Physical Light

When we are awake and not asleep, physical light, the constituent of physical day, illumines the eyes of the body and we can survey the bodies roundabout us, their actions and motions, and in general all that occurs and appears in time and space. By means of physical light we study and become acquainted with the world round us, and can safely move and live and work in the world. But this physical light, whereby we see and are illuminated, and acquire ideas and knowledge, cannot see itself, nor does it know of its own existence and activity, and is therefore at the same time also metaphysical darkness. But how can physical light, which is destitute of knowledge and is metaphysical darkness, nevertheless impart to us ideas and knowledge of the world? We do not receive the ideas and knowledge we have of the world round us from physical light, which possesses no knowledge at all, but from metaphysical light, which possesses all knowledge. Metaphysical light itself knows all things, including whatever is outside of it. It possesses perfect and complete self-knowledge and knowledge of all things else that is likewise perfect and complete; it also possesses the power of imparting knowledge to those who are destitute of knowledge, the power of illumining metaphysical darkness. Man’s soul possesses complete ignorance and no knowledge at all, and is metaphysical darkness. In the beginning metaphysical light gives it a dim awareness or consciousness of its existence that in the course of time grows clearer. By virtue of this consciousness the soul perceives external things through its sense of sight, and gets ideas and knowledge from the world. But when the soul loses consciousness of its own existence, it also loses its perception, and can then discern nothing of things external. It is not, therefore, physical light that is the cause of men’s knowledge, since physical light is destitute of knowledge, but, on the contrary, it is metaphysical light, which is replete with all knowledge. Physical light serves only as a means and instrument of metaphysical light for the purpose of transmitting knowledge and ideas from the sensible world. Therefore it may be said that metaphysical light illumines the soul both outwardly and inwardly. Inwardly and directly, by itself touching the soul. Outwardly, by means of physical light, which is an image and similitude of metaphysical light, in order that by seeing it direct the soul may be led to ascend to knowledge of metaphysical light, the true light concerning which John the evangelist said: “He was the true light that lighteth every man when he comes into the world.” This lighting of man’s soul by the true light has a beginning, a progress, and a finish in time. The beginning of the lighting is the time when the soul becomes conscious,” or, as it were better expressed, receives consciousness, of its own existence, passing out of the metaphysical darkness of ignorance into the minimum light of metaphysical night, and possessing a minimum knowledge together with a maximum ignorance. But starting with this beginning, in proportion to the philomathy it possesses, it travels and progresses by adding to its original knowledge and by diminishing its original ignorance. The end of its progress is the acquisition of all knowledge and the discarding of all ignorance. When the soul has discarded its original ignorance and has acquired all knowledge of God, progress stops, and there is then a stop or rest and cessation, when it can contemplate all things like God and feels together with God an everlasting gladness and exhilaration. This end is called, in a single word, deification, or godhood; deification is also called and. said to be the destiny of the human soul, as, in fact, God has said: “I have said, Ye are gods and sons all of the Most High.” But from the point of the original knowledge all the way to the end, of deification and of perfect knowledge the distance is vast and the way is very long indeed, and in it is naturally impossible for an infantile soul to traverse it unless it be guided and directed by God, who has predestined it to such an end. God guides the soul and directs it to one end to which He has predestined it, by means of law and discourse and indoctrination. This teaching by discourse and Jaw as effected by God is called moral light, which is simply metaphysical light itself enlightening the mind by discourse, that is, by the exercise of speech and reason, and regulating the will and activity of the soul in agreement with the end and destiny received from God, by law, that is, by the exercise of principles of conduct. To this moral light is opposed moral darkness, which, through false discourse contrary to the discourse of God, promises to take the soul very quickly to the knowledge of all things and the deification it desires.

The original knowledge of consciousness grows and progresses by means of moral light, by means of God’s discourse and law; and it is only by being taught and disciplined until the end by God that the soul arrives at the end of deification, which it desires in the beginning, because it has been thereto predestined by it Creator. The all-wise Teacher demands nothing of the ignorant pupil other than unhesitating belief in the words it hears from Him, and voluntary obedience to His law, and prompt execution of His every command. But if the ignorant pupil, having heard from moral darkness the false discourse and having failed to beware, takes it for true and acts accordingly, with the intention of becoming like a god knowing good and evil, it cannot avoid missing its proper destiny, and will unavoidably be deprived of the blessings of the life of light, falling into the clutches of death and into the evils of moral darkness. It was from such a sin on the part of the first human beings, who put their trust in the false discourse of the Devil and transgressed the law of God, the transgression whereof menaced them beforehand with death – it was from such a sin that death originally supervened and there resulted all the evils in which the whole human race has been unhappily and painfully enmeshed from the beginning. To combat the captain of sin and to remove death and all evils the Son of God came into the world, becoming the Son of man and being named Jesus Christ, God and Lord, and being able to deify every man that believes in Him and who keeps His law and His commandments.

Jesus Christ is the Sun and the great luminary of moral day. The Devil, on the other hand, is the great moral darkness and the cause of moral night. Those who are enlightened by Christ live in the light of moral day, and proceed safely in the direction of the destiny that is theirs, to deification, that is. Those, on the other hand, who are darkened and blinded by the Devil live in the darkness of moral night and are finally hurled down into the Tartarus of everlasting darkness, experiencing therein an endless tribulation and agony. Those who are enlightened by Christ and lead the good life in the light of moral day see those who are living wrongly in the darkness of moral night and going to perdition, and they pity them and have mercy on them, and out of philanthropy they hasten to save them from the evils of darkness by imparting to them the saving enlightenment from Christ. But the Devil, the ruler of moral darkness, does not remain idle, either, when his authority is being combated and overthrown. He defends himself and fights back with all his might against those who wage war upon his work. He has a powerful weapon with which to oppose moral light in science falsely so called, by means whereof he deceives and blinds the heedless and foolish, representing to them darkness as light, and light as, darkness. To refute this so-called science and to abolish the evils it causes by blinding and darkening and slaying multitudes of human beings, there has been begotten of Christ, the professor and teacher, this human triluminal science which enlightens and saves the men deluded by false science. Just as the physical darkness of night disappears and vanishes in the presence of light and of the great luminary of day, so the moral darkness of moral night and obfuscatory science disappear in the presence of the three lights of triluminal science. A mind that has been illuminated by triluminal science and surveys the universe soundly and can explain everything logically and scientifically, cannot possibly be obfuscated and deluded by the fallacies and parologisms of Satan-begotten pseudo-science. The lights of the three days remove the evils of the three nights, and especially the great evils of moral darkness and of moral night, and bring with them the blessings of the kingdom of God; they bring the civilization of the Great King, of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the power for ever and ever. In the civilization resides the life of righteousness and of peace among men, being full of joy and unmixed with affliction and sorrow and agony. Be glad, therefore, O peoples, and rejoice. But let the people first be glad in whom Triluminal Science dawned to enlighten it and to exalt and glorify and save it for ever.