DAY 3
CHAPTER 8
Appurtenances
Gary Ra uses the word appurtenances 18 different times during the contact. Wikipedia says “appurtenances are things that belong to and go with something else, the appurtenance being less significant than what it belongs to.”1
Ra describes appurtenances that play an important role in the psychological, mechanical, magical, and metaphysical aspects of maintaining the contact. In 2.6, Ra names the appurtenances and instructs the questioner to (numbers added):
1. Place at the entity’s head a virgin chalice of water. 2. To the center, the book most closely aligned with the instrument’s mental distortions which are allied most closely with the Law of One, that being the Bible that she touches most frequently. 3. To the other side of the Bible, a small amount of cense, or incense, in a virgin censer. 4. To the rear of the book symbolizing One, opened to the Gospel of John, Chapter One, a white candle. 2.6
What was the history of these particular items?
Carla They’re really part of my Episcopalian heritage. All these items are either on the altar or part of the service. Also, interestingly enough, white magic uses all of these. For instance, the word virgin is taken from magic, meaning unused or never used before. We were so lucky there because my Aunt Tot, Don’s aunt, had just given me a chalice, a silver chalice—well, it looked like silver—for Christmas. The Ra contact began the third week in January, and I hadn’t used it yet, not even once, so it was completely virgin.
Gary I think that qualifies as synchronicity.
Carla Yeah, and in terms of a candle, it had never been lit—that kind of thing. It doesn’t have any sexual meaning to it; it just means that it’s not been used.
I love being as close to the altar as possible. I dressed the altar every week as being part of the altar guild and while being part of the chancel ministry during the actual service. I loved that work, and I think that the Ra group was using my preferences to make me feel reassured and safe.
Gary Further on Ra talks about the nurturing of the instrument.
Why was the Bible opened to the Gospel of John, Chapter One?
Carla Well, Ra explains it. It was as close as possible to the Law of One: “in the beginning was the Word.” That Word is Logos. Ra uses the word Logos for the one original Thought, which is Love. So if you substitute Love for Logos you get the Christian meaning very closely. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And from that, all things sprung.
That’s the way the gospel begins, and that’s just totally congruent with the Law of One. But it is also my favorite gospel. I love that gospel; it’s absolutely beautiful. Unlike the other gospels, it focuses more on the spiritual aspects and less on, Well, the Tuesday of this week they went here and they did that, and a lot of detail like that. It is more a kind of defense of the faith. It was written later.
Gary So I’ll read Ra’s words in their describing of how it nurtures the instrument:
RA We feel that, though this [placement of the appurtenances] is a complex of activity/circumstance and may seem very distorted from a purposeful teach/learning experience, these elaborations on the technique of trance will ease the mind distortions of those about the instrument as they perceive improvement in the instrument’s distortions with regard to fatigue. 2.6
RA I was referring to the symbolic objects which trigger this instrument’s distortions towards love/light. The placement and loving acceptance of them by all present is important in the nurturing of this instrument. 6.3
RA The careful alignment of these is important for the energizing group in that it is a reminder to that support group that it is time for a working. The ritualistic behaviors are triggers for many energies of the support group. . . . This would not aid another group as it was designed for this particular system of mind/body/spirit complexes and especially the instrument. 61.12
So, you’ve already begun to speak to this point, but I’ll ask this to get a fuller response, if one is available: were you knowingly, consciously comforted, energized, and supported by these appurtenances and their correct configuration?
Carla Oh, yes. When you think of how most belief systems—we’re going more toward religion here, sort of like shoo everything else out the door—most belief systems say this is the right way. Ra was not doing this, but instead they were deliberately bringing in my own distortions in order to help me out in doing the work, and that was tremendously helpful. I was especially impressed with the fact that they let me keep this little metal cross, considering they didn’t want anything metal in the room because that would disturb the fine tuning. But they specifically said that I should keep the cross because it was comforting to me.
They were really trying their best to help me. If you’ll look at the history of channels, a lot of times they don’t care. They get people up out of sleep and say, “Type this book.” That was the way Oahspe was written.2 Not get sleep for 10 years because you’re doing work on this book?
[to cat] Hello Pickwick! This is our little 18-year-old pussycat.
[to Jim and Gary] Where other channeled entities have been known to be less than supportive of the instrument’s human frailties, the Ra group was endlessly supportive.
Gary So it wasn’t just that you felt nurtured due to your personal relationship to these items, but you also felt nurtured by Ra because Ra was encouraging you to use these items.
Carla I felt both of those things very deeply, yes.
Gary Jim, how about you and Don? How did you relate to these appurtenances?
Jim Well, Don aligned them. And I kept them clean. [laughs] I didn’t have a particular relationship to them other than that. They were for the instrument and the comfort of the instrument as she was exiting and entering her body.
Gary In 3.4, Ra explains more specifically how the appurtenances function. They say:
RA We will explain the process by which [the appurtenances] become a significant distortion balancer. The incense acts as an energizer to the physical body of this instrument, signifying its humanity. This is, therefore, a necessity that the wafted smoke is perceived from the same relative angle as the instrument perceives the opened Bible balanced by the lighted candle signifying love/light and light/love and, therefore, give the mental and emotional, shall we call it, distortion complex of this instrument the sight of paradise and peace which it seeks. Thus energized from the lower to the higher, the instrument becomes balanced and does not grow fatigued. 3.4
So, the specific items chosen and their particular arrangement seem a means to communicate, not only to your conscious mind, but to your subconscious mind as well.
Carla Very definitely. Who could consciously be aware of the direction of the wafting of the smoke? That is beyond me.
Gary In the quote I just read Ra begins the final sentence saying, “Thus energized from the lower to the higher . . . “ Do you guys have any idea what that means?
Jim Probably from the mundane to the sacred—the lower energy centers to the higher.
Carla There was always the upward spiraling light, so you’re wanting to let that light spiral up.
Gary Ra spoke to the necessity to maintain the proper alignments of these appurtenances. Sometimes they even mentioned when the appurtenances were off:
RA Remain most fastidious about the alignments of the appurtenances. 71.23
RA We ward you ware of any laxity regarding the arrangement and orientation of appurtenances. 46.18
Then, about 12 sessions into the contact, you began to become aware that there was a deeper reason that Ra stresses the very, very careful placement and alignment of the appurtenances. Can you elaborate on what that reason was?
Jim Ra mentioned that the Bible was 1.4 degrees out of alignment, and perhaps five-tenths of a degree of the whole layout,3 so that got us to thinking because there is no way you could get the appurtenances lined up that carefully. So we knew they were talking about something other than the actual physical placement of the appurtenances—they were talking about the alignment of our questions, our line of questioning. We had gotten off the track a little bit from what was important to what was transient, and we tried to stay away from what was transient because this was a narrow-band contact.
As Ra said, its preconditions were precise,4 and in order to keep the contact we would have to continue working in the area of spiritual principles—things that you could use now and 10,000 years from now, now and forever. If we talked about things that were transient and only are of interest now, then we were wasting the great opportunity of the contact. Why should the contact stay around if we were going to do that? So they warned us first: You’re kind of off a little bit—not important for this session. But there’s another session today—much more important. So we figured it out—we had to get our line of questioning straight.
Gary How did you make that leap of realizing that they were not talking specifically about the alignment of the physical objects but about your questions?
Jim Well, it’s a spiritual contact, and everything they talk about has a spiritual value or component to it, so what they were saying there about the alignment had to have a spiritual component to it. They’re not just talking about a few degrees or tenths of a degree, so what else could it be? It has to be our line of questioning.
Carla Don and Jim were two sharp cats. If it was going to be figured out, they would. They came to a feeling after they figured it out, that it had taken them far too long. But actually they were pretty quick.
Gary So afterward, after you reached that conclusion, if Ra would later on describe a misalignment, did that cause you to reflect more intensely on where you were going out of line?5
Jim Yes. Definitely.
Gary So that was a way for Ra to highlight or point to an error or two?
Jim Yes, to give us a clue. They did that a few times, giving us a clue about something that we needed to consider, but they did not tell us what, because that would be infringing on our free will. Clues were okay. Just laying it out flat—you need to do this—was not. The contact was a product of free will, and we had to be able to exercise our free will at all times.
Gary Were the appurtenances also a signal to the group as a whole to begin purifying the desire to serve others and tuning yourselves as a group so as to be in harmony to receive Ra?
Jim In general, yes, but I think more so for Carla than for either Don or me. The whole session—there were a lot of things that had to come together: the bed, the outfit Carla wore, the cover, the appurtenances, the tape recorders, the chair, the path around the bed—all of them were important. Doing all of that got us ready.
Gary So the triggers began even further back into the previous night? You said that you would meditate together, have sexual energy transfer—so there’s a sequence of steps where you’re getting into the mindset, getting ready for the game, so to speak?
Jim Right. Yeah, that’s basically it. Getting ready for the game.
Gary That concludes our chapter on appurtenances.
Carla And that’s the last time you’ll have to say that word. [laughs]
Gary Yes! I will never have an opportunity to use it again . . . outside of The Law of One.
Notes
[1] Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. “Appurtenance,” accessed September 8, 2015, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appurtenance. ↩
[2] Some preliminary research on the topic turned up a slightly different account. Instead of writing Oahspe while asleep, its author, John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891), sat down in front of the newly invented typewriter “for half an hour each morning at which time his hands would automatically type (without his knowledge of what was being written).” This is according to his firsthand reports, which are referenced on the Oahspe Wikipedia page. ↩
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, “Oahspe: A New Bible,” accessed September 8, 2015, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oahspe:_A_New_Bible.
[3] About the alignments: ↩
RA I am Ra. We ask you to realign the object upon which the symbols sit. It is not a significant distortion for one session only, but you will find upon measuring the entire assemblage that the resting place is 1.4 degrees from the correct alignment, the resting place an additional one-half degree away from proper orientation. Do not concern yourselves overly with this in the space/time nexus present, but do not allow these distortions to remain over a long period or the contact will be gradually impaired. 12.33
[4] About the precise preconditions: ↩
RA This contact is narrow-band and its preconditions precise. The other-self offering its service in the negative path also is possessed of the skill of the swordsman. You deal in this contact with, shall we say, forces of great intensity poured into a vessel as delicate as a snowflake and as crystalline.
The smallest of lapses may disturb the regularity of this pattern of energies which forms the channel for these transmissions. 64.5
[5] To further corroborate the understanding that the alignment of the appurtenances was linked to the alignment of the questions, Ra explains how in one particular answer an alignment had no deeper meaning, implying that, in other instances, there was a deeper purpose to their statements regarding alignment: ↩
RA The physical appurtenance called the censer was just a degree off, this having no deeper meaning. 77.25