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[PAGE 1]                                           THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES



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          [ T H E   R O S I C R U C I A N   M Y S T E R I E S ]
          [                                                   ]
          [                                                   ]
          [                       BY                          ]
          [                                                   ]
          [                                                   ]
          [             M A X   H E I N D E L                 ]
          [                  [1865-1919]                      ]
           ---------------------------------------------------






           AN ELEMENTARY EXPOSITION OF THEIR SECRET TEACHINGS




                       THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP
                              Mt. Ecclesia
                              P.O. Box 713
                    Oceanside, California, 92054, USA







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                             LIST OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I:

  THE ORDER OF ROSICRUCIANS AND THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP................5


CHAPTER II:

  THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION...................................16
    Three Theories of Life...............................................20
    We Are Eternal (Poem by the Author)..................................26


CHAPTER III:

  THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS...................................36
    The Chemical Region..................................................36
    The Etheric Region...................................................41
    The Desire World.....................................................51
    The World of Thought.................................................67
    Creed or Christ (Poem by the Author).................................85

CHAPTER IV:

  THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN................................................87
    The Vital Body.......................................................89
    The Desire Body......................................................94
    The Mind.............................................................97





[PAGE 4]                 LIST OF CONTENTS         THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES



CHAPTER V:

  LIFE AND DEATH.........................................................99
    Invisible Helpers and Mediums........................................99
    Death...............................................................103
    The Panorama of Past Life...........................................112
    Purgatory...........................................................116
    The First Heaven....................................................127
    The Second Heaven...................................................132
    The Third Heaven....................................................135
    Birth and Child-Life................................................137
    The Mystery of Light, Color and Consciousness.......................139
Education of Children...................................................143






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                                 CHAPTER I

          THE ORDER OF ROSICRUCIANS AND THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP

                          OUR MESSAGE AND MISSION

         A SANE MIND

                                A SOFT HEART

                                                     A SOUND BODY

                              ----------------


    Before   entering  upon   an  explanation  of  the  teachings   of   the
Rosicrucians,  it  may be well to say a word about them and about the  place
they hold in  the evolution of humanity.

    For  reasons  to be given later these teachings advocate  the  dualistic
view;  they hold that man is a Spirit enfolding all the powers of God as the
seed enfolds the plant,   and that these powers are being slowly unfolded by
a   series  of existences in a gradually improving earthy body;   also  that
this  process of development  has been performed under the guidance  of  ex-
alted  Beings  who  are yet  ordering  our steps,   though in  a  decreasing
measure,    as  we  gradually  acquire  intellect  and  will.  These exalted
Beings,   though  unseen  to  the physical eyes, are neverthless potent fac-
tors in all affairs of life, and give to the various groups of humanity les-






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sons which will most efficiently  promote  the  growth  of  their  spiritual
powers. In fact, the earth  may be  likened  to  a  vast  training school in
which there are pupils  of  varying age and ability as we  find it in one of
our own schools.  There are the savages,  living and  worshipping under most
primitive conditions, seeing in stick or stone a  God.  Then,  as  man  pro-
gresses  onwards  and  upwards  in  the scale  of  civilization,  we  find a
higher  and  higher conception  of  Deity,  which  has flowered here  in our
Western World in the  beautiful  Christian  religion that now furnishes  our
spiritual inspiration and  incentive to  improve.

    These  various  religions have been given to each group  of humanity  by
the  exalted beings whom we know in the Christian  religion as the Recording
Angels,  whose  wonderful prevision enables them  to  view the trend of even
so unstable a quantity as the human mind,  and thus  they are enabled to de-
termine what steps are necessary to lead our unfoldment along the lines con-
gruous to the  highest universal good.

    When  we study the history of the ancient nations we shall find that  at
about six hundred years B.C.   a  great spiritual wave had its inception  on
the Eastern  shores  of the  Pacific Ocean where  the  great  Confucian  re-
ligion accelerated the progress of the Chinese nation,   then also the reli-
gion of the Buddha commenced to win its millions of adherents in India,  and
still further West we have the lofty philosophy of Pythagoras.  Each  system
was suited to the needs  of the particular people to whom it was sent.  Then
came  the  period   of  the  Sceptics,  in  Greece,   and  later,  traveling






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westward  the  same spiritual wave is manifested as the  Christian  religion
of the so-called "Dark Ages"  when the dogma of a dominant church  compelled
belief from the whole of Western Europe.

    It is a law in the universe that a wave of spiritual awakening is always
followed by a period of doubting materialism; each phase is necessary in or-
der  that  the Spirit  may receive equal development of heart and  intellect
without being  carried too far in either direction.  The great Beings afore-
mentioned,  who  care for our progress,  always take steps to safeguard  hu-
manity  against that  danger,  and when they foresaw the wave of materialism
which  commenced in the sixteenth century with the birth of our modern  sci-
ence,  they  took steps to protect  the  West  as  they had  formerly  safe-
guarded  the  East  against  the sceptics who were held in check by the Mys-
tery Schools.

    In the fourteenth century there appeared in central Europe a great spir-
itual teacher whose symbolical name was


                        CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUZ

                                or

                        CHRISTIAN ROSE CROSS,


who  founded the mysterious Order of the Rosy Cross,   concerning  which  so
many  speculations   have  been made and so little has become known  to  the
world  at large,  for it is the Mystery School of the West and is open  only
to those who have attained the stage of spiritual unfoldment necessary to be
initiated in its secrets concerning the Science of Life and Being.






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    If we are so far developed that we are able to leave our dense  physical
body and take a soul flight into interplanetary space we shall find that the
ultimate physical atom is spherical in shape like our earth;  it is a  ball.
When  we take a number of balls of even size and group them around  one,  it
will  take just twelve balls to hide a thirteenth within.  Thus  the  twelve
visible  and the one hidden are numbers revealing a cosmic relationship  and
as  all  Mystery Orders are based upon cosmic lines,  they are  composed  of
twelve members gathered around a thirteenth who is the invisible HEAD.

    There  are seven colors in the spectrum:  red,  orange,  yellow,  green,
blue, indigo, and violet. But between the violet and the red there are still
five  other colors which are invisible to the physical eye but reveal  them-
selves to the spiritual sight.  In every Mystery Order there are also  seven
Brothers who at times go out into the world and there perform whatever  work
may be necessary to advance the people among whom they serve,  but five  are
never seen outside the temple. They work with and teach those alone who have
passed through certain stages of spiritual unfoldment and are able to  visit
the temple in their spiritual bodies,  a feat taught in the first initiation
which usually takes place outside the temple as it is not convenient for all
to visit that place physically.

    Let not the reader imagine that this initiation  makes the pupil  a  Ro-
sicrucian, it does not, any more than admission to a high school makes a boy








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a member of the faculty.  Nor does he become a Rosicrucian even  after  hav-
ing passed through all the nine degrees of this or any other Mystery School.
The Rosicrucians are Hierophants of the Lesser Mysteries,   and beyond  them
there are  still  schools wherein greater Mysteries are taught.   Those  who
have advanced through the Lesser Mysteries are called Adepts,  but even they
have  not  reached  the exalted standpoint of the  twelve  Brothers  of  the
Rosicrucian  Order  or  the Hierophants of any other Lesser  Mystery  School
any more  than the  freshman  at  college has attained to the knowledge  and
position  of  a teacher in the high school from which he has just graduated.

     A  later work will deal with initation,  but we may say here  that  the
door   of a genuine Mystery School is not unlocked by a golden key,  but  is
only  opened as a reward for meritorious service to humanity and any one who
advertises himself as a Rosicrucian or makes a charge for tuition, by either
of those acts shows himself to be a chrlatan.  The true pupil of any Mystery
School is far too modest to advertise the fact,  he will scorn all titles or
honors  from men,  he will have no regard for riches save the riches of love
given to him by those whom it becomes his privilege to help and teach.

    In the centuries that have gone by since the Rosicrucian Order was first
formed they have worked quietly and secretly, aiming to mould the thought of
Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon,  Shakespeare,





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Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical activities of the
day are at their lowest ebb,  and the spiritual impulse at its highest flood
tide, they have sent out from their temple soul-stirring vibrations to coun-
teract materialism  and  to further the development of soul powers. To their
activities we owe the gradual spiritualization of our once so  materialistic
science.

    With the commencement of the twentieth century a further step was taken.
It  was realized that something must be done to make religion scientific  as
well as to make science religious,  in order that they may ultimately blend;
for  at  the  present  time heart and intellect  are  divorced.   The  heart
instinctively  feels  the  truth  of  religious  teachings  concerning  such
wonderful  mysteries as the Immaculate Conception (the Mystic  Birth),   the
Crucifixion  (the Mystic Death),  the Cleansing Blood,  the Atonement,   and
other doctrines of the Church,  which the intellect refuses to believe,   as
they are incapable of demonstration,  and seemingly at war with natural law.
Material  advancement  may be furthered when intellect is dominant  and  the
longings  of the heart unsatisfied,  but soul growth will be retarded  until
the heart also receives satisfaction.

    In  order to give the world a teaching so blended that it  will  satisfy
both the mind and heart,  a messenger must be found and instructed.  Certain
unusual  qualifications were necessary,  and the first one chosen failed  to
pass  a certain test after several years had been spent to prepare  him  for
the work to be done.





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    It  is well said that there is a time to sow,  and a time to reap,   and
that  there are certain times for all the works of life,  and in  accordance
with  this law of periodicity each impulse in spiritual uplift must also  be
undertaken  at  an appropriate time to be successful.   The first and  sixth
decades  of  each  century  are  particularly  propitious  to  commence  the
promulgation  of new spiritual teachings.  Therefore the  Rosicrucians  were
much concerned at this failure,  for only five years were left of the  first
decade of the twentieth century.

    Their second choice of a messenger fell upon the present writer,  though
he knew it not at the time, and by shaping circumstances about him they made
it  possible  for  him to begin a period of preparation for  the  work  they
desired  him to do.  Three years later,  when he had gone to Germany,   also
because of circumstances shaped by the invisible Brotherhood, and was on the
verge of despair at the discovery that the light which was the object of his
quest,   was only a jack-o-lantern,  the Brothers of the  Rosicrucian  Order
applied  the test to see whether he would be a faithful messenger  and  give
the teachings they desired to entrust to him, to the world.  And when he had
passed  the  trial they gave him the monumental solution of the  problem  of
existence first published in THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION  IN  November,
1909,   more  than a year before the expiration of the first decade  of  the
twentieth  century.   This  book  marked a new  era  in  so-called  "occult"
literature, and the many editions which have since been published as well as





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the thousands of letters which continue to come to the author,  are speaking
testimonies  to  the  fact  that  people are  finding  in  this  teaching  a
satisfaction they have sought elsewhere in vain.

    The  Rosicrucians teach that all great religions have been given to  the
people among whom they are found,  by Divine Intelligences who designed each
system  of  worship to suit the needs of the race or nation to whom  it  was
given. A primitive people cannot respond to a  lofty  and  sublime religion,
and VICE VERSA.   What helps one race would hinder another, and in pursuance
of the same policy there has been devised a system of soul-unfoldment suited
especially to the Western people, who are racially and temperamentally unfit
to undergo the discipline of the Eastern school,  which was designed for the
more backward Hindus.


                       THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP


    For the purpose of promulgating the Rosicrucian Teachings in the Western
World,  the Rosicrucian Fellowship was founded in 1909.  It is the herald of
the  Aquarian  Age,   when the Sun by its precessional passage  through  the
constellation  Aquarius,  will bring out all the intellectual and  spiritual
potencies  in  man which are symbolized by that sign.  As heat from  a  fire
warms all objects within the sphere of its radiations,  so also the Aquarian
ray  will  raise the earth's vibrations to a pitch we are as yet  unable  to
comprehend,  though we have demonstrations of the MATERIAL workings of  this





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force  in the inventions which have revolutionized life within the memory of
the  present generation.  We have wondered at the X-ray,  which sees through
the  human  body,  but each one has a sense latent which when  evolved  will
enable him to see through any number of bodies or to any distance. We marvel
at the telephone conversations across the continent of America, but each has
within a latent sense which when evolved will enable him to see through  any
number   of  bodies  or  to  any  distance.   We  marvel  at  the  telephone
conversations across the continent of America,  but each has within a latent
sense of speech and hearing that is far more acute;  we are surprised at the
exploits  of  ships  under sea and in the sky,  but we are  all  capable  of
passage  under water or through the sky;  nay,  more we may  pass  unscathed
through  the solid rock and the raging fire,  if we know how,  and lightning
itself  is slow compared to the speed with which we may travel.  This sounds
like a fairy tale today,  as did Jules Verne's stories a generation ago, but
the  Aquarian Age will witness the realization of these dreams,  and ever so
much  more that we still do not even dream of.  Such faculties will then  be
the  possessions of large numbers of people who will have gradually  evolved
them  as  previously  the ability to walk,  speak,  hear,   and  see,   were
developed.

    Therein lies a great danger,  for,  obviously,  anyone endowed with such
faculties  may  use  them to the greatest detriment of the world  at  large,
unless  restrained  by  a  spirit  of  unselfishness  and  an  all-embracing
altruism. Therefore religion is needed today as never before, to foster love
and  fellow-feeling  among humanity so that it may be prepared  to  use  the
great  gifts  in  store for it wisely and well.  This need  of  religion  is





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specially  felt in a certain class where the ether is more loosely  knit  to
the  physical atoms than in the majority,  and on that account they are  now
beginning to sense the Aquarian vibrations.

    This  class is again divided in two groups.   In one  the  intellect  is
dominant, and the people in that class therefore seek to grasp the spiritual
mysteries  out of curiosity from the viewpoint of cold reason.  They  pursue
the path of knowledge for the sake of knowledge,  considering that an end in
itself.   The  idea that knowledge is of value only when  put  to  practical
constructive use does not seem to have presented itself to them.  This class
we may call OCCULTISTS.

    The  other group does not care for knowledge,  but feels an  inner  urge
God-ward, and pursues the path of devotion to the high ideal set before them
in  Christ,  doing the deeds that He did as far as their flesh will  permit,
and  this  in time results in an interior illumination which brings with  it
all the knowledge obtained by the other class, and much more.  This class we
may describe as MYSTICS.

    Certain  dangers  confront  each of the two groups.   If  the  occultist
obtains  illumination  and  evolves  within  himeslf  the  latent  spiritual
faculties,  he may use them for the furtherance of his personal objects,  to
the  great  detriment  of his fellow-men.  That is  black  magic,   and  the
punishment   which  it  AUTOMATICALLY  calls  down  upon  the  head  of  the
perpetrator is so awful that it is best to draw the veil over it. The mystic
may also err because of ignorance, and fall into the meshes of nature's law,





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but being actuated by love,  his mistakes will never be very serious, and as
he  grows  in  grace the soundless voice within his heart  will  speak  more
distinctly to teach him the way.

    The  Rosicrucian Fellowship endeavors to prepare the world  in  general,
and the sensitives of the two groups in particular, for the awakening of the
latent  powers  in  man,   so that all may  be  guided  safely  through  the
danger-zone  and  be as well fitted as possible to use these new  faculties.
Effort  is made  to  blend  the love without which Paul declared  a   knowl-
edge   of   all  mysteries worthless,  with a mystic  knowledge  rooted  and
grounded in love, so that  the pupils of this school may become LIVING expo-
nents  of  this   blended soul-science of the  Western  Wisdom  School,  and
gradually  educate  humanity at large in the virtues necessary to  make  the
possession of higher powers safe.





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                               CHAPTER II


                 THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION


                          THE PROBLEM OF LIFE


    Among  all  the vicissitudes of life,  which vary in  each  individual's
experience,     there   is  one  event  which  sooner  or  later  comes   to
everyone--Death!  No matter what our station in life, whether the life lived
has  been  a laudable one or the reverse,  whether great  achievements  have
marked  our  path among men;  whether health or sickness has been  our  lot,
whether we have been famous and surrounded by a host of admiring friends  or
have  wandered unknown through  the years of our life,   at some time  there
comes  a  moment  when  we stand alone before the portal of  death  and  are
forced to take the leap  into the dark.

    The  thought of this leap and of what lies beyond must inevitably  force
itself upon every thinking person.  In the years of youth and health,   when
the  bark  of  our  life sails upon seas of prosperity,   when  all  appears
beautiful  and  bright,  we may put the thought behind us,  but  there  will
surely come a time in the life of every thinking person when the problem  of
life  and death forces itself upon his consciousness and refuses to  be  set
aside.  Neither will it help him to accept the ready-made solution of anyone
else without thought and in blind belief,  for this is a basic problem which
every one must solve for himself or herself in order to obtain satisfaction.




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    Upon   the  eastern  edge  of the Desert of  Sahara  there  stands   the
world-famous    Sphinx   with   its  inscrutable  face  turned  toward   the
East,  ever greeting the Sun as its rising rays herald the newborn day.   It
was  said  in the Greek myth that it was the wont of this monster to  ask  a
riddle  of  each traveler.   She devoured those who could not  answer,   but
when Oedipus solved the riddle she destroyed herself.

    The  riddle which she asked of men was the riddle of life and death,   a
query which is as relevant today as ever,  and which each one must answer or
be  devoured  in the jaws of death.  But when onece a person has  found  the
solution to the problem,  it will appear that in reality there is no  death,
that  what  appears  so,  is but a change from one  state  of  EXISTENCE  to
another.   Thus,   for the man who finds the true solution to the riddle  of
life, the sphinx of death has ceased to exist,  and he can lift his voice in
the triumphant cry,  "O death,  where is thy sting?  O  grave,  where is thy
victory?"

   Various  theories of life have been advocated to solve  this  problem  of
life. We may divide them into two classes, namely THE MONISTIC THEORY, which
holds  that  all  the facts of life can be explained by  reference  to  this
visible world wherein we live,  and THE DUALISTIC THEORY,  which refers part
of the phenomenon of life to another world which is now invisible to us.

  Raphael in his famous painting, "The School of Athens," has most aptly pic-
tured to us the attitude of these two schools of thought.   We see upon that
marvelous painting a  Greek  Court  such  as those wherein philosophers were




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once wont to congregate. Upon the various steps which lead into the building
a  large number of men are engaged in deep  conversation,  but in the center
at the top of the steps stand  two  figures,  supposedly  of Plato and Aris-
totle,  one pointing upwards, the other towards the earth,  each looking the
other in the face, mutely, but with  deeply concentrated will;  each seeking
to cinvince the other that his attitude  is right,  for  each bears the con-
viction in his heart.  One  holds that  he  is of the earth earthy,  that he
has come from the dust  and  that thereto  he will return,  the other firmly
advocates the position that there is a higher something which has always ex-
isted and will continue regardless of whether the body wherein it now dwells
holds together or not.

    The  question  who is right is still an open one with  the  majority  of
mankind.   Millions  of tons of paper and printer's  ink have been  used  in
futile attempts to settle it by argument,  but it will always remian open to
all who have not solved the riddle themselves,  for it is a basic problem, a
part  of  the life experience of every human being to settle that  question,
and therefore no one can give us the solution ready-made for our acceptance.
All that can be done by those who have really solved the problem, is to show
to others the line along which they have found the solution, and thus direct
the inquirer how he also, by his own efforts, may arrive at a conclusion.

    That  is  the aim of this little book;  not to offer a solution  to  the
problem  of  life to be taken blindly,  on faith in the author's ability  of






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investigation.  The teachings herein set forth are those handed down by  the
Great Western Mystery School of the Rosicrucian Order and are the result  of
the concurrent testimony of a long line of trained Seers given to the author
and  supplemented  by  his  own  independent  investigation  of  the  realms
traversed  by the Spirit in its cyclic path from the invisible world to this
plane of existence and back again.

    Nevertheless,    the  student  is  warned  that  the  writer  may   have
misunderstood  some  of the teachings and that despite the greatest care  he
may have taken  a wrong view of that which he believes to have been seen  in
the  invisible world where the possibilities of making a mistake are legion.
Here  in  the world which we view about us the forms are stable and  do  not
easily  change,  but in the world around us which is perceptible only by the
spiritual sight,  we may say that there is in reality no form,  but that all
is  life.   At  least  the forms are so changeable  that  the  metamorphosis
recounted  in fairy stories is discounted there to an amazing  degree,   and
therefore we have the surprising revelations of mediums and other  untrained
clairvoyants  who,   though they may be perfectly honest,  are  deceived  by
illusions of FORM which is evanescent, because they are incapable of viewing
the LIFE that is the permanent basis of that form.

    We must learn to see in this world.  The new-born babe has no conception
of distance and will reach for things far, far beyond its grasp until it has
learned  to  gauge its capacity.  A  blind man who acquires the  faculty  of
sight, or has it restored by an operation will at first be inclined to close





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his eyes when moving from place to place,  and declare that it is easier  to
walk by feeling than by sight; that is because he has not learned to use his
newly  acquired faculty.  Similarly the man whose spiritual vision has  been
newly  opened requires to be trained;  in fact,  he is in much greater  need
thereof  than  the  babe and the blind man already mentioned.   Denied  that
training,   he would be like a new-born babe placed in a nursery  where  the
walls  are  lined with mirrors of different convex and  concave  curvatures,
which  would  distort  its own shape and the forms of  its  attendants.   If
allowed to grow up in such surroundings and unable to see the real shapes of
itself  and its nurses it would naturaly believe that it saw many  different
and  distorted shapes,  when in reality the mirrors were responsible for the
illusion.   Were  the persons concerned in such an experiment and the  child
taken out of the illusory surroundings, it would be incapable of recognizing
them until the matter had been properly explained. There are similar dangers
of  illusion  to those who have developed spiritual sight,  until they  have
been trained to discount the refraction and view the LIFE which is permanent
and stable,  disregarding the FORM which is evanescent and changeable.   The
danger  of getting things out of focus always remains,  however,  and is  so
subtle that the writer feels an imperative duty to warn his readers to  take
all  statements  concerning the unseen world with the provverbial  grain  of
salt, for he has no intention to deceive. He is therefore inclined rather to






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magnify  than  to minimize his limitations and would advise the  student  to
accept  nothing from the author's pen without reasoning it out for  himself.
Thus,   if  he  is deceived,  he will be self-deceived  and  the  author  is
blameless.


                         THREE THEORIES OF LIFE


    Only  three  noteworthy theories have been offered as solutions  to  the
riddle  of existence and in order that we may be able to make the  important
choice  between them,  we will state briefly what they are and give some  of
the  arguments  which  lead us to advocate the Doctrine of  Rebirth  as  the
method  which favors soul-growth and the ultimate attainment of  perfection,
thus offering the best solution to the problem of life.

    1)  THE  MATERIALISTIC THEORY TEACHES THAT LIFE IS BUT A  SHORT  JOURNEY
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE;  THAT THERE IS NO HIGHER INTELLIGENCE  IN  THE
UNIVERSE THAN MAN; THAT HIS MIND IS PRODUCED BY CERTAIN CORRELATIONS OF MAT-
TER AND THAT THEREFORE DEATH AND DISSOLUTION OF THE  BODY  TERMINATE  EXIST-
ENCE.

    There was a day when the arguments of materialistic philosophers  seemed
convincing, but as science advances it discovers more and more that there is
a  spiritual  side to the universe.  That life and consciousness  may  exist
without  being  able to give us a sign,  has been amply proven  inthe  cases
where  a  person who was entranced and thought dead for  days  has  suddenly






[PAGE 22]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

awakened and told all that had taken place around  the  body.   Such eminent
scientist as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Camille Flammarion,  Lombroso,  and other
men of highest intelligence  and  scientific  training,  have  unequivocally
stated as the result of their investigations, that the intelligence which we
call man survives death of  the  body and lives on in our midst as independ-
ently of whether we see them or  not, as light and color exist all about the
blind man regardless of the fact  that  he  does  not  perceive them.  These
scientist have reached their conclusion after years  of  careful  investiga-
tion.  They have found that the so-called dead can, and  under  certain cir-
cumstances do, communicate with us in such a manner that mistake  is  out of
the question.  We maintain that their testimony is worth more than the argu-
ment of materialism to the contrary,  for it is based  on  years of  careful
investigation,  it is in harmony  with  such  well  established  laws as THE
LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MATTER and THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. Mind is
a form of energy,  and immune from destruction as claimed by the materialist.
Therefore we disbar the materialistic theory as unsound  because out of har-
mony with the laws of nataure and with well established facts.

    2) THE THEORY OF THEOLOGY CLAIMS THAT JUST PRIOR TO EACH BIRTH A SOUL IS
CREATED BY GOD AND ENTERS INTO THE WORLD WHERE IT LIVES FOR A  TIME  VARYING
FROM A FEW MINUTES TO A FEW SCORE YEARS; THAT AT THE END OF THIS SHORT  SPAN
OF LIFE IT RETURNS THROUGH THE PORTAL OF  DEATH  TO  THE  INVISIBLE  BEYOND,
WHERE IT REMAINS FOREVER IN A CONDITION OF HAPPINESS OR MISERY ACCORDING  TO
THE DEEDS DONE IN THE BODY DURING THE FEW YEARS IT LIVED HERE.






[PAGE 23]                               THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION


    Plato  insisted upon the necessity of a clear definition of terms  as  a
basis of argument and we contend that that is as necessary in discussing the
problem  of  life from the Bible  point  of  view as in arguments  from  the
platonic  standpoint.  According to the Bible man is a composite being  con-
sisting of body,  soul,  and Spirit.  The two latter are usually taken to be
synonymous but we in sist that they are not interchangeable and present  the
following to support our dictum.

    All things are in a state of vibration.  Vibrations from objects in  our
surroundings are constantly impinging upon us and carry to our senses a cog-
nition of the external world.  The vibrations in the ether act upon our eyes
so  that we see,  and vibrations in the air transmit sounds to the  ear.

    We  also  breathe  the air and ether which is thus charged with pictures
of  our surroundings  and  the  sounds in our environment,  so that by means
of  the breath we receive at each moment of our life,  INTERNALLY,  an accu-
rate picture of our external surroundings.

    That is a scientific proposition.  Science does not explain what becomes
of  these  vibrations,  however,  but according to the  Rosicrucian  Mystery
Teaching  they are transmitted to the blood,  and then etched upon a  little
atom in the heart as automatically as a moving picture is imprinted upon the
sensitized   film,   and   a   record   of   sounds   is   engraved upon the







[PAGE 24]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


phonographic  disc.  This breath-record starts with the first breath of  the
new-born babe and ends only with the last gasp of the dying man,  and "soul"
is a product of the breath. Genesis also shows the connection between breath
and  soul  in the words:  "And  the Lord God formed man of the dust  of  the
ground,  and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul"   (The same word: NEPHESH,  is  translated  breath  and soul in
the above quotation.)

    In the post-mortem existence the breath-record is disposed of.  The good
acts  of life produce feelings of pleasure and the intensity  of  attraction
incorporates them into the Spirit as soul-power.  THUS THE BREATH-RECORDS OF
OUR GOOD ACTS ARE THE SOUL WHICH IS SAVED,  for by the union with the Spirit
they  become immortal.  As they accumulate life after life,  we become  more
soulful and they are thus also the basis of soul-growth.

    The record of  our evil acts  is also derived from our breath in the mo-
ments  when  they  were committed.  The  pain and suffering they bring cause
the Spirit to expel  the breath-record  from  it being in Purgatory. As that
cannot exist independently of the  life-giving Spirit,  the breath-record of
our sins disintegrates upon expurgation, and thus we see that "the soul that
sinneth, it  shall  die." The memory of the suffering incidental to expurga-
tion, however, remains with the Spirit as  CONSCIENCE, to deter from repeti-
tion of the same evil in later lives.

     Thus both our good and evil acts are recorded through the agency of the






[PAGE 25]                               THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION


breath,  which  is  therefore  the basis of the soul,  but while the breath-
record of good acts amalgamates  with  the Spirit and lives on forever as an
immortal soul,  the breath-record of evil  deeds is disintegrated; it is the
soul that sinneth and dies.

    While the Bible teaches that immortality of the soul is conditional upon
well-doing,  it makes no distinction in respect of the Spirit. The statement
is  clear and emphatic when...."The silver cord be loosed...then  shall  the
dust  return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to  God  who
gave it."

    Thus  the  Bible  teaches  that the body is made  of  dust  and  returns
thereto, that a part of the soul generated in the breath is perishable,  but
that  the  Spirit survives bodily death and persists  forever.  Therefore  a
"lost  soul"  in  the  common acceptance of that term is not a Bible  teach-
ing,  for the Spirit is uncreate and eternal as God Himself,  and  therefore
the orthodox theory cannot be true.

    3) THE THEORY OF REBIRTH: WHICH TEACHES THAT EACH SPIRIT IS AN  INTEGRAL
PART OF GOD,  THAT  IT ENFOLDS ALL DIVINE POSSIBILITES AS THE ACORN  ENFOLDS
THE OAK;  THAT BY MEANS OF MANY EXISTENCES IN AN EARTHLY BODY  OF  GRADUALLY
IMPROVING TEXTURE ITS LATENT POWERS ARE BEING  SLOWLY  UNFOLDED  AND  BECOME
AVAILABLE AS DYNAMIC ENERGY;  THAT NONE CAN BE LOST BUT THAT ALL WILL  ULTI-
MATELY ATTAIN TO PERFECTION AND REUNION WITH GOD,  EACH BRINING WITH IT  THE
ACUMULATED EXPERIENCES WHICH ARE THE  FRUITAGE  OF  ITS  PILGRIMAGE  THROUGH
MATTER.






[PAGE 26]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

    Or, as we may poetically express it:

                WE ARE ETERNAL

On whistling stormcloud; on Zephyrus wing,
The Spirit-choir loud the world-anthems sing;
Hark! List to their voice: "We have passed through death's door,
There's no Death; rejoice! life lives evermore."

We are, have always been, will ever be.
We are a portion of Eternity,
Older than Creation, a part of One Great Whole,
Is each Individual and immortal Soul.

On Time's whirring loom our garments we've wrought,
Eternally weave we on network of Thought,
Our kin and our country, by Mind brought to birth,
Were patterned in heaven ere molded on earth.

We have shone in the jewel and danced on the wave,
We have sparkled in fire, defying the grave;
Through shapes everchanging, in size, kind and name
Our individual essence still is the same.

And when we have reached to the highest of all,
The gradations of growth our minds  shall recall,
So that link by link we may join them together
And trace step by step the way we reached thither.

Thus in time we shall know, if only we do
What lifts, ennobles, is right and true.
With kindness to all, with malice to none,
That in and through us God's will may be done.






[PAGE 27]                               THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION


    We venture to make the assertion that there  is but one sin:  IGNORANCE,
and but  one salvation:  APPLIED KNOWLEDGE.  Even the wisest among  us  know
but litte  of what may be learned,  however, and no one has attained to per-
fection,  or an attain in one single short life, but we note that everywhere
in nature slow persistent unfoldment makes for higher and higher development
of everything, and we call this process evolution.

    One  of the chief characteristics of evolution lies in the fact that  it
manifests in alternating periods of activity and rest. The busy summer, when
all things upon earth are exerting themselves to bring forth, is followed by
the flood-tide.  Thus, as all other things move in cycles, the life that ex-
presses  itself here upon earth for a few years is not to be thought  of  as
ended  when death has been reached,  but as surely as the Sun rises  in  the
morning after having set at night, will the life that was ended by the death
of  one body be taken up again in a new vehicle and in a different  environ-
ment.

    This earth may,  in fact, be likened to a school to which we return life
after life to learn new lessons,  as our children go to school day after day
to increase their knowledge. The child sleeps through the night which inter-
venes  between death and a new birth.  There are also different  classes  in
this  world school which correspond to the various grades from  kindergarten
to college. In the lower classes we find Spirits who have gone to the school
of life but a few times, they are savages now,  but in time they will become
wiser  and  better than we are,  and we ourselves shall progress  in  future
lives  to spiritual heights of which we cannot even conceive at the present.





[PAGE 28]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


If we apply ourselves to learn the lessons of life,  we shall of course  ad-
vance much faster in the school of life than if we dilly-dally and idle  our
time away.  This,  on the same principle which governs in one of our own in-
stitutions of learning.

    We  are not here then by the caprice of God.  He has not placed  one  in
clover and another in a desert,  nor has He given one a healthy body so that
he may live at ease from pain and sickness,  while He placed another in poor
circumstances with never a rest from pain.  But what we are,  we are on  ac-
count of our own diligence or negligence, and what we shall be in the future
depends  upon  what we will to be and not upon divine caprice  or  upon  in-
exorable fate.  No matter what the circumstances,  it lies with us to master
them,  or to be mastered as we will. Sir Edwin Arnold puts the teaching most
beautifully in his  "Light of Asia:"

The Books say well, my Brothers! each man's life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes,
The bygone right breeds bliss.

Each has such lordship as the loftiest ones,
Nay, for with powers around, above, below,
As with all flesh and whatsoever lives ACT maketh joy or woe.


Who toiled, a slave, may come anew a prince
For gentle worthiness and merit won,
Who ruled, a king, may wander earth in rags
For things done or undone.





[PAGE 29]                                THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION


Or, as Ella Wheeler Wilcox says:

"One ship sails East and another sails West
With the self same winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale,
Which determines the way they go.

As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life.
'Tis the act of the soul, which determines the goal
And not the calm or the strife."


    When we wish to engage someone to undertake a certain mission we  choose
some one whom we think particularly fitted to fulfill the requirements,  and
we must suppose that a Divine Being would use at least as much common  sense
and not choose anyone to do his errand who was not fitted therefor.  So when
we  read in the Bible that Samson was foreordained  to be the slayer of  the
Philistines  and that Jeremiah was predestined to be a prophet,  it  is  but
logical to suppose that they must have been particularly suited to such  oc-
cupations.  John the Baptist,  also,  was born to be a herald of the  coming
Saviour  and to preach the Kingdom of God which is to take the place of  the
kingdom of men.

    Had these people had no previous training, how could they have developed
such a fitness to fulfill their various missions,  and if they had been fit-
ted,  how  else could they have received their training if  not  in  earlier
lives?






[PAGE 30]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


   The Jews believed in the Doctrine of Rebirth or they would not have asked
John  the  Baptist if he were Elijah, as recorded in the  first  chapter  of
John. The Apostles of Christ also held the belief as we may see from the in-
cident  recorded in the Sixteenth chapter of Matthew where the Christ  asked
them  the  question:  "Whom do men say that I,  the Son  of  Man,  am?"  The
Apostles replied:  "Some  say that thou art John the Baptist;  some,  Elias;
and others Jeremias or one of the Prophets."   Upon this occasion the Christ
tacitly  assented to the teaching of Rebirth because He did not correct  the
disciples as would have been His plain duty in His capacity as teacher, when
the  pupils  entertained  a  mistaken idea.

   But to  Nicodemus  He  said  unequivocally: "Except a  man be born again,
he cannot see the  kingdom of God," and  in the eleventh chapter of Matthew,
the fourteenth  verse,  He said, speaking of John the Baptist: "THIS IS ELI-
JAH."  In  the  seventeenth chapter of Matthew,  the twelfth verse, He said:
"Elijah  is come already and they knew him not, but have done unto him what-
soever  they  listed."  "Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them
of John the Baptist."

    Thus  we maintain that the Doctrine of Rebirth offers the only  solution
to  the problem of life which is in harmony with the laws of  nature,  which
answers  the  ethical requirements of the case and permits us  to  love  God
without blinding our reason to the inequalities of life and the varying cir-
cumstances which give to a few the ease and comfort,  the health and wealth,
which are denied to the many.





[PAGE 31]                               THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION



    The  theory  of heredity advanced by materialists applies  only  to  the
FORM,  for  as a carpenter uses material from a certain pile  of  lumber  to
build a house in which he afterward lives,  so does the Spirit take the sub-
stance wherewith to build its house from the parents.  The carpenter  cannot
build  a  house of hard wood from spruce lumber,  and the Spirit  also  must
build a body which is like those from which the material was taken.  But the
theory  of heredity does not apply upon the moral plane,  for it is a  known
fact  that  in the rogues galleries of America and Europe there is  no  case
where  both  father and son are represented.  Thus the  sons  of  criminals,
though  they have the tendencies to crime, keep out of the clutches  of  the
law.  Neither will heredity hold good upon the plane of the  intellect,  for
many  cases  may be cited where a genius and an idiot spring from  the  same
stock. The great Cuvier, whose brain was of about the same weight, as Daniel
Webster's, and whose intellect  was as great, had five children who all died
of  paresis;  the brother of Alexander the Great was an idiot;  and thus  we
hold that another solution must be found to account for the facts of life.

    The Law of Rebirth coupled with its companion law, the Law of Causation,
does that. When we die after one life, we return to earth later,  under cir-
cumstances determined by the manner in which we lived before. The gambler is
drawn  to  pool  parlors and race tracks to associate with  others  of  like
taste,  the  musician is attracted to the concert halls  and  music  studios
where there are congenial Spirits,  and the returning Ego also carries  with
it  likes  and dislikes which cause it to seek parents among  the  class  to
which it belongs.






[PAGE 32]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


    But  then someone will point to cases where we find people  of  entirely
opposite tastes living lives of torture, because grouped in the same family,
and forced by circumstances to stay there contrary to their wills.  But that
does not vitiate the law in the slightest.  In each life we contact  certain
obligations which cannot then be fulfilled.  Perhaps we have run away from a
duty such as the care of an invalid relative and have met death without com-
ing  to a realization of our mistake. That relative upon the other hand  may
have  suffered  severely from our neglect, and have stored up  a  bitterness
against us before death terminates the suffering.  Death and the  subsequent
removal to another environment does not pay our debts in this life, any more
than  the removal from the city where we now live to another place will  pay
the  debts we have contracted prior to our removal.  It is  therefore  quite
possible  that  the two who have injured each other as described,  may  find
themselves members of the same family. Then,  whether they remember the past
grudge or not, the old enmity will assert itself and cause them to hate anew
until the consequent discomfort force them to tolerate each other,  and per-
haps later they may learn to love where they hated.

    The question also arises in the mind of inquirers:  If  we have been here
before why do we not remember?  And  the answer is that while most people are
not aware  of  how their previous existences were spent, there are others who






[PAGE 33]                               THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION


have very distinct recollection of previous lives.  A  friend of the  writer
for  instance,   when  living  in  France,   one  day  started  to  read  to
her son about a certain city where they were then going upon a bicycle tour,
and the boy exclaimed:  "You do not need to tell me about  that,  Mother.  I
know  that city.  I lived there and was killed!"  He  then commenced to  de-
scribe the city and also a certain bridge.  Later he took his mother to that
bridge and showed her the spot where he had met death centuries before.  An-
other friend travelling in Ireland saw a scene which she recognized, and she
also described to the party the scene around the bend of the road which  she
had never seen in this life,  so it must have been a memory from a  previous
life.  Numerous other instances could be given where such minor  flashes  of
memory reveal to us glimpses from a past life.  The verified case in which a
little three year old girl in Santa Barbara described her life and death has
been  given  in  THE  ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION.  It is perhaps the  most
conclusive  evidence  as it hinges on the veracity of a child too  young  to
have learned deception.

    This theory of life does not rest upon speculation,  however.  It is one
of the first facts of life demonstrated to the pupil of a Mystery School. He
is taught to watch a child in the act of dying, also, to watch it in the in-
visible world from day to day,  until it comes to a new birth a year or  two
later. Then he knows with absolute certainty that we return to Earth to reap
in a future life what we now sow.






[PAGE 34]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


    The reason for taking a child to watch in preference to an adult is that
the child is reborn very quickly,  for its short life on Earth has borne but
few  fruits and these are soon assimilated, while the adult who has lived  a
long life and had much experience remains in the invisible worlds for centu-
ries, so that the pupil could not watch him from death to rebirth. The cause
of infant mortality will be explained later; here we merely desire to empha-
size  the  fact that it is within the range of possibilities  of  every  one
without  exception to become able to know at first hand that which  is  here
taught.

    The average interval between two Earth-lives is about a thousand  years.
IIt is determined by the movement of the Sun known to  astronomers  as  PRE-
CESSION OF THE EQUINOX,  by  which the Sun moves through one of the signs of
the Zodiac in about 2,100 years.  During that time the conditions upon Earth
have  changed  so much that the Spirit will find  entirely  new  experiences
here, and therefore it returns.

    The  Great Leaders of evolution always obtain the maximum  benefit  from
each condition designed by them,  and as the experiences in the same  social
conditions are very different in the case of a man from what they are for  a
woman, the human Spirit takes birth twice during the 2,100 years measured by
the precession of the equinox,  as already explained:  it is born once as  a
man  and another time as a woman.  Such is the rule,  but it is  subject  to
whatever  modifications  may  be necessary to facilitate  reaping  what  the
Spirit has sown,  as required under the Law of Causation which works hand in






[PAGE 35]                               THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION


hand with the Law of Rebirth. Thus,  at  times  a  Spirit  may be brought to
birth long ere the thousand years have expired,  in order  to fulfill a cer-
tain mission,  or it may be detained in the invisible worlds  after the time
when it should have come to birth according  to the strict requirements of a
blind law.  The laws of nature  are not that, however. They are Great Intel-
ligences who always subordinate minor considerations  to  higher  ends,  and
under their beneficent guidance we  are constantly progressing  from life to
life under conditions exactly suited  to each individual, until  in  time we
shall attain to a higher evolution and become Supermen.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes has so beautifully voiced that aspiration and  its
consummation in the lines:

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




[PAGE 36]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


                    THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS

                           THE CHEMICAL REGION

    If  one who is capable of consciously using his spiritual body with  the
same  facility that we now use our physical vehicles should glide away  from
the Earth into interplanetary space, the Earth and the various other planets
of our solar system would appear to him or her to be composed of three kinds
of matter, roughly speaking. The densest matter, which is our visible Earth,
would  appear to him as being the center of the ball as the yolk is  in  the
center of an egg.  Around that nucleus he or she would observe a finer grade
of matter similarly disposed in relation to the central mass,  as the  white
of the egg is disposed outside the yolk.  Upon a little closer investigation
he  would  also discover that this second kind of  substance  permeates  the
solid  Earth to the very center,  even as the blood percolates  through  the
more solid parts of our flesh. Outside both of these mingling layers of mat-
ter he would observe a still finer,  third layer corresponding to the  shell
of the egg,  except that this third layer is the finest,  most subtle of the
three  grades of matter,  and that it interpenetrates both of the two  inner
layers.

    As  already said,  the central mass,  spiritually seen,  is our  visible
world,  composed of solids,  liquids, and gases.  They constitute the Earth,







[PAGE 37]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


its atmosphere,  and also the ether, of which physical science speaks  hypo-
thetically as permeating the atomic substance of all chemical elements.  The
second layer of matter is called the Desire World and the outermost layer is
called the World of Thought.

    A  little reflection upon the subject will make clear that just  such  a
constitution  is necessary to account for facts of life as we see them.  All
forms in the world about us are built from chemical substances: solids, liq-
uids,  and gases, but insofar that they do move, these forms obey a separate
and distinct impulse,  and when this impelling energy leaves,  the form  be-
comes inert.  The steam engine rotates under the impetus of an invisible gas
called steam. Before steam filled its cylinder, the engine stood still,  and
when the impelling force is shut off its motion again ceases. The dynamo ro-
tates under the still more subtle influence of an electric current which may
also  cause the click of a telegraph instrument or the ring of  an  electric
bell,  but the dynamo ceases its swift whirl and the persistent ring of  the
electric  bell becomes mute when the invisible electricity is switched  off.
The forms of the bird,  the animal, and the human being also cease their mo-
tion when the inner force which we call LIFE has winged its invisible way.

    All  forms are impelled into motion by desire:  the bird and the  animal
roam  land and air in their desire to secure food and shelter,  or  for  the
purpose of breeding. Man is also moved by these desires, but has in addition
other and higher incentives to spur him to effort;  among them is desire for





[PAGE 38]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


rapidity of motion which led him to construct the steam engine and other de-
vices  that move in obedience to HIS desire.

    If there were no iron in the mountains man could not build machines.  If
there were no clay in the  soil, the bony structure of the skeleton would be
an impossibility,  and if  there were no Physical World at all, with its so-
lids,  liquids,  and gases,  this dense  body  of ours could never have come
into existence.  Reasoning  along similar  lines it must be at once apparent
that if there were no Desire World composed  of desire-stuff, we should have
no way of forming feelings,  emotions, and desires. A planet composed of the
materials we perceive with our PHYSICAL eyes and  of  no  other  substances,
might be the home of plants which grow unconsciously, but have no desires to
cause them to move. The human and animal kingdoms, however, would be  impos-
sibilities.

    Furthermore,  there  is in the world a vast number of things,  from  the
simplest and most crude instruments,  to the most intricate and cunning  de-
vices which have been constructed by the hand of man.  These reveal the fact
of man's thought and ingenuity.  Thought must have a source as well as  FORM
and FEELING.  We saw that it was necessary to have the requisite material in
order  to build a steam engine or a body and we reasoned from the fact  that
in  order  to obtain material to express desire there must also be  a  world
composed of desire stuff.   Carrying our argument to its logical conclusion,





[PAGE 39]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


we  also  hold that unless a World of Thought provides a reservoir  of  mind
stuff upon which we may draw, it would be impossible for us to think and in-
vent the things which we see in even the lowest civilization.

    Thus  it will be clear that the division of a planet into worlds is  not
based  on fanciful metaphysical speculation, but is logically  necessary  in
the economy of nature.  Therefore it must be taken into consideration by any
one  who would study and aim to understand the inner nature of things.  When
we see the street cars moving along our streets,  it does not explain to say
that the motor is driven by electricity of so many amperes at so many volts.
These  names only add to our confusion until we have thoroughly studied  the
science of electricity; and then we shall find that the mystery deepens, for
while the street car belongs to the world of INERT FORM perceptible  to  our
vision,  the electric current which moves it is indigenous to the  realm  of
FORCE,  the invisible Desire World, and the thought which created and guides
it,  comes  from the still more subtle World of Thought which  is  the  home
world of the human Spirit, the Ego.

    It may be objected that this line of argument makes a simple matter  ex-
ceedingly intricate,  but a little reflection will soon show the fallacy  of
such a contention.  Viewed superficially any of the sciences seem  extremely
simple; anatomically we may divide the body into flesh and bone,  chemically
we may make the simple divisions between solid, liquid,  and gas,  but thor-
oughly to master the science of  anatomy  it  is necessary to spend years in






[PAGE 40]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


close  application  and learn to know all the little nerves,  the  ligaments
which  bind  articulations between various parts of the bony  structure,  to
study the several kinds of tissue and their disposition in our system  where
they form the bones,  muscles,  glands, etc., which in the aggregate we know
as the human body.  To understand properly the science of chemistry we  must
study  the valence of the atom which determines the power of combination  of
the various elements,  together with other niceties,  such as atomic weight,
density,  etc. New wonders are constantly opening up to the most experienced
chemist, who understands best the immensity of his or her chosen science.

    The youngest lawyer,  fresh from law school,  knows more about the  most
intricate cases,  in his or her own estimation, than the judges upon the Su-
preme Court bench who spend long hours, weeks and months, seriously deliber-
ating  over their decisions.  But those who,  without having studied,  think
they  understand and are fitted to discourse upon the greatest of  all  sci-
ences, the science of Life and Being, make a greater mistake. After years of
patient study,  of holy life spent in close application, a man is oftentimes
perplexed at the immensity of the subject he studies.  He finds it to be  so
vast  in  both  the  direction  of the  great  and  small  that  it  baffles
description,  that  language fails,  and that the tongue must  remain  mute.
Therefore we hold (and we speak from knowledge gained through years of close
study and investigation) that the finer distinctions which we have made, and
shall make,  are not at all arbitrary, but absolutely necessary as are divi-
sions and distinctions made in anatomy or chemistry.






[PAGE 41]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


    No  form  in the physical world has feeling in the true  sense  of  that
word.  It is the indwelling life which feels, as we may readily SEE from the
fact  that a body which responds to the lightest touch while  instinct  with
life,  exhibits no sensation whatever even when cut to pieces after the life
has fled.  Demonstrations have been made by scientists, particularly by Pro-
fessor Bose of Calcutta, to show that there is feeling in dead animal tissue
and  even  in tin and other metal, but we maintain that the  diagrams  which
seem  to support his contentions in reality demonstrate only a  response  to
impacts similar to the rebound of a rubber ball,  and that must not be  con-
fused with such feelings as LOVE, HATE, SYMPATHY and AVERSION.  Goethe also,
in his novel.  "Elective Affinities," (Wahlverwandtschaft),  brings out some
beautiful  illustrations  wherein  he makes it seem as if  atoms  loved  and
hated,  from  the fact that some elements combine readily while  other  sub-
stances refuse to amalgamate,  a phenomenon produced by the different  rates
of  speed  at which various elements vibrate and an unequal  inclination  of
their  axes.   Only where there is sentient life can there  be  feelings  of
pleasure and pain, sorrow or joy.


                          THE ETHERIC REGION


    In addition to the solids, liquids, and gases which compose the CHEMICAL






[PAGE 42]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


REGION of the Physical World there is also a finer grade of matter called e-
ther,  which permeates the atomic structure of the earth and its  atmosphere
substantially as science teaches. Scientists have never seen,  nor have they
weighed,  measured,  or analyzed this substance, but the infer that it  must
exist in order to account for transmission of light and various other pheno-
mena.  If it were possible for us to live in a room from which the  air  had
been exhausted,  we might speak at the top of our voices,  we might ring the
largest bell,  or we might even discharge a cannon close to our ear and ] we
should  hear no sound,  for air is the medium which transmits  sound  vibra-
tions to the tympanum of our ear, and that would be lacking. But if an elec-
tric light were lighted,  we should at once perceive its rays;  it would il-
lumine the room despite the lack of air. Hence there must be a substance ca-
pable of being set into vibration,  between the electric light and our eyes.
That medium scientists call ether,  but it so subtle that no instrument  has
been devised whereby it may be measured or analyzed,  and therefore the sci-
entists are without much information concerning it,  though forced to postu-
late its existence.

    We  do  not seek to belittle the achievements of modern  scientists.  We
have the greatest admiration for them and we entertain high expectations  of
what  ambitions they may yet realize,  but we perceive a limitation  in  the
fact that all discoveries of the past have been made  by  the  invention  of






[PAGE 43]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


wonderful instruments applied in a most ingenious manner to solve  seemingly
insoluble and baffling problems.  The strength of science lies vested in its
instruments,  for the scientist may say to anyone: "Go,  procure a number of
glasses ground in a certain manner, insert them in a tube,  direct that tube
toward  a certain point in the sky where now nothing appears to  your  naked
eye.  You will then see a beautiful star called Uranus."  If  his directions
are followed,  anyone is QUICKLY AND WITHOUT PREPARATION able to demonstrate
for  himself the truth of the scientist's assertion.  But while the  instru-
ments  of science are its tower of strength,  they also mark the end of  its
field  of investigation,  for it is impossible to contact the  spirit  world
with  PHYSICAL instruments;  so the research of occultists begins where  the
physical  scientist  finds his limit and is carried on by  SPIRITUAL  means.

   These investigations are as thorough and  as  reliable  as  researches by
material scientists, but not as easily demonstrable to the  general  public.
Spiritual  powers lie dormant within every human being,  and when  awakened,
they  compensate for both telescope and microscope,  they enable their  pos-
sessor to investigate, instanter, things beyond the veil of matter, but they
are  only developed by a patient application and continuance in  well  doing
extended over years,  and few are they who have faith to start upon the path
to attainment to perseverance to go through with the ordeal.  Therefore  the
occultist's assertions are not generally credited.

    We  can readily see that long probation must precede attainment,  for  a
person equipped with spiritual sight is able to penetrate walls of houses as






[PAGE 44]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


easily  as  we  walk through the atmosphere, able to read at  will  the  in-
nermost  thoughts of those about him,  and if not actuated by the most  pure
and unselfish motives,  would become a  scourge to humanity.  Therefore that
power is safeguarded as we would withhold the dynamite bomb from an  anarch-
ist and from the well-intentioned but ignorant person,  or,  as we  withhold
match and powder barrel from a child.

    In the hands of an experienced engineer the dynamite bomb may be used to
open a highway of commerce,  and an intelligent farmer may use gunpowder  to
good  account in clearing his field of tree-stumps,  but in the hands of  an
ill-intentioned criminal or ignorant child an explosive may wreck much  pro-
perty and end many lives. The force is the same,  but used differently,  ac-
cording to the ability or intention of the user, it may produce results of a
diametrically opposite nature. So it is also with spiritual powers, there is
a time-lock upon them,  as upon a bank safe, which keeps out until they have
earned the privilege and the time is ripe for its exercise.

    As already said, the ether is physical matter and responsive to the same
laws  which govern other physical substances upon this plane  of  existence.
Therefore it requires but a slight extension of PHYSICAL sight to see  ether
(which is disposed in four grades of density);  the blue haze seen in  moun-
tain  canyons is in fact ether of the kind known to occult investigators  as
CHEMICAL ETHER.  Many  people who see this ether unaware that they are  pos-
sessed of a faculty not enjoyed by all. Others, who have developed spiritual
sight are not endowed with etheric vision, a fact which seems an anomaly un-
til the subject of clairvoyance is thoroughly understood.







[PAGE 45]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


    The reason is,  that as ether is physical matter,  etheric sight depends
upon  the  sensitiveness of the optic nerve,  while spiritual sight  is  ac-
quired  by developing latent vibratory powers in two little organs  situated
in  the brain:  the pituitary body and the pineal gland.  Even  near-sighted
people may have etheric vision.  Though unable to read the print in a  book,
they may be able to "see through a wall," owing  to  the fact that their op-
tic nerve responds more rapidly to fine than to coarse vibrations.

    When anyone views an object with etheric sight he sees THROUGH that  ob-
ject  in a manner similar to the way an X-ray penetrates opaque  substances.
If  he looks at a sewing machine, he will perceive first,  an outer  casing;
then, the works within, and behind both,  the casing farthest away from him.

    If he has developed the grade of spiritual vision which opens the Desire
World to him and he looks at the same object, he will see it both inside and
out.  If he looks closely,  he will perceive every little atom spinning upon
its axis and no part or particle will be excluded from his perception.

  But if his spiritual sight has been developed in such a measure that he is
capable of viewing the sewing machine with the vision peculiar to the  World
of Thought,  he will behold a cavity where he had previously seen  the form.






[PAGE 46]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


    Things seen with etheric vision are very much alike in color.  They  are
nearly  reddish-blue,  purple or violet,  according to the  density  of  the
ether,  but when we view any object with the spiritual sight  pertaining  to
the Desire World, it scintillates and coruscates in a thousand ever changing
colors  so indescribably beautiful that they can only be compared to  living
fire.  The writer therefore calls this grade of vision COLOR SIGHT, but when
the  spiritual vision of the World of Thought is the medium  of  perception,
the  seer finds that in addition to still more beautiful colors,  there  is-
sues from the cavity described a constant flow of a certain harmonious TONE.
Thus  this world wherein we now consciously live and which we  perceive  the
world of FORM, the Desire World is particularly the world of COLOR,  and the
World of Thought is the realm of TONE.

    Because of the relative proximity or distance of these worlds, a statue,
a FORM  withstands the ravages of time for millenniums, but the COLORS  upon
a  painting fade in far shorter time, for they come from the  Desire  World;
and MUSIC, which is native to the world farthest removed from us,  the World
of Thought,  is like a will-o-the-wisp which none may catch or hold;  it  is
gone again as soon as it has made its appearance.  But there is in color and
music a compensation for this increasing evanescence.

    The  statue is cold and dead as the mineral of which it is composed  and
has attractions for but few though its FORM is a tangible reality.






[PAGE 47]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


    The forms upon a painting are illusory,  yet they express LIFE,  on  ac-
count  of the COLOR which has come from a region where nothing is inert  and
lifeless. Therefore the painting is enjoyed by many.

    Music is intangible and ephemeral,  but it comes from the home world  of
the  Spirit  and  though so fleeting it is recognized by  the  Spirit  as  a
SOUL-SPEECH fresh from the celestial realms, an echo from the home whence we
are  now exiled.  Therefore it touches a chord in our being,  regardless  of
whether we realize the true cause or not.

    Thus  we  see  that there are various grades of  spiritual  sight,  each
suited to the superphysical realm which it opens to our perception:  etheric
vision, color vision, and tonal vision.

    The occult investigator finds that ether is of four kinds,  or grades of
density:  the CHEMICAL ETHER,  the LIFE ETHER, the LIGHT ETHER,  and the RE-
FLECTING ETHER.

    The CHEMICAL ETHER is the avenue of expression for forces promoting  as-
similation, growth, and the maintenance of form.

    The LIFE ETHER is the vantage ground of forces active in propagation, or
the building of new forms.

    The LIGHT ETHER transmits the motive  power of the Sun along the various
nerves of living bodies and makes motion possible.

    The  REFLECTING ETHER receives an impression of all that is,  lives  and
moves.  It also records each change,  in a similar manner as the film upon a
moving picture machine.  In this record mediums and psychometrists may  read
the past,  upon the same principle as, under proper conditions,  moving pic-
tures are reproduced time and again.



[PAGE 48]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


    We have been speaking of ether as an avenue of FORCES, a word which con-
veys no meaning to the average mind, because force is invisible.  But to  an
occult investigator the forces are not merely names such as  steam,electric-
ity,  etc.  He finds them to be intelligent beings of varying  grades,  both
sub-  and superhuman.    What we call "laws of nature,"  are great  Intelli-
gences  which  guide more elemental beings in accordance with certain  rules
designed to further their evolution.

    In the Middle Ages,  when many people were still endowed with a  remnant
of NEGATIVE clairvoyance,  they spoke of gnomes, elves,  and fairies,  which
roamed  about the mountains and forests. These were the EARTH spirits.  They
also  told  of  the undines or WATER sprites,  which  inhabited  rivers  and
streams,  and of sylphs which were said to dwell in the mists above moat and
moor as air spirits.  But not much was said of the salamanders,  as they are
fire spirits, and therefore not so easily detected, or so readily accessible
to the majority of people.

    The old folk stories are now regarded as superstitions,  but as a matter
of fact,  one endowed with etheric vision may yet perceive the little gnomes
building  green chloryphyll into the leaves of plants and giving to  flowers
the multiplicity of delicate tints which delight our eyes.

    Scientists  have attempted time and again to offer an adequate  explana-
tion  of the phenomenon of wind and storm but have failed signally,  nor can







[PAGE 49]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


they  succeed  while  they seek a mechanical solution to what  is  really  a
manifestation of life. Could they see the hosts of sylphs winging their  way
hither  and  thither,  they would KNOW who and what is responsible  for  the
fickleness  of the wind;  could they watch a storm at sea from  the  etheric
viewpoint,  they would perceive that the saying   "the war of the  elements"
is not an empty phrase,  for the heaving sea is truly then a battlefield  of
sylphs and undines and the howling tempest is the war cry of spirits in  the
air.

    Also the salamanders are found everywhere and no fire is lighted without
their help.  However, they are active mostly underground,  being responsible
for explosions and volcanic eruptions.

    The  classes of beings which we have mentioned are still sub-human,  but
will all at some time reach a stage in evolution corresponding to the human,
though  under different circumstances from those under which we evolve.  But
at  present the wonderful Intelligences we speak of as the laws  of  nature,
marshal the armies of less evolved entities mentioned.

    To arrive at a better understanding of what these various beings are and
their relation to us, we may take an illustration: Let us suppose that a me-
chanic is making an engine, and meanwhile a dog is watching him. It SEES the
man at his labor, and how he uses various tools to shape his materials, also
how,  from the crude iron,  steel, brass, and other metals the engine slowly
take shape.  The dog is a being from a lower evolution and does not  compre-
hend  the purpose of the mechanic but it sees both the workman,  his  labor,
and the result thereof which manifests as an engine.







[PAGE 50]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


    Let  us  now suppose that the dog were able to see the  materials  which
slowly change their shape,  assemble,  and become an engine,  but that it is
unable  to perceive the workman and to see the work he does.  The dog  would
then  be in the same relation to the mechanic as we are to the great  Intel-
ligences we call laws of nature, and their assistants,  the nature  spirits,
for  we  behold the manifestations of their work as FORCE moving  matter  in
various ways but always under immutable conditions.

    In the ether we may also observe the Angels,  whose densest body is made
of that material, as our dense body is formed of gases, liquids, and solids.
These Beings are one step beyond the human stage,  as we are a degree in ad-
vance of the animal evolution.  We have never been animals like our  present
fauna,  however, but at a previous stage in the development of our planet we
had  an animal-like constitution.  Then the Angels were human,  though  they
have never possessed a dense body such as ours,  nor ever functioned in  any
material denser than ether.  At some time, in a future condition,  the Earth
will again become ethereal. Then man will be like the Angels. Therefore  the
Bible  tells  us  that man was made A LITTLE LOWER than the Angels. (Hebrews
2:7).

    As ether is the avenue of vital, creative forces, and as Angels are such
expert builders of ether,  we may readily understand that they are eminently







[PAGE 51]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS



fitted to be warders of the propagative forces in plant,  animal,  and  man.
All through the Bible we find them thus engaged:  Two ANGELS came to Abraham
and  announcd the birth of Isaac,  they promised a child to the man who  had
obeyed God.   Later these same Angeles destroyed Sodom for abuse of the cre-
ative force.   ANGELS foretold to the parents of Samuel and Samson the birth
of  these  giants  of brain and brawn.   To Elizabeth came  the  ANGEL  (not
Arch-angel) Gabriel and announced the birth of John;  later he appeard  also
to Mary with the message that she was chosen to bear Jesus.



                            THE DESIRE WORLD


    When  spiritual sight is developed so that it becomes possible to behold
the Desire World,  many wonders confront the newcomer,  for conditions there
are  so  widely different from what they are here that  a  description  must
sound quite as incredible as a fairy tale to anyone who has not himself seen
them.

    Many cannot believe that such a world exists,  and that other people can
see that which is invisible to them,  yet some people are blind to the beau-
ties of this world which we see.  A man who was born blind,  may say to  us:
"I know that this world exists.  I can hear, I can smell,  I can taste,  and
above  all I can feel,  but when you speak of light and of color,  they  are
non-existent to me.  You say that you SEE these things.  I cannot believe it
for I cannot SEE myself. You say that light and color are all about me,  but






[PAGE 52]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES



none of the senses at my command reveal them to me and I do not believe that
the  sense you call sight exists.  I think you suffer from  hallucinations."
We might sympathize very sincerely with the poor man who is thus  afflicted,
but his scepticisms, reasonings, objections, and sneers notwithstanding,  we
would be obliged to maintain that we perceive light and color.

    The man or woman whose spiritual sight has been awakened is in a similar
position with respect to those who do not perceive the Desire World of which
he  speaks.  If  the  blind  man  acquires  the faculty of sight by an oper-
ation, his eyes are opened and he will  be compelled to assert the existence
of light and color which he formerly denied, and when spiritual sight is ac-
quired by anyone, he also perceives for himself the facts related by others.
Neither is it an argument against the existence of spiritual realms that se-
ers  are  at variance in their descriptions of conditions in  the  invisible
world.  We need but to look into books on travel and compare stories brought
home by explorers of China,  India, or Africa;  we shall find them differing
widely  and often contradictory,  because each traveler saw things from  his
own  standpoint,  under other conditions than those met by his  brother  au-
thors. We maintain that the man who has read most widely these varying tales
concerning a certain country AND WRESTLED  WITH THE CONTRADICTIONS OF NARRA-
TORS,  will have a more comprehensive idea of the country or people of  whom
he has read, than the man who has read only one story assented to by all the
authors.  Similarly, the varying stories of visitors to the Desire World are
of value,  because giving a fuller view, and more rounded,  than if all  had
seen things from the same angle.






[PAGE 53]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


    In this world matter and force are widely different.  The chief  charac-
teristic  of matter here is INERTIA:  the tendency to remain at  rest  until
acted upon by a force which sets it in motion.  In the Desire World,  on the
contrary,  force and matter are almost indistinguishable one from the other.
We might almost describe desire-stuff as force-matter,  for it is in  inces-
sant motion,  responsive to the slightest FEELING of a vast multitude of be-
ings  which populate this wonderful world in nature.  We often speak of  the
"teeming  millions"  of  China  and India, even of our vast cities,  London,
New York,  Paris,  or Chicago;  we consider them overcrowded in the extreme,
yet  even the densest population of any spot on Earth is sparsely  inhabited
compared with the crowded conditions of the Desire World.  No  inconvenience
is felt by any of the denizens of that realm,  however,  for,  while in this
world two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time,  it is  dif-
ferent there.  A number of people and things may exist IN THE SAME PLACE  AT
THE SAME TIME and be engaged in most diverse activities,  regardless of what
others are doing,  such is the wonderful elasticity of desire-stuff.  As  an
illustration we may mention a case where the writer, while attending a reli-
gious service,  plainly perceived at the altar certain beings interested  in
furthering  that service and working to achieve that end.  At the same  time
there drifted through the room and the altar,  a table at which four persons
were  engaged in playing cards.  They were as oblivious to the existence  of
the beings engaged in furthering our religious service,  as though these did
not exist.





[PAGE 54]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


    The Desire World is the abode of those who have died, for some time sub-
sequent to that event,  and we may mention in the above connection that  the
so-called "dead" very  often  stay for a long while among their still living
friends.  Unseen  by their relatives they go about the  familiar  rooms.  At
first  they are often unaware of the condition mentioned:  THAT TWO  PERSONS
MAY BE IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME,  and when they seat themselves in
a  chair or at the table,  a living relative may take the supposedly  vacant
seat. The man we mistakenly call dead will at first hurry out of his seat to
escape being sat upon,  but he soon learns that being sat upon does not hurt
him in his altered condition, and that he may remain in his chair regardless
of the fact that his living relative is also sitting there.

    In  the lower regions of the Desire World the whole body of  each  being
may  be  seen,  but in the highest regions only the head  seems  to  remain.
Raphael,  who  like many other people in the Middle Ages was gifted  with  a
so-called  SECOND SIGHT,  pictured that condition for us in his Sistine  Ma-
donna,  now in the Dresden Art Gallery, where Madonna  and  the Christ-child
are represented as floating in  a golden atmosphere and surrounded by a host
of genie-heads: conditions which the occult investigator knows to be in har-
mony with actual facts.






[PAGE 55]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


    Among the entities who are, so to speak,   "native" to that realm of na-
ture,  none are perhaps better known to the Christian world than the Archan-
gels.  These exalted Beings were human at a time in the Earth's history when
we were yet plant-like.  Since then we have advanced two steps;  through the
animal  and to the human stage of development.  The present Archangels  have
also made two steps in progression;  one, in which they were similar to what
the  Angels are now,  and another step which made them what we call  Archan-
gels.

    Their  densest body,  though differing from ours in shape,  and made  of
desire-stuff, is used by them as a vehicle of consciousness in the same man-
ner that we use our body.  They are expert manipulators of forces in the De-
sire World, and these forces, as we shall see, move all the world to action.
Therefore the Archangels work with humanity INDUSTRIALLY and POLITICALLY  as
arbitrators of the destiny of peoples and nations. The Angels may be said to
be FAMILY SPIRITS,  whose mission is to unite a few Spirits as members of  a
family,  and cement them with ties of blood and love of kin, while the Arch-
angels may be called race and national spirits,  as they unite whole nations
by patriotism or love of home and country. They are responsible for the rise
and fall of nations, they give war or peace, victory or defeat, as it serves
the best interest of the people they rule.  This we may see,  for  instance,
from the book of Daniel, where the Archangel Michael is called the prince of
the children of Israel.  Another Archangel tells Daniel (in the tenth  chap-
ter)  that  he intends to fight the prince of Persia by means of the Greeks.





[PAGE 56]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


    There  are varying grades of intelligence among human beings;  some  are
qualified to hold lofty positions entirely beyond the ability of others.  So
it  is also among higher beings.  Not all Archangels are fitted to govern  a
nation and rule the destiny of a race, people, or tribe; some are not fitted
to rule human beings at all,  but as the animals also have a desire  nature,
these  lower  grades of Archangels govern the animals as Group  Spirits  and
evolve to higher capacity thereby.

    The work of the Race Spirit is readily observable in the people it  gov-
erns.   The lower in the scale of evolution the people, the more they show a
certain racial likeness.   That is due to the work of the Race Spirit.   One
national  Spirit is responsible for the swarthy complexion common  to  Ital-
ians, for instance, while another causes the Scandinavians to be blond.   In
the  more advanced types of humanity,  there is a wider divergence from  the
common type, due to the individualized Ego, which thus expresses in form and
feature  its  own  particular  idiosyncrasies.  Among  the  lower  types  of
humanity such as Mongolians, native African Negroes and South Sea Islanders,
the resemblance of individuals in each tribe makes it almost impossible  for
civilized Westerners to distinguish between them. Among  animals, where  the





[PAGE 57]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


separate Spirit is not individualized and self-conscious, the resemblance is
not only much more marked physically but extends even to traits and  charac-
teristics.  We may write the biography of a man, for the experiences of each
varies from that of others and his acts are different,  but we cannon  write
the  biography of an animal,  for members of each tribe all act alike  under
similar circumstances.  If we desire to know the facts about Edward VII,  it
would profit us nothing to study the life of the Prince-Consort, his father,
or of George V,  his son,  as both would be entirely different from  Edward.
In order to find out what manner of man he was,  we must study his own indi-
vidual life.   If, on the other hand, we wish to know the characteristics of
beavers,  we may observe any individual of the tribe, and when we have stud-
ied its idiosyncrasies,  we shall know the traits of the whole tribe of bea-
vers.  What we call "instinct" is in reality the dictates of "Group Spirits"
which govern separate individuals of its tribe telepathically, as it were.

    The  ancient Egyptians knew of these animal Group spirits  and  sketched
many  of them,  in a crude way, upon their temples and tombs.  Such  figures
with a human body and an animal head actually live in the Desire World. They
may be spoken to,  and will be found much more intelligent than the  average
human being.

    That statement brings up another peculiarity of conditions in the Desire
World in respect of language. Here in this world human speech is so diversi-
fied that there are countries where people who live only a few  miles  apart




[PAGE 58]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


speak a dialect so different that they understand each other with great dif-
ficulty,  and each nation has its own language that varies  altogether  from
the  speech of other peoples.
    In the lower regions of the  Desire  World, there  is the same diversity
of tongues as on  Earth,  and  the  so-called "dead"  of one  nation find it
impossible to converse with those who  lived in another country.  Hence lin-
guistic accomplishments are of great value to the Invisible Helpers, of whom
we shall hear later, as their sphere of usefulness is enormously extended by
that ability.

     Even  apart from differences of language our mode of speech is  exceed-
ingly productive of misunderstandings.  The same words often convey most op-
posite  ideas to different minds.    If we speak of a "body of  water,"  one
person may think we mean a lake of small dimensions, the thoughts of another
may  be  directed to the Great Lakes, and a third person's thoughts  may  be
turned  towards the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.    If we speak of a  "light,"
one may think of a gaslight,  another of an electric arc-lamp,  or if we say
"red,"  one  person  may think we mean a delicate shade of pink and  another
gets the idea of crimson. The misunderstandings of what words mean goes even
farther, as illustrated in the following.

    The writer once opened a reading room in a large city where he lectured,
and invited his audience to make use thereof.  Among those who availed them-
selves  of  the opportunity was a gentleman who had for many  years  been  a
veritable "metaphysical tramp,"  roaming from lecture  to  lecture,  hearing





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the  teachings of everybody and practicing nothing.  Like the  Athenians  on
Mars' Hill,   he was always looking for something "new," particularly in the
line of phenomena,  and his mind was in that seething chaotic state which is
one of the most prominent symptoms of "mental indigestion."

    Having attended a number of our lectures he knew from the program  that:
"The lecturer does not give readings or cast horoscopes FOR PAY."   But see-
ing on the door of the newly opened reading room,  the legend:   "Free Read-
ing Room,"   his erratic mind at once jumped to the conclusion that although
we were opposed to telling fortunes for pay,  we were now going to give free
readings  of the future in the Free Reading Room.  He was much  disappointed
that  we did not intend to tell fortunes,  either gratis or for a  consider-
ation,   and we changed our sign to  "Free Library"  in order to  obviate  a
repetition of the error.

    In the higher Regions of the Desire World the confusion of tongues gives
place to a universal mode of expression which absolutely prevents  misunder-
standings of our meaning.  There each of our thoughts takes a definite  form
and color perceptible to all,  and this thought-symbol emits a certain tone,
which  is not a word,  but it conveys our meaning to the one we  address  no
matter what language we spoke on earth.






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    To  arrive at an understanding of how such a universal language  becomes
possible  and is at once comprehended by all,  without preparation,  we  may
take as an illustration the manner in which a musician reads music. A German
or a Polish composer may write an opera. Each has his own peculiar terminol-
ogy and expresses it in his own language. When that opera is to be played by
an Italian bandmaster,  or by a Spanish or American musician, it need not be
translated; the notes and symbols upon the page are a universally understood
language of symbols which is intelligible to musicians of no matter what na-
tionality.  Similarly with figures, the German counts: ein, zwei, drei;  the
Frenchman says: un, deux, trois, and in English we use the words: one,  two,
three,  but the figures: 1,2,3, though differently spoken,  are intelligible
to all and mean the same. There is no possibility of misunderstanding in the
cases  of either music or figures.  Thus it is also with the universal  lan-
guage peculiar to the higher regions of the Desire World and the still  more
subtle realms in nature, it is intelligible to all, an exact mode of expres-
sion.

    Returning  to our description of the entities commonly met with  in  the
lower  Desire  World,  we may note that other systems of religion  than  the
EGYPTIAN,  already mentioned, has spoken of various classes of beings native
to  these realms.  The Zoroastrian religion,  for instance,  mentions  SEVEN
AMSHASPANDS  and  the IZZARDS as having dominion over certain  days  in  the
month and certain months in the year. The Christian religion speaks of Seven
Spirits before the Throne,  which  are  the  same beings the Persians called





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Amshaspands.  Each of them rules over two months in the year while the  sev-
enth:  Michael,  the highest, is their leader, for he is ambassador from the
Sun to the Earth; the others are ambassadors from the planets.  The Catholic
religion  with  its abundant occult information takes most notice  of  these
"star-angels"  and  knows  considerable about their influence upon  the  af-
fairs of the earth.

    The Amshaspands, however, do not inhabit the lower regions of the Desire
World but influence the Izzards.  According to the old Persian legend  these
beings are divisible into two groups: one of twenty-eight classes,  and  the
other of three classes.  Each of these classes has dominion over,  or  takes
the  lead  of all the other classes on one certain day of  the  month.  They
regulate the weather conditions on that day and work with animal and man  in
particular.  At least the twenty-eight classes do that,  the other group  of
three  classes  has  nothing  to do with animals,  because  they  have  only
twenty-eight  pairs  of spinal nerves, while human beings  have  thirty-one.
Thus animals are attuned to the lunar month of twenty-eight days,  while man
is correlated to the solar month of thirty or thirty-one days.  The  ancient
Persians were astronomers but not physiologists; they had no means of  know-
ing  the  different  nervous constitution of animal and man,  but  they  saw
clairvoyantly these superphysical beings; they noted and recorded their work
with animal and men,  and our own anatomical investigations may show us  the
reason  for these divisions of the classes of Izzards recorded in  that  an-
cient system of philosophy.





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    Still  another class of beings should be mentioned:  those who have  en-
tered the Desire World through the gate of death and are now hidden from our
physical vision.  These so-called "dead"  are  in  fact much more alive than
any of us,  who are tied to a dense body and subject to all its limitations,
who  are forced slowly to drag this clog along with us at the rate of a  few
miles an hour,  who must expend such an enormous amount of energy upon  pro-
pelling that vehicle that we are easily and quickly tired,  even when in the
best of health, and who are often confined to a bed, sometimes for years, by
the indisposition of this heavy mortal coil. But when that is once shed  and
the  freed Spirit can again function in its spiritual body,  sickness is  an
unknown condition,  and distance is annihilated, or at least practically so,
for though it was necessary for the Saviour to liken the freed Spirit to the
wind which blows where it listeth,  that simile gives but a poor description
of what actually takes place in soul flights. Time is non-existent there, as
we shall presently explain,  so the writer has never been able to time  him-
self,  but has on several occasions timed others when he was in  the  physi-
cal  body and then speeding through space upon a certain  errand.  Distances
such  as from the Pacific Coast to Europe,  the delivery of a short  message
there and the return to the body has been accomplished in slightly less than
one minute. Therefore our assertion, that those whom we call dead are in re-
ality much more alive than we, is well founded in facts.






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    We  spoke of the dense body in which we now live,   as  a "clog"  and  a
"fetter."  It must not be inferred,  however,  that  we sympathize with  the
attitude of certain people who,  when they have learned with what ease soul-
flights are accomplished,  go about bemoaning the fact that they are now im-
prisoned.  They are constantly thinking of, and longing for,  the  day  when
they  shall be able to leave this mortal coil behind and fly away  in  their
spiritual body.  Such an attitude of mind is decidedly mistaken;  the  great
and  wise Beings who are invisible leaders of our evolution have not  placed
us  here to no purpose.  Valuable lessons are to be learned in this  visible
world wherein we dwell, lessons that cannot be learned in any other realm of
nature,  and the very conditions of density and inertia whereof such  people
complain,  are factors which make it possible to acquire the knowledge  this
world  is designed to give.  This fact was so amply illustrated in a  recent
experience of the writer:

    A  friend had been studying occultism for a number of years but had  not
studied  astrology.  Last year she became aroused to the importance of  this
branch of study as a key to self-knowledge and a means of understanding  the
natures  of others,  also of developing the compassion for their errors,  so
necessary in the cultivation of love for one's neighbor. Love for our neigh-
bor the Saviour enjoined upon us as the Supreme Commandment,  which  is  the






[PAGE 64]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


fulfillment of all laws, and as astrology teaches us to BEAR and FORBEAR, it
helps  as  nothing else can in the development of this supreme  virtue.  She
therefore  joined one of the classes started in Los Angeles by  the  writer,
but a sudden illness quickly ended in death and thus terminated her study of
the subject in the physical body, here it was well begun.

    Upon one of many occasions when she visited the writer subsequent to her
release from the body,  she deplored the fact that it seemed so difficult to
make headway in her study of astrology.  The writer advised continued atten-
dance at the classes,  and suggested that she could surely  get someone  "on
the other side" to help her study.

    At  this she exclaimed impatiently:  "Oh,  yes!  Of course I attend  the
classes. I have done so right along; I have also found a friend who helps me
here.  But you cannot imagine how difficult it is to concentrate  here  upon
mathematical  calculations and the judgment of a horoscope or in  fact  upon
any  subject here,  where every little thought-current takes you miles  away
from  your study.  I used to think it difficult to concentrate when I had  a
physical body,  but it is not a circumstance to the obstacles which face the
student here."

    The physical body was an anchor to her, and it is that to all of us. Be-
ing dense,  it is also to a great extent impervious to disturbing influences
from which the more subtle spiritual bodies do not shield us.  It enables us
to bring our ideas to a logical conclusion with far less effort  at  concen-





[PAGE 65]                               THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLDS


tration  than is necessary in that realm where all is in such incessant  and
turbulent  motion.  Thus we are gradually developing the faculty of  holding
our thoughts to a center by existence in this world, and we should value our
opportunities  here,  rather than deplore the limitations which help in  one
direction more than they fetter in another. In fact, we should never deplore
any condition,  each has its lesson.  If we try to learn what that lesson is
and  to assimilate the experience which may be extracted therefrom,  we  are
wiser than those who waste time in vain regrets.

    We  said  there  is no time in the Desire World,  and  the  reader  will
readily  understand that such must be the case from the fact,  already  men-
tioned, that nothing there is opaque.

    In this world the rotation of the opaque earth upon its axis is  respon-
sible for the alternating conditions of day and night.  We call it DAY  when
the  spot where we live is turned towards the Sun and its rays illumine  our
environment,  but when our home is turned away from the Sun and its rays ob-
structed by the opaque earth we term the resulting darkness NIGHT.  The pas-
sage  of the earth in its orbit around the Sun produces the seasons and  the
year,  which are our divisions of time. But in the Desire World where all is
light there is but one long day. The Spirit is not there fettered by a heavy
physical  body,  so  it  does not need  sleep  and  existence  is  unbroken.
Spiritual  substances are not subject to contraction and expansion  such  as
arise  here  from  heat  and  cold,   hence   summer  and  winter  are  also





[PAGE 66]                                          THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES


non-existent. Thus there is nothing to differentiate one moment from another
in respect of the conditions of light and darkness, summer and winter, which
mark time for us.   Therefore,   while the so-called "dead"  may have a very
accurate  memory  of time as regards the life they lived here in  the  body,
they are usually unable to tell anything about the chronological relation of
events  which have happened to them in the Desire World,  and it is  a  very
common thing to find that they do not even know how many years have  elapsed
since  they passed out from this plane of existence.  Only students  of  the
stellar  science are able to calculate the passage of time after  their  de-
mise.

      When the occult investigator wishes to study an event in the past his-
tory of man,  he may most readily call up the picture from THE MEMORY OF NA-
TURE,  but if he desires to fix the time of the incident, he will be obliged
to count backwards by the motion of the heavenly bodies. For that purpose he
generally uses the measure provided by the Sun's precession:  each year  the
Sun  crosses the Earth's equator about the twenty-first of March.  Then  day
and night are of even length,  therefore this is called the vernal  equinox.
But on account of a certain wobbling motion (nutation) of the Earth's  axis,
the Sun does not cross over at the same place in the zodiac.  It reaches the
equator a little too early,  it PRECEDES, year by year it moves BACKWARDS  a
little. At the time of the birth of Christ, for instance, the vernal equinox





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was in about seven degrees of the zodiacal sign Aries.  During the two thou-
sand  years which have intervened between that event and the  present  time,
the Sun has moved BACKWARDS about twenty-seven degrees, so that it is now in
about ten degrees of the sign Pisces.  It moves around the circle of the zo-
diac in about 25,868 years. The occult investigator may therefore count back
the number of signs,  or whole circles,  which the Sun has PRECEDED  between
the present day and the time of the event he is investigating.  Thus he  has
by the use of the heavenly time keepers an approximately correct measure  of
time even though he is in the Desire World,  and that is another reason  for
studying the stellar science.


                          THE WORLD OF THOUGHT


    When we have attained the spiritual development necessary consciously to
enter the World of Thought and leave the Desire World, which is the realm of
light and color,   we pass through a condition which the occult investigator
calls The Great Silence.

    As previously stated, the higher regions of the Desire World exhibit the
marked peculiarity of blending form and sound,   but when one passes through
the Great Silence,   all the world seems to disappear and the Spirit has the
feeling  of  floating  in  an ocean of intense light,   utterly alone,   yet
absolutely fearless, because imbued with a sense of its impregnable  securi-
ty, no longer subject to form or sound,  past or future;  all is one eternal
NOW.


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