when individuation had become uplifted into unity. I cannot explain that further in words, its meaning belongs to the soul.

One of the pre-occupations of these lovely people was, I found, the discharge of Human responsibility towards the Animal world. That which Man, since his Human incarnation, had illicitly drawn from the Animal Kingdom, had to be given back in love and service. That this had succeeded beyond our wildest surmises was shown by the magnificent specimens which we saw. All had lost their wildness and apart from a slight hesitancy to approach, no longer held fear of Man. We saw something like a lion, a lovely creature, which stalked past us with an aloof sort of glance which implied a consciousness of difference but no sort of inferiority. Birds were the only creatures which did not seem to have altered much except in gaiety of plumage. But then they have always used an element not so deeply impregnated as the solid Earth.

The vegetation was subliminal compared to our varieties. Can you imagine many-coloured lights having the form of vegetables? That was how it seemed to me. Man, I think, was never intended to be an eating creature, but as his body fell in condition in consonance with the fall of his mind, he began to eat roots and then meat, absorbing the juices of Earth currents which furthered his own density of being.

I cannot find words to transfer but a tithe of what I witnessed in this ethereal world. I gathered that the method of Human birth had long reverted to the system I had seen in Atlantis. But there is one mystical experience I must try and clothe in words. As we stood gazing out over a vista so exquisite that no brush or pigment could portray it, it was borne in upon me that here was epitomized the meaning of the Trinity, of which we have such a muddled idea. I sensed the Fatherhood of God as a very real aspect of every created thing about me, not merely of the inhabitants of this advanced civilisation, but in the sense that He touched every atom of it all with His Presence. Each atom, each object, was alive in varying degree with His Life. Thus I could realise that however low we might sink we could never fall out of His sight, for even the atoms of our bodies and the intelligence of our minds are expressions of that Fatherhood. There is no part of us which could ever cease to exist, though it may change its form. God lives in the heart of the saint, and He slumbers in the heart of the sinner. Oh for a magic wand to awaken Him in every heart! But of course that is not His way, for it would transgress the free will of the soul within. But instead there is the eternal call to awaken, from the Spirit which inhabits each of us, a call which mystifies the materialist but is known to the simplest mind, the Call of Love.

That all happens on the level of Spirit, eternal and unchanging, unmanifest, a state of being. But every soul was launched into experience through the matrix of the Christ Consciousness, it could not possibly make the journey alone; could a babe be born without a mother? By many names, in many guises, through many creeds, does the motherhood of the Son of Love uphold the soul of man as it treads the path of deep experience, ennobling, disturbing, uplifting. This mystical Call is heard by all, though too often it is misinterpreted; to the spirit of Man it is unmistakable, to the soul it is emotionally energizing, to the intellect it is a point for argument. As the soul answers the Call in surrender to Him, so does it allow the clean winds of Love to sweep through the being, in whatever base conditions the soul may be living. Thus does the rose bloom in the desert, thus does a hothouse plant develop a brilliant bloom and then die. The way to Love, for fallen Mankind, is through service and sacrifice.

And then the magic of that Glorious Abstraction, the Holy Spirit. It is the creative aspect of God, the Light that illumines and without which none can find the way, it is the Essence of which matter is the form. It gives Life, harmonises it and fulfils it, flowing out as endless waves of Creative Power, manifesting into forms of divine pattern, weaving a fabric throughout the endless spaces of the universe, whose woof is Light and whose warp is Love.

But now I have reached the periphery of Human understanding. Of all that was so clear to me in that heightened consciousness I have related such as I can squeeze into Human language, for the rest .... it is beyond the power of my pen.

Before concluding I would like to record my impressions of the final scene when Zerros, the being I had come to love beyond any emotion, severed the psychic link which had enabled us to travel together on such breath-taking adventures. We spoke of many things at that last meeting and my mind ranged swiftly over all that had happened in an agony lest I had omitted some salient point which required elucidation. Finally I asked him if he had any message for those who would read my book.

Zerros pondered for a while before replying, and I took the opportunity of fixing in my mind an indelible record of those loved features. He radiated such an air of friendliness, of joyousness, of lightness, he was such a tower of spiritual strength, yet he could understand the most crude of Human weaknesses. Here was a soul which was purged of any remnants of the lower self. One could not picture Zerros as being ambitious or greedy, jealous or possessive, the words just melted as they touched his name. There was no arrogance in his wisdom, no sense of bitterness, superiority or intolerance. He radiated love for all, as if it were the most ordinary thing to do, as indeed it was.

“ Tell them,” he said at length, “ that all they need to know is their own divinity, and that the universe, including the world in which they live, is held together by a Love which cannot let go. No Human plan or concept can be of lasting value unless it is set against eternal life and spiritual values. Power corrupts, but in the illumination of Spirit through dedicated lives power can safely be employed to perform what might seem miracles of accomplishment. In this darkened world progress is swiftest through sacrifice and suffering, service is the ladder by which to climb, for these are hallmarks of a world designed for the resurgence of a guilty Humanity.

“ Tell them not to be intimidated by the chaos and despair that characterize their present existence, for that is only a reflection of what is happening on the higher planes of .existence. It is but the incineration of all that is evil in the world of men.

“ Make it clear to them that the secret of their existence lies, not only in their individuality for which they are responsible, but in their unity with all creation, for it is that unity which is their lifeline to their spiritual reality. Every act of evil intent drags down the individual concerned, but it also smudges the whole of Humanity. Conversely every act of goodness uplifts the individual and also the whole of Humanity by that extent. And because evil is transient and goodness is eternal, it is clear which must win in the end.

“ Finally I would ask all to forget the messenger and remember only the message. To all who think kindly of me I will come with the wings of love, but the love is not mine, nor is the message. God cannot fail, for to Him failure has no meaning. The Christ of Love will, at the Perfect Moment, and at His Father's behest, reveal His splendour to the amazement and dismay of willful Humanity, but to the joy and comfort of all who give their love to Him. To that end we all work.”

Zerros stood, and his glorious being seemed to be filled with light until it reached every comer of the room. “And now, my son, I must leave you, in body but never in Spirit. Fear not the issues for they are with God. Together we have scattered seeds of truth, but the harvesting is not for us. The Great Reaper will harvest what is His own, bringing into His Granary all those ears of corn which have been scattered by the winds of adversity. Not one ear shall be lost in the gleaning.”

He opened wide his arms until his body seemed a blazing cross of light. “May the Light of the World shine into the hearts of all as never before, and bring them swiftly through the last days of their world of illusion and self-interest. May it touch the hearts of all to their divine nature and draw them up, up into the glory of that Garden Beautiful which is their birthright.”

Slowly the brilliance faded, until in its passing the ethereal body of Zerros passed also, leaving only the ineffable tenderness of his memory to sustain me in the task that lay ahead. Yet he left something that had not been there before, a link, intangible and invisible, yet one which I could sense in my more difficult moments and which I hoped would aid me in conveying to my readers that light of understanding without which my words could have little meaning.

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