"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 1, 2, and 5.

   There has been much learned discussion concerning the discrepancy between, and especially the authorship of, the creation story of the first chapter and that which starts at the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis. It is asserted that the two accounts were written by different men, because the Being of Beings, the name of Whom the translators have rendered as "God" in both the first and second chapters of the English version are, in the Hebrew text, called "Elohim" in the first chapter, and "Jehovah" in the second chapter. It is argued that the same narrator would not have named God in two different ways.

   Had he meant the same God in both cases, he probably would not, but he was not a monotheist. He knew better than to think of God as simply a superior Man, using the sky for a throne and the Earth for a footstool. When he wrote of Jehovah he meant the Leader Who had charge of the particular part of the work of creation which was then being described. Jehovah was and is one of the Elohim. He is the Leader of the Angels who were the humanity of the Moon Period, and he is Regent of our Moon.

   As Regent of our Moon, He has charge of the evil degenerate beings there, and He also rules the Angels. With Him are some of the Archangels, who were the humanity of the Sun Period. They are the "Race Spirits."

   It is the work of Jehovah to build concrete bodies or forms, by means of the hardening, crystallizing Moon forces. Therefore, He is the giver of children and the Angels are His messengers in this work. It is well known to physiologists that the Moon is connected with gestation; at least they have observed that it measures and governs the periods of intrauterine life and other physiological functions.

   The Archangels, as Spirits and Leaders of a Race, are known to fight for or against people, as the exigencies of the evolution of that race demand. In Daniel 10:20, an Archangel, speaking to Daniel, says: "And now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia will come."

   The Archangel Michael is the Race-Spirit of the Jews (Daniel 12:1), but Jehovah is not the God of the Jews alone; He is the author of all race-religions which led up to Christianity. Nevertheless, it is true that He did take a special interest in the progenitors of the present Jews — the Original Semites, the "seed-race" for the seven races of the Fifth, post-Atlantean Epoch. Jehovah, of course, takes special care of a seed-race, in which are to be inculcated the embryonic faculties of the humanity of a new Epoch. For that reason He was particularly concerned with the Original Semites. They were His "chosen people" — chosen to be the seed for a new Race, which was to inherit the "Promised Land" — the entire Earth, as it is at present.

   He did not lead them out of Egypt. That story originated with their descendants and is a confused account of their journey eastward through the flood and disaster out of the doomed Atlantis into the "wilderness" (the Desert of Gobi in Central Asia), there to wander during the cabalistic forty years, until they could enter the Promised Land. There is a double and peculiar significance to the descriptive word "promised" in this connection.The land was called the "promised land" because, as land or Earth is suitable for human occupation, it did not exist at the time the "Chosen People" were led into the "wilderness." Part of the Earth had been submerged by floods and other parts changed by volcanic eruptions, hence it was necessary that a period of time elapse before the new Earth was in a fit condition to become the possession of the Fifth Epoch Race.

   The contention of the opponents of the Bible, that it is a mere mutilation of the original writings, is cheerfully agreed to by esoteric science. Parts of it are even conceded to be entire fabrications and no attempt is made to prove its authenticity as a whole, in the form we now have it. The present effort is simply an attempt to exhume a few kernels of esoteric truths from the bewildering mass of misleading and incorrect interpretations under which they have been buried by the various translators and revisers.

   Having disentangled from the general confusion the identity and mission of Jehovah, it may be that we can now find harmony in the two seemingly contradictory accounts of the creation of man, as recorded in the first and second chapters of Genesis, in the first of which it is written that he was the last, and in the second that he was the first created of all living things.

   We note that the first chapter deals chiefly with the creation of Form, the second chapter is devoted to the consideration of Life, while the fifth chapter deals with Consciousness. The key to the meaning, then, is that we must differentiate sharply between the physical Form and the Life that builds that Form for its own expression. Although the order of the creation of the other kingdoms is not as correctly given in the second chapter as in the first, it is true that if we consider man from the Life side, he was created first; but if we consider man from the standpoint of Form, as is done in the first chapter, he was created last.

   All through the course of evolution — through Periods, Globes, Revolutions and Races — those who do not improve by the formation of new characteristics are held back and immediately begin to degenerate. Only that which remains plastic and pliable and adaptable for molding into new Forms suitable for the expression of the expanding consciousness; only the Life which is capable of outgrowing the possibilities for improvement inhering in the forms it ensouls, can evolve with the pioneers of any life wave. All else must struggle on behind.

   This is the kernel of the deeper teaching. Progress is not simply unfoldment; not simply involution and evolution. There is a third factor, making a triad — Involution, Evolution, and — Epigenesis.

   The first two words are familiar to all who have studied Life and Form, but while it is generally admitted that the involution of spirit into matter takes place in order that Form may be built, it is not so commonly recognized that the Involution of the Spirit runs side by side with the Evolution of Form.

   From the very beginning of the Saturn Period up to the time in the Atlantean Epoch when "man's eyes were opened" by the Lucifer Spirits, and as a consequence the activities of man — or the Life-force which has become man, were chiefly directed inward; that very same force which he now sends out from himself to build railways, aircrafts, computers etc., was used internally in building a vehicle through which to manifest himself. This vehicle is threefold, like the spirit which built it.

   The same power by which man is now improving outside conditions was used during Involution for purposes of internal growth.

   The Form was built by Evolution; the Spirit built and entered it by Involution; but the means for devising improvements is Epigenesis.

   There is a strong tendency to regard all that is, as the result of something that has been; all improvements on previously existing forms, as being present in all forms as latencies; to regard Evolution as simply the unfolding of germinal improvements. Such a conception excludes Epigenesis from the scheme of things. It allows no possibility for the building of anything new, no scope for originality.

   The esotericist believes the purpose of evolution to be the development of man from a static to a dynamic God — a Creator. If the development he is at present undergoing is to be his education and if, during its progress, he is simply unfolding latent actualities, where does he learn to create?

   If man's development consists solely in learning to build better and better Forms, according to models already existing in his Creator's mind, he can become, at best only a good imitator — never a creator.

  (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. Who is meant when the term "Jehovah" is used in the Bible?
2. Describe the work of this Being.
3. Why were the Original Semites called the "chosen people"?
4. From whom have the present Fifth Epoch Races descended?
5. Name the three factors constituting the triad of progress.
6. State the arguments in favor of epigenesis.
7. What does esoteric science teach to be the object of evolution?