Through channelling the electromagnetic pulse of light, we can incarnate divine healing and strength in ourselves and our world. Olive Pixley offers practical exercises to accomplish this, as well as the theory behind why it works.

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Despite the very religious Christian nature of this work, it has been included in the Library due to its valuable exercises in energy (Light) techniques, which go beyond religious affiliation.

Light is the oddest thing. It transports us through time, revealing the former dwelling place of the stars before their rays began the long descent to Earth. Light is our source of energy and life, yet it can also shower and radiate death, becoming the destroyer of worlds. When Newton tried to dissect light, it bled into the colours of the rainbow, revealing the hidden unity behind the diverse hues of our blurring world. Even Einstein bowed before the speed of light, subjugating all of space and time to its rule. Yet nature was preaching the gospel of light long before scientists unveiled the photon. The great lights divided day from night, winter from harvest and sowing from reaping. Warmed by a brilliant fire, cooking a meal captured in daylight, watching the shadows shimmer beneath a twinkling sky – perhaps it was inevitable that humans might seek their maker in light and its source.

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Olive Pixley shared this intuition about light. Born in London in 1885, she lived through the Ripper, the 1918 influenza epidemic, the Great Depression and two world wars, learning the immense power of light – and conversely, the power of its absence. Claiming she had experienced a revelation, Pixley began proclaiming the glories of divine light, urging us to become conduits for the electromagnetism of eternity. Publishing a handful of books in the mid-20^th century – including The Armour of Light in 1957 – she spread the knowledge of her meditative practices and insights, becoming an early advocate for the growing consciousness of light in the West.

According to Pixley, light is ‘the substance of God’. Humans were once connected to this light but became separated from it by their sin: ‘At the Fall man chose to cut his direct link with divine energy, and so to corrupt his own substance and upset the entire equilibrium of the Earth planet.’ The divine phosphorescence continues to radiate outwards, yet – due to our fall – is too overwhelming for us to look at directly. Even the ‘impact of gamma rays is fatal to the human organism; how then could it endure the far more powerful radiations of pure divine force?’ A mediator between us and God was necessary, which is why Jesus – the ‘light of the world’ – incarnated on Earth. Since he is fully God and fully man, he acts as an intercessor between us and God: ‘The essence of the redemption which Jesus Christ accomplished for us was the restoration of this link.’ Pixley claims that Jesus ‘stepped down the divine radiations… literally to Earth level,’ making a ‘safe human-divine radiation always available to us…’

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We can access light through Christ through visualisation, breathing and chanting exercises. These exercises usually involve picturing a ‘radiant Figure of Light at your feet’, grounding your body in the Earth beneath you (‘earthing’). This is subsequently balanced by visualising above you an ‘infinite Point of Light, which is God.’ You then visualise various sequences of the light rotating through your body and the two points, timing each movement with a breath or the syllables of a chant. When practised daily (as ‘our daily Bread’), these exercises bring divine light, healing, strength, wisdom, love and generosity into our bodies and our world. This light is not merely a symbol for spirituality but a literal, physical, electromagnetic force, dwelling in our blood. As such, Pixley seeks the ‘integration of soul and body into a unit.’ You are ‘drawing the Light into your hands, not mystically, but physically.’

While Pixley is not widely remembered, she nonetheless helped foster the rising spiritual emphasis on ‘Light’. Many authors writing within the same genre cast off the shackles of traditional Western religion, but Pixley attempts to merge her views of light with Christian orthodoxy, embracing the fall of humanity, the (non-illusory) existence of sin, and the unique centrality of Jesus to our redemption. Ultimately, however, the true and enduring bulk of Pixley’s work consists of the practical exercises she offers, which stand alone in their power to help humanity.