mysteries

92:1.4Mys­tery and power have al­ways stim­u­lated re­li­gious feel­ings and fears, while emo­tion has ever func­tioned as a pow­er­ful con­di­tion­ing fac­tor in their de­vel­op­ment. Fear has al­ways been the ba­sic re­li­gious stim­u­lus. Fear fash­ions the gods of evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion and mo­ti­vates the re­li­gious rit­ual of the prim­i­tive be­liev­ers. As civ­i­liza­tion ad­vances, fear be­comes mod­i­fied by rev­er­ence, ad­mi­ra­tion, re­spect, and sym­pa­thy and is then fur­ther con­di­tioned by re­morse and re­pen­tance.

25:3.126. Con­cil­ia­tors to the Super­uni­verse Ma­jor Sec­tors. The char­ac­ter of the work of the com­mis­sion­ers con­tin­ues to change as they ad­vance. There is less and less of mis­un­der­stand­ing to ad­ju­di­cate and more and more of mys­te­ri­ous phe­nom­ena to ex­plain and in­ter­pret. From stage to stage they are evolv­ing from ar­biters of dif­fer­ences to ex­plain­ers of mys­ter­ies—judges evolv­ing into in­ter­pre­ta­tive teach­ers. Ar­biters of those who through ig­no­rance per­mit dif­fi­cul­ties and mis­un­der­stand­ings to arise, they once were; but they are now be­com­ing in­struc­tors of those who are suf­fi­ciently in­tel­li­gent and tol­er­ant to avoid clashes of mind and wars of opin­ions. The higher a crea­ture’s ed­u­ca­tion, the more re­spect he has for the knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence, and opin­ions of oth­ers.

107:3.8Since we can learn lit­tle or noth­ing of the na­ture and ori­gin of Ad­justers from Di­vin­ing­ton, we are com­pelled to gather in­for­ma­tion from a thou­sand and one dif­fer­ent sources, and it is nec­es­sary to as­sem­ble, as­so­ciate, and cor­re­late this ac­cu­mu­lated data in or­der that such knowl­edge may be in­for­ma­tive.

42:12.32. Dis­cov­ery of hid­den mys­ter­ies.

0:10.1There are many fea­tures of the eter­nal re­al­ity of the De­ity Ab­so­lute which can­not be fully ex­plained to the time-space fi­nite mind, but the ac­tu­al­iza­tion of God the Ab­so­lute would be in con­se­quence of the uni­fi­ca­tion of the sec­ond ex­pe­ri­en­tial Trin­ity, the Ab­so­lute Trin­ity. This would con­sti­tute the ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­al­iza­tion of ab­so­lute di­vin­ity, the uni­fi­ca­tion of ab­so­lute mean­ings on ab­so­lute lev­els; but we are not cer­tain re­gard­ing the en­com­pass­ment of all ab­so­lute val­ues since we have at no time been in­formed that the Qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute is the equiv­a­lent of the In­fi­nite. Super­ul­ti­mate des­tinies are in­volved in ab­so­lute mean­ings and in­fi­nite spir­i­tu­al­ity, and with­out both of these un­achieved re­al­i­ties we can­not es­tab­lish ab­so­lute val­ues.

0:10.2God the Ab­so­lute is the re­al­iza­tion-at­tain­ment goal of all super­ab­so­nite be­ings, but the power and per­son­al­ity po­ten­tial of the De­ity Ab­so­lute tran­scends our con­cept, and we hes­i­tate to dis­cuss those re­al­i­ties which are so far re­moved from ex­pe­ri­en­tial ac­tu­al­iza­tion.

• Trinity of Trinities

0:12.9The philoso­phers of the uni­verses pos­tu­late a Trin­ity of Trin­i­ties, an ex­is­ten­tial-ex­pe­ri­en­tial Trin­ity In­fi­nite, but they are not able to en­vis­age its per­son­al­iza­tion; pos­si­bly it would equiv­alate to the per­son of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther on the con­cep­tual level of the I AM. But ir­re­spec­tive of all this, the orig­i­nal Par­a­dise Trin­ity is po­ten­tially in­fi­nite since the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther ac­tu­ally is in­fi­nite.

• God
• greatest m. is divine indwelling of mortal minds

1:4.1The in­fin­ity of the per­fec­tion of God is such that it eter­nally con­sti­tutes him mys­tery. And the great­est of all the un­fath­omable mys­ter­ies of God is the phe­nom­e­non of the di­vine in­dwelling of mor­tal minds. The man­ner in which the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther so­journs with the crea­tures of time is the most pro­found of all uni­verse mys­ter­ies; the di­vine pres­ence in the mind of man is the mys­tery of mys­ter­ies.

• difference between finite and infinite

1:4.5The di­vine mys­tery con­sists in the in­her­ent dif­fer­ence which ex­ists be­tween the fi­nite and the in­fi­nite, the tem­po­ral and the eter­nal, the time-space crea­ture and the Uni­ver­sal Cre­ator, the ma­te­rial and the spir­i­tual, the im­per­fec­tion of man and the per­fec­tion of Par­a­dise De­ity. The God of uni­ver­sal love un­fail­ingly man­i­fests him­self to ev­ery one of his crea­tures up to the full­ness of that crea­ture’s ca­pac­ity to spir­i­tu­ally grasp the qual­i­ties of di­vine truth, beauty, and good­ness.

• God

1:7.4We can­not fully un­der­stand how God can be pri­mal, change­less, all-pow­er­ful, and per­fect, and at the same time be sur­rounded by an ever-chang­ing and ap­par­ently law-lim­ited uni­verse, an evolv­ing uni­verse of rel­a­tive im­per­fec­tions. But we can know such a truth in our own per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence since we all main­tain iden­tity of per­son­al­ity and unity of will in spite of the con­stant chang­ing of both our­selves and our en­vi­ron­ment.

• infinities of divinity

3:4.5To the mor­tals of time there is a fu­ture, but God in­hab­its eter­nity. Even though I hail from near the very abid­ing place of De­ity, I can­not pre­sume to speak with per­fec­tion of un­der­stand­ing con­cern­ing the in­fin­ity of many of the di­vine at­tri­butes. In­fin­ity of mind alone can fully com­pre­hend in­fin­ity of ex­is­tence and eter­nity of ac­tion.

• does God suffer?

3:6.6Does the Par­a­dise Fa­ther suf­fer? I do not know. The Cre­ator Sons most cer­tainly can and some­times do, even as do mor­tals. The Eter­nal Son and the In­fi­nite Spirit suf­fer in a mod­i­fied sense. I think the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther does, but I can­not un­der­stand how; per­haps through the per­son­al­ity cir­cuit or through the in­di­vid­u­al­ity of the Thought Ad­justers and other be­stowals of his eter­nal na­ture. He has said of the mor­tal races, “In all your af­flic­tions I am af­flicted.” He un­ques­tion­ably ex­pe­ri­ences a fa­therly and sym­pa­thetic un­der­stand­ing; he may truly suf­fer, but I do not com­pre­hend the na­ture thereof.

• God’s eternal purpose

4:0.1The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther has an eter­nal pur­pose per­tain­ing to the ma­te­rial, in­tel­lec­tual, and spir­i­tual phe­nom­ena of the uni­verse of uni­verses, which he is ex­e­cut­ing through­out all time. God cre­ated the uni­verses of his own free and sov­er­eign will, and he cre­ated them in ac­cor­dance with his all-wise and eter­nal pur­pose. It is doubt­ful whether any­one ex­cept the Par­a­dise De­i­ties and their high­est as­so­ciates re­ally knows very much about the eter­nal pur­pose of God. Even the ex­alted cit­i­zens of Par­a­dise hold very di­verse opin­ions about the na­ture of the eter­nal pur­pose of the De­i­ties.

• Absolutes

4:1.7A be­ing of my or­der is able to dis­cover ul­ti­mate har­mony and to de­tect far-reach­ing and pro­found co-or­di­na­tion in the rou­tine af­fairs of uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion. Much that seems dis­jointed and hap­haz­ard to the mor­tal mind ap­pears or­derly and con­struc­tive to my un­der­stand­ing. But there is very much go­ing on in the uni­verses that I do not fully com­pre­hend. I have long been a stu­dent of, and am more or less con­ver­sant with, the rec­og­nized forces, en­er­gies, minds, mor­ontias, spir­its, and per­son­al­i­ties of the lo­cal uni­verses and the super­uni­verses. I have a gen­eral un­der­stand­ing of how these agen­cies and per­son­al­i­ties op­er­ate, and I am in­ti­mately fa­mil­iar with the work­ings of the ac­cred­ited spirit in­tel­li­gences of the grand uni­verse. Not­with­stand­ing my knowl­edge of the phe­nom­ena of the uni­verses, I am con­stantly con­fronted with cos­mic re­ac­tions which I can­not fully fathom. I am con­tin­u­ally en­coun­ter­ing ap­par­ently for­tu­itous con­spir­a­cies of the in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of forces, en­er­gies, in­tel­lects, and spir­its, which I can­not sat­is­fac­to­rily ex­plain.

4:1.8I am en­tirely com­pe­tent to trace out and to an­a­lyze the work­ing of all phe­nom­ena di­rectly re­sult­ing from the func­tion­ing of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the Eter­nal Son, the In­fi­nite Spirit, and, to a large ex­tent, the Isle of Par­a­dise. My per­plex­ity is oc­ca­sioned by en­coun­ter­ing what ap­pears to be the per­for­mance of their mys­te­ri­ous co-or­di­nates, the three Ab­so­lutes of po­ten­tial­ity. These Ab­so­lutes seem to su­per­sede mat­ter, to tran­scend mind, and to super­vene spirit. I am con­stantly con­fused and of­ten per­plexed by my in­abil­ity to com­pre­hend these com­plex trans­ac­tions which I at­trib­ute to the pres­ences and per­for­mances of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute, the De­ity Ab­so­lute, and the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute.

4:1.9These Ab­so­lutes must be the not-fully-re­vealed pres­ences abroad in the uni­verse which, in the phe­nom­ena of space po­tency and in the func­tion of other super­ul­ti­mates, ren­der it im­pos­si­ble for physi­cists, philoso­phers, or even re­li­gion­ists to pre­dict with cer­tainty as to just how the pri­mor­dials of force, con­cept, or spirit will re­spond to de­mands made in a com­plex re­al­ity sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing su­preme ad­just­ments and ul­ti­mate val­ues.

• immanence and transcendence of God

5:5.6Re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, be­ing es­sen­tially spir­i­tual, can never be fully un­der­stood by the ma­te­rial mind; hence the func­tion of the­ol­ogy, the psy­chol­ogy of re­li­gion. The es­sen­tial doc­trine of the hu­man re­al­iza­tion of God cre­ates a para­dox in fi­nite com­pre­hen­sion. It is well-nigh im­pos­si­ble for hu­man logic and fi­nite rea­son to har­mo­nize the con­cept of di­vine im­ma­nence, God within and a part of ev­ery in­di­vid­ual, with the idea of God’s tran­scen­dence, the di­vine dom­i­na­tion of the uni­verse of uni­verses. These two es­sen­tial con­cepts of De­ity must be uni­fied in the faith-grasp of the con­cept of the tran­scen­dence of a per­sonal God and in the re­al­iza­tion of the in­dwelling pres­ence of a frag­ment of that God in or­der to jus­tify in­tel­li­gent wor­ship and val­i­date the hope of per­son­al­ity sur­vival. The dif­fi­cul­ties and para­doxes of re­li­gion are in­her­ent in the fact that the re­al­i­ties of re­li­gion are ut­terly be­yond the mor­tal ca­pac­ity for in­tel­lec­tual com­pre­hen­sion.

• personality

5:6.2Per­son­al­ity is one of the un­solved mys­ter­ies of the uni­verses. We are able to form ad­e­quate con­cepts of the fac­tors en­ter­ing into the make-up of var­i­ous or­ders and lev­els of per­son­al­ity, but we do not fully com­pre­hend the real na­ture of the per­son­al­ity it­self. We clearly per­ceive the nu­mer­ous fac­tors which, when put to­gether, con­sti­tute the ve­hi­cle for hu­man per­son­al­ity, but we do not fully com­pre­hend the na­ture and sig­nif­i­cance of such a fi­nite per­son­al­ity.

• how Eternal Son is derived from Father

6:0.4In an ef­fort to en­able the fi­nite mind of time to form some se­quen­tial con­cept of the re­la­tion­ships of the eter­nal and in­fi­nite be­ings of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity, we uti­lize such li­cense of con­cep­tion as to re­fer to the “Fa­ther’s first per­sonal, uni­ver­sal, and in­fi­nite con­cept.” It is im­pos­si­ble for me to con­vey to the hu­man mind any ad­e­quate idea of the eter­nal re­la­tions of the De­i­ties; there­fore do I em­ploy such terms as will af­ford the fi­nite mind some­thing of an idea of the re­la­tion­ship of these eter­nal be­ings in the sub­se­quent eras of time. We be­lieve the Son sprang from the Fa­ther; we are taught that both are un­qual­i­fiedly eter­nal. It is ap­par­ent, there­fore, that no time crea­ture can ever fully com­pre­hend this mys­tery of a Son who is de­rived from the Fa­ther, and yet who is co-or­di­nately eter­nal with the Fa­ther him­self.

• mortal bestowals of Paradise Sons

7:5.7The be­stowals of the Eter­nal Son in Ha­vona are not within the scope of hu­man imag­i­na­tion; they were tran­scen­den­tal. He added to the ex­pe­ri­ence of all Ha­vona then and sub­se­quently, but we do not know whether he added to the sup­posed ex­pe­ri­en­tial ca­pac­ity of his ex­is­ten­tial na­ture. That would fall within the be­stowal mys­tery of the Par­a­dise Sons. We do, how­ever, be­lieve that what­ever the Eter­nal Son ac­quired on these be­stowal mis­sions, he has ever since re­tained; but we do not know what it is.

• time before creation of Havona

8:1.9In brief, the In­fi­nite Spirit tes­ti­fies that, since he is eter­nal, so also is the cen­tral uni­verse eter­nal. And this is the tra­di­tional start­ing point of the his­tory of the uni­verse of uni­verses. Ab­so­lutely noth­ing is known, and no rec­ords are in ex­is­tence, re­gard­ing any event or trans­ac­tion prior to this stu­pen­dous erup­tion of cre­ative en­ergy and ad­min­is­tra­tive wis­dom that crys­tal­lized the vast uni­verse which ex­ists, and so ex­qui­sitely func­tions, at the cen­ter of all things. Be­yond this event lie the un­search­able trans­ac­tions of eter­nity and the depths of in­fin­ity—ab­so­lute mys­tery.

• versatility of Infinite Spirit

9:1.7And herein is an in­fi­nite mys­tery: That the In­fi­nite si­mul­ta­ne­ously re­vealed his in­fin­ity in the Son and as Par­a­dise, and then there springs into ex­is­tence a be­ing equal to God in di­vin­ity, re­flec­tive of the Son’s spir­i­tual na­ture, and ca­pa­ble of ac­ti­vat­ing the Par­a­dise pat­tern, a be­ing pro­vi­sion­ally sub­or­di­nate in sov­er­eignty but in many ways ap­par­ently the most ver­sa­tile in ac­tion. And such ap­par­ent su­pe­ri­or­ity in ac­tion is dis­closed in an at­tri­bute of the Third Source and Cen­ter which is su­pe­rior even to phys­i­cal grav­ity—the uni­ver­sal man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Isle of Par­a­dise.

• reflectivity

9:7.2The phe­nom­e­non of re­flec­tiv­ity, as it is dis­closed on the super­uni­verse head­quar­ters worlds in the amaz­ing per­for­mances of the re­flec­tive per­son­al­i­ties there sta­tioned, rep­re­sents the most com­plex in­teras­so­ci­a­tion of all phases of ex­is­tence to be found in all cre­ation. Lines of spirit can be traced back to the Son, phys­i­cal en­ergy to Par­a­dise, and mind to the Third Source; but in the ex­traor­di­nary phe­nom­e­non of uni­verse re­flec­tiv­ity there is a unique and ex­cep­tional uni­fi­ca­tion of all three, so as­so­ci­ated as to en­able the uni­verse rulers to know about re­mote con­di­tions in­stan­ta­neously, si­mul­ta­ne­ously with their oc­cur­rence.

9:7.3Much of the tech­nique of re­flec­tiv­ity we com­pre­hend, but there are many phases which truly baf­fle us. We know that the Con­joint Ac­tor is the uni­verse cen­ter of the mind cir­cuit, that he is the an­ces­tor of the cos­mic mind, and that cos­mic mind op­er­ates un­der the dom­i­nance of the ab­so­lute mind grav­ity of the Third Source and Cen­ter. We know fur­ther that the cir­cuits of the cos­mic mind in­flu­ence the in­tel­lec­tual lev­els of all known ex­is­tence; they con­tain the uni­ver­sal space re­ports, and just as cer­tainly they fo­cus in the Seven Mas­ter Spir­its and con­verge in the Third Source and Cen­ter.

• Paradise Trinity

10:4.5Ever re­mem­ber that what the In­fi­nite Spirit does is the func­tion of the Con­joint Ac­tor. Both the Fa­ther and the Son are func­tion­ing in and through and as him. But it would be fu­tile to at­tempt to elu­ci­date the Trin­ity mys­tery: three as one and in one, and one as two and act­ing for two.

• destiny of finaliters

10:8.6I once so­journed in a uni­verse where a cer­tain group of be­ings taught that the fi­nal­i­ters, in eter­nity, were even­tu­ally to be­come the chil­dren of the De­ity Ab­so­lute. But I am un­will­ing to ac­cept this so­lu­tion of the mys­tery which en­shrouds the fu­ture of the fi­nal­i­ters.

10:8.7The Corps of the Fi­nal­ity em­brace, among oth­ers, those mor­tals of time and space who have at­tained per­fec­tion in all that per­tains to the will of God. As crea­tures and within the lim­its of crea­ture ca­pac­ity they fully and truly know God. Hav­ing thus found God as the Fa­ther of all crea­tures, these fi­nal­i­ters must some­time be­gin the quest for the super­fi­nite Fa­ther. But this quest in­volves a grasp of the ab­so­nite na­ture of the ul­ti­mate at­tri­butes and char­ac­ter of the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. Eter­nity will dis­close whether such an at­tain­ment is pos­si­ble, but we are con­vinced, even if the fi­nal­i­ters do grasp this ul­ti­mate of di­vin­ity, they will prob­a­bly be un­able to at­tain the super­ul­ti­mate lev­els of ab­so­lute De­ity.

10:8.8It may be pos­si­ble that the fi­nal­i­ters will par­tially at­tain the De­ity Ab­so­lute, but even if they should, still in the eter­nity of eter­ni­ties the prob­lem of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute will con­tinue to in­trigue, mys­tify, baf­fle, and chal­lenge the as­cend­ing and pro­gress­ing fi­nal­i­ters, for we per­ceive that the un­fath­oma­bil­ity of the cos­mic re­la­tion­ships of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute will tend to grow in pro­por­tions as the ma­te­rial uni­verses and their spir­i­tual ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tinue to ex­pand.

10:8.9Only in­fin­ity can dis­close the Fa­ther-In­fi­nite.

• immanence and transcendence of God

12:7.12It is a mys­tery that God is a highly per­sonal self-con­scious be­ing with res­i­den­tial head­quar­ters, and at the same time per­son­ally pres­ent in such a vast uni­verse and per­son­ally in con­tact with such a well-nigh in­fi­nite num­ber of be­ings. That such a phe­nom­e­non is a mys­tery be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion should not in the least lessen your faith. Do not al­low the mag­ni­tude of the in­fin­ity, the im­men­sity of the eter­nity, and the grandeur and glory of the match­less char­ac­ter of God to over­awe, stag­ger, or dis­cour­age you; for the Fa­ther is not very far from any one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all lit­er­ally move, ac­tu­ally live, and ver­i­ta­bly have our be­ing.

• Divinington

13:1.5The se­crets of Di­vin­ing­ton in­clude the se­cret of the be­stowal and mis­sion of Thought Ad­justers. Their na­ture, ori­gin, and the tech­nique of their con­tact with the lowly crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds is a se­cret of this Par­a­dise sphere. These amaz­ing trans­ac­tions do not per­son­ally con­cern the rest of us, and there­fore do the De­i­ties deem it proper to with­hold cer­tain fea­tures of this great and di­vine min­istry from our full un­der­stand­ing. In so far as we come in con­tact with this phase of di­vine ac­tiv­ity, we are per­mit­ted full knowl­edge of these trans­ac­tions, but con­cern­ing the in­ti­mate de­tails of this great be­stowal we are not fully in­formed.

13:1.6This sphere also holds the se­crets of the na­ture, pur­pose, and ac­tiv­i­ties of all other forms of Fa­ther frag­ments, of the Grav­ity Mes­sen­gers, and of hosts of other be­ings un­re­vealed to you. It is highly prob­a­ble that those truths per­tain­ing to Di­vin­ing­ton which are with­held from me, if re­vealed, would merely con­fuse and hand­i­cap me in my pres­ent work, and still again, per­haps they are be­yond the con­cep­tual ca­pac­ity of my or­der of be­ing.

• mortal bestowals of Paradise Sons

13:1.8The se­crets of Sonar­ing­ton in­clude the se­cret of the in­car­na­tion of the di­vine Sons. When a Son of God be­comes a Son of Man, is lit­er­ally born of woman, as oc­curred on your world nine­teen hun­dred years ago, it is a uni­ver­sal mys­tery. It is oc­cur­ring right along through­out the uni­verses, and it is a Sonar­ing­ton se­cret of di­vine son­ship. The Ad­justers are a mys­tery of God the Fa­ther. The in­car­na­tion of the di­vine Sons is a mys­tery of God the Son; it is a se­cret locked up in the sev­enth sec­tor of Sonar­ing­ton, a realm pen­e­trated by none save those who have per­son­ally passed through this unique ex­pe­ri­ence. Only those phases of in­car­na­tion hav­ing to do with your as­cen­sion ca­reer have been brought to your no­tice. There are many other phases of the mys­tery of the in­car­na­tion of the Par­a­dise Sons of un­re­vealed types on mis­sions of uni­verse ser­vice which are undis­closed to you. And there are still other Sonar­ing­ton mys­ter­ies.

• reflectivity

13:1.10The se­crets of Spir­it­ing­ton in­volve the im­pen­e­tra­ble mys­ter­ies of re­flec­tiv­ity. We tell you of the vast and uni­ver­sal phe­nom­e­non of re­flec­tiv­ity, more par­tic­u­larly as it is op­er­a­tive on the head­quar­ters worlds of the seven super­uni­verses, but we never fully ex­plain this phe­nom­e­non, for we do not fully un­der­stand it. Much, very much, we do com­pre­hend, but many ba­sic de­tails are still mys­te­ri­ous to us. Re­flec­tiv­ity is a se­cret of God the Spirit. You have been in­structed con­cern­ing re­flec­tiv­ity func­tions in re­la­tion to the as­cen­sion scheme of mor­tal sur­vival, and it does so op­er­ate, but re­flec­tiv­ity is also an in­dis­pens­able fea­ture of the nor­mal work­ing of nu­mer­ous other phases of uni­verse oc­cu­pa­tion. This en­dow­ment of the In­fi­nite Spirit is also uti­lized in chan­nels other than those of in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and in­for­ma­tion dis­sem­i­na­tion. And there are other se­crets of Spir­it­ing­ton.

• trinitization

13:1.13Non­trini­tized be­ings do not fully un­der­stand the tech­nique of trin­i­ti­za­tion by ei­ther two or three Cre­ators or by cer­tain crea­tures. You will never fully un­der­stand such a phe­nom­e­non un­less, in the far-dis­tant fu­ture of your glo­ri­fied ca­reer, you should es­say and suc­ceed in such an ad­ven­ture, be­cause oth­er­wise these se­crets of Vicegering­ton will al­ways be for­bid­den you. But to me, a high Trin­ity-ori­gin be­ing, all sec­tors of Vicegering­ton are open. I fully un­der­stand, and just as fully and sa­credly pro­tect, the se­cret of my ori­gin and des­tiny.

• evolution of soul

13:1.22The se­crets of As­cend­ing­ton in­clude the mys­tery of the grad­ual and cer­tain build­ing up in the ma­te­rial and mor­tal mind of a spir­i­tual and po­ten­tially im­mor­tal coun­ter­part of char­ac­ter and iden­tity. This phe­nom­e­non con­sti­tutes one of the most per­plex­ing mys­ter­ies of the uni­verses—the evo­lu­tion of an im­mor­tal soul within the mind of a mor­tal and ma­te­rial crea­ture.

• experiential secrets of other orders of personalities

13:2.8These ren­dezvous worlds of spirit life are for­bid­den ground to the ex­tent that we are asked not to ne­go­ti­ate en­trance to those phases of these spheres which are wholly out­side our realms of ex­pe­ri­ence. You may be­come crea­ture per­fect even as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is de­ity per­fect, but you may not know all the ex­pe­ri­en­tial se­crets of all other or­ders of uni­verse per­son­al­i­ties. When the Cre­ator has an ex­pe­ri­en­tial per­son­al­ity se­cret with his crea­ture, the Cre­ator pre­serves that se­cret in eter­nal con­fi­dence.

• absoluta
• ancestry of ultimatons

15:4.1While cre­ation and uni­verse or­ga­ni­za­tion re­main for­ever un­der the con­trol of the in­fi­nite Cre­ators and their as­so­ciates, the whole phe­nom­e­non pro­ceeds in ac­cor­dance with an or­dained tech­nique and in con­for­mity to the grav­ity laws of force, en­ergy, and mat­ter. But there is some­thing of mys­tery as­so­ci­ated with the uni­ver­sal force-charge of space; we quite un­der­stand the or­ga­ni­za­tion of the ma­te­rial cre­ations from the ul­ti­ma­tonic stage for­ward, but we do not fully com­pre­hend the cos­mic an­ces­try of the ul­ti­ma­tons. We are con­fi­dent that these an­ces­tral forces have a Par­a­dise ori­gin be­cause they for­ever swing through per­vaded space in the ex­act gi­gan­tic out­lines of Par­a­dise. Though non­re­spon­sive to Par­a­dise grav­ity, this force-charge of space, the an­ces­tor of all ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion, does al­ways re­spond to the pres­ence of nether Par­a­dise, be­ing ap­par­ently cir­cuited in and out of the nether Par­a­dise cen­ter.

• segmentation of energy

15:4.3This seg­men­ta­tion of en­ergy is a phe­nom­e­non which has never been solved by the physi­cists of Neb­a­don. Their chief dif­fi­culty lies in the rel­a­tive in­ac­ces­si­bil­ity of the Par­a­dise force or­ga­niz­ers, for the liv­ing power di­rec­tors, though they are com­pe­tent to deal with space-en­ergy, do not have the least con­cep­tion of the ori­gin of the en­er­gies they so skill­fully and in­tel­li­gently ma­nip­u­late.

• reflectivity

17:3.3The at­tri­bute of re­flec­tiv­ity, the phe­nom­e­non of the mind lev­els of the Con­joint Ac­tor, the Su­preme Be­ing, and the Mas­ter Spir­its, is trans­mis­si­ble to all be­ings con­cerned in the work­ing of this vast scheme of uni­ver­sal in­tel­li­gence. And herein is a great mys­tery: Nei­ther the Mas­ter Spir­its nor the Par­a­dise De­i­ties, singly or col­lec­tively, dis­close these pow­ers of co-or­di­nate uni­ver­sal re­flec­tiv­ity just as they are man­i­fested in these forty-nine li­ai­son per­son­al­i­ties of Maj­es­ton, and yet they are the cre­ators of all these mar­velously en­dowed be­ings. Di­vine hered­ity does some­times dis­close in the crea­ture cer­tain at­tri­butes which are not dis­cern­i­ble in the Cre­ator.

• Inspired Trinity Spirits

19:5.3Un­der cer­tain con­di­tions these In­spired Spir­its can in­di­vid­u­al­ize them­selves suf­fi­ciently for rec­og­ni­tion by be­ings of Trin­ity ori­gin. I have seen them; but it would never be pos­si­ble for the lower or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings to rec­og­nize one of them. Cer­tain cir­cum­stances also arise from time to time in the con­duct of the evolv­ing uni­verses in which any be­ing of Trin­ity ori­gin may di­rectly em­ploy these Spir­its in the fur­ther­ance of his as­sign­ments. We there­fore know that they ex­ist, and that un­der cer­tain con­di­tions we may com­mand and re­ceive their as­sis­tance, some­times rec­og­nize their pres­ence. But they are not a part of the man­i­fest and def­i­nitely re­vealed or­ga­ni­za­tion in­trusted with the con­duct of the time-space uni­verses be­fore such ma­te­rial cre­ations are set­tled in light and life. They have no clearly dis­cern­i­ble place in the pres­ent econ­omy or ad­min­is­tra­tion of the evolv­ing seven super­uni­verses. They are a se­cret of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

• mortal bestowals of Paradise Sons

20:6.1The method whereby a Par­a­dise Son be­comes ready for mor­tal in­car­na­tion as a be­stowal Son, be­comes en­moth­ered on the be­stowal planet, is a uni­ver­sal mys­tery; and any ef­fort to de­tect the work­ing of this Sonar­ing­ton tech­nique is doomed to meet with cer­tain fail­ure. Let the sub­lime knowl­edge of the mor­tal life of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth sink into your souls, but waste no thought in use­less spec­u­la­tion as to how this mys­te­ri­ous in­car­na­tion of Mi­chael of Neb­a­don was ef­fected. Let us all re­joice in the knowl­edge and as­sur­ance that such achieve­ments are pos­si­ble to the di­vine na­ture and waste no time on fu­tile con­jec­tures about the tech­nique em­ployed by di­vine wis­dom to ef­fect such phe­nom­ena.

• reappearance of personality upon resurrection

30:4.15The phys­i­cal body of mor­tal flesh is not a part of the re­assem­bly of the sleep­ing sur­vivor; the phys­i­cal body has re­turned to dust. The ser­a­phim of as­sign­ment spon­sors the new body, the mor­ontia form, as the new life ve­hi­cle for the im­mor­tal soul and for the in­dwelling of the re­turned Ad­juster. The Ad­juster is the cus­to­dian of the spirit tran­script of the mind of the sleep­ing sur­vivor. The as­signed ser­a­phim is the keeper of the sur­viv­ing iden­tity—the im­mor­tal soul—as far as it has evolved. And when these two, the Ad­juster and the ser­a­phim, re­unite their per­son­al­ity trusts, the new in­di­vid­ual con­sti­tutes the res­ur­rec­tion of the old per­son­al­ity, the sur­vival of the evolv­ing mor­ontia iden­tity of the soul. Such a re­as­so­ci­a­tion of soul and Ad­juster is quite prop­erly called a res­ur­rec­tion, a re­assem­bly of per­son­al­ity fac­tors; but even this does not en­tirely ex­plain the reap­pear­ance of the sur­viv­ing per­son­al­ity. Though you will prob­a­bly never un­der­stand the fact of such an in­ex­pli­ca­ble trans­ac­tion, you will some­time ex­pe­ri­en­tially know the truth of it if you do not re­ject the plan of mor­tal sur­vival.

• destiny of finaliters

31:3.8We deem that hu­man be­ings are en­ti­tled to share our opin­ions, and that you are free to con­jec­ture with us re­spect­ing the mys­tery of the ul­ti­mate des­tiny of the Par­a­dise Corps of Fi­nal­ity. It seems ev­i­dent to us that the pres­ent as­sign­ments of the per­fected evo­lu­tion­ary crea­tures par­take of the na­ture of post­grad­u­ate courses in uni­verse un­der­stand­ing and super­uni­verse ad­min­is­tra­tion; and we all ask, “Why should the Gods be so con­cerned in so thor­oughly train­ing sur­viv­ing mor­tals in the tech­nique of uni­verse man­age­ment?”

• destiny of finaliters

31:10.19As we view this tri­une de­vel­op­ment, em­brac­ing crea­tures, uni­verses, and De­ity, can we be crit­i­cized for an­tic­i­pat­ing that some­thing new and un­re­vealed is ap­proach­ing cul­mi­na­tion in the mas­ter uni­verse? Is it not nat­u­ral that we should as­so­ciate this age­long mo­bi­liza­tion and or­ga­ni­za­tion of phys­i­cal uni­verses on such a hith­erto un­known scale and the per­son­al­ity emer­gence of the Su­preme Be­ing with this stu­pen­dous scheme of up­step­ping the mor­tals of time to di­vine per­fec­tion and with their sub­se­quent mo­bi­liza­tion on Par­a­dise in the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity—a des­ig­na­tion and des­tiny en­shrouded in uni­verse mys­tery? It is in­creas­ingly the be­lief of all Uversa that the as­sem­bling Corps of the Fi­nal­ity are des­tined to some fu­ture ser­vice in the uni­verses of outer space, where we al­ready are able to iden­tify the clus­ter­ing of at least sev­enty thou­sand ag­gre­ga­tions of mat­ter, each of which is greater than any one of the pres­ent super­uni­verses.

• personalizations of Mother Spirits

34:1.3This is the re­la­tion of a stu­pen­dous drama in few words, but it rep­re­sents about all that can be told re­gard­ing these mo­men­tous trans­ac­tions. They are in­stan­ta­neous, in­scrutable, and in­com­pre­hen­si­ble; the se­cret of the tech­nique and pro­ce­dure re­sides in the bo­som of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. Of only one thing are we cer­tain: The Spirit pres­ence in the lo­cal uni­verse dur­ing the time of purely phys­i­cal cre­ation or or­ga­ni­za­tion was in­com­pletely dif­fer­en­ti­ated from the spirit of the Par­a­dise In­fi­nite Spirit; whereas, af­ter the reap­pear­ance of the super­vis­ing Mas­ter Spirit from the se­cret em­brace of the Gods and fol­low­ing the flash of spir­i­tual en­ergy, the lo­cal uni­verse man­i­fes­ta­tion of the In­fi­nite Spirit sud­denly and com­pletely changes to the per­sonal like­ness of that Mas­ter Spirit who was in trans­mut­ing li­ai­son with the In­fi­nite Spirit. The lo­cal uni­verse Mother Spirit thus ac­quires a per­sonal na­ture tinged by that of the Mas­ter Spirit of the super­uni­verse of as­tro­nomic ju­ris­dic­tion.

• greatest m. is divine indwelling of mortal minds

40:7.1The send­ing of Ad­justers, their in­dwelling, is in­deed one of the un­fath­omable mys­ter­ies of God the Fa­ther. These frag­ments of the di­vine na­ture of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther carry with them the po­ten­tial of crea­ture im­mor­tal­ity. Ad­justers are im­mor­tal spir­its, and union with them con­fers eter­nal life upon the soul of the fused mor­tal.

• infinities of divinity

42:2.22These power di­rec­tors them­selves are en­ergy cat­alyz­ers; that is, they cause en­ergy to seg­ment, or­ga­nize, or as­sem­ble in unit for­ma­tion by their pres­ence. And all this im­plies that there must be some­thing in­her­ent in en­ergy which causes it thus to func­tion in the pres­ence of these power en­ti­ties. The Neb­a­don Mel­chiz­e­deks long since de­nom­i­nated the phe­nom­e­non of the trans­mu­ta­tion of cos­mic force into uni­verse power as one of the seven “in­fini­ties of di­vin­ity.” And that is as far as you will ad­vance on this point dur­ing your lo­cal uni­verse as­cen­sion.

• cohesiveness of atoms, protons, and neutrons

42:8.1While grav­ity is one of sev­eral fac­tors con­cerned in hold­ing to­gether a tiny atomic en­ergy sys­tem, there is also pres­ent in and among these ba­sic phys­i­cal units a pow­er­ful and un­known en­ergy, the se­cret of their ba­sic con­sti­tu­tion and ul­ti­mate be­hav­ior, a force which re­mains to be dis­cov­ered on Uran­tia. This uni­ver­sal in­flu­ence per­me­ates all the space em­braced within this tiny en­ergy or­ga­ni­za­tion.

• cohesiveness of atoms, protons, and neutrons

42:8.6The meso­tron ex­plains cer­tain co­he­sive prop­er­ties of the atomic nu­cleus, but it does not ac­count for the co­he­sion of pro­ton to pro­ton nor for the ad­he­sion of neu­tron to neu­tron. The para­dox­i­cal and pow­er­ful force of atomic co­he­sive in­tegrity is a form of en­ergy as yet undis­cov­ered on Uran­tia.

• undedicated temple on Jerusem

46:5.327. The cir­cles of the fi­nal­i­ters have a unique struc­ture at the cen­ter. And this same va­cant tem­ple is found on ev­ery sys­tem head­quar­ters world through­out Neb­a­don. This ed­i­fice on Je­ru­sem is sealed with the in­signia of Mi­chael, and it bears this in­scrip­tion: “Unded­i­cated to the sev­enth stage of spirit—to the eter­nal as­sign­ment.” Ga­briel placed the seal on this tem­ple of mys­tery, and none but Mi­chael can or may break the seal of sov­er­eignty af­fixed by the Bright and Morn­ing Star. Some day you shall look upon this silent tem­ple, even though you may not pen­e­trate its mys­tery.

• Trinity of Trinities

106:8.22In the union of the Su­preme, Ul­ti­mate, and the com­plete Ab­so­lute, there could oc­cur the func­tional re­assem­bly of those as­pects of in­fin­ity which were orig­i­nally seg­men­tal­ized by the I AM, and which re­sulted in the ap­pear­ance of the Seven Ab­so­lutes of In­fin­ity. Though the uni­verse philoso­phers deem this to be a most re­mote prob­a­bil­ity, still, we of­ten ask this ques­tion: If the sec­ond level of the Trin­ity of Trin­i­ties could ever achieve trin­ity unity, what then would tran­spire as a con­se­quence of such de­ity unity? We do not know, but we are con­fi­dent that it would lead di­rectly to the re­al­iza­tion of the I AM as an ex­pe­ri­en­tial at­tain­able. From the stand­point of per­sonal be­ings it could mean that the un­know­able I AM had be­come ex­pe­ri­en­ci­ble as the Fa­ther-In­fi­nite. What these ab­so­lute des­tinies might mean from a non­per­sonal stand­point is an­other mat­ter and one which only eter­nity could pos­si­bly clar­ify. But as we view these re­mote even­tu­al­i­ties as per­sonal crea­tures, we de­duce that the fi­nal des­tiny of all per­son­al­i­ties is the fi­nal know­ing of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther of these self­same per­son­al­i­ties.

• how Adjusters, not having prerogatives of will, select mortal subjects

107:7.2If Thought Ad­justers are not per­son­al­i­ties hav­ing pre­rog­a­tives of will and pow­ers of choice, how then can they se­lect mor­tal sub­jects and vol­un­teer to in­dwell these crea­tures of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds? This is a ques­tion easy to ask, but prob­a­bly no be­ing in the uni­verse of uni­verses has ever found the ex­act an­swer. Even my or­der of per­son­al­ity, the Soli­tary Mes­sen­gers, does not fully un­der­stand the en­dow­ment of will, choice, and love in en­ti­ties that are not per­sonal.

• greatest m. is divine indwelling of mortal minds

108:5.7I doubt that I am able to ex­plain to you just what the Ad­justers do in your minds and for your souls. I do not know that I am fully cog­nizant of what is re­ally go­ing on in the cos­mic as­so­ci­a­tion of a di­vine Mon­i­tor and a hu­man mind. It is all some­what of a mys­tery to us, not as to the plan and pur­pose but as to the ac­tual mode of ac­com­plish­ment. And this is just why we are con­fronted with such dif­fi­culty in find­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate name for these su­per­nal gifts to mor­tal men.

• Adjuster fusion, making God and man one

112:7.2When your earthly course in tem­po­rary form has been run, you are to awaken on the shores of a bet­ter world, and even­tu­ally you will be united with your faith­ful Ad­juster in an eter­nal em­brace. And this fu­sion con­sti­tutes the mys­tery of mak­ing God and man one, the mys­tery of fi­nite crea­ture evo­lu­tion, but it is eter­nally true. Fu­sion is the se­cret of the sa­cred sphere of As­cend­ing­ton, and no crea­ture, save those who have ex­pe­ri­enced fu­sion with the spirit of De­ity, can com­pre­hend the true mean­ing of the ac­tual val­ues which are con­joined when the iden­tity of a crea­ture of time be­comes eter­nally one with the spirit of Par­a­dise De­ity.

• infinity

115:3.4It is only man’s dis­tance from in­fin­ity that causes this con­cept to be ex­pressed as one word. While in­fin­ity is on the one hand UNITY, on the other it is DI­VER­SITY with­out end or limit. In­fin­ity, as it is ob­served by fi­nite in­tel­li­gences, is the max­i­mum para­dox of crea­ture phi­los­o­phy and fi­nite meta­physics. Though man’s spir­i­tual na­ture reaches up in the wor­ship ex­pe­ri­ence to the Fa­ther who is in­fi­nite, man’s in­tel­lec­tual com­pre­hen­sion ca­pac­ity is ex­hausted by the max­i­mum con­cep­tion of the Su­preme Be­ing. Be­yond the Su­preme, con­cepts are in­creas­ingly names; less and less are they true des­ig­na­tions of re­al­ity; more and more do they be­come the crea­ture’s pro­jec­tion of fi­nite un­der­stand­ing to­ward the super­fi­nite.

• does pattern of idea occupy space?

118:3.7All pat­terns of re­al­ity oc­cupy space on the ma­te­rial lev­els, but spirit pat­terns only ex­ist in re­la­tion to space; they do not oc­cupy or dis­place space, nei­ther do they con­tain it. But to us the mas­ter rid­dle of space per­tains to the pat­tern of an idea. When we en­ter the mind do­main, we en­counter many a puz­zle. Does the pat­tern—the re­al­ity—of an idea oc­cupy space? We re­ally do not know, al­beit we are sure that an idea pat­tern does not con­tain space. But it would hardly be safe to pos­tu­late that the im­ma­te­rial is al­ways non­spa­tial.

• mortal bestowals of Paradise Sons

119:5.5Still, the tech­nique of these suc­ces­sive be­stowals re­mained a mys­tery. Even Ga­briel con­fesses that he does not com­pre­hend the method whereby this Par­a­dise Son and uni­verse Cre­ator could, at will, as­sume the per­son­al­ity and live the life of one of his own sub­or­di­nate crea­tures.

• mortal bestowals of Paradise Sons

119:7.5Joshua ben Joseph, the Jew­ish baby, was con­ceived and was born into the world just as all other ba­bies be­fore and since ex­cept that this par­tic­u­lar baby was the in­car­na­tion of Mi­chael of Neb­a­don, a di­vine Son of Par­a­dise and the cre­ator of all this lo­cal uni­verse of things and be­ings. And this mys­tery of the in­car­na­tion of De­ity within the hu­man form of Je­sus, oth­er­wise of nat­u­ral ori­gin on the world, will for­ever re­main un­solved. Even in eter­nity you will never know the tech­nique and method of the in­car­na­tion of the Cre­ator in the form and like­ness of his crea­tures. That is the se­cret of Sonar­ing­ton, and such mys­ter­ies are the ex­clu­sive pos­ses­sion of those di­vine Sons who have passed through the be­stowal ex­pe­ri­ence.

• some m., only faith can overcome

1:4.7As a re­al­ity in hu­man spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence God is not a mys­tery. But when an at­tempt is made to make plain the re­al­i­ties of the spirit world to the phys­i­cal minds of the ma­te­rial or­der, mys­tery ap­pears: mys­ter­ies so sub­tle and so pro­found that only the faith-grasp of the God-know­ing mor­tal can achieve the philo­sophic mir­a­cle of the rec­og­ni­tion of the In­fi­nite by the fi­nite, the dis­cern­ment of the eter­nal God by the evolv­ing mor­tals of the ma­te­rial worlds of time and space.

• there are no arbitrary secrets

18:1.4I can re­veal very lit­tle about the work of these high per­son­al­i­ties on the seven sa­cred worlds of the Fa­ther, for they are truly the Se­crets of Su­prem­acy. There are no ar­bi­trary se­crets as­so­ci­ated with the ap­proach to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, the Eter­nal Son, or the In­fi­nite Spirit. The De­i­ties are an open book to all who at­tain di­vine per­fec­tion, but all the Se­crets of Su­prem­acy can never be fully at­tained. Al­ways will we be un­able fully to pen­e­trate the realms con­tain­ing the per­son­al­ity se­crets of De­ity as­so­ci­a­tion with the sev­en­fold group­ing of cre­ated be­ings.

18:1.5Since the work of these su­preme di­rec­tors has to do with the in­ti­mate and per­sonal con­tact of the De­i­ties with these seven ba­sic group­ings of uni­verse be­ings when domi­ciled on these seven spe­cial worlds or while func­tion­ing through­out the grand uni­verse, it is fit­ting that these very per­sonal re­la­tions and ex­traor­di­nary con­tacts should be held sa­credly se­cret. The Par­a­dise Cre­ators re­spect the pri­vacy and sanc­tity of per­son­al­ity even in their lowly crea­tures. And this is true both of in­di­vid­u­als and of the var­i­ous sep­a­rate or­ders of per­son­al­i­ties.

18:1.6To be­ings of even high uni­verse at­tain­ment these se­cret worlds ever re­main a test of loy­alty. It is given us fully and per­son­ally to know the eter­nal Gods, freely to know their char­ac­ters of di­vin­ity and per­fec­tion, but it is not granted us fully to pen­e­trate all of the per­sonal re­la­tions of the Par­a­dise Rulers with all of their crea­ture be­ings.

• there are no arbitrary secrets

19:5.11I do not be­lieve the In­spired Trin­ity Spir­its are play­ing hide and seek with me. They are prob­a­bly try­ing just as hard to dis­close them­selves to me as I am to com­mu­ni­cate with them; our dif­fi­cul­ties and lim­i­ta­tions must be mu­tual and in­her­ent. I am sat­is­fied that there are no ar­bi­trary se­crets in the uni­verse; there­fore will I never cease in my ef­forts to solve the mys­tery of the iso­la­tion of these Spir­its be­long­ing to my or­der of cre­ation.

• some things better withheld

37:4.5Most of this corps is en­listed in as­sist­ing the Neb­a­don Par­a­dise per­son­al­i­ties—the Union of Days, the Cre­ator Son, the Faith­fuls of Days, the Mag­is­te­rial Sons, and the Trin­ity Teacher Sons. Now and then in the trans­ac­tion of the af­fairs of a lo­cal cre­ation it be­comes wise to with­hold cer­tain de­tails, tem­porar­ily, from the knowl­edge of prac­ti­cally all of the na­tive per­son­al­i­ties of that lo­cal uni­verse. Cer­tain ad­vanced plans and com­plex rul­ings are also bet­ter grasped and more fully un­der­stood by the more ma­ture and farsee­ing corps of Most High As­sis­tants, and it is in such sit­u­a­tions, and many oth­ers, that they are so highly ser­vice­able to the uni­verse rulers and ad­min­is­tra­tors.

• cf: nothing hidden that shall not be revealed

150:4.2Je­sus ar­ranged the date for meet­ing the twelve at Naz­a­reth, and in part­ing, he said: “On this mis­sion go not to any city of the gen­tiles, nei­ther go into Samaria, but go in­stead to the lost sheep of the house of Is­rael. Preach the gospel of the king­dom and pro­claim the sav­ing truth that man is a son of God. Re­mem­ber that the dis­ci­ple is hardly above his mas­ter nor a ser­vant greater than his lord. It is enough for the dis­ci­ple to be equal with his mas­ter and the ser­vant to be­come like his lord. If some peo­ple have dared to call the mas­ter of the house an as­so­ciate of Beelze­bub, how much more shall they so re­gard those of his house­hold! But you should not fear these un­be­liev­ing en­e­mies. I de­clare to you that there is noth­ing cov­ered up that is not go­ing to be re­vealed; there is noth­ing hid­den that shall not be known. What I have taught you pri­vately, that preach with wis­dom in the open. What I have re­vealed to you in the in­ner cham­ber, that you are to pro­claim in due sea­son from the house­tops. And I say to you, my friends and dis­ci­ples, be not afraid of those who can kill the body, but who are not able to de­stroy the soul; rather put your trust in Him who is able to sus­tain the body and save the soul.

• cf: nothing hidden that shall not be revealed

151:3.1The apos­tles were para­ble-minded, so much so that the whole of the next evening was de­voted to the fur­ther dis­cus­sion of para­bles. Je­sus in­tro­duced the evening’s con­fer­ence by say­ing: “My beloved, you must al­ways make a dif­fer­ence in teach­ing so as to suit your pre­sen­ta­tion of truth to the minds and hearts be­fore you. When you stand be­fore a mul­ti­tude of vary­ing in­tel­lects and tem­per­a­ments, you can­not speak dif­fer­ent words for each class of hear­ers, but you can tell a story to con­vey your teach­ing; and each group, even each in­di­vid­ual, will be able to make his own in­ter­pre­ta­tion of your para­ble in ac­cor­dance with his own in­tel­lec­tual and spir­i­tual en­dow­ments. You are to let your light shine but do so with wis­dom and dis­cre­tion. No man, when he lights a lamp, cov­ers it up with a ves­sel or puts it un­der the bed; he puts his lamp on a stand where all can be­hold the light. Let me tell you that noth­ing is hid in the king­dom of heaven which shall not be made man­i­fest; nei­ther are there any se­crets which shall not ul­ti­mately be made known. Even­tu­ally, all these things shall come to light. Think not only of the mul­ti­tudes and how they hear the truth; take heed also to your­selves how you hear. Re­mem­ber that I have many times told you: To him who has shall be given more, while from him who has not shall be taken away even that which he thinks he has.”

• cf: nothing hidden that shall not be revealed

165:3.2“What I have many times said to my apos­tles and to my dis­ci­ples, I now de­clare to this mul­ti­tude: Be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees which is hypocrisy, born of prej­u­dice and nur­tured in tra­di­tional bond­age, al­beit many of these Phar­isees are hon­est of heart and some of them abide here as my dis­ci­ples. Pres­ently all of you shall un­der­stand my teach­ing, for there is noth­ing now cov­ered that shall not be re­vealed. That which is now hid from you shall all be made known when the Son of Man has com­pleted his mis­sion on earth and in the flesh.

165:3.3“Soon, very soon, will the things which our en­e­mies now plan in se­crecy and in dark­ness be brought out into the light and be pro­claimed from the house­tops. But I say to you, my friends, when they seek to de­stroy the Son of Man, be not afraid of them. Fear not those who, al­though they may be able to kill the body, af­ter that have no more power over you. I ad­mon­ish you to fear none, in heaven or on earth, but to re­joice in the knowl­edge of Him who has power to de­liver you from all un­righ­teous­ness and to pre­sent you blame­less be­fore the judg­ment seat of a uni­verse.

70:7.7The very se­crecy of these so­ci­eties con­ferred on all mem­bers the power of mys­tery over the rest of the tribe. Se­crecy also ap­peals to van­ity; the ini­ti­ates were the so­cial aris­toc­racy of their day. Af­ter ini­ti­a­tion the boys hunted with the men; whereas be­fore they had gath­ered veg­eta­bles with the women. And it was the su­preme hu­mil­i­a­tion, a tribal dis­grace, to fail to pass the pu­berty tests and thus be com­pelled to re­main out­side the men’s abode with the women and chil­dren, to be con­sid­ered ef­fem­i­nate. Be­sides, non­ini­ti­ates were not al­lowed to marry.

70:7.15Se­cret so­ci­eties con­tributed to the build­ing up of so­cial castes chiefly by the mys­te­ri­ous char­ac­ter of their ini­ti­a­tions. The mem­bers of these so­ci­eties first wore masks to frighten the cu­ri­ous away from their mourn­ing rites—an­ces­tor wor­ship. Later this rit­ual de­vel­oped into a pseudo seance at which ghosts were re­puted to have ap­peared. The an­cient so­ci­eties of the “new birth” used signs and em­ployed a spe­cial se­cret lan­guage; they also for­swore cer­tain foods and drinks. They acted as night po­lice and oth­er­wise func­tioned in a wide range of so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

89:4.1Sac­ri­fice as a part of re­li­gious de­vo­tions, like many other wor­ship­ful rit­u­als, did not have a sim­ple and sin­gle ori­gin. The ten­dency to bow down be­fore power and to pros­trate one­self in wor­ship­ful ado­ra­tion in the pres­ence of mys­tery is fore­shad­owed in the fawn­ing of the dog be­fore its mas­ter. It is but one step from the im­pulse of wor­ship to the act of sac­ri­fice. Prim­i­tive man gauged the value of his sac­ri­fice by the pain which he suf­fered. When the idea of sac­ri­fice first at­tached it­self to re­li­gious cer­e­mo­nial, no of­fer­ing was con­tem­plated which was not pro­duc­tive of pain. The first sac­ri­fices were such acts as pluck­ing hair, cut­ting the flesh, mu­ti­la­tions, knock­ing out teeth, and cut­ting off fin­gers. As civ­i­liza­tion ad­vanced, these crude con­cepts of sac­ri­fice were el­e­vated to the level of the rit­u­als of self-ab­ne­ga­tion, as­ceti­cism, fast­ing, de­pri­va­tion, and the later Chris­tian doc­trine of sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion through sor­row, suf­fer­ing, and the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of the flesh.

27:6.1Next to the su­preme sat­is­fac­tion of wor­ship is the ex­hil­a­ra­tion of phi­los­o­phy. Never do you climb so high or ad­vance so far that there do not re­main a thou­sand mys­ter­ies which de­mand the em­ploy­ment of phi­los­o­phy in an at­tempted so­lu­tion.