Explaining the 'Second Coming'

 

The first article in the January 1973 issue of The A.R.E. Journal is "The Second Coming" by Cora Scott.  The A.R.E. Journal was published by the organization founded by Edgar Cayce in 1931, the Association for Research and Enlightenment.  Some years ago, I was able to obtain a collection of issues of The A.R.E. Journal and noticed Scott's analysis of "The Second Coming" among them.  The article offers an example of how a researcher of the Edgar Cayce channeled readings interpreted the transcendental communication pertaining to the Second Coming.  The readings are also the topic of the preceding blog article. 

Here is the beginning of Cora Scott's article "The Second Coming."

In 1944, Edgar Cayce gave the following reading for a fifty-three-year-old woman:

For He will one day come again, and thou shalt see Him as He is, even as thou has seen in thy early sojourns the glory of the day of the triumphal entry and the day of the Crucifixion, and as ye also heard the angels proclaim, "As ye have seen Him go, so will ye see Him come again."  Thou wilt be among those in the earth when He comes again.  3615-1

This is a remarkable statement, for it appears to say quite clearly that the Christ will return, as the New Testament has promised, and that He will do so within this century.

The tendency today is to regard much that is contained in the Bible as symbolic only, and this may be all to the good, since a too literal interpretation has in the past led to many undesirable excesses.  Human thinking tends to go to extremes — either the Bible is literal truth or it is entirely metaphorical.  But why must we accept either of these standpoints?  It seems likely that the Bible is in some cases symbolic and in others literal. It is possible that the prophecy of the Return was literally true.

That is to say, the Second Coming may not be only a metaphor for the attaining of the Christ Consciousness in individual seekers here and there, as some take it to mean, but a literal and factual approach toward humanity by the living Christ spirit at a definite point in time.  The readings indicate that this may be so:

. . . as has been promised through the prophets and sages of old, the time - and half time - has been and is being fulfilled in this day and generation, and . . . soon there will again appear in the earth that one through whom many will be called to meet those that are preparing the way for His day in the earth. The Lord, then, will come, "even as ye have seen him go."  262-49

The readings further indicate that this is not an isolated occurrence:

For time never was when there was not a Christ and not a Christ mass . . . Know this had no beginning in the 1900 years ago, but again and Again and AGAIN!  262-103

Thus, while the testimony of countless seekers through the centuries gives evidence to the fact that the Christ can be approached and reached at any time by those willing to pay the price, it seems as if there are definite times when He Himself makes the approach for a specific purpose.  What is this purpose?

Then, He has come in all ages when it has been necessary for the understanding to be centered in a new application of the same thought, "God is Spirit and seeks such to worship him in spirit and in truth!"  5749-5

In all of the great religious faiths the belief in a Saviour of man who is to come can be found. It is perhaps most clearly stated in the Bhagavad Gita: "Whenever there is a withering of the law and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides, then I manifest Myself.  For the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of such as do evil, for the firm establishing of the Law, I come to birth age after age."  (Chap. 4:7-8)  For some it is the Messiah whose appearance is expected, for others it is the Imam Mahdi or Maitreya.  Perhaps these are all names for one great Being, called by Christians the Christ.  The significant point is that many people of all faiths have believed in a divine mediator, an Elder Brother of the race, who will come to aid them when they wander in darkness, when they stray off course and need to be reminded of their true destination.  It begins to look like a great Plan by which humanity is to be led back to its spiritual Source.  We have never been abandoned by God, as some complain.  Only, sunk in materiality and in self-ness, we ourselves have created a dense smoke screen by means of which His face is hidden from us.

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As this blog has profiled a variety of cases of transcendental communication, people in an ascended state of existence are known to sometimes acknowledge the necessity of stating aspects of metaphysics on a metaphorical basis due to the beliefs and limited knowledge of humans on Earth.  The records of this communication—including the Edgar Cayce channeled reading transcripts—correlate with my own perspective of 'Christed ones' throughout the ages.  This perspective was influenced by the surprising circumstances of my 'spiritual awakening' chronicled at testament.org. 

My first awareness of the work of Edgar Cayce occurred during the period in which Cora Scott's article was written.  In 1973 I was a high school student and around this time noticed at paperback bookstores the series of books about Edgar Cayce with a cover photograph of the famous clairvoyant showing him with an inquisitive stance.  The books seemed of a predominantly analytical and intellectual nature and as a teenager I was instead looking for more clearly defined evidence of 'paranormal phenomena' — a subject I've been studying throughout my life.  There had been a strange experience when I was around five years old and heard an unseen speaker calling my name one morning.  Throughout the 1970s and '80s as I began my career and continued my education, I remember viewing a few brief television documentaries about Edgar Cayce.  It was in 1995 following my experiences in Oklahoma that I decided to read biographical books about Cayce's life (1877-1945) to learn more about him and his work. 

My unexpected spiritual awakening to what Scott called "the living Christ spirit" resulted from recalling symbolic incidents in my life (including two mysterious occurrences of burning bushes outside my home) that I considered soon after my trip in the summer of 1995 to investigate what had been described as a 'talking poltergeist' haunting in rural Oklahoma.  Upon my return to Los Angeles, I found the paranormal manifestations continuing to occur in my presence.  These events are chronicled in the case study Testament (1997).  After realizing that the central manifesting entity known as 'Michael' in Oklahoma could only be the biblical Archangel, it was channeled to me through a startled friend that I should have the pen name 'Mark Russell Bell' as I involved myself in documenting my experiences.  

As I attempted to research my strange predicament, I learned from Zecharia Sitchin's book The Wars of Gods and Men (1985) that clay tablets found in the ruins of Ashur and Nineveh, the ancient Assyrian capitals, presented information about a man referred to as 'Bel-Marduk.'  Sitchin reported that the tablets had been interpreted in 1921 as offering "a pre-Christian Mysterium dealing with the death and resurrection of a god, and thus an earlier Christ tale."

The ancient events chronicled on the clay tablets involved Marduk or Bel ("The Lord") and there is a description of "Bel, who was confined in The Mountain."  Sitchin explained the reasons he believed that this mountain was Egypt's Great Pyramid and wrote about finding "similarities between the Babylonian Marduk and the Egyptian God Ra" (and Amen-Ra or spelled as Ammon/Amon/Amun).  Throughout his books, Sitchin attempted to make sense of ancient inscriptions and scriptures showing correlations between ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian pantheons.  The following year, Sitchin continued to investigate this topic in a new book The Cosmic Code and wrote: "Sentenced to exile, Ra/Marduk became Amen-Ra, the unseen god." 

Upon reading the passages about Bel-Marduk in 1995, there was an immediate identification with 'The Mountain' in my own life as I had worked as a publicity writer for Paramount Pictures in Hollywood for seven years.  The studio's logo—a familiar one to moviegoers—is a mountain.  Ironically, some of the storylines of movies I'd helped publicize were metaphysical, including "Ghost" (the afterlife), "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (religious archaeology), "Dead Again" (reincarnation), "Fire In The Sky" (UFOlogy), "The Butcher's Wife" (psychic ability), "Scrooged" (visitors from the ascended realm), "Star Trek" movies (life in outer space), and a reissue of "The Ten Commandments" (divine guidance), to name a few.

Soon after learning about 'Bel-Marduk,' I found what was apparently a replica of an ancient Egyptian medallion at an antique store near my home that showed a profile of someone who looked just like me. 

Although I had estimated Bel-Marduk to be some manner of priest, the medallion led me to further perceive Bel-Marduk as belonging to a royal lineage and apparently one of the ancient 'god-kings.'

The following excerpts from the Edgar Cayce channeled reading transcripts provide an example of parallels with the Sitchin passages about Bel-Marduk and Amen-Ra.

From Text of Channeled Reading 294-151 (July 29, 1932)

7. Then began what may be truly termed the first national or nation spirit of a peoples; for with the divisions, rather than this causing a dispersing of ideals or a dividing up of interests, it centralized the interests; for these were being guided by a ruler or king whose authority was not questioned any more, nor were the advisings of the priest questioned, who was acting in rather the capacity of preparing for this very spirit to manifest itself in the way of the national emblems, the national ideas, that stood for the varied activities of not only individuals or groups, but for the general masses.  Hence there began the first preparation for what has later become that called The Great Pyramid, that was to be the presentation of that which had been gained by these peoples through the activities of Ra-Ta, who now was known as Ra . . .

9. Then began the laying out of the pyramid and the building of same, the using of those forces that made for the activity of bringing then from those very mountains where there had been those places of refuge that which had been begun to establish these, not only into that which would remain as the place for receiving that which had been offered in the Temple Beautiful on the various altars of the activities of an individual's innate self, but to be the place of initiation of the initiates that were to act in the capacity of leaders in the various activities through this period.  This building, as we find, lasted for a period of what is termed now as one hundred years.  It was formed according to that which had been worked out by Ra-Ta in the mount as related to the position of the various stars, that acted in the place about which this particular solar system circles in its activity, going towards what?  That same name as to which the priest was banished - the constellation of Libra, or to Libya were these people sent.  It is not fitting, then, that these must return? as this priest may develop himself to be in that position, to be in the capacity of a liberator of the world in its relationships to individuals in those periods to come; for he must enter again at that period, or in 1998.

From Text of Channeled Reading 294-152 (July 29, 1932)

1. EC: Yes, we have the information that has been given.  With the building of that memorial, there were the developments in many - or every - other line of human experience and development.  These were the natural development if the ideal that was held by the entity Ra-Ta from the beginning, for these were man's relationship to his Maker, man's relationship to his fellow man.

4. Also there were then with those of Ra born other children, that were to rise in their various capacities, that their activities would be carried on.  With this again brought contentions among the civil and political factions of the land.  This again brought the disturbing forces in Ra, and there came then that period when all the pyramid or memorial was complete, that he, Ra, ascended into the mount and was borne away.

My bizarre yet in no way exaggerated assortment of life experiences resulted with my noticing patterns of the word 'bell' and the name 'Michael' throughout the annals of cases of unexplained phenomena (as mentioned in previous blog articles).

In 1995 I realized that a Christ Force revealing a Spiritual Oneness to a seeker of wisdom was not only something read about in scriptures associated with religious traditions, this had happened to me and I was able to chronicle the circumstances with verbatim journal and interview transcripts in a documentary style in Testament.

A 1997 press release publicizing Testament included the following commentary:

"God has revealed secrets of life to me in a chronology of events that aren't without humor, irony and occasional moments of terror and awe," remarks Bell.  "The Spiritual Force has found me a receptive channel — as it previously has not only Jesus and Buddha yet also such little-understood people as Madame Blavatsky and Edgar Cayce.  You might say I've been appointed your master of ceremonies for a day of expanded consciousness.  The word 'paranormal' has just become obsolete."

More information is available at testament.org.