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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning," Thomas Troward offers a profound exploration of spiritual interpretation, delving deeply into the biblical texts to unveil their underlying truths. His literary style combines philosophical reasoning with clear, accessible prose, inviting readers to reflect on the symbolic meanings and psychological insights embedded within sacred scripture. Troward's work operates within the broader context of the New Thought movement, emphasizing the transformative power of ideas, while grounding his insights in a thorough understanding of biblical narratives and metaphors. Thomas Troward, a pivotal figure in the New Thought philosophy, was influenced by diverse intellectual currents, including Eastern spirituality and Western metaphysics. His experiences as a judge in colonial India exposed him to a variety of cultures and beliefs, which shaped his perspective on the universality of spiritual truth. This background informs his work in "Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning," where he seeks to bridge common psychological themes with biblical wisdom, fostering a deeper understanding of faith and consciousness. I highly recommend "Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning" to any reader seeking to unlock the spiritual dimensions of the Bible. Troward's thought-provoking insights will appeal to theologians, philosophers, and laypersons alike, inviting a richer engagement with the texts and encouraging personal introspection on faith and its implications in daily life. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning
Table of Contents
Introduction
Aimed at readers who suspect that Scripture conceals a living architecture of principle rather than a closed ledger of miracles, Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning pursues the drama between literal belief and an inner law of mind that promises freedom through understanding, inviting us to exchange passive acceptance for disciplined insight, to read patterns instead of episodes, and to seek in the Bible not a remote chronicle of wonders but a coherent map of spiritual cause and effect whose symbols, when thoughtfully interpreted, reveal how consciousness, character, and creative intention participate in a universal order that is both exacting and profoundly emancipating.
Thomas Troward’s work belongs to the New Thought tradition of metaphysical exposition that flourished in the early twentieth century, and this book functions less as devotional commentary than as a systematic essay in spiritual philosophy. Written in sober, judicial prose and structured as a sequence of interpretive chapters rather than a narrative, it presents a nonsectarian reading of biblical texts oriented toward universal principles. The historical context is the period when psychology, comparative religion, and esoteric philosophies were converging in popular discourse, and Troward positions himself within that milieu as a careful reasoner who tests religious claims by appeal to consistent law.
The premise is direct yet ambitious: the Bible, read through the lens of universal law, discloses dependable operations of Spirit that can be recognized in personal experience. Rather than assembling doctrinal proofs, Troward traces patterns across stories, parables, and prophetic language to uncover the logic beneath their imagery. The reading experience is methodical and cumulative; arguments build step by step, with definitions refined as concepts recur. The voice is calm, confident, and rational, yet consistently reverent toward the text. The tone balances philosophical rigor with pastoral purpose, guiding readers to contemplate, test, and integrate insights without depending on sectarian authority.
Several themes recur with clarifying force. First is the assertion that spiritual life operates by law, not caprice, so understanding becomes a moral and creative act. Second is the unity of the human and the divine, expressed as a correspondence between inner belief and outward condition. Third is symbolic literacy: the conviction that scriptural images point beyond themselves to processes active here and now. These ideas matter today because they frame faith as a disciplined partnership with reality, encourage responsibility for thought and character, and offer a bridge between religious devotion and the evidence-based mindset that shapes contemporary public life.
Troward’s method is comparative without being eclectic. He sifts biblical passages for structural echoes, links spiritual axioms to everyday reasoning, and shows how persistent patterns illuminate the movement from potential to expression. The emphasis falls on cause and effect in consciousness, on the ethical implications of choice, and on the disciplined cultivation of imaginative acceptance consistent with principle. While his examples are concrete, the claims remain general enough to invite personal verification. The result is neither pietistic nor contrarian; it is an invitation to experiment, to think with the text, and to observe how meaning emerges as understanding becomes habitual practice.
For contemporary readers, the book speaks to perennial concerns—how to harmonize spirituality with reason, how to exercise agency without arrogance, and how to honor sacred tradition while remaining open to growth. Its insistence on principled inquiry can steady those disillusioned with dogmatic conflict, while its ethical through-line anchors metaphysical speculation in responsibility for self and neighbor. The analysis also invites dialogue with psychology and wellbeing disciplines by framing attention, belief, and expectation as formative forces. Even where one disagrees, the careful argumentation models charity toward differing views and a steadfast confidence that honest thinking deepens, rather than diminishes, devotion.
Approach this volume at a reflective pace, allowing definitions and distinctions to accumulate, because Troward builds a framework in which earlier insights become tools for later chapters. Expect Victorian-Edwardian diction and a measured cadence that rewards rereading. Keep an eye on how he uses recurring terms, how he moves from symbol to principle, and how he links inner consent to outward enactment. The book does not demand prior theological training, only willingness to think carefully and to test ideas against experience. Read it as a companion to practice, and its mysteries resolve into meanings that invite steady, practical application.
Synopsis
Thomas Troward’s early-twentieth-century work Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning proposes that the Bible encodes universal principles of mind and Spirit rather than sectarian dogma. He approaches the text metaphysically, arguing that a consistent creative law underlies both religious testimony and rational inquiry. Using reasoned analysis rather than ecclesiastical authority, he treats scriptural narratives and symbols as statements of cause and effect in consciousness. The book aims to harmonize religion, philosophy, and a proto-scientific understanding of mental law, inviting readers to look beneath literal events to discern a dependable order by which life unfolds, and by which individuals may cooperate with that order.
Opening with the creation narrative, Troward reads Genesis as a symbolic map of the creative process. Spirit, acting through intention or articulated idea, differentiates the undifferentiated into ordered forms, suggesting that manifestation obeys sequence and law. Distinctions such as light and darkness or waters and land figure the emergence of specific conditions from a formless potential. The sevenfold pattern represents completeness of method, not calendar time. Humanity made in the image signifies the capacity to think creatively and to reproduce, at the personal scale, the universal method. Thus the Bible’s first pages outline how thought, aligned with principle, becomes formative.
Turning to Eden, he interprets the figures of the garden, the tree, and the serpent as psychological allegory. The drama concerns whether the individual will keep inner principle primary or invert the order by surrendering to separated sensation. The so-called fall marks the fixation of consciousness in limitation, not a cosmic catastrophe inflicted from without. Consequences are the working of impersonal law: causes adopted in thought externalize as conditions. Yet the narrative also intimates the possibility of restoration by reorienting the creative faculty to its source. Liberty follows intelligent use of law; bondage follows unexamined attraction to appearances.
In this light, the historical books become a psychology of development. The call to Abraham models trust in the unseen principle; the Mosaic code provides conditions by which freedom can stabilize; the tabernacle and temple embody the structure and movement of inner life. Rituals symbolize the discipline of attention and the consecration of motive. Prophets function as the corrective of inward perception against mere formalism. Israel, as Troward reads it, represents the type of individualized Spirit working through a community rather than a record of favoritism. Exile and return figure recurring cycles by which thought learns law and liberty.
In the Gospels, Christ denotes a universal sonship—the realized identity of the individual with indwelling Life. Jesus exemplifies method, not exception: his works illustrate the same law raised to clarity, showing the action of faith, word, and compassion on the plane of form. Parables map seed-thought, growth, and harvest. He relates law and grace, interpreting commandments as interior processes. Atonement becomes conscious unity rather than penal exchange, and resurrection signifies emergence of higher consciousness, marking continuity of life under spiritual law. Thus the record presents a pattern for realizing spiritual identity while remaining practical in ordinary affairs.
From principle Troward draws practice. Prayer is cooperative thinking with creative law, uniting conviction, receptivity, and ethical intention. Affirmation clarifies causation; denial releases false identification; forgiveness dissolves obstruction; gratitude widens capacity. He cautions against coercive will or egocentric desire, insisting that true power operates constructively only as it recognizes unity and goodwill. Health, supply, and guidance emerge along orderly lines, but character and understanding remain primary goods. The individual is not an isolated controller of events but a conscious center through which the universal acts. Method therefore rests on understanding, sincerity, and the steady training of attention.
Concluding, the book offers a synthesis: the Bible, read as a progressive unveiling of mental and spiritual law, yields a coherent key to personal transformation and social renewal. Without pressing doctrinal allegiance, it proposes a collaboration of reason and reverence, where ancient symbols interpret present experience. Its broader significance lies in bridging scriptural tradition with modern reflections on identity, agency, and creative responsibility. The volume’s lasting appeal within New Thought and beyond rests on this claim of universality. Troward leaves readers with a framework to test in life, treating revelation as lawful order rather than irregular interruption.
Historical Context
Thomas Troward wrote Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning in the early twentieth century, after a career as a British colonial judge in the Punjab during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Educated in Britain, he worked within the colonial judiciary of British India, which prized orderly reasoning and precedent. The British Empire stood at its territorial height, with London’s publishing houses and lecture societies shaping transimperial debates about religion and science. Troward’s writings emerged from this milieu, aiming to reinterpret biblical texts for readers navigating modernity while grounded in the analytical discipline he had developed on the bench.
By the 1890s–1910s, the New Thought movement had spread from the United States to Britain, promoting mental healing, affirmative prayer, and the practical effects of belief. Its roots included the work of Phineas P. Quimby and were paralleled by Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science, founded in the 1870s. Troward joined this discourse with a series of widely circulated texts and lectures, including the Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science and the Dore Lectures. Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning participates in this transatlantic conversation by reading scripture through the lens of mental law, offering a systematic articulation suitable for study groups and lecture halls.
Late nineteenth-century biblical scholarship was transformed by German Higher Criticism, the documentary hypothesis, and growing attention to historical context. English readers encountered these developments alongside new translations such as the Revised Version of 1881–85 and discoveries from Near Eastern archaeology that fueled comparative study of ancient law and myth. Many clergy and laypeople wrestled with reconciling traditional doctrine with critical methods. Troward’s book addresses this climate indirectly: instead of adjudicating textual origins, it reframes the Bible’s authority in terms of universal principles. The approach offered an alternative to both strict literalism and purely historical analysis, appealing to readers seeking practical spiritual synthesis.
Victorian and Edwardian science reshaped public thought. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) continued to challenge inherited cosmologies. Experimental psychology gained traction through figures such as William James, while investigations into hypnotism and suggestion entered popular discourse. The Society for Psychical Research, founded in London in 1882, legitimized inquiries at the border of psychology and metaphysics. Troward’s language of “mental science” reflects this milieu, borrowing concepts like subjective and objective mind to argue for lawful mental causation. Framed by judicial habits of careful definition and inference, Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning seeks to present spiritual claims in a form that aspires to rational coherence.
Religiously, the period featured established churches, Nonconformist activism, revival movements, and global missionary activity. In British India, administrators and missionaries encountered Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and other traditions, expanding comparative perspectives for English-speaking audiences. Theosophy, founded in 1875, popularized interest in esoteric synthesis and Asian philosophies among Western readers. Troward’s service in the Punjab placed him amid this plural environment, and his later writings engage universalist themes while keeping the Bible central. The book’s cosmopolitan tone reflects a culture in which cross-cultural ideas circulated through imperial networks, reading societies, and public lectures, inviting reinterpretations of scripture in conversation with broader religious philosophies.
Early twentieth-century publishing enabled rapid exchange between London, Edinburgh, and American centers such as Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. New Thought periodicals and study circles adopted Troward’s works as texts for instruction, and his ideas influenced Ernest Holmes, who later systematized Religious Science in the 1920s. Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning (1913) appeared when lecture platforms and correspondence courses were common vehicles for spiritual education. Designed for general readers and easily excerpted for lessons, the book circulated across churches and clubs that sought nonsectarian frameworks for devotion, ethics, and healing, reinforcing its status as a reference within metaphysical Christianity.
Industrialization, urban growth, and professionalization fostered a culture of self-improvement associated with punctuality, sobriety, and personal responsibility. Works like Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help (1859) had popularized moralized individual agency, and business literature increasingly linked efficiency with mental attitude. New Thought intersected with these themes by asserting lawful links between thought and outcome. Troward’s juridical emphasis on principle, order, and continuity resonated with readers seeking ethical guidance without sectarian controversy. Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning frames biblical teaching as operative law rather than dogma, aligning scriptural reverence with the era’s drive for practical results in health, character, and social mobility.
Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning thus reflects a period intent on reconciling faith with modern knowledge and imperial-era pluralism. It offers a critique of rigid literalism and of reductive materialism, proposing the Bible as a map of universal mental and spiritual law. The work’s structured argumentation, reliance on broadly circulated psychological and metaphysical vocabulary, and openness to comparative implications place it squarely within early twentieth-century metaphysical Christianity. Its historical significance lies in mediating between critical scholarship, popular psychology, and devotional reading, articulating a durable alternative that continued to inform New Thought curricula and spiritual counseling well beyond Troward’s death in 1916.
Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning
Foreword.
The favorable reception accorded to my Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science has encouraged me to offer another book to my readers. The present volume is written from the standpoint that we possess latent powers which a better knowledge of the truth regarding ourselves will enable us to develop, and that the purpose of the Bible is to lead us into this knowledge in a perfectly natural manner, while guarding us against the dangers arising from misuse of it. That we should ever arrive at a point when we shall be no longer confronted by the element of mystery which is inherent in the livingness of Life is impossible; but this mystery is the Mystery of Light and not of darkness, and will continually unfold itself into more light in response to our earnest inquiry into its meaning; and I have therefore given this book a title indicative of the ever-presence of an august Mystery together with intelligible Law.
Although my presentment of the Bible is in many respects very different from the generally accepted one, it will be found in no way really at variance with the doctrines of Christianity; on the contrary, I hope that by helping, in however small a measure, to elucidate them, it will show the reasonableness of great truths which those who reject them as unreasonable discredit to their own incalculable loss.
This book was originally the outcome of a number of lectures given by me in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham and elsewhere, but the great interest shown in it by a continually increasing circle of readers has led me to extend the present volume by four additional chapters touching on certain topics holding a pre-eminent place in Bible study. There is one other subject to which I have only been able to advert casually in the concluding pages, but which is of peculiar importance at the present day, that of chronological prophecy. The march of events and the rapid developments in various fields of knowledge show such a marked correspondence with the prophetic measures of time given in the Bible that the serious student cannot but feel convinced that we are very rapidly approaching that climax which the Bible speaks of as the End of the Age. I would most earnestly ask my readers to give this subject their attention, for the time is at hand. Its wide extent makes it impossible for me to treat of it in this book, but if such be the Lord’s will, I may make it the subject of another volume.
T. Troward.
Ruan Minor, August, 1913.
I. The Creation.
The Bible is the Book of the Emancipation of Man[1q]. The emancipation of man means his deliverance from sorrow and sickness, from poverty, struggle, and uncertainty, from ignorance and limitation, and finally from death itself. This may appear to be what the euphuistic colloquialism of the day would call “a tall order,” but nevertheless it is impossible to read the Bible with a mind unwarped by antecedent conceptions derived from traditional interpretation without seeing that this is exactly what it promises, and that it professes to contain the secret whereby this happy condition of perfect liberty may be attained. Jesus says that if a man keeps his saying he shall never see death (John viii. 51): in the Book of Job we are told that if a man has with him “a messenger, an interpreter,” he shall be delivered from going down to the pit, and shall return to the days of his youth (Job xxxiii. 24): the Psalms speak of our renewing our youth (Psalm ciii. 5): and yet again we are told in Job that by acquainting ourselves with God we shall be at peace, we shall lay up gold as dust and have plenty of silver, we shall decree a thing and it shall be established unto us (Job xxii. 21–23).
Now, what I propose is that we shall re-read the Bible on the supposition that Jesus and these other speakers really meant what they said. Of course, from the standpoint of the traditional interpretation this is a startling proposition. The traditional explanation assumes that it is impossible for these things to be literally true, and therefore it seeks some other meaning in the words, and so gives them a “spiritual” interpretation. But in the same manner we may spiritualize away an Act of Parliament, and it hardly seems the best way of getting at the meaning of a book to follow the example of the preacher who commenced his discourse with the words, “Beloved brethren, the text doth not mean what it saith.” Let us, however, start with the supposition that these texts do mean what they say, and try to, interpret the Bible on these lines: it will at least have the attraction of novelty, and I think if the reader gives his careful attention to the following pages, he will see that this method carries with it the conviction of reason.
If a thing is true at all there is a way in which it is true, and when the way is seen, we find that to be perfectly reasonable which, before we understood the way, appeared unreasonable: we all go by railroad now, yet they were esteemed level-headed practical men in their day who proposed to confine George Stephenson as a lunatic for saying that it was possible to travel at thirty miles an hour.
The first thing to notice is that there is a common element running through the texts I have quoted; they all contain the idea of acquiring certain information, and the promised results are all contingent on our getting this information, and using it. Jesus says it depends on our keeping his saying, that is, receiving the information which he had to give and acting upon it. Job says that it depends on rightly interpreting a certain message, and again that it depends on our making ourselves acquainted with something; and the context of the passage in the Psalms makes it clear that the deliverance from death and the renewal of youth there promised are to be attained through the “ways” which the Lord “made known unto Moses.” In all these passages we find that these wonderful results come from the attainment of certain knowledge, and the Bible therefore appeals to our Reason. From this point of view we may speak of the Science of the Bible, and as we advance in our study we shall find that this is not a misuse of terms, for the Bible is eminently scientific, only its science is not primarily physical but mental[2q].
The Bible contemplates Man as composed of “Spirit, soul, and body” (I. Thess. v. 23), or in other words as combining into a single unity a threefold nature, spiritual, psychic, and corporeal; and the knowledge which it proposes to give us is the knowledge of the true relation between these three factors. The Bible also contemplates the totality of all Being, manifested and unmanifested, as likewise constituting a threefold unity, which may be distributed under the terms “God,” “Man,” and “the Universe”; and it occupies itself with telling us of the interaction, both positive and negative, which goes on between these three. Furthermore, it bases this interaction upon two great psychological laws, namely, that of the creative power of Thought and that of the amenability of Thought to control by Suggestion; and it affirms that this Creative Power is as innately inherent in Man’s Thought as in the Divine Thought.
But it also shows how through ignorance of these truths we unknowingly misuse our creative power, and so produce the evils we deplore; and it also realizes the extreme danger of recognizing our power before we have attained the moral qualities which will fit us to use it in accordance with those principles which keep the great totality of things in an abiding harmony, and to avoid this danger the Bible veils its ultimate meaning under symbols, allegories, and parables. But these are so framed as to reveal this ultimate meaning to those who will take the trouble to compare the various statements with one another, and who are sufficiently intelligent to draw the deductions which follow from thus putting two and two together; while those who cannot thus read between the lines are trained into the requisite obedience to the Universal Law by means of suggestions suited to the present extent of their capacity, and are thus gradually prepared for the fuller recognition of the Truth as they advance.
Seen in this light, the Bible is found not to be a mere collection of old-world fables or unintelligible dogmas, but a statement of great universal laws, all of which proceed simply and naturally from the initial truth that Creation is a process of Evolution. Grant the evolutionary theory, which every advance in modern science renders clearer, and all the rest follows, for the entire Bible is based upon the principle of Evolution. But the Bible is a statement of universal Law, of that which obtains in the realm of the invisible as well as that which obtains in the realm of the visible, and therefore it deals with facts of a transcendental nature as well as with those of the physical plane, and accordingly it contemplates an earlier process anterior to Evolution, the process, namely, of Involution, the passing of Spirit into Form as antecedent to the passing of Form into Consciousness. If we bear this in mind, it will throw light on many passages which must remain wrapped in impenetrable obscurity until we know something of the psychic principles to which they refer. The fact that the Bible always contemplates Evolution as necessarily preceded by Involution should never be lost sight of, and therefore much of the Bible requires to be read as referring to the involutionary process taking place upon the psychic plane. But Involution and Evolution are not opposed to one another, they are only the earlier and later stages of the same process, the perpetual urging onward of Spirit for Self-expression in infinite varieties of Form; and therefore the grand foundation on which the whole Bible system is built up is that the Spirit which is thus continually passing into manifestation is always the same Spirit, in other words it is only ONE.
These two fundamental truths, that under whatever varieties of Form the Spirit is only ONE, and that the creation of all forms, and consequently of the whole world of conscious relations is the result of Spirit’s ONE mode of action, which is Thought, are the basis of all that the Bible has to teach us, and therefore from its first page to its last, we shall find these two ideas continually recurring in a variety of different connections, the ONE-ness of the Divine Spirit and the Creative Power of Man’s Thought, which the Bible expresses in its two grand statements, that “God is ONE,” and that Man is made “in the image and likeness of God.” These are the two fundamental statements of the Bible, and all its other statements flow logically from them; and since the whole argument of Scripture is built up from these premises, the reader must not be surprised at the frequency with which our analysis of that argument will bring us back to these two initial propositions; so far from being a vain repetition, this continual reduction of the statements of the Bible to the premises with which is originally sets out, is the strongest proof that we have in them a sure and solid foundation on which to base our present life and our future expectations.
But there is yet another point of view from which the Bible appears to be the very opposite of a logically accurate system built up on the broad foundations of Natural Law. From this point of view it at first looks like the egotistical and arrogant tradition of a petty tribe, the narrow book of a narrow sect, instead of a statement of universal Truth; and yet this aspect of it is so prominent that it can by no means be ignored. It is impossible to read the Bible and shut our eyes to the fact that it tells us of God making a covenant with Abraham, and thenceforward separating his descendants by a divine interposition from the remainder of mankind, for this separation of a certain portion of the race as special objects of the Divine favour, forms an integral part of Scripture from the story of Cain and Abel to the description of “the camp of the saints and the beloved city” in the Book of Revelation. We cannot separate these two aspects of the Bible, for they are so interwoven with one another that if we attempt to do so, we shall end by having no Bible left, and we are therefore compelled to accept the Bible statement as a whole or reject it altogether, so that we are met by the paradox of a combination between an all-inclusive system of Natural Law and an exclusive selection which at first appears to flatly contradict the processes of Nature. Is it possible to reconcile the two?
The answer is that it is not only possible, but that this exclusive selection is the necessary consequence of the Universal Law of Evolution when working in the higher phases of individualism. It is not that those who do not come within the pale of this Selection suffer any diminution, but that those who do come within it receive thereby a special augmentation, and, as we shall see by and by, this takes place by a purely natural process resulting from the more intelligent employment of that knowledge which it is the purpose of the Bible to unfold to us. These two principles of the inclusive and the exclusive are intertwined in a double thread which runs all through Scripture, and this dual nature of its statements must always be borne in mind if we would apprehend its meaning. Asking the reader, therefore, to carefully go over these preliminary remarks as affording the clue to the reason of the Bible statements, I shall now turn to the first chapter of Genesis.
The opening announcement that “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” contains the statement of the first of those two propositions which are the fundamental premises from which the whole Bible is evolved. From the Master’s instruction to the woman of Samaria we know that “God” means “Spirit”; not “a Spirit,” as in the Authorised Version[1], thus narrowing the Divine Being with the limitations of individuality, but as it stands in the original Greek, simply “Spirit”—that is, all Spirit, or Spirit in the Universal. Thus the opening words of the Bible may be read, “in the beginning Spirit”—which is a statement of the underlying Universal Unity.
Here let me draw attention to the two-fold meaning of the words “in the beginning.” They may mean first in order of time, or first in order of causation, and the latter meaning is brought out by the Latin version, which commences with the words “in principio”—that is, “in principle.” This distinction should be borne in mind, for in all subsequent stages of evolution the initial principle which gives rise to the individualised entity must still be in operation as the fons et origo of that particular manifestation just as much as in its first concentration; it is the root of the individuality, without which the individuality would cease to exist. It is the “beginning” of the individuality in order of causation, and this “beginning” is, therefore, a continuous fact, always present, and not to be conceived of as something which has been left behind and done with. The same principle was, of course, the “beginning” of the entity in point of time also, however far back in the ages we may suppose it to have first evolved into separate existence, so that whether we apply the idea to the cosmos or to the individual, the words “in the beginning” both carry us back to the primordial out-push from non-manifestation into manifestation, and also rivet our attention upon the same power as still at work as the causal principle both in ourselves and in everything else around us. In both these senses, then, the opening words of the Bible tell us that the “beginning” of everything is “God,” or Spirit in the universal.
The next statement, that God created the heaven and the earth, brings us to the consideration of the Bible way of using words. The fact that the Bible deals with spiritual and psychic matters, makes it of necessity an esoteric book, and therefore, in common with all other esoteric literature, it makes a symbolic use of words for the purpose of succinctly expressing ideas which would otherwise require elaborate explanation, and also for the purpose of concealing its meaning from those who are not yet safely to be entrusted with it. But this need not discourage the earnest student, for by comparing one part of the Bible with another he will find that the Bible itself affords the clue to the translation of its own symbolical vocabulary. Here, as in so many other instances, the Master has given us the key to the right interpretation. He says that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us; in other words, that “Heaven” is the kingdom of the innermost and spiritual, and if so, then by necessary implication “Earth” must be the symbol of the opposite extreme, and must metaphorically mean the outermost and material. We are starting the history of the evolution of the world in which we live, that is to say, this Power which the Bible calls “God” is first presented to us in the opening words of Genesis at a stage immediately preceding the commencement of a stupendous work.
Now what are the conditions necessary for the doing of any work? Obviously there must be something that works and something that is worked upon; an active and a passive factor; an energy and a material on or in which that energy operates. This, then, is what is meant by the creation of Heaven and Earth; it is that operation of the eternally subsisting ONE upon Itself which produces its dual expression, as Energy and Substance. And here remark carefully that this does not mean a separation, for Energy can only be exhibited by reason of something which is energized, or, in other words, for Life to manifest at all there must be something that lives. This is an all-important truth, for our conception of ourselves as beings separate from the Divine Life is the root of all our troubles.
In its first verse, therefore, the Bible starts us with the conception of Energy or Life inherent in substance, and shows us that the two constitute a dual-unity which is the first manifestation of the Infinite Unmanifested ONE; and if the reader will think these things out for himself, he will see that these are primary intuitions the contrary of which it is impossible to conceive. He may, if he please, introduce a Demiurge as part of the machinery for the production of the world, but then he has to account for his Demiurge, which brings him back to the Undistributed ONE of which I speak, and its first manifestation as Energy-inherent-in-Substance; and if he is driven back to this position, then it becomes clear that his Demiurge is a totally unnecessary wheel in the train of evolutionary machinery, and the gratuitous introduction of a factor which does no work but what could equally be done without it, is contrary to anything we can observe in Nature or can conceive of a Self-evolving Power.
But we are particularly cautioned against the mistake of supposing that Substance is the same thing as Form, for we are told that the “earth was without form.” This is important because it is just here that a very prolific source of error in metaphysical studies creeps in. We see Forms which, simply as masses, are devoid of an organized life corresponding to the particular form, and therefore we deny the inherency of Energy or Life in ultimate substance itself. As well deny the pungency of pepper because it is not in the particular pepper-pot we are accustomed to. No, that primordial state of Substance with which the opening verse of the Bible is concerned, is something very far removed from any conception we can have of Matter as formed into atoms or electrons. We are here only at the first stage of Involution, and the presence of material atoms is a stage, and by no means the earliest, in the process of Evolution.
