Chapter XV - Genesis
Rising to the light
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of spiritual understanding. This period corresponds to
of spiritual understanding. This period corresponds to
the resurrection, when Spirit is discerned to be the Life of
all, and the deathless Life, or Mind, dependent
upon no material organization. Our Master
reappeared to his students, – to their apprehension he
rose from the grave, – on the third day of his ascending
thought, and so presented to them the certain sense of
eternal Life.
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Genesis i. 14. And God said, Let there be lights in the
Genesis i. 14. And God said, Let there be lights in the
firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night;
and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days,
and years.
Rarefaction of thought
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Spirit creates no other than heavenly or celestial bodies,
Spirit creates no other than heavenly or celestial bodies,
but the stellar universe is no more celestial than our earth.
This text gives the idea of the rarefaction of
thought as it ascends higher. God forms and
peoples the universe. The light of spiritual understand-
ing gives gleams of the infinite only, even as nebulae indi-
cate the immensity of space.
Divine nature appearing
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So-called mineral, vegetable, and animal substances
So-called mineral, vegetable, and animal substances
are no more contingent now on time or material struc-
ture than they were when "the morning stars
sang together." Mind made the "plant of
the field before it was in the earth." The periods of
spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's
creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness
– yea, the divine nature – appear in man and the uni-
verse never to disappear.
Spiritual ideas apprehended
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Knowing the Science of creation, in which all is Mind
Knowing the Science of creation, in which all is Mind
and its ideas, Jesus rebuked the material thought of his
fellow-countrymen: "Ye can discern the face of the
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sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"
sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"
How much more should we seek to apprehend the spirit-
ual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects
of sense! To discern the rhythm of Spirit
and to be holy, thought must be purely spiritual.
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Genesis i. 15. And let them be for lights in the firma-
Genesis i. 15. And let them be for lights in the firma-
ment of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it
was so.
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Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose
Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose
"light shall we see light;" and this illumination is re-
flected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn
away from a false material sense.
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Genesis i. 16. And God made two great lights; the
Genesis i. 16. And God made two great lights; the
greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the
night: He made the stars also.
Geology a failure
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The sun is a metaphorical representation of Soul out-
The sun is a metaphorical representation of Soul out-
side the body, giving existence and intelligence to the
universe. Love alone can impart the limit-
less idea of infinite Mind. Geology has never
explained the earth's formations; it cannot explain them.
There is no Scriptural allusion to solar light until time has
been already divided into evening and morning; and the
allusion to fluids (Genesis i. 2) indicates a supposed for-
mation of matter by the resolving of fluids into solids,
analogous to the suppositional resolving of thoughts into
material things.
Spiritual subdivision
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Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love,
Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love,
and not a vitalizing property of matter. Sci-
ence reveals only one Mind, and this one shin-
ing by its own light and governing the universe, including