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THE most important book in the Bible for you to study now, and that most nearly about to be fulfilled, is one of the most mystic books in the Old Testament, the book of Esther.
This book is a mystic prophecy, written in the form of an actual history. If I give you the key, the clue of the thread
of it, it will be! the easiest thing in the world to unravel the whole.
The great King Assuerus, who had all the world under his dominion, and possessed the wealth of all the nations, is the genius of the age.
Queen Vasthi, who for her disobedience to the king was deposed from her royal seat, is the orthodox Catholic Church.
The Jews, scattered among the nations under the dominion of the king, are the true Israel of God.
Mardochi the Jew represents the spirit of intuitive reason and understanding.
His enemy Aman is the spirit of materialism, taken into the favour and protection of the genius of the age, and exalted to the highest place in the world's councils after the deposition of the orthodox religion.
Now Aman has a wife and ten sons.
Esther--who, under the care and tuition of Mardochi, is brought up pure and virgin--is that spirit of love and sympathetic interpretation which shall redeem the world.
I have told you that it shall be redeemed by a "woman."
Now the several philosophical systems by which the councillors of the age propose to replace the dethroned Church are one by one submitted to the judgment of the age; and Esther, coming last, shall find favour.
Six years shall she be anointed with oil of myrrh, that is, with study and training severe and bitter, that she may be proficient in intellectual knowledge, as must all systems which seek the favour of the age.
And six years with sweet perfumes, that is, with the gracious loveliness of the imagery and poetry of the faiths of the past, that religion may not be lacking in sweetness and beauty.
But she shall not seek to put on any of those adornments of dogma, or of mere sense, which, by trick of priestcraft, former systems have used to gain power or favour with the world and the age, and for which they have been found wanting.
Now there come out of the darkness and the storm which shall arise upon the earth, two dragons. 1
And they fight and tear each other, until there arises a star, a fountain of light, a queen, who is Esther.
I have given you the key. Unlock the meaning of all that is written.
I do not tell you if in the history of the past these voices had part in the world of men.
If they had, guess now who were Mardochi and Esther.
But I tell you that which shall be in the days about to come. 1
20:2 Paris, Easter Sunday, 1880. Repeated from dictation heard interiorly while in trance. E. M.
Referred to in Life of Anna Kingsford, Vol. i, pp. 352-354. See also Vol. ii, p. 268.
21:1 The two dragons are materialism and superstition (see Preface to First Edition, p. xxiv).
22:1 The name Esther--which is one with Easter--denotes a star, or fountain of light, a dawn or rising. The feast of Purim, instituted in token of the deliverance wrought through Esther, coincides in date with Easter, In the Protestant Bible the later portion of the Book of Esther is placed in the Apocrypha. The spelling followed is that of the Douay version. The penultimate sentence obviously refers to the work in which we were engaged, but not necessarily to the workers themselves. E. M.