SHUN THE PHARISEES!


THE DESIGNATION “PHARISEE” has become a conception containing nothing good, but signifying a combination of spiritual arrogance, hypocrisy, cunning and occasionally also malice.
Persons deserving this designation can be found everywhere today, in all countries and in every walk of life. This has nothing whatever to do with race or nation, and there are many more of them now than there ever were before. Every profession has its Pharisees, but they can still mostly be found where they could formerly be encountered at any time in great numbers – among the servants and representatives of the temples and churches!
And, strangely enough, wherever some messenger of the Light had to proclaim the Truth according to the Will of God, he was attacked, defiled, slandered and persecuted. This was done first and foremost by the representatives and servants of the prevailing religious dogmas who pretended to serve God, and by those who even had the effrontery to profess themselves as representatives of the Divine Will.
This has always been the case from the most primitive medicine man and sorcerer up to the highest priests. Without exception they always felt themselves menaced by the Truth, and thus either carried on a veiled agitation or quite openly made mischief against every person who was ordained, mercifully granted or sent by God to bring Light to these earthmen.
No denial of this irrefutable fact is of any avail, nor any perversion or glossing over, for world history gives proof of it! Clearly and distinctly it testifies to the ineffaceable fact that it has never been otherwise; among the many instances that have occurred there has not been a single exception. Always and ever again it was just the priests who were the most definite adversaries of the Light and thus enemies of God, Whose Will they did not want to observe. Instead they fought against the Will of God, and opposed it with their own volition.
Of what use was it when recognition sometimes came afterwards, but often not until it had become too late for many things!
On the contrary, this only proves that it was just the priests who were never in the position to recognise the Truth and the Light in time!
Recognition lay always and only with a few among the people, but not with the priests or those who made a pretence of recognising God purely on account of their profession.
And these few among the people clung to it firmly until later on the priests also considered it wiser to go along in their way so as not to lose the upper hand. The servants and representatives of a religion have never voluntarily and joyfully harboured a messenger from God. It is characteristic that neither such messengers nor the Son of God could issue from their ranks. And, strange to say, no person thinks about the fact that God Himself always declared His judgment in these matters and therewith clearly manifested His Will.
Experiences over many thousands of years confirm ever and always again that the priests were never capable of recognising Divine Truth, but in their conceit they always closed themselves to It, sometimes also because of fear or lazy comfort. This they also proved ever anew, because they constantly fought against every messenger from God with the vilest methods a man can use. There can be no dispute about it whatever; for past times themselves offer the most irrefutable evidence!
In every way, even with the Son of God! Nor was it love of humanity which drove the priests to this, but professional envy and nothing else! It was the Truth which disturbed them, because they have never yet faithfully taught the Truth – they themselves did not know It!
And, humanlike, they were much too weak to admit that there were many things they did not yet know, and that therefore they spread wrong opinions in some matters; nor were they capable of admitting this, for fear their authority might begin to wane!
Just delve into the history of the world and investigate it seriously, and you will find that it was never otherwise! But nobody has so far wanted to learn a lesson from it! Nobody takes it as a warning, because although it always remains basically the same this is continually appearing in a new form. Therefore, due once more to indolence, man imagines that just in his time it is different after all. But it is still the same today as it used to be. There is no difference now to what it was in the past. Nothing has changed therein, but if anything it has become worse!
Go and ask earnest people who serve the church, but who are nevertheless still courageous enough openly to confess their inner stirrings, people who do not shrink from being honest with themselves... they will all have to admit to you that even today the church would still want to make every person impossible, and carry on an agitation against him, if he is able to endanger the rigid dogmas supporting the churches! Even if Christ Jesus would now suddenly walk among them as a human being in the same way as before! If He did not agree that their conceptions were the only right way they would immediately treat Him as an enemy, and without any hesitation would again accuse Him of blasphemy! They would pelt Him with dirt, and be unsparing with their ugly slanders in the process!
That is how it is, and not otherwise! The reason for all this wrong-doing, however, is not the urge to honour Almighty God, but the struggle to influence men and acquire earthly power and wealth! —
But you men draw no beneficial consequences whatever for yourselves and for your seeking from these many facts, which are indeed so easily discernible in the disputes among all the churches. You thoughtlessly overlook it!
But do not imagine that God in His Holy Laws will thereby leave it at that for you! You will be roused suddenly and severely from this irresponsible indolence!
The second group of persons hostile to the Truth are the spiritually arrogant among those who do not belong to the clergy.
For one reason or another they are self-complacent. Perhaps one such person has gone through an inner experience in accordance with his nature, no matter what caused it. It need not always have been suffering. Sometimes it is also joy, some vision, or a celebration, in brief there are many incitements for it!
He then clings to this one-time experience which proved capable of moving him so much, not thinking that it very likely arose out of himself, and that it was therefore not a real experience at all. However, he quickly seeks to raise himself above his fellow-men with the self-comforting assertion: “I had my experience and so I know I am standing in the true recognition of God!”
The wretched man! A human spirit must have a thousandfold experiences if he really wishes to mature to a higher recognition! And such a spiritually indolent human spirit on earth, who holds himself in high esteem, clings fast as if in a shrine to one single experience within himself and does not strive to proceed further, because he believes that with this everything has already happened and that he has achieved enough for his life! The fools who act in such a manner will now come to the awakening; for they must realise that they were asleep!
It is all right when a person has once had an inner experience, but not enough is achieved with that alone. He must not stagnate there but unswervingly stride onwards – he must keep alert in spirit! On this path he would very soon realise that his experience was only a transition serving to awaken him to real recognition.
However, his spiritual arrogance only comes more than ever to the fore, and he fancies he is of greater worth than those who go another way and follow a different creed.
Onward, ever onward, must man proceed on his way through Creation, ever onward also in the recognition of everything he finds in Creation! He must never feel safe and bask in a single experience which came to him once. Onward, only onward, proceeding with all his strength! To remain stationary means to stay behind. And danger threatens those who stay behind. With ascent, however, the dangers always lie behind every human spirit and never in front of him – he should be aware of this!
Therefore calmly leave those people alone who seek so proudly to talk about themselves. Look at their actions, their manner, and you will quickly recognise what they are worth! There are very many who belong to this group. They are hollow fruit which have to be cast out; they no longer absorb anything, for in their conceit they imagine they already have everything. —
The third big group of useless ones comprises the visionaries and enthusiasts who, easily stirred over anything that is new, harm everything which is really good. They always want to conquer the world immediately, but quickly collapse inwardly when it comes to proving their strength through perseverance, in working upon themselves unceasingly!
They would sometimes be useful as stormers provided the resistance does not last long, and when it is a question of assailing their fellow-men – wishing to teach them without already possessing a firm basis for themselves! Fireworks which quickly begin to glow and soon fade away! They belong to the superficial ones who have no great value!
Next to this group comes still another comprising those persons who cannot abstain from adding their own thoughts to something they are given, so that through the opportunity to absorb one particle of truth they themselves can also achieve some distinction or other by spreading it! They cannot refrain from weaving their own opinions into what they have read or heard, and continuing to follow up everything just as it arises in their imagination.
Fortunately they are not very numerous, but they are all the more dangerous because they create and spread false doctrines out of one little grain of truth. Thus they are not only very harmful to themselves, but also to many of their fellow-men by the ever-changing form of their activities. Let us take a minor example which everybody knows about – the fanciful novels and stories. What is so wantonly achieved therein on the basis of seemingly small grains of truth or, to express it better, what do some people burdened with fantasy achieve therewith!
It cannot always be assumed that the reason is that the writer merely wants to make money by stimulating the diseased fantasies of his fellow-men, and offering them the most incredible stories in which they can revel with a shudder. In most cases the reason lies deeper. Such people principally wish to shine with their work and revelations. They wish to let their spirit flare up before others, thinking to provide further realms for investigation and to incite others to important work in this connection.
But what nonsense is often brought forth by this! Let us only consider a few of the fantastic accounts written and printed about the inhabitants of Mars! Every line shows the lack of comprehension regarding the Divine Laws in Creation! And in the end we are bound to include Mars in Creation as well as everything else!
Creatures are described which really spring forth from a diseased imagination, based on the belief that men there must be of quite a different shape to those here on earth because Mars is a different planet!
Enlightenment on such matters will come through learning to know the Laws of Creation. A knowledge of the Laws then opens up entirely different prospects, with exact foundations, to the scholars and technicians, and thus also brings about an entirely different kind of progress and success in every realm.
I have already said quite often that there is no reason whatever to think that something is different in Creation because it happens to be further from the earth or because it cannot be seen with the physical eyes. Creation has come into existence through uniform laws; it is equally uniform in its development, and is also maintained with the same uniformity. It is wrong to let a sickly imagination have a free run in these matters or even to heed it!
Every man of Subsequent Creation is in the likeness of the primordial images of God. Therefore throughout the entire Creation men bear only the one form, more or less ennobled and ordained for them as human beings. The form itself, however, can always be recognised, and cannot, for instance, have three legs or in general only one eye in the middle of the head, unless there is an occasional deformity, which only occurs in isolated cases. However, this does not contain anything fundamental!
That which does not bear the fundamental human form cannot be called “human” either! In its individual stages of development a spirit germ, for example, is not yet a human being, yet it would still not have such divergent forms as are described by the harmful fantasts!
In the realms of medium and fine gross matter of the darker and dark planes there can be found fantastic forms with human faces, forms which resemble animals and which always correspond with the manner in which a human spirit has thought and acted upon earth, but these forms are mostly produced only by the thinking of men. Periodically they bear the face of that person who produced them, because being the children of his thoughts they issue from him.
And when a person has become such that he continually indulges in hatred, envy and other evil passions, then it happens that outside the materiality of the earth a body of this kind forms around his spirit. With this occurrence, however, he has lost every claim to be human, and consequently he is no longer permitted to, nor can he bear any resemblance to the form of the likenesses of the images of God. In reality he is then no longer a human being, but has sunk down to something as yet unknown to earthmen, and for which they therefore still have no name. —
However, soon the false chimeras of the fantasts will no longer be spread, because the time is drawing near when the knowledge of the Laws of God in Creation will have advanced so far that such untrue things will disappear of their own accord. Men will laugh when they look back at the present time, which gives plain evidence of their ignorance in so many ways. —