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Subheadings:
Materialism Is on Its Way Out    Orthodoxy Is on Its Way Out    The Value of Extrasensory Perception    The Value of Psychokinesis    Man Is Influenced From Both Planes    The Inner-Plane Influence of Objects    The Influence of Thoughts    Moral Implications

Illustrations:
The Four Freedoms, drawing by Mildred Schuler    The Power of Thought, drawing by Mildred Schuler    Stellarian Religion Will Lead the Way, drawing by Mildred Schuler

Chapter 7

The Stellarian Religion

The Four Freedoms, drawing by Mildred Schuler

THOSE who adhere to The Religion of the Stars are known as Stellarians. Stellarians endeavor to handle every situation in conformity to, and measure their success in life by, The Church of Light slogan, CONTRIBUTE YOUR UTMOST TO UNIVERSAL WELFARE.

Religion should give instructions in optimum living. Optimum living embraces more than a few hilarious days, a few enjoyable weeks, or a few years of health and material prosperity which are followed by a long period of illness and misery. Optimum living gets the best out of life relative to its entire span. Considering the tremendous accumulation of scientific evidence that life persists after the dissolution of the physical, it must embrace both life on earth and life beyond the tomb.

Man can cope with life successfully, here or hereafter, only to the extent he has knowledge of the forces influencing him. While on earth his thoughts, behavior and the events which enter his life, are influenced about equally by his physical environment and his inner-plane environment. It is because, as fast as they are discovered and properly verified, each new significant outer-plane fact and each new significant inner-plane fact is added to it in its proper relation to all facts already known, that The Religion of the Stars will become the world religion of the future.

It is inevitable it will in time become the world religion, as mankind is becoming too well educated to be guided either in religion or in its political views by blind belief in propaganda. More and more, it is demanding demonstrated facts from those who preach religion and from those who advocate some economic or political system. The Religion of the Stars includes only demonstrated facts and logical inferences derived from them, and it excludes no facts which have been or can be demonstrated.

Materialism Is on Its Way Out

Materialism is bound to crumble; for irrefutable evidence has been obtained by widespread university experimenters that man’s mind does not operate in accordance with physical laws. Both telepathy and clairvoyance have been demonstrated to operate in the past and in the future as well as in the present. Neither time nor distance nor physical barriers has any appreciable influence on them.

And it has been demonstrated that the mind has a nonphysical force which can produce a physical effect upon objects. Within the limits of experiments thus far conducted in universities, this force is as effective when applied to a large object as when applied to a small one, and as effective when applied to a dozen objects at once, as when applied to a single one. On the inner plane, where the mind resides while functioning through a physical body, and where it will continue to reside after the dissolution of the physical body, gravitation, distance and time are of quite a different order.

Orthodoxy Is on Its Way Out

Orthodoxy also is bound to crumble; for evidence is accumulating, and at no distant date will be overwhelming, that man’s life on the inner plane is not as orthodoxy has pictured it, but due allowance being made for the laws of that plane, parallel to his existence while on earth. If the public were aware of the evidence that has been collected relative to inner-plane existence, evidence which in time it will accept, and which orthodoxy will be powerless either to suppress or to refute, it could no longer believe in a static heaven and hell, nor in vicarious atonement. People would no longer swallow the illogical propaganda that belief is the one important factor in reaching salvation, or that any power other than their own efforts could determine their fortune after physical death.

They would realize that character, not the mercy of another, is the factor which determines an individual’s station on the inner plane, and that even as it is impossible to acquire an education vicariously, it is impossible to acquire character vicariously. No one can gain ability for another. Ability, knowledge, character and spirituality—and these are the only four possessions an individual takes with him when he loses his physical body—are the result of the individual’s own efforts. In acquiring any of these the most another can do is give guidance.

The majority are not yet aware of the evidence that refutes the orthodox belief in heaven and hell and that proves salvation by the blood of the lamb is impossible. But at no distant date the facts of inner-plane existence will be so widely demonstrated that it will be no more possible to believe in these superstitions than it is to believe the earth is the center of the universe and that the sun and stars revolve around it.

Material science has made tremendous strides during the past few hundred years, and particularly during the last few decades. So short a time ago as 350 years it was dangerous for any man to say the earth moves, and is not the center of the universe. Science that short time ago was almost nonexistent. Giordano Bruno, a pioneer in science, wanted people to know the earth moved and orthodoxy was in error. Less than 350 years ago, in the year 1600, he was burned for his effort to give people scientific information. And in 1615 and again in 1633—only a little over 300 years ago—Galileo was persecuted for teaching that the earth moves. He had to abjure belief in the Copernican system of astronomy, since universally accepted, to save his life.

Where knowledge of the outer plane is concerned mankind has come a long way in the last 300 years. The public has become so familiar with the facts of the physical world as discovered and utilized by material science that orthodox religion no longer tries to suppress these facts or refute them.

But no systematic effort was made to gather facts relative to the inner plane until 67 years ago. A vast number of phenomena had been reported before that time indicating inner-plane existence, and some of them investigated by men of outstanding scientific rank, but no organized effort had been made to collect and investigate them. But since that time such vast strides have been made that now no unprejudiced individual who is brought face to face with these facts which have been repeatedly demonstrated can believe in materialism. Materialism is now as outmoded, and on as valid proof, as the stationary world was outmoded somewhat after the time of Bruno and Galileo. To put it in the vernacular, although many are not yet aware of it, materialism is a dead duck.

The Power of Thought, drawing by Mildred Schuler

And as soon as university men of science have time further to investigate conditions of life as they actually occur on the inner plane, orthodoxy also will be a dead duck. In fact, if the implications of what university scientists have already demonstrated relative to the powers of the mind were followed to their logical conclusions, and so presented that the public could grasp them, orthodoxy would almost at once be a dead duck.

Although the earliest records of mankind relate experiences in which certain individuals knew the unspoken thoughts of others, foretold the future, saw things at a distance beyond the reach of physical sight, and exerted nonphysical influence to bring events they desired to pass, it has remained for the present generation of scientists to develop laboratory methods which have proved that people—all people in some degree—have such powers.

These university experiments and some of their amazing implications are set forth in the book, The Reach of the Mind, by Dr. J. B. Rhine of Duke University. In it he points out that it is fear, more than anything else, that blocks scientific acceptance of extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. One of these fears is that such acceptance will destroy the very foundations on which materialism has been built. The other fear is what Dr. Rhine calls a social one: “The fear of losing caste in one’s profession.”

On pages 179-180 he points out that many scientists have experimented with ESP and PK in secret. It is quite creditable to publish their findings if these do not support that which is now called psi phenomena. Psi phenomena include gaining information (ESP) through other means than reason and the reports of the physical senses, and they include the moving (PK) of physical objects or otherwise influencing physical conditions without physical contact through the power of the mind. But all too often, when the scientist through experimentation finds that psi phenomena actually take place, he decides for professional reasons not to publish his findings. He finds a variety of excuses for withholding the results of his experiments.

Among those pointed out by Dr. Rhine which have come to his attention are that the reputation, and therefore the financial income, of the scientist would be impaired, the institution for which he works would object to a report indicating psi phenomena to be true, he would be subject to the criticism of his fellow scientists, he would not get the promotion he anticipated, and, after all, he carried out the experiments merely for his own satisfaction, not to present them for publication. Says Dr. Rhine: “One could write a book, a sad book about these fear responses.

And it may be added that the writer of these lessons, while not able to write a book about them, is aware of other scientists, including astronomers, who have investigated astrology and found it true, but refuse to acknowledge it in writing, or to others than their friends, because of the same fears

But the time will come when certain university scientists will investigate astrology, and have the courage to report their findings, even as already a large number of university scientists have refused to be coerced into silence about their experiments which have proved conclusively that psi phenomena do take place. Their work has enabled Dr. Rhine, at the commencement of chapter eleven of his book to say: “Henceforth I will assume that science will in time accept ESP and PK and that Psi is a normal human capacity, nonphysical in nature.”

These psi phenomena, demonstrated in various university laboratories, lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is an inner plane which influences physical life, and on which the soul will function after the dissolution of the physical body.

No intelligent person who follows the scientific experiments with psi phenomena over the years can fail to be convinced that the soul continues to live beyond the tomb, and that its personality there is in essential respects that which it exhibited while on earth. And the time is not too distant when means will be developed by which it can be proved, by university scientists, that the thousands of seers who have reported what they have seen of the manner of life on the inner plane are in the main correct, and that the notions of orthodox religion about afterlife conditions are as erroneous as were their equally dogmatic notions about the physical universe which they held a few hundred years ago.

Freedom For Facts Of Both Planes, drawing by Mildred Schuler

The Religion of the Stars is the world religion of the future because it embraces, correlates, and formulates a pattern of life from, the facts of both planes.

For living to best advantage after life on earth is done, man must know as much as possible about the inner-plane realm, about its energies and about its properties. Certainly we do not yet know all there is to learn about the conditions that there obtain. But neither do we yet know all the laws and properties of the physical world. Yet relative to both regions science has made many discoveries of importance. And it is no more sensible to ignore these scientific findings in preparing to live well after physical dissolution than it would be to ignore the scientific findings of the last 350 years in preparing to live well while still on earth.

There are backward peoples who try to adjust themselves to physical life according to the scientifically disproved notions of their forefathers. But they live in abject misery. And there is no valid reason to believe that those who reject the discoveries of science relative to the inner plane, and try there to adjust themselves according to the disproved notions of their forefathers, are there going to prosper. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe they will have to abandon disproved notions and accept the facts of after-death life before they can adjust to that life in a satisfactory manner.

As he will have no physical senses when he loses his physical body it is obvious that all information after leaving the physical, other than inferences derived from experiences prior to death, must be acquired through extrasensory perception. As there is neither air on the inner plane, nor physical vocal organs, all his communications with others there must be telepathic. But innumerable experiments carried out in various universities prove than man, even while still on earth, can thus acquire information and communicate with others.

As man while still on earth, usually without being aware of it, occasionally does thus gain valuable information through extrasensory perception, and as the ability to acquire extrasensory perception on certain subjects, and to understand the information so gained, is the source of all genius on earth, the use of extrasensory perception is equally valuable during and after physical life.

Science has been investigating the physical world since about the year 1600, but it has been investigating the more elusive inner plane only since 1882. Yet the attitude of university scientists who have been conducting experiments in extrasensory perception, which includes telepathy, was stated thus in 1942 by Professor Thouless of Cambridge University:

“The reality of the phenomena must be regarded as proved.... Let us now give up the task of trying to prove again to the satisfaction of the skeptical that the psi effect really exists, and try instead to devote ourselves to the task of finding out all we can about it. With fuller knowledge of its nature, the difficulties of believing in its existence may appear less formidable than they do now.”

The Value of Extrasensory Perception

Neither distance nor time nor physical barriers seems to interfere with extrasensory perception. So far as now known any possible information may, under favorable conditions, be acquired through such extension of consciousness, including, of course, information about the conditions under which people live on the inner plane after physical dissolution, and the laws there operative.

Extrasensory perception at the present day, however, is in a state comparable to that of the telescope in 1608 when Jan Lippershey, a spectacle maker in Zealand, placed a concave and a convex spectacle lens at either end of a tube about a foot long and an inch and a half in aperture. That marked the discovery of an instrument that, improved step by step for 341 years, now is able to view in its 200-inch reflector on Palomar Mountain a sphere two billion light-years in diameter.

The year following its discovery Galileo made the first improvement on it, and in later years made a telescope that magnified 32 times. But not only was what he saw with it discredited, but the inference that he drew from what he saw—that the earth moves—being contrary to the teachings behind the orthodox iron curtain, he was, as already mentioned, persecuted, and to save his life had to renounce what to him was demonstrated fact.

Extrasensory perception at the present day is in a state comparable also to that of the compound microscope at the period in which Galileo lived. It, as well as the first telescope, was made in Holland. Their early magnifying power was small. But step by step they have been improved through the years until now not only can the single-celled bacteria which are responsible for many diseases be observed by utilizing rays of light, but microwaves are being used to learn new facts about the shape, size and arrangement of molecules, the orbits of electrons around atomic nuclei, and the spin of protons and neutrons within the nucleus of an atom.

In addition to the mentioned university experiments, there are authentic records of a vast number of instances in which individuals have acquired information spontaneously through extrasensory perception which otherwise they could not have acquired. In the spontaneous cases the individual commonly is aware that he has received the information through nonphysical channels. He has so strong a premonition about something that nothing can shake his confidence it is true. He clairvoyantly sees the image of a relative or acquaintance in an air crash, and knows that person has been killed. Or he has a dream which impresses him emotionally so power: fully with its significance that nothing can convince him the event thus indicated will not actually take place. And later the information he is fully aware he has received through nonphysical sources is fully verified.

Sometimes in university experiments, and when people on their own try to get definite information through extrasensory perception, they are fully conscious that the extrasensory faculty is working. But in most of the university experiments, and in most of the efforts by others to use extrasensory perception, there is no consciousness of whether it has worked or not. It is a process carried out on the inner plane by the soul which commonly registers no impression of its activity on objective consciousness. Both people and animals often act upon its promptings quite unaware of the source of the impulse. And it is only on rare occasions that those most successful in university experiments are aware, until the results of the experiments have been checked, whether or not they have succeeded in bringing extrasensory perception into play.

While it is true that proper training increases the individual’s ability to use extrasensory perception, and the frequency with which he is aware when he has been successful in calling it into play, for even the most skillful it is as yet highly elusive. But neither was the telescope nor the microscope of much value to man in the year 1608.

The big problem at the present time where extrasensory perception is concerned is to find a technique by which an individual can know at the time he is trying to use it whether or not he is succeeding in employing this information-acquiring faculty of the soul. With this problem solved, ingenuity can be brought to bear to devise one method after another, and to test each through trial and error, until the best procedure to bring extrasensory perception into successful activity is understood.

Time, distance and physical obstacles seem to have no power to hinder it. Here we have a faculty from which apparently no secret of nature nor any information in the universe can be hidden. Any knowledge desired, whatever it may be, of past, present or future, seems to lie within the range of its acquirement. The implications are so great as to stagger the imagination.

By its use we may assume that both the cause and the best method to cure any disease might be learned. How to construct a mechanical device for doing any kind of work might be learned through it. Any discovery a scientist wanted to make would be available through this avenue. Crime could be detected before it happened, and criminals thwarted before they committed depredations. The war plans of any group or nations would be accessible to the whole world, and the United Nations could take steps to prevent aggression.

This is an amazing thought. But is it more amazing at this period of transition to the Aquarian Age, than the conception of the flying machine was at the period of transition to the Age of Pisces? At that time Greek mythology held that Daedalus and his son Icarus succeeded in propelling themselves through the air by means of wings secured to the body with wax. This experiment proved fatal to Icarus because in his exhilaration he flew too close to the sun and his wings melted off and he crash landed in the sea. But more than two thousand years ago the Greeks did conceive the idea of flying.

Leonardo da Vinci—1452-1519—went so far as to draw the plans of a flying machine. But in 1680 G. A. Borelli, also an Italian of great scientific authority, published a work deriding the possibility of aerial navigation, discussing it in connection with the strength of the human muscles, and concluding that flight was impossible.

But the idea persisted, and one after another people of inventive turn refusing to listen to authority, continued experiments in aviation. Before the turn of the century Sir Hiram Maxim of England, Professor Otto Lilienthal of Germany, and Professor S. P. Langley of the United States carried out experiments in aviation, as now other professors are carrying out experiments in extrasensory perception and psychokinesis.

In 1903 Langley and his assistant, Charles M. Manley, obtained an allotment of $50,000 from the Board of Ordnance and Fortification of the United States War Department which was used to construct a gasoline-powered machine. Langley attempted two unsuccessful flights, in the second one of which he wrecked his machine. Then the government refused further financial aid, and Langley’s venture became a failure, even though in 1914 Glenn H. Curtiss took the original model, installed a new radiator, carburetor, and floats, and flew it successfully.

Flying for centuries was subject to ridicule, and at the time of Langley’s tests, as this writer well remembers, it was something of a fad to poke fun at aviation experiments by quoting verses from “Darius Green and his flying machine.” But in spite of these derogatory verses which implied anyone was crazy who tried to fly, on December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, actually flew.

This was the first instance in which a person had been carried from the ground in actual flight by mechanical means and without artificial aids. And once the problem of always being conscious of when extrasensory perception is active has been solved—and Church of Light research is doing all it can to solve it—the ability of humanity to acquire information through this faculty will progress as fast and as far as aviation has progressed since 1903.

It may take years of research and experiment before extrasensory perception is brought under proper control and can be used at will to perceive events happening on the inner plane, in the distant past and in the distant future, and to acquire information from far distant areas of the visible and invisible universe. But even as after years of improvement the telescope now enables us to see happenings a billion years ago and a billion light-years distant, and the microscope brings us information about the unimaginably small, so improvements in knowledge of, and ability to use, extrasensory perception will in time enable us to employ this faculty reliably and at will to gain information from both the inner plane and the outer plane. And it is because it embraces the facts of both planes, as fast as these are discovered and reliably demonstrated, that The Religion of the Stars will be the world religion of the future.

The Value of Psychokinesis

Psi phenomena, which is mentioned in the quotation from Professor Thouless, embraces not merely extrasensory perception, but also psychokinesis. And psychokinesis also has been demonstrated by countless university experiments. It consists of moving physical objects, or otherwise affecting physical conditions, by the nonphysical power of the mind.

As when man has lost his physical body he will have no physical muscles, and as objects on the inner plane do not respond to gravitation or physical pressure of any kind, after death man will be compelled to employ psychokinesis to accomplish anything or to go anywhere.

Most have witnessed this power of the mind to produce miraculous cures, or to demonstrate some physical condition. But as yet this power of the mind to influence physical objects without contact and to bring about desired physical events cannot be called upon at will and used effectively whenever desired. As is the faculty of extrasensory perception, it is still very elusive. But so was atomic energy as late as 1939.

Early in 1939 the artificial fission of uranium was discovered, and on the fifth of May 1940, Alfred O. C. Nier, of the University of Minnesota, announced a method of isolating U235. But it took the emergency of World War II to concentrate scientific research and tremendous wealth on the problem of how to utilize the energy of fission. By August 1945, this energy was used to destroy two great Japanese cities, and in 1948 the announcement was made that it was being used as the power to drive a new type of airplane. It is believed this atomic power eventually, if not used to exterminate too much of the population of the world, can be employed to run much of the machinery of civilization.

Although their existence has been demonstrated in university laboratories only since 1934, psychokinetic phenomena have been observed since 1882 by scientists who have conducted psychical research. But today psychokinesis is in about the same position atomic energy was in 1939. And no doubt if orthodoxy could continue to build a sufficiently impervious iron curtain, both it and extrasensory perception—which reveals its opinions on the conditions of life after death to be unsound—would receive no recognition, and little effort would be made to insure progress in their technique.

Yet here we have a power of far greater importance than atomic energy. To develop atomic energy from its position in 1939 to its practical employment in 1945 required a concentration of a large part of the world’s most gifted scientists, and an expenditure of two billion dollars. What is most needed now is to get the attention of the world’s greatest scientists concentrated on how to make psychokinesis available for practical use. And a government willing to spend two billion dollars to be able to manufacture bombs with which whole nations might be exterminated, should be willing to appropriate a like sum to carry out research on how psychokinesis, which is now meagerly used in psychosomatic medicine, and which could free humanity from want, can be made available for the use of mankind.

At least The Church of Light, through its research, will do all in its power to develop it to a point where it will be of incalculable benefit to the human race. And it is because it encourages acquiring such information, as well as that relating to the outer plane, and embraces all significant information as fast as it is acquired, that The Religion of the Stars will be the world religion of the future.

Man Is Influenced From Both Planes

Man has a physical body, and he has an astral body. The physical body, and through its nerve currents, which are electrical in nature, his mind, or soul, which resides on the inner plane and is attached to his brain and nervous system by psychokinetic power—the small emergent part of his mind being the Objective Mind and the submerged part the Unconscious Mind—are influenced by his outer-plane environment. His astral body and his mind, or soul, are influenced by his inner-plane environment; and the thought cells so affected in turn influence his physical body.

Thus does man live in, and is influenced by, both an outer-plane world and an inner-plane world.

From the outer world he is influenced by the objects and people he contacts, by what people say either vocally or through screen portrayal or the printed page and by the weather.

Objects and people also influence him from the inner plane, but instead of through physical contact chiefly through their character vibrations. From the inner plane he is also influenced, not by what people say, but by their thoughts and the thoughts of other life forms. From the inner plane he is also influenced by the weather; but this weather is not physical, it is the impact of astrological energies.

As to the degree in which man while still on earth is influenced by each of his two environments, there has been a vast amount of observation, carefully checked, which indicates that if we consider man to consist of his physical body, his mind or soul, and the thoughts which he thinks, the inner-plane environment—which includes objects, the thoughts and actions of intelligent entities, and astrological energies—has as much influence over his thoughts, feelings and behavior as do all outer-plane conditions and energies, including the influence of his associates.

The Inner-Plane Influence of Objects

As objects on the inner plane are not physical, they cannot influence him there through physical impact or through their chemical properties. But they can, and do, influence him by their character vibrations. And while still on earth, even though he is usually unaware of it, objects powerfully influence him by their character vibrations. The fact that he may be unaware of such influence is no more significant than that he may be unaware of the radiations of atomic energy that unless he moves beyond their range may destroy his body.

Objects and people influence the individual from the inner plane by stimulating into greater activity the thought-cell groups within his own finer form which have the same type of vibration as have the objects and people. Through the principle of resonance, the astral vibrations of people and objects with which closely associated give energy to specific thought-cell groups. Not that physical proximity of itself is important, but the individual tends to tune in by his thoughts on the objects and conditions of his environment. Thus their vibrations reach and give added energy to thought-cell groups having a similar vibration.

If the astrological rulership of an object is known, or the dominant astrological influence of a person is known, this indicates which group of thought cells within the finer form of an individual associated with the object or person will be given greater activity. The thought-cell group thus chiefly influenced is the thought-cell group mapped in the birth chart and by progression having the same astrological rulership.

If this thought-cell group in the finer form is harmonious, giving it additional activity increases its psychokinetic power to attract into the life fortunate events or conditions. If the thought-cell group in the finer form is discordant, giving it additional activity increases its psychokinetic power to attract into the life unfortunate events or conditions. The thought cells use whatever psychokinetic power they acquire to bring into the life the type of events and conditions they at the time desire. The general characteristics of the event corresponds to the characteristics of the planet mapping the thought-cell group. The departments of life affected are determined by the houses of the birth chart ruled by the planet mapping the thought-cell group.

The Influence of Thoughts

As people on the inner plane have no physical bodies they cannot influence him there through physical methods. On the inner plane he is influenced by their thoughts. And while man is still on earth he is also influenced by thoughts from the inner plane. Thus learning how to handle the impact of thoughts is equally valuable during and after physical life.

From the inner plane people’s thoughts influence the individual in two different ways. The thoughts of others carry psychokinetic power. To the extent this is true they exert coercive energy. Mass psychology, in which a group of people commit atrocities which none independently would commit, or are carried into unreasonable enthusiasm, is an example of this psychokinetic power; as is the influence of great orators who are said to have strong personal magnetism.

Some people are unusually sensitive to the thoughts of others. Doctors are beginning to recognize that such sensitivity to others’ thoughts contributes to the development of certain kinds of diseases. Thus Dr. Jan Ehrenwald, a practicing psychiatrist of New York City, has written a book (1948), Telepathy and Medical Psychology, in which he points out that telepathic bombardment by the thoughts of others, to which the individual is unduly sensitive, is often a contributing factor to the development of schizophrenia.

All are more or less telepathically bombarded with the vibration of their name, or with the vibration of numbers with which they are so closely associated that other people while thinking of the numbers also commonly think of them. The name or number, through the thoughts telepathically reaching them, gives added psychokinetic power to the thought cells within their finer form having the same astrological rulership as the name or number. And this psychokinetic activity contributes to the fortune or misfortune according to the harmony or discord of the thought cells thus stimulated.

To prevent being influenced telepathically by the thoughts of others that have unusual psychokinetic power it is necessary to develop a mental attitude which repels or deflects such thoughts. But more commonly people are influenced not by any marked psychokinetic power of others’ thoughts, but through tuning in on them.

When we think of a person, or a train of thoughts, we tend to synchronize our own vibrations temporarily with the vibrations of the person or train of thoughts. Distance on the inner plane is difference in vibratory rate. When we tune in on a vibration, whatever the physical distance, we have closed the gap and opened the way for an exchange of energies. Our thought energies flow to that which is thought about, or from that which is thought about to us, according to which has the greatest potential. Thus the best way to prevent being influenced by another’s thoughts is not to think about him or the thoughts he holds.

Of all the inner-plane energies, none is so powerful to influence the individual as his own thoughts. Under the impact of inner-plane weather, or the impact of the character vibrations of objects, or the impact of the thoughts of others, it is a serious problem to hold only the thoughts and emotions which we have decided are best under the circumstances.

But as his own thoughts and emotions are his inner-plane food, and properly selected and cultivated can control his destiny despite other influences, one of the greatest boons to humanity is for people to be made aware of what to think and how to develop the type of thinking needed to overcome discords reaching them from without and build into themselves the thought cells which will enable them to be successful, happy, healthy and spiritual. And because The Religion of the Stars includes this information, as well as all other significant outer-plane and inner-plane information as soon as they are discovered and properly verified, it is the world religion of the future.

Moral Implications

As on the inner plane there is no air, no moisture, and no molecular vibrations which constitute heat, man there is not influenced by the physical weather. But on the inner plane he is influenced markedly by astrological vibrations, which constitute the inner-plane weather. And even while on earth, though he may not be aware of it, the inner-plane weather has as much or more influence over his life as the outer-plane weather. Therefore, learning the characteristics of the inner-plane weather, how to forecast it, and what precautionary actions to take relative to it, are equally valuable during and after physical life. These matters are discussed in Chapter 8 (Serial Lesson 140).

Even relative to the span of physical life alone an individual ignorant of inner-plane energies is able to live up to only one-half his possibilities. Through knowledge of inner-plane energies an individual who will apply such knowledge should be able to increase his spirituality, success, happiness and health 100%. Whatever his objectives may be, he stands a far greater chance of reaching them if he understands how the inner-plane environment influences his life, and how to take advantage of its energies.

Such increase in an individual’s ability to attain his objectives at once raises the question of what those objectives should be. They raise the question of what is, and what is not, truly moral.

In general, the teachings of orthodoxies regarding how man should treat his fellowman are sound. Do as you would be done by, and treat your neighbor as yourself, are valid. They assist all to survive, they assist all to prosper, and they assist all to be happy and spiritual. But these teachings are so interwoven with erroneous beliefs and commandments that they are too often ignored in the effort to live up to the other unsound teachings.

There are innumerable creeds which hold that only those who accept their particular belief, and follow strictly their prescribed ritual, are to be saved, and all others, including the vast majority of the people of the earth, will simmer for eternity in hell.

What an individual believes is chiefly determined by his environment. If he is raised in a pagan land, and has not been brought into contact with Christianity, he will be pagan in his beliefs. If he is raised in a Catholic community, and by Catholic parents, with little chance to contact other ideas, he is almost sure to be a Catholic in his beliefs. If he is raised in a Protestant community, and by Protestant parents, with little chance to contact other ideas, he is apt to embrace Protestant beliefs. If he is raised among Jews, without much opportunity to get other ideas, he will likely embrace the Jewish faith.

The individual certainly is not responsible for being born into a Pagan environment, a Catholic environment, a Protestant environment, or a Jewish environment. Yet with far the majority of people such environment determines the individual’s beliefs, and what he considers right and wrong.

Now if God, as many orthodox believe, determines the environment into which the individual is born, and the individual’s beliefs and ideas of morality are determined by his environment, God, not the individual, is responsible for these beliefs. Yet many orthodox would have us believe that God will punish the individual for beliefs and acts which the individual thinks are moral, but for which God, and not the individual, is responsible.

That is the old anthropomorphic conception of God, a God Who has human frailties, a God Who unjustly can be persuaded to favor some special nation, Who punishes those who strictly follow religious doctrines in which they believe, but do not conform to those of some other creed, and Who can be cajoled or bribed into granting special, and quite unjust favors to those who give Him praise and beseech Him in prayer.

That there is an all-pervading Divine Intelligence which can be contacted there is much extrasensory evidence to prove. But not a God of whim and cruelty, such as would condemn to eternal suffering those who had had no opportunity to embrace some special faith.

And there is ample proof that prayers often are answered, sometimes in a most miraculous way. But not due to the whim or prejudice or unjust favoritism of Deity, but through the operation of God’s undeviating laws. They are answered through the psychokinetic power of those who pray. There is no more effective way to stimulate this nonphysical power of the mind into activity than through the prayers of a devout and righteous man.

In prayer, whether the words are uttered audibly or only mentally, the effort is not to reach Deity by physical means, but through the activities of the mind. It is, therefore—whether the devotee recognizes it or not—an inner-plane activity. Consequently, it is apt to be more effective if the devotee withdraws his attention from external things, ceases all irrelevant thinking, and causes his attention to be completely absorbed in the meaning and the feeling of the prayer.

But before this, there should be clearly formulated in the mind that the soul is one with the universe, that the spirit is an emanation of Deity, just what it is the prayer is expected to accomplish, and why the all-pervading intelligence and power of Deity should grant the prayer.

To get this realization clearly established it may be well for the devotee after withdrawing his consciousness from external things to repeat a few times: “My Soul is one with the universe, my Spirit an emanation from Deity.”

When he feels this relationship has been firmly established in his consciousness, he is then ready to make more specific contact and appeal to Deity. If he is a Church of Light member he does this by starting his prayer thus: “O Thou Eternal Spirit, in Whom I live, move, breathe and have my being!” The mind should be lifted at this point in aspiration and devotion as high as possible.

A worthy prayer, one that can be expected to contact the all-pervading intelligence and power of Deity on a benevolent level, not only must not be to gain some unfair advantage or to injure some other person, but must have within it elements the realization of which will, in some measure, also aid in the realization of God’s great plan.

This means that if the individual prays for health, he should pray that he may gain it for the purpose of being of more assistance to others. If he prays for money, he should formulate the prayer in such a manner that it will be clear the money when obtained will not be used exclusively in selfish gratification. If he prays for happiness, he should formulate the prayer in such a manner that it is clear the happiness so attained will be employed to bring happiness or benefit to his associates.

A devout prayer which thus conforms strictly to the universal moral code often has tremendous psychokinetic power to bring about its realization. For, as explained in Chapter 6 (Serial Lesson 214), Course XIX, Organic Alchemy, there is a Universal Moral Code, quite apart from any sect or creed. Against it can be measured the validity of any moral precepts advanced by any religion. It is that A SOUL IS COMPLETELY MORAL WHEN IT IS CONTRIBUTING ITS UTMOST TO UNIVERSAL WELFARE. This is also the moral code of The Religion of the Stars.

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