In respect to the efficacy of baptism, widely differing views have long obtained. In both the Roman and the Greek Catholic Communion, baptism is a sacrament essential to salvation, whereas, to certain other confessedly Christian denominations, it is only a symbol, and of itself non-effective. Between these extremes there is an intermediate but little-known view which we would present in a brief way, since thorough explanation would require our delving deep into matters revealable only during initiation into a certain Lodge degree.

As now understood and practiced, baptism does not ante-date the days of John the Proclaimer of the Messianic Age. Jesus himself was baptised by John, thus showing ordinary baptism to be the first and necessary part of a double process. Of the second and more vital process John said: "he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." So much as preliminary; and now let us hint at certain forces which, because of baptism, become operative on the hidden side of things.

As used by John, water corresponded with the purified principle of personal will proper to the violet planet, the whereabouts of which remains a secret in the custody of the Initiates until the time when that astral sphere shall be visible to at least the worthier portion of the human race. Concerning the orbit of the invisible planet, let a hint suffice. Its aura to some considerable extent penetrates that of our own seven-fold globe.

When the regent-ship of Jehovah ended, and Earth's rightful ruler came into his own, the violet planet ceased not its aid to this world, but were it not for certain requirements complied with, that aid henceforth would be far less direct and discoverable. That aid was to man's personal will during the difficult task of its purification.

Baptism is an occult ceremony affecting the human personal will; in fact it is a direct appeal to the Luna Chohans for the special aid that, because of certain laws which are indeed basis, these great beings must render. In infant baptism the appeal is made by the child's sponsors; and in adult baptism it is made by the individual himself. In either case, this appeal is from the Ego; consequently the outer personality is ignorant of the matter.

Even as John announced, Jesus, the Christ, came to baptise with fire; again an occult ceremony, but operative on the human spiritual will, since it is an appeal to the sublime Jovian Hierarchy, the highest in the planetary worlds. Because the Master had not as yet received that greater baptism which only he could give to others, he delegated to his disciples the preliminary water baptism of his converts. This fiery baptism, which never before was bestowed on any of our race, began in the Garden, and was finished on Calvary.

Evidently the Baptism of Fire received by certain of the Christian martyrs, and which, in her excessive zeal for the salvation of heretics, Mother Church forced upon them, is not the one proclaimed by John. When the personal will of the Master Jesus became wholly harmonized with its spiritual other, and consequently his principle of earthly desire was brought to at-one-ment with that polar opposite his buddhic principle of Divine Love, he became the great High Priest empowered to bestow on all worthy ones the fiery baptism; not as a seal of their perfection, but rather as the surety that eventually they would attain the similitude of the Christ body; one deathless, though laid in the tomb. As elsewhere we have said, since he was way-shower to the human race, the attainment of that body by Jesus was the sacred, secret, and central object of his life on earth, for, to paraphrase Paul's teaching: As in the Adamic body all die, so in the Christ body shall all be made alive. For mankind the means necessary to attainment are many. Thus far we have touched upon two, the Eucharist, and Baptism. For the first of these see "Arcane Science," p. 75.

Of John, the Master uttered the enigmatic words: "Among men that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Evidently an explanation of the words: "the kingdom of heaven" would throw much light on this dark saying. We teach that this "kingdom" is to be established on the earth, and in the New Jerusalem which the Revelator saw coming down from God out of Heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Entrance into the city whose length and breadth and heighth are equal, in fact the cubical city, is for the elect only, the twelve times twelve thousand; in other words the square, or, to speak plainer, those who will fill the length and breadth of the city. Baptism by water and afterward by fire, are necessary preliminaries to citizenship. As John had not then received the fiery baptism, he was less than the least among the one hundred forty and four thousand visioned by the Revelator.

H.