he world. Every birth is just as wonderful as a virgin
birth could possibly be, and just as much a direct act of
God. A supernatural conception bears no relation whatever to
the moral and spiritual worth of the person who is supposed
to enter the world in this abnormal way.... Those who insist
on the doctrine will find themselves in danger of proving
too much, for pressed to its logical conclusion, it removes
Jesus altogether from the category of humanity in any real
sense."

Let us trust that these Higher Critics may become informed upon the
truths of the Occult Teachings, which supply the Missing Key, and
afford the Reconciliation, and which show how and why Jesus is, in all
and very truth, THE SON OF GOD, begotten and not created, of one
substance from the Father--a particle of Purest Spirit fresh from the
Ocean of Spirit, and free from the Karma of past Incarnations--how He
was human and yet more than human.

In our next lesson we shall take up the narrative of the secret life
of Jesus from the time of his appearance, as a child at the Temple,
among the Elders, until when at the age of thirty years he appeared at
the scene of the ministry of John the Baptist, and began his own brief
ministry of three years which was closed by the Crucifixion and
Ascension. This is a phase of the subject of intense interest, and
startling nature, because of the lack of knowledge of the occult
traditions on the part of the general public.

THE THIRD LESSON.

THE MYSTIC YOUTH OF JESUS.

In our last lesson we promised to tell you the esoteric story of the
youth of Jesus. And there is such a story to tell, although the
churches know little or nothing about it. The churches have nothing
but the husks that have always been the property of the masses. The
real kernels of truth have been possessed by but the few elect ones.
The legends of the mystic brotherhoods and occult orders have
preserved the story intact, and you shall now be given the essence of
the mystic legends and traditions.

At the end of our first lesson we left Joseph, Mary and the infant
Jesus in Egypt, the land to which they had flown to escape the wrath
of the tyrant Herod. They dwelt in Egypt for a few years, until the
death of Herod. Then Joseph retraced his steps, and returned toward
his own country, bringing with him his wife and the babe. For some
reasons unknown to those familiar with the legends and tradition