“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:5
“So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory.” John 1:14[1]
Divine “Mind … may be transmuted, from state to state; degree to degree; condition to condition; pole to pole; vibration to vibration.”[2]
“God never appears the same way twice.” Jim Jones[3]
Orthodox New Thought axiom holds that God is Universal Mind or universal ultimate intelligence, according to New Thought writer, H. Emilie Cady.[4] Orthodox New Thought teaches that God, Divine Mind or principle is within each individual.[5]
Not only did Father Jehovia, Father Divine and Jim Jones agree with this axiom, they also taught that the Divine Mind in its highest expression could be – and was – incarnated, reincarnated and transmuted and embodied, in actuality, in a particular human form or body and that they were, individually and respectively, that special individual. In other words, each was God (Ultimate Divine Mind or Principle) in a Body who had come or was transmuted among humanity to bring the potential God in each individual into the actual reality of God (Divine Mind) in each of them.[6] The reality that these incarnated divine minds came to bring and to manifest was a non-sexist, non-racist, non-classist, communal utopia. These utopias are known to history as the Fairmount Avenue Sect, the Peace Mission Movement and Peoples Temple respectively.
The doctrine of the transmutation of the Universal Divine Mind or God in the teachings of the heterodox metaphysical New Thought cult of Father Jehovia, Father Divine and Jim Jones is evident in its doctrine of the incarnation of God.[7] It followed, then, that they as such were the focus for divinity and salvation among humanity. This defining doctrine separated their school from all other competing schools of New Thought and other religions.
The doctrine of the transmutation of the Divine Mind mind had its theological and philosophical origin in the science of Hermeticism, which is in turn a core component of New Thought, New Age and esoteric Christian teachings.[8]
Notes
[1] New Living Translation (2007)
[2] www.hermeticsource.info/3-mental-transmutation.html (Editor’s note: This URL was defunct in 2018).
[3] Jim Jones, The Letter Killeth.
[4] H. Emilie Cady, “God is Principle” (Lessons in Truth).
[5] For God as Universal Mind or universal ultimate intelligence, see Mind Your Reality. “New Thought practitioners believe there exists one God—an omnipresent Universal Mind or creative intelligence. It is a principle (not a being), an impersonal force that manifests itself personally, perfectly, and equally within all.”
[6] On Father Divine: “Condescendingly I came as an existing Spirit unembodied, until condescendingly inputting MYSELF in a Bodily form in the likeness of men I came, that I might speak to them in their own language, coming to a country that is supposed to be the Country of the Free, where mankind is privileged to serve GOD according to the dictates of his own conscience… establishing the Kingdom of GOD in the midst of them; that they might become to be living epistles as individuals, seen and read of men, and verifying what has long been said: “The tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and God Himself shall be with them, and shall be their God, and they shall be his people.” Doctrine of Father Divine, and quoted in Peace Mission Movement p. 62, Mrs. S. A. Divine, 1985 and God, Harlem, U.S.A. p. 178, Jill Watts, 1992.
On Jim Jones: “Truth is still in the Bible, but a prophet is needed to make it clear . . . There is a prophet in our day who unquestioningly proves that he is sent from God. He has all the gifts of the spirit as given in the Bible: Word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues and interpretation of tongues. (See I Cor. 12:8-10). We must have a prophet who is living the Christ life to direct us in this hour . . .I have come to make God real in the lives of people. My only desire is to establish the great work of Jesus Christ on our troubled globe . . . God and Jesus are as reincarnatable as a child’s smile. Matthew 25 says when you feed a hungry person or clothes a naked child you have been doing it directly to Jesus Himself. Let me bring to your remembrance that after Jesus left the Body in the Sonship degree, not even those who had lived and worked with him for four years recognized the very same Jesus when he appeared in a different likeness on the road as His followers departed from the tomb. Imagine! They thought they had been speaking with a gardener. Can you not see the mystery? God never appears the same way twice.” From “Jim Jones of Jonestown.”
[7] On the doctrine of the Transmutation of God (Divine Mind): See http://www.infiniteplaythemovie.com/Kybalion_MENTAL_TRANSMUTATION.aspx (Editor’s note: This URL was defunct in 2018) and Cosmic LAWS – GOD’s Order.
On Father Divine and the doctrine of the Transmutation of God (Divine Mind) “Father Divine’s definition of God became quite celebrated at the time because of its unusual use of language: ‘God is not only personified and materialized. He is repersonified and rematerialized. He rematerialized and He rematerialates. He rematerialates and He is rematerializatable. He repersonificates and He repersonifitizes.’” Doctrine of Father Divine.
On Jim Jones, the doctrine of the Transmutation of God (Divine Mind): “God and Jesus are as reincarnatable as a child’s smile… God is Love, therefore whoever reincarnates love more fully should be followed: As Paul the apostle related in yesteryear, follow me as I follow Christ.” The Letter Killeth, by Jim Jones. Also “Jim Jones of Jonestown”.
Another example of the doctrine of the transmutation of divine mind or spirit in the Peace Mission, the transmutation or reincarnation of an elderly Black woman, Peninnah Divine – Father Divine’s first wife and the first Mother Divine – into the 18-year-old body of Edna Rose Ritchings, a Caucasian. Ritchings became the new Mrs. Divine and was so acknowledged with Father Divine’s announcement in 1946 that his second wife was the reincarnation of Mother Divine.
The same rationale was active in Jim Jones’ declaration that he was Father Divine reincarnated. Father Divine did not deny that Jim Jones was his reincarnation or successor, but he did not make any practical plans to implement him as such either.
Edna Rose, a beneficiary of the Divinite teaching on the transmutation of divinity, was challenged by Jim Joneses assertions and vehemently opposed the transmutation teaching as applicable to him as her husband’s reincarnation. For more on this see The Three Virtual Intentional Communities Of God In A Body In Real Time (1868-2008), “Ever Faithful”: The contest between Mother Divine, Jim Jones and their followers for supremacy in faithfulness to the Cause and Wives of God, Mothers of the Faithful: Edna Rose Baker and Marceline Jones as Mothers Divine.
[8] On Hermeticism see Wikipedia.