C opyright 1 962 R evision C o pyright 1 96 3 by Arthur C orey 5 X 5 7 4 5 £ 5 7 Prin ted in Th e Un ited States o f America MORE CLASS N OTES The L os Gatos - Saratoga class taught at my home, Casita Cresta, accommodated but a minor fraction of the applicants . Thus it seemed a happy fortuity when substantial notes taken of that an aly tical exploration of applied metaphysics were made available to me afterward . Their publication in 1956 n o t only provided review materials for those who came from various parts of the field for the n e eve t, but it enabled the absent stud nts to share, in . at least some measure, in the undertaking Now, with this greatly enlarged edition of the orig inal pamphlet it is possible to include additional material found useful by the many who attended the San Francisco class later on . The present paper does not purport to be a com n o r prehensive restatement of either course, can it be regarded as a rounded presentation o f even the bare essentials . Nevertheless, however fragmentary it may be it does cover some of the cardinal points made, points which the students generally felt should be made a part of the permanent record for s u continuing t dy . It is a commonplace that class notes are seldom r r ve y accu ate . That does not mean they are worth less . On the contrary, every veteran Scientist can o ut testify, as Bicknell Young pointed to his pupils, that such n otes can on occasion prove priceless . As for the menace of inaccuracy, everybody knows the Bible contains many literary and historical in accu r acies , but no reputable Bible student has ever sug gested that this invalidates the canonical writings as a whole . A class in metaphysics , it should be needless to — remind ourselves, is never a finishing course even though it is clearly so considered by many class P ' taught students . ractically speaking, it can be but r a step forward . A ve y big step it may be, big — enough to prove a turning point in o ur lives ii we h make it so . W at it amounts to depends upon what we bring to it and what we do with that which we i . m s get out of it In other words, it always a atter of individual demonstration . — Class is literally a divine event insofar as you , so . through demonstration, make it It is Truth appearing insofar as you grasp and prove it to be Truth . We are not foregathered here to contem plate absolute Truth formulated with finality, but simply absolute Truth as we see it at this juncture . In this relative sense or interpretation of things r called human experience, every scientific discove y throughout histor y has turned out to be not a terminal step but a closer approximation to Truth . The N ewtonian concept o f gravity was long r e garded, with a most unscientific reverence, as an E ' ultimate, only to yield after a while to instein s relativity explanation , this in turn giving place to ' Max Planck s quantum View . Nevertheless it is to be observed that the advance o f scientific thought does n ot discredit the former concepts wholly, since successful work was done within their framework in their day, and all the concepts remain linked through the ages as developments in the perception of underlying Truth . of T A static concept ruth , as Truth arrived at, is r f I f by its ve y nature stulti ying, devitalizing, fatal . there was a finality to R evelation that would finish ' ' r R . eve ything . Final evelation would be death Conveniently forgotten by cultists , who must nur ture a fixed image to worship, is the historic recur ' ' o f rence of final revelations , every one which has ' ' been supplanted by a more enlightened View . Our loyalty, then , must fasten not upon sanctified T formulations of the past, but upon the ruth which they aim to grasp, explain or express . This is hardly a plea for fevered promiscuity . Metaphysical butterflies never seem to get straight or T o on any school level of thought . be practical we must stay with the best exposition of T ruth we know at the moment, treating it as though it were, indeed, ultimate, absolute Truth itself . Accord in l we g y, what are experiencing here together in this class must be regarded as essentially divine : divine Mind unfolding progressively as conscious ness . STUDY METHODS N o tetakin g at lectures or in the study of a book ' P ought to be a matter of one s study habits . erson I if I ally, would feel frustrated could not take down what rs said in the oral presentation of an important subject . Others find any writing distracts and would rather depend upon mental recall . P o f arenthetically, the holding this class is the result o f unremitting requests from hundreds of students , and it is designed primarily to stress the practical application of Truth as we see it from this advantageous plateau . Inquiries are numerous as to how best to study hr istian Scien ce lass n str ucti n r e C C I o , and I am m1n ded of an exchange between Bicknell Young o f and a hidebound pupil . Mr . Young said the r ticles an d ectur es o n hr istian Kimball book, A L C ' cie n ce . S , that he recommended it heartily But aren 't some students apt to lean too much on these ' books and upon notes' he was asked . His answer ' was : They lean upon Scie n ce an d Health and that s ' ' ' ' ' ' su a book But, persisted the pupil , we re not p posed to study these things as we would study ' cie n ce an d Health ' n im S , are we With a ote of M r ou patience, . Young asked, How else would y study them'' How you go about studying my treatise best is determined largely by your established study habits . — 6 ' I ncessant reading is not the panacea, I m sure, much . S as the escapist students seem to believe till, in the or absence of informed discussion elucidation , no o n e has yet come up with a substitute for the printed word in pursuit o f understanding and the dissemi n o f . ation knowledge, s piritual or otherwise In my widespread work for the movement I have seen the tran sformation of many a life through a persevering study of the book—which has the advantage over oral presentation in that you can go back and t e study it as often as need be . Very much more could have been achieved throughout the development of our movement had our study materials been written with more scientific The discipline of thought . prevailing style in meta physical writings has been the 'inspirational ' which is the setting down by the author uncritically of whatever comes to him, rather than in an orderly - — arrangement of premises and step by step conclu sions . A certain nebulousness naturally results from the haphazardness of such text—text in which the reader may skip around with as much benefit as if he read it straight through . My treatise is not this type o f exposition . It is s written for tudy in the order given . As a rigorous analysis it falls automatically into systematic arrange ment . Veteran students use a bookmark to work thoughtfully through it, usually many, many times, b they tell me . Where a passage strikes them as o o r scure dubious, they go back as far as may be necessa r y into the preliminary foundation material to see how the conclusion in question was arrived P a at . iecemeal study is not recommended s it is bound to distort perspective . It is generally recognized among scholars that you have to stay with a serious treatise closely until you can honestly say you have mastered it . If you is have mastered it, proof in production of a better o presentation . While my book does not purport t be anything in the way of a finalizing formulation, it is a rounded statement of the essentials as under stood in highly responsible quarters at Boston and ou t in the field . en Unlike metaphysical writings generally, mine deavo r to be explan ato r y rather than simply declar a t r o y . Declarations undeniably have their place, and can give the reader a lift, a serenity, a confidence' but it has always seemed evident to me that the survival and vigor of authentic science can only come through reasoned analysis . In the face of a - plethora of mystical dogmatizing, the oft voiced demand for an explanator y study was a decisive factor in my undertaking to publish such a work . sa Having said as much , I should y also that my private library, containing about everything ever printed in this field as well as priceless manuscripts —8 as yet unpublished , fully supports the above find T he ings . ( collection is to be made accessible to o n a ide r all b f students visiting the Bridwell Libra y , P S o f T S M erkins chool heology, outhern ethodist T University at Dallas , exas , to which institution I am donating it for preservation , protection , and perpetuation . Practical writers on metaphysics are invariably ' ' pestered to write just straight metaphysics , sedu lo usly avoiding any mention of such disconcerting subjects as historical facts which might conflict with sacred traditions'anything which might make the E settled religious convert uneasy .