Mount Hermon

123:5.12Naz­a­reth was one of the twenty-four priest cen­ters of the He­brew na­tion. But the Galilean priest­hood was more lib­eral in the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the tra­di­tional laws than were the Judean scribes and rab­bis. And at Naz­a­reth they were also more lib­eral re­gard­ing the ob­ser­vance of the Sab­bath. It was there­fore the cus­tom for Joseph to take Je­sus out for walks on Sab­bath af­ter­noons, one of their fa­vorite jaunts be­ing to climb the high hill near their home, from which they could ob­tain a panoramic view of all Gal­i­lee. To the north­west, on clear days, they could see the long ridge of Mount Carmel run­ning down to the sea; and many times Je­sus heard his fa­ther re­late the story of Eli­jah, one of the first of that long line of He­brew proph­ets, who re­proved Ahab and ex­posed the priests of Baal. To the north Mount Her­mon raised its snowy peak in ma­jes­tic splen­dor and mo­nop­o­lized the sky­line, al­most 3,000 feet of the up­per slopes glis­ten­ing white with per­pet­ual snow. Far to the east they could dis­cern the Jor­dan val­ley and, far be­yond, the rocky hills of Moab. Also to the south and the east, when the sun shone upon their mar­ble walls, they could see the Greco-Ro­man cities of the De­capo­lis, with their am­phithe­aters and pre­ten­tious tem­ples. And when they lin­gered to­ward the go­ing down of the sun, to the west they could make out the sail­ing ves­sels on the dis­tant Med­i­ter­ra­nean.

124:6.5The road now led im­me­di­ately down into the trop­i­cal Jor­dan val­ley, and soon Je­sus was to have ex­posed to his won­der­ing gaze the crooked and ever-wind­ing Jor­dan with its glis­ten­ing and rip­pling wa­ters as it flowed down to­ward the Dead Sea. They laid aside their outer gar­ments as they jour­neyed south in this trop­i­cal val­ley, en­joy­ing the lux­u­ri­ous fields of grain and the beau­ti­ful ole­an­ders laden with their pink blos­soms, while mas­sive snow-capped Mount Her­mon stood far to the north, in majesty look­ing down on the his­toric val­ley. A lit­tle over three hours’ travel from op­po­site Scythopo­lis they came upon a bub­bling spring, and here they camped for the night, out un­der the star­lit heav­ens.

• Adjuster led him to

134:7.6The in­dwelling Thought Ad­juster now led Je­sus to for­sake the dwell­ing places of men and be­take him­self up to Mount Her­mon that he might fin­ish his work of mas­ter­ing his hu­man mind and com­plete the task of ef­fect­ing his full con­se­cra­tion to the re­main­der of his life­work on earth.

134:7.7This was one of those un­usual and ex­traor­di­nary epochs in the Mas­ter’s earth life on Uran­tia. An­other and very sim­i­lar one was the ex­pe­ri­ence he passed through when alone in the hills near Pella just sub­se­quent to his bap­tism. This pe­riod of iso­la­tion on Mount Her­mon marked the ter­mi­na­tion of his purely hu­man ca­reer, that is, the tech­ni­cal ter­mi­na­tion of the mor­tal be­stowal, while the later iso­la­tion marked the be­gin­ning of the more di­vine phase of the be­stowal. And Je­sus lived alone with God for six weeks on the slopes of Mount Her­mon.

134:8.1Af­ter spend­ing some time in the vicin­ity of Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, Je­sus made ready his sup­plies, and se­cur­ing a beast of bur­den and a lad named Tiglath, he pro­ceeded along the Da­mas­cus road to a vil­lage some­time known as Beit Jenn in the foothills of Mount Her­mon. Here, near the mid­dle of Au­gust, A.D. 25, he es­tab­lished his head­quar­ters, and leav­ing his sup­plies in the cus­tody of Tiglath, he as­cended the lonely slopes of the moun­tain. Tiglath ac­com­pa­nied Je­sus this first day up the moun­tain to a des­ig­nated point about 6,000 feet above sea level, where they built a stone con­tainer in which Tiglath was to de­posit food twice a week.

134:8.2The first day, af­ter he had left Tiglath, Je­sus had as­cended the moun­tain only a short way when he paused to pray. Among other things he asked his Fa­ther to send back the guard­ian ser­a­phim to “be with Tiglath.” He re­quested that he be per­mit­ted to go up to his last strug­gle with the re­al­i­ties of mor­tal ex­is­tence alone. And his re­quest was granted. He went into the great test with only his in­dwelling Ad­juster to guide and sus­tain him.

134:8.3Je­sus ate fru­gally while on the moun­tain; he ab­stained from all food only a day or two at a time. The super­hu­man be­ings who con­fronted him on this moun­tain, and with whom he wres­tled in spirit, and whom he de­feated in power, were real; they were his arch­en­e­mies in the sys­tem of Sa­ta­nia; they were not phan­tasms of the imag­i­na­tion evolved out of the in­tel­lec­tual va­garies of a weak­ened and starv­ing mor­tal who could not dis­tin­guish re­al­ity from the vi­sions of a dis­or­dered mind.

134:8.4Je­sus spent the last three weeks of Au­gust and the first three weeks of Septem­ber on Mount Her­mon. Dur­ing these weeks he fin­ished the mor­tal task of achiev­ing the cir­cles of mind-un­der­stand­ing and per­son­al­ity-con­trol. Through­out this pe­riod of com­mu­nion with his heav­enly Fa­ther the in­dwelling Ad­juster also com­pleted the as­signed ser­vices. The mor­tal goal of this earth crea­ture was there at­tained. Only the fi­nal phase of mind and Ad­juster at­tune­ment re­mained to be con­sum­mated.

134:8.5Af­ter more than five weeks of un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with his Par­a­dise Fa­ther, Je­sus be­came ab­so­lutely as­sured of his na­ture and of the cer­tainty of his tri­umph over the ma­te­rial lev­els of time-space per­son­al­ity man­i­fes­ta­tion. He fully be­lieved in, and did not hes­i­tate to as­sert, the as­cen­dancy of his di­vine na­ture over his hu­man na­ture.

134:8.6Near the end of the moun­tain so­journ Je­sus asked his Fa­ther if he might be per­mit­ted to hold con­fer­ence with his Sa­ta­nia en­e­mies as the Son of Man, as Joshua ben Joseph. This re­quest was granted. Dur­ing the last week on Mount Her­mon the great temp­ta­tion, the uni­verse trial, oc­curred. Sa­tan (rep­re­sent­ing Lu­cifer) and the re­bel­lious Plan­e­tary Prince, Cali­gas­tia, were pres­ent with Je­sus and were made fully vis­i­ble to him. And this “temp­ta­tion,” this fi­nal trial of hu­man loy­alty in the face of the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of rebel per­son­al­i­ties, had not to do with food, tem­ple pin­na­cles, or pre­sump­tu­ous acts. It had not to do with the king­doms of this world but with the sov­er­eignty of a mighty and glo­ri­ous uni­verse. The sym­bol­ism of your rec­ords was in­tended for the back­ward ages of the world’s child­like thought. And sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions should un­der­stand what a great strug­gle the Son of Man passed through that event­ful day on Mount Her­mon.

134:8.7To the many pro­pos­als and coun­ter­pro­pos­als of the emis­saries of Lu­cifer, Je­sus only made re­ply: “May the will of my Par­a­dise Fa­ther pre­vail, and you, my re­bel­lious son, may the An­cients of Days judge you di­vinely. I am your Cre­ator-fa­ther; I can hardly judge you justly, and my mercy you have al­ready spurned. I com­mit you to the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the Judges of a greater uni­verse.”

134:8.8To all the Lu­cifer-sug­gested com­pro­mises and make­shifts, to all such specious pro­pos­als about the in­car­na­tion be­stowal, Je­sus only made re­ply, “The will of my Fa­ther in Par­a­dise be done.” And when the try­ing or­deal was fin­ished, the de­tached guard­ian ser­a­phim re­turned to Je­sus’ side and min­is­tered to him.

134:8.9On an af­ter­noon in late sum­mer, amid the trees and in the si­lence of na­ture, Mi­chael of Neb­a­don won the un­ques­tioned sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse. On that day he com­pleted the task set for Cre­ator Sons to live to the full the in­car­nated life in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh on the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of time and space. The uni­verse an­nounce­ment of this mo­men­tous achieve­ment was not made un­til the day of his bap­tism, months af­ter­ward, but it all re­ally took place that day on the moun­tain. And when Je­sus came down from his so­journ on Mount Her­mon, the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion in Sa­ta­nia and the Cali­gas­tia se­ces­sion on Uran­tia were vir­tu­ally set­tled. Je­sus had paid the last price re­quired of him to at­tain the sov­er­eignty of his uni­verse, which in it­self reg­u­lates the sta­tus of all rebels and de­ter­mines that all such fu­ture up­heavals (if they ever oc­cur) may be dealt with sum­mar­ily and ef­fec­tively. Ac­cord­ingly, it may be seen that the so-called “great temp­ta­tion” of Je­sus took place some­time be­fore his bap­tism and not just af­ter that event.

134:8.10At the end of this so­journ on the moun­tain, as Je­sus was mak­ing his de­scent, he met Tiglath com­ing up to the ren­dezvous with food. Turn­ing him back, he said only: “The pe­riod of rest is over; I must re­turn to my Fa­ther’s busi­ness.” He was a silent and much changed man as they jour­neyed back to Dan, where he took leave of the lad, giv­ing him the don­key. He then pro­ceeded south by the same way he had come, to Ca­per­naum.

• defeated Caligastia on

136:3.1Je­sus had en­dured the great temp­ta­tion of his mor­tal be­stowal be­fore his bap­tism when he had been wet with the dews of Mount Her­mon for six weeks. There on Mount Her­mon, as an un­aided mor­tal of the realm, he had met and de­feated the Uran­tia pre­tender, Cali­gas­tia, the prince of this world. That event­ful day, on the uni­verse rec­ords, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth had be­come the Plan­e­tary Prince of Uran­tia. And this Prince of Uran­tia, so soon to be pro­claimed su­preme Sov­er­eign of Neb­a­don, now went into forty days of re­tire­ment to for­mu­late the plans and de­ter­mine upon the tech­nique of pro­claim­ing the new king­dom of God in the hearts of men.

• inaugurated 4th phase of ministry on

157:7.5And now Je­sus would take his apos­tles along with him to Mount Her­mon, where he had ap­pointed to in­au­gu­rate his fourth phase of earth min­istry as the Son of God. Some of them were pres­ent at his bap­tism in the Jor­dan and had wit­nessed the be­gin­ning of his ca­reer as the Son of Man, and he de­sired that some of them should also be pres­ent to hear his au­thor­ity for the as­sump­tion of the new and pub­lic role of a Son of God. Ac­cord­ingly, on the morn­ing of Fri­day, Au­gust 12, Je­sus said to the twelve: “Lay in pro­vi­sions and pre­pare your­selves for a jour­ney to yon­der moun­tain, where the spirit bids me go to be en­dowed for the fin­ish of my work on earth. And I would take my breth­ren along that they may also be strength­ened for the try­ing times of go­ing with me through this ex­pe­ri­ence.”

• experienced the transfiguration on

196:1.104. The ex­pe­ri­ences on the Mount of Trans­fig­u­ra­tion.

157:3.1Early Tues­day morn­ing Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles left Ma­g­a­dan Park for Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, the cap­i­tal of the Tetrarch Philip’s do­main. Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi was sit­u­ated in a re­gion of won­drous beauty. It nes­tled in a charm­ing val­ley be­tween scenic hills where the Jor­dan poured forth from an un­der­ground cave. The heights of Mount Her­mon were in full view to the north, while from the hills just to the south a mag­nif­i­cent view was had of the up­per Jor­dan and the Sea of Gal­i­lee.

157:3.2Je­sus had gone to Mount Her­mon in his early ex­pe­ri­ence with the af­fairs of the king­dom, and now that he was en­ter­ing upon the fi­nal epoch of his work, he de­sired to re­turn to this mount of trial and tri­umph, where he hoped the apos­tles might gain a new vi­sion of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and ac­quire new strength for the try­ing times just ahead. As they jour­neyed along the way, about the time of pass­ing south of the Wa­ters of Merom, the apos­tles fell to talk­ing among them­selves about their re­cent ex­pe­ri­ences in Phoeni­cia and else­where and to re­count­ing how their mes­sage had been re­ceived, and how the dif­fer­ent peo­ples re­garded their Mas­ter.