- 88 - The underclothes were of byssus, the breeches of pure linen. You also know that clean linen worn next to the body or used for bedding is especially conducive to health. That is because this fabric contains a special and pure od that imparts itself to your body and exerts a strengthening effect. Of all woods, acacia is the purest and was therefore the only lumber that could be used in the construction of the Tabernacle. Also, all the other instructions – concerning the composition of the utensils, curtains, carpets, and tent coverings – were likewise issued solely to ensure the greatest purity of the od. You can find them for yourself by consulting the Bible. Everything I have spoken of so far served as a precaution against the contamination of the od that was being prepared in the shape of an od cloud forming above the Ark of the Covenant and that was to serve to convey God’s words. For the same reason the priests were required to wash their hands and feet in the water that stood at the entrance to the Holiest of Holies before they went near the Ark of the Covenant. “The most important thing, however, was the preparation of the od itself that, floating as a cloud above the Ark, was required for God to speak to Moses. In this case the speech was not through a medium, but by ‘direct voice’. The spirit sounds were sufficiently condensed by the terrestrial od of the cloud to make them audible to human ears. As the Bible says: Numbers 7: 89: ‘And when Moses entered the Tabernacle, he heard the Voice speaking to him from the cover of the Ark of the Covenant, from between the two cherubs: and that is how God spoke to him.’ • The purpose of the prescribed offerings was the preparation of this od cloud. You are sufficiently familiar with the fact that blood is the conductor of od in the physical body. Hence the greatest amount of, and the most soluble, od is found in the blood, and so the blood is the best source of od for communicating with the spirit world. • And it was only for the sake of obtaining od that animals were sacrificed, both in the idol worship of the heathens and in the Divine service of the Jews. The blood was poured on the altar, and some of the meat, particularly the fat, the kidneys and the liver, was disintegrated into od by being burned, for, next to the blood, these parts are richest in od. By means of the offerings to their idols, the heathens prepared od for communicating with evil spirits. In God’s Tabernacle, the preparation of od was undertaken to make it possible for God and His higher spirits to communicate with the people of Israel, as witness the words spoken by God to Moses: Leviticus 17: 6-7: ‘The priest is to sprinkle the blood on the altar of the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle, burning the fat to rise as a sweet smell for the Lord. They shall no longer offer their sacrificial animals to the evil spirits whose idol worship they are now practicing.’ Since the od cloud above the Ark of the Covenant represented the purest mixture of terrestrial od, only those animals whose od was of the purest kind were allowed to be slaughtered. So-called
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