In our age the missionary spirit is strong. The Western churches are sending missionaries all over the world to convert the people of every nation to a belief in their creeds; nor are they alone in their proselyting efforts. The East has commenced a strong invasion of Western fields, and many Christians who have become dissatisfied with the creeds and dogmas taught by the clergy and impelled to search for truth to satisfy the demands of the intellect for an adequate explanation of the problems of life, have familiarized themselves with, and in many cases accepted, the Eastern teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.
From an esoteric point of view, this missionary effort, whether from East to West or vice versa, is not desirable, because it is contrary to the trend of evolution. The great Leaders of humanity Who are in charge of our development give us every aid necessary to that end. Religion is one of these aids, and there are excellent reasons why the Bible, containing not only one, but both the Jewish and Christian religions, should have been given to the West. If we earnestly seek for light we shall see the Supreme Wisdom which has given us this double religion and how no other religion of the present day is suitable to our peculiar needs. To this end we will in this section touch again upon certain points previously brought out in various places and connections.
In the Polarian, Hyperborean and Lemurian Epochs the task of leading humanity was a comparatively easy one, for man was then without mind, but when that disturbing element came in during the first part of the Atlantean Epoch, he developed Cunning, which is the product of the mind unchecked by the spirit. Cunning acts as an aid to desire, regardless of whether the desire is good or bad, whether it will bring joy or sorrow.
In the middle of the Atlantean Epoch the spirit had drawn completely into its vehicles and commenced to work in the mind to produce Thought and Reason: the ability to trace a given cause to its inevitable effect, and to deduce from a given effect the cause which produced it. The faculty of Reasoning or Logic was to become more fully developed in the Fifth Epoch, and therefore the Original Semites (the fifth race of the Atlantean Epoch) were a "chosen people," to bring out that germinal faculty to such a ripeness that it would be impregnated into the very fiber of their descendants, who would thus become the New Race.
To transmute Cunning into Reason proved no easy task. The earlier changes in man's nature had been easily brought about. He could then be led without difficulty because he had no conscious desire, nor mind to guide him, but by the time of the Original Semites he had become cunning enough to resent limitations of his liberty and to circumvent repeatedly the measures taken to hold him in line. The task of guiding him was all the more difficult because it was necessary he should have some liberty of choice, that he might in time learn self-government. Therefore a law was enacted which decreed immediate rewards for obedience and instant punishment for disregard of its provisions. Thus was man taught, coaxed and coerced into reasoning in a limited manner that "the way of the transgressor is hard," and that he must "fear God," or the Leader Who guided him.
In such cases as that and the San Francisco disaster, the inner spiritual nature of man becomes more in evidence than under any other circumstances, and the close observer may then discern the trend of evolution. The fact then becomes manifest that though in the stress of ordinary life our actions may deny it, nevertheless at heart we know and acknowledge the great truth that we are brothers and the hurt of one is really felt by all. Such incidents, therefore, point out the direction of evolution. The control of man by Reason must be succeeded by that of Love, which at present acts independent of and sometimes even contrary to the dictates of Reason. The anomaly arises from the fact that Love, at present, is rarely quite unselfish and our Reason is not always true. In the "New Galilee," the coming Sixth Epoch, Love will become unselfish and Reason will approve its dictates. Universal Brotherhood shall then be fully realized, each working for the good of all, because self-seeking will be a thing of the past.
That this much-to-be-desired end may be attained, it will be necessary to select another "chosen people" from the present stock to serve as a nucleus from which the new Race shall spring. This choosing is not to be done contrary to the will of the chosen. Each man must choose for himself; he must willingly enter the ranks.
Races are but an evanescent feature of evolution. Before the end of the Lemurian Epoch there was a "chosen people," different from the ordinary humanity of that time, who became the ancestors of the Atlantean Races. From the fifth race of those another "chosen people" was drawn, from which the Fifth Epoch Races descended, of which there have been five and will be two more. Before a new Epoch is ushered in, however, there must be "a new Heaven and a new earth"; the physical features of the Earth will be changed and its density decreased. There will be one Race at the beginning of the next Epoch, but after that every thought and feeling of Race will disappear. Humanity will again constitute one vast Fellowship, regardless of all distinctions. Races are simply steps in evolution which must be taken, otherwise there will be no progress for the spirits reborn in them. But, though necessary steps, they are also extremely dangerous ones, and are therefore the cause of grave concern to the Leaders of mankind. They call these sixteen Races "the sixteen paths to destruction," because , while in previous Epochs the changes came after such enormous intervals that it was easier to get the majority of the entities in line for promotion, it is different with the Races. They are comparatively evanescent; therefore extra care must be taken that as few of the spirits as possible become enmeshed in the fetters of Race.
As the present Fifth Epoch Races are reasoning human beings, capable of profiting by past experience, the logical means of helping them is by telling them of past stages of growth.
The Christian teaching of the New Testament belongs particularly to the pioneering humanity of the Western World. It is being specially implanted among the people of the United States, for as the object of the new Race of the Sixth Epoch will be the unification of all the Races, the United States is becoming the "melting pot" where all the nations of the earth are being amalgamated and from this amalgamation will the next "chosen people," the nucleus, be chiefly derived. Those spirits, from all countries of the earth, who have striven to follow the teachings of the Christ, consciously or otherwise, will be reborn in the United States, for the purpose of giving them conditions suitable for that development.
Thus we can see that the Bible contains the teaching peculiarly needed by the Western peoples, that they may learn to live by the teachings of the Christ, willingly offering up their bodies as a living sacrifice upon the altar of Fellowship and Love.
