In respect to the Word made flesh, let us consider the most esoteric teaching thus far imparted by the White Lodge. While not the Supreme, the Christos is yet the means by which Divine Will, Love, and Wisdom, those attributes of the Supreme, make themselves apprehensible to beings successively lower in the scale of creation. The Christos may be compared to the sun's reflection in a calm lake. In respect to the manifestation of the Christos perceived by the most exalted beings, the comparison is very inadequate; but when the Divine Glory reaches our lowly earth, or, as Swedenborg says: "when passing through the heavens to this world, the Word is accommodated to angels and men," reflections of reflections have become dimmer and dimmer. This result is necessary to man's comprehension of the Divine, since whatsoever transcends his feeble powers is of non-effect.

Because of all men the most fit, Jesus received the Divine Likeness proper to this world; one nevertheless too glorious for men to perceive except through his eyes; that is, through his teachings. Because in its original manifestation, the Word is God to the most exalted beings, so to each lower rank the manifestation of the Word is also God. Were it otherwise, men could never know Him as he is; but because of the method adopted by Divine Wisdom, men through the Word may progress to higher and higher concepts of Him. Thus the idea of God proper to this day is in advance of that revealed through Moses.

Concerning the second coming of the Word, Jesus gave a definite promise which we contend has not yet been fulfilled. Swedenborg taught that the Church of the New Jerusalem is that second coming; an incorporeal descent of the Word.

A result of his teaching, one of which the Swedish seer never dreamed, is that to no little extent, certain later teachers were encouraged to make similar claims for their own doctrines. On the other hand, the orthodox Christian looks for a visible descent of the Lord as final Judge, and separator of the sheep from the goats.

Concerning the Word, which according to Swedenborg, signifies Divine Truth, or Divine Wisdom, he thought its incarnation in Judea an event unique in the world's history; whereas, the Wisdom Religion requires periodical descents of the Word in what have been, and what again shall be, minor and major Avatars. Those first mentioned are comparable to the moon during its quarterings, while the major Avatars are like the moon at its full.

Swedenborg's belief that both, internally and externally, man was created in the image of God, is in accord with the esoteric statement of the Wisdom Religion; but its unveiled teaching declares that as primeval man became more and more immersed in matter, his external form steadily changed from that of the Word, or Christos, which may be conceived of as a luminous sphere. To this sphere, man's higher bodies even now bear more or less resemblance. As for the Grand Man, of Swedenborg, or the Adam Kadmon of the Kaballa, if possibly he resemble the human physical shape, it is because he has not yet evolved to the all-inclusive Kosmic Sphere; a form beyond human conception since its center is everywhere. That our solar system is a sphere, or nearly that, is indicated by the orbit of Neptune, and that of at least one planet beyond. The Wisdom Religion holds every creature, man, world, and sun, to be a manifestation of the Word; hence these all tend toward their ideal forms.

In its aspect as audible sound, the Word, as understood by the Wisdom Religion, is not a body of spoken doctrines, but rather that which can compress into a few syllables the idea of the creation, preservation, and final dissolution of worlds, even as, according to Swedenborg, the angels can give in a few words the contents of an entire book. The outer syllables of the Word are only its shell; but, as one rises in the scale of being, he attains to more and more interior correspondences of the outer until, finally, the uttered or mentally expressed syllables make known to him the Archetypal Idea, and its unfolding as existant in the Divine Mind.

Swedenborg's statement that every earth of our solar system, and even the moon, holds a humanity in the human form, can be molded into harmony with our very esoteric instructions touching this matter. These reveal that this earth, as the basis of the seven-fold solar scheme, is the only abode of physical man, and that in planets successively higher, the true human form, because more and more removed from terrestrial matter, has been less and less deviated from. As for the moon, the visible orb is but the discarded shell of an invisible planet where abide certain highly-evolved beings.

The statement that "All spirits and angels are from the human race, and these are near their respective earths," quite agrees with our teachings; but disagreement begins when Swedenborg declares that from such angels he had learned much concerning the peoples of many worlds, some of which lay beyond the limits of the solar system. Because our philosophy shows that at the confines of the solar system is a "Ring pass not," we class the above statement with that of Mahomet who supposed himself to have been caught up to the seventh heaven, there to meet face to face with the Supreme Being.

Most decidedly do we dispute the statement that other worlds, though having physical humanities, are ignorant not only of the arts enumerated by Swedenborg, but even of writing and printing. According to him, the first of these is used in the celestial and the spiritual heavens, but in a spiritual style which consists of mere letters, each of which involves some meaning. We would not contend for such arts in other worlds, had Swedenborg not found them to be missing on the physical planes of those worlds. On the super-physical planes of the higher planets where, as we teach, their humanities abide even as do men on our solid earth, the means of universal enlightenment differ from any obtaining here, and in a way almost unbelievable by terrestrial beings.