"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 9:14; Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 5:7-8; 16-21.

  The sacraments have to do with the transmission of the seed atoms, which form the nuclei of our various bodies. The germ for our earthly body must be properly placed in fruitful soil to grow a suitable dense vehicle, and for this reason as stated in Genesis 1:27, "Elohim created man male and female." The Hebrew words are Sacr va N'Cabah. These are the names of the sex organs. Literally translated, Sacr means bearer of the germ; and thus marriage is a sacrament, for it opens the way for the transmission of the physical seed atom from the father to the mother and tends to preserve the race against the ravages of death.

  Baptism as a Sacrament signifies the germinal urge of the soul for the higher life, the planting of a Spiritual seed.

  Communion is the Sacrament in which we partake of bread made from the seed of chaste plants, and in which the cup symbolizing the passionless seed pod points to the age to come, an age when marriage will be unnecessary to transmit the seed through a father and mother, but when we may feed directly upon cosmic life and thus conquer death.

  Finally, Extreme Unction is the Sacrament which marks the loosing of the silver cord and the extraction of the sacred germ, until it shall again be planted in another N'Cabah, or mother .

  The Sacrament of Communion: To obtain a thorough understanding of the deep and far-reaching significance of the manner in which the Sacrament of Communion was instituted, it is necessary to consider the evolution of our planet and of composite man, also the chemistry of foods and their influence on humanity. For the sake of lucidity we will briefly recapitulate the various points involved.

  The Virgin Spirits, which are now mankind, commenced their pilgrimage through matter in the dawn of time, that by the friction of concrete existence their latent powers might be transmuted to kinetic energy as usable soul power. Three successive veils of increasingly dense matter were acquired by the involving Spirits during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon Periods. Thus each Spirit was separated from all other Spirits, and the consciousness which could not penetrate the prison wall of matter and communicate with others was forced to turn inwards, and in so doing it discovered — itself. Thus self-consciousness was attained.

  A further crystallization of the before mentioned veils took place in the Earth Period during the Polarian, Hyperborean, and Lemurian Epochs. In the Atlantean Epoch, mind was added as a focusing point between Spirit and body, completing the constitution of composite man, who was then equipped to conquer the world and generate soul power by endeavor and experience, each having free will and choice except as limited by the laws of nature and his own previous acts.

  During the time man-in-the-making was thus evolving, great creative Hierarchies guided his every step. Absolutely nothing was left to chance. Even the food he ate was chosen for him so that he might obtain the appropriate material wherewith to build the various vehicles of consciousness necessary to accomplish the process of soul growth. The Bible mentions the various stages, though it misplaces Nimrod, making him to symbolize the Atlantean kings who lived before the flood.

  In the Polarian Epoch pure mineral matter became a constituent part of man, thus Adam was made of earth, that is, so far as his dense body was concerned.

  In the Hyperborean Epoch the vital body was added, and thus his constitution became plantlike, and Cain, the man of that time, lived on the fruits of the soil.

  The Lemurian Epoch saw the evolution of a desire body, which made man like the present animals. Then milk, the product of living animals, was added to human diet. Abel was a shepherd, but it is nowhere stated that he killed an animal.

  At that time mankind lived innocently and peacefully in the misty atmosphere which enveloped the Earth during the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch. Men were then like children under the care of a common father, until the mind was given to all in the beginning of Atlantis. Thought activity breaks down tissue which must be replaced; the lower and more material the thought, the greater the havoc and the more pressing the need for albumen wherewith to make quick repairs. Hence necessity, the mother of invention, inaugurated the loathsome practice of flesh eating, and so long as we continue to think along purely business or material lines we shall have to go on using our stomachs as receptacles for the decaying corpses of our murdered animal victims. Yet we shall see later that flesh food has enabled us to make the wonderful material progress achieved in the Western World.

  The more spiritual we grow, the more our thoughts will harmonize with the rhythm of our body, and the less albumen will be needed to build tissue. Consequently a vegetable diet will suffice for our needs.

  In due time the dense mist which enveloped the Earth cooled, condensed, and flooded the various basins. The atmosphere cleared, and concurrently with this atmospheric change a physiological adaptation in man took place. The gill clefts which had enabled him to breathe in the dense water-laden air (and which are seen in the human fetus to this day) gradually atrophied, and their function was taken over by the lungs, the pure air passing to and from them through the larynx. This allowed the Spirit, hitherto penned up within the veil of flesh, to express itself in word and act.

  There in the middle of Atlantis the sun first shone upon man as we known him; there he was first born into the world. Until then he had been under the absolute control of great Spiritual Hierarchies, mute, without voice of choice in matters pertaining to his education, as a child is now under the control of its parents.

  But on the day when he finally emerged from the dense atmosphere of Atlantis; when he first beheld the mountains silhouetted in clear, sharp contours against the azure vault of heaven; when he first saw the beauties of moor and meadow, the moving creatures, birds in the air, and his fellow man; when his vision was undimmed by the partial obscuration of the mist which had previously hampered perception; above all, when he perceived himself as separate and apart from all others, there burst from his lips the glorious, triumphant, cry, "I am!"

  At that point he had acquired faculties which equipped him to enter the school of experience, the phenomenal world, as a free agent to learn the lessons of life, untrammeled save by the laws of nature, which are his safeguards, and the reaction of his own previous acts, which becomes destiny.

  The diet containing an excess of albumen from the flesh wherewith he gorged himself, taxed his liver beyond capacity and clogged the system, making him morose, sullen, and brutish. He was fast losing the spiritual sight which revealed to him the Guardian Angels whom he trusted, and he saw only the forms of animals and men. The Spirits with whom he had lived in love and brotherhood during early Atlantis were obscured by the veil of flesh. It was all so strange, and he feared them.

  Therefore it became necessary to give him a new food that could aid his Spirit to overpower the highly individualized molecules of flesh, brace it for battle with the world, and spur it on to self-assertion.

  As our visible bodies composed of chemical compounds can thrive only on chemical ailment, so it requires Spirit to act upon Spirit to aid in breaking up the heavy protein and in stimulating the dropping Human Spirit.

  The emergence from flooded Atlantis, the liberation of humanity from the absolute rulership of visible superhuman guardians, their placement under the Law of Consequence and the Laws of Nature, and the gift of wine are described in the stories of Noah and Moses, which are different accounts of the same event.

  Both Noah and Moses led the followers through the water. Moses calls Heaven and Earth to witness that he has placed before them the blessing and the curse, exhorts them to choose the good or take the consequence of their actions; then he leaves them.

  The phenomenon of the rainbow requires that the Sun be near the horizon, the nearer the better; also a clear atmosphere, and a dark rain cloud in the opposite quarter of the heavens. When under such conditions an observer stands with his back to the Sun, he may see the Sun's rays refracted through the rain drops as a rainbow. In early Atlantean times when there had been no rain as yet and the atmosphere was a warm, moist fog through which the Sun appeared as one of our arc lamps on a foggy day, the phenomenon of the rainbow was an impossibility. It could not have made it appearance until the mist had condensed to rain, flooded the basins of our Earth, and left the atmosphere clear as described in the story of Noah, which thus points to the law of alternating cycles that brings day and night, summer and winter, in unvarying sequence, and to which man is subject in the present age.

  Noah cultivated the vine and provided a Spirit to stimulate man. Thus, equipped with a composite constitution, and composite diet appropriate thereto, and divine laws to guide them, mankind was left to their own devices in the battle of life.

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

1. Why did the Virgin Spirits commence their pilgrimage through matter?
2. What was accomplished through turning man's consciousness inward?
3. By whom and in what ways was early humanity guided?
4. When was the mind given to humanity, and what did it bring about?
5. What important event in man's development occurred in the middle of Atlantis?
6. Why was wine added to man's diet?
7. In what condition do we find man in the latter part of Atlantis?