hrist
ascended to heaven and sat on the right hand of the Father is to declare
one's faith that his responsible work in the spiritual realm continues."

"And the Atonement? doesn't that imply a sacrifice of propitiation?"

"Atonement may be pronounced At-one-ment," Hodder replied. "The old
idea, illustrated by a reference to the sacrifice of the ancients, fails
to convey the truth to modern minds. And moreover, as I have inferred,
these matters had to be conveyed in symbols until mankind were prepared
to grasp the underlying spiritual truths which Christ sought to convey.
Orthodox Christianity has been so profoundly affected by the ancient
Jewish religion that the conception of God as wrathful and jealous--a God
wholly outside--has persisted to our times. The Atonement means union
with the Spirit of the Universe through vicarious suffering, and
experience teaches us that our own sufferings are of no account unless
they be for a cause, for the furtherance of the design of the beneficent
Spirit which is continually at work. Christ may be said to have died for
humanity because he had to suffer death itself in order to reveal the
complete meaning of life. You once spoke to me about the sense of sin
--of being unable to feel it."

She glanced at him quickly, but did not speak.

"There is a theory concerning this," he continued, "which has undoubtedly
helped many people, and which may be found in the writings of certain
modern psychologists. It is that we have a conscious, or lower, human
self, and a subconscious, or better self. This subconscious self
stretches down, as it were, into the depths of the universe and taps the
source of spiritual power. And it is through the subconscious self that
every man is potentially divine. Potentially, because the conscious self
has to reach out by an effort of the will to effect this union with the
spiritual in the subconscious, and when it is effected, it comes from the
response of the subconscious. Apparently from without, as a gift, and
therefore, in theological language, it is called grace. This is what is
meant by being born again, the incarnation of the Spirit in the
conscious, or human. The two selves are no longer divided, and the
higher self assumes control,--takes the reins, so to speak.

"It is interesting, as a theory. And the fact that it has been seriously
combated by writers who deny such a function of the subconscious does not
at all affect the reality of the experien