It is on this account that we find in Revelations that wonderful description of two symbolical women; they represent two modes of the individual soul. Of course they go further, they indicate national things, race evolution and so on. Why? Because all national movements, all race evolutions, have their root in the development of the individual. A nation or a race is only a collection of individuals, and therefore if a principle once spreads from one individual to another, it spreads to the nation, it spreads to the race. So, therefore, these two symbolical women represent primarily two modes of soul, two modes of thought. You know perfectly well the description of the two women. One, the woman clothed with the sun, standing with the moon under her feet, and with a diadem of stars about her head; the other seated upon an earthly throne, holding a golden cup, and the cup is full of abominations. Those are the two women, and we know that one of them is called in the Scripture, Babylon, and we know which one that is. One of the marks of this woman—mind you that means the class of individuality—is the mark of sorcery, the mark of the inverted use of spiritual and mental powers.
But what is the end of it? The end is that this Babylon becomes the habitation of devils, the hold—or, as the original Greek has it, the prison of evil, an unclean spirit, the cage of every unclean bird. That is the development which takes place in each individual who sets out to misuse this mental power. The misuse may have a very small beginning, it may be such as is taught in a certain school, which I am told exists in London, where shop assistants are trained in the use of magnetic power, in order to decoy or compel unknowing purchasers into buying what they do not want. I am told there is such a school; I cannot quote you my authority. That is a trifling matter. I go into a shop and spend two or three shillings in buying something which, when I get home, I find absolutely useless, and I say, "How in the name of fortune did I come to buy this rubbish?" Well, I must have been hypnotised into it. It does not make much difference to me, but it makes a great deal of difference to the young man or young woman who has hypnotised me, because it is the first step on the downward path. It may be only a matter of sixpence, but it leads on step by step, and unless that path is retraced, the final end is that of Babylon. Therefore it is that St. John says, "I heard a voice from Heaven saying, 'Come forth, my people, out of her'"—and that is out of Babylon—"come forth, my people, out of her"—that is out of this inverted mode of using spiritual power—"come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins and that ye shall receive not of her plague." Therefore, against this inverted use of the hidden power I warn every one from the first day when he begins to realise that there is such a thing as mental or spiritual power which can be exercised upon other persons.
Are we then on this account to go continually in terror of suffering from malicious magnetism, fearing that some enemy here, or some enemy there, is turning on this hidden power against us? If so, we should go in trepidation continually. No, I do not think there is the least reason for us to go in fear in this way. To begin with there are comparatively few who know the law of suggestion sufficiently well to use it either affirmatively or negatively, and of those who do know it sufficiently to make use of it, I am convinced that the majority would wish only to use it in all kindness, and for the benefit of the person concerned. That, I am confident, is the attitude of nine-tenths, or I might perhaps say ninety-nine hundredths, of the students of this subject. They wish to do well, and look upon their use of mental power as an additional means of doing good. But after all, human nature is human nature, and there remains a small minority who are both able and willing to use this hidden power injuriously for their own purposes.
Now how are we to deal with this minority? The answer is simple. Just see them in their true light, see them for what they really are, that is to say, persons who are ignorant of the real spiritual power. They think they have it, and they have not. That is what it is. See them in their true light and their power will fall away from them. The real and ultimate power is that of the affirmative; the negative is destructive, the affirmative is constructive. So this negative use of the hidden power is to be destroyed by the use of the affirmative, the constructive power. The affirmative destroys the negative always in one way, and that is not by attacking it, not by running at it like a bull in a china shop; but by building up life. It is always a building power—it is building, building, building life and more life, and when that life comes in, the negative of necessity goes out.
The ultimate affirmative position is that of conscious union with the source of life. Realise this, and you need not trouble yourself about any action of the negative whatever. Seek conscious union with the ultimate, the first cause, that which is the starting point of all things, whether in the universe or in yourself as the individual. That starting point is always present; it is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, and you are the world and the universe in miniature, and it is always there working in you if you will recognise it. Remember the reciprocity between yourself and this truly hidden power. The power of suggestion is a hidden power, but the power which creates all things is the hidden power which is at the back of all things. Now realise that it is in yourselves and you need trouble about the negative no longer. This is the Bible teaching regarding Christ; and that teaching is to bring about this conscious personal union with the Divine All-creating Spirit as a present living power to be used day by day.
The Bible tells us there is such a thing as the mystery of iniquity, that is to say, the mystery of the spiritual power used invertedly, used from the diabolical standpoint; and when the Bible speaks of the mystery of iniquity, it means what it says. It tells us there are powers and principalities in the invisible world which are using precisely these same methods on an enormous scale; because, remember one thing, there is never any departure in any part of the Universe from the universal rule of law; what is law upon earth is law in Heaven, law in Hell, law in the invisible and law in the visible; that never alters. What is done by any spiritual power, whether it is a spiritual power of evil or of good, is done through the mental constitution which you have. No power alters the law of your own mind, but a power which knows the law of your mind can use it.
Therefore, it is so essential that you should know the law of your own mind and realise its continual amenability to suggestion. That being so, the great thing is to get a standard for fundamental, unchangeable, and sufficient suggestion to which you can always turn, and which is automatically impressed upon your subconscious mind so deeply that no counter-suggestion can ever take its place; and that is the mystery of Christ, the Son of God. That is why we are told of the mystery of Christ, the mystery of godliness in opposition to the mystery of iniquity; it is because both the mystery of the Divine and the mystery of the diabolical are seeking to work through you, and they can only work through you by the law of your own mental constitution, that is to say, by the law of subconscious mind acting and re-acting upon your conscious mind and upon your body, and so upon your circumstances.
The mystery of Christ is no mere ecclesiastical fiction. People have distorted it, and made it not clear, by trying to explain what at that time and in those days was not properly known, by trying to explain what they did not know; because what is commonly now known regarding the laws of mind was unknown then. But now this light has come we begin to see that the Bible teaching regarding Christ has a great and a deep meaning, and it is for these reasons St. Paul said to the Corinthians: "Little children of whom I travail again in birth, until Christ be formed in you." That is why he speaks of "Christ in you the hope of glory," that is to say, the Christ conception, the realisation of the Christ principle as exhibited in the Christ person, brings you in touch with the personal element in the Universal Spirit, the divine creative, first moving Spirit of the Universe.
Then you see that realising this as your fundamental fact, it is continually impressed upon your subconscious mind, even when you are not thinking of it, because that is the action of the subconscious mind to take in and reason and argue in its own deductive way upon things of which you are not at the moment consciously thinking. Therefore it is that the realisation of that great promise of redemption, which is the backbone of the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelations, is according to a scientific law. It is not a hocus-pocus business, it is not a thing which has been arranged this way and might just as well have been arranged in some other; it is not so because some arbitrary Authority has commanded it, and the Authority might just as well have commanded it some other way.
No, it is so because the more you examine it, the more you will find that it is absolutely scientific; it is based upon the natural constitution of the human mind. And it is therefore that "Christ," as set forth in the Bible—whether in the Old Testament symbology, or in the New Testament personality—"is the fulfilling of the law," in the sense of specialising in the highest degree that which is common to all humanity. As we realise this more and more, and specialise it more and more, so we shall rise to higher and higher intercourse and more and more consciousness of reciprocal identity, reciprocal life with the Universal Power, which will raise us above any possibility of being touched by any sort of malicious suggestion.