This volume of the writings of Max Heindel, the Western Mystic, is the concluding number embodying the messages he sent out through monthly lessons to his students. These lessons, reprinted since this great soul was called to a greater work in the higher worlds on January 6th, 1919, may be found in the following books in addition to the present volume: “Freemasonry and Catholicism”; “The Web of Destiny”; “The Mystical Interpretation of Christmas”; “The Mysteries of the Great Operas”; “The Gleanings of a Mystic”; and “Letters to Students.” These writings comprise the later investigations of this seer.

The helpful messages and the spiritual encouragement that the readers have received from the inspired words in the earlier volumes we know have been far-reaching in their effects. We also feel that in years to come enlightened and advanced students and seekers along mystical and occult lines will realize more and more the true value of the works of Max Heindel. His words reach the very depths of the heart of the reader. Many who have read his first work, “The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception,” have been thrilled by their contact with it.

Max Heindel, who was the authorized messenger of the true Rosicrucian Brotherhood, lived the teachings which he taught. Only one who has suffered as he suffered during his lifetime is able to touch the heart strings of humanity. Only he who has felt the labor pains of spiritual birth which has admitted him to the realms of the soul can write with the power to thrill his readers. As the result of such a spiritual birth the writings which Max Heindel has bequeathed to humanity will live and bear fruit. May the readers of this book feel the heart throbs of this great lover of humanity, who sacrificed his very physical existence in his desire to impart to man the wonderful truths which he had garnered through his contact with the Elder Brothers of the Rosicrucian Order.

--August Foss Heindel

1. The Days Of Noah And Of Christ

When Nicodemus came to Christ and was told about the necessity of rebirth, he asked, “How can these things be?” And we also with out inquiring minds are often anxious for more light upon the various teachings concerning our future. It helps us if we can feel that these teachings fit into physical facts as we know them. Then we seem to have firmer ground for our faith in other things which we have not yet proved.

It has been the writer’s work to investigate spiritual facts and correlate them with the physical in such a manner as would appeal to the reason and thus pave the way for belief. In this way it has been his privilege to give light to seeking souls on many of the mysteries of life. Recently a new discovery was made which, though it seemed as remote from connection with the coming of Christ as east is from west, throws considerable light on that event, especially on the manner of our meeting with the Lord “in the twinkling of an eye” as the Bible has it. Our students well know how distasteful it is to the writer to relate personal experiences, but sometimes, as in the present case, it seems necessary, and we shall crave indulgence for using the personal pronoun while relating to the incident.

One night some time ago while in transit to a place in a far country where I had a mission to perform, I heard a cry. Though the human voice can be heard only in air, there are overtones which are heard in the spiritual realms at distances exceeding those traversed by wireless messages. The cry was close by, however, and I was on the scene in an instant, but not soon enough to give the needed help. I found a man sliding down a slanting embankment, bare of vegetation, perhaps a dozen feet in width, and as it proved on subsequent examination, almost smooth, and without a fissure which would have afforded a hold for his fingers. To have saved him would have involved materialization of both arms and shoulders, but there was no time. In a moment he had slid over the overhanging precipice and was falling to the floor of the canyon below, probably several thousand feet, though I am not certain, being a poor judge of distance.

Prompted by a natural spirit of fellow feeling I followed and on the way observed the phenomenon which is the basis of this article, namely, that when the body had attained a considerable velocity, the ethers composing the vital body commenced to ooze out, and when the body crashed into the rocks below, a mangled mass, there was very little of any ether left in it. Gradually, however, the ethers drifted together, took form, and hovered with the finer vehicles above the mangled corpse; but the man was in a stupor unable to sense or realize the fact of his altered condition.

As soon as I saw that he was beyond present help I went on; but on thinking the matter over it dawned on me that something unusual had happened and that it was my duty to find out if the ethers left that way in every one who feel, and if so, why. Under old-time conditions this would have been difficult, but the advent of the flying machine claims many victims, especially in these unfortunate war times. It was therefore easy to ascertain the fact that when a falling body has attained a certain velocity, the higher ethers leave the dense body, and the falling man becomes insensible. As the body reaches the ground, it is mangled, but the poor man may regain consciousness when the ether has reorganized itself. He will then begin to suffer from the physical consequences of the fall. If the fall continues after the higher ethers have left, the increased velocity dislodges the lower ethers, and the Silver Cord is all that remains attached to the body. This is ruptured at the moment of impact with the ground, and the seed atom passes on to the breaking point, where it is held in the usual way.

From these facts we came to the conclusion that it is the normal air pressure which holds the vital body within the dense. When we move with an abnormal velocity, the pressure is removed from some parts of the body and a partial vacuum formed, with the further result that the ethers leave the body and flow into this vacuum. The two higher ethers, which are most loosely bound, are the first to disappear and leave the man senseless after they have produced the panorama of life in a flash. Then if the fall continues to increase the air pressure in front of the body and the vacuum behind, the more closely bound lower ethers are also forced out, and the body is dead before it reaches the ground.

It was found by examining a number of people in normal health that each of the prismatic atoms composing the lower ethers radiated from itself the lines of force which set spinning the physical atoms in which it is inserted, enduing the hole body with life. The united trend of all these units of force is toward the periphery of the body, where they constitute what has been called the “Odic Fluid,” also designated by other names. When the air pressure from without is lowered by residence in a high altitude, a tendency to nervousness becomes manifest because the etheric force from within ruses outward unchecked; and were the man not able to shut off the outflow of solar energy in part by an effort of will to overcome the difficulty, no one could live in such places.

We had heard of “shell shock” and we were aware that numbers of people who had not even the slightest wound were found dead on the battle field. In fact, we had seen and spoken with people who had passed out in this manner but were at a loss to know why death has resulted. They all disclaimed fear and were unanimously in their assertion that they had suddenly become unconscious and a moment later they had found themselves in that they had not a single scratch on their bodies. Our preconceived idea that it must have been a momentary fear at a particularly close call which though unrealized, had caused their demise, prevented a full investigation; but the ascertained results of the consequences of a fall led us to believe that something similar might take place in this connection, and this surmise proved to be correct.

When a large projectile passes through the air, it creates a vacuum behind it by the enormous velocity wherewith it moves, and if a person is within this vacuum zone while the shell is passing, he suffers in a measure determined by his own nature and his proximity to the center of suction. His position is in fact a reverse replica of the man who falls; for he stands still while a moving body removes the air pressure and allows the ethers to escape. If the amount of ether dislocated is comparatively slight and is composed only of the third and fourth ethers which govern sense perception and memory, he will probably suffer only a temporary loss of memory and inability to sense things or move. This disability will disappear when the extracted ethers are again fitted inside the dense body--a much more difficult achievement than where the physical body succumbs and the reorganization takes place without reference to that vehicle.

Had the people thus hurt learned now to perform the exercises which separate the higher and lower ethers, they might have found themselves outside the body in full consciousness and perhaps ready for their first soul flight if they had had the courage to undertake it. However that may be, it is safe to say that on their return to the dense body they would have experienced very little if any inconvenience, and in case the vacuum had been strong enough to extract all four ethers and cause death, there would probably have been no unconsciousness such as overtakes the ordinary person; for it was discovered that the people who said that they felt unconscious for a moment only were wrong. It required a time varying from one to several days in the cases we investigated before the vital body was reorganized and consciousness reestablished.

Let us now see what bearing these newly discovered facts have on the coming of Christ and our meeting with Him. While we lived in ancient Atlantis in the basins of the earth, pressure of the moisture-laden mist was very heavy. This hardened the dense body, and as a further result the vibrations of the interpenetrating finer vehicles were considerably slowed down. This was especially true of the vital body, which is made of ether, a grade of matter belonging to the physical world and subject to some of the physical laws. The solar life did not penetrate the dense mist in the same abundance as is present in the clear atmosphere of today. Add to this the fact that the vital bodies of that day were almost entirely composed of the two lower ethers, which further assimilation and reproduction, and we shall understand that progress was very slow. Man lad mainly a vegetative existence, and his main exertions were devoted to the purpose of obtaining food and reproducing his kind.

Had such a man been removed to our atmosphere conditions the, lack of exterior pressure would have resulted in an outflowing of the vital body which means death. Gradually the physical body grew less dense and the amount of the two higher ethers increased, so that man become fitted to live in a clear atmosphere under a decreased pressure such as we have enjoyed since the historical event known as the “Flood” when the mist condensed. Since that time we have also been able to specialize more of the solar life force. The larger proportion of the two higher ethers now found in our vital bodies enables us to express the higher human attributes appropriate to the development of this age.

The vibrations of the vital body under the present atmospheric conditions have enabled the spirit to build that which we call civilization, consisting of industrial and artistic achievements and of moral and spiritual standards, the industrial and moral excellence being as closely connect and interdependent as the artistic achievement is dependent on a spiritual conception. Industry is designed to develop the moral side of man’s nature, art to unfold the spiritual. Thus we are now being prepared for the next step in our unfoldment.

Let it now be remembered that the qualifications necessary for our emancipation from the conditions prevailing in Atlantis were party physiological; we had to evolve lungs to breathe the pure air in which we are now immersed and which allows the vital body to vibrate at a more rapid rate than did the heavy moisture of Atlantis. With this in mind we shall readily see that future advancement lies in freeing the vital body entirely from the trammels of the dense body and letting it vibrate in pure air.

This is what happened in the lofty altitude exoterically known as the “Mount of Transfiguration.” Advanced men of various ages, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus (or rather the body of Jesus ensouled by Christ) appeared in the luminous garment of the liberated soul body, which all will wear in the New Galilee, the Kingdom of Christ. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,: for it would interfere with the spiritual progress of the day; so when Christ appears we must be prepared with a soul body and thus be ready to part from out dense body to be “caught up and meet Him in the air.”

The results of the investigation which form the basis of the present article may give us an insight into the method of transition when compared with the information given in the Bible. It is said that the Lord will appear with a mighty sound like the voice of an Archangel. We read of thunders and the blasts of trumpets in connection with the event. A sound is an atmospheric disturbance, and since the passage of a projectile made by man can lift the vital bodies of soldiers out of their dense bodies, it needs to argument to prove that the shout of a superhuman voice could accomplish similar results more efficiently--”in the twinkling of an eye.”

“When shall these things be?” asked the disciples. They were told that as it was in the days of Noah (when the Aryan Epoch was about to be ushered in), so should it be in the Day of Christ. They ate and drank, they married and were given in marriage. But some who perhaps seemed not so different from the rest, had evolved the all-important lungs so that when the atmosphere cleared they were able to breathe pure air, while others who had only the gill clefts perished. In the Day of Christ when His voice sounds the Call, there will be some who will find themselves with a properly organized soul body, able to ascent above the discarded dense bodies, while others will be like the soldiers who meet death from “shell shock” on the battle fields today.

May we prepare for that day by following in His steps.

2. The Sign Of The Master

There are at the present time many who, judging from the signs of the times, believe Christ to be at the door and are watching him in joyful anticipation. Though, in the opinion of the writer, the “things which must first come to pass” have not taken place in many important particulars, we must not forget that He gave warning that “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall be in the day of the Son of Man.” Then they ate, drank, and made merry; they married and were given in marriage up to the very moment when the flood descended and engulfed them. Only a small remnant was saved. Therefore we who pray for His coming will do well to watch also lest our prayers be answered before we are ready, for He said, “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.”

But there is also another danger, a very great danger which He pointed out, namely, “There shall be false Christs;” and “they shall deceive even the very elect, if that were possible.” So we are warned that if people say, “Christ is here in the city or there in the desert,” we are not to go, or we shall certainly be deceived.

But on the other hand, if we do not investigate, how shall we know? May we not run the risk of rejecting Christ by refusing to hear all claimants and judging each according to merits? When we examine the injunctions of the Bible upon this point, they seem bewildering and altogether subversive of the end they are supposed to help us attain, and the great question,: How shall we know Christ at His coming?” is still rife. We have issued a pamphlet on this subject but feel sure additional light will be welcome to all.

Christ said that some of the false Christs would work signs and wonders. He always refused to prove His divinity in that sordid manner when asked to do so by the scribes and Pharisees, because He knew that phenomena only excited the sense of wonder and whetted the appetite for more. Those who witness such manifestations are sometimes sincere in their efforts to convince others but they are generally met with an attitude of mind which says in effect: “You say you have seen him do so and so and therefore you believe. Very well! I also am willing to be convinced. Let him show me.”

But even supposing a Master were willing to prove his identity, who among the multitude is qualified to judge the validity of the proof? No one! Who knows the sign of the Master when he sees it? The sign of the Master is not a phenomenon which may be repudiated or explained away by the sophists, neither is it something the Master may show or hide as he pleases, nor can he take it up and lay it aside at will. He is forced to carry it with him always as we carry out arms and limbs. It would be just as impossible to hide the sign of the Master from those qualified to see, know and judge it as it would be for us to hide our members, from anyone who has physical sight. On the other hand, as the sign of the Master is spiritual, it must be spiritually perceived, and it is therefore is impossible to show the sign of the Master to those who lack spiritual sight as it is to show a physical figure to the physically blind.

Therefore we read: “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given unto it.” A little further on in the same chapter (Matt. 16) we find the Christ asking His disciples, “Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” The answer developed that though the Jews saw in Him a superior person, Moses, Elias, or one of the prophets, they were incapable of recognizing His true character. They could not see the sign of the Master, or they would have needed no other testimony.

Christ then turned to His disciples and asked them, “But whom say ye that I am?” And from Peter came the answer weighted with conviction, quick and to the point, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He had seen the sign of the Master, and he knew whereof he spoke, independent of phenomena and exterior circumstances, as emphasized by Christ when He said, “Blessed art thou, Simon, Son of Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” In other words, the perception of this great truth depended upon an interior qualification.

What this qualification was, and is, we learn from the next words of Christ: “And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter (Petros, a rock,) and upon this rock (Petra) I will build my church.”

Christ said concerning the multitude of materialistic Jews: “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonah”; and much speculation has been the consequence among equally materialistic Christians in latter times. Some have contended that an ordinary whale did swallow the prophet and later cast him ashore. Churches have divided on this as on many other foolish issues. But when we consult the occult records we find an interpretation which satisfies the heart without doing violence to the mind.

This great allegory, like so many other myths, is pictured upon the film of the firmament, for it was first enacted in heaven before it was staged on the earth, and we still see in the starry sky “Jonah, the Dove,” and “Cetus, the Whale”. But we will not concern ourselves so much with the celestial phase as with its terrestrial application.

“Jonah” means dove, a well recognized symbol of the Holy Spirit. During the three “days” comprising the Saturn, Sun, and Moon revolutions of the Earth Period, and the “nights” between, the Holy Spirit with all the Creative Hierarchies worked in the Great Deep perfecting the inward parts of the earth and men, removing the dead weight of the moon. Then the earth emerged from its watery stage of development in the middle Atlantean Epoch, and so did “Jonah, the Spirit Dove,” accomplish the salvation of the greater part of mankind.

Neither the earth nor its inhabitants were capable of maintaining their equilibrium in space, and the Cosmic Christ therefore commenced to work with and on us, finally at the baptism descending as a dove (not in the form of a dove but as a dove) upon the man Jesus. And as Jonah, the dove of the Holy Spirit, was three Days and three Nights in the Great Fish (the earth submerged in water), so at the end of our involutionary pilgrimage must the other dove, the Christ, enter the heart of the earth for the coming three revolutionary Days and Nights to give us the needed impulse on our evolutionary journey. He must help us to etherealize the earth in preparation for the Jupiter Period.

Thus Jesus become at his baptism, “a Son of the Dove,” and was recognized by another, “Simon Bar-Jonah,” (Simon, son of the dove). At that recognition, by the sign of the dove, the Master calls the other “a rock,” a foundation Stone, and promises him the “Keys to Heaven.” These are not idle words nor haphazard promises. These are phases of soul development involved which each must undergo if he has not passed them.

What then is the “sign of Jonah” which the Christ bore about with Him, visible to all who could see, other than the “house from heaven” wherewith Paul longed to be clothed; the glorious treasure house wherein all the noble deeds of many lives glitter and glisten as precious pearls? Everybody has a little “house from heaven.” Jesus, holy and pure beyond the rest, probably was a splendid sight, but think how indescribably effulgent must have been the vehicle of splendor in which the Christ descended; then we shall have some conception of the “blindness” of those who asked for “a sing.” Even among His other disciples He found the same spiritual cataract. “Show us the Father,” said Philip, oblivious to the mystic Trinity in Unity which ought to have been obvious to him. Simon, however, was quick to perceive, because he himself had by spiritual alchemy made this spiritual petros or “stone” of the philosopher which entitled him to the “Keys of the Kingdom”; an Initiation making usable the latent powers of the candidate evolved by service.

We find that these “stones” for the “temple made without hands” undergo an evolution or process of preparation. There is first the “petros,” the diamond in the rough, so to speak, found in nature. When read with the heart, such passages as 1st Cor., 10:4, “And did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock (Petros) that followed them: and that Rock was Christ,” are illuminating in this connection. Gradually, very gradually, we have become impregnated with the water of life which sprang from the Great Rock. We have also become polished as “lithoi zontes” (living stones), destined to be grouped with that great stone which the Builder rejected; and when we have wrought well to the end, we shall finally receive in the Kingdom the diadem, the most precious of all, the “psiphon leuken,” (the white stone) with its New Name.

There are three steps in the evolution of “the stone of the sage”: Petros, the hard rough rock; Lithon, the stone polished by service and ready to be written on; and Psiphon Leuken, the soft white stone that draws to itself all who are weak and heavy laden. Much is hidden in the nature and composition of the stone at each step which cannot be written; it must be read between the lines.

If we hope to build the Living Temple with Christ in the Kingdom, we would do well to prepare ourselves that we may fit in, and then we shall know the Master and the Sign of the Master.

3. What Is Spiritual Work?

In this connection we will give some extracts from the wonderful poem by Longfellow which is called “The Legend Beautiful.”

“In his chamber all alone,
Kneeling on the floor of stone
Prayed the Monk in deep contrition
For his sins of indecision,
Prayed for greater self-denial
In temptation and in trial;
It was noonday by the dial,
And the Monk was all alone.

“Suddenly, as if it lightened,
An unwonted splendor brightened
All within him and without him
In that narrow cell of stone;
And he saw the Blessed Vision
Of our Lord, with Light Elysian
Like a vesture wrapped about him,
Like a garment round him thrown.”

This was not the suffering Savior, however, but the Christ feeding the hungry and healing the sick.

“In an attitude imploring,
Hands upon his bosom crossed,
Wondering, worshiping, adoring,
Knelt the Monk in rapture lost.

******

“Then amid his exaltation,
Loud the convent bell appalling,
From its belfry calling, calling,
Rang through court and corridor
With persistent iteration
He had never heard before.”

This was his call to the duty of feeding the poor as Christ had done, for he was the almoner of the Brotherhood.

“Deep distress and hesitation
Mingled with his adoration;
Should be go, or should he stay?
Should he leave the poor to wait
Hungry at the convent gate,
Till the Vision passed away?
Should be slight his radiant guest,
Slight his visitant celestial,
For a crowd or ragged, bestial
Beggars at the convent gate?
Would the Vision there remain?
Would the Vision come again?
Then a voice within his breast
Whispered, audible and clear
As if to the outward ear:
‘Do they duty; that is best;
Leave unto they Lord the rest!’
Straightaway to his feet he started,
And with longing look intent
On the Blessed Vision bent,
Slowly from his cell departed,
Slowly on his errand went.

“At the gate the poor were waiting,
Looking through the iron grating,
With that terror in the eye
That is only seen in those
Who amid their wants and woes
Hear the sound of doors that close,
And of feet that pass them by;
Grown familiar with disfavor,
Grown familiar with the savor
Of the broad by which men die!
But today, they knew not why,
Like the gate of Paradise
Seemed the convent gate to rise,
Like a sacrament divine
Seemed to them the bread and wine.
In his heart the Monk was praying,
Thinking of the homeless poor,
What they suffer and endure;
What we see not, what we see;
And the inward voice was saying:
‘Whatsoever thing thou doest
To the least of mine and lowest,
That doest unto me!’

“Unto me! but had the Vision
Come to him in beggar’s clothing,
Come to mendicant imploring,
Would he then have knelt adoring,
Or have listened with derision,
And have turned away with loathing?

“Thus his conscience put the question,
Full of troublesome suggestion,
As at length, with hurried pace,
Towards his cell he turned his face,
And beheld the convent bright
With supernatural light,
Like a luminous cloud expanding
Over floor and wall and ceiling.

“But he passed with awe-struck feeling
At the threshold of this door,
For the Vision still was standing
As he left it there before,
When the convent bell appalling,
From its belfry calling, calling,
Summoned him to feed the poor.
Through the long hour intervening
It had waited his return,
And he felt his bosom burn,
Comprehending all the meaning,
When the Blessed Vision said,
‘Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled!”
Let me tell you a story:

Ages and ages ago--so long ago in fact that it was almost as far away as yesterday--darkness enveloped the earth, and men were groping for the light. Some there were who had found it and who undertook to show men the reflection thereof, and they were eagerly sought. Among them there was one who had been to the city of light for a little while and had absorbed some of its brilliancy. Straightway men and women from all over the land of darkness sought him. They journeyed thousands of miles because they had heard of this light; and when he heard that a company was traveling towards his house, he set to work and prepared to give them the very best he had. He planted poles all around his house and put lights upon them so that his visitors might not hurt themselves in the darkness. He and his household ministered to their wants, and he taught them as best he knew.

But soon sine if his visitors murmured. They had thought to find him seated upon a pedestal radiant with celestial light. In fancy they had seen themselves worshiping at his shrine; but instead of the spiritual light they had expected they had caught him in the very act of stringing electric lights to illuminate the place. He did not even wear a turban or a robe, because, the order to which he belonged had as one its fundamental rules that is members must wear the dress of the country in which they lived.

So the visitors came to the conclusion that they had been tricked and swindled and that he had no light. They took up stones and stoned him and his household; they would have killed him had it not been that they feared the law, which in that land required an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Then they went away again into the land of the darkness, and whenever they saw a soul headed towards the light, they help up their hands in horror and said, “Do not go there; that is not a true light, it is as a jack-o-lantern and it will lead you astray. We know there is absolutely no spirituality there.” Many believed them, and thus came to pass in that case, as so many times before, the saying that was written in one of their old books: “This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world but men love darkness rather than light.”

As it was in that far-away yesterday, so also it is today. Men are running hither and thither seeking for light. Often like Sir Launfal they travel to the ends of the earth, wasting their whole lives seeking for the thing that they call Spirituality,” but melting disappointment after disappointment. But just as Sir Launfal, having spent his whole life in vain search away from his home, finally found in the Holy Grail right at his own castle gate, so every honest seeker after spirituality will, shall, and must find it in his own heart. The only danger is that like the company of seekers mentioned, he may miss it because he does not recognize it. No one can recognize true spirituality in others until he had in a measure evolved it in his own self.

It may therefore be well to try to settle definitely, “what is spirituality?” to give a guide whereby we may find this great Christ attribute. In order to do this we must leave our preconceived ideas behind, or we shall certainly fail. The idea most commonly held is that spirituality manifests through prayer and meditation; but if we look at our Savior’s life, we shall find that it was not an idle one. He was not a recluse, He did not go away and hide Himself from the world. He went among people, He ministered to their daily wants; He fed them when that was necessary; He healed them whenever He had the opportunity, and He also taught them. Thus He was in the very truest sense of the word a servant of humanity.

The monk in “the legend beautiful” saw Him thus when he was engaged in prayer, rapt in spiritual ecstasy. But just then the convent bell struck the hour of twelve, and it was his duty to go and imitate the Christ, feeding the poor who had gathered around the convent gate. Great indeed was the temptation to stay, to bathe in the heavenly vibrations,; but there came the voice, “do thy duty, that is best; leave unto thy lord the rest” How could he have adored the Savior whom he saw feeding the poor and healing the sick while at the same time leaving the hungry poor to stand outside the convent gate waiting for him to perform his duties? It would have been positively wicked for him to have stayed there; and so the Vision said to him upon his return: “hast thou stayed, I must have fled.”

Such self-indulgence would have been absolutely subversive of the purpose he had in view. If he had not been faithful in little things pertaining to earthly duties, how could it be expected that he would be faithful in the greater spiritual work? Naturally, unless able to stand the test, he could not be given greater powers.

There are many people who seek spiritual powers, wandering from one so-called occult center to another; who enter monasteries and like places of seclusion, hoping by running away from the world’s clamor and glamour to cultivate their spiritual nature. They bask in the sunshine of prayer and meditation from morning till night while the world is moaning in agony. Then they wonder why they do not progress; why they do not get further upon the path of aspiration. Truly prayer and meditation are necessary, absolutely essential to soul growth. But we are doomed to failure if we depend for soul growth upon prayers which are only words. to obtain results we must live in such a manner that our whole life becomes prayer, an aspiration. As Emerson said:

“Although your knees were never bent,
To heaven your hourly prayers are sent,
And be they formed for good or ill,
Are registered and answered still.”

It is not the words we speak in moments of prayer that count, but it is the life that leads up to the prayer.

What is the use of praying for peace on earth on Sunday when we are making bullets during the whole week? How can we pray God to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us when we carry hate in our hearts?

There is only one way to show our faith, and that is by our works; It does not matter in what department of life we have been placed, whether we are high or low, rich or poor, it is immaterial whether we are engaged in stringing electric lights to save our fellows a physical fall, or whether it is our privilege to stand upon a platform to give out the spiritual light and point out to others the way of the soul. It is absolutely unessential whether our hands are grimy with the lowest labor, perhaps digging a sewer to maintain the health of our community, or whether they are soft and white as required when nursing the sick.

The determining factor which decides whether any class of work is spiritual or material is our attitude in the matter. The man who strings the electric lights may be far more spiritual than the one who stands upon the platform; for alas, there are many who go to that sacred duty with the desire to tickle the ears of their congregation by fine oratory rather than to give heart-felt love and sympathy. It is must more noble work to clean out the clogged sewer, as did the despised brother in Kennedy’s “Servant in the House,” than it is to live falsely in the dignity of a teacher’s office, implying a spirituality that is not actually there.

Everyone who tries to cultivate this rare quality of spirituality must always begin by doing everything to the glory of the lord; for when we do all things as unto the lord, it does not matter what kind of work we do. Digging a sewer, inventing a labor saving device, preaching a sermon, or anything else is spiritual work when it is done in love to god and man.

4. The Way Of Wisdom

It is now several years since the teaching of the Elder Brothers was first published in the Rosicrucian Cosmo-conception, and we have since added to our literature. It now seems appropriate that we take stock of our work to see what we have done with the talents entrusted to our care.

In the first place let us realize that the reason why we are in the Rosicrucian Fellowship is because at some time we have been dissatisfied with the explanations of the problems of life given elsewhere. We have all sought light upon the riddle, and some among us, like the man spoken of in the Bible saw a pearl of great price and went and sold all we had and bought the pearl, which symbolizes knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, some among us have been so anxious to find light and so overjoyed when it was found that we have given our whole life, thought, and energy to this work. Previously assumed obligations prevent the majority from enjoying this great privilege, but everyone of us, if we have been helped, is bound under the law of compensation to make some return, for interchange and circulation are everywhere correlative to life, as stagnation is to death.

We know that we cannot continue to gorge ourselves upon physical good and retain what we have eaten, and that unless elimination maintains the equilibrium, death soon follows. Neither can we with impunity gorge ourselves with a mental diet. We must share our treasure with others and use our knowledge in the world’s work or run the danger of stagnation in the quagmire of metaphysical speculation.

During the years which have elapsed since The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception was published, students have had ample time to familiarize themselves with its teachings. We can no longer excuse ourselves by saying we do not know the philosophy because we have had no time to study it and therefore cannot explain it to others. Even those who have had the least time to study because of the duties which call them in their work in the world ought now to be sufficiently posted to “give a reason for the faith” which is within them, as Paul exhorted us all to do. Even if we do not succeed in showing the light to everyone who asks for it, we owe it to ourselves, to the Elder Brothers, and to humanity to make the attempt. Our own soul growth depends upon the share we have in the growth of the movement wherewith we have connected ourselves, and it is therefore expedient that we should realize thoroughly what the mission of the Rosicrucian fellowship is.

This you will find thoroughly and clearly elucidated in the introductory chapter of the “Cosmo.” Briefly stated, it is to give an explanation of the problem of life which will satisfy both the mind and the heart, and thus solve the perplexities of the two classes of people who are now groping in the dark for want of this unifying knowledge, and who may be broadly spoken of for the purposes of our discussion as the church people and the scientists. By the first term we will designate all who are led by sincere devotion or kindliness of nature, whether belonging to a church or not. In the second class we mean to include all who are looking at life from the purely mental viewpoint, whether they class themselves as scientists or not. It is the aim and object of The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception to widen the spiritual scope of rapidly increasing number among these two classes who realize more or less clearly that there is a lack of something vitally important in their present view of life and being.

You will remember that when David desired to build a temple for the Lord he was denied the privilege because had had been a man of war. There are organizations in the world today which are always fighting other organizations, always finding fault and striving to tear down, thus warring just as much as David did in ancient days. They cannot with such a state of mind be permitted to build the temple which is made with living stones of men and women, that temple which Manson in “The Servant in the House” speaks of in such beautiful terms. Therefore, when we go about endeavoring to spread the truths of the Rosicrucian teachings, let us always bear in mind that we may not with impunity decry the religion of anyone else nor antagonize him, and that it is not our mission to war against his error, which will manifest itself in due time.

Do you remember that when David had passed out and Solomon reigned in his stead, the latter saw the Lord in a dream, and asked for wisdom? He was given the choice of whatever he might ask, and he asked for wisdom to guide the people. This answer, in effect, was given him: Because it was in your heart to ask wisdom, because you have not asked for riches or long life or for victory over your enemies or anything like that but have prayed for wisdom, therefore that wisdom shall be given you and much more than that. Therefore it may be well for us at this time to devote ourselves to heartfelt prayers for wisdom, and in order that we may recognize it, it will be well to discuss what true wisdom is.

It is said, and truly, that knowledge is power. Knowledge, though in itself neither good nor evil, may be used either for one purpose or the other. Genius merely shows the bent of knowledge, but genius also may be good or evil. We speak of a military genius, one who has a wonderful knowledge of the tactics of war, but such a man cannot be truly good, for he is bound to be heartless and destructive in the expression of his genius.

A man of war, whether he be a Napoleon or a common soldier, can never be wise, because he must deliberately crush all finer feelings of which we take the heart as a symbol. On the other hand, a wise ruler is big-hearted as well as having a powerful intellect, so that one balances the other in promoting the interests of his people. Even the deepest knowledge along religious or occult lines is not wisdom, as we are taught by Paul in that wonderful thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians, where he says in effect: Though I have all the knowledge so that I could solve all mysteries, and have not love, I am nothing. only when knowledge has wed love, do they merge into wisdom, the expression of Christ principle, the second phase of Deity.

We should be very careful to discriminate properly at this point. We may have discrimination between what is expedient for the attainment of a certain end and what hinders and we may choose present ills for future attainment, but even in this we do not necessarily express wisdom. Knowledge, prudence, discretion, and discrimination are all born of the mind; all by themselves alone are snares of evil from which Christ in the Lord’s prayer taught us to pray that we might be delivered. Only when these mind-born faculties are tempered by the heart-born faculty of love does the blended product become wisdom. If we read the thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians, substituting the word wisdom for the word charity or love, we shall understand what this great faculty is that we ought so ardently to desire.

It is, then, the mission of the Rosicrucian Fellowship to promulgate a combined doctrine of the head and the heart, which is the only true wisdom, for no teaching that lacks either of these complements can really be called wise, any more than we can strike a chord of music on one string; for as the nature of man is complex, the teaching which is to assist him to cleanse, purify, and elevate this nature must be multiplex in aspect. Christ followed this principle when He gave us that wonderful prayer, which in its seven stanzas touches the keynote of each of the seven human vehicles and blends them into that master chord of perfection which we call the Lord’s Prayer.

But how shall we teach the world this wonderful doctrine received from the Elder Brothers? The answer to this question is first, last, and all the time: by living the life. It is said to the everlasting credit of Mohammed that his wife became his first disciple, and it is certain that it was not his teaching alone but the life which he lived in the home, day in and day out, year in and year out, which won the confidence of his companion to such an extent that she was willing to trust her spiritual fate in his hands.

It is comparatively easy to stand before strangers who know nothing bad about us and to whom our shortcomings are therefore not patent, and preach for an hour or two each week, but it is totally different thing to preach twenty-four hours a day in the home as Mohammed must have done by living the life. It we would have the success in our propaganda that he had in his, we must, each and everyone of us, begin in the hone, begin by demonstrating to those with whom we live that the teachings which guide us are truly wisdom teachings. It is said that charity begins at home. This is the word that should have been translated “love” in the thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians.

Change this also into wisdom and let it read, wisdom propaganda begins at home. Then let this be our motto throughout the years: “By living the life at home we can advance the cause better than in any other way.” Many skeptical families have been converted by husbands or wives in the Rosicrucian Fellowship. May the rest follow.

5. The Secret Of Success

This is a subject which ought to interest everybody, for surely we all desire to be successful; but the question is what constitutes success? And to this question perhaps each individual would have a different answer. But a little thought will soon make it clear that whatever path we pursue in our desire to attain success, that path must be follow the evolutionary tread of mankind. Therefore there must be a general answer as to what constitutes success and what is the secret thereof. It would be a mistake, however, to try to find the solution of this problem just by examining the life of man during our present age. Paying regard to what he has been before and with an eye also to the future development of humanity is the only way to obtain the perspective which is necessary to arrive at the proper answer to this momentous question.

We do not need to go into details to a great extent. We may mention that in the earlier epochs of our evolution when man-in-the-making was coming down from the spiritual world into his present material existence, the secret of success lay in a knowledge of the physical world and the conditions therein. It was not necessary at that time to tell humanity about the spiritual world and our finer vehicles, for these were facts patent to everybody. We saw and lived in the spiritual realms. But we were then coming into the physical world, and therefore the schools of Initiation taught the pioneers of mankind the laws which govern the physical world and initiated them into the arts and crafts whereby they might conquer the material realm. From that time until a comparatively recent date humanity has been working to perfect itself in these branches of knowledge, which reached their highest expression in the centuries just prior to the discovery of steam and are now in their decadence.

At first thought this may seem an unwarranted statement, but a careful examination of the facts will very quickly develop the truth thereof. In the so-called “dark ages” there were no factories, but every town and village was full of small shops in which the master, sometimes alone and at other times with a few journeymen and apprentices, wrought the works of his trade from the raw material to the finished product, exercising his skill and creative instinct and putting his heart and soul into every piece of work that left his hands. If he were a blacksmith, he knew how to produce ornamental ironwork fit for signs, gates, and other things which went to make up the quaint beauty of those medieval villages and towns. Nor did his handiwork ever leave him entirely; as he walked about the town he might look upon this, that, or the other ornament, and pride himself upon the beauty thereof,; pride himself also in the knowledge of how he had won the respect and admiration of his fellow townsmen by his artistic and conscientious work. The joiner who made the framework of the chairs, also upholstered them and made those artistic designs which we are today seeking to follow. The shoemaker, the weaver, and all other craftsmen without exception produced the finished article from the raw material, and each took pride in his handiwork. Also they toiled long hours, but there was no murmur or complaint, for each found a satisfaction in this exercise of his creative instinct. The song of the blacksmith to the accompaniment of the hammer on the anvil was a fact in every shop, and the journeymen and apprentices felt themselves not slaves but masters in the making.

Then came the age of steam and machinery and with it a new system of labor. Instead of the production of the finished article from the raw material by one man, which gave satisfaction to his creative instinct, the new plan was to make men tenders of machines which produced only parts of the finished articles. These parts were then assembled by others. While this plan decreased the cost of production and increased the output, it left no scope for the creative instinct of a man. He became merely a cog in some great machine. In the medieval shop money was indeed a minor consideration; the joy of production was everything; time mattered not. But under the new system men commenced to work for money and against time, with the result that the souls of both master and men are now starved. They have lost the substance and retained only the shadow of all that makes life worth living, for they are laboring for something which they can neither use nor enjoy. This applies to both master and men.

What would we say of a young man who should set himself the goal of accumulating a million handkerchiefs which he could never by any possible change use? Surely we should call him a fool; and why should we not place the man who spends all his energy and foregoes all the comforts of life to become a millionaire, in the same category? This system cannot continue, for it is giving man a stone when he asks for bread, and there must be some other development in store for him. New standards must be in the process of development, new ideals must be looming up to give us a wider vision. For hints as to the trend of evolution we must look to those among us who are most gifted with inspiration, the poets and seers. James Russell Lowell sounds perhaps the clearest note in his vision of Sir Launfal. A knight leaving his castle imbued with a desire to do great and valiant things for God, is going to join the Crusaders and seek the Holy Grail in far distant Palestine. He leaves his castle self-satisfied, proud, and arrogant, bent on his mission. At the castle gate he meets a poor beggar, a leper, who stretches out his hands asking for alms. Sir Launfal, however, has no compassion, but in order to be rid of the loathsome thing, he throws him a golden coin and endeavors to forget him.

“But the leper raised not the gold from the dust, ‘Better to me the poor man’s crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn empty for his door. That is not true alms which the hand can hold; He gives only the worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives from a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight--That thread of all-sustaining beauty Which runs through all and doth all unite--The hand cannot clasp the whole of his aims, The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before.’”

But what of Sir Launfal? Could he be expected in such a frame of mind to attain success and find the Grail? Certainly not. So disappointment after disappointment meets him, and finally he returns to his castle, discouraged and humbled in heart. There he again meets the leper, and at the sight of him,

“The heart within him was ashes and dust;
He parted in twain his single crust,
He broke the ice on the streamlet’s brink,
And gave the leper to eat and drink.”
Then, having fulfilled the task of mercy, the reward comes with it:

“The leper no longer crouched by his side’
But stood before him glorified,
And the Voice that was softer than silence said,
‘Lo, it is I, be not afraid!
In many lands, without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold, it is here--this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now!
This crust is my body broken for thee,
This water the blood I shed on the tree;
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In whatso we share with another’s need;
Not what we give, but what we share--
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his aims feeds three:
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.’”

In these words lies the secret of success, which consists in doing the little things, the perhaps seemingly disagreeable things which are close to our hands, instead of going afar and seeking for chimerical phantasms which never develop into anything definite or tangible.

What will doing the former accomplish for us? may be pertinently inquired. Again we may take the answer from a poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who tells us of the little chambered nautilus. It first builds a small cell only large enough to hold it. Then as it grows, it adds another chamber which is larger and which it them occupies for the next period of growth, and so on until it has made a spiral shell as large as it can, which it then leaves. This idea he puts into the following lines:

“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!”

When we have come to this point, we have obtained success--all the success that we can get in our present world--and we are entering a new sphere of larger opportunities.

6. The Death Of The Soul

From time to time, seemingly following a law of periodicity, the same difficulties crop up in the minds of students. At the same time a number of letters from different parts of the world ask for information on a subject, at another time on a different one, but after years the same subjects are revived. While help is given the individuals who ask, it may be that many more are interested in the same subject at the same time, hence this lesson on the death of the soul, which seems to exercise the mind perhaps because death of the body is so common and frequent.

Some years ago we published a lesson on “The Unpardonable Sin and Lost Souls” in connection with the sacraments which we were them explaining. It was there stated that all the sacraments have to do with the transmission of the seed atoms, which form the nuclei of our various bodies. The germ for our earthly body must be properly placed in fruitful soil to grow a suitable dense vehicle, and for this reason, as stated in Genesis, 1:27, “Elohim created man male and female.” The Hebrew words are sacr va n’cabah. These are names of the sex organs. Literally translated, sacr means the bearer of the germ; and thus marriage is a sacrament, for it opens the way for the transmission of the physical seed atom from the father to the mother and tends to preserve the race against the ravages of death.

Baptism as a sacrament signifies the germinal urge of the soul for higher life, the planting of a spiritual seed.

Communion is the sacrament in which we partake of bread made from the seed of chaste plants, and in which the cup symbolizing the passionless seed pod points to the age to come, an age when marriage will be unnecessary to transmit the seed through a father and mother, but when we may feed directly upon cosmic life and thus conquer death.

Finally, extreme unction is the sacrament which marks the loosing of the silver cord and the extraction of the sacred germ, until it shall again be planted in another N’cabah, or mother.

As the seed and ovum are the root and basis of racial development, it is easy to see that no sin can be more serious than that which abuses the creative function, for by the sacrilege we stunt future generations and transgress against the Holy Spirit, Jehovah, who is the warden of the creative lunar force. His angels herald birth, as in the case of Isaac, John the Baptist, and Jesus. When He wanted to reward His most faithful follower, Abraham, He promised to make his seed as numerous as the sands on the seashore. He also meted out the most terrible punishment to the Sodomites, who committed sacrilege by misdirecting the seed; and the sin of Onan who wasted it is also a pointer in the same direction.

We are told in the Bible that mankind were forbidden to eat of the Tree of Knowledge under pain of death. But instead of patiently waiting for the periods of propitious interplanetary conditions Adam knew Eve, and since then she has borne her children in pain and suffering subject to premature death. Therefore the abuse of this sacred function for gratification of the passional nature, and particularly perversion, is recognized by esotericists as the unpardonable sin. It is to this James refers when he says, “There is a sin unto death. I do not say that ye shall pray for that.”

But occult investigations have proved in this case, as with all other forms of hell preaching, that God and nature are much more lenient and merciful to man than man is to his fellows. Though the retributive justice meted out to those who have lived lives of sin and vice was found in all cases to be severe, nothing nearly as serious as the “death of the soul” occurs. So far as we have been able to learn, only the black magician who consciously misuses the seed for malicious purposes faces anything so serious as that implied in the phrase; and there would really be no need of going into the subject at all except that it throws side lights upon other matters of value to the student.

To understand this properly we must first call to the mind the sharp definitions of the terms spirit, soul and body as given in the “Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception.” It is there stated that in the beginning of manifestation the Virgin Spirit, a spark from the Divine, involved itself in a three-fold veil of spirit-matter and thus became the Ego.

The threefold spirit cast a threefold shadow into the realm of matter, and thus the dense body was evolved as a counterpart of the Divine Spirit, the vital body as a replica of the Life Spirit, and the desire body as the image of the Human Spirit. Finally, and most important of all, the link of mind was formed between the threefold spirit and its threefold body. This was the beginning of individual consciousness, and marks the point where the involution spirit into matter is finished and the evolutionary process whereby the spirit is lifted out of matter begins. Involution involves the crystallization of spirit into bodies, but evolution depends upon the dissolution of the bodies, the extraction of the soul-substance from them, and the alchemical amalgamation of this soul with the spirit.

At the beginning of evolution man consisted only of spirit and body,--he was soulless; but since them each life lived on earth in the great school of experience had made him more and more soulful according to the use which he has made of his opportunities. This is shown in the different gradation between the savage and the saint which we see all about us. It is the loss of the soul which is involved in the experience we describe as the death of the soul. The spirit itself can of course never die seeing that it is a spark from the Divine, without beginning and without end. How then can the death of the soul be brought about, and what is the real meaning of the phrase? This is a subject the writer does not like to dwell upon, but for the sake of the important side light it throws upon spiritual advancement, as already said, the facts will be given.

In the foregoing we have seen that the threefold spirit has projected a threefold body and that the purpose of evolution is the extraction of the threefold soul from his threefold body and the amalgamation thereof with the threefold spirit. Now mark this point for this is the important crux of the whole matter, a very valuable and important piece of information which will help the student to a more definite understanding of the subject than has hitherto been given: Much is said in occult literature about “The Path”; but though to the initiated who already know, the statements of what it is and where it is are plentiful, this information has never before been given to the exoteric student. Paul tells us that to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritual minded is life and peace. This is the exact truth, for the mind, which is the link between the spirit and the body, is the path or bridge, the only means of transmission of soul to spirit. So long as man is carnally minded and turns his attention to worldly successes, cherishing as his motto proverb, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die,” all his activities are centered in the lower part of his being, the personality, and he lives and dies like the animals, unconscious of the magnetic drawings of the spirit. But at length there comes a time when the yearnings of the spirit are felt, and the personality sees the light and sets out to seek its Higher Self across the bridge of mind. And as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, the body is crucified that the soul may be liberated and joined to its Father in Heaven, the threefold spirit, the Higher Self.

That at least is the general tendency, the higher elevates the lower. But unfortunately there are examples of the opposite where the lower personality becomes so strong in its materialism and where the mind becomes so firmly enmeshed with the lower vehicles that the personality refuses to sacrifice itself for the spirit, with the result that the bridge of mind is finally broken. The soulless personality may then continue to live for many years after this separation has taken place, and may perpetrate the most outrageous acts of cruelty and cunning until it succumbs. Black Magic which involves the perverted use of seed obtained from others is generally used by these soulless personalities for the purpose of satisfying their demoniac desires. Often they obtain power in a nation or a society, which they then delight in wrecking.

Meanwhile the spirit stands naked; it has no seed atoms wherewith to create further bodies, and it therefore automatically gravitates to the planet Saturn and thence to Chaos, where it must retain until the dawn of a new creative day. It may seen unjust at first sight that the spirit should be thus made to suffer though it has committed no wickedness; but on further thought it will be understood that as the personality is the creature of the Higher Self, the responsibility exists and cannot be evaded. Fortunately, however, such cases grow increasingly rare as we advance upon the pathway of evolution. Nevertheless, it behooves all to set their faces earnestly towards the goal so that the light on the path that leads toward our spiritual ideal, the union with the Higher Self, may grow brighter day by day.

7. The New Sense Of The New Age

At the end of the Taurean age, about 4,000 years ago, “God’s people” fled from the wrath to come when they left Egypt, the land where they worshiped the Bull. They were led in their flight to the promised land by Moses, whose head in ancient esoteric pictures is adorned with wreathed ram’s horns, symbolical of the fact that he was herald of the Aryan age of 2100 years, during which each Easter morning the vernal sun colored the doorposts red as with the blood of the lamb, when it passed over the equator in the constellation (not the sign) of the ram Aries. Similarly, when the sun by precession was approaching the watery constellation Pisces, the Fishes, John immersed the converts to the Messianic religion in the waters of Jordan, and Jesus called his disciples “fishers” of men. As the “lamb” was slain at the Passover while the sun went through the constellation Aries, the Ram, so the faithful have in obedience to the command of their church fed on fishes during Lent in the present cycle of Pisces, the Fishes.

At the time when the sun by precession left the constellation Taurus, the Bull, the people who worshiped that animal were pronounced heathen and idolaters. A new symbol of the Savior, or Messias, was found in the lamb, which correspond to the constellation Aries; but when the sun by precession left that sign, Judaism became a religion of the past, and thenceforth the bishops of the new Christian religion wore a miter shaped like a fish’s head to designate their standing as ministers of the church during the Piscean Age, which is now drawing to a close.

By viewing the future through the perspective of the past, it is evident that a new age is to be ushered in when the sun enters the constellation Aquarius, the Water-bearer, a few hundred years hence. Judging by the events of the past it is reasonable to expect that a new phase of religion will supersede our present system, revealing higher and nobler ideals than our present conception of the Christian religion. It is therefore certain that if in that day we would not be classed among the idolaters and heathen, we must prepare to align ourselves with these new ideals.

John the Baptist, preached the gospel of preparedness in no uncertain words, warning people that the ax had been laid at the root of the tree. He cautioned them also to flee from the wrath to come, when the Son (Sun) of God should come, fan in hand, to separate the wheat from the chaff and burn it up. Christ likened the gospel to a little leaven which leavened a measure of flour.

At first sight the method of John seems to be most drastic, laying the ax at the root of the whole social structure, while the leavening process mentioned by Christ appears to be more gentle; but in reality it is even more thoroughgoing and drastic, as will be evident if we consider carefully what takes place when we make a loaf. It is a chemical revolution, a miniature war, involving an entire transformation of every atom of flour in the vessel; none can escape the action of the leaven, and there is a sound as of continual cannonading, explosion of bombs and shells, until the force of the leaven is spent and the dough transformed to a light sponge. But this war of the atoms, this chemical revolution, is absolutely indispensable in the process of bread making, for if the leavening process were omitted, the result would be a heavy, unpalatable, indigestible loaf. It is the transmutation wrought by the leaven which makes the loaf wholesome and nutritious.

The process of preparation for the Aquarian Age has already commenced, and as Aquarius is an airy, scientific, and intellectual sign, it is a foregone conclusion that the new faith must be rooted in reason and able to solve the riddle of life and death in a manner that will satisfy both the mind and the religious instinct.

Such is the Western Wisdom Religion promulgated by the Rosicrucian Fellowship; like the leaven in the loaf, it is breaking down the fear of death engendered by the uncertainty surrounding the post-mortem existence. It is showing that life and consciousness continue under the laws as immutable as God, which tends to raise man to increasingly higher, nobler, and loftier states of spirituality. It kindles the beacon light of hope in the human heart by the assertion that as we have in the past evolved the five senses by which we contact the present visible world, so shall we in the not distant future evolve another sense which will enable us to see the denizens of the etheric region, as well as those of our dear ones who have left the physical body and inhabit the ether and lower desire world during the first stage of their career in the spiritual realms. The mission of Aquarius is aptly represented by the symbol of man emptying the water urn.

Aquarius is an airy sign having special rule over the ether. The Flood partly dried the air by depositing most of the moisture it held in the sea. But when the sun enters Aquarius by precession, the rest of the moisture will be eliminated and visual vibrations, which are most easily transmitted by a dry etheric atmosphere, will become more intense; thus conditions will be particularly conducive to production of the slight extension of our present sight necessary to open our eyes to the etheric region. California’s production of physics is an instance of this effect of a dry, electric atmosphere, though, of course, it is not nearly so dry as the air of the Aquarian Age will be.

Thus faith will be swallowed up in knowledge and we shall all be able to utter the triumphant cry, “O death, where is thy sting; O grave, where is thy victory?” But it is well to realize that by aspiration and meditation to those who are longingly looking for that day are taking time by the forelock and may quite easily outstrip their fellows who are unaware of what is in store. The latter, on the other hand, may delay the development of extended vision by the belief that they are suffering from hallucinations when they begin to get their first glimpses of the etheric entities, and the fear that if they tell others what they see, they will be adjudged insane.

Therefore the Rosicrucian Fellowship has been charged by the Elder Brothers with the mission of promulgating the gospel of the Aquarian Age, and of conducting a campaign of education and enlightenment, so that the world may be prepared for what is in store. The world must be leavened with those ideas:

(1) Conditions in the land of the living dead are not shrouded in mystery, but knowledge regarding them is as available as knowledge concerning foreign countries from the tales of travelers.

(2) We now stand close to the threshold where we shall all know these truths.

(3) And, most important of all, we shall hasten the day in our own case by acquiring knowledge of the facts concerning the post-mortem existence and the things we may expect to see, for then we shall know what to look for, and neither be frightened, astonished nor incredulous when we commence to obtain glimpses of these things.

Students should also realize that a serious responsibility goes with the possession of knowledge: “to who much is given, of him much shall be required.” If we hide or bury our “talent,” may we not expect a merited condemnation? The Rosicrucian Fellowship can only fulfill its mission in so far as each member does his duty in spreading the teachings, and therefore it is to be hoped that this may serve to call the attention of the student to the fact of his individual duty.

The etheric sight is similar to the X-ray in that it enables its possessor to see right through all objects, but it is much more powerful and renders everything as transparent as glass. Therefore in the Aquarian Age many things will be different from now, for instance, it will be extremely easy to study anatomy and to detect a morbid growth, a dislocation, or a pathological condition of the body. At present medical men of the highest standing admit regretfully that their diagnosis are only too frequently erroneous as shown by post-mortem observation; but when we have evolved the etheric sight, they will be able to study both anatomical structures and physiological processes without hindrance.

The etheric vision will not enable us to see one another’s thoughts, for they are formed in still finer stuff, but it will make it largely impossible for us to live double lives and to act differently in our homes than we do in public. If we were aware that invisible entities now throng our houses, we should often feel ashamed of the things we do; but in the Aquarian Age there will be no privacy which may not be broken into by anyone who desires to see us.

It will avail nothing that we send the office boy or maid out to tell an unwelcome visitor that we are “not in.” This means that in the new age honesty and straightforwardness will be the only policies worth while, for we cannot then do wrong and hope to escape detection. There will be people whose base characters will lead them into ways of wickedness then as now, but they will at least be marked so that they may be avoided.

The student can easily conjecture a number of other conditions that will result from the extension of sight which will come with the Aquarian Age, and by living as near to that state as possible, he will be placing himself in a position to become one of the pioneers of that age when “there shall be no night,” and when the “tree of life” shall bloom unceasingly by the transparent etheric “sea of glass” which permeates all things.

8. God’s Chosen People

When we read the history of the Hebrews as recorded in the Bible and chronicled in medieval and modern records of the various peoples inhabiting the Western world, one inescapable fact stands out with startling clearness, to wit, that they have been led into exile and slavery, hated in every country where they have been scattered, and persecuted wherever the temperament of the nations among whom the Jews dwelt would allow them to resort to such measures. According to the Bible, esteemed the “Word of God” by the Western peoples, the Jews are “God’s chosen people” in a peculiar sense, yet among these very nations the Jews are despised and discredited. When we investigate the reason of this tragedy, two salient facts present themselves:

(1) Everywhere the Jews have proclaimed themselves God’s chosen people, destined by divine favor in time to become masters of the world, to whom all nations will eventually have to pay homage and tribute.

(2) Their dealings with the gentiles have almost invariably been marked by such sharp practices that in public mind Shakespeare’s Shylock, exacting his “pound of flesh,” agrees with the general conception of their nature.

Thus, unconsciously, there has grown up in the mind of the other nations a resentment toward the Jews’ claim to be divinely favored children of God, while they class all others as stepchildren, heathen, and gentiles reserved for the day of wrath when Israel shall triumphantly rule them with a rod of iron. This resentment is accentuated by contemplation of the present day practices of the Jews.

If the Jews had backed up their claim of being divine favorites by lives of noble and lofty conduct, they would probably have inspired the admiration of many of the people among whom they have dwelt. They would have stirred some to emulation; even those who were envious of their preferment would probably have respected them. But because their high professions and their practices are so widely divergent, it is sad but not to be wondered at that they are hated and persecuted on every hand.

The student is warned not to view the foregoing merely as a criticism of the Jews,; it is wrong to expose the faults of others and to criticize them unless we have a constructive end in view. It is always so easy to see the mote in our brother’s eye, but far easier to overlook the beam in our own. The reason for bringing up the subject of the Jews with their high professions and divergent practices is but to inquire if, by turning the searchlight upon the mote in their eye, we shall not find a large beam in our own. If so, we shall have accomplished something worth while and put ourselves in line to remove the beam.

So long as we live at the level of the world, doing the things others do, good, bad and indifferent, no one takes particular notice of us; but the moment we, like the Jews, make professions to be something different, the searchlight of society at once singles us out as objects of observation to determine what ratio of agreement there is between our professions and our practices. We are watched wherever we go and whatever we do; hence a great responsibility rests upon us to acquit ourselves well in order that we may do credit to the teachings of our Elder Brothers and stimulate in others a desire to embrace these teachings.

Therefore let us pause and take stock of our actions and accomplishments in the past year; then let us make such resolutions as we feel will make the future more profitable from the standpoint of the soul.

In the first place let us acknowledge that we have been especially favored, far beyond our merit, by receiving the Rosicrucian teachings from our Elder Brothers. Let us hope that we have expressed our gratitude to them through all the past year, and let us at this time send them special thoughts of love and gratitude. Needless to say they do not crave our gratitude, they are beyond that; but we may make more soul growth by being grateful.

Then let us consider how we have used these precious teachings during the past year: have we dealt justly with our fellows, have we been lenient in our judgments and criticisms of others, have we striven to curb our temper, cultivate equipoise, and overcome whatever may be our particular besetting sin?

What measure of success have we had? Let us hope our accomplishments have been at least moderate, for as the sincerity of the Jews’ high professions have been judged by their performance, so, right or wrong, the teachings of the Elder Brothers will be rated in the community by the actions of those who profess to be their followers.

But it is a foregone conclusion that we shall have to admit at the end of our retrospection that we have fallen far short of the lofty ideals placed before us. This is always a critical point where our spiritual career is in danger of shipwreck upon the rock of faintheartedness, that is, if we are of the temperament that broods over or magnifies failure. Such an attitude of mind precipitates disaster by robbing us of the will to win; it makes us believe that there is not use in struggling, that the odds against us are too great. Excuses are found in the antagonism of friends and family to our belief, duties that take our time, etc. But, as a matter of fact, the trouble is within ourselves, and if we yield, we shall find that our friends will despise us in their hearts even if they do not show it openly as in the case of the Jews.

Instead, so far from causing us to forsake the path of progress, our failures should act as a spur to greater efforts, and we should make our resolution with greater determination so that during the coming year we may be invincible with respect to the matter covered by it.

We all know our own particular shortcomings, “the sin which doth so easily beset us,” and each will naturally have to formulate the proper resolutions for himself. But in carrying these resolutions into effect so that they may be productive of soul growth and help to weave the glorious golden wedding garment, it will undoubtedly help us immensely to fasten our eyes and thoughts upon one who possessed the virtue we are seeking to cultivate. Such a great example we have in Christ, who “was tempted in all things like ourselves, yet without sin.” Let us therefore keep Him closely before our mind’s eye during the coming year, and we shall surely make great soul growth. This is also the best propaganda we can make for the Rosicrucian teachings, for by living close to them we shall surely evoke in others a desire to share in their blessings.

9. Mystic Light On The World War

Part 1. Secret Springs

It is well known to students of the Rosicrucian teachings that we as spirits are immortal, without beginning and without end; that we have gone to the great school of experience many life-days in the past each time clad in a new child’s body of finer texture, in which we lived for a time varying from a few hours to a lifetime, and when a day at life’s school had been completed, we shuffled off this mortal coil, worn out and decrepit, to return to our heavenly home for rest and assimilation during the night of death of the lessons learned; later to be reborn and take up our lessons where we left them when we were called home from the previous session of the school of life.

During each day at life’s school we met other spirits and formed ties of love and hate. In later lives we met again so that the debts of destiny thus incurred might be liquidated. And so our friends of today are those we befriended yester-life, and our enemies are those with whom we were at variance in the forgotten past. Thus we are continually weaving the web of destiny on the loom of time, and creating for ourselves a garment of glory or gloom according to whether we have worked well or ill.

But we do not work out our individual destiny only, for as the proverb says, “No man liveth unto himself.” We are grouped in families, tribes, races, and nations, and in addition to our individual destiny we are tied by the family and national destinies because we are under the guardianship of the angels and archangels who act as family and race spirits respectively. It is these great spirits who imprint on our seed atoms the racial form and features of the physical body. They also implant the national loves and hates on the seed atoms of our finer vehicles, because the race spirit broods like a cloud over the land inhabited by its wards, and the latter draw all the materials for their finer bodies from this atmosphere. In this race spirit, as a matter of actual fact, they live and move and have their being. From it their vehicles are formed. Yea, with every breath in this race spirit, so that it is absolutely true that it is nearer than hands and feet. It is this race spirit which imbues them with love or hate for other nations, thus determining between certain nations and the trust and confidence which exists between others.

According to the teachings of the Rosicrucians, every spirit is reborn twice during the time it takes the sun by precession to go through a sign of the zodiac, once as man and once as woman. This is done in order that it may gain the experiences to be had in that sign from the viewpoint of both sexes. There are many modifications to this rule according to the necessities of individual spirits, for the law is not blind but it is under the administration of great beings called the Recording Angels in the Christian terminology. It is their duty to watch the Clock of Destiny and see when the time is ripe to reap the harvest of the past, and this applies both to individuals and to nations. Therefore if we study the characteristics of the nations recently locked in a titanic struggle, together with the aims for which they were fighting, and look back over the pages of history, it needs no seership, scarcely even intuition, to place them and thus see how the springs of the recent war were generated in the distant past.

It has, in fact, been suggested by historians that the sons of Albion are a reembodiment of the ancient Romans. In the light of occult investigations this is not quite true, for there are a number of alien strains present. But they have been so fused in the dominant race that it may be said to be practically a fact.

Let us recall the history of Rome and remember that the democratic spirit, after the first seven kings had reigned, manifested itself in the formation of a republic, which then began a war of aggression to obtain the mastery of the world, and in the course of this campaign it became engaged with Carthage in a mighty struggle for the mastery of the Mediterranean Sea. To gain expansion westward the Romans endeavored to expel the Carthaginians from Sicily. Carthage at that time was a great sea power, but she was defeated by the Romans in 260 B.C. on her own element. Following up this advantage Rome transferred the war to Africa and was at first successful, but Regulus, the consul whom she left behind, was finally worsted and made prisoner. A series of naval disasters to Rome ensued, and Carthage was about to regain more than she had lost of Sicily when Tetulus, the Roman Consul, gained another decisive victory over the Carthaginians in 241 B.C., who there upon undertook to evacuate Sicily and the adjacent islands. This ended in the first Punic War, which was twenty-two years in duration.

But Carthage was not to be so easily conquered. Finding Rome her match at sea, she resumed hostilities by acquiring a foothold in Spain, and the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal, who heartily hated Rome, attempted the conquest of that city during the second Punic War, which was declared in 218 B.C. His plans, nurtured in secret, were carried on with unexampled celerity. He crossed the Pyrenees from Spain to France, fought his way over the Alps against every obstacle, and descended upon Cisalpine Gaul with but twenty-six thousand survivors of his army of fifty-nine thousand men. After several defeats of the Romans came the great battle of Cannae in 216 B.C., where Hannibal’s victory was complete. Macedonia and Sicily declared for the conquerors, and Hannibal marched even to the Colline gate of Rome. But finding this city too strong for him, he withdrew to southern Italy, where he was finally defeated and Carthage forced to sue for peace. Thus Rome became the mistress of the Mediterranean.

But the hate of Hannibal was unabated, and when he and his compatriots, the Carthaginians, were reborn in landlocked Prussia, while the ancient Romans occupied the British Islands as mistresses of the seas, it was inevitable that in time a great conflict must take place.

As the ancient Punic Wars generated the recent conflict, so will this war in due time bring its renewal of the struggle unless we shown a spirit of kindness in dealing with the vanquished foe, instead of dealing with them as Rome did in that ancient past, without mercy and without consideration. The power to harm others must be taken from the militarist of the Central Empires.

It is absolutely imperative that the world should be made safe from a repetition of this catastrophe, but the measures taken to secure this desirable end should be such that not only do they ensure peace for the present life, but also for those future life-days when we shall meet in another guise those with whom we were recently at war.

Justice ought to be done, but it should be tempered with mercy in order to avoid perpetuating hate, and therefore such harsh measures as, for instance, the industrial boycott are wrong. It should be sufficient to see that the Central Empires get no more than a fair share of the world’s trade. The new American nation, which is not yet under the domination of any race spirits, sees more impartially and therefore more clearly than any other what is right. Therefore it is to be hoped that the American ideas of justice will prevail. Let us remember that one wrong never can and never will right another, and that we must live and let live.

Part 2. Its Promotion Of Spiritual Sight

Strange as the statement may seem, it is nevertheless true that the great majority of mankind are partially asleep most of the time, notwithstanding the fact that their physical bodies may seem to be intensely occupied in active work. Under ordinary conditions the desire body in the case of the great majority is the most awake part of composite man, who lives almost entirely in his feelings and emotions, but scarcely ever thinks of the problem of existence beyond what is necessary to keep body and soul together. Most of this class have probably never given the great questions of life, Whence have we come, why are we here, and whither are we going? any serious consideration. Their vital bodies are kept active repairing the ravages of the desire body upon the physical vehicle, and purveying the vitality which is later dissipated in gratifying the desires and emotions.

It is this hard-fought battle between the vital and desire bodies which generates consciousness in the physical world and makes men and women so intensely alert that, viewed from the standpoint of the physical world, it seems to give the lie to our assertion that they are partially asleep. Nevertheless, upon examination of all the facts it will be found that this is the case, and we may also say that this state of affairs has come about by the design of the great Hierarchs who have our evolution in charge.

We know that there was a time when man was much more awake in the spiritual worlds than in the physical. In fact there was a time when, although he had a physical body, he could not sense it at all. In order that he might learn how to use this physical instrument properly, conquer the physical world, and learn to think accurately, it was necessary that he should for a time forget all about the spiritual worlds, and devote all his energies to physical affairs. How this was brought about by the introduction of alcohol as a food and by other means has been explained in the “Cosmo” and need not be reiterated. But we are now face to face with the fact that mankind has become so completely immersed in materiality that, so far as the great majority are concerned, the invisible vehicles are thoroughly focused upon physical activities and asleep to the spiritual verities, which are even derided as the imagination of diseased brains; also those who are beginning to awake from the sleep of materialism are scorned as fanatics, fit only for the madhouse.

If this attitude of mind were consistently followed, the spirit would eventually become crystallized in the body. The heaven life in which we build our future vehicles and environments would become increasingly barren; for when we persistently hold the thought that there is nothing but what we contact through our senses (see, hear, feel, smell, touch, and analyze), this mental attitude cultivated in the earth life persists in the Second Heaven with the result that we may there neglect the preparation that would give us a field of endeavor and instruments wherewith to work in it, and as a result evolution would soon cease.

According to the Rosicrucian teachings, the soul is the extract of the various bodies; it is garnered by experience that involves the destruction of the particular bodies from which this living bread is derived and which is to be used as a pabulum for the spirit. In the ordinary course of evolution the perfection of the various vehicles is gradual, and the soul substance is then garnered and assimilated by the spirit between earth lives. But at a certain period in the larger life when we are entering upon a new spiral, a different phase of evolution, it is usually necessary to employ drastic measures to turn the spirit out of the beaten pathway into a new and unknown direction. Formerly when we possessed less individuality and were incapable of taking the initiative ourselves these changes were accomplished by what may be called great cataclysms of nature, but which were in fact planned by the divine Hierarchies who guide evolution, with a view to destroying multitudes of bodies that had served the purpose of human development in a given direction, changing the environment of those who had learned the possibilities of a new road, and starting these pioneer people upon a fresh career. Such wholesale destruction was naturally much more frequent in the earlier epochs than in later times. Lemuria had all the requisite conditions for numerous attempts at making a fresh start with one group when another had failed and had been destroyed. As a matter of fact, there was not merely one flood in Atlantis but three, and a period of about three-quarters of a million years elapsed between the first and the last.

We may not expect that the method of wholesale destruction and a new start can be abrogated until we as a whole awaken to the necessity of taking a new road when we have come to the end of the old, but a new method is being used by the Invisible Directors of evolution. They are not now making use of cataclysms of nature to change the old order for something new and better, but they are making use of the misdirected energies of humanity itself to further the ends they have in view. This was the genesis of the great war which recently raged among us. Its purpose was to turn our energies from seeking the bread whereof men die and to create in us the soul hunger that would cause us to turn from material things to spiritual. We are, as a matter of act, commencing to work out our own salvation. We are beginning to do things for ourselves instead of having them done for us, and though unaware of the fact, we are learning how to turn evil to good.

Some may think this war affected only those few million men actually engaged in it, but a little thought upon the matter will soon convince anyone that the welfare of the whole world was involved to a greater or lesser degree so far as economic conditions were concerned. There is no race nor country that escaped entirely, nor can any go on in the same tranquil manner as before the war broke out. Kinship and friendship were ties which reached from the trenches of Europe to every part of the globe. Many of us were related to individuals in one and perhaps both groups engaged in the strife, and we followed their fortunes with an interest commensurate with the strength of our feeling for them. But in the nighttime when our physical bodies were asleep and we entered the desire world, we could not escape living and feeling the whole tragedy with all the intensity whereof we were capable, for the desire currents swept the whole world. In the desire world there is neither time nor distance. The trenches of Europe were brought to our door no matter where we lived, and we could not escape the subconscious effect of the spectacle which we there saw. Furthermore this titanic struggle produced effects which could never be equaled by a natural cataclysm, which is so much quicker in its action and so much shorter in its duration, besides being localized and incapable of generating the same feelings of love and hate which were such important factors in the World War.

During the previous career of man it has been the object of the divine Hierarchs to teach him how to accomplish physical results by physical means. He has forgotten how to utilize the finer forces in nature such as, for instance, the energy liberated when grain is sprouting, which was used for purposes of propulsion and levitation in the Atlantean airships. He is unaware of the sanctity of fire and how to use it spiritually, therefore only about fifteen per cent of its power is utilized in the best steam engines. It is well of course that man is thus limited, for were he able to use the power at the command of one whose spiritual faculties are awakened, he could annihilate our world and all upon it. But while he is doing his best or his worst with the faculties at his command today, he is learning the lesson of how to hold his feelings in leash to fit himself for the use of the finer forces necessary for development in the Aquarian Age, and pulling the scales from his eyes so that he may commence to see the new world which he is destined to conquer.

Two separate and distinct processes are made use of to accomplish this result. One is the visit of death to millions of homes, tearing away from the family group the husband, father, or brother, and leaving the survivors to face a gray existence of economic privation. The sun existed previous to the eye and built that organ for its perception. The desire to see was naturally unconscious on the part of the individual who did not know and had no concept of the meaning or use of sight; but in the world soul, which created the sun, rested the knowledge and requisite desire that worked the miracle. Similarly in the case of death: when our consciousness had first become focused in the physical vehicles and the fact of death stared us in the face, there was no hope within; but in time religion supplied the knowledge of an invisible world whence the spirit had come to take birth and whither it returns after death. The hope of immortality gradually evolved in humanity the feeling that death is only a transition, but modern science has done its best to rob men of this consolation.

Nevertheless, at every death the tears that are shed serve to dissolve the veil that hides the invisible world from our longing gaze. The deep-felt yearning and the sorrow at the parting of loved and loving ones on both sides of the veil are tearing this apart, and at some not far distant day the accumulated effect of all this will reveal the fact that there is no death, but that those who have passed beyond are as much alive as we. The potency of these tears, this sorrow, this yearning is not equal in all cases, however, and the effects differ wisely according to whether the vital body has been awakened in any given person by acts of unselfishness and service, according to the occult maxim that all development along spiritual lines begins with the vital body. his is the basis, and no superstructure can be built until this foundation has been laid.

With regard to the second process of soul unfoldment which is carried on among those actually engaged in warfare, there are probably but few who have had as unique an opportunity to study actual conditions on the whole of the extended line of battle as the writer.

Notwithstanding all the brutality and hellishness of the whole thing he feels confident that this was the greatest school of soul unfoldment that has ever existed, for nowhere have there been so numerous opportunities for selfless service as on the battle fields of France, and nowhere have men been so ready to grasp the change of doing for some one else.

Thus the vital bodies of a host of people have received a quickening such as they would probably not have otherwise attained for a number of lives, and these people have therefore become correspondingly sensitive to spiritual vibrations, and susceptible in a higher degree to the benefit which may be derived from the first process previously mentioned.

As a result we shall in due time see an army of sensitives among us who will be in such close touch with the invisible world that their concerted testimony cannot be crushed by the materialistic school. They will prove a great factor in helping us to prepare for the higher conditions of the Aquarian Age.

“But,” some may ask, “will they not forget when the stress and strain of war are over? Will not a large percentage of these people go back into the same rut where they were before?” To this we may answer that we feel confident it can never come to pass, for while the invisible vehicles, especially the vital body, are asleep, man may pursue a materialistic career; but once this vehicle has been awakened and has tasted the bread of life, it is like the physical body, subject to hunger--soul hunger,--and its cravings will not be denied save after an exceedingly hard struggle. In the latter case, of course, the words of Peter are applicable:

“The last state of that man is worse than the first.”

However, it is good to feel that out of all the indescribable sorrow and trouble of the war good is being wrought in the crucible of the gods, and it will be a lasting good. May we all align our forces and help extract the good, so that we may be shining examples to help lead humanity to the New Age.

Part 3. Peace On Earth

A war-weary world, red with the blood of millions, the hope of its future, the flower of its young manhood, is groaning in agony, praying for peace, not an armistice, a temporary cessation of hostilities, but everlasting peace, and it is striving to solve the problem of how to accomplish this much desired end. But it is striking at effects because ignorant of or blind to the one great underlying cause of the ferocity of the people, which was but barely hidden under a thin veneer of civilization before it burst into the volcano of destruction which we have recently witnessed and are now lamenting.

Until the connection between the food of man and his nature is understood and the knowledge applied to tame the passions and eradicate ferocity, there can be no lasting peace. In the dim dawn of being when man-in-the-making wrought under the direct guidance of the divine Hierarchs who led him along the path of evolution, food was given him of a nature that would develop various vehicles in an orderly, systematic manner, so that in time these different bodies would grow into a composite instrument usable as the temple of an indwelling spirit which might then enter and learn life’s lessons by a series of embodiments in earthly bodies of an increasingly fine texture. Five great stages or epochs are observable in the evolutionary journey of man upon earth.

In the first, or Polarian Epoch, what is now man had only a dense body as the minerals have now, hence he was mineral-like, and it is said in the Bible that “Adam was formed of the earth.”

In the second, or Hyperborean Epoch, a vital body made of ether was added, and man-in-the-making had then a body constituted as are those of the present plants; he was not a plant but was plantlike. Cain, the man of that time, is described as an agriculturist; his food was derived solely from vegetation, for plants contain more ether than any other structure.

In the third, or Lemurian Epoch, man cultivated a desire body, a vehicle of passions and emotions, and was then constituted as the animal. Then milk, a product of living animals, was added to his diet, for this substance is most easily worked upon by the emotions. Abel, the man of that time, is described as a shepherd. It is nowhere stated that he killed an animal for food.

In the fourth, or Atlantean Epoch, mind was unfolded, and the composite body became the temple of an indwelling spirit, a thinking being. But thought breaks down nerve cells; it kills, destroys, and causes decay, therefore the new food of the Atlantean was dead carcasses. He killed to eat, and so the Bible describes the man of that time as Nimrod, a mighty hunter.

By partaking of these various foods man descended deeper and deeper into matter; his erstwhile ethereal body formed a skeleton within and became solid. At the same time he gradually lost his spiritual perception, but the memory of heaven was always with him, and he knew himself to be an exile from his true home, the heaven world. In order to enable him to forget this fact and apply himself with undivided attention to conquering the material world, a new article of diet, namely, wine, was added in the fifth or Aryan Epoch. Because of indulgence in this counterfeit spirit of alcohol during the millenniums which have passed since man came up out of Atlantis, the most advanced races of humanity are also the most atheistic and materialistic. they are all drunk for even though a person may say, and say quite truthfully, that he has never touched liquor in his life, it is nevertheless a fact that body in which he is functioning has descended from ancestors who for millenniums have indulged in alcoholic beverages in unstinted measure. Therefore the atoms composing all present day Western bodies are unable to vibrate to the measure necessary for the cognition of the invisible worlds as they were before wine was added to the diet of humanity. Similarly, though a child may be brought up today on a fleshless diet, it still partakes of the ferocious nature of its flesh-eating ancestors of a million years, though in a less degree than those who still continue to feast on flesh. Thus the effect of the flesh food provided for man-in-the-making is deep-seated and deep-rooted even in those who do not now indulge in it.

What wonder then that those who still partake of flesh and wine return at times to godless savagery and exhibit a ferocity unrestrained by any of the finer feelings supposed to have been fostered by centuries of so-called civilization! So long as men continue to quench the immortal spirit within themselves by partaking of flesh and the counterfeit alcoholic spirit, there can never be lasting peace on earth, for the innate ferocity fostered by these articles will break through at intervals and sweep even the most altruistic conceptions and ideals into a maelstrom of savagery, a carnival of ruthless slaughter, which will grow correspondingly greater as the intellect of man evolves and enables him to conceive with his master mind methods of destruction more diabolical than any we have yet witnessed.

It needs no argument to prove that the recent war was much more destructive than any of the previous conflicts recorded in history, because it was fought by men of brain rather than by men of brawn. The ingenuity which in times of peace has been turned to such good account in constructive enterprises was enlisted in the service of destruction, and it is safe to say that if another war is fought fifty or a hundred years hence, it may perhaps all but depopulate the earth. Therefore a lasting peace is an absolute necessity from the standpoint of self-preservation and no thinking man or woman can afford to brush aside without investigation any theory which is advanced as tending to make war impossible, even if they have been accustomed to regard it as a foolish fad.

There is plenty of proof that a carnivorous diet fosters ferocity, but lack of space prevents a thorough discussion of this phase of the subject. We may, however, mention the well known fierceness of beasts of prey and the cruelty of the meat-eating American Indian as fair examples. On the other hand, the prodigious strength and the docile nature of the ox, the elephant, and the horse show the effects of the herb diet on animals, while the vegetarian and peaceable nations of the Orient are a proof of the correctness of the argument against a flesh diet which cannot be successfully gainsaid. Flesh food has fostered human ingenuity of a low order in the past; it has served a purpose in our evolution; but we are now standing on the threshold of a new age when self-sacrifice and service will bring spiritual growth to humanity. The evolution of the mind will bring a wisdom profound beyond our greatest conception, but before it will be safe to entrust us with that wisdom, we must become harmless as doves, for otherwise we should be apt to turn it to such selfish and destructive purposes that it would be an inconceivable menace to our fellow men. To avoid this the vegetarian diet must be adopted.

But there are vegetarians and vegetarians: In Europe conditions cause people now to abstain from flesh eating to a very large extent. They are not true vegetarians for they are lusting for flesh every moment of their lives, and they feel the want of it as a great hardship and sacrifice. In time they would of course grow used to is, and in many generations it would make them gentle and docile, but obviously that is not the kind of vegetarianism we need now. There are others who abstain from flesh foods for the sake of health; their motive is selfish, and many among them probably also lust after the “flesh pots of Egypt.” Their attitude of mind is not such either that it would abolish ferocity very quickly.

But there is a third class which realizes that all life is God’s life and that to cause suffering to any sentient being is wrong, so out of pure compassion they abstain from the use of flesh foods. They are the true vegetarians, and it is obvious that a world war could never be fought by people of this turn of mind. All true Christians will also be abstainers from flesh foods for similar motives. Then peace on earth and good will among men will be an assured fact; the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks that they may cease to deal death, sorrow, and suffering, and become instruments to foster life, love, and happiness.

Our own safety, the safety of our children, the safety of the human race even, demands that we listen to the inspired voice of the poetess, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who wrote the following soul stirring appeal in behalf of our dumb fellow creatures:

“I am the voice of the voiceless,
Through me the dumb shall speak,
Till a deaf world’s ear
Shall be made to hear
The wrongs of the wordless weak.

“The same force formed the sparrow,
That fashioned man the king;
The God of the Whole
Gave a spark of soul,
To furred and feathered thing.

“And I am my brother’s keeper,
And I will fight his fight,
And speak the word
For beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.”

Part 4. The Gospel Of Gladness

The recent titanic struggle among the nations in Europe upset the equilibrium of the whole world to such an extent that the emotions of the people who liven in even the most remote regions of the earth were stirred as they had never been stirred before, the people expressing anger, hate, hysteria, or gloom according to their nature and temperament. It is evident to those who have studied the deeper mysteries of life and who understand the operation of natural law in the spiritual worlds that the inhabitants of the invisible realms were affected in perhaps a greater degree than those who lived in physical bodies, which by their very density make it impossible for us to feel the full force of the emotions.

After the outbreak of the war the tide of emotions ran high and fast, because there were no adequate means of checking it; but by dint of hard work and organization the Elder Brothers of humanity succeeded after the first year in creating an army of Invisible Helpers who, having passed through the gate of death and having felt the sorrow and suffering incident to an untimely transition, were filled with compassion for the others who were constantly pouring in, and became qualified to soothe and help them until they also had found their balance. Later, however, the emotions of hate and malice engendered by the people in the physical world became so strong that there was danger they might gain the ascendancy; therefore new measures had to be taken to counteract these feelings, and everywhere all the good forces were marshaled into line to help restore the balance and keep the baser emotions down.

One of the ways in which most people contributed to the trouble and helped to prolong the war which they were praying might end, was by dwelling on the awful side of it and forgetting to look at the bright side.

“The bright side of that cruel war?” is probably the question which arises in the mind of the reader. “Why, what can you mean?” To some it may perhaps even seem sacrilegious to speak of a bright side in connection with such a calamity, as they would put it. But let us see if there is not a silver lining to even this blackest of clouds, and if there is not a method by which the silver lining could be made wider and wider so that the cloud would become altogether luminous.

Some time ago our attention was called to a book entitled “Pollyanna.” Pollyanna was the little daughter of a missionary, whose salary was so meager that he could scarcely obtain the bare necessities of life. From time to time barrels filled with old clothes and odds and ends arrived at the mission for distribution. Pollyanna hoped that some day a barrel might come containing a little doll. Her father had even written to ask if the next barrel might not contain a discarded doll for his child. The barrel came, but instead of the doll it contained a pair of small crutches. Noticing the child’s disappointment her father said: “There is one thing we can be glad of and grateful for, that we have no need of the crutches.” It was then they began “playing the game,” as they called it, of looking for and finding something for which to be glad and thankful, no matter what happened, and they always found it. For example, when they were forced to eat a very scant meal at a restaurant, not being able to afford the dainties on the menu, they would say: “Well, we are glad we like beans,” even though their eyes would rest on the roast turkey and its prohibitive price. Then they started to teach the game to others, making many a life the happier for learning it, among them some in whom the belief had become fixed that they could never again be happy.

At last they were really starving, and Pollyanna’s mother had to go to heaven to save the expense of living. Soon her father followed, leaving Pollyanna dependent upon the bounty of a rich but crabbed and inhospitable old maiden aunt in Vermont. Despite the unwelcome reception and undesirable quarters assigned her at first, the little girl saw nothing but reasons for gladness; she literally radiated joy, drawing under its spell maid and gardener and in time even the loveless aunt. The child’s roseate mind soon filled the bare walls and floor of her dingy attic room with all manner of beauty. If there were no pictures, she was glad that he little window opened upon a landscape scene more beautiful than any artist could paint, a carpet of green and gold the like of which not even the cleverest of human weavers had ever woven. If her crude washstand were without a mirror, she was glad that the lack of it spared her seeing her freckles; and what if they were freckles, had she not reason to be glad they were not warts? If her trunk were small and her clothes few, was there not reason for gladness that the unpacking was soon done and over? If her parents could not be with her, could she not be glad that they were with God in heaven? Since they could not talk to her, ought she not to rejoice that she could talk to them?

Flitting birdlike over field and moor she forgot the supper hour, and being ordered upon her return to the kitchen to make her meal there of bread and milk, she said to her aunt who expected tears and pouting, “Oh, I am so glad you did it, because I am so fond of bread and milk.” Not a harsh treatment, and there were many of them at first, but that she imagined some kindly motive back of it and gave it a grateful thought.

Her first convert was the housemaid, who used to look forward with dread to the weekly wash day and face Monday in a surly mood. It was not long before our little glad girl and Nancy feeling gladder on Monday morning than on any other morning, because there was not another wash day for a whole week; and soon she had her glad that her name was not Hepsibah, but Nancy, at which name the latter had been disgruntled. One day when Nancy remonstratingly said to her, “Sure, there is nothing in a funeral to be glad about,” Pollyanna promptly answered, “Well, we can be glad it isn’t ours.” To the gardener, who complained to her that he was bent half over with rheumatism, she also taught the glad game by telling him that being bent half over he ought to be glad that he saved one-half the stooping when he did his weeding.

Near her home in a palatial mansion lived an elderly bachelor, a sullen recluse. The more he rebuffed her, the cheerier she was and the oftener she went to see him because no one else did. In her innocence and pity she attributed his lack of courtesy to some secret sorrow, and therefore she longed all the more to teach him the glad game. She did teach it to him, and he learned it, thought it was hard work at first. When he broke his leg, it was not easy to get him to be glad that but one leg was broken, and admit it would have been far worse if this legs had been as numerous as those of a centipede and he had fractured all of them. Her sunshiny disposition succeeded at last in getting him to love the sunshine, open the blinds, pull up the curtains, and open his heart to the world. He wanted to adopt her, but failing in this, he adopted a little orphan boy whom she hand chanced to meet by the wayside.

She made one lady wear bright colors, who had before worn only black. Another lady, rich and miserable because her mind was centered upon past troubles, had her attention directed by Pollyanna to the miseries of others, and being taught through the glad game how to bring gladness into their lives, this lady brought an abundance of it also into her own. All unknown to the little girl she reunited in happy home life a couple about to separate, by kindling within their hearts that had grown cold a strong love for their little ones. By and by the whole town began to play the glad game and teach it to others. Under its influence men and women became different beings: the unhappy became happy, the sick became well, those about to go wrong found again the right path, and the discouraged took heart again.

Soon the leading physician in town found it necessary to prescribe her as he would some medicine. “That little girl,” he said, “is better than a six-quart bottle of tonic. If anyone can take a grouch out of a person it is she; a dose of Pollyanna is more curative than a store full of drugs.” But the greatest miracle which the glad game worked was the transformation effected in the character of her prim, puritanical aunt. She who had accepted Pollyanna in her home as a matter of stern family duty, developed under her little niece’s treatment a heart that fairly overran with affection. Soon Pollyanna was taken out of her bare attic room to a beautifully papered, pictured, carpeted, and furnished room on her aunt’s floor. And so the good she did reacted upon herself.

The story is fiction, but it is based upon facts rooted in cosmic law. What that little girl did with respect to the people in her environment, we as students of the Rosicrucian teachings can and ought to do in our own individual spheres, both in regard to the matters which pertain to intercourse with our relatives and immediate associates and with respect to the world at large.

As regards its application to war in general, instead of being gloomy at defeat or appalled at catastrophes recorded in sensational newspaper headlines, instead of adding our gloom, hate, and malice to the similar feelings engendered by others, can we not find a bright side even in such a seemingly overwhelming calamity? Surely there is reason to rejoice exceedingly in the thoughts of self-sacrifice which prompted so many noble men to give up their work in the world, their large incomes, and their comfortable homes for the sake of what to them was an ideal to make the world better for those who came after them, for they could not help realizing that they might never come back to enjoy the fruits themselves. Can we not rejoice likewise that many noble women, nurtured in ease and comfort, left their homes and friends for the arduous work of nursing and caring for the wounded? Throughout all there was a spirit of altruism, shared by those who though forced by circumstances to say at home still put in their time knitting and working for those who had to bear the brunt of battle.

Great are the birth pangs by which altruism is being born in millions of human hearts, but through the superlative suffering of the later war humanity will become gentler, nobler, and better than ever before. If we can only take this view of the recent suffering and sorrow, if we can only teach others to look to the future blessings which must accrue through this pain and suffering, we shall ourselves be better able to recover from the strain, and be better qualified to help others do the same.

In this manner we can imitate Pollyanna, and if we are only sufficiently sincere, our views will spread and take root in other hearts; then because thoughts are things and good thoughts are more powerful than evil since they are in harmony with the trend of evolution, the day will soon come when we shall be able to gain the ascendancy and help establish permanent peace.

It is hoped that this suggestion may be taken very seriously and put into practice by everyone of our students, for the need is great at the present time, greater than it has been before.

10. The Esoteric Significance Of Easter And The Inception Of The Rosicrucian Philosophy

AGAIN the earth has reach the vernal equinox in its annual circle dance about the sun, and we have Easter. The spiritual ray sent out by the Cosmic Christ each fall to replenish the smoldering vitality of the earth is about to ascend to the Father’s Throne. The spiritual activities of fecundation and germination which have been carried on during the winter and spring will be followed by material growth and a ripening process during the coming summer and autumn under the influence of the indwelling Earth Spirit. The cycle ends at “Harvest Home.” Thus the great World Drama is acted and re- enacted from year to year, an eternal contest between life and death; each in turn becoming victor and being vanquished as the cycles roll on.

This great cyclic influx and efflux are not confined in their effects to the earth and its flora and fauna. They exercise an equally compelling influence upon mankind, though the great majority are unaware of what impels them to action in one direction or another. The fact remains, nevertheless, independent of their cognition that the same earthy vibration which gaudily adorns bird and beast in the spring is responsible for the human desire to don gay colors and brighter raiment at that season. This is also “the call of the wild,” which in summer drives mankind to relaxation amid rural scenes where nature spirits have wrought their magic art in field and forest, in order to recuperate from the strain of artificial conditions in congested cities.

On the other hand, it is the “fall” of the spiritual ray from the sun in autumn which causes resumption of the mental and spiritual activities in winter. The same germinative force which leavens the seed in the earth and prepares it to reproduce its kind in multiple, stirs also the human mind and fosters altruistic activities which make the world better. Did no this great wave of selfless Cosmic Love culminate at Christmas, did it not vibrate peace and good will, there would be no holiday feeling in our breasts to engender a desire to make others equally happy; the universal giving of Christmas gifts would be impossible, and we should all suffer loss.

As the Christ walked day by day, hither and yon, over the hills and the valleys of Judea and Galilee, teaching the multitudes, all were benefited. But He communed most with His disciples, and they, of course, grew apace each day. The bond of love became closer as time went on, until one day ruthless hands took away the beloved Teacher and put Him to a shameful death. But though He had died after the flesh, he continued to commune with them in spirit for some time. At last, however, He ascended to higher spheres, direct touch with Him was lost, and sadly these men looked into each other’s faces as they asked, “Is this the end?” They had hoped so much, had entertained such high aspirations, and though the verdant glory was as fresh upon the sun-kissed landscape as before He went, the earth seemed cold and dreary, for black desolation gnawed at their hearts.

Thus it is also with us who aim to walk after the spirit and to strive with the flesh, though the analogy may not have been previously apparent. When the “fall” of the Christ ray commences in autumn and ushers in the season of spiritual supremacy, we sense it at once and commence to lave our should in the blessed tide with avidity. We experience a feeling akin to that of the apostles when they walked with Christ, and as the season wears on it becomes easier and easier to commune with Him, face to face as it were. But in the annual course of events Easter and the ascension of the “risen” Christ ray to the Father leave us in the identical position of the apostles when their beloved Teacher went away. We are desolate and sad; we look upon the world as a dreary waste and cannot comprehend the reason for our loss, which is as natural as the changes of ebb and flood and day and night--phases of the present age of alternating cycles.

There is a danger in this attitude of mind. If it is allowed to grow upon us, we are apt to cease our work in the world and become dreamers, lose our balance, and excite just criticism from our fellow men. Such a course of conduct is entirely wrong, for as the earth exerts itself in material endeavor to bring forth abundantly in summer after receiving the spiritual impetus in winter, so ought we also to exert ourselves to greater purpose in the world’s work when it has been our privilege to commune with the spirit. If we do Thus we shall be more apt to excite emulation than reproach.

We are wont to think of a miser as one who hoards gold, and such people are generally objects of contempt. But there are people who strive as assiduously to acquire knowledge as the miser struggles to accumulate gold, who will stoop to any subterfuge to obtain their desire, and will as jealously guard their knowledge as the miser guards his hoard. They do not understand that by such a method they are effectually closing the door to greater wisdom. The old Norse theology contained a parable which symbolically elucidates the matter. It held that all who died fighting on the battle field (the strong souls who fought the good fight unto the end) were carried to Valhalla to be with the gods; while those who died in bed or from disease (the souls who drifted weakly through life) went to the dismal Niflheim. The doughty warriors in Valhalla feasted daily upon the flesh of the boar called Scrimner, which was so constituted that whenever a piece was cut from it the flesh at once grew again, so that it was never consumed no matter how much was carved. Thus it aptly symbolized “knowledge,” for no matter how much of this we give to others, we always retain the original.

There is Thus a certain obligation to pass on what we have of knowledge, and “to whom much is given of him much will be required.” Perhaps it may not be out of place to recount an experience which will illustrate the point, for it was the final “test” applied to myself before I was entrusted with the teaching embodied in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, although I was, of course, at the time unaware that I was being weighed. It occurred at a time when I had gone to Europe in search of a teacher who, I believed, was able to aid me to advance on the path of attainment. But when I had probed his teaching to the bottom and forced him to admit certain inconsistencies in it which he could not explain, I was in a veritable “slough of despond,” ready to return to America. As I sat in my chair ruminating over my disappointment, the feeling that some one else was present came over me, and I looked up and beheld the One who has since become my Teacher. With shame I remember how gruffly I asked who had sent him and what he wanted, for I was thoroughly disgruntled, and I hesitated considerably before accepting his help on the points that had caused me to come to Europe.

During the next few days my new acquaintance appeared in my room a number of times, answering my questions and helping me to solve problems that had previously baffled me, but as my spiritual sight was then poorly developed and not always under control, I felt rather skeptical in the matter. Might it not be hallucination? I discussed the question with a friend. The answers to my queries as given by the apparition were clear, concise, and logical to a high degree. They were strictly to the point and altogether beyond anything I was capable of conceiving, so we concluded that the experience must be real.

A few days later my new friend told me that the Order to which he belonged had a complete solution to the riddle of the universe, much more far-reaching than any publicly known teaching, and that they would impart that teaching to me provided I agreed to keep it as an inviolable secret.

The I turned on him in anger: “Ah! do I see the cloven hoof at last! No, if you have what you say and if it is good for the world to know. The Bible expressly forbids us to hide the Light, and I care not to feast at the source of knowledge while thousands of souls hunger for a solution to their problems as I do now.” My visitor then left me and stayed away, and I concluded that he was an emissary from the Black Brothers.

About a month later I decided that I could obtain no greater illumination in Europe and therefore made reservation on a steamer for New York. As travel was heavy, I had to wait a month for a berth.

When I returned to my rooms after having purchased my ticket, there stood my slighted Teacher and he again offered me instruction on condition that I keep it secret. This time my refusal was perhaps more emphatic and indignant than before, but he did not leave. Instead he said, “I am glad to hear you refuse, my brother, and I hope you will always be as zealous in disseminating our teachings without fear or favor as you have been in this refusal. That is the real condition of receiving the teachings.”

How directions were then given me to take a certain train at a certain depot and go to a place I had not heard of before, how I there met the Brother in the flesh, was taken to the Temple, and received the main instructions embodied in our literature, are matters of small interest. The point is that had I agreed to keep the instructions secret, I should naturally have been unfit to be a messenger of the Brothers, and they would have had to seek another. Likewise with any of us: if we hoard the spiritual blessings we have received, evil is at our door, so let us imitate the earth at this Easter time. Let us bring forth in the physical world of action the fruits of the spirit sown in our souls during the past wintry season. So shall we be more abundantly blessed from year to year.

11. The Lesson Of Easter

AND again it is Easter. The dark, dreary days of winter are past. mother nature is taking the cold, snowy coverlids off the earth, and the millions and millions of seed sheltered in the soft soil are bursting its crust and clothing the earth in summer robes, a riot of gay and glorious colors, preparing the bridal bower for the mating of beasts and birds. Even in this war-torn year the song of life sounds loudly above the dirge of death. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Christ has risen--the first fruits. He is the resurrection and the life; whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Thus at the present season the mind of the civilized world is turned towards the feast we call Easter, commemorating the death and resurrection of the individual whose life story is written in the Gospels, the noble individual known to the world by the name of Jesus. But a Christian mystic takes a deeper and more far-reaching view of this annually recurring cosmic event. For him there is an annual impregnation of the earth with the cosmic Christ life; an inbreathing which takes place during the fall months and culminates at the winter solstice when we celebrate Christmas, and an outbreathing which finds its completion at the time of Easter. The inbreathing or impregnation is manifested to us in the seeming inactivity of winter, but the outbreathing of the Christ life manifests as the resurrection force which gives new life to all that lives and moves upon the earth, life abundant, not only to sustain but to propagate the perpetuate.

Thus the cosmic drama of life and death is played annually among all evolving creatures and things from the highest to the lowest, for even the great and sublime cosmic Christ in His compassion becomes subject to death by entering the cramping conditions of our earth for a part of the year. It may therefore be appropriate to call to mind a few ideas concerning death and rebirth which we are sometimes prone to forget.

Among the cosmic symbols which have been handed down to us from antiquity none is more common that the symbol of the egg. It is found in every religion. We find it in the Elder Eddas of the Scandinavians, hoary with age, which tell of the mundane egg cooled by the icy blast of Niebelheim but heated by the fiery breath of Muspelheim until the various worlds and man had come into being. If we turn to the sunny south we find the Vedas of India the same story in the Kalahansa, the Swan in time and space, which laid the egg that finally became the world. Among the Egyptians we find the winged globe and the oviparous serpent, symbolizing the wisdom manifest in this world of ours. Then the Greeks took this symbol and venerated it in their Mysteries. It was preserved by the Druids; it was known to the builders of the great serpent mound in Ohio; and it has kept its place in sacred symbology even to this day, though the great majority are blind to the Mysterium Magnum which it hides and reveals--the mystery of life.

When we break open the shell of an egg, we find inside only some varicolored viscous fluids of various consistencies. But placed in the requisite temperature a series of changes soon take place, and within a short time a living creature breaks open the shell and emerges therefrom, ready to take its place among its kin. it is possible for the wizards of the laboratory to duplicate the substances in the egg; they may be enclosed in a shell, and a perfect replica so far as most tests go may be made of the natural egg. But in one point it differs from the natural egg, namely, that no living thing can be hatched from the artificial product. Therefore it is evident that a certain intangible something must be present in one and absent in the other.

This mystery of the ages which produces the living creature is what we call life. Seeing that it cannot be cognized among the elements of the egg by even the most powerful microscope (though it must be there to bring about the changes which we note), it must be able to exist independently of matter. Thus we are taught by the sacred symbol of the egg that though life is able to mold matter, it does not depend upon it for its existence. It is self-existent, and having no beginning it can have no end. This is symbolized by the ovoid shape of the egg.

We are appalled at the carnage on the European battle fields, and rightly so because of the manner in which the victims are being taken out of physical life. But when we consider that the average human life is only fifty years or less, so that death reaps a harvest of fifteen hundred millions in half a century, or thirty millions per annum, or two and one- half millions every month, we see that the total has not been so greatly increased after all. And when we have the true knowledge conveyed by the egg symbol that life is uncreate, without beginning and without end, it enables us to take heart and realize that those who are now being taken out of physical existence are only passing through a cyclic journey similar to that of the cosmic Christ life which enters the earth in the fall and leaves it at Easter. Those who are killed are only going into the invisible realms, whence they will later take a new dip into physical matter, entering as all living things do the egg of the mother. After a period of gestation they will re-emerge into physical life to learn new lessons in the great school. Thus we see how the great law of analogy works in all phases and under all circumstances of life. What happens in the great world to a cosmic Christ will show itself also in the lives of those who are Christs in the making; and this will enable us to look more cheerfully upon the present struggle than would otherwise be the case.

Furthermore, we must realize that death is a cosmic necessity under the present circumstances for if we were imprisoned in a body of the kind we now use and placed in an environment such as we find today, there to live forever, the infirmities of the body and the unsatisfactory nature of the environment would very soon make us so tired of life that we would cry for release. It would block all progress and make it impossible for us to evolve to greater heights such as we may evolve to by re-embodiment in new vehicles and placement in new environments which give us new possibilities of growth. Thus we may thank God that so long as birth into a concrete body is necessary for our further development, release by death has been provided to free us from the outgrown instrument, while resurrection and a new birth under the smiling skies of a new environment furnish another chance to begin life with a clean slate and learn the lessons which we failed to master before. By this method we shall some time become perfect as is the risen Christ. He commanded it, and he will aid us to achieve it.

12. The Scientific Method Of Spiritual Unfoldment

Part 1. Material Analogies

WHILE we were coming down by involution into concrete existence our line of progress lay entirely in material development; but since we have rounded the nadir of materiality and are beginning to rise above the concrete, spiritual unfoldment is becoming increasingly important as a necessary factor in our development, although we still have many great and important lessons to learn from the material phase of our existence. This applies to humanity in general but particularly, of course, to those who are already consciously beginning to aspire to live the higher life. It may therefore be expedient to review from another angle the Rosicrucian teachings as to the scientific method of acquiring this spiritual unfoldment.

People of the older generation, particularly in Europe and the eastern states of America, will undoubtedly remember with pleasure their travels along quiet country lanes, and how time and again they have passed by a rippling stream with an old rustic mill, its creaking water wheel laboriously turning the crude machinery within, using but a small fraction of the power stored in the running water, which was going uselessly to waste save for such partial use. But later on a new generation came and perceived the possibilities to be realized by a scientific use of this enormous energy. Engineers began to construct dams to keep the water from flowing in the former wasteful manner. They diverted the water from the storage reservoirs through pipes or flumes to the water wheels constructed upon scientific principles, and they husbanded the great energy which they had stored by letting in only enough water to turn the water wheels at a given speed and with a given load.

But while the scientifically constructed water wheel was a giant compared with its crude predecessor, it was subject to some of the same limitations; its enormous energy could only be used at the place where the power was located, and such places are usually many miles from the centers of civilization where power is most needed. By working with the laws of nature, man had secured a servant of inexhaustible energy; but how to make it available where most needed, that was the question. To solve that problem, again the laws of nature were invoked; electric generators were coupled to the water wheels, the water power was transformed into electrical energy and an endeavor made to send it from the sources of its development to the cities where it might be used. But this again required scientific methods of working with the laws of nature, for it was found that different metals transmit electricity with varying facility, the best of them being copper and silver. Copper was therefore chosen as the less expensive of the two.

Let the student observe that we cannot compel these forces to do anything; whenever we use them it is by working with the laws that govern their manifestation, by choosing the line of least resistance to obtain the maximum of energy. If wires of iron or German silver, which have a comparatively high resistance, had been chosen as transmitters, a great deal of energy would have been thus lost, besides, other complications would have resulted which we need not enter into for our purpose. But by working with the laws of nature and choosing the line of least resistance, we obtain the best result in the easiest manner.

There were other problems which confronted these experimenters in their transformation of the water power used in the old water wheels, to electricity usable many miles from the source of power. it was found that an electric current would always seek the ground by the nearest path if there were any possibility of so doing. Hence it became necessary that the wire carrying the electric current be separated from the earth by some material that would prevent it from thus escaping, exactly as a high wall keeps a prisoner behind it. Something had to be found for which electricity had a natural aversion, and his was discovered in glass, porcelain, and certain fibrous substances, thus solving by scientific means and ingenuity, working always with the laws of nature, the problem of how to use the best advantage in distant places the great energy which the old crude mill wheel had wasted at its source.

The same application of scientific methods to other problems of life, such as gardening, has also secured wonderful results for the benefit and comfort of humanity, making two hundred blades of grass grow where formerly by the crude old methods not one even could find sustenance. Wizards like Luther Burbank have improved upon the wild varieties of fruit and vegetables, making them larger, more luscious and palatable, as well as more prolific; and wherever, haphazard practices of former days, the same beneficial results have been achieved. But as said before, and this is very important for our consideration, everything that has been done has been accomplished by working with the laws of nature.

The Hermetic axiom, “As above so below,” enunciates the law an analogy, the master-key to all mysteries, spiritual or material, and we may safely infer that what holds good in the application of scientific methods to material problems will have equal force when applied to the solution of spiritual mysteries. The most cursory review of religious development in the past will be sufficient to show that it has been anything but scientific and systematic, and that the most haphazard methods have prevailed. On account of their capacity for devotion, a few have risen to sublime heights of spirituality and are known through the ages as Saints, shining lights upon the pathway, showing what may be done. But how to achieve that sublime spirituality has been and is a mystery to all, even to those who most ardently desire such development, and these are, alas, comparatively few at the present time.

The Elder Brothers of the Rosicrucians have, however, originated a scientific method, which, if persistently and consistently followed, will develop the sleeping soul powers in any individual, just as surely as constant practice will make a person proficient in any material line of endeavor. To understand this matter it is necessary to realize that facts in the case; it was the old crude mill wheel that gave water power in an efficient manner and to much greater advantage. If we first study the natural development of soul power by evolution, we shall then be in a position to understand the great and beneficial results to be derived from an application of scientific methods to this important matter. Students of the Rosicrucian teachings are of course familiar with the main points in this process of humanity’s development by evolution, but there may be a number who are not so informed, and so for their sake we will give a little fuller outline than might otherwise be necessary.

Science says, and correctly so, that an invisible, intangible substance called ether permeates everything from the densest solids to the air which we breathe. This ether has never been seen, measured, or analyzed by science, but it is necessary to postulate its existence in order to account for various phenomena such as, for instance, the transmission of light through a vacuum. There, science says, ether is the medium of transmission of the light ray. Thus the ether carries to us a picture of our vision, and impresses it upon the retina of our eyes. Similarly, when a motion-picture operator photographs a number of scenes in a play, the ether carries pictures of all objects, the motions they make, et cetera, to the minutest details, through the lens of his camera to the sensitized plate, leaving a complete record of all the scenery and every act of the actors in that play. And if there were in our eyes a similar sensitized film of sufficient length to hold the pictures, we should at the end of our life have a complete record of every event that had taken place in it, that is, provided we could see.

But there are a number of people who are deficient in various senses; one thing however, they must all do to live: they must breathe. And nature, which is only another name for God, has thus rightly decreed that the record be kept by this universally used means. Every moment of our action in the drama of life from the first breath to the last dying gasp, the ether which is drawn into our lungs carries with it a complete picture of our outside environment, of our actions and the actions of other people who are with us, the record being impressed upon one single little atom placed in the left ventricle at the apex of the heart where the newly oxygenated blood, thus carrying with it a different picture for every moment of our life, passes by in a continual stream. Therefore all that we say or do from the least to the greatest, from the best to the worst, is written in our heart in indelible characters. This record is the basis of the natural slow method of soul growth by evolution, corresponding to the crude and ancient water wheel.

In the next chapter we shall see how it is thus used and how by scientific means soul growth may be accomplished and soul power unfolded by an improvement on this process.

Part 2. Retrospection--A Means Of Avoiding Purgatory

We saw in the last chapter that a record resembling a picture film, of our life from the cradle to the grave is inscribed upon a little atom in the heart by the action of the ether which we inhale with every breath, and which carries with it a picture of the outside world in which we are living and moving at the time. This forms the basis of our post-mortem existence, the record of deeds of wrongdoing being eradicated in a painful purgatorial experience caused by the fire of remorse, which sears the soul as the pictures of its misdeeds unroll before its gaze, thus making it less prone to repeat the same wrongdoing and mistakes in future lives. The reaction from the pictures where good was done is a heavenly joy, the subconscious remembrance of which will in later lives prompt the soul to do more good. But this process is necessarily sow and may be likened to the action and operation of the old mill wheel. However, it is the way designed by nature to teach humanity how to walk circumspectly and obey her laws. By this slow process the greater part of humanity is gradually evolving from egoism to altruism, and though exceedingly slow it seems to be the only method by which they will learn.

There is another class which has caught a glimpse of a vision and sees in the distant future a glorified humanity, expressly all the divine attributes and living a life of love and peace. That class is aiming its bow of aspiration at the stars, and is endeavoring to attain in one or a few short lives what its fellow men will require hundreds of embodiments to accomplish. To that end they, like the pioneers in the harnessing of the waters and the scientific transmission of electricity, are seeking for a scientific method which will eliminate the waste of time and energy involved in the slow process of evolution and enable them to do the great work of self-unfoldment scientifically and without waste of energy. That was the problem which the early Rosicrucians set themselves to solve, and having discovered this method they are now teaching the same to their faithful followers, to the eternal welfare of all who aspire and persevere. Just as the engineers who undertook to improve the primitive mill wheel and accomplish the transmission of electricity to distant points achieved their object by first studying the effects and defects of the primitive device, so also the Elder Brothers of the Rosicrucians first studied by the aid of their spiritual sight all the phases of ordinary human evolution in the post-mortem state as well as in the physical world, so that they might determine how through many lives progress is gradually attained. They also studied such glyphs and symbols as had been given to humanity throughout the ages, to aid them in soul growth, notably the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, which, as Paul says, was a shadow of better things to come, and they found the secret of soul growth hidden in the various appliances and appurtenances used in that ancient place of worship. As the scenes in the life panorama which unrolls before the eyes of the soul after death, cause a suffering in purgatory which cleanses the soul from a desire to repeat the offenses which generated those pictures, so the salt wherewith the sacrifices upon the altar of burnt offerings in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness were rubbed before being placed before the altar and the fire wherewith they were consumed symbolized a double fiery pain similar to that felt by the soul in purgatory. Confident in the Hermetic axiom, “As Above, So Below,” they evolved the method of Retrospection as being in harmony with the cosmic laws of soul growth, and capable of accomplishing day by day that which the purgatorial experience does only one in a life time, namely, cleansing the soul from sin by the fire of remorse.

But when we say “Retrospection,” it happens not infrequently that people say, “Oh, that is taught by other religious bodies and I have practiced it all my life; I examine the day’s doings every evening before going to sleep.”

So far, so good. But that is not sufficient. In order to perform this exercise scientifically it is necessary to follow the process of nature as the electrician did when he desired to insulate the electric current from the ground and found that glass, porcelain and fiber would act as barriers to its passage. We must conform in every particular to the processes of nature in her methods of attaining soul growth. When we study the purgatorial expiation, we find that the life panorama is unfolded in reverse order, from the grave to the cradle, scenes that were enacted late in life being taken up for expiation first, and those which occurred in early youth being the last to be dealt with. This, in order to show the soul how certain effects in life were brought about by causes generated at an earlier stage. Similarly, the scientific method of soul unfoldment requires that the aspirant must examine his life every evening before going to sleep, starting with the scenes which were enacted late in the evening just prior to retiring for the night, then gradually proceeding in reverse order towards the things which were done in the afternoon, then those which took place in the morning, and back to the very moment of awakening. But also, and this is very important, it is not sufficient to merely examine these scenes in a perfunctory way and admit being sorry when one comes to a scene where one was unkind or unjust to another person. There the glyph contained in the altar of burnt offerings gives specific instruction; just as the sacrifices were rubbed with salt which, as everyone knows burns and smarts exceedingly when rubbed into a would, and just as fire, such as is applied on the altar of burnt offerings to the sacrifice, consumes the same offerings, so also the aspirant to soul growth must realize that he is both priest and sacrifice, the altar and the fire burning thereon; he must allow the salt and the fire of remorse to burn and sear into his very heart a deep-felt contrition at the thought of whatever wrong he has done, for only such a deep and serious treatment of the matter will wash the record away from the seed atom in the heart and leave it clean. And unless that is done, nothing has been accomplished. But if the aspirant to scientific soul unfoldment succeed in making this fire of remorse and contrition sufficiently intense, then the seed atom will be cleansed of the sin committed day by day throughout the life, and even the things that have taken place before such exercises were taken up will gradually disappear before that cleansing fire, so that the end of life when the silver cord has been loosened the aspirant find himself without any panorama of life to take up his attention, such as all ordinary people are occupied with who have not been fortunate enough to be taught and to practice this scientific method. The result then is that instead of having to spend in purgatorial expiation a period of time about one-third as long as the life lived in the dense body, he who steadily and unwaveringly practices this method finds himself as a free lance in the invisible world, not bound by limitations which hold and fetter all others, and therefore free to use his entire time while in the lower regions in the service of suffering humanity. But there is a great difference between the opportunities there and here; here one-third of our life is taken up with rest and recuperation, another third is taken up in work so that we may obtain the wherewithal to keep this physical body fed, clothed, and housed; and only the other third is at all available for the purposes of rest, recreation, or soul growth. It is different in the Desire World where the spirit finds itself after death. The bodies in which we function there do not require food or raiment, neither do they need shelter; they are not subject to fatigue either, so that instead of spending two-thirds of the time as here in providing the necessaries of the body, the spirit is there free to use its instruments the whole twenty- four hours, day after day. Therefore the time saved in the invisible world by having lived our purgatory day by day is the equivalent of that portion of an entire earth life which one spends in work. Also during all that time thus saved no thought or care need be given to anything else but how we may help to further the scheme of evolution and aid our younger and less fortunate brothers. Thus we reap a rich harvest and make more soul growth in that post-mortem existence than would be possible in several ordinary lives. When we are reborn we then find ourselves with all the soul powers thus acquired and must further along upon the path of evolution than we could possibly have been under ordinary circumstances.

It is also noteworthy that while other methods of soul unfoldment evolved and taught by other schools carry with them danger which sometimes may bring those who practice them into the insane asylum, the scientific method of soul unfoldment advocated by the Elder Brothers of the Rosicrucian order is always bound to benefit everyone who practices it and can never under any circumstances cause any harm to anyone. We may also say that there are other helps that have not been mentioned here which are communicated to those who have proved their worth by their persistence, and while they do not directly aim at the evolution of spiritual sight, this will be evolved by all who practice them with the necessary faithful perseverance.

13. The Heavens Declare The Glory Of God

“The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.”

Everywhere for miles around us we see the glorious sunrise, bringing light and life to all; then the day star mounts high in the heavens, later to decline towards the western horizon in a glorious burst of flame as its sinks into the sea, leaving an afterglow of indescribable, variegated tints coloring the heavens as with liquid fire of the softest and most beautiful hues, which the brush of the painter can never paint to perfection. Then the moon, the orb of night, rises over the eastern hills, carrying the stars and constellations upward in her train toward the zenith, and following the sun in its everlasting circle dance; the stellar script thus describes upon the map of heaven man’s past, present and future evolution among the ever changing environments of the concrete world, without rest or peace while time lasts.

In this ever changing kaleidoscope of the heavens there is one star and only one that remains so comparatively stationary that to all intents and purposes and from the standpoint of our ephemeral life of fifty, sixty, or one hundred years it is a fixed point--the North Star. When the mariner sails his ship upon the waste of waters, he has full faith that so long as he steers by that mark he will safely reach his desired haven. Nor is he dismayed when clouds obscure its guiding light, for he has a compass magnetized by a mysterious power so that through sunshine or rain, in fog or mist, it points unerringly to that steadfast star and enables him to steer his ship as safely as if he could actually see the star itself. Truly, the heavens declare the wonders of the Lord.

As it is in the macrocosm, the great world without us, so it is in our own lives. At our birth the sun of life rises, and we begin the ascent through the years of childhood and youth toward the zenith of manhood or womanhood. The ever changing world which forms our environment, including fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers, surrounds us. With friends, acquaintances, and foes we face the battle of life with whatever strength we may have gained in our past lives, to pay the debts contracted, to bear the burdens of this life, perhaps to make them heavier according to our wisdom or unwisdom. But among all the changing circumstances of life and the vicissitudes of existence there is one great and grand guide which like the North Star never fails us; a guide ever ready like the steadfast star in heaven to help us steer our bark of life into clear sailing--God. It is significant to read in the Bible that the wise men in their search for the Christ (our great spiritual teacher) also followed a star that led them to this great spiritual Light. What would we think of the captain of a ship who lashed the wheel and let his ship drift with the tide, leaving it to the change of wind or fate? Would it surprise us if he were eventually shipwrecked and lost his life upon the rocks? Surely not. The marvel would be if he should reach the shore.

A great and wonderful allegory is written in cosmic characters in the sky. It is also written in our own lives, and warns us to forsake the fleeting life of the material and to seek the eternal life of God.

We are not left without a guide, even though the veil of flesh, the pride of life, and the lusts blind us for a time. For as the mariner’s magnetic compass points to the guiding star, so the spirit draws us to its source with a longing and a yearning that cannot be entirely quenched no matter how deep we may sink into materialism. Many are at present groping, seeking, trying to solve that inner unrest; something seems to urge them on though they do not understand it; something ever draws them forward to seek the spiritual and to reach up for something higher--our Father in Heaven.

David said, “if I ascend up into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in the grave thou art there; thy right hand shall guide and hold me.” in the 28th Psalm, he says, “when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet.”

This is nothing new to those who are seeking the Light, who have been doing their very best to live the life; but the danger lies in that they may become indifferent, may become spiritually common-place. Therefore, as the steersman at the helm of the ship is constantly wakeful and watching the guiding compass, so it is of the greatest importance that we continually shake ourselves lest we go to sleep and the ship of our life go off its course. let us all set our faces firmly towards this star of hope, this great spiritual light, the real and only thing worth while--the life of God.

14. Religion And Healing

At various times and in different ways humanity has been given religions suited to spur them onward upon the path of evolution. In each the ideal was made just high enough to rouse the aspirations of the class of people to whom it was given, but not so high as to be beyond their appreciation, for then it would not have appealed to them at all. The savage, for instance, must have a strong God, one who wields the flaming sword of lightning with mighty hand. He can look up to such a God in fear, but would despise a God who would show love and mercy.

Therefore religions have also changed as man has evolved; the ideal has been slowly raised until it has reach the highest stage in our Christian teaching. The flower of religions is always given to the flower of humanity. in a future age a higher religion will of course be given to a more advanced race. There can be no end to evolution, but we maintain that the invisible leaders of humanity give to each nation the teaching best suited to their condition. Hinduism helps our younger brothers in the East, but Christianity is the Western teaching, particularly suited to Western people.

Thus we see that the mass of humanity is taken care of by the religion publicly taught in the country of their birth; but there are always pioneers whose precocity demands a higher teaching, and to them a deeper doctrine is given through the agency of the Mystery School belonging to their country. When only a few are ready for such preparatory schooling they are taught privately, but as they increase in number the teaching is given more publicly.

The latter is the case in the Western world at present. Therefore the Brothers of the Rose Cross gave to the writer a philosophy such as published in our various works, and sanctioned the launching of The Rosicrucian Fellowship to promulgate this teaching. The purpose is to bring aspiring souls into contact with the Teacher when by service here, in the physical world, they have shown their sincerity and given reasonable assurance that they will use their spiritual powers for service in the other world when they shall have been initiated therein.

The higher teachings are never given for a monetary consideration. Peter in olden days rebuked Simon the sorcerer, who wanted to buy spiritual power that he might prostitute it for material gain. The elder brothers also refuse to open the door to those who prostitute the spiritual sciences by casting horoscopes, reading palms, or giving clairvoyant readings professionally for money. The Rosicrucian Fellowship advocates the study of astrology and palmistry by all its members, and furnishes simple teachings on the former in textbooks at merely nominal cost so that all may acquire ability in this science instead of remaining the dupes of professionals, who are often mere pretenders.

During the past few years since we first commenced to disseminate the Rosicrucian teachings they have spread like wildfire over the civilized world. They are studied with avidity from the Cape of Good Hope to the Arctic Circle and beyond. They have found response in the hearts of all classes of people--in the snow-clad huts of Alaskan miners, in government houses where a tropical wind unfurls the British Lion, and in the capitals of Turkish autocracy and American democracy alike. Our adherents may be found in government institutions as well as in the humblest walks of life, all in lively correspondence and close touch with our movement and working for the promulgation of the deeper truths concerning life and being which are helping them.

THE ROSICRUCIAN PRINCIPLES OF HEALING

It is a trite saying that “man is of few days and full of trouble.” Among all the vicissitudes of life none affect us more powerfully than loss of health. We may lose fortune or friends with comparative equanimity, but when health fails and death threatens, the strongest falter; realizing human impotence we are more ready to turn to divine power for succor then than at other times. Therefore the office of spiritual adviser has always been closely associated with healing.

Among savages the priest was also “medicine man.” In ancient Greece Aesculapius was particularly sought by those in need of healing. The Church followed in his steps. Certain Catholic orders have continued the endeavor to assuage pain during the centuries which have intervened between that day and the present. In times of sickness the “good father” came as a representative of our Father in Heaven, and what he lacked in skill was made up by love and sympathy--if he was indeed a true and holy priest--and by the faith engendered in the patient by the priestly office. His care of the patient did not commence at the sickbed, nor was it terminated at recovery. The gratitude of the patient toward the physician was added to the veneration felt for the spiritual adviser, and as a consequence the power of the priest to help and uplift his erstwhile patient was enormously increased, and the tie between them was closer than possible where the offices of spiritual and medical adviser are divorced.

It is not denied that the double office gave the incumbents a most dangerous power over the people and that that power was at times abused. It is also patent that the art of medicine has reached a stage of efficiency which could not have been attained save by devotion to that one particular end and aim. The safeguards of sanitary laws, the extinction of insect carriers of disease, and the consequent immunity from disease are monumental testimonies to the value of modern scientific methods. Thus it may seem as if all were well and there were no need of further effort. But in reality, until humanity as a whole enjoys perfect health, there is no issue more important than the question, How may we attain and maintain health?

In addition to the regular school of surgery and medicine, which depends exclusively upon physical means for the care of disease, other systems have sprung up which depend entirely on mental healings. It is the custom of organizations which advocate “mind cure,” “nature cure,” and other like methods to hold experience meetings and publish journals with testimonials from grateful supporters who have benefited by their treatments, and if physicians of the regular school did likewise there would be no lack of similar testimonies to their efficiency.

The opinion of thousands is of great value, but is does not prove anything, for thousands may hold an opposite view. Occasionally a single man may be right and the rest of the world wrong, as when Galileo maintained that the earth moves. Today the whole world has been converted to the opinion for which he was persecuted as a heretic. We assert that as man is a composite being, cures are successful in proportion as they remedy defects on the physical, moral, and mental planes of being. We also maintain that results may be obtained more easily at certain times when the stellar rays are propitious for the healing of a particular disease or for treatment with remedies previously prepared under auspicious conditions.

It is well known to the modern physician that the condition of the blood, and therefore the condition of the whole body, changes in sympathy with the state of mind of the patient, and the more the physician uses suggestion as an adjunct to medicine the more successful he is. Few perhaps would credit the further fact that both our mental and physical condition is influenced by planetary rays which change as the planets move. In these days since the principle of radioactivity has been established we know that everybody projects into space numberless little particles. Wireless telegraphy has taught us that etheric waves travel swiftly and surely through trackless space and operate a key according to our will. We also know that the rays of the sun affect us differently in the morning when they strike us horizontally than at noon when they are perpendicular. If the light rays from the swift-moving sun produce physical and mental changes, may not the persistent ray of slower planets also have an effect? If they have, they are factors in health not to be overlooked by a thoroughly scientific healer.

Disease is a manifestation of ignorance, the only sin, and healing is a demonstration of applied knowledge, which is the only salvation. Christ is an embodiment of the Wisdom Principle, and in proportion as the Christ is formed in us we attain to health. Therefore the healer should be spiritual and endeavor to imbue his patient with high ideals so that he may eventually learn to conform to God’s laws which govern the universe, and thus attain permanent health in future lives as well as now.

However, faith without works is dead. if we persist in living under unsanitary conditions, faith will not save us from typhoid. When we apply preventives of proper kind, or remedies in sickness, we are really showing our faith by works.

Like other Mystery orders the Rosicrucian Order has also aimed to help humanity in the attainment of bodily health. It has been written in various works that the members of the Order took a vow to heal others free of charge. This statement is somewhat garbled. The lay brothers take a vow to minister to all according to the best of their ability free of charge. That vow included healing, of course, in the case of such men as Paracelsus, who had ability in that direction; by the combination method of physical remedies applied under favorable stars and spiritual counsel he was highly successful. Others were not suited to be healers but labored in other directions, but all were alike in one particular--they never charged for their services, and they labored in secret without flourish of trumpet or sound of drum.

15. Address At The Ground Breaking For Mt. Ecclesia

The Christ said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be among them”; and as always when He spoke, this utterance was an expression of the most profound divine wisdom. It rests upon a law of nature which is as immutable as God Himself. When the thoughts of two or three are centered upon any certain object or being, a powerful thought form is generated as a definite expression of their minds, and is instantly projected towards its goal. Its further effects depend upon the affinity between the thought and whosoever is to receive it, as to generate a vibratory response to a note sounded by a tuning fork it requires another fork of identical pitch.

If thoughts and prayers of a low, selfish nature are projected, only low and selfish creatures respond. That kind of prayer can never reach the Christ any more than water can run up a hill. it gravitates toward demons and elementals, which remain totally unresponsive to the lofty aspirations engendered by such as congregate in the name of Christ.

As we are today gathered upon this spot to break ground for the Headquarters of a Christian Association, we may rest assured that as surely as gravity draws a stone toward the center of the earth, the fervor of our united aspirations will provide attention from the Founder of our faith (Christ), who will thus be with us. As certainly as forks of identical pitch vibrate in sympathy, so must the august Head of the Rosicrucian Order (Christian Rose-Cross) lend his presence upon this occasion when the home of Rosicrucian Fellowship is being started. The Elder Brother who has been the inspiration of this movement is present and visible to some among us at least. There are present upon this momentous occasion and directly interested in the proceedings the perfect number--12. That is to say, there are three invisible leaders who are beyond the stage of ordinary humanity, and nine members of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. Nine is the number of Adam, or man. Of these, five, an odd, masculine number, are men, and four, an even feminine number, are women, while the number of invisible leaders, three, aptly represents the sexless Divine. Neither has the number attending been arranged for by the speaker. Invitation to take part in these exercises was extended to many individuals, but only nine responded. And as we cannot believe in chance, the attendance must have been regulated in accordance with the design of our invisible leaders, and may be taken as an expression of the spiritual power behind this movement, if further proof were needed than the phenomenal spread of the Rosicrucian teachings, which have penetrated to every country on earth in the last few years and provoked assent, admiration, and love, in the hearts of all classes and conditions of people, particularly among men.

We emphasize this as a noteworthy fact, for while all other religious organizations are composed largely of women, men are in the majority among the members of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. It is also significant that our doctor members outnumber those from all other professions, and that the ministers come next. It proves that those whose privilege it is to care for the ailing body are alive to the fact that spiritual causes generate physical weaknesses, and that they are seeking to understand so that they may give more efficient aid to the infirm. It demonstrates also that those whose office it is to minister to the ailing spirit are endeavoring to meet inquiring minds with a reasonable explanation of the of the spiritual mysteries, thus strengthening their flagging faith and cementing their tie to the church, instead of responding with dictum and dogma not supported by reason, which would open wide the flood-gates to the seething sea of skepticism and sweep the searcher for light away from the haven of the church into the darkness of materialistic despair.

It has already been the blessed privilege of the Rosicrucian Fellowship to rescue many a sincere seeker, anxious but unable to believe what seemed contrary to reason. Given reasonable explanation of the underlying harmony between the dogmas and doctrines propounded by the church and the laws of nature, such ones have been sent back into the church fold rejoicing in the fellowship there, stronger and better members than before they left.

Any movement that is to endure must possess three divine qualities: wisdom, beauty, and strength. Science, art and religion each possesses one of these attributes in a measure. It is the purpose of the Rosicrucian Fellowship to unite and harmonize each with the others by teaching a religion that is both scientific and artistic, and to gather all churches into one great Christian Brotherhood. Just now the clock of destiny marks an auspicious moment for the commencement of building activities to erect a visible center whence the Rosicrucian teachings may radiate their beneficent influence to further the well-being of all who are physically, mentally, or morally infirm.

Therefore we now lift one shovelful of earth from the corner of the building site with a prayer for wisdom to guide this great school along the right lines. We turn up the ground a second time with a supplication to the Master Artist for the faculty of presenting the beauty of the higher life in such a manner as to render it attractive to all mankind. We break the ground for the third and last time in connection with these exercises as we breathe a prayer for strength patiently and diligently to continue the good work so that it may endure and become a greater factor for upliftment than any of its predecessors.

Having thus broken ground for the site of the first building, we will now proceed to plant the wonderful symbol of life and being, the composite emblem of the Western Mystery School. This consists of the cross, representing matter, and the climbing rose that twines around its stem, representing the verdant evolving life climbing to greater and greater heights by this crucifixion. Each of us nine members will take part in excavating for this the first and greatest ornament to Mt. Ecclesia. We will plant it in such a position that the arms point east and west, while the meridian sun projects it bodily towards the north. Thus it will be directly in the path of the spiritual currents that vitalize the forms of the four kingdoms of life: mineral, plant, animal, and man.

Upon the arms and upper limb of this cross you notice three golden letters, “C.R.C.”, the initials of our august Head, Christian Rosenkreuz, or Christian Rose-Cross. The symbolism of this cross is partly explained here and there in our literature, but volumes would be required to give a full explanation. Let us look a little further into the meaning of this wonderful object lesson.

When we lived in the dense water-laden atmosphere of early Atlantis, we were under entirely different laws than govern us today. When we shed the body we felt it not, for our consciousness was focused more in the spiritual world than in the denser conditions of matter. Our life was an unbroken existence; we felt neither birth nor death.

With our emergence into the aerial conditions of Aryana, the world of today, our consciousness of the spirit world waned, and form became most prominent. Then a dual existence commenced, each phase sharply differentiated from the other by the events of birth and death. One of these phases is a free spirit life in celestial realms; the other an imprisonment in a terrestrial body, which is virtually death to the spirit, as symbolized in the Greek myth of Castor and Pollux, the heavenly twins.

It has been elucidated in various places in our literature how the free spirit became enmeshed in matter through the machinations of the Lucifer spirits, which Christ referred to as false lights. That was in fiery Lemuria. Lucifer may therefore be called the genius of Lemuria.

The full effect of his misguidance did not become fully apparent until the Noachian age, comprising the periods of later Atlantis and our present Aryana. The rainbow, which could not have existed under previous atmospheric conditions, stood painted upon the cloud as a mystic scroll when mankind entered the Noachian Age, where the law of alternating cycles brings ebb and flow, summer and winter, birth and death. During this age the spirit cannot permanently escape from the body of death generated by the satanic passion first inculcated by Lucifer. Its repeated attempts to escape to its celestial home are frustrated by the law of periodicity, for when it has freed itself from one body by death, it is brought to rebirth when the cycle has been run.

Deceit and illusion cannot be allowed to endure forever, and so the redeemer appeared to cleanse the passion-filled blood, to preach the truth which shall set us free from this body of death, to inaugurate the immaculate conception along lines most crudely indicated in the science of eugenics, to prophesy a new age, a new heaven, and a new earth, of which He, the true lights, will be the Genius, an age wherein will dwell the righteousness and love for which all the world is sighing and seeking.

All of this and the way of attainment are symbolized in the rose cross before us. The rose, in which the sap of life is dormant in winter and active in summer, illustrates aptly the effect of the law of alternating cycles. The color of the flower, its generative organ, resembles our blood, yet the sap which courses within is pure, and the seed is generated in an immaculate, passionless manner.

When we attain to the purity of life there symbolized, we shall have freed ourselves from the cross of matter, and the ethereal conditions of the millennium will be here. It is the aim of the Rosicrucian Fellowship to hasten that glad day when sorrow, pain, sin, and death shall have ceased, and we shall have been redeemed from the fascinating, enthralling illusions of matter and awakened to the supreme truth of the reality of Spirit. May God speed and prosper our efforts.

16. Our Work In The World

Part 1. (Issued May, 1912)

Lately there has come to us a realization that the work of the Rosicrucian Fellowship is not our private work; it is the work of the Elder Brothers and every member of the Fellowship. In the accomplishment thereof is a wonderful opportunity for soul growth, and we have no more right to arrogate it to ourselves than we have to deprive members of material food; we must give all the opportunity to aid in the work physically, mentally, or financially according to time, talent, and ability. We also realize that unless we do, the work will be undone, and we shall be unprofitable servants of the Elder Brothers, for the burden is heavier than we can bear; and to prosper, the Great Work requires many laborers. I will therefore give in this lesson a history of the work to date, so that students may be able to view the future work in its true perspective. This will necessitate a liberal use of the capital “I”, and students will kindly bear with me in this matter, for no one dislikes introduction of the personal element more than the writer, but in the present case it seems unavoidable.

We have set down in our literature as an axiomatic teaching that every object in the visible universe is the embodiment of pre-existent invisible thought; that Fulton built a steamboat and Bell a telephone in thought before these things were manufactured in wood and metal. Likewise, an author plans a book in his mind before writing. A Mystery Order must also frame its spiritual philosophy to meet the necessities of the people it is deputized to serve. That work may require centuries. As the work of scientific investigators is carried out in the seclusion of their laboratories, as their tentative conclusions calculated to foster the intellectual advancement of the race are withheld from the masses until proven to the best of the scientists’ ability, so also the spiritual teachings intended to foster soul growth among a class of people are kept from the many until their efficacy has been demonstrated in the case of the few.

As inventions, theories, or projects some time pass the experimental stage and are rejected unless fitted for general use, so also a spiritual teaching must either reach a point of completion where it may be launched for general service in the world’s work, or else die. Thus it has been with the Western Wisdom Teachings formulated by the Rosicrucian Order to blend with the ultra-intellectual mind of Europe and America. Our revered Founder and the twelve Elder Brothers whom he selected to aid him in the work centuries ago probably first made a retrospective study of the trend of thought during our era, and it may be, for millenniums before, and thus they were able to obtain a fairly accurate conception of the direction likely to be taken by the minds of future generations and determine their spiritual requirements. Be their method what it may have been, their conclusions were light when they judged that “pride of intellect, intolerance, and impatience of restraint” would be the besetting sins of our day; and they formulated their philosophy so that it satisfies the heart at the same time that it appeals to the intellect and teaches man how to escape restraint by mastering self. The thousands of appreciate letters from people all over the world, in the highest ranks and in the lowliest walks of life, attest the great should hunger and the satisfaction that all classes of people find in this teaching. But as time goes on, fifty years, a century or two hence, when scientific discoveries have given color to more of the things stated in the “Cosmo-Conception,” when intellects have become yet broader, the Rosicrucian teachings will give satisfaction of soul to millions of enlightened spirits.

This being the case, you will appreciate the care which the Elder Brothers must take ere confiding so important a message to anyone, particularly as such a teaching may only be given out at certain times. As the seed of plants is planted at the beginning of the yearly cycle, so also must a philosophical seed such as that of the Rosicrucian teachings be planted and the book published in the first decade of the century, which commences a new cycle, or the opportunity is lost till the next cycle rolls around. One messenger had proven faithless by 1905. Then the Brothers turned to myself, and entrusted the teachings to me after I have passed a certain test in 1908. The “Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception” was published in November, 1909, a little more than a year before the end of the first decade. Friends had edited the original manuscript and did splendid work, but I had of course to revise it before giving it to the printer. Then I read the printer’s proof, corrected and returned it, reread it after mistakes had been rectified, read it again after the type had been divided into pages, gave instructions to engravers about the drawings and to the printer about placing them in the book, etc. I was up at six and toiled on till twelve, one, two, or three in the morning for weeks amid endless confusion with tradesmen and the roar of Chicago about my ears, sometimes almost reaching the limit of nervous endurance. Still I kept my faculties together and wrote many new points into the R.C-C. Had it not been for the support of the Brothers I must have gone under. It was their work, however, and they saw me through. All that I was expected to do was to work to the limit of my endurance and ability and leave the rest to them, yet I was almost a wreck when the strain was past.

Now, perhaps you will understand my attitude towards the “Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception.” I admire and marvel at its wonderful teaching more than anyone else, and can do so without violating proper modesty for the book is not mine--it belongs to humanity. It does not even seem as if I have written it, I feel so absolutely impersonal in the matter. My office is only to see that it is properly published, and the copyright is simply to protect it from being garbled. But as soon as it is possible to find dependable and qualified trustees, the Rosicrucian Fellowship will be incorporated and all my copyrights turned over to them together with all else that belongs to me, for it was a part of the agreement with the brothers that all profit accruing from the work must be put right into it again, a condition to which I willingly assented, for I care naught for money save as needed to further the work, and neither does Mrs. Heindel. The blessed work is the greatest recompense to us, more precious than any material reward.

Among all the foolish nonsense which has been published about the Rosicrucian Order there is one great truth--that they aimed to heal the sick. Earlier religious orders have sought to advance spirituality by castigating and abusing the body, but the Rosicrucians exhibit the tenderest care for this instrument. There are two reasons for their healing activities. Like all other earnest followers of Christ they are longingly looking for “the day of the Lord.” They know that abuse of sex prompted by the Lucifer spirits has caused and is responsible for disease and debility, and that a sound body is indispensable to the expression of a sound mind. They have therefore aimed to heal the body that it may express a sane mind, and pure love instead of perverted love, for conception under such conditions hastens the Kingdom of Christ by producing bodies of finer and finer texture to replace the “flesh and blood (which) cannot inherit the kingdom,” because physiologically unfit.

Christ gave two commands to his messengers: “Preach the gospel” (of the coming Age) and, “Heal the sick.” One is as binding as the other and, for the foregoing reasons, as necessary. To comply with the second command the Elder Brothers have evolved a system of healing which combines the best points in the various schools of today with a method of diagnosis and treatment as certain as it is simple, and thus a long step has been taken to lift the healing art from the sands of experiment to the rock of exact knowledge.

On the night of the 9th of April, 1910, when the new moon was in Aries, my Teacher appeared in my room and told me that a new decade (cycle) had commenced that night. The night before, my work with the newly formed Los Angeles Fellowship Center had terminated. I had traveled and lectured six out of seven nights a week and several afternoons besides. Since my Chicago publishing experience I had been sick and was withdrawing from public work to recuperate. I knew it was very dangerous to leave the body consciously when ill, for the ether is then usually attenuated and the silver cord breaks easily. Death under such conditions would cause the same sufferings as suicide, so the Invisible Helper is always cautioned to stay by his body when it is suffering. But at my Teacher’s request I was ready for the soul flight to the Temple, and a guard was left to watch the sick body.

Part 2

As we have stated previously in our literature, there are nine degrees of the Lesser Mysteries, of whatever school, and the Rosicrucian Order is no exception. The first of these corresponds to the Saturn Period, and the exercises having to do with it are held on Saturn’s day at midnight. The second degree corresponds to the Sun Period, and that particular rite is celebrated every Sunday. The third degree corresponds to the Moon Period and is held on Monday at midnight; and so one with the remainder of the first seven degrees. Each corresponds to a Period and is held on the day appropriate thereto. The eighth degree is celebrated at the new moon and the full, and the ninth degree at the summer and winter solstices.

When a disciple first becomes a lay brother or sister, he or she is introduced to the rite held upon Saturday nights. The next Initiation entitles him also to attend the midnight services at the Temple on Sunday nights, and so on. It is to be noted, however, that while all lay brothers and sisters have free access in their spiritual bodies to the Temple during all days, they are barred from the midnight services of the degrees which they have not yet taken. Nor is there a visible guard who stands at the door and demands a password of each as he desires to enter, but a wall is around the Temple, invisible yet impenetrable to those who have not received the “open sesame.” Every night it is differently constituted so that should a pupil by mistake or through forgetfulness seek to enter the Temple when the exercises are above his status, he would learn that it is possible to bump one’s head against a spiritual wall and that the experience is by no means pleasant.

As already said, the eighth degree meets at the new and full moon, and all who have not attained are debarred from that midnight service, the writer among them, for this degree is no mere mummery to be obtained by the payment of a few paltry coins but requires a measure of spirituality far beyond my present attainment, a stage to which I may not attain in several lives, though not wanting in effort or aspiration. You will therefore understand that on the night of the new moon in Aries, 1910, when the Teacher came for me, it was not to take me into that exalted gathering of the eighth degree, but to another session of a different nature. Besides, though this session was held in the night as it occurs in California, the time is different in Europe. The exercises of the new moon had been held in Germany hours before, so that when I arrived at the Temple with my Teacher the sun was already high in the heavens.

When we entered the Temple some time was devoted to an interview with my Teacher alone, and in it he outlined the work of the Fellowship as the Brothers would wish to have it carried out. The keynote of it all was to refrain from organization, if possible, or at least to make organization as loose as we could. It was pointed out that no matter how good the intentions may be in the beginning, as soon as position and power are created which may gratify the vanity of men, the temptation proves too great for the majority, and in the measure that the free will of members if interfered with, the object of the Rosicrucian Order, to foster individuality and self-reliance, is defeated. Laws and by-laws are limitations, and for that reason there should be as few as possible. The Teacher even thought that it would be possible to get along without any at all.

It is in line with this policy that I had printed upon our letterheads, An International Association Of Christian Mystics”; for there is a vast difference between an association that is entirely voluntary and an organization which binds its members by oaths, pledges, etc. Those who have taken the Obligation as probationers in the Rosicrucian Fellowship know that that obligation is a promise to themselves and not to the Rosicrucian Order. The same tender regard for the maintenance of the fullest of individual liberty is in evidence throughout the whole range of the Western Mystery School. we have no masters; they are our friends and our Teachers, and they never under any condition demand obedience to any mandate of theirs nor command us to do this or that. At most, they advise, leaving us free to follow or not.

I may say here that this policy of not organizing had already been adopted in starting the study centers at Columbus, Ohio; Seattle, Washington; and Los Angeles; but since then I have gone further along this line in trying to spread the teachings to individuals from a world center rather than to establish more centers in different cities. In some places bands of students have desired to unite for study and spiritual elevation. To this end all assistance has been given them, but as said, I have made no effort to bring about formation of study centers but leave students to do as they feel prompted.

The new work of healing, of which I shall presently speak, necessitated permanent headquarters. As we are living in a concrete world under material conditions, it seems to be necessary that headquarters should be incorporated under the laws of the land in which we live, so that that which belongs to the work may remain available for the use of humanity after the present leaders have been released from life. Thus far we cannot escape hard and fast conditions of organization at headquarters, but the association at large must remain free so that the highest spiritual growth and the longest life may be attained. It is sad to contemplate, however, that though such are our intentions, the day must come when the Rosicrucian Fellowship will go the way of all other movements; it will bind itself by laws, and usurpation of power will cause it to crystallize and disintegrate. But then we have the consolation that upon its ruins will rise something greater and better, as it has risen above other structures that have served their purpose and are now on the way to dissolution.

After the before mentioned discussion we entered the Temple, where the twelve Brothers were present. It was arranged differently from what I had seen it before, but lack of space forbids a detailed description. I shall only mention three spheres suspended one above the other in the center of the Temple, the middle sphere being about half way between floor and ceiling; also that it was much larger than the two others, which hung one above and one below.

The various modes of vision above the physical are: etheric or X-ray sight, color vision, which opens up the Desire World, and tonal vision which discloses the Region of Concrete Thought, as explained very fully in “The Rosicrucian Mysteries.” My development of the latter phase of spiritual sight had been most indifferent up to the time mentioned, for it is a fact that the more robust our health, the closer we are enmeshed in the physical and the less able to contact the spiritual realms. People who can say, “I never had a day’s sickness in my life,” at the same time reveal the fact that they are perfectly attuned to the physical world and totally incapable of contacting the spiritual realm.

This was nearly my case up to 1905. I had suffered excruciating pain all my life, the after effects of a surgical operation on the left limb in childhood. The wound never healed until I changed to a meatless diet. Then the pain ceased. My endurance during all the previous years was such that the pain never showed by a line on the face, and in every other respect I had perfect health. It was noticeable, however, that when blood flowed as the result of an accidental cut, it would not coagulate, and a great quantity was always lost; whereas after two years on a lean diet the accidental loss of an entire nail in the morning resulted in the loss of a few drops of blood only. I was able to use the typewriter the same afternoon. There was no festering as the new nail grew.

Upbuilding of the spiritual side of the nature, however, brought disharmony to the physical body. It became more sensitive to conditions around. The result was a breakdown. This was all the more complete because of the before mentioned endurance that kept me on my feet for months after I should have given in, with the result that I came very close to death’s door.

As death is the permanent dissolution of the tie between the physical and spiritual bodies, those who are near death approach the condition existing when severance is about to take place. Goethe, the great German poet, received his first Initiation while his body was prostrated nearly unto death. I had not progressed so high, but my studies, aspirations, and an exercise practiced for a long time which I thought then I had devised but which I now know was carried over from the past, all combined to make it possible for me during that first sickness to slip out of the body for a short while and then return. I did not know how I did it, and was unable to do it at will. A year later I did it again by accident. That, however, is beside the case. The point I wish to bring out is that the rupture of physically robust health is necessary before it is possible to attain poise in the spiritual world, and the stronger and more vigorous the instrument, the more drastic must be the method of breaking it down. Then come years when there is an unbalanced fluctuating condition of health, until finally we are able to adjust ourselves so as to maintain health in the physical world while we retain the ability to function also in the higher realms.

Thus it has been with me: strenuous work both physical and mental, even to the present day, has kept the physical instrument in anything but an enjoyable condition. Friends have cautioned me, and I have tried to heed their warnings, but the work must be done, and until help comes I am forced to continue regardless of health; and Mrs. Heindel is with me in this as in all else. Out of this precarious condition, however, has come an increasing ability to function in the spiritual world. While, as said, at the time of the experience here related my tonal vision and the ability to function in the Region of Concrete Thought was indifferent and chiefly confined to the lowest subdivision thereof, a little assistance from the Brothers that night enabled me to contact the fourth region, where the archetypes are found, and to receive there the teaching and understanding of that which is contemplated as the highest ideal and mission of the Rosicrucian Fellowship.

I saw our headquarters and a procession of people coming from all parts of the world to receive the teaching. I saw them issuing thence to carry balm to afflicted ones near and far. While here in this world it is necessary to investigate in order to find out about anything, there the voice of each archetype brings with it as it strikes the spiritual consciousness a knowledge of what the archetype represents. Thus there came to me that night an understanding which is far beyond my words to express, for the world in which we live is based upon the principle of time, but in the high realm of the archetypes all is an eternal now. These archetypes do not tell their story as this is told, but there is borne in upon one an instant conception of the whole idea, much more luminous than can be given by the reciter in words. I have not dared to attempt telling it during the time which has since elapsed, but in the following chapter I shall endeavor to give you a picture thereof.

Part 3

The Region of Concrete Thought, as you will remember from our other teachings, is the realm of sound, where the harmony of the spheres, the celestial music, pervades all that is as the atmosphere of the earth surrounds and envelops everything terrestrial. Everything there may be said to be wrapped in and permeated by music. It lives by music and grows by music. The Word of God there sounds forth and forms all the various types which later crystallize into the things we behold in the terrestrial world.

On the piano five dark keys and seven white constitute the octave. Besides the seven globes upon which we evolve during a Day of Manifestation there are five dark globes which we traverse during the Cosmic Nights. In each life cycle the Ego withdraws for a time to the densest of these five, that is, Chaos, the formless world where nothing remains save the centers of force known as seed atoms. At the beginning of a new life cycle the Ego descends again into the Region of Concrete Thought, where the “music of the spheres” at once sets the seed atoms into vibration.

There are seven spheres, the planets of our solar system. Each has its own keynote and emits a sound varying from that of every other planet. One or another among them vibrates in particular synchrony with the seed atom of the Ego then seeking embodiment. This planet then corresponds to the “tonic” in the musical scale; and though the tones from all the planets are necessary to build up an organism completely, each is modified and made to conform to the basic impact given by the most harmonious planet, which is therefore the ruler of that life, its Father Star. As in terrestrial music so also in the celestial there are harmonies and discords, and these all impinge upon the seed atom and aid in building the archetype. Vibratory lines of force are thus formed, which later attract and arrange physical particles as spores or sand are marshaled into geometrical figures by bowing a brass plate with a violin bow.

Along these archetypal lines of vibration the physical body is later built, and thus it expresses accurately the harmony of the spheres as it was played during the period of construction. This period, however, is much longer than the actual period of gestation, and varies according to the complexity of the structure required by the life seeking physical manifestation. Nor is the process of construction of the archetype continuous, for under aspects of the planets which produce notes to which the vibratory powers of the seed atom cannot respond it simply hums over those which it has already learned, and thus engaged it waits for anew sound which it can use to build more of the organism which it desires in order to express itself.

Thus, seeing that the terrestrial organism which each of us inhabits is molded along vibratory lines produced by the song of the spheres, we may realize that the inharmonies which express themselves as disease are produced in the first place by spiritual inharmony within. It is further evident that if we can obtain accurate knowledge concerning the direct cause of the inharmony and remedy it, the physical manifestation of disease will shortly disappear. It is this information which is given by the horoscope of birth, for there each planet in its house and sign expresses harmony or discord, health or disease. Therefore all methods of healing are adequate only in proportion as they take into consideration the stellar harmonies and discords expressed in the wheel of life--the horoscope.

While the laws of nature that govern in the lower realms are all-powerful under ordinary circumstances, there are higher laws which pertain to the spiritual realms and which may under certain circumstances be made to supersede the former. For instance, the forgiveness of sins upon recognition thereof and true repentance is made to supersede the law which demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. When Christ walked upon this earth and healed the sick, He, being the Lord of the Sun, embodied within Himself the synthesis of the stellar vibrations as the octave embodies all the tones of the scale, and He could therefore emit from Himself the true corrective planetary influence required in each case. He sensed the inharmony and knew at once wherewith to offset it by virtue of His exalted development. He had need of no further preparation, but obtained results at once by substituting harmony for the planetary discord which caused the disease wherewith He was dealing. Only in one case did He take refuge in the higher law and say, “Arise, thy sins are forgiven.”

Likewise with the ordinary methods employed in the Rosicrucian System of Healing, they depend upon a knowledge of the planetary inharmonies which cause disease and the correcting influence which will remedy the same. his has sufficed in all the instances which have come under our notice to date. However, there is a more powerful method available under a higher law which may accelerate recovery in cases of long standing, and under certain circumstances where the sincere and heartfelt recognition of wrong exists may even obliterate the effects of disease before destiny, cold and hard, would otherwise so decree.

When we look with spiritual vision upon one who is diseased, whether the physical body be emaciated or not, it is plainly evident to the seer that the finer vehicles are much more tenuous than during health. Thus they do not transmit to the physical body a proper quota of vitality, and as a consequence that instrument becomes more or less disrupted. But whatever may be the state of emaciation of the rest of the physical body, certain centers which are tenuous during health in a degree varying with the spiritual development of the man, become clogged in an increasing degree according to the seriousness of the disease. This is particularly true of the main center between the eyebrows. Therein the spirit is immured, sometimes to such an extent that it loses touch with the outer world and its progress and becomes so thoroughly centered upon its own condition that only complete rupture of the physical body can set it free. This may be a process of long years, and in the meantime the planetary inharmony which caused the initial disease may have passed by, but the sufferer is unable to take advantage of the improved conditions. In such cases a spiritual outpouring of a special kind is necessary to bring to the soul its message, “Thy sins are forgiven.” When that has been heard, it may respond to the command, “Take up thy bed and walk.”

None among our present humanity can measure anywhere near the stature of the Christ, consequently none can exercise His power in such extreme cases; but the need of that power in active manifestation exists today as much as it did two thousand years ago. Spirit pervades everything in and upon our planet, but in a varying measure. It has more affinity for some substances than for others. Being an emanation from the Christ Principle, it is the Universal Spirit composing the World of Life Spirit that restores the synthetic harmony of the body.

A substance was shown to the writer in the Temple of the Rosicrucians on the memorable night previously mentioned, with which the Universal Spirit could be combined as readily as great quantities of ammonia combine with water. Inside the large central sphere mentioned in a previous lesson was a smaller container which held a number of packages filled with that substance. When the Brothers had placed themselves in certain positions, when the harmony of certain music had prepared the way, suddenly the three globes commenced to glow with the three primary colors, blue, yellow, and red. To the vision of the writer it was plain how during the incantation of the formula the container having in it the before mentioned packages became aglow with a spiritual essence that was not there before. Some of these were later used by the Brothers with instantaneous success. Before them the crystallizing particles enveloping the spiritual centers of the patient scattered like magic, and the sufferer awoke to a recognition of physical health and well-being.

Note:--the four following articles are from manuscripts by Max Heindel which were unpublished at the time of his passing. They later appeared in the magazine, “rays from the holy cross,” and are here reproduced.

17. Eternal Damnation, And Salvation

As we have at the Fellowship during each week a number of classes in which the intellectual side of our natures may have sway, the Sunday evening service, including the address, is intended for the heart side. You know it is the aim of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood to combine the intellect and the heart, therefore the Sunday evening addresses should be devoted largely to bringing out the heart side, the touching of the heart strings. This is something we greatly need, more even than the development of the intellect. We are so apt in our present civilization to run along the intellectual line and seek always for an explanation of our problems that appeals only to the mind, forgetting that which may appeal to the heart also. Therefore the speaker will endeavor to lead you rather along a form of meditation in which the exhortations made may be said to apply more to the heart than to the head, and which apply to himself as well as to anyone else.

During the past week the Elder Brother who has been the Teacher of the speaker for some time, requested that the address of last Sunday be repeated in another form so that we might take up the phase of our philosophy which at present demands our greatest attention, namely, that of fitting ourselves for higher work. If we look at man as he is now, we obtain only a partial view of him, for man as well as everything else is ever becoming; but unless we prepare for that becoming we cannot attain. It is therefore necessary that we continually have our mind’s eye directed toward the future in order to know what is before us; also it is necessary to endeavor to live up to our ideals, for only as we live up to them can we in time attain to them.

When we have attained to an ideal, it is no longer an ideal. There was a time when some of us partook of the flesh of animals. Such food was obtained by a tragedy, a taking of life. Therefore we got the idea we would like to discontinue that practice, and after awhile we attained to that ideal and became what are called “vegetarians.” Vegetarian food was no longer an ideal to us, because we had attained to it. So in the spiritual life there are ideals that are farther and farther ahead, and which we must always strive to keep for ideals in order that we may in time attain to and live up to the highest that is within us.

We will now touch upon the subject known in the churches as “eternal damnation and salvation.” This is something we may have thought we could get away from. We have, no doubt, in years past heard the ministers preaching of hell; telling people of the necessity of applying themselves at once to the problem of salvation in order that they might not be eternally damned. Then perhaps in distrust of such a doctrine, perhaps thoroughly infuriated at the thought that a Creator would create beings in order that he might afterwards eternally torment the greater number of them, we turned away from the church to other religions or philosophies.

Some of us may have turned to Eastern religions that teach the continuity of life and the process whereby man evolves and eventually becomes a god. Perhaps while studying these doctrines we obtained the idea of the infinitude of time to the extent that we became a reproach to the Western World, for there are those who think that the infinitude of time makes it unnecessary for them to apply themselves as we do here. The Western World has been given the doctrine which teaches “eternal damnation and eternal salvation,” and although we cannot believe it as taught in the orthodox manner, nevertheless these twin doctrines contain a great truth.

The intelligent understanding of them hinges upon the derivation of the world “eternal.” If we turn to the Greek Bible, we shall find the word “aionian.” Taking a dictionary we find that this word means “age-lasting--for an indefinite period of time.” In the letter of Paul to Philemon where he speaks of returning the slave Onesimus to him it is said: “Perhaps it was good that he might be taken from you a little while that he might go to you forever (aionian).” Neither Onesimus nor Philemon was immortal, so there “aionian” can only mean for a part of a lifetime and not for eternity; so we see that the latter is not the sense in which we are to take it. But in what sense are we to take it?

When we look about us in the world and contemplate the process of evolution, we may learn that throughout the whole pilgrimage of the spirit from the clod to the god there is eternal progression; that there are many stages, and many points at which the spirit rests for a time, then takes a step forward. We who have studied in our philosophy the various epochs and the periods that were back of the epochs, remember that it was stated that the first real separation of people took place in the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch. There was then what may be called a chosen people; there has a certain division in the desire bodies of some of the people who dwelt in that land at that time. Into those in whom the desire body had divided so that there was some higher desire matter in their make-up, the human spirit or Ego could enter, and in that way they became man as we know him today. That was the first race; then gradually there have been other races started: seven during the Atlantean Epoch and five so far in the Aryan Epoch. There will be two more in this Epoch and one in the Sixth Epoch; then we shall be through with races.

Now while this process of evolution has been going on and while this vast company of spirits have been continually progressing from stage to stage, there have been stragglers on the way. Even when we were not yet conscious, there were some who did not progress with their class, because they were not as pliable as were the others; therefore they could not take the next step in evolution. We have not come to the point where the quickest changes take place, where there is less time between races than ever before. So the Elder Brothers look upon the sixteen races in a way that justifies calling them “the sixteen paths to destruction.”

Here we have our lesson. There is a step for each of us from one race to the next. We came through the races in the Lemurian Epoch; we went through the seven Atlantean races, then the first of the Aryan races. We have progressed along with the others; each time we have successfully passed the point where there was a division made, and have in that manner attained salvation. This is exactly on the same plan that children in school are brought up from kindergarten to college. Some have to stay behind each year; they are obliged to remain behind and learn the lessons that they did not learn the year before; but they are given another chance. So there are always some Egos lagging behind and some, more diligent than others, who are at the front.

This is the question for you and me to answer tonight; are we going to be among the laggards, or are we going to apply ourselves as we should and as we can? Having been given this wonderful doctrine, having come to know the wonderful truth of the continuity of life, are we going to hang back and say to ourselves: “There is plenty of time. We do not believe in this doctrine of eternal damnation; we know that all will be saved in time”? There will be some that will attain before others and some that will lag behind; but the question is, Are we going to be a help or a hindrance to the race? We stand today before the people of the Western World as the foremost; we have the philosophy that explains in a better manner than any other philosophy the problems of life. Then the question is, Are we going to use it in a practical manner by applying ourselves to live it--live it in our daily lives?

It does not matter what we believe, but only how we live; it is not a question of faith, but of showing our faith by works. Have we put into our daily lives our ideals? People about us are looking at us, and they see in us either an example of what they ought to be or what they ought not to be. Sunday after Sunday we hear these teachings, we learn the lessons of life, and we meditate upon the word “service”; but how are we living up to that ideal? Are we serving in the world? Are we going out into the world to practice these things, to there live the corresponding life and exemplify the teachings that have been received here? None of us can say we do it to the best of our ability; we all of us fall far short. Then comes the question: Is the ideal too high? No, it is not. There is a way whereby we may live day by day to better and better advantage, which we will now mention.

Those among you who have not taken up the exercises recommended in our literature should seriously consider doing so. I most earnestly advise that you take them up, because whether we who do so notice in ourselves an improvement, whether or not it is noticed by others in the world about us, there is nevertheless an improvement. We cannot day after day review our thoughts and deeds without individually living a better life and becoming better men and women. The two Rosicrucian exercises are not difficult and require but little time; nor are we expected to take the time that should be allotted to daily labor for our self-improvement. It is as wrong to do this as to take the bread that should go to others in the family and eat it ourselves. Every kind of selfishness should be shunned. We should endeavor to improve ourselves day by day, and thereby become better men and women, thus enabling us to shed more abundant life upon the Fellowship.

The probationers who are following the exercises and who are identifying themselves with the Rosicrucian teachings in this manner will exert a more helpful and powerful influence than otherwise possible. Therefore I would urge again--and I would not repeat it were it not by special request--that as many of you as can take up these exercises and endeavor to live accordingly, for it is only as we take up and live the higher life that we can fit ourselves for the progression that is to come.

At the time when the sun passes through a new sign of the zodiac, there is always given to humanity a new spiritual impulse. That impulse must have a channel to flow through, and that channel must be ready and able to vibrate to the impulse. Unless there are some people ready who can receive its vibration and give it out, the teaching connected with that spiritual impulse cannot come.

We have read how throughout the past nineteen hundred years the second coming of the Christ has been looked forward to; how some in the time of the Apostles looked for His coming and thought that He was to establish a worldly kingdom on earth. As in the past, so down to the present time we find people looking for His coming--coming as a person. But as Angelus Silesius says:

“Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born,
And not within thyself, thy soul will be forlorn.
The Cross on Golgotha thou lookest to in vain,
Unless within thyself it be set up again.”

As a tuning fork that is pitched to a certain vibration will start to sing when another of the same key is struck, so also will it be with us; when we have been attuned to the vibrations of the Christ, we shall be able to express the love that He came to teach mankind, and which we are inculcating by our service every Sunday evening. Until we live up to that love and perceive the Christ within, we cannot see the Christ without.

Therefore let us remember the little poem:

Let us not waste our time in longing
For bright and impossible things;
Let us not sit supinely waiting
For the sprouting of angel wings.
Let us not scorn to be rushlights,
Ev’ry one can’t be a star;
But let us brighten the darkness
By shining just where we are.

18. The Bow In The Cloud

I have a few preliminary explanations to make, a few reasons why the subject of “The Bow in the Cloud” is taken up. I recently dictated the manuscript for a book which I have since been editing. In the course of the dictation there came up certain points that required investigation, one of them being the life force that enters the body through the spleen. Upon investigating it was seen that this force manifests in different colors, and that in different kingdoms of life it works differently; therefore much was to be looked up before making the information public. A friend, upon reading some of the manuscript, sent to his library in Seattle for a book published about forty years ago called “Babbitt’s Principles of Light and Color.” I referred to this book and found it most interesting, written by a man who was clairvoyant. After spending an hour studying the book, I turned to investigation myself, with the result that a great deal of new light was shed upon the subject. And it is a deep and profound subject, for the very life of God seems to be embodied in these colors.

Among other things, in tracing back through the Memory of Nature, in regard to light and color I came to a point where there was no light, as has been shown in the “Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception.” Then I followed the different stages of planetary formation and on down to the point where the bow was seen in the cloud. The whole investigation made such a profound impression upon me as to fill me with devotion.

It is stated in the Bible that “God is Light,” and nothing can reveal to us the nature of God in the same degree as that symbol. If a clairvoyant went back into the far, dim past and looked upon this planet as it was then formed, he would see at first, as it were, a dark cloud, without form, coming out of chaos. Then he would see this cloud of virgin substance turned by the Creative Fiat into light--its first visible manifestation, a luminous fire mist. Then would come a time when moisture gathered around that fire mist, and later the period spoken of as the Moon Period would arrive. Still later would come the darker and more dense stage called the Earth Period.

In the Lemurian Epoch the first incrustation of the earth began when the seething, boiling water was evaporated. We know that when we boil and reboil water, it incrusts the kettle; likewise the boiling of the moisture on the outside of the fiery earth ball formed the hard and crusty shell that constitutes the surface of the earth.

The Bible says relative to the next epoch that it did not rain upon the earth, but a mist went forth from the earth. From the damp earth at that time there issued a mist that completely surrounded it. Then it was impossible for us to see the sunlight as we do now; the sun had the appearance of an arc light of the present time on a dark night; it had an aura around it. In that misty atmosphere we dwelt in the early period of Atlantis. Later there came a time when the atmosphere cooled more and more and the moisture was condensed into water, finally driving the Atlanteans from their land by a flood such as is recorded in the various religions.

At the time when that misty atmosphere enwrapped the earth, the rainbow was an impossibility. This phenomenon usually occurs when there is a clear atmosphere in some places and a cloud in others. There came a time when humanity saw the rainbow for the first time. When I looked upon that scene in the Memory of Nature, it was most wonderful. There were refugees who were driven from Atlantis, which is now partly under the Atlantic Ocean; it also included parts of what are now known as Europe and America. These refugees were driven eastward till they came at last to a place where the land was high, where the atmosphere had partially cleared, and where they saw the clear sky above. Of a sudden there came up a cloud, and from that cloud came lightning. They heard the roll of thunder, and they who had escaped peril by water and had fled under the guidance of a leader whom they revered as God, turned to Him to ask, “What have we come to now? Shall we be destroyed at last?” He pointed to the rainbow that stood in the cloud and said: “No, for so long as that bow stands in the cloud, so long shall the seasons come one after another in unbroken succession”; and the people with great admiration and relief looked upon that bow of promise.

When we consider the bow as one of the manifestations of Deity, we may learn some wonderful lessons of devotion, for while we look upon the lightning with awe and hear the thunder with fear, the rainbow in the sky must always provoke in the human heart an admiration for the beauty of its sevenfold path of color. There is nothing to compare with that wonderful bow, and I wish to call your attention to a few physical facts concerning it.

In the first place the rainbow never appears at noon; it is always after the sun has passed downward and has traversed more than half the distance from the meridian to the horizon that the rainbow appears, and the closer the sun is to the horizon, the larger, clearer, and more beautiful it is. It never appears in a clear sky. It usually has for its background the dark and dreary cloud, and it is always seen when we turn our face from the sun. We cannot look towards the sun and at the same time see a rainbow. When we look upon the bow from below, it appears as a half circle above the earth and us. But the higher we get, the more of the circle we see, and in the mountains, when we reach a sufficient height above the rainbow, we see it as a sevenfold circle--sevenfold like the Deity of whom it is a manifestation.

Now with these physical facts before us, let us go into the mystic interpretation of the subject. In ordinary life when we are at the height of our physical activity, when prosperity is the greatest, when everything looks bright and clear to us, then we do not need the manifestation of the divine light and life. We do not need that covenant, as it were, that God made with man upon his entry into the Aryan Epoch. We do not care about the higher life; our bark is sailing upon summer seas, and we care for nothing else; everything is so good to us here that there seems no reason why we should look beyond.

But suddenly there comes the tempest, a time in every life when sorrows and troubles come upon us. The storm of disaster tears away from us every physical foundation, and we stand, perhaps, alone in the world in sorrow. Then when we look away from the sun of physical prosperity, when we look to the higher life, we shall always see upon the dark cloud of disaster the bow that stands as the covenant between God and man, showing that we are always able to contact the higher life. It may not be best for us then to do so, for we all need a certain material evolution, which is best accomplished when we do not contact too closely the higher life. But in order to evolve and progress and gradually seek a higher and higher state of spirituality, there must in time come to us troubles and trials which will bring us into contact with the higher life. When we can look upon trial and tribulation as a means to that end, then sorrows become the greatest blessings that can come to us. When we feel no hunger, what do we care about food? But when we feel the pangs of starvation and are seated before a meal, no matter how coarse the fare, we feel very thankful for it.

If we sleep every night of our lives and sleep well, we do not appreciate what a blessing it is. But when we have been kept awake night after night and have craved sleep, then when it comes with its corresponding rest, we realize its great value. When we are in health and feel no pain or disease in our bodies, we are prone to forget that there ever was such a thing as pain. But just after recovering from an illness or after we have suffered much, we realize what a great blessing health is.

So in the contrast between the rays of the sun and the darkness of the cloud, we see in the latter the bow that beckons us on to a higher life; and if we will only look up to that, we shall be much better off than if we continue in the paths of the lower life.

Many of us are prone to worry over little things. This reminds me of a story recently printed in one of our papers of a little boy who had climbed a ladder. He had been looking up as he was climbing, and had gone so far up that a fall would have meant death. Then he stopped and looked down, instantly becoming dizzy. When we look down from a height, we become dizzy and afraid. But some one above called to him and said: “Look up, little boy. Climb up here, and I will help you.” He looked up, and at once the dizziness and fear left him; then he climbed up until taken in at a window.

Let us look up and endeavor to forget the little worries of life, for the bow of hope is always in the cloud. As we endeavor to live the higher life and climb the sublime heights toward God, the more we shall find the bow of peace becoming a circle and that there is peace here below as well as there above. It is our duty to accomplish the work we have to do in the world, and we should never shrink from that duty. Still we have a duty to the higher life, and it is in the interests of the latter that we gather together on Sunday night and by massing our aspirations advance toward the spiritual heights.

We should remember that we each have within a latent spiritual power that is greater than any worldly power, and as it is unfolding, we are responsible for its use. To increase that power we should endeavor to devote part of our leisure time to the cultivation of the higher life, so that when the cloud of disaster comes upon us, we shall by the aid of that power find the bow within the cloud. As the bow is seen at the end of the storm, so when we have gained the power to see the bright rainbow in our cloud of disaster, the end of that disaster has come, and the bright side begins to appear. The greater the disaster, the greater the needed lesson. When on the path of wrong doing we sooner or later are kindly but firmly whipped into line by the realities of life, and forced to recognize that the path of truth is upward and not downward and that God rules the world.

19. The Responsibility Of Knowledge

At the time in the far, dim past when we began our lives as human beings we had had very little experience, and consequently we had very little responsibility. Responsibility depends upon knowledge. The animals, we find, are not amenable to the law of causation from the moral standpoint, although of course, if an animal jumps out of a window, it is amenable to the law of physical causation, inasmuch as when it falls upon the ground beneath, it may possibly break a limb or cause itself some injury. If a man should do the same thing, he would be amenable to the law of responsibility in addition to the law of cause and effect. There is for him a moral responsibility, for he knows better, and he has no right to injure the instrument that has been given him. So we see that we are morally responsible according to our knowledge.

As we have gone through the experiences of many lives, more and more faculties have become ours, and we are born each time with the accumulated talents which are the results of the experiences of those lives. We are responsible, therefore, for the way we use them. It is necessary that we should put these talents to use in life, for unless we do, they will atrophy just as surely as will the hand that is not used and that hangs limp and idle by the side. Just as surely as that hand atrophies, so surely will our spiritual faculties atrophy unless we put them to usury and gain more. There can be no resting, no halting on this path of evolution which we are treading; we must either go forward or else degenerate.

There is, then, evidently much responsibility attached to knowledge. The more knowledge we have, the more responsibility we have--that is very plain. But looking at it from the still deeper viewpoint of the occult scientist, there is a responsibility attached to knowledge which is not ordinarily perceived by humanity, and it is this particular phase of responsibility that we wish to discuss here.

Mabel Collins avers that the story in her book called “The Blossom And The Fruit, Or The Story Of Fleta, A Black Magician,” is a true story. She states that the material for this story was brought from a far distant country in a very strange manner, and that from the standpoint of one who knows, there are in it some of the very deepest truths pertaining to the gaining of knowledge and its use. We are told there how Fleta in the beginning of her embodiments, while still in the savage state, murdered her lover, and that from that murder, through the cruelty involved in it, she obtained a certain power. That power, naturally, according to the deed, went in the direction of black magic. Therefore in the life with which the story deals, she possessed the power of a black magician. She forced her lover to kill an entity in order that she might gain new power. It was in this black manner that she utilized her knowledge.

There is a very deep truth here. All knowledge that is not saturated with life is empty, purposeless, and useless. The life that gives power to knowledge may be obtained in various ways, and may also be put to use in various ways. Once it has been obtained, it may be stored in a talisman, and then used by others for a good or for an evil purpose according to the character of the one who uses it. If it is stored within the one who develops the power himself, then it will be used according to the character of that man or woman. This is on the same principle that we may store up electricity in a battery, so that it may be taken away from the electric station and used for a variety of purposes by others than the one who stored it. So, also, the dynamic power that comes through the sacrifice of life for the purpose of gaining occult power, may be used in one way or the other if stored in a talisman.

We see this great fact in life particularly illustrated in the legend of Parsifal. In this beautiful legend, the cleansing blood of the Savior, given in noble self-sacrifice--not taken from another--was received in a vessel which then became a talisman, and was capable of giving spiritual power to many who looked upon it if they were pure, chaste, and harmless. We have also the symbol of the spear which was the cause of the wound from which the blood flowed. This was stained with the cleansing blood, which made it a talisman that could be variously used. during the reign of Titurel the Grail mystery was powerful; but when the Grail was given over to Amfortas, son of Titurel, he went out armed with the holy spear to slay Klingsor. He then ceased to be harmless; he wanted to pervert that great spiritual power and use it to slay an enemy. Even though it was an enemy of the good, it was not right to use that power for that purpose, and therefore the power turned against him. He had ceased to be chaste, pure, and harmless, and then the power gave him the wound that would never heal. So it is also in other cases.

We read of David the bloody man of war, who was forbidden by the Lord to build the Temple. Even though that Lord was a god of war, having had to punish nations in order to bring them into the right, He could not use the instrument which had been soiled by the blood of His wars for the purpose of building a temple. That had to be left to David’s son, Solomon, the man of peace. We are told how Solomon desired wisdom, great knowledge, not in order that he might gain the victory over his enemies, not in order that he might increase his territory and make his people a great nation, but in order that he might better rule the people who had been placed under his care; and knowledge was given to him abundantly.

We also learn how Parsifal, the antithesis of Amfortas, was the offspring of a man of war, a bloody man, who died. Through herzleide, heart affliction, the posthumous child Parsifal came into the world. In the first part of his career he used the bow, but at a certain stage he broke it, became chaste, pure, and harmless, and by the power of these qualities stood firm in the day of temptation, and wrested the spear from Klingsor, who had had it since the day when Amfortas lost it. Parsifal, in his wanderings between the time when he received the speak and the time when he returned to the Grail Castle, was beset by many temptations and much sorrow, trouble, and tribulation. Men had sought his life, and many times he realized that he might have saved himself by the use of the holy spear if he would have turned it against his enemies. But he knew that the spear was to be used not for hurt but for healing; he realized the sacredness of the power which the sacrificial blood had given to the talisman, and that it must only be used for the very highest purpose.

So we find everywhere that those who come into possession of spiritual power will never make use of it for any selfish purpose. No matter what trouble comes to them, they stand firm on that point. No matter how hard they may be beset, they never for a moment think of prostituting their power for selfish gain. Though such a one, if he likes, may feed five thousand who are hungry and way from their source of supply, he will not take even one little stone and turn it to bread to appease his own hunger. Although he may stand before his enemies and heal them, as the Christ healed the ear of the Roman soldier, he will refuse to use spiritual power to staunch the blood that flows from his own side. It has always been said of such men that “others they saved, themselves they would not save.” They could always have done so, for the power is great. But if they had so used it, they would have lost it; they had no right to thus prostitute their power.

Then there is a different kind of mystery from that of the Grail. For instance, John the Baptist’s head was placed upon a platter after he had been sacrificed, and others derived a certain power by looking upon that spectacle. The Greek myth tells us of Argus, who had so many eyes that he could see everywhere--he was clairvoyant. But he used his power for a wrong purpose, and Mercury, the god of wisdom, cut off his head, and took away the power. Every time that a man seeks to use spiritual knowledge and power in a wrong way, he will lose them; they cannot remain his.

Even when we look at knowledge from a scientific standpoint, we realize that it takes life, for every thought which we think breaks down tissue in our brain, which is built of little cells. Every cell has its own individual cell life, and that life is destroyed by thinking, or rather, the form is destroyed so that the life can no longer manifest in it. There is always the taking of life in whatever direction we go after knowledge. There are those who take life in scientific experiments out of pure curiosity. There are those who are cruel in the taking of life, as in vivisection, and here, when the quest of knowledge is pursued solely from the motive of curiosity, there is a dreadful debt laid up against a future day, for the equilibrium will surely be restored.

So we find it in the case of Fleta, that the sacrifice of life at one time in the physical world was followed by sacrifice in another world; but through it she gained a power that brought her even to the very temple doors, where she stood and demanded Initiation. Her motives, however, like those of Klingsor, were not pure. She was not chaste, not fitted to have spiritual power in its full measure and to be counted as one of the helpers of humanity; therefore she was banished from the door of the temple, and died the death of the black magician. A veil hangs before that death, and we are not told what is behind it. Those things are perhaps better left untold. But the lesson is just as valid, that we cannot take life nor in a wrongful way amass knowledge without incurring a dreadful liability thereby. The only reason which is satisfactory and proper for the quest of knowledge is that we may thereby serve and help the race in a more efficient way.

At the present time the sacrifice of life in obtaining knowledge is unavoidable; we cannot help it. But we should seek that knowledge with the purest and the bet of motives, for the life that we destroy is legion. The occultist, who sees the life that is coming to birth, the elemental life which is seeking embodiment and which is deprived of its forms by the process of obtaining knowledge, is amazed sometimes at the vast loss of the separate life that is thus sacrificed, and sacrificed to no good purpose. Therefore we reiterate that no one has the right to seek knowledge unless with the purest and the best of motives.

If, on the other hand, we walk the path of duty, if we seek to do those things well and thoroughly which come to our hands, and if we have spiritual aspirations without aiming to force spiritual growth, then we shall be comparatively easily fitted for having higher powers. It is a beautiful feature of the Rosicrucian exercises that they not only give us spiritual knowledge, but they fit us for having that knowledge. We must learn to walk the path of duty, to live the good life. Never mind a long life; so many people, as Thomas a Kempis says, are concerned with living a long life. But never mind this. Rather, let us strive each day to do our duty; then we shall surely be fit to have the higher knowledge that goes with exalted powers.

No matter what our sphere, there is always a place where we may make use of our knowledge, not to preach sermons, not to talk to people from morning till night about the things we know that they may admire our knowledge, but that we may live the spiritual life among them, that we may stand to them as living examples of our teachings. There is for everyone of us this opportunity. We need no look very far for it; it is right here.

Thomas a Kempis has expressed this in a manner which only a mystic can do. He has given the idea in such beautiful words that it would pay us well to read and ponder a few of them in his “Imitation of Christ.” He says:

“Every man naturally desireth to know, but what does knowledge avail without the fear of God. Surely, an humble husbandman that serveth God is better than a proud philosopher who studies the course of the heavens, and neglecteth himself.....The more thou knowest, the heavier will be thy judgment unless thy life be also the more holy. Be, therefore, not puffed up, but rather fear for the knowledge that is given thee. If it seem to thee that thou knowest much, remember that there are many things which thou knowest not. Thou knowest not how long thou mayest prosper in well doing.”

Therefore let us remember that we should not seek after knowledge simply for the sake of knowledge, but only as a means to the living of a better and a purer life, for that alone justifies it.

20. The Journey Through The Wilderness

Our subject is taken from the Bible story of “The Temple in the Wilderness,” and we shall endeavor to interpret it from the standpoint of the Rosicrucian teachings. It may seem to those who have not studied these teachings that one interpretation is as valid and as worthy of belief as another, but further consideration of the subject may give a somewhat different opinion. Peter, in his second Epistle, first chapter and 20th verse says: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scriptures is of any private interpretation.” In our daily life we understand that if our opinion on any subject is to be considered valuable, that opinion must be based upon a certain amount of knowledge of the subject. The testimony of witnesses in a court is based upon this principle. If a person well qualified by study or experience expresses an opinion upon a subject, he is listened to with respect and receives due consideration. It should be the same with one interpreting the Scriptures.

You will notice that Peter says that the Scriptures are not of private interpretation. The Roman Catholics have held during many centuries (and have been censured for so maintaining) that they are an authority on interpretation of the Scriptures. There is some foundation for this position, for every Pope who has ever been at the head of the Vatican, with one exception, has had his spiritual sight unfolded.

It is not claimed that the Popes have wielded their power wisely, but nevertheless they have not been blind leaders of the blind. It is such a claim that Peter makes for himself. He says, “We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” (II Peter, 1:16) “Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?” says Paul in the 9th chapter of First Corinthians, first verse.

There is thus a foundation for their writings and their teaching, and this foundation is that they have seen and heard. We might go further and show that those who were associated with the Christ when He was upon earth had spiritual sight. They had been taken upon the Mount of Initiation, there they saw Moses and Elijah, who had both long since passed out and were no longer in the physical world. They beheld them, and saw and heard things whereof they might not speak. Therefore by the unfoldment of the sixth or spiritual sense they had a foundation for their teaching. They were capable of interpreting the teaching given them, the proof of which they had seen.

In the Rosicrucian Fellowship we do not believe that the power of spiritual sight is given only to the few but that it is a faculty to be acquired by every human being in the course of his or her spiritual unfoldment. Some day we shall all acquire spiritual sight, and then we shall know that the things previously stated are true. There are some among us who have unfolded spiritual sight, and have by that unfoldment acquired the ability to see beyond the veil, to read from the Memory of Nature, and to find reflected therein from a higher world the causes that produced our present civilization. Some can also see into the future, and thus know of the future work of evolution. The Scriptures have not been taken up by the writer and interpreted according to his personal understanding, but this information is the result of an understanding obtained by means of spiritual vision.

In the first place let it be understood, as previously said in speaking of the Christian mysteries, that the four Gospels are not merely accounts of the life of a single individual, written by four different people, but that they are symbolical of different Initiations. Paul says, “Until Christ be formed in you.” Everyone will some day go through the four stages that are depicted in the four Gospels, for everyone is unfolding the Christ spirit within himself. And in saying this of the four Gospels, we may also apply the same assertion to a great part of the Old Testament, for it is a wonderful book of occultism. When we hoe potatoes, we do not expect to find only potatoes and no earth; neither should we expect to dig into the book we call the Bible and find every word an occult truth, for as there must be soil between the potatoes, so must there be dross between occult truths in the Bible.

The four Gospels were written in a manner such that only those who have the right to know can unveil what is meant and understand the underlying facts. So likewise in the Old Testament we find great occult truths that become very plain when we can look behind the veil that blinds most of us. Many for the present must forego occult sight in order to master the conditions of material evolution and thereby perfect themselves for the pursuits of the material world. But we of the Western world are now on the occult arc; we are on the shore of the spiritual sea, where we individually shall gather the pearls of knowledge that have been hidden by the matter that has blinded us.

We will now discuss a form of Initiation depicted in a part of the Bible, describing the journey of man from the clod to God. When we enter into the collection of writings which we call the Bible, we find that it begins with five books which are commonly called the five Books of Moses. These tell of the journey of a so-called “chosen people” from Egypt to a promised land, and how they passed through the water called the Red Sea, guided in a manner called supernatural; after many, many years and after many of those who first set out upon that journey had perished, they finally reached the land that was promised. And yet Paul in his letter to the Hebrews speaks of that covenant as having been unable of fulfillment, for that which should have been accomplished failed. This is a fact. When we make a law, there is also a means for transgressing that law; therefore it is impossible for law to save.

There was a time when humanity was in such a state that it was impossible to guide them at all without law--law telling them in all cases what they must do and what they must not do. Therefore it was the mission of their leader to give them such laws, and these were embodied in the five Books of Moses. Historically the Israelites were a people who traveled not from Egypt to Palestine, but who were taken by their leaders from doomed Atlantis, where the condensing moisture in the atmosphere caused floods that rendered the land uninhabitable, into the central part of Asia. This company of men and women had been selected as a nucleus for a chosen race, and they have since become what is known as the Aryan race. While this may be a historical interpretation, still there is within this story a great spiritual lesson, particularly in that part of the story which we are considering.

In the Cosmo-Conception is given an illustration of two men standing on a street corner; one knocks the other down. An observer might say that an angry thought knocked the man down. Another would contradict that statement and say that he saw the arm lifted and a blow landed upon the man’s face, causing him to fall to the ground. The latter version is true, but there was a thought also; the arm was but an irresponsible instrument. It is thought that moves everything, and when we look upon the hidden or occult side of effects, we get a far deeper understanding of causes. It is from this viewpoint that we shall speak of the Temple in the Wilderness.

In our Bible there is a description of the first people upon earth. They are called Adam and Eve; but properly interpreted this means the human race, which gradually arrogated to itself the power of procreation and thereby became free agents. Humanity was thus given its freedom and made responsible to the law of Consequence, for it had arrogated to itself the power to create new bodies, and was then separated from the Tree of life and the state which we are now cognizant of as etheric. When we learn that we have a vital body made of ether, and that it is the tree of life to everyone of us and furnishes us the vitality whereby we are enabled to make the movements of the body, we may understand why the power to recreate and regenerate ourselves was taken away from us lest we learn how to vitalize the imperfect dense body; and we also see why as stated in the Bible, there were placed at the gate of the Garden of Eden Cherubim with flaming swords to guard that region.

This story is told in the beginning of the Bible, but in the end of the book, in Revelation, we are told about a city where there is peace among the people. Two cities are mentioned in the Bible; one, Babylon, a city of sorrow and tribulation, where confusion started, where humanity first became estranged, one from another, where brotherhood ceased; also another city, a new one, a New Jerusalem, is described where there will be peace. We are further told in Revelation that in this New Jerusalem is the Tree of life, symbolizing the power to regenerate ourselves, whereby we shall regain that health and beauty that we at present lack.

It was for a good purpose that this power was taken away. It was not through malice in order that man should suffer in sorrow and pain, but because it was only by repeated existences in an inferior body that we could learn to build for ourselves such a vehicle as would be fit to immortalize. Man gradually came down from the etheric state as easily then as he can today dwell in the present three elements of the physical world. In the past etheric state he contacted internally the life currents that we now contact unconsciously. He was then able to center the energy of the sun in his body and draw it in a manner different from that at present used. This power was gradually taken away from him as he entered the more solid state of the present.

Then began the journey through the wilderness, a wilderness of space and of matter; and we shall continue to so journey until we reenter the etheric realm consciously--that realm called the New Heaven and the New Earth, where righteousness will dwell and where there will be no more sin. At the present time we are still traveling through the wilderness of space, as we shall see if we study the Bible understandingly. Not the English version, however, as that was prepared by translators who were hampered by an edict of King James instructing them not to translate anything that would in any manner interfere with the existing belief of that time.

The first thing that we learn from the occult point of view about the temple that was built in the wilderness is that Moses was called into the mountain and there shown certain patterns. You will remember we have been told in the Cosmo-Conception that in the heaven world there are pattern pictures--archetypes. We find in the Greek language the word “APXN” meaning “in the beginning,” that is, the commencement. The Christ says of Himself, or rather the Initiate who understands his divinity says: “I am the beginning (APXN) and the end.” There is in that word “beginning” (APXN) the nucleus for everything we have here.

In the temple there was placed an ark, and the ark was arranged in such a manner that the staves could not or should not be taken out of it; during the whole journey through the wilderness those staves must remain there. They were never removed until the ark was taken into the temple of Solomon. We see here a state where a certain symbol, an archetype, something that comes from the beginning, is made in such a manner that it can be taken up at any time and carried further on. In that ark was the nucleus around which everything in the temple centered. There was the magical rod of Aaron, and there was the pot of manna; also the two tablets of the law.

We have here described a perfect symbol of what man really is, for all the while he is going through this vale of matter and is traveling continually from one place to another, the staves are never under any condition removed. They are not removed until he comes to that state symbolized in Revelation where it is said, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God; and he shall go no more out.”

During all the time that has intervened from the moment when man commenced his passage through matter, he has had that spirit of peregrination. He does not remain stationary. Every so often the temple was taken up, an the ark was carried farther on to a new place. So also is man taken from place to place from environment to environment, from condition to condition. It is not an aimless journey, for it has for its goal that promised land, the New Jerusalem, where there shall be peace. But while man is on this journey he must know that there will be no rest and no peace.

This is the result of the law which man has transgressed in a certain sense. It was not designed at the beginning that we should go through such an evolution as this, such a vale of sorrow and tears as we have been and are passing through. We are told that the creative force that was latent within and that we are just beginning to use constructively was first used by us under the direction of the angels, who took care that procreation was carried on at times when the planetary conditions were favorable. Then parturition was painless. Everything was good on the earth. The Lord had made everything so that it was good. But there came a time when the Lucifer spirits, whom we recognize as the stragglers from the angel evolution, had to have a brain in order that they might function in the physical world. Therefore they showed us how we might use our creative force in a manner independent of the guidance of the angels, so that when a body was cast off in death, as it had to be when it became useless, it would be possible for the human being to create another body.

So we have these two classes working in different parts of the body: the Lucifer spirits, that have since worked on us through the spinal cord and the brain; and the angels who have charge of the propagative faculty in so far as it does not interfere with our own action. Here, at this point, is where free will and choice come in and also the Law of Consequence. The animals are not responsible in the way we are; if an animal jumps from a height, it hurts itself in a physical manner, but there the responsibility ends; while if we should do the same thing, we should incur similar physical results and in addition a moral responsibility, for we know better than to injure the physical vehicle unnecessarily. Thus the Law of Consequence attaches to every act of a human being when free will is attained.

Whatever we do that is wrong has in some way to be brought to our notice. Sorrow and pain have been the taskmasters who have guided us aright, and in order that we might in time know how to do right, the Law of Consequence was given. In the ark, which symbolized the human being, there were placed the tablets of the law, and there was also placed the pot of manna.

The word “manna” signifies not bread that came from heaven but the thinker, the Ego, which descended from the higher spheres. In almost every language we have the word “man.” In Sanskrit, German, Scandinavian, etc., the root is the same. In the ark is the thinker, and he is being carried about in the temple in the wilderness during the present stage of his evolution.

There is in us also the spiritual power symbolized by the rod of Aaron. Aaron’s rod, we remember, was one that budded when all others remained barren. There is in each one of us a spiritual power that has become latent during the time we have been going through the pilgrimage of matter, and it is for us to awaken this power. We have spoken a number of times about this spiritual power--how the use of it brings blessings into the world when used as Parsifal used it, and how when misused, as did Amfortas, it brings sorrow.

This spiritual power is latent at the present time because humanity, symbolized by the traveling ark, has not fitted itself to receive it.

We are too selfish, and we must cultivate unselfishness before we shall be trusted to wield this wonderful power. Peter is very emphatic in regard to the teachers who may come among us, when he speaks of false teachers and says they will make merchandise of us. Such are they who have lessons in this, that, and the other kind of spiritual science to sell, more than likely in astrology, at perhaps five dollars per lesson.

They have these things to give us for the coin of the realm, but we must remember that it is not money but merit that counts in spiritual attainment every time, and it is impossible to initiate a man into higher spiritual powers for a few dollars or any material consideration. Just as it is necessary to load the pistol before pulling the trigger will cause the explosion, so also is it necessary that we have stored up within ourselves the force, the spiritual power symbolized by Aaron’s rod, before we can have that power turned to its proper and legitimate use. And this is one of the great lessons in the story of the ark.

If we continue to travel and travel, take rebirth after rebirth, and do not at some time learn to obey the voice of God, hold His commandments holy, and live the good life, we cannot expect to reach the City of Peace, but must be content to remain in the land of sorrow and suffering.

How then are we to unfold our spiritual power? What is the way, the truth, and the life? We have had the threefold path shown us in the glorious teaching of the Christ. Ordinary humanity all over the world are being worked upon by law, which works upon the desire body and holds it in check. The thinker is pitted against the flesh. But under law no one can be saved. We also have the vital body spoken of in our teaching. This is the vehicle, as Paul has said, of love and attraction. If we can overcome the passionate side of our nature, if we can get away from the lower vibrations of love, if we can cultivate within ourselves purity, and if we can withstand temptation as did Parsifal and live the pure life, then every day we cultivate within ourselves a power.

This power is the power of love, which will express itself in our lives in service, and gradually it will accumulate to such an extent that it will be like the powder in the loaded pistol. Then the Teacher will come to us and show us how to liberate the power we have stored up within our being.

It depends upon ourselves how long we shall travel in the wilderness. Everyone of us has the power latent within that will bring him or her into the City of Peace, a place apart from sorrow and suffering. Everyone of us can and must make the start sometime, and the first step is purification, for without the pure life there can be no spiritual advancement. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon,” it is said.

But mammon is usually interpreted to mean the gold of the world. Yet a man may remain in his business and take care of it for the good of all, not for his own selfish greed and interest, doing everything possible for others, and not be serving mammon no matter how much he may be accumulating. A person may love only a few around him, but there is a higher love that flows out to others not in his own circle which must be observed. Every duty must be fulfilled that we may thereby take advantage of the higher opportunities that are ever opening up before us.

And so we must all learn our lessons in service: service to humanity, service to animals, service to our younger brothers, service everywhere. This alone will bring us out of the “wilderness.” It is said that those who were highest in the temple were those who served; and the Christ said, “He who would be the greatest among you, let him be the servant of all.” Let us all strive to render this service. It is easy to do if we will. Then some day in the not far distant future we shall hear that gentle voice, the voice of the Teacher, which comes to everyone who serves and who listens to the voice of God.

THE END