THE ORGANIZED IMAGE
“We have been considering the expression of the creative image in its material and earth-mind manifestation – a manifestation which had its beginning when man was formed. But the image in its expression by no means stops here – this is but its beginnings. In order that there may be an organism capable of expressing Divinity, there must be an aggregation of such individual bodies. As the apostle has stated in the foregoing quotation, there must be the bringing together of a Body of people whose minds have sufficiently developed to realize something of their Source and to desire to come into perfect unison, oneness, with the Mind and Will, that formed them.
Man, as we find him at the beginning of this the Twentieth Century, has his whole interest, desire and thought centered upon self – me and mine. Thus, he is held as a part separated from the Grand Body, the Body of Humanity. As the animal world, he is struggling with his fellows, fighting for his own supremacy. Consequently, labor, sorrow, and death, appear on every side, arising from the same cause which produces disease in the individual body, namely, every organ is out of harmony with the body general. Therefore, the whole body of humanity is diseased from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, every organ and function warring against the other members and against the fountains of immortality – the Source of Being.
Thus, death reigns supreme and will so reign until the formation of the Body of the Christ, vaguely referred to in the quotation from Paul. Each individual is not in himself an organ or function of the Body of humanity. Were this true, the race would be constituted of but twelve individuals. On the contrary, each individual is but a molecule in the Grand Body, and each of these molecules finds its place in its own function, and thus the body is formed of a multitude of members.
All living bodies are composed of an aggregation of molecules, each a living organism with a separate, yet united consciousness, but governed by a common law of attraction which causes it to unite, become one with the general body. Now the body of the individual man, constructed of these molecules becomes in turn, a molecule in a greater and grander aggregation which is called in Revelation, “the Body of the Christ.” The question arises here: How can there be an aggregation of men and women so united as to constitute one body, a united whole? Such a condition would certainly be a normal one in view of the constitution of the race, but a survey of the plane next beyond us answers the question more fully.
The indications to which we refer – active upon the plane next beyond the masses – are these: Here and there scattered through the world are men and women who have reached a degree of sensitiveness that enables them to feel the mental state of a person as soon as they come in contact with him, and immediately there arises within them a feeling either of attraction or repulsion – a loving sympathy or a painful impression of something poisonous to their nature. This is but the beginning, an anticipating of a plane of existence which must necessarily obtain in the order of progressive unfoldment and refinement of the race.
Earth’s greatest teacher used the vine as a symbol of the formation of this body: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. … If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered.”
The apostle takes up the thought expressed in this quotation and speaks of the wild olive-branch being grafted upon the fruitful tree, and God through the prophet uses like symbolism. Not to multiply words, but that we may at once get at the central thought, we ask you to bear this symbolism in mind. The methods of being grafted into the true vine are referred to by the Christ in John 15:1.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 