obe Summit of Spiritual XIlnòerstanòinG Officiai Cburcf) publication i l , i=>. ¡3. C. September = 1968 VOLUME 50 NUMBER 530 20c A COPY EDITORIAL AND MANAGER’S DEPT. any real meaning since the Reformation but P. O. Box 147, Cassadaga, Florida, 32706 there is a resurgence of interest in the ancient The National Spiritualist, Robert J. Macdonald, Editor seeking for sanctuary in these latter days of an unpopular war. Young men seeking to evade Send all correspondence for The National Spiritualist, such as manuscripts, notes from the field, transition notices, and announce­ military service cling to the church altars in ments for publication to the Editor, above address. an effort to elevate the power of the church PUBLISHED MONTHLY (12 complete issues) by STOW ME­ as a means of escape. Certain churches have MORIAL FOUNDATION, INC. Annual subscription price $2.00; encouraged the idea since it focusses attention single copies 20<!, Canada $2.00 ; Foreign $2.50. Entered as second class matter October 16, 1950, under Act of March 3. 1879, at the on the church like the rays of the setting sun Post Office, Niagara Falls, N. Y. Re-entered Jan. 1, 1963, at the illuminates a magnificant work of architecture, Post Office, Cassadaga, Fla. Make all remittances payable to THE NATIONAL SPIRITUALIST, Subscription Dept., P. O. Box 147, no longer of awe inspiring significance along­ Cassadaga, Florida. side the glittering glass and steel structures Board of Trustees erected in the bustling unbelieving world of R. J. MACDONALD, President today. P. O. Box 147, Cassadaga, Florida 32706 The fact that there is no escape from the H. G. BURROUGHS, Vice President law of the land in which we live is known to 3720 Ingomar St., N. W., Washington, D. C. 20015 all, but there are always the few who seek to RALPH D. CUTLIP, SR., Secy.-Treas. evade, or at best delay the inevitable conse­ 5465 Main Avenue, Ashtabula, Ohio 44004 quences. As one reads of such happenings it JEANNETTE KNEPPRATH seems as a dream of faith and glory when the 4721 W. Washington Blvd., Milwaukee, Wis. 53208 world was young and the crass facts of life in ARTHUR A. MYERS our modern society had no place or meaning. P. O. Box 121, Cassadaga, Florida 32706 The undeclared war in Vietnam is the longest ever endured by the U.S.A. and the hope of its Editorial and Manager’s Dept., The National Spiritualist, Robert J. Macdonald, Editor, P. O. Box 147, Cassadaga, Florida. ending is much like the desperate dream of sanctuary filling the minds of the young whose Writers of published articles are alone responsible for statements greatest sin is loss of faith in the country of made in this magazine. All manuscripts must be accompanied by sufficient postage for delivery and return. The National Spiritualist their birth and its elected leaders. The great is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, but welcomes contri­ moral values of religion have been lost in the butions on Modern Spiritualism. Issued about the first of each month. Change of address must reach us by the first of months, welter of unbelief and it would now seem that preceding any issue. the stirring qualities of patriotism are also lost in the flood of words poured out in defiance of OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF the established way each system offering an NATIONAL SPIRITUALIST ASS’N OF CHURCHES escape from responsibility. Executive Headquarters: 11811 Watertown Plank Rd. Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226 There never will be escape from responsi­ bility and it is an unmixed blessing that this is fact. Life is valueless if we take no pride in the system under which we live or if the great­ est urge of our being is escape from reality. The old clichés about not being asked to be This Months Front Cover born are still being used, the fact that life is THE BEAUTY OF NATURE'S FULLNESS a great and wonderful experience in this ex­ pression is overshadowed by the complainers. Where has the idea that life was a splendid ad­ venturesome privilege gone? There is a true sanctuary of the indwelling spirit that is never failing, the magnificence of the soul of man has somehow been lost in EDITORIAL the flood of words and the happenings of cir­ cumstances that have placed the values of life not on the spirit, but on “things,” more so- SANCTUARY called freedoms, more money, more leisure, more of all the “things” of the material world. In medieval times the church building was There can never be escape from reality we can­ the place in which the malefactor could not cling to the altars built by man in honor of seek refuge from mans law the pleading call his “UNKNOWN GOD,” in this way hoping for sanctuary had reality in the days when the to evade payment for the benefits of life here law of God administered by the all powerful and hereafter, from this there is no escape we church had meaning and value. The concept must continue to offer unto God the things of refuge in the house of God reaches far back that are God’s, while we prepare for the greater in the history of mans’ efforts to regulate the Life of the Spirit world by obeying the laws of powers of religion. The practice has not had this world. 2 connected therewith—are utterly beyond the scope of the physical sciences. IMMORATLITY All organic life begins in a simple cell. Ev­ ery organized structure is but an aggregation The Mysteries of Life of these cells “A single elementary atom,” James M. Peebles, M.D. says that prince of modern philosophers, Pro­ fessor Balfour Stewart, “is a truly immortal “I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty being, and enjoys the privilege of remaining un­ of the world are latent in any iota of the altered by the powerful blows that can be dealt world; against it.” I do not doubt that exteriors have their in­ No solid thinker believes in the destructi- teriors—and that the eyesight has another bility of either matter or spirit. The conserva­ eyesight, and the hearing another hearing, tion of spiritual energies is as true as the dem­ and the voice another voice; . onstrated conservation of forces. Did you think Life was so well provided for— The soul being a living force, is necessarily and Death, the purport of all Life, is not immortal. It is the visible and phenomenal well provided for ?” Whitman forms and qualities only that change. The ce­ Life in some of its manifestations is every­ lestial angels ever see these elementary atoms, where. In polar glaciers, in tropic sands, and —these conscious monads that exist in the in the profoundest ocean depths, the life-prin­ golden splendor of their underived immortality. ciple is expressed in organic forms. The vi­ Infilled with pure spirit,—aflame with the di­ tality of seeds belonging to the pre-glacial per­ vine life,—these monads, these “firsts” of iod has been clearly demonstrated. things, vibrate, rotate, repel, unite, form or­ The existence of space is no more a matter ganic relations, and, in obedience to the laws of of necessity to my understanding than the universal order, take on an ultimate expression existence of God. Thinking from the conscious by becoming incarnated in a material form. Ego—the I am of Myself—I require no subtle Consciousness is coeval and coordinate with trains of logic to demonstrate, to know that life. What we commonly consider our soul, is God is, and that God governs this oderly uni­ not, logically speaking, ours, but we are its. universe by immutable law. The soul—a potentialized and individualized Primal truths are axiomatic. It is want of manifestation of the Over-Soul, God—is the intuition and moral perception that necessi­ man. Life is the garment of the spirit, and tates so many processes of reasoning. the body its most immediate vehicle of expres­ Full of trust, I consciously see God, the sion. The spiritual is the real, the permanent, Divine Energy, everywhere, pulsating in the and each mortal is in the spirit world now, growing corn, purpling in the vineyard, blush­ though veiled from its surpassing glories by ing in the peach, smiling in the sunshine, and the material organism. awing us as we gaze into infinite depths filled Absence of consciousness is no proof of non­ with stars, circling suns, and systems of uni­ existence, inasmuch as sleep and wakefulness verses. are alternating states of the thinking man; and There is no conflict between science and re­ these states should not be confounded with the ligion, since they present two aspects of the subject to which they relate. The individual same cosmos: one treating of the quality of who becomes blind from a cataract upon the being, the other treating of its quantitative eye is still in the same world. Traveling, even distribution. The real conflict is between science into foreign countries, does not help him to and sectarian theology; and the chasm deep­ the light; but remove the film, and he readily ens. The mere scientist, ever cold and semi­ perceives that the light is all around him. The blind ; sees but half the universe—the material spiritual senses are so eclipsed, so bleared with side—the shell. With this he experiments. And the material, that we do not see the spiritual the little knowledge he thus obtains rests, after world that bathes and enfolds us like a crystal all, upon faith,—faith in his five senses, and ocean. faith in the precision of his investigations.