The Object of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. 180
Catalogue of Publications.
Chapter I
INITIATION: WHAT IT IS AND IS NOT
PART I
It is no rare occurrence to receive questions relating to Initiation,
and we are also frequently asked to state whether this order or that
society is genuine, and whether the initiations they offer to all
comers who have the price are _bona fide_. For that reason it seems
necessary to write a treatise on the subject so that students of the
Rosicrucian Fellowship may have an official statement for reference and
guidance in the future.
In the first place let it be clearly understood that we consider it
reprehensible to express condemnation of any society or order, no
matter what its practices. It may be perfectly sincere and honest
_according to its light_. We do not believe that we rise in the opinion
of discriminating men and women by speaking in disparaging terms of
others; neither are we laboring under the delusion that _we_ have all
the truth and other societies are plunged in Egyptian darkness. We
reiterate what we have often said before, that all religions have
been given to mankind by the Recording Angels, who know the spiritual
requirements of each class, nation, and race, and have the intelligence
to give to each a form of worship perfectly suited to its particular
need; that thus Hinduism is suited to the Hindu, Mohammedanism to
the Arab, and the Christian religion to those born in the Western
Hemisphere.
The Mystery Schools of each religion furnish to the more advanced
members of the race or nation embracing it a higher teaching, which,
_if lived_, advances them into a higher sphere of spirituality than
their brethren. But as the religion of the backward races is of a lower
order than the religion of the pioneers, the Christian nations, so also
the _Mystery Teaching of the East is more elementary than that of the
West_, and the Hindu or Chinese Initiate is on a correspondingly lower
rung of the ladder of attainment than the Western Mystic. Please ponder
this well so that you may not fall a victim to misguided people who try
to persuade others that the Christian religion is crude compared with
oriental cults. Ever westward in the wake of the shining sun, the light
of the world, has gone the star of empire, and is it not reasonable to
suppose that the spiritual light has kept pace with civilization, or
even preceded it as thought precedes action? We hold that such is the
case, that the Christian religion is the loftiest yet given to man, and
that to repudiate the Christian religion, esoteric or exoteric, for any
of the older systems is analogous to preferring the older textbooks of
science to the newer ones which embrace discoveries to date.
Neither are the practices of Eastern aspirants to the higher life to
be imitated by Westerners; we refer particularly to the breathing
exercises. They are both beneficial and necessary to the unfoldment
of the Hindu, but it is otherwise with the Western aspirant. To him
it is dangerous to practice breathing exercises for soul unfoldment;
they will even prove subversive of soul growth, and they are, moreover,
absolutely unnecessary. The reason is this:
During involution the threefold spirit has become gradually incrusted
in a threefold body. In the Atlantean Epoch man was at the nadir of
materiality. We are just now rounding the lowest point on the arc of
involution, and starting upward on the arc of evolution. At this point,
then, all mankind is immured in this earthly prison house to such a
degree that spiritual vibrations are almost killed. This is, of course,
particularly true of the backward races and the lower classes in the
Western world. The atoms in such backward race bodies are vibrating at
an exceedingly low rate, and when in the course of time one of these
people develops to a point where it is possible to further him upon
the path of attainment, it is necessary to raise this vibratory pitch
of the atom so that the vital body, which is the medium of occult
growth, may to a certain extent be liberated from the deadening force
of the physical atom. This result is attained by means of breathing
exercises, which in time accelerate the vibration of the atom, and
allow the spiritual growth necessary to the individual to take place.
These exercises may also be used by a great number of people in
the Western world, particularly those who are not at all concerned
about their spiritual advancement. But even among those who desire
soul growth there are many who are not yet at the point where the
atoms of their bodies have evolved to such a pitch of vibration that
acceleration beyond the usual measure would injure them. Here the
breathing exercises would do no harm; but if given to a person who
is really at the point where he can enter the path of advancement
ordinarily mapped out for the Hindu’s precocious brothers and sisters
in the West, in other words, when he is nearly ready for Initiation and
when he would be benefited _by spiritual exercises_, then the case is
far otherwise.
During the aeons which we have spent in evolution since the time when
we were in Hindu bodies, our atoms have accelerated their vibratory
pitch enormously, and as said in the case of one who is really nearly
ready for Initiation, the pitch of vibration is higher than that of the
average man or woman. Therefore he does not need breathing exercises
to _accelerate_ this pitch, but certain spiritual exercises suited to
him individually which will advance him on the proper path. If such
a person at this critical period meets some one who ignorantly or
unscrupulously gives him breathing exercises, and if he follows the
instructions accurately in the hope of _getting quick results_, he
will get them quickly but in a manner he has not looked for, since
the vibratory rate of the atoms in his body will in a very short time
become accelerated to such a pitch that it will seem to him as if he
were walking on air; then also an improper cleavage of the vital body
may take place, and either consumption or insanity follows. Now please
put this down where it will burn itself into your consciousness in
letters of fire: _Initiation is a spiritual process, and spiritual
progress cannot be accomplished by physical means, but only by
spiritual exercises._
There are many orders in the West which profess to _initiate anyone
who has the price_. Some of these orders have names closely resembling
our own, and we are constantly asked by students whether they are
affiliated with us. In order to settle this once and for all, please
note that the Rosicrucian Fellowship has constantly taught that _no
spiritual gift may ever be traded for money_. If you bear this in mind,
you may know we have no connection with any order which demands money
for the transference of spiritual power. He who has something to give
of a truly spiritual nature will not barter it for money. I received
a particular injunction to this effect from the Elder Brothers in the
Rosicrucian Temple, when they told me to go to the English speaking
world as their messenger, a claim I do not expect you to believe _save
as you see it justified by fruits_.
Now, however, about Initiation: What is it? Is it ceremony as claimed
by these other orders? If so, any order can certainly invent ceremonies
of a more or less elaborate kind. They may by flowing robes and
clashing swords appeal to the emotions; they may appeal to the sense
of wonder and awe by rattling chains and by deep sounding gongs, and
thus produce in their members an “_occult feeling_.” Many revel in the
adventures and experiences of the hero in “The Brother of the Third
Degree,” thinking that this is surely Initiation, but I tell you that
it is very far from being the case. _No ceremony can ever give to any
one that inward experience_ which constitutes Initiation, no matter how
much is charged or how fearful the oaths, how awful or beautiful the
ceremony, or how gorgeous the robes, any more than passing through a
ceremony can convert a sinner and make him a saint, for conversion is
to the exoteric religionist exactly what Initiation is in the higher
mysticism. Please consider this point thoroughly, and you will have the
key to the problem.
Do you think that any one could go to a person of depraved character
and agree to convert him for a certain sum and carry out his part of
the agreement? Surely you know that no amount of money could bring
about that change in a man’s character. Ask a true convert where he got
his religion and how he got it. One may tell you that he received it
upon the road as he was walking along; another says that the light and
the change came to him in the solitude of his room; another that the
_light struck_ him as it struck Paul upon the road to Damascus, and
forced him to change. Every one has a different experience, but it is
in every case _an inward experience_, and the outward manifestation of
that inward experience is that _it changes the man’s whole life_ from
the very least to the very greatest aspects.
So it is also with Initiation; it is an inward experience, entirely
_separate and apart from any ceremonial whatever_, and therefore it is
an absolute impossibility that any one could sell it to any one else.
Initiation changes a man’s whole life. It gives him a confidence that
he never possessed before. It clothes him with a mantle of authority
that never can be taken from him. No matter what the circumstances in
life, it sheds a light upon his whole being that is simply wonderful.
Nor can any ceremony effect such a change. We therefore hold that
anyone who offers initiation into an occult order by ceremonials to
every one who has the price, brands himself as an imposter. For the
true teacher, if he were approached by an aspirant with an offer of
money for spiritual attainment would answer indignantly in the words
used by Peter to Simon, the sorcerer, who offered him money for
spiritual powers: “Thy silver perish with thee.”
Chapter II
INITIATION: WHAT IT IS AND IS NOT
PART II
To obtain a better understanding of what constitutes Initiation and
what the prerequisites are, let the student first fix firmly in his
mind the fact that humanity as a whole is slowly progressing upon
the path of evolution, and thus very slowly, almost imperceptibly,
attaining higher and higher states of consciousness. The path of
evolution is a spiral when we regard it from the physical side only,
but a lemniscate when viewed in both its physical and spiritual
phases. (See the diagram of chemical caduceus in _The Rosicrucian
Cosmo-Conception_, page 410.) In the lemniscate, or figure 8, there
are two circles which converge to a central point, which circles may
be taken to symbolize the immortal spirit, the evolving ego. One of
the circles signifies its life in the physical world from birth to
death. During this span of time it sows a seed by every act and should
reap in return a certain amount of experience. But as we may sow seed
in the field and lose return on that which falls on stony ground,
among thorns, et cetera, so also may the seed of opportunity be wasted
because of neglect to till the soil and the life will then be barren
of fruit. Conversely, as diligence and care in cultivation increase
the productive power of garden seed enormously, so earnest application
to the business of life—improvement of opportunities to learn life’s
lessons and extract from our environment the experience it holds—brings
added opportunities; and at the end of the life-day the ego finds
itself at the door of death laden with the richest fruits of life.
The objective work of physical existence over, the race run, and
the day of action spent, the ego enters upon the subjective work of
assimilation accomplished during its sojourn in the invisible worlds,
which it traverses during the period from death to birth, symbolized by
the other ring of the lemniscate. As the method of accomplishing this
assimilation has been most minutely described in various parts of our
literature, it is needless to repeat it here. Suffice it to say that at
the time when an ego arrives at the central point in the lemniscate,
which divides the physical from the psychic worlds and which we call
the gate of birth or death according to whether the ego is entering
or leaving the realm where we, ourselves, happen to be at the time,
it has with it an aggregate of faculties or talents acquired in all
its previous lives, which it may then put to usury or bury during the
coming life-day as it sees fit; but upon the use it makes of what it
has, depends the amount of soul growth it makes.
If for many lives it caters mainly to the lower nature, which lives to
eat, drink, and be merry, or if it dreams its life away in metaphysical
speculations upon nature and God, sedulously abstaining from all
unnecessary action, it is gradually passed and left behind by the more
active and progressive. Great companies of these idlers form what we
know as “backward races”; while the active, alert, and wide-awake who
improve a larger percentage of their opportunities, are the pioneers.
Contrary to the commonly accepted idea, this applies also to those
engaged in industrial work. Their money-getting is only an incident,
an incentive, and entirely apart from this phase their work is as
spiritual as or even more so than that of those who spend their time in
prayer to the prejudice of useful work.
From what has been said, it will be clear that the method of soul
growth as accomplished by the process of evolution requires _action_ in
the physical life, followed in the post-mortem state by a _ruminating
process_, during which the lessons of life are extracted and thoroughly
incorporated into the consciousness of the ego, though the experiences
themselves are forgotten—as we forget our labor in learning the
multiplication table, though the faculty of using it remains.
This exceedingly slow and tedious process is perfectly suited to the
needs of the masses; but there are some who habitually exhaust the
experiences commonly given, thus requiring and meriting a larger scope
for their energies. Difference of temperament is responsible for their
division into two classes.
One class, led by their devotion to Christ, simply follow the dictates
of the heart in their work of love for their fellows—beautiful
characters, beacon lights of love in a suffering world, never actuated
by selfish motives, always ready to forego personal comfort to aid
others. Such were the saints; they worked as they prayed; they never
shirked in either direction. Nor are they dead today. The earth would
be a barren wilderness in spite of all its civilization did not their
beautiful feet circle it on errands of mercy, were not the lives of
sufferers made brighter by the light of hope which radiates from their
beautiful faces. Had they but the knowledge possessed by the other
class they would indeed outdistance all in the race for the Kingdom.
Mind is the predominating feature of the other class. In order to
aid it in its efforts toward attainment, mystery schools were early
established wherein the world drama was played to give the aspiring
soul while he was entranced, answers to the questions of the origin
and destiny of humanity. When awakened, he was instructed in the
sacred science of how to climb higher by following the method of
nature—which is God in manifestation—by sowing the seed of action,
meditating upon the experience, and incorporating the essential moral
to make thereby commensurate soul growth; also with this important
feature, that whereas in the ordinary course of things a whole life
is devoted to sowing and a whole post-mortem existence to ruminating
and incorporating the soul substance, this cycle of a thousand years,
more or less, may be reduced to a day, as held by the mystic maxim, “A
day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” To be
explicit, whatever work has been done during a single day, if ruminated
over at night before crossing the neutral point between waking and
sleeping, may thus be incorporated into the consciousness of the spirit
as usable soul power. When that exercise is faithfully performed, the
sins of each day thus reviewed are actually blotted out, and the man
commences each day as if it were a new life, with the added soul power
gained in all the preceding days of his probationary life.
But!—yes, there is a great big _BUT; nature is not to be cheated_;
God is not to be mocked. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.” Let no one think that the mere perfunctory review of the
happenings of a day with perhaps the light-hearted admission of,
“I wish I had not done that,” when reviewing a scene where he did
something palpably wrong, will save him from the wrath to come. When we
pass out of the body into purgatory at death and the panorama of our
past life unfolds in reverse order to show us first the effects and
then the causes which produced them, we feel in intensified measure
the pain we gave others; and unless we perform our exercises in a
similar manner _so that we live each evening our hell_ as merited that
day, acutely sensible of every pang we have inflicted, it will avail
nothing. We must also endeavor to feel in the same intense manner,
gratitude for kindness received from others, and approbation on account
of the good we ourselves have done.
Only thus are we really living the post-mortem existence and advancing
scientifically towards the goal of Initiation. The greatest danger of
the aspirant upon this path is that he may become enmeshed in the snare
of egotism, and his only safeguard is to cultivate the faculties of
faith, devotion, and an all-embracing sympathy. It is difficult, but it
can be done, and when it has been accomplished the man or woman becomes
a wonderful power for good in the world.
Now, if the student has pondered the preceding argument well, he has
probably grasped the analogy between the _long cycle_ of evolution
and the short _cycles_ or steps used upon the path of preparation. It
should be quite clear that no one can do this post-mortem work for him
and transmit to him the resulting soul growth, any more than one can
eat the physical food of another and transmit to him the sustenance
and growth. You think it preposterous when a priesthood offers to
shorten the sojourn of a soul in purgatory. How, then, can you believe
that anyone else can—no matter what the consideration—obviate the
necessity of a number of purgatorial existences for your benefit
and transmit to you at once the usable soul power you would have
acquired had you pursued the ordinary course of life to the day you
are ready for Initiation? Yet this is what the offer to initiate a
person not yet upon the threshold means. You must have the soul power
requisite for Initiation or no one can initiate you. If you have it,
you are upon the threshold by your own efforts, beholden to no one,
and may demand Initiation as a right which none would dare dispute or
withhold. If you have it not and could buy it, it would be cheap at
twenty-five million dollars, and the man who offers it for twenty-five
dollars is as ridiculous as his dupe. Please remember that if anyone
offers to initiate you into an occult order, no matter if he calls it
“Rosicrucian” or by any other name, his demand of an initiation fee at
once stamps him as an impostor, explanations to the effect that the
fee is used to purchase regalia, et cetera, are only added evidence
of the fraudulent nature of the order for it is said, “Initiation is
most emphatically not an outward ceremony, but an inward experience.”
I may further add that the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross in the
Mystic Temple where I received the Light made it a condition that
their _sacred science must never be put in the balance against a
coin_. Freely had I received, and freely was I required to give. This
injunction I have obeyed, both in spirit and to the letter, as all know
who have had dealings with the Rosicrucian Fellowship.
Chapter III
THE SACRAMENT OF COMMUNION
PART I
To obtain a thorough understanding of the deep and far-reaching
significance of the manner in which the Sacrament of Communion was
instituted, it is necessary to consider the evolution of our planet
and of composite man, also the chemistry of foods and their influence
on humanity. For the sake of lucidity we will briefly recapitulate the
Rosicrucian teachings on the various points involved. They have been
given at length in the _Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception_ and our other
works.
The Virgin Spirits, which are now mankind, commenced their pilgrimage
through matter in the dawn of time, that by the friction of concrete
existence their latent powers might be transmuted to kinetic energy as
usable soul power. Three successive veils of increasingly dense matter
were acquired by the involving spirits during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon
Periods. Thus each spirit was separated from all other spirits, and the
consciousness which could not penetrate the prison wall of matter and
communicate with others was forced to turn inwards, and in so doing it
discovered—ITSELF. Thus self-consciousness was attained.
A further crystallization of the before mentioned veils took place in
the Earth Period during the Polarian, Hyperborean, and Lemurian Epochs.
In the Atlantean Epoch, mind was added as a focusing point between
spirit and body, completing the constitution of composite man, who was
then equipped to conquer the world and generate soul power by endeavor
and experience, each having free will and choice except as limited by
the laws of nature and his own previous acts.
During the time man-in-the-making was thus evolving, great creative
Hierarchies guided his every step. Absolutely nothing was left to
chance. Even the food he ate was chosen for him so that he might obtain
the appropriate material wherewith to build the various vehicles of
consciousness necessary to accomplish the process of soul growth. The
Bible mentions the various stages, though it misplaces Nimrod, making
him to symbolize the Atlantean kings who lived _before_ the Flood.
In the Polarian Epoch pure mineral matter became a constituent part of
man; thus _Adam_ was made of earth, that is, so far as his dense body
was concerned.
In the Hyperborean Epoch the vital body was added, and thus his
constitution became plantlike, and _Cain_, the man of that time, lived
on the fruits of the soil.
The Lemurian Epoch saw the evolution of a desire body, which made man
like the present animals. Then milk, the product of living animals, was
added to human diet. _Abel_ was a shepherd, but it is nowhere stated
that he killed an animal.
At that time mankind lived innocently and peacefully in the misty
atmosphere which enveloped the earth during the latter part of the
Lemurian Epoch, as described in the chapter on “Baptism.” Men were
then like children under the care of a common father, until the mind
was given to all in the beginning of Atlantis. Thought activity breaks
down tissue which must be replaced; the lower and more material the
thought, the greater the havoc and the more pressing the need for
albumen wherewith to make quick repairs. Hence necessity, the mother
of invention, inaugurated the loathsome practice of flesh eating, and
so long as we continue to think along purely business or material
lines we shall have to go on using our stomachs as receptacles for the
decaying corpses of our murdered animal victims. Yet we shall see later
that flesh food has enabled us to make the wonderful material progress
achieved in the Western World, while the vegetarian Hindus and Chinese
have remained in an almost savage state. It seems sad to contemplate
that they will be forced to follow in our steps and shed the blood
of our fellow creatures when we shall have outgrown the barbarous
practice as we have ceased cannibalism.
The more spiritual we grow, the more our thoughts will harmonize
with the rhythm of our body, and the less albumen will be needed to
build tissue. Consequently, a vegetable diet will suffice our needs.
Pythagoras advised abstinence from legumes to _advanced_ scholars
because they are rich in albumen and apt to revive lower appetites.
Let not every student who reads this rashly conclude to eliminate
legumes from his diet. Most of us are not yet ready for such extremes;
we would not even advise all students to abstain entirely from meat.
The change should come from within. It may be safely stated, however,
that most people eat entirely too much meat for their good; but this
is in a certain sense a digression, so we will revert to the further
evolution of humanity in so far as it has a bearing upon the Sacrament
of Communion.
In due time the dense mist which enveloped the earth cooled,
condensed, and flooded the various basins. The atmosphere cleared, and
concurrently with this atmospheric change a physiological adaptation
in man took place. The gill clefts which had enabled him to breathe in
the dense water laden air (and which are seen in the human foetus to
this day) gradually atrophied, and their function was taken over by the
lungs, the pure air passing to and from them through the larynx. This
allowed the spirit, hitherto penned up within the veil of flesh, to
express itself in word and act.
There in the middle of Atlantis the sun first shone upon MAN as we
know him; there he was _first born_ into the world. Until then he had
been under the absolute control of great spiritual Hierarchies, mute,
without voice or choice in matters pertaining to his education, as a
child is now under the control of its parents.
But on the day when he finally emerged from the dense atmosphere of
Atlantis; when he first beheld the mountains silhouetted in clear,
sharp contours against the azure vault of heaven; when he first saw
the beauties of moor and meadow, the moving creatures, birds in the
air, and his fellow man; when his vision was undimmed by the partial
obscuration of the mist which had previously hampered perception;
above all, when he perceived HIMSELF as _separate_ and _apart from all
others_, there burst from his lips the glorious, triumphant cry, “I AM.”
At that point he had acquired faculties which equipped him to enter the
school of experience, the phenomenal world, as a free agent to learn
the lessons of life, untrammeled save by the _laws of nature_, which
are his safeguards, and the reaction of his own previous acts, which
become _destiny_.
The diet containing an excess of albumen from the flesh wherewith
he gorged himself, taxed his liver beyond capacity and clogged the
system, making him morose, sullen, and brutish. He was fast losing
the spiritual sight which revealed to him the guardian angels whom he
trusted, and he saw only the _forms_ of animals and men. The spirits
with whom he had lived in love and brotherhood during early Atlantis
were obscured by the veil of flesh. It was all so strange, and he
_feared_ them.
Therefore it became necessary to give him a _new food_ that could
aid his spirit to overpower the highly individualized molecules of
flesh (as explained in the _Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception_, chapter on
Assimilation, p. 457), brace it for battle with the world, and spur it
on to self-assertion.
As our visible bodies composed of chemical compounds can thrive only
upon chemical aliment, so it requires spirit to act upon spirit to aid
in breaking up the heavy proteid and in stimulating the drooping human
spirit.
The emergence from flooded Atlantis, the liberation of humanity from
the absolute rulership of visible superhuman guardians, their placement
under _the law of consequence and the laws of nature_, and _the gift
of_ WINE are described in the stories of Noah and Moses, which are
different accounts of the same event.
Both Noah and Moses led their followers through the water. Moses calls
heaven and earth to witness that he has placed before them the blessing
and the curse, exhorts them to choose the good or take the consequence
of their actions; then he leaves them.
The phenomenon of the rainbow requires that the sun be near the
horizon, the nearer the better; also a clear atmosphere, and a dark
rain cloud in the opposite quarter of the heavens. When under such
conditions an observer stands with his back to the sun, he may see
the sun’s rays refracted through the rain drops as a rainbow. In
early Atlantean times when there had been no rain as yet and the
atmosphere was a warm, moist fog through which the sun appeared as one
of our arc lamps on a foggy day, the phenomenon of the rainbow was an
impossibility. It could not have made its appearance until the mist
had condensed to rain, flooded the basins of the earth, and left the
atmosphere clear as described in the story of Noah, which thus points
_to the law of alternating cycles_ that brings day and night, summer
and winter, in unvarying sequence, and to which man is subject in the
present age.
Noah cultivated the vine and provided a spirit to stimulate man. Thus,
equipped with a composite constitution, a composite diet appropriate
thereto, and divine laws to guide them, mankind were left to their own
devices in the battle of life.
Chapter IV
THE SACRAMENT OF COMMUNION
“_In Remembrance of Me._”
PART II “The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed took
bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it and said, Take, eat;
this is MY body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me.
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying
This cup is the New Testament in MY blood. This do ye, as oft as ye
drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and
drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. Wherefore,
whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord
unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.... For
he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself.... For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and
many sleep.”—I Cor. 11:23-30.
In the foregoing passages there is a deeply hidden esoteric meaning
which is particularly obscured in the English translation, but in the
German, Latin, and Greek, the student still has a hint as to what was
really intended by that last parting injunction of the Savior to His
disciples. Before examining this phase of the subject, let us first
consider the words, “in remembrance of me.” We shall then perhaps be
in better condition to understand what is meant by the “cup” and the
“bread.”
Suppose a man from a distant country comes into our midst and travels
about from place to place. Everywhere he will see small communities
gathering around the Table of the Lord to celebrate this most sacred of
all Christian rites, and should he ask why, he would be told that they
do this in remembrance of One who lived a life nobler than any other
has lived upon this earth; One who was kindness and love personified;
One who was the servant of all, regardless of gain or loss to self.
Should this stranger then compare the attitude of these religious
communities on Sunday at the celebration of this rite, with their civic
lives during the remainder of the week, what would he see?
Every one among us goes out into the world to fight the battle of
existence. Under the law of necessity we forget the love which should
be the ruling factor in Christian lives. Every man’s hand is against
his brother. Every one strives for position, wealth, and power that
goes with these attributes. We forget on Monday what we reverently
remembered on Sunday, and all the world is poor in consequence. We
also make a distinction between the bread and wine which we drink at
the so-called “Lord’s Table,” and the food of which we partake during
the intervals between attendance at Communion. But there is no warrant
in the Scriptures for any such distinction, as anyone may see, even
in the English version, by leaving out the words printed in italics
which have been inserted by the translators to give what they thought
was the sense of a passage. On the contrary, we are told that whether
we eat or drink, or whatever we do, all should be done to the glory of
God. Our every act should be a prayer. The perfunctory “grace” at meals
is in reality a blasphemy, and the silent thought of gratitude to the
Giver of daily bread is far to be preferred. When we remember at each
meal that it has been drawn from the substance of the earth, which is
the body of the indwelling Christ Spirit, we can properly understand
how that body is being broken for us daily, and we can appreciate the
loving kindness which prompted Him thus to give Himself for us; for let
us also remember that there is not a moment, day or night, that He is
not suffering because bound to this earth. When we thus eat and thus
realize the true situation, we are indeed declaring to ourselves the
death of the Lord, whose spirit is groaning and travailing, waiting
for the day of liberation when there shall be no need of such a dense
environment as we now require.
But there is another, a greater and more wonderful mystery hidden in
these words of the Christ. Richard Wagner, with the rare intuition of
the master musician, sensed this idea when he sat in meditation by
the Zurich Sea on a Good Friday, and there flashed into his mind the
thought, “What connection is there between the death of the Savior
and the millions of seeds sprouting forth from the earth at this time
of the year?” If we meditate upon that life which is annually poured
out in the spring, we see it as something gigantic and awe-inspiring;
a flood of life which transforms the globe from one of frozen death
to rejuvenated life in a short space of time; and the life which thus
diffuses itself in the budding of millions and millions of plants is
the life of the Earth Spirit.
From that come both the wheat and the grape. They are the body and
blood of the imprisoned Earth Spirit, given to sustain mankind during
the present phase of its evolution. We repudiate the contention of
people who claim that the world owes them a living, regardless of
their own efforts and without _material_ responsibility on their part,
but we nevertheless insist that there is a _spiritual_ responsibility
connected with the bread and wine given at the Lord’s Supper: _It must
be eaten worthily, otherwise, under pain of ill health and even death_.
This from the ordinary manner of reading would seem far-fetched,
but when we bring the light of esotericism to bear, examine other
translations of the Bible, and look at conditions in the world as we
find them today, we shall see that it is not so far-fetched after all.
To begin with, we must go back to the time when man lived under the
guardianship of the angels, unconsciously building the body which he
now uses. That was in ancient Lemuria. A brain was needed for the
evolution of thought, and a larynx for verbal expression of the same.
Therefore, half of the creative force was turned upwards and used by
man to form these organs. Thus mankind became single sexed and was
forced to seek a complement when it was necessary to create a new body
to serve as an instrument in a higher phase of evolution.
While the act of love was consummated under the wise guardianship of
the angels, man’s existence was free from sorrow, pain, and death. But
when, under the tutelage of the Lucifer Spirits, he ate of the Tree of
Knowledge and perpetuated the race without regard for interplanetary
lines of force, he transgressed the law, and the bodies thus formed
crystallized unduly, and became subject to death in a much more
perceptible manner than had hitherto been the case. Thus he was forced
to create new bodies more frequently as the span of life in them
shortened. Celestial warders of the creative force drove him from the
garden of _love_ into the wilderness of the world, and he was made
responsible for his actions under the cosmic _law_ which governs the
universe. Thus for ages he struggled on, seeking to work out his own
salvation, and the earth in consequence crystallized more and more.
Divine hierarchies, the Christ Spirit included, worked upon the
earth from without as the group spirit guides the animals under its
protectorate; but as Paul truly says, none could be justified under the
law, for under the law all sinned, and all must die. There is in the
old covenant no hope beyond the present, save a foreshadowing of _one
who is to come_ and restore righteousness. Thus John tells us that the
_law_ was given by Moses, and _grace_ came by the Lord Jesus Christ.
But _what is grace_? Can grace work contrary to law and abrogate it
entirely? Certainly not. The laws of God are steadfast and sure, or
the universe would become chaos. The law of gravity keeps our houses
in position relative to other houses, so that when we leave them we
may know of a surety that we shall find them in the same place upon
returning. Likewise all other departments in the universe are subject
to immutable laws.
As _law, apart from love, gave birth to sin, so the child of law,
tempered with love, is grace_. Take an example from our concrete social
conditions: We have laws which decree a certain penalty for a specified
offense, and when the law is carried out, we call it _justice_. But
long experience is beginning to teach us that justice, pure and simple,
is like the Colchian dragon’s teeth, and breeds strife and struggle
in increasing measure. The criminal, so-called, remains criminal and
becomes more and more hardened under the ministrations of law; but when
the milder regime of the present day allows one who has transgressed
to go under suspended sentence, then _he is under grace_ and not under
law. Thus, also the Christian, who aims to follow in the Master’s
steps, is emancipated from the law of sin by grace, provided he forsake
the path of sin.
It was the sin of our progenitors in ancient Lemuria that _they
scattered their seed_ regardless of law and without love. But it is
the privilege of the Christian to redeem himself by purity of life
in remembrance of the Lord. John says, “His seed remaineth in him,”
and this is the hidden meaning of the bread and wine. In the English
version we read simply: “This is the _cup_ of the New Testament,”
but in the German the word for cup is “_Kelch_,” and in the Latin,
“_Calix_,” both meaning the outer covering of the seed pod of the
flower. In the Greek we have a still more subtle meaning, not conveyed
in other languages, in the word “_poterion_,” a meaning which will be
evident when we consider the etymology of the word “pot.” This at once
gives us the same idea as the chalice or calix—a receptacle; and the
Latin “_potare_” (to drink) also shows that the “cup” is a receptacle
capable of holding a fluid. Our English words “potent” and “impotent,”
meaning to possess or to lack virile strength, further show the
meaning of this Greek word, which foreshadows the evolution from man
to superman.
We have already lived through a mineral, a plant, and an animal-like
existence before becoming human as we are today, and beyond us lie
still further evolutions where we shall approach the Divine more and
more. It will be readily conceded that it is our animal passions which
restrain us upon the path of attainment; the lower nature is constantly
warring against the higher self. At least in those who have experienced
a spiritual awakening, a war is being fought silently within, and
is all the more bitter for being suppressed. Goethe with masterly
art voiced that sentiment in the words of Faust, the aspiring soul,
speaking to his more materialistic friend, Wagner:
“Thou by one sole impulse art possessed,
Unconscious of the other still remain.
Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,
And struggle there for undivided reign.
One, to the earth with passionate desire,
And closely clinging organs still adheres;
Above the mists the other doth aspire
With sacred ardor unto purer spheres.”
It was the knowledge of this absolute necessity of chastity (save
when procreation is the object) upon the part of those who have had
a spiritual awakening which dictated the words of Christ, and the
Apostle Paul stated an esoteric truth when he said that _those who
partook of the Communion without living the life were in danger of
sickness and death_. For just as under a spiritual tutelage, purity of
life may elevate the disciple wonderfully, so also unchastity has a
much stronger effect upon his more sensitized bodies than upon those
who are yet under the law, and have not became partakers of grace by
the cup of the New Covenant.
Chapter V
THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM
Having studied the esoteric significance of our Christian festivals,
such as Christmas and Easter, and having also studied the doctrine
of the Immaculate Conception, it may be well now to devote attention
to the inner meaning of the sacraments of the church which are
administered to the individual in all Christian lands from the cradle
to the grave, and are with him at all important points in his life
journey.
As soon as he has entered upon the journey of life, the church admits
him into its fold by the rite of _Baptism_ which is conferred upon him
at a time when he himself is irresponsible; later, when his mentality
has been somewhat developed, he ratifies that contract and is admitted
to _Communion_, where _bread_ is broken and _wine_ is sipped in memory
of the Founder of our faith. Still further upon life’s journey comes
the sacrament of _Marriage_; and at last when the race has been run
and the spirit again withdraws to God who gave it, the earth body is
consigned to the dust, whence it was derived, accompanied by the
blessings of the church.
In our Protestant times the spirit of protest is rampant in the
extreme, and dissenters everywhere raise their voices in rebellion
against the fancied arrogance of the priesthood and deprecate the
sacraments as mere mummery. On account of that attitude of mind these
functions have become of little or no effect in the life of the
community; dissensions have arisen even among churchmen themselves,
and sect after sect has divorced itself from the original apostolic
congregation.
Despite all protests the various doctrines and sacraments of the church
are, nevertheless, the very keystones in the arch of evolution, for
they inculcate morals of the loftiest nature; and even materialistic
scientists, such as Huxley, have admitted that while self-protection
brings about “the survival of the fittest” in the animal kingdom and
is therefore the basis of animal evolution, self-sacrifice is the
fostering principle of human advancement. When that is the case among
mere mortals, we may well believe that it must be so to a still greater
extent in the Divine Author of our being.
Among animals might is right, but we recognize that the weak have a
claim to the protection of the strong. The butterfly lays its eggs
on the underside of a green leaf and goes off without another care
for their well-being. In mammals the _mother_ instinct is strongly
developed, and we see the lioness caring for her cubs and ready to
defend them with her life; but not until the human kingdom is reached
does the _father_ commence to share fully in the responsibility as
a parent. Among savages the care of the young practically ends with
attainment of physical ability to care for themselves, but the higher
we ascend in civilization the longer the young receive care from their
parents, and the more stress is laid upon mental education so that when
maturity has been reached the battle of life may be fought from the
mental rather than from the physical point of vantage; for the further
we proceed along the path of development the more we shall experience
the power of mind over matter. By the more and more prolonged
self-sacrifice of parents, the race is becoming more delicate, but what
we lose in material ruggedness we gain in spiritual perceptibility.
As this faculty grows stronger and more developed, the craving of the
spirit immured in this earthly body voices itself more loudly in a
demand for understanding of the spiritual side of development. Wallace
and Darwin, Huxley and Spencer, pointed out how evolution of _form_ is
accomplished in nature; Ernest Haeckel attempted to solve the riddle of
the universe, but no one of them could satisfactorily explain away the
_Divine Author_ of what we see. The great goddess, _Natural Selection_,
is being forsaken by one after another of her devotees as the years go
by. Even Haeckel, the arch materialist, in his last years showed an
almost hysterical anxiety to make a place for God in his system, and
the day will come in a not far distant future when science will have
become as thoroughly religious as religion itself. The church, on the
other hand, though still extremely conservative is nevertheless slowly
abandoning its autocratic dogmatism and becoming more scientific in
its explanations. Thus in time we shall see the union of science and
religion as it existed in the ancient mystery temples, and when that
point has been reached, _the doctrines and sacraments_ of the church
will be found to _rest upon immutable cosmic laws of no less importance
than the law of gravity_ which maintains the marching orbs in their
paths around the sun. As the points of the equinoxes and solstices are
turning points in the cyclic path of a planet, marked by festivals such
as Christmas and Easter, so birth into the physical world, admission
to the church, to the state of matrimony, and finally the exit from
physical life, are points in the cyclic path of the human spirit
around its central source—God, which are marked by the sacraments of
_baptism_, _communion_, _marriage_, and _the last blessing_.
We will now consider the rite of baptism. Much has been said by
dissenters, against the practice of taking an _infant into church
and promising for it a religious life_. Heated arguments concerning
_sprinkling versus plunging_ have resulted in division of churches. If
we wish to obtain the true idea of baptism, we must revert to the early
history of the human race as recorded in the Memory of Nature. All
that has ever happened is indelibly pictured in the ether as a moving
picture is imprinted upon a sensitized film, which picture can be
reproduced upon a screen at any moment. The pictures in the Memory of
Nature may be viewed by the trained seer, even though millions of years
have elapsed since the scenes there portrayed were enacted in life.
When we consult that unimpeachable record it appears that there was
a time when that which is now our earth came out of chaos, dark and
unformed, as the Bible states. The currents developed in this misty
mass by spiritual agencies, generated _heat_, and the mass ignited at
the time when we are told that God said, “Let there be light.” The
heat of the fiery mass and the cold space surrounding it generated
_moisture_; the fire mist became surrounded by water which boiled, and
steam was projected into the atmosphere; thus “God divided the water
... from the waters ...”—the dense water which was nearest the fire
mist from the steam (which is water in suspension), as stated in the
Bible.
When water containing sediment is boiled over and over it deposits
scale, and similarly the water surrounding our planet finally formed a
crust around the fiery core. The Bible further informs us that a _mist_
went up from the ground, _and we may well conceive_ how the moisture
was gradually evaporated from our planet in those early days.
Ancient myths are usually regarded as superstitions nowadays, but in
reality each of them contains a great spiritual truth in pictorial
symbols. These fantastic stories were given to infant humanity to
teach them moral lessons which their newborn intellects were not yet
fitted to receive. They were taught by myths—much as we teach our
children by picture books and fables—lessons beyond their intellectual
comprehension.
One of the greatest of these folk stories is ”_The Ring of the
Niebelung_”, which tells of a wonderful treasure hidden under the
waters of the Rhine. It was a lump of gold in its natural state. Placed
upon a high rock, it illuminated the entire submarine scenery where
water nymphs sported about innocently in gladsome frolic. But one of
the Niebelungs, imbued with greed, stole the treasure, carried it out
of the water, and fled. It was impossible for him, however, to shape
it until he had forsworn love. Then he fashioned it into a ring which
gave him power over all the treasures of earth, but at the same time
it inaugurated dissension and strife. For its sake, friend betrayed
friend, brother slew brother, and everywhere it caused oppression,
sorrow, sin, and death, until it was at last restored to the watery
element and the earth was consumed in flames. But later there arose,
like the new phoenix from the ashes of the old bird, a new heaven and a
new earth where righteousness was re-established.
That old folk story gives a wonderful picture of human evolution.
The name _Niebelungen_ is derived from the German words, _nebel_
(which means mist), and _ungen_ (which means children). Thus the word
_Niebelungen_ means _children of the mist_, and it refers back to the
time when humanity lived in the foggy atmosphere surrounding our earth
at the stage in its development previously mentioned. There infant
humanity lived in one vast brotherhood, innocent of all evil as the
babe of today, and illuminated by the Universal Spirit symbolized
as the Rhinegold which shed its light upon the water nymphs of our
story. But in time the earth cooled more and more; the fog condensed
and flooded depressions upon the surface of the earth with water;
the atmosphere cleared; the eyes of man were opened and he perceived
himself as a separate ego. Then the Universal Spirit of _love_ and
_solidarity_ was superseded by egotism and self-seeking.
That was the rape of the Rhinegold, and sorrow, sin, strife, treachery,
and murder have given place to the childlike love which existed
among humanity in that primal state when they dwelt in the watery
atmosphere of long ago. Gradually this tendency is becoming more and
more marked, and the curse of selfishness grows more and more apparent.
“Man’s inhumanity to man” hangs like a funeral pall over the earth,
and must inevitably bring about destruction of existing conditions.
The whole creation is groaning and travailing, waiting for the day
of redemption, and the Western Religion strikes the keynote of the
way to attainment when it exhorts us to love our neighbor as we love
ourselves; for then egotism will be abrogated for universal brotherhood
and love.
Therefore, when a person is admitted to the church, which is a
_spiritual_ institution where love and brotherhood are the mainsprings
of action, it is appropriate to carry him _under the waters_ of baptism
in symbol of the beautiful condition of childlike innocence and love
which prevailed when mankind dwelt _under the mist_ in that bygone
period. At that time the eyes of infant man had not yet been opened
to the _material_ advantages of this world. The little child which is
brought into the church has not yet become aware of the allurements
of life either, and others obligate themselves to guide it to lead a
holy life according to the best of their ability, because experience
gained since the Flood has taught us that the broad way of the world is
strewn with pain, sorrow, and disappointment; that only by following
the straight and narrow way can we escape death and enter into life
everlasting.
Thus we see that there is a wonderfully deep, mystic significance
behind the sacrament of baptism; that it is to remind us of the
blessings attendant upon those who are members of a _brotherhood_ where
self-seeking is put into the background and where _service_ to others
is the keynote and mainspring of action. While we are in the world,
he is the greatest who can most successfully dominate others. In the
church we have Christ’s definition, “_He who would be the greatest
among you, let him be the servant of all._”
Chapter VI
THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE
When stripped of nonessentials the argument of the orthodox Christian
religion may be said to be as follows:
First, that tempted by the devil, our first parents sinned and were
exiled from their previous state of celestial bliss, placed under the
law, made subject to death, and became incapable of escaping by their
own efforts.
Second, that God so loved the world that He gave Christ, His only
begotten Son, for its redemption and to establish the kingdom of
heaven. Thus death will finally be swallowed up in immortality.
This simple creed has provoked the smiles of atheists, and of the
purely intellectual who have studied transcendental philosophies with
their niceties of logic and argument; and even of some among those who
study the Western Mystery Teaching.
Such an attitude of mind is entirely gratuitous. We might know that the
divine leaders of mankind would not allow millions to continue in error
for millennia. When the Western Mystery Teaching is stripped of its
exceedingly illuminating explanations and detailed descriptions, when
its basic teachings are stated, they are found to be in exact agreement
with the orthodox Christian teachings.
There was a time when mankind lived in a sinless state; when sorrow,
pain, and death were unknown. Neither is the _personal tempter_ of
Christianity a myth, for the Lucifer spirits may very well be said to
be fallen angels, and their temptation of man resulted in focusing his
consciousness upon the material phase of existence where he is under
the law of decrepitude and death. Also it is truly the mission of
Christ to aid mankind by elevating them to a more ethereal state where
dissolution will no longer be necessary to free them from vehicles
that have grown too hard and set for further use. For this is indeed a
“body of death,” where only the smallest quantity of material is really
alive, as part of its bulk is nutrient matter that has not yet been
assimilated, another large part is already on its way to elimination,
and only between these two poles may be found the material which is
thoroughly quickened by the spirit.
We have in other chapters considered the sacraments of baptism and
communion, sacraments that have to do particularly with the spirit.
We will now seek to understand the deeper side of the sacrament of
marriage, which has to do particularly with the body. Like the other
sacraments the institution of marriage had its beginning and will also
have its end. The commencement was described by the Christ when He
said, “Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made
them male and female, and said: For this cause shall a man leave father
and mother and cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.” Matt. 19:4-6. He also
indicated the end of marriage when he said: “In the resurrection they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God
in heaven.” Matt. 22:30.
In this light the logic of the teaching is apparent, for _marriage_
became necessary in order that _birth_ might provide new instruments to
take the place of those which had been ruptured by _death_; and when
death has once been swallowed up in immortality and there is no need of
providing new instruments, marriage also will be unnecessary.
Science with admirable audacity has sought to solve the mystery of
fecundation, and has told us how invagination takes place in the walls
of the ovary; how the little ovum is formed in the seclusion of its
dark cavity; how it emerges therefrom and enters the Fallopian tube;
is pierced by the spermatozoon of the male, and the nucleus of a human
body is complete. We are thus supposed to be “at the fount and origin
of life!” But life has neither beginning nor end, and what science
mistakenly considers the fountain of life is really the source of
death, as all that comes from the womb is destined sooner or later to
reach the tomb. The _marriage_ feast which prepares for _birth_, at
the same time provides food for the insatiable jaws of _death_, and so
long as marriage is necessary to generation and birth, disintegration
and death must inevitably result. Therefore it is of prime importance
to know the history of marriage, the laws and agencies involved, the
duration of this institution, and how it may be transcended.
When we obtained our vital bodies in Hyperborea, the sun, moon, and
earth were still united, and the solar-lunar forces permeated each
being in even measure so that all were able to perpetuate their kind
by buds and spores as do certain plants of today. The efforts of the
vital body to soften the dense vehicle and keep it alive were not then
interfered with, and these primal, plantlike bodies lived for ages. But
man was then unconscious and stationary like a plant; he made no effort
or exertion. The addition of a desire body furnished incentive and
desire, and consciousness resulted from the war between the vital body,
which builds, and the desire body, which destroys the dense body.
Thus dissolution became only a question of time, particularly as the
constructive energy of the vital body was also necessarily divided, one
part or pole being used in the vital functions of the body, the other
to replace a vehicle lost by death. But as the two poles of a magnet
or dynamo are requisite to manifestation, so also two single-sexed
beings became necessary for generation; thus marriage and birth were
necessarily inaugurated to offset the effect of death. _Death, then, is
the price we pay for consciousness in the present world_; marriage and
repeated births are our weapons against the king of terrors until our
constitution shall change and we become as angels.
Please mark that it is not stated that we are to become angels, but
that we are to become _as angels_. For the angels are the humanity
of the Moon Period; they belong to an entirely different stream of
evolution, as different as are human spirits from those of our present
animals. Paul states in his letter to the Hebrews that man was made
_for a little while_ inferior to the angels; he descended lower into
the scale of materiality during the Earth Period, while the angels have
never inhabited a globe denser than ether. As we build our bodies from
the chemical constituents of the earth, so do the angels build theirs
of ether. This substance is the direct avenue of all life forces, and
when man has once become as the angels and has learned to build his
body of ether, naturally there will be no death and no need of marriage
to bring about birth.
But looking at marriage from another point of view, looking upon it as
a union of souls rather than as a union of the sexes, we contact the
wonderful mystery of Love. Union of the sexes might serve to perpetuate
the race, of course, but the true marriage is a companionship of souls
also, which altogether transcends sex. Yet those really able to meet
upon that lofty plane of spiritual intimacy gladly offer their bodies
as living sacrifices upon the altar of _Love of the Unborn_, to woo a
waiting spirit into an immaculately conceived body. Thus humanity may
be saved from the reign of death.
This is readily apparent as soon as we consider the gentle action of
the vital body and contrast it with that of the desire body in a fit
of temper, where it is said that a man has “lost control” of himself.
Under such conditions the muscles become tense, and nervous energy is
expended at a suicidal rate, so that after such an outbreak the body
may sometimes be prostrated for weeks. The hardest labor brings no
such fatigue as a fit of temper; likewise a child conceived in passion
under the crystallizing tendencies of the desire nature is naturally
short-lived, and it is a regrettable fact that _length of life_ is
nowadays almost a misnomer; in view of the appalling infant mortality
it ought to be called _brevity of existence_.
The building tendencies of the vital body, which is the vehicle
of love, are not so easily watched, but observation proves that
contentment lengthens the life of any one who cultivates this quality,
and we may safely reason that a child conceived under conditions of
harmony and love stands a better chance of life than one conceived
under conditions of anger, inebriety, and passion.
According to Genesis it was said to the woman, “In sorrow shalt
thou bear children,” and it has always been a sore puzzle to Bible
commentators what logical connection there may be between the eating of
fruit and the pains of parturition. But when we understand the chaste
references of the Bible to the act of generation, the connection is
readily perceived. While the insensitive Negro or Indian mother may
bear her child and shortly afterward resume her labors in the field,
the western woman, more acutely sensitive and of high-strung nervous
temperament, is year by year finding it more difficult to go through
the ordeal of motherhood, though aided by the best and most skilled
scientific help.
The contributory reasons are various: In the first place, while we are
exceedingly careful in selecting our horses and cattle for breeding,
while we insist upon pedigree for the animals in order that we may
bring out the very best strain of stock upon our farms, we exercise
no such care with respect to the selection of a father or mother for
our children. We mate upon impulse and regret it at our leisure, aided
by laws which make it all too easy to enter or leave the sacred bonds
of matrimony. The words pronounced by minister or judge are taken to
be a license for unlimited indulgence, as if any man-made law could
license the contravention of the law of God. While animals mate only at
a certain time of the year and the mother is undisturbed during the
period of pregnancy, this is not true of the human race.
In view of these facts is it to be wondered at that we find such a
dread of maternity, and is it not time that we seek to remedy the
matter by a more sane relation between marriage partners? Astrology
will reveal the temper and tendencies of each human being; it will
enable two people to blend their characters in such a manner that
a love life may be lived, and it will indicate the periods when
interplanetary lines of force are most nearly conducive to painless
parturition. Thus it will enable us to draw from the bosom of nature,
children of love, capable of living long lives in good health. Finally
the day will come when these bodies will have been made so perfect in
their ethereal purity that they may last throughout the coming Age, and
thus make marriage superfluous.
But if we can love now when we see one another “through a
glass darkly,” through the mask of personality and the veil of
misunderstanding, we may be sure that the love of soul for soul, purged
of passion in the furnace of sorrow, will be our brightest gem in
heaven as its shadow is on earth.
Chapter VII
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN AND LOST SOULS
Some of our students have been exercised about the unpardonable sin,
and as this subject has a certain connection with the subject of
marriage, one being a sacrilege and the other a sacrament, it might be
well to elucidate the matter from a different point of view than has
been formerly taken in our literature.
First let us see what is meant by a sacrament, and why the rites of
baptism, communion, marriage, and extreme unction are properly so
called; then we shall be in a position to understand what sacrilege is
and why it is unpardonable.
The Rosicrucians teach, only with more detail, the same doctrine
that Paul preached in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, starting
at the thirty-fifth verse, that in addition to the body of flesh and
blood we have a soul body, _soma psuchicon_, (mistranslated “natural”
body), and a spiritual body; that each of these bodies is grown from a
different _seed_ atom and that there are _three_ stages of unfoldment
for Adam, or man. The first Adam was taken from the ground and was
without sentient life. Soul was added to the _second Adam_; thus he had
life within, a leaven laboring to elevate the clod to God. When the
potential of the soul extracted from the physical body has been raised
to the spiritual, the _last Adam_ will become a life _giving_ spirit,
capable of transmitting the life impulse to others directly as flame
from one candle can be communicated to many without diminishing the
magnitude of the original light.
In the meantime the germ for our earthly body had to be properly placed
in fruitful soil to grow a suitable vehicle, and generative organs were
provided from the beginning to accomplish this purpose. It is stated in
Genesis 1:27, that Elohim created them _male_ and _female_. The Hebrew
words are “_sacre va n’cabah_.” _These are names of the sex organs._
Literally translated, _sacr_ means “bearer of the germ.” Thus marriage
is a _sacr_-ament, for it opens the way for transmission of a physical
seed atom from the father to the mother, and tends to preserve the
race against the ravages of death. Baptism as a _Sacr_ament signifies
the germinal urge of the soul for the higher life. Holy Communion, in
which we partake of bread (made from the _seed_ of chaste plants), and
of wine (the cup symbolizing the passionless _seed_-pod), points to
the age to come, an age wherein it will be unnecessary to _transmit_
the seed through a father and mother, but where we may feed directly
upon cosmic life and thus conquer death. Finally, extreme unction
is the _sacr_ament which marks the loosening of the silver cord, and
the extraction of the sacred germ, freeing it 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 that _sacr_-ilege we stunt future
generations and transgress against the Holy Spirit, Jehovah, who is
warder of the creative lunar forces. His angels herald births, as
in the cases of Isaac, John the Baptist, and Jesus. When he wanted
to reward his most faithful follower, he promised to make his seed
as numerous as the sands on the seashore. He also meted out a most
terrible punishment to the Sodomites who committed _sacr_-ilege by
misdirecting the seed. He even visits the sins of the fathers upon the
children to the third and fourth generations, for under his regime
_Law_ reigns supreme. Man has not yet evolved to the point where he can
respond to _love_. He requires from his enemies an eye for an eye, and
with the same measure that he metes, it is meted unto him.
Though this seems very cruel to us who are each day evolving more
and more the faculties of love and mercy, we must remember that this
retributive justice relates purely to the physical body, which is under
the laws of Nature just as much as any other chemical composition
in the universe. When abuses have weakened it, it is incapable of
fulfilling its mission and meeting our demands in any respect, just
as is the case with any other machinery which we have made from the
materials around us. There are no miracles such as would be required to
generate a sound and healthy body from parents who have transgressed
the laws of nature by their abuses; therefore that sin cannot be
remitted but must be expiated; but when time and care have restored the
necessary strength and vigor, the body will again perform its functions
in a normal and healthy manner.
Thus we understand that under the law there is no mercy, for mercy
is dictated by love. Therefore it was perfectly in consonance with
cosmic order when _Christ, the Lord of Love_, said that all things
would be forgiven to men which they did against Him, as _love_ is the
reigning feature in His kingdom; but whatsoever was done contrary to
the _law_ of Jehovah must meet its full retribution. We cannot be
sufficiently thankful for the wonderful religion which He gave us,
particularly if we compare it with those under which less evolved
peoples are now struggling. Take the Buddhists, for instance: grand and
beautiful though their leader was, he saw only _sorrow_, a constant
struggle against the laws of nature. He aimed to teach his followers
to transcend that condition by perfect obedience such as that whereby
we have conquered the laws of electricity and other forces in nature.
The Buddhist sees nothing but the cold and merciless law; on the other
hand, we of the Western World have before our eyes from the cradle to
the grave a beautiful picture of One who said, “Come unto me all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
But it may be asked, “What about _lost souls_; are they a figment
of the imagination also?” To this question may be answered, “yes,”
although it needs some qualification. We shall best understand the case
if we go back into the history of mankind and view the experiences of
some who have transgressed, for they will furnish us an example of
what may happen. In order to establish the point properly we shall
reiterate a few of the Rosicrucian teachings regarding the genesis
of the earth and of man upon it. Three great stages of unfoldment
have preceded the present Earth Period. _The Father_ is the highest
Initiate of the Saturn Period, inhabiting particularly the Spiritual
Sun. _The Son_, the cosmic Christ, is the highest Initiate of the Sun
Period, inhabiting the Central Sun and guiding the planets in their
orbits by a ray from Himself, which becomes the indwelling spirit of
each planet when it has been sufficiently ripened to contain such a
great Intelligence. Jehovah, the _Holy Spirit_, is the highest Initiate
of the Moon Period and dwelling in the physical, visible sun. He is
regent of the various moons thrown off by the different planets for
the purpose of giving beings who have fallen behind in the march of
evolution more rigid discipline under a firmer law, to awaken them and
spur them on in the proper direction if possible.
When we look into space, we perceive that some planets have a number
of moons and others have none; but as there are laggards in any large
company, and as moons are required to aid these stragglers to retrieve
their lost estate if possible, we may be sure that these planets which
have no moons now have had them in the past. Those Great Beings of
whom the _Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception_ speaks as “Lords of Venus” and
“Lords of Mercury” were, in fact, stragglers from those two planets.
In the dim distant past they inhabited moons which encircled their
respective planets, and were successful in retrieving their loss in
a large measure under the discipline given them there. Later they
received the opportunity to serve the humanity of our earth, and by
that service to secure a return to the home planet whence they had been
exiled. They were _lost_ under the _law_, but _redeemed by love_; and
thus we may infer that opportunities for service will also bring to
other beings, who may become “lost,” the opportunity to retrieve the
past.
Since it may puzzle the student as to what becomes of the moons
upon which such beings dwell for a time, we may say that the solar
system is to be regarded as the body of the Great Spirit whom we
call God, and as any growth caused by an abnormal process pains us
when it occurs in our body, so also such crystallizations as moons
are sources of discomfort to that Great Being. Furthermore, as our
own systems endeavor to eliminate such abnormalities as growths, so
also the universe endeavors to expel moons which have served their
purpose. While the beings who have been exiled to a moon are there, the
Planetary Spirit of the primary planet by his care for these beings,
holds the moon in its orbit, and we speak of his love for them as the
Law of Attraction; but when they have returned to the parent planet,
the Planetary Spirit has no further interest in their cinder-like
habitation. Then slowly the orbit of the vacated moon widens, it
commences to disintegrate, and it is finally expelled into interstellar
space. The asteroids are remnants of moons which once encircled Venus
and Mercury. There are also other seeming moons and lunar fragments
in our solar system, but the _Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception_ does not
concern itself with them as they are outside the pale of evolution.
Chapter VIII
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
The periodical ebb and flow of the material and spiritual forces which
invest the earth are the invisible causes of the physical, moral, and
mental activities upon our globe.
According to the hermetic axiom, “As above so below,” a similar
activity must take place in man, who is but a minor edition of Mother
Nature.
The animals have twenty-eight pairs of spinal nerves and are now in
their Moon stage, perfectly attuned to the twenty-eight days in which
the moon passes around the zodiac. In their wild state the group spirit
regulates their mating. Therefore there is no overflow with them. Man,
on the other hand, is in a transition stage; he is too far progressed
for the lunar vibrations for he has thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves.
But he is not yet attuned to the solar month of thirty-one days, and
he mates at all times of the year; hence the periodical flow in woman,
which under proper conditions is utilized to form part of the body of
a child more perfect than its parent. Similarly, the periodical flow
in mankind becomes the sinew and backbone of racial advancement; and
the periodical flow of the earth’s spiritual forces, which occurs at
Christmas, results in the birth of Saviors who from time to time give
renewed impetus to the spiritual advancement of the human race.
There are two parts to our Bible, the Old and the New Testaments. After
briefly reciting how the world came into being, the former tells the
story of the “Fall.” In view of what has been written in our literature
we understand the Fall to have been occasioned by man’s impulsive and
ignorant use of the sex forces at times when the interplanetary rays
were inimical to conception of the purest and best vehicles. Thus man
became gradually imprisoned in a dense body crystallized by sinful
passion and consequently an imperfect vehicle, subject to pain and
death.
Then commenced the pilgrimage through matter, and for millennia we have
been living in this hard and flinty shell of body, which obscures the
light of heaven from the spirit within. The spirit is like a diamond
in its rough coat, and the celestial lapidaries, the Recording Angels,
are constantly endeavoring to remove the coating so that the spirit may
shine through the vehicle which it ensouls.
When the lapidary holds the diamond to the grindstone, the diamond
emits a screech like a cry of pain as the opaque covering is removed;
but gradually by many successive applications to the grindstone the
rough diamond may become a gem of transcendent beauty and purity.
Similarly, the celestial beings in charge of our evolution hold us
closely to the grindstone of experience. Pain and suffering result,
which awaken the spirit sleeping within. The man hitherto content with
material pursuits, indulgent of sense and sex, becomes imbued with a
divine discontent which impels him to seek the higher life.
The gratification of that aspiration, however, is not usually
accomplished without a severe struggle upon the part of the lower
nature. It was while wrestling thus that Paul exclaimed with all the
anguish of a devout, aspiring heart: “Oh wretched man that I am * * *
The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that
I do * * * I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I
see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and
bringing it into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”
(Rom. 7:19-24.)
When the flower is crushed, its scent is liberated and fills the
surroundings with grateful fragrance, delighting all who are fortunate
enough to be near. Crushing blows of fate may overwhelm a man or woman
who has reached the stage of efflorescence; they will but serve to
bring out the sweetness of the nature and enhance the beauty of the
soul till it shines with an effulgence that marks the wearer as with
a halo. Then he is upon the path of Initiation. He is taught how
unbridled use of sex regardless of the stellar rays has imprisoned
him in the body, how it fetters him, and how by the proper use of
that same force in harmony with the stars he may gradually improve
and etherealize his body and finally attain liberation from concrete
existence.
A shipwright cannot build a staunch oak ship from spruce lumber; “men
do not gather grapes of thorns;” like always begets like, and an
incoming ego of a passionate nature is drawn to parents of like nature,
where its body is conceived upon the impulse of the moment in a gust of
passion.
The soul who has tasted the cup of sorrow incident to the abuse of the
creative force and has drunk to the dregs the bitterness thereof, will
gradually seek parents of less and less passionate natures, until at
length it attains to Initiation.
Having been taught in the process of Initiation the influence of
the stellar rays upon parturition, the next body provided will be
generated by Initiate parents without passion, under the constellation
most favorable to the work which the ego contemplates. Therefore the
Gospels (which are formulae of Initiation) commence with the account
of the immaculate conception and end with the crucifixion, both
wonderful ideals to which we must some time attain, for each of us is
a Christ-in-the-making, and will sometime pass through both the mystic
birth and the mystic death adumbrated in the Gospels. By knowledge
we may hasten the day, intelligently co-operating instead of as now
often stupidly frustrating through ignorance the ends of spiritual
development.
In connection with the immaculate conception misunderstandings prevail
at every point; the perpetual virginity of the mother even after giving
birth to other children; the lowly station of Joseph, the supposed
foster-father, etc. We will briefly view them in the light of facts as
revealed in the Memory of Nature:
In some parts of Europe people of the higher classes are addressed
as “wellborn,” or even as “highwellborn,” meaning that they are the
offspring of cultured parents in high station. Such people usually look
down with scorn upon those in modest positions. We have nothing against
the expression “wellborn;” we would that every child were well born,
born to parents of high moral standing no matter what their station in
life. There is a virginity of soul that is independent of the state of
the body, a purity of mind which will carry its possessor through the
act of generation without the taint of passion and enable the mother to
carry the unborn child under her heart in sexless love.
Previous to the time of Christ that would have been impossible. In
the earlier stages of man’s career upon earth quantity was desirable
and quality a minor consideration, hence the command was given to “go
forth, be fruitful, and multiply.” Besides, it was necessary that
man should temporarily forget his spiritual nature and concentrate
his energies upon material conditions. Indulgence of the sex passion
furthers that object, and the desire nature was given full sway.
Polygamy flourished, and the larger the number of their children, the
more a man and a woman were honored, while barrenness was looked upon
as the greatest possible affliction.
In other directions the desire nature was being curbed by God-given
laws, and obedience to divine commands was enforced by swift punishment
of the transgressor, such as war, pestilence or famine. Rewards for
dutiful observance of the mandates of the law were not wanting either;
the “righteous” man’s children, his cattle and crops were numerous; he
was victorious over his enemies and the cup of his happiness was full.
Later when the earth had been sufficiently peopled after the Atlantean
Flood, polygamy became gradually more and more obsolete, with the
result that the quality of the bodies improved, and at the time of
Christ the desire nature had become so far amenable to control in the
case of the more advanced among humanity that the act of generation
could be performed without passion, out of pure love, so that the child
could be immaculately conceived.
Such were the parents of Jesus. Joseph is said to have been a
carpenter, but he was not a worker in wood. He was a “builder” in a
higher sense. God is the Grand Architect of the universe. Under Him
are many builders of varying degrees of spiritual splendor, down even
to those whom we know as Freemasons. All are engaged in building a
temple without sound of hammer, and Joseph was no exception.
It is sometimes asked why Initiates are always men. They are not; in
the lower degrees there are many women, but when an Initiate is able
to choose his sex he usually takes the positive masculine body, as
the life which brought him to Initiation has spiritualized his vital
body and made it positive under all conditions, so that he has then an
instrument of the highest efficiency.
There are times, however, when the exigencies of a case require a
female body, such as, for instance, providing a body of the highest
type to receive an ego of superlatively high degree. Then a high
Initiate may take a female body and go through the experience of
maternity again, after perhaps having eschewed it for several lives, as
was the case with the beautiful character we know as Mary of Bethlehem.
In conclusion, then, let us remember the points brought out, that
we are all Christs-in-the-making; that sometime we must cultivate
characters so spotless that we may be worthy to inhabit bodies that
are immaculately conceived; and the sooner we commence to purify our
minds of passionate thoughts, the sooner we shall attain. In the
final analysis it only depends upon the earnestness of our purpose,
the strength of our wills. Conditions are such now that we can live
pure lives whether married or single, and cold; sister-and-brother
relationships are not necessary either.
Is the life of absolute purity beyond some of us yet? Be not
discouraged; Rome was not built in a day. Keep on aspiring though you
fail again and again, for the only real failure consists in ceasing to
try.
So may God strengthen your aspirations to purity.
Chapter IX
THE COMING CHRIST
We have previously seen how infant humanity in Atlantis lived in unity
under direct guidance of divine leaders, and how they were eventually
brought out of the water into a clear atmosphere where the separateness
of each individual from all others became obvious at once.
“God is Light”—the Light which became life in man. It was dim and
achromatically diffused in the misty atmosphere of early Atlantis,
as colorless as the air on a densely foggy day in the present age,
hence the unity of all beings who lived in that light. But when
man rose above the waters, when he emerged into the air where the
godly manifestation, Light, was refracted in multitudinous hues,
this variously colored light was differently absorbed by each. Thus
diversity was inaugurated, when mankind went through the mighty arch
of the rainbow with its variegated and beautiful colors. That bow
may therefore be considered an entrance gate to “the promised land,”
the world as now constituted. Here the light of God is no longer an
insipid single tint as in early Atlantis. The present dazzling play of
color tells us that _the watchword of the present age is segregation_,
and therefore so long as we remain in the present condition under the
law of alternating cycles, where summer and winter, ebb and flow,
succeed each other in unbroken sequence, so long as God’s bow stands in
the sky, an emblem of diversity, it is yet the day of the kingdoms of
men, and the kingdom of God is held in abeyance.
Nevertheless, as surely as the Edenic conditions upon the fire girt
islands of ancient Lemuria ended in separation into sexes, each
expressing one element of the creative fire, and making the union
of man and woman as necessary to the generation of a body as is the
union of hydrogen and oxygen to the production of water; and as
surely as emergence from the watery atmosphere of Atlantis into the
airy environment of _Aryana_, the world of today, promoted further
segregation into separate nations and individuals, who war and prey
upon one another (because the sharply differentiated forms which they
behold blind them to the inalienable unity of each soul with all
others); just as certainly will this world condition give place to a
“new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
In early Atlantis we lived in the deepest basins of the earth where the
mist was densest; we breathed by means of gills and would have been
unable to live in an atmosphere such as we have now. In the course of
time desire to explore beyond caused the invention of airships, which
were propelled by the expansive force of sprouting grain. The “ark”
story is a perverted remembrance of that fact. Those ships actually did
founder upon mountain tops where the atmosphere was too rare to sustain
them. Today our ships float upon the element in which the Atlantean
ships were at one time immersed. We have now contrived various means of
propulsion able to carry us over the highlands of the earth which we
occupy at present, and are commencing to reach out into the atmosphere
to conquer that element as we have subjected the waters; and as surely
as our Atlantean ancestors made a highway of the watery element which
they breathed _and then rose above it to live in a new element_, just
as certainly shall we conquer the air and then rise above it into the
newly discovered element which we call ether.
Thus each age has its own peculiar conditions and laws; the beings who
evolve have a physiological constitution suited to the environment of
that age, but are dominated by the nature forces then prevailing until
they learn to conform to them. Then these forces become most valuable
servants, as for instance, steam and electricity, which we have
partially harnessed. The law of gravity still holds us in its powerful
grip, although by mechanical means we are trying to escape into the new
element. We shall at a not distant time attain to mastery of the air,
but as the ships of the Atlanteans foundered upon the mountains of the
earth because their buoyancy was insufficient to enable them to rise
higher in the light mist of those altitudes, and because respiration
was difficult, so also will the increasing rarity of our present
atmosphere prevent us from entering the “new heaven and the new earth,”
which are to be the scene of the New Dispensation.
Before we can reach that state, physiological as well as moral and
spiritual changes must take place. The Greek text of the New Testament
does not leave us in doubt as to this, though lack of knowledge of the
mystery teachings prevented the translators from bringing it out in the
English version. Did we but believe the Bible even as we have it, we
should be spared many delusions and much uneasiness concerning the time
of this. Whole sects have disposed of their belongings in anticipation
of the advent of Christ on a certain day, and have suffered untold
privations afterwards. Schemers have passed themselves off as Christ
or even as God, have married, raised families, and died, leaving their
sons, who were supposed to be Christs, to fight for the kingdom.
A temporal government was forced to banish one of these militant
“Christs” to an island of the Mediterranean, and another to an Asiatic
city where he is now under military supervision. Nor is there any sign
that the future will lack similar claimants; rather, the sacrilegious
imposture is spreading.
_We may rest assured that the divine leaders of evolution made no
mistake when they gave the Christian Religion to the Western World—the
most advanced teaching to the most precocious among mankind._ It may
therefore be regarded as a detriment when an organization undertakes
to graft a Hindu religion (which is excellent for the people to whom
it was divinely given) upon our people. The imported Hindu breathing
exercises have certainly sent many people to insane asylums.
If we believe Christ’s words: “My kingdom is not of this world,”
(_kosmos_, the Greek word used for “world” meaning “order of things”
rather than our planet, the earth, which is called _gee_,) we shall
know better than to look for Christ today.
“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” any more than
the gill breathing creature of early Atlantean times was fit to live
under the natural conditions prevailing in the present age where “the
kingdom of men” exists. Paul, in discussing the resurrection, does
not say as in the English translation, “There is a natural body and
there is a spiritual body.” I Cor. 15:44. He affirms that there is a
“_soma psuchicon_,” a soul body, and tells in the preceding verses
how this is generated from a “_seed_” in the same way as explained
in the Rosicrucian teachings. The Bible affirms that our bodies are
corruptible. (It also teaches that one organ, the heart, is an
exception. This has reference to the seed atom in the heart. Ps.
22:26.) Therefore our bodies must be changed before Christ can come.
If these things were believed, few would run after impostors, and the
latter would have their labors for their pains. But Western papers
unfortunately give notoriety to such schemers, though regarding them as
a joke as well they may, for it would be preposterous to believe that
the great and wise Being who guides evolution could be so shortsighted
as not to know that the Western World would never accept the scion of
what it regards as a semi-barbaric race for its Savior.
When preparations were made 2000 years ago, for the embodiment of the
Savior of the world, Galilee was the Mecca for roving spirits. Thither
flocked people from Asia, Africa, Greece, Italy, and all other parts of
the world of that day. Conditions there were exceptionally congenial
and attractive so that, as declared by various scholars who have
investigated the matter, Galilee was as cosmopolitan as Rome itself.
It was, in fact, the “melting pot” of that day. Among others, Joseph
and Mary, the parents of Jesus, had emigrated from Judea to Nazareth in
Galilee before the advent of their firstborn, and the body generated in
that environment was different from the ordinary Jewish race body.
It is an incontrovertible fact that environment plays a great part
in evolution. We have today upon earth _three great races_. One, the
Negro, has hair which is _flat_ in section, and the head is long,
narrow, and _flattened_ on the sides. The orbit of the eye is also long
and narrow. The Negroes are descendants of the Lemurian Race.
The Mongols and kindred peoples have _round_ heads. Their hair is round
in section, and the orbits of their eyes are also round. They are the
remnants of the Atlantean Race.
The _Aryan Race_ have oval hair, oval skulls, and oval orbits of the
eyes, these features being especially pronounced in the Anglo-Saxons,
who are the flower of the race at present.
In America, the Mecca of nations today, these various races are of
course represented. Here is the “melting pot” in which they are being
amalgamated. It has been ascertained that here there is a difference in
children belonging to the same family. The _skulls of younger children
born in America are more nearly oval than the heads of their older
brothers and sisters born abroad_.
From this fact and from others which need not be mentioned here, it
is evident that a new race is being born on the American continent;
and reasoning from the known fact that the Christ came from the most
cosmopolitan part of the civilized world of 2000 years ago, it would
be but logical to expect that if a new embodiment were sought for that
exalted Being, His body would more likely be taken from the new race
than from an ancient one. Otherwise, if there is virtue in obtaining a
Savior from the older races, why not get a Bushman or a Hottentot?
But we may be sure that though impostors deceive for a time, they are
found out sooner or later, and their plans come to naught. Meanwhile,
progression continues to bring us nearer the Aquarian Age, and _a
Teacher is coming_ to give the Christian Religion impetus in a new
direction.
Chapter X
THE COMING AGE
When we speak of the “Coming Age,” of the “New Heaven and the New
Earth” mentioned in the Bible, and also of the “Aquarian Age,” the
differences may not be quite clear in the minds of our students.
Confusion of terms is one of the most fertile seed grounds of fallacy,
and the Rosicrucian teachings aim to avoid it by a particularly
definite nomenclature. Sometimes an extra effort seems necessary to
disperse the haze engendered by current cloudy conceptions of others as
sincere as the present writer, but not so fortunate in having access to
the incomparable Western Wisdom Teachings.
It has been taught in our literature that four great epochs of
unfoldment preceded the present order of things; that the density
of the earth, its atmospheric conditions, and the laws of nature
prevailing in one epoch were as different from those of the other
epochs as was the corresponding physiological constitution of mankind
in one epoch different from those in the others.
The bodies of ADM (the name means _red earth_), the humanity of fiery
Lemuria, were formed of the “dust of the ground,” the red, hot,
volcanic mud, and were just suited to their environment. Flesh and
blood would have shriveled up in the terrible heat of that day, and
though suited to present conditions, Paul tells us that they cannot
inherit the Kingdom of God. It is therefore manifest that before a new
order of things can be inaugurated, the physiological constitution of
mankind must be radically changed, to say nothing of the spiritual
attitude. Aeons will be required to regenerate the whole human race and
fit them to live in ethereal bodies.
On the other hand, neither does a new environment come into existence
in a moment, but land and people are evolved together from the smallest
and most primitive beginnings. When the mists of Atlantis commenced to
settle, some of our forbears had grown embryonic lungs and were forced
to the highlands ages before their compeers. They wandered in “the
wilderness” while “the promised land” was emerging from the lighter
fogs, and at the same time their growing lungs were fitting them to
live under present atmospheric conditions.
Two more races were born in the basins of the earth before a succession
of floods drove them to the highlands: the last flood took place at the
time when the sun entered the watery sign Cancer, about ten thousand
years ago as told Plato by the Egyptian priests. Thus we see there is
_no sudden_ change of constitution or environment for the whole human
race when a new epoch is ushered in, but an overlapping of conditions
which makes it possible for most of the race by gradual adjustment
to enter the new condition, though the change may seem sudden to
the individual when the preparatory change has been accomplished
unconsciously. The metamorphosis of a tadpole from a denizen of the
watery element to one of the airy gives an analogy of the past, and
the transformation of the earthworm to a butterfly soaring in the air
is an apt simile of the coming age. When the heavenly time marker came
into Aries by precession, a new cycle commenced, and the “glad tidings”
were preached by Christ. He said by implication that the new heaven and
earth were not ready then when He told His disciples: Whither I go you
cannot _now_ follow, but you shall follow afterwards. I go to prepare a
place for you and will come again and receive you.
Later John saw in a vision the new Jerusalem descending from heaven,
and Paul taught the Thessalonians “_by the word of the Lord_” that
those who are Christs at His coming shall be caught up _in the air_ to
meet Him and be with Him _for the age_.
But during this change there are pioneers who enter the kingdom of God
before their brethren. Christ, in Matt. 11:12, said that “the kingdom
of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” This
is not a correct translation. It ought to be: The kingdom of the
heavens _has been invaded_ (_biaxetai_), and invaders seize on her. Men
and women have already learned through holy, helpful lives to lay aside
the body of flesh and blood, either intermittently or permanently, and
to walk the skies with winged feet, intent upon the business of their
Lord, clad in the ethereal “wedding garment” of the new dispensation.
This change may be accomplished through a life of simple helpfulness
and prayer as practiced by devoted Christians, no matter with what
church they affiliate, as well as by the specific exercises given in
the Rosicrucian Fellowship. The latter will prove barren of results,
unless accompanied by constant _acts_ of love for _love_ will be
the keynote of the coming age as _Law_ is of the present order. The
intense expression of the former quality increases the phosphorescent
luminosity and density of the ethers in our vital bodies, the fiery
streams sever the tie to the mortal coil, and the man, once _born of
water_ upon his emergence from Atlantis, is now born _of the spirit_
into the kingdom of God. The dynamic force of his love has opened a way
to the land of love, and indescribable is the rejoicing among those
already there when new invaders arrive, for each new arrival hastens
the coming of the Lord and the definite establishment of the Kingdom.
Among the religiously inclined there is a definite unceasing cry: How
long, O Lord; how long? And despite the emphatic statement of Christ
that the day and hour are unknown, even to Himself, prophets continue
to gain credence when they predict His coming on a certain day,
though each is discomfited when the day passes without development.
The question has also been mooted among our students, and the present
chapter is an attempt to show the fallacy of looking for the Second
Advent in a year or fifty or five hundred. The Elder Brothers decline
to commit themselves further than to point out what must first be
accomplished.
At the time of Christ the sun was in about seven degrees of Aries. Five
hundred years were required to bring the precession to the thirtieth
degree of Pisces. During that time the new church lived through a
stage of offensive and defensive violence well justifying the words
of Christ: “I came not to bring peace but a sword.” Fourteen hundred
years more have elapsed under the negative influence of _Pisces_, which
has fostered the power of the church and bound the people by creed and
dogma.
In the middle of the last century the sun came within orb of influence
of the scientific sign _Aquarius_, and although it will take about
six hundred years before the Aquarian Age commences, it is highly
instructive to note what changes the mere touch has wrought in the
world. Our limited space precludes enumeration of the wonderful
advances made since then; but it is not too much to say that science,
invention, and resultant industry have completely changed the world,
its social life, and economic conditions. The great strides made in
means of communication have done much to break down barriers of race
prejudice and prepare us for conditions of Universal Brotherhood.
Engines of destruction have been made so fearfully efficient that the
militant nations will be forced ere long to “beat their swords into
plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” _The sword has had its
reign_ during the Piscean Age, but _science will rule_ in the Aquarian
Age.
In the land of the setting sun we may expect to first see the ideal
conditions of the Aquarian Age: A blending of religion and science,
forming a religious science and a scientific religion, which will
promote the health, happiness and the enjoyment of life in abundant
measure.
_Sugar For Alcohol_
In the chapter elucidating the Law of Assimilation in the _Rosicrucian
Cosmo-Conception_, we stated that minerals cannot be assimilated
because they lack a vital body, which lack makes it impossible for man
to raise their vibratory rate to his own pitch. Plants have a vital
body and no self-consciousness, hence are most easily assimilated and
remain with man longer than cells of animal flesh, which is permeated
by a desire body. The vibratory rate of the latter is high, and much
energy is required in assimilation; its cells also quickly escape and
make it necessary for the flesh eater to forage often.
We are aware that alcohol is a “foreign spirit” and a “spirit of
decay,” because _it is generated by fermentation_ OUTSIDE the
consumer’s system. Being “spirit,” it vibrates with such intense
rapidity that the human spirit is incapable of tuning it down and
controlling it as food must be, hence metabolism is out of the
question. Nay, more, as we cannot reduce its vibratory rate to that of
our bodies, this foreign spirit may accelerate their vibratory pitch
and control us as happens in the state of intoxication. Thus alcohol is
a great danger to mankind and one from which we must be emancipated ere
we can realize our divine nature.
A stimulant spirit is necessary while we live on a _diet of flesh_ or
progress would stop, and _a food_ has been provided for the pioneers
of the West that answers all requirements; its name is “sugar.” _From
sugar the ego itself generates alcohol_ INSIDE the system by the very
processes of metabolism. This product is therefore both food and
stimulant, perfectly keyed to the vibratory pitch of the body. It has
all the good qualities of alcohol in enhanced measure and none of its
drawbacks. To perceive properly the effect of this food, consider the
peoples of eastern Europe where but little sugar is consumed. They are
slavish; they speak of themselves in terms of depreciation; the pronoun
“I” is always spelled with small letters but “you” with a capital.
England consumes five times as much sugar per capita as Russia. In
the former we meet a different spirit, the big “I” and the little
“you.” In America the candy store becomes a most dangerous rival of the
saloon, for _the man who eats sweets will not drink_, and there is no
surer cure for alcoholism than to induce the sufferer to eat freely of
sweets. The drunkard abhors sugar, however, while his system is under
the sway of the “foreign spirit.”
The temperance movement was begun in the land where _most sugar is
consumed_, and has _generated “the spirit of self-respect.”_