The
Rosicrucian Mysteries
An Elementary Exposition of
Their Secret Teachings
By
Max Heindel
Author of: The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception, The Rosicrucian Philosophy in
Questions and Answers, The Rosicrucian Interpretation of Christianity,
Rays from the Rose Cross, etc.
Third Edition
Rosicrucian Fellowship
Oceanside, California
London
L. N. Fowler, 7 Imperial Arcade
Ludgate Circus. E. C.
CONTENTS
Chapter I. The Order of Rosicrucians and the Rosicrucian Fellowship
Chapter II. The Problem of Life and Its Solution
Chapter III. The Visible and the Invisible World
Chapter IV. The Constitution of Man
Chapter V. Life and Death
Mt. Ecclesia
Index
CHAPTER I. THE ORDER OF ROSICRUCIANS AND THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP
Our Message And Mission
_A Sane Mind_
_A Soft Heart_
_A Sound Body_
Before entering upon an explanation of the teachings of the Rosicrucians,
it may be well to say a word about them and about the place they hold in
the evolution of humanity.
For reasons to be given later these teachings advocate the dualistic view;
they hold that man is a spirit enfolding all the powers of God as the seed
enfolds the plant, and that these powers are being slowly unfolded by a
series of existences in a gradually improving earthy body; also that this
process of development has been performed under the guidance of exalted
beings who are yet ordering our steps, though in a decreasing measure, as
we gradually acquire intellect and will. These exalted Beings, though
unseen to the physical eyes, are nevertheless potent factors in all
affairs of life, and give to the various groups of humanity lessons which
will most efficiently promote the growth of their spiritual powers. In
fact, the earth may be likened to a vast training school in which there
are pupils of varying age and ability as we find it in one of our own
schools. There are the savages, living and worshipping under most
primitive conditions, seeing in stick or stone a God. Then, as man
progresses onwards and upwards in the scale of civilization, we find a
higher and higher conception of Deity, which has flowered here in our
Western World in the beautiful Christian religion that now furnishes our
spiritual inspiration and incentive to improve.
These various religions have been given to each group of humanity by the
exalted beings whom we know in the Christian religion as the Recording
Angels, whose wonderful prevision enable them to view the trend of even so
unstable a quantity as the human mind, and thus they are enabled to
determine what steps are necessary to lead our enfoldment along the lines
congruous to the highest universal good.
When we study the history of the ancient nations we shall find that at
about six hundred years B. C. a great spiritual wave had its inception on
the Eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean where the great Confucian Religion
accelerated the progress of the Chinese nation, then also the Religion of
the Buddha commenced to win its millions of adherents in India, and still
further West we have the lofty philosophy of Pythagoras. Each system was
suited to the needs of the particular people to whom it was sent. Then
came the period of the Sceptics, in Greece, and later, traveling westward
the same spiritual wave is manifested as the Christian religion of the
so-called “Dark Ages” when the dogma of a dominant church compelled belief
from the whole of Western Europe.
It is a law in the universe that a wave of spiritual awakening is always
followed by a period of doubting materialism, each phase is necessary in
order that the spirit may receive equal development of heart and intellect
without being carried too far in either direction. The Great Beings
aforementioned, Who care for our progress, always take steps to safeguard
humanity against that danger, and when they foresaw the wave of
materialism which commenced in the sixteenth century with the birth of our
modern Science, they took steps to protect the West as they had formerly
safeguarded the East against the Sceptics who were held in check by the
Mystery schools.
In the thirteenth century there appeared in central Europe a great
spiritual teacher whose symbolical name was
Christian Rosenkreuz.
or
Christian Rose Cross.
who founded the mysterious Order of the Rosy Cross, concerning which so
many speculations have been made and so little has become known to the
world at large, for it is the Mystery school of the West and is only open
to those who have attained the stage of spiritual unfoldment necessary to
be initiated in its secrets concerning the Science of Life and Being.
If we are so far developed that we are able to leave our dense physical
body and take a soul flight into interplanetary space we shall find that
the ultimate physical atom is spherical in shape like our earth; it is a
ball. When we take a number of balls of even size and group them around
one, it will take just twelve balls to hide a thirteenth within. Thus the
twelve visible and the one hidden are numbers revealing a cosmic
relationship and as all Mystery Orders are based upon cosmic lines, they
are composed of twelve members gathered around a thirteenth who is the
invisible _head_.
There are seven colors in the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo and violet. But between the violet and the red there are still
other five colors which are invisible to the physical eye but reveal
themselves to the spiritual sight. In every Mystery Order there are also
seven brothers who at times go out into the world and there perform
whatever work may be necessary to advance the people among whom they
serve, but five are never seen outside the temple. They work with and
teach those alone who have passed through certain stages of spiritual
unfoldment and are able to visit the temple in their spiritual bodies; a
feat taught in the first initiation which usually takes place outside the
temple as it is not convenient for all to visit that place physically.
Let not the reader imagine that this initiation makes the pupil a
Rosicrucian, it does not, any more than admission to a High School makes a
boy a member of the faculty. Nor does he become a Rosicrucian even after
having passed through all the nine degrees of this or any other Mystery
School. The Rosicrucians are Hierophants of the lesser Mysteries, and
beyond them there are still schools wherein Greater Mysteries are taught.
Those who have advanced through the lesser Mysteries and have become
pupils of the Greater Mysteries are called Adepts, but even they have not
reached the exalted standpoint of the twelve Brothers of the Rosicrucian
Order or the Hierophants of any other lesser Mystery School any more than
the freshman at college has attained to the knowledge and position of a
teacher in the High school from which he has just graduated.
A later work will deal with initiation, but we may say here that the door
of a genuine Mystery School is not unlocked by a golden key, but is only
opened as a reward for meritorious service to humanity and any one who
advertises himself as a Rosicrucian or makes a charge for tuition, by
either of those acts shows himself to be a charlatan. The true pupil of
any Mystery School is far too modest to advertise the fact, he will scorn
all titles or honors from men, he will have no regard for riches save the
riches of love given to him by those whom it becomes his privilege to help
and teach.
In the centuries that have gone by since the Rosicrucian Order was first
formed they have worked quietly and secretly, aiming to mould the thought
of Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon,
Shakespeare, Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical
activities of the day are at their lowest ebb, and the spiritual impulse
at its highest flood tide, they have sent out from their temple
soul-stirring vibrations to counteract materialism and to further the
development of soul powers. To their activities we owe the gradual
spiritualization of our once so materialistic science.
With the commencement of the twentieth century a further step was taken.
It was realized that something must be done to make religion scientific as
well as to make science religious, in order that they may ultimately
blend; for at the present time heart and intellect are divorced. The heart
instinctively feels the truth of religious teachings concerning such
wonderful mysteries as the Immaculate Conception (the Mystic Birth), the
Crucifixion (the Mystic Death), the cleansing blood, the atonement, and
other doctrines of the Church, which the intellect refuses to believe, as
they are incapable of demonstration, and seemingly at war with natural
law. Material advancement may be furthered when intellect is dominant and
the longings of the heart unsatisfied, but soul growth will be retarded
until the heart also receives satisfaction.
In order to give the world a teaching so blended that it will satisfy both
the mind and heart, a messenger must be found and instructed. Certain
unusual qualifications were necessary, and the first one chosen failed to
pass a certain test after several years had been spent to prepare him for
the work to be done.
It is well said that there is a time to sow, and a time to reap, and that
there are certain times for all the works of life, and in accordance with
this law of periodicity each impulse in spiritual uplift must also be
undertaken at an appropriate time to be successful. The first and sixth
decades of each century are particularly propitious to commence the
promulgation of new spiritual teachings. Therefore the Rosicrucians were
much concerned at this failure, for only five years were left of the first
decade of the twentieth century.
Their second choice of a messenger fell upon the present writer, though he
knew it not at the time, and by shaping circumstances about him they made
it possible for him to begin a period of preparation for the work they
desired him to do. Three years later, when he had gone to Germany, also
because of circumstances shaped by the invisible Brotherhood, and was on
the verge of despair at the discovery that the light which was the object
of his quest, was only a jack-o-lantern, the Brothers of the Rosicrucian
Order applied the test to see whether he would be a faithful messenger and
give the teachings they desired to entrust to him, to the world. And when
he had passed the trial they gave him the monumental solution of the
problem of existence first published in “_The Rosicrucian Cosmo
Conception_” in November, 1909, more than a year before the expiration of
the first decade of the twentieth century. This book marked a new era in
so-called “occult” literature, and the many editions which have since been
published, as well as the thousands of letters which continue to come to
the author, are speaking testimonies to the fact that people are finding
in this teaching a satisfaction they have long sought elsewhere in vain.
The Rosicrucians teach that all great religions have been given to the
people among whom they are found, by Divine Intelligences who designed
each system of worship to suit the needs of the race or nation to whom it
was given. A primitive people cannot respond to a lofty and sublime
religion, and _vice versa_. What helps one race would hinder another, and
in pursuance of the same policy there has been devised a system of
soul-unfoldment suited specially to the Western people, who are racially
and temperamentally unfit to undergo the discipline of the Eastern school,
which was designed for the more backward Hindoos.
THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP
For the purpose of promulgating the Rosicrucian teachings in the Western
World, the Rosicrucian Fellowship was founded in 1909. It is the herald of
the Aquarian Age, when the Sun by its precessional passage through the
constellation Aquarius will bring out all the intellectual and spiritual
potencies in man which are symbolized by that sign. As heat from a fire
warms all objects within the sphere of its radiations, so also the
Aquarian ray will raise the earth’s vibrations to a pitch we are as yet
unable to comprehend, though we have demonstrations of the _material_
workings of this force in the inventions which have revolutionized life
within the memory of the present generation. We have wondered at the
X-ray, which sees through the human body, but each one has a sense latent
which when evolved will enable him to see through any number of bodies or
to any distance. We marvel at the telephone conversations across the
continent of America, but each has within a latent sense of speech and
hearing that is far more acute; we are surprised at the exploits of ships
under sea and in the sky, but we are all capable of passage under water or
through the sky; nay, more, we may pass unscathed through the solid rock
and the raging fire, if we know how, and lightning itself is slow compared
to the speed with which we may travel. This sounds like a fairy tale
today, as did Jules Verne’s stories a generation ago, but the Aquarian Age
will witness the realization of these dreams, and ever so much more that
we still do not even dream of. Such faculties will then be the possessions
of large numbers of people who will have gradually evolved them as
previously the ability to walk, speak, hear, and see, were developed.
Therein lies a great danger, for, obviously, anyone endowed with such
faculties may use them to the greatest detriment of the world at large,
unless restrained by a spirit of unselfishness and an all-embracing
altruism. Therefore religion is needed today as never before, to foster
love and fellow-feeling among humanity so that it may be prepared to use
the great gifts in store for it wisely and well. This need of religion is
specially felt in a certain class where the ether is more loosely knit to
the physical atoms than in the majority, and on that account they are now
beginning to sense the Aquarian vibrations.
This class is again divided in two groups. In one the intellect is
dominant, and the people in that class therefore seek to grasp the
spiritual mysteries out of curiosity from the viewpoint of cold reason.
They pursue the path of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, considering
that an end in itself. The idea that knowledge is of value only when put
to practical constructive use does not seem to have presented itself to
them. This class we may call _occultists_.
The other group does not care for knowledge, but feels an inner urge
God-ward, and pursues the path of devotion to the high ideal set before
them in Christ, doing the deeds that He did as far their flesh will
permit, and this in time results in an interior illumination which brings
with it all the knowledge obtained by the other class, and much more. This
class we may describe as _mystics_.
Certain dangers confront each of the two groups. If the occultist obtains
illumination and evolves within himself the latent spiritual faculties, he
may use them for the furtherance of his personal objects, to the great
detriment of his fellow-men. That is black magic, and the punishment which
it _automatically_ calls down upon the head of the perpetrator is so awful
that it is best to draw the veil over it. The mystic may also err because
of ignorance, and fall into the meshes of nature’s law, but being actuated
by love, his mistakes will never be very serious, and as he grows in grace
the soundless voice within his heart will speak more distinctly to teach
him the way.
The Rosicrucian Fellowship endeavors to prepare the world in general, and
the sensitives of the two groups in particular, for the awakening of the
latent powers in man, so that all may be guided safely through the
danger-zone and be as well fitted as possible to use these new faculties.
Effort is made to blend the love without which Paul declared a knowledge
of all mysteries worthless, with a mystic knowledge rooted and grounded in
love, so that the pupils of this school may become _living_ exponents of
this blended soul-science of the Western Wisdom School, and gradually
educate humanity at large in the virtues necessary to make the possession
of higher powers safe.
_Note_:—
_Pages 19 to 26 inclusive, describing Mt. Ecclesia, have been transferred
to the back of the book._ (Transcriber’s Note: They are pages 191 through
200.)