The Fall

By The Pathwork Guide

Greetings in the Name of the Lord. Blessed are all of you. My dear friends, I talked the last time about how evil came into existence. This question has bothered many people who cannot imagine how a God of love could permit the existence of evil. For those friends who are here for the first time I advise them to read the last two lectures in order that they may understand this lecture, which is a continuation of the last two.

I have briefly explained how, long before the existence of the material world, a part of the created beings, having been endowed not only with free will but also with a certain power, abused this power. I have explained how this came about in a very slow process. This Fall of the Angels, as it is called, happened very slowly. It was a slow process of degeneration, so to speak, whereby everything divine slowly and gradually turned into its opposite aspect. With this a separation occurred between those who abused their power and those who did not. I have often said -- and this applies to all beings, either spirit or man -- that your attitudes, your opinions, your feelings, and your thoughts create the spiritual worlds, even though you may still live on earth. Thus you create the world which will be yours. In the same way, the spirits participating in the Fall created new worlds, according to their changing attitudes. Dark worlds are those often referred to as hell. The attitudes of disharmony and hatred created such forms. There is not just one possibility in this respect. Let us suppose that a being in its perfect state had, as a particular characteristic, a great strength of love, the fire of divine love. This love force would turn into its opposite and create a fire of hatred and wickedness. So, you see, all these legends are not as unreal as they might appear to you. Let us suppose that another individual in his perfect state of development had the particular characteristic of wise calmness, of judgment, of detached reflection. These attributes would enable such a being to further the divine creation in a particular way by the slow unfoldment of this special creative power. However, directed to its opposite force, this would then create a world of icy coldness, of icy darkness, of desolation. There are many more possibilities of how the infinite variety of divine attributes can change into its opposite nature and create the corresponding worlds in the world of darkness, just as there are infinite possibilities in the divine worlds. These spheres of fire or of icy coldness -- in the spiritual sense, of course -- are just two examples. There are the spheres of slime and dirt; there are the spheres of intense suffering through overcrowding or through isolation, and many other varieties.

Since one of the most important divine aspects is free will and liberty of choice, then this had to turn into the opposite, too. The spirit who was the first to succumb to the temptation of abusing this power -- the one who is sometimes referred to as Lucifer or Satan or the Devil, and who influenced and affected others to follow him -- would naturally be the first one in this new world that came into existence. He would have complete power over all those who followed him and, contrary to God, he would use this power. God gives the freedom of choice and this has deeper significance than most of you realize. With that freedom, then the possibility to abuse the power given and to use it contrary to the divine laws, must perforce exist. If no choice were available, then there would be no freedom, and therefore no power. There can be no divine happiness, in fact no divinity at all, if it cannot be attained or maintained in free choice. By the same token, the opposite of God and His laws must be the prohibition of such free choice and the domination of the stronger ones over the weaker ones.

This state of affairs would seem insoluble as far as the salvation of these fallen beings is concerned. For even if they came to the point of desiring to go back to God, they would not have the power to do so since they were under the domination and the power of the one who reigns in the world of darkness. On the other hand, how could God not break His own laws and still save those beings who long for Him? If he would use His infinite power by overruling the free will and the choice of those who decided to use their given power in their own way, then he would actually do in principle the same as Lucifer. Here, more than in anything else, to maintain the divine principle was of the utmost importance, for only by remaining true to Himself and to His laws would there be a fundamental difference between the ways of God and the ways of Lucifer. Since it is the plan of God that every creature should at one time come back to Him out of free choice and recognition and re-attain divinity, then it was imperative that God would not use the same means of force as His opponent, even though the purpose might be a good one. It is not the end alone that counts, but very much the means, too. Only by remaining true to these principles would one day the most stubborn of the fallen beings see the vast difference between these two ways and the dignity that lies in these divine principles, even though it means the path of suffering for those who wished to get out of these self-created miserable circumstances. Since life in spirit is in direct relationship to the inner harmony, to the enlightenment, and to the general attitude, then the spirits who had become disharmonious cannot be simply put into a world of harmony, as you may travel into a beautiful country. For in spirit, the country is you and your product. Therefore, the fallen spirits have to attain a state where they naturally produce the harmonious worlds once again. That this can only be accomplished in the same slow process of development as the Fall, with its degeneration, is natural. That this must happen in free choice, too, you will readily understand now, so that questions like "Why has God not done away with evil?" will not come up anymore in your deliberations. On the other hand, means had to be found so that those creatures who desired to return to God and to keep His laws, instead of the luciferic ones, could do so within the framework of the laws of God. Thus the free will of no one would be broken, not even of Lucifer himself. This is the great Plan of Salvation in which Jesus Christ played a major role. I will talk about this in more detail the next time.

Thus, first these spheres of darkness came into existence where the spirits lived under the dominion of Lucifer. At first, there was no longing, no sense of the Light which they had once possessed. Only after a considerable testing of the self-chosen medicine, with all its desolation, did a vague longing for something else -- about which they did not know -- take hold of some of these beings. It goes without saying that the memory of God and His world was extinguished to the measure disharmony had set in, but it was revived again as the attitude changed. But the latter could only occur in an exceedingly slow process. Spiritual darkness annuls knoweldge, just as spiritual light is knowledge. Just as with human beings, if you have no spiritual enlightenment, then you have to work spiritually in order to regain certain glimpses of this light. The vague longing that first some and later more creatures felt was sufficient to bring a glimmer of light into their world, as though a faraway dawn changed the contours of their world a little bit. The cold would not be quite so cold anymore; the fire not so hot anymore; the filth not so filthy anymore; the loneliness not so unbearable and so hopeless anymore.

When enough spirits came into this state of longing and when this longing increased, then the time was ripe for the material world to come into existence. You may say that God created this material world, and this is true, for nothing can be created without the Creative Divine Force. However, it is equally true to say that the material world was created by this longing for something higher. This world in which you are now living is the product of this desire to strive higher, where certain conditions exist in which development can proceed and in which a free choice for God can be made, which is impossible in the worlds of darkness. In other words, this earth sphere is a product of the longing of all fallen spirits. But it is equally a product of the longing of all those beings who remained with God and whose deepest desire was and is always to bring their brothers and sisters back to God. Therefore, both the divine worlds and the worlds of darkness helped in the creation of this earth sphere. Thus the influence of both worlds exists. It will manifest itself according to the individual attitude of a being -- who on this plane has the the power of free choice. Conditions and circumstances on this earth sphere are different, of course, due to this new form of matter. But, then, circumstances vary in all spheres.

Long before these fallen spirits were far enough in their development to be born as men and women, the spiritual life force acted and created at first other forms of life. Not only animals, plants and minerals, but the original life force -- that works and that manifests itself in each created being -- also created other substances, substances that at first were without self-knowledge. Just as a plant is without self-knowledge, so too were these substances. As time went on, more and more beings came into this state of longing for light. This would perhaps constitute the only feeling that these beings had at that time. Very gradually man in material form came into existence through various intermediate states. When this happened, then a major phase was accomplished. This was the time when the first glimmer of self-knoweldge was born, or reborn, or became awake again. More and more people came to live on earth.

You all know that man produces his spiritual world and on earth -- wherein the influence of God's world also existed -- he now had, for the first time after the Fall, the opportunity to learn, to change, to turn to God and thus to create a better world for himself. He was able to create a better world both in matter and in spirit. Into this world he would go after his material death and also when his body rested during sleep. From this world he would receive inspiration and influences of all sorts. This is why development cannot proceed faster, for all the incarnated beings were at first so low in their development that they were constantly influenced by their own sphere. If God's world had not acted on this earth, then there would not have been any difference between the earth sphere and a sphere in the world of darkness, for only the influences of the latter would occur in either case.

You must realize that I can only give you a very rough outline of all this. This touches the very greatest questions, which cannot be fully understood by any human being, for human language is too limited in the first place and human understanding is also too limited. Therefore, as a rule, I do not even like to talk about all this because the main thing for you is to learn to know your soul and to develop it spiritually. However, man often wonders about these fundamental questions, not merely in a spirit of superficial curiosity, but in good faith. And ignorance about and the wrong conceptions of some of these points may seriously hinder your development. This is why I am charged to give this series of lectures, even though some of you may not have sufficient inner perception yet to sense and feel the truth and the deep significance that all this holds, not only in general, but also on your lives in particular.

How did the influence of the world of God manifest itself? Could angels of God guide and inspire these human beings incarnated from the spheres of darkness and thus be in contact with them? This would be an impossibility since it is according to universal law that man himself has to make the first step in order to receive help from the world of God. How could he make this step if his whole being were still so coarse that he had no inkling of God, no idea of His world, and no notion of what to do? On the other hand, God's world co-created this material earth and thus -- according to the law of free will -- had the right to manifest its influence on earth. The answer is that pure spirits -- who remained in the divine world -- were incarnated at all times. To be sure, very few were incarnated. But the influence of one such being outweighs by far the strength and the influence of a hundred creatures of the world of darkness. These spirits who were incarnated from the world of God brought with them light, love, and wisdom. They fulfilled a great mission with their incarnation on earth and their influence was much more far reaching than humanity knows. With this influence growing steadily through the ages, the fallen spirits could -- during their incarnation on earth -- freely choose what side to listen to: the one reaching to their lower nature or the one that seemed to push them ever upwards, regardless of how difficult this path might be. By this free choice, God's law concerning this aspect was not violated.

The communication with the Beyond did not take place merely through guidance and inspiration, but there always existed -- and there always will exist -- a more direct form of communication, namely that which is what you now call mediumship in various forms. With what spheres of the Beyond one communicates depends entirely on the attitude, on the goal, and on the general development of the people in question. Not only of the medium, but also of the people using this channel. The fact is that human beings who were fallen spirits could not have any other communication at these early times except with the world of darkness. But the pure incarnated spirits did have communication with the world of God. And this strongly outweighed the danger and the damage of a communication with the luciferic worlds that it was worthwhile. If communication with one world could exist, then a connection with the other was within the law. If one had been impossible, then the other would have to be equally impossible. This is, incidentally, where human beings make a great mistake in their reasoning when they claim that any communication with the beyond is luciferic and therefore dangerous. In other words, only this kind of communication is possible. Development could not have proceeded at all in these early times if the pure spirits who at times were incarnated could not have made a direct connection with the world of God from which truth could come to man.

In order to have this benefit and to remain within the framework of the divine law -- as I explained at the beginning of this lecture -- an equality had to exist so that the free choice of each individual could be made. An equal influence had to come from both sides. An equal influence means that fewer beings of the divine world lived on earth because their strength always outweighs and outlasts the influence of evil. However, especially at these early times, there existed a great interchange between the material world and the luciferic worlds. These dark spirits claimed to be gods and to favor mankind with all sorts of grants if only man would do what they dictated. Even with all their harm and their danger, as I said, the few communications with the world of God made up for this damage a hundred times over. The incarnated pure spirits had, on the one hand, the enlightenment within themselves to spread divine truth and, on the other hand, the necessary requirements to be in communication with the world of God as instruments. For without the latter not enough could be given to mankind. Even though these pure beings had no evil in them, the material shell takes too much away so that sufficient teachings could have been made out of their own selves. Thus truth was spread in the manner that humanity at each particular period was ready to absorb.

This went on for a long time. Gradually more of the fallen spirits came to the state in which they could recognize God. Thus their longing became conscious and significant in its meaning. The will could be developed to overcome the evil impulses of the lower nature. This change that began to take place had a much greater effect than can be realized off hand. None of you fully understand that if a single person developes really well, doing the best in his power, he not only helps himself but he adds the most valuable cosmic power to a great reservoir which will ultimately have a very decisive effect and will spread considerably, even though he himself may not even see a part of this effect. He may see some of it in his immediate surroundings. For example, all of a sudden his fellow creatures can change a little bit due to his change. But he will not know, as long as he is on earth, how far-reaching the effect of his smallest endeavor in this direction is. No such endeavor is therefore ever in vain, my friends. It is as though you were to throw a stone into a pond of quiet water. There come rings and rings going so far that your eyes cannot see the rings of the outer periphery, but they are still there. If one person overcomes a single weakness, then this constitutes the best help in the great Plan of Salvation.

Next time I will continue from here and shall talk in greater detail about the part Jesus Christ played in the Salvation Plan.