"The Bible has been given to the Western World by the Recording Angels who give to each and all exactly what they need for their development."
  — Max Heindel

References: Genesis 5; Deuteronomy 25.

  Christ came to prepare the way for the emancipation of humanity from the guidance of the differentiating Race and Family Spirit, and to unite the whole human family in One Universal Brotherhood.

  He taught that "Abraham's seed" referred to the bodies only, and called their attention to the fact that before Abraham lived (the) "I" — the Ego — was in existence. The threefold individual Spirit had its being before all Tribes and Races and it will remain when they have passed away and even the memory of them is no more, the threefold Spirit in man, the Ego, is the God within, whom the personal, bodily man must learn to follow. Therefore did Christ say that to be His disciple, a man must forsake all that he had. His teaching points to the emancipation of the God within. He calls upon man to exercise his prerogative as an individual and rise above family, tribe, and nation. Not that he is to disregard kin and country. He must fulfill all duties, but he is to cease identifying himself with part and must recognize an equal kinship with all the world. That is the ideal given to mankind by the Christ.

  Under the rule of the Race Spirit, the nation, the tribe, or family was considered first — the individual last. The family must be kept intact. If any man died without leaving offspring to perpetuate his name, his brother must "carry seed" to the widow, that there might be no dying out (Deut. 25:5-10). Marrying out of the family was regarded with horror in the earliest times. A member of one tribe could not become connected with another without losing caste in his own. It was not an easy matter to become a member of another family.

  All these customs resulted from the working of the Race and tribal Spirit in the common blood. To admit as a member one in whom that common blood did not flow would have caused "confusion of caste." The closer the inbreeding, the greater the power of the Race Spirit, and the stronger the ties that bound the individual to the tribe, because the vital force of the man is in his blood. Memory is intimately connected with the blood, which is the highest expression of the vital body.

  The brain and nervous system are the highest expressions of the desire body. They call up pictures of the outside world, but in mental image-making, i.e., imagination, the blood brings the material for the pictures; therefore when the thought is active the blood flows to the head. When the same unmixed strain of blood flows in the veins of a family for generations, the same mental pictures made by great-grandfather, grandfather, and father are reproduced in the son by the Family Spirit which lived in the hemoglobin of the blood. He sees himself as the continuation of a long line of ancestors who live in him. He sees all the events of the past lives of the family as though he had been present, therefore he does not realize himself as an Ego. He is not simply "David," but "the son of Abraham"; not "Joseph," but "the son of David."

  By means of this common blood men are said to have lived for many generations, because through their blood their descendants had access to the Memory of Nature, in which the records of the lives of their ancestors were preserved. That is why, in the fifth chapter of Genesis, it is stated that the patriarchs did not personally attain to such a great age, but they lived in the consciousness of their descendants, who saw the lives of their ancestors as if they had lived them. After the expiration of the period stated, the descendants did not think of themselves as Adam or Methuselah. Memory of those ancestors faded and so it is said that they died.

  The earlier Races would not have dared to disobey the injunction issue by the tribal God not to marry outside of the tribe, nor had they any inclination to do so, for they had no mind of their own.

  The original Semites were the first to evolve Will, and many of them at once married the daughters of men of other tribes, frustrating temporarily the design of their Race Spirit and being promptly ejected as evildoers who had "gone a whoring after strange gods," thereby rendering themselves unfit to give the "seed" for the seven Races of our present Fifth Epoch. The Original Semites were, for the time being, the last Race that the Race Spirit cared to keep separate.

  Later, man was given free will. The time had come when he was to be prepared for individualization. The former "common" consciousness, the involuntary clairvoyance or second-sight which constantly held before a tribesman the pictures of his ancestors' lives and caused him to feel most closely identified with the tribe or family, was to be replaced for a time by a strictly individual consciousness confined to the material world, so as to break up the nations into individuals, that the Brotherhood of Man regardless of exterior circumstances may become a fact. This is on the same principle that if we have a number of buildings and wish to make them into one large structure, it is necessary to break them up into separate bricks. Only then can the large building be constructed.

  In order to accomplish this separation of nations into individuals, laws were given which prohibited endogamy or marriage in the family and henceforth incestuous marriages gradually came to be regarded with horror. Strange blood had thus been introduced into all families of the Earth and it has gradually wiped out the involuntary clairvoyance which promoted the clannish feeling and segregated humanity into groups. Altruism is superseding patriotism, and loyalty to the family is disappearing in consequence of the mixture of blood.

  The Human Spirit is individualized, an Ego, it is evolving free will and responsibility. It is drawn to birth by the irresistible law of Consequence, so that it is beyond the power of the Race, Community, or Family Spirit to keep it from returning at the present stage of human development, and by the admixture of strange blood, by intermarriage of the individuals of different tribes or nations, the leaders of man are gradually helping him to oust the Family, Tribal, or National Spirit from the blood; but with it has necessarily gone the involuntary clairvoyance which was due to its working in the blood, whereby it fostered the family traditions in its charges; and so we see that also in the case of a man a faculty was destroyed by the mixture of the blood. That loss was a gain, however, for it has concentrated man's energy on the material world and he is better able to master its lessons than if he were still distracted by the visions of the higher realms.

  For aforementioned reasons, intertribal, and later international, marriages came gradually to be regarded as desirable and preferable to close intermarriages.

  As man progressed through these stages, and gradually lost touch with the inner world, he sorrowed over the loss and longed for a return of the "inner" vision. But by degrees he forgot, and the material world gradually loomed up before his mind as the only reality, until at last he has come to scout the idea that such inner worlds exist and to regard a belief in them as foolish superstition.

  The four causes contributing to this condition were:

  (1) The clearing of the foggy atmosphere of the Atlantean continent.

  (2) The indrawing of the vital body, so that a point at the root of the nose corresponds to a similar point in the vital body.

  (3) The elimination of inbreeding and the substitution therefore of marriages outside the family and tribe.

  (4) The use of intoxicants.

  The Race Spirits still exist in and work with man, but the more advanced the nation, the more freedom is given the individual. In countries where people are most fettered, the Race Spirit is strongest. The more in harmony a man is with the law of Love, and the higher his ideals, the more he frees himself from the Spirit of the Race.

  When seen by the Spiritual vision the Race Spirit appears like a cloud brooding over a country, and it is breathed into the lungs of the people with every breath they take. In it they live, move, and have their being, as a matter of actual fact. Through this process they become imbued with the national fellow feeling which we call "patriotism," which is so powerfully stirring in time of war that all feel wrought up about a certain matter and are ready to sacrifice all for their country.

  America has no Race Spirit as yet. It is the melting pot wherein the various nations are being amalgamated to arouse universal sentiment which will make all move as one in any matter. This new race is beginning to appear, however. You may know them by their long arms and limbs, their lithe bodies, their long and somewhat narrow heads, high crowns, and almost rectangular foreheads.

  Christ came to reunite the separated races in bonds of peace and good will, wherein all will willingly and consciously follow the law of Love.

  The present Christianity is not even a shadow of the true Religion of Christ. That will remain in abeyance until all race feeling shall have been overcome. In the Sixth Epoch there will be but one Universal Brotherhood, under the Leadership of the returned Christ, but the day and the hour no man knows, for it is not fixed, but depends upon how soon a sufficient number of people shall have commenced to live the life of Fellowship and Love, which is to be the hallmark of the new dispensation.

  (You are welcome to e-mail your answers and/or comments to us. Please be sure to include the course name and Independent Study Module number in your e-mail to us. Or, you are also welcome to use the answer form below.)

1. What was the specific aim of the coming of Christ?
2. Explain briefly how Methuselah and others "lived" so long.
3. What quality were the Original Semites the first to evolve?
4. What is the purpose of individualization?
5. State the four factors involved in the loss of man's "inner" vision.
6. How is one freed from the Race and Family Spirit?
7. What is to be the keynote of Christianity of the Returned Christ?