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Title: The Rosicrucian Mysteries

Author: Max Heindel

Release Date: August 30, 2009 [Ebook #29855]

Language: English

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***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES***





                                   The

                          Rosicrucian Mysteries

                       An Elementary Exposition of

                          Their Secret Teachings

                                    By

                               Max Heindel

Author of: The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception, The Rosicrucian Philosophy in
  Questions and Answers, The Rosicrucian Interpretation of Christianity,
                      Rays from the Rose Cross, etc.

                              Third Edition

                          Rosicrucian Fellowship

                          Oceanside, California

                                  London

                     L. N. Fowler, 7 Imperial Arcade

                          Ludgate Circus. E. C.





CONTENTS


Chapter I. The Order of Rosicrucians and the Rosicrucian Fellowship
Chapter II. The Problem of Life and Its Solution
Chapter III. The Visible and the Invisible World
Chapter IV. The Constitution of Man
Chapter V. Life and Death
Mt. Ecclesia
Index






CHAPTER I. THE ORDER OF ROSICRUCIANS AND THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP


Our Message And Mission

_A Sane Mind_

_A Soft Heart_

_A Sound Body_

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

For reasons to be given later these teachings advocate the dualistic view;
they hold that man is a spirit enfolding all the powers of God as the seed
enfolds the plant, and that these powers are being slowly unfolded by a
series of existences in a gradually improving earthy body; also that this
process of development has been performed under the guidance of exalted
beings who are yet ordering our steps, though in a decreasing measure, as
we gradually acquire intellect and will. These exalted Beings, though
unseen to the physical eyes, are nevertheless potent factors in all
affairs of life, and give to the various groups of humanity lessons which
will most efficiently promote the growth of their spiritual powers. In
fact, the earth may be likened to a vast training school in which there
are pupils of varying age and ability as we find it in one of our own
schools. There are the savages, living and worshipping under most
primitive conditions, seeing in stick or stone a God. Then, as man
progresses onwards and upwards in the scale of civilization, we find a
higher and higher conception of Deity, which has flowered here in our
Western World in the beautiful Christian religion that now furnishes our
spiritual inspiration and incentive to improve.

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

When we study the history of the ancient nations we shall find that at
about six hundred years B. C. a great spiritual wave had its inception on
the Eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean where the great Confucian Religion
accelerated the progress of the Chinese nation, then also the Religion of
the Buddha commenced to win its millions of adherents in India, and still
further West we have the lofty philosophy of Pythagoras. Each system was
suited to the needs of the particular people to whom it was sent. Then
came the period of the Sceptics, in Greece, and later, traveling westward
the same spiritual wave is manifested as the Christian religion of the
so-called "Dark Ages" when the dogma of a dominant church compelled belief
from the whole of Western Europe.

It is a law in the universe that a wave of spiritual awakening is always
followed by a period of doubting materialism, each phase is necessary in
order that the spirit may receive equal development of heart and intellect
without being carried too far in either direction. The Great Beings
aforementioned, Who care for our progress, always take steps to safeguard
humanity against that danger, and when they foresaw the wave of
materialism which commenced in the sixteenth century with the birth of our
modern Science, they took steps to protect the West as they had formerly
safeguarded the East against the Sceptics who were held in check by the
Mystery schools.

In the thirteenth century there appeared in central Europe a great
spiritual teacher whose symbolical name was

Christian Rosenkreuz.
or
Christian Rose Cross.

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

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

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

Let not the reader imagine that this initiation makes the pupil a
Rosicrucian, it does not, any more than admission to a High School makes a
boy a member of the faculty. Nor does he become a Rosicrucian even after
having passed through all the nine degrees of this or any other Mystery
School. The Rosicrucians are Hierophants of the lesser Mysteries, and
beyond them there are still schools wherein Greater Mysteries are taught.
Those who have advanced through the lesser Mysteries and have become
pupils of the Greater Mysteries are called Adepts, but even they have not
reached the exalted standpoint of the twelve Brothers of the Rosicrucian
Order or the Hierophants of any other lesser Mystery School any more than
the freshman at college has attained to the knowledge and position of a
teacher in the High school from which he has just graduated.

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

In the centuries that have gone by since the Rosicrucian Order was first
formed they have worked quietly and secretly, aiming to mould the thought
of Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon,
Shakespeare, Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical
activities of the day are at their lowest ebb, and the spiritual impulse
at its highest flood tide, they have sent out from their temple
soul-stirring vibrations to counteract materialism and to further the
development of soul powers. To their activities we owe the gradual
spiritualization of our once so materialistic science.

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

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

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

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

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

THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP

For the purpose of promulgating the Rosicrucian teachings in the Western
World, the Rosicrucian Fellowship was founded in 1909. It is the herald of
the Aquarian Age, when the Sun by its precessional passage through the
constellation Aquarius will bring out all the intellectual and spiritual
potencies in man which are symbolized by that sign. As heat from a fire
warms all objects within the sphere of its radiations, so also the
Aquarian ray will raise the earth's vibrations to a pitch we are as yet
unable to comprehend, though we have demonstrations of the _material_
workings of this force in the inventions which have revolutionized life
within the memory of the present generation. We have wondered at the
X-ray, which sees through the human body, but each one has a sense latent
which when evolved will enable him to see through any number of bodies or
to any distance. We marvel at the telephone conversations across the
continent of America, but each has within a latent sense of speech and
hearing that is far more acute; we are surprised at the exploits of ships
under sea and in the sky, but we are all capable of passage under water or
through the sky; nay, more, we may pass unscathed through the solid rock
and the raging fire, if we know how, and lightning itself is slow compared
to the speed with which we may travel. This sounds like a fairy tale
today, as did Jules Verne's stories a generation ago, but the Aquarian Age
will witness the realization of these dreams, and ever so much more that
we still do not even dream of. Such faculties will then be the possessions
of large numbers of people who will have gradually evolved them as
previously the ability to walk, speak, hear, and see, were developed.

Therein lies a great danger, for, obviously, anyone endowed with such
faculties may use them to the greatest detriment of the world at large,
unless restrained by a spirit of unselfishness and an all-embracing
altruism. Therefore religion is needed today as never before, to foster
love and fellow-feeling among humanity so that it may be prepared to use
the great gifts in store for it wisely and well. This need of religion is
specially felt in a certain class where the ether is more loosely knit to
the physical atoms than in the majority, and on that account they are now
beginning to sense the Aquarian vibrations.

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

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

Certain dangers confront each of the two groups. If the occultist obtains
illumination and evolves within himself the latent spiritual faculties, he
may use them for the furtherance of his personal objects, to the great
detriment of his fellow-men. That is black magic, and the punishment which
it _automatically_ calls down upon the head of the perpetrator is so awful
that it is best to draw the veil over it. The mystic may also err because
of ignorance, and fall into the meshes of nature's law, but being actuated
by love, his mistakes will never be very serious, and as he grows in grace
the soundless voice within his heart will speak more distinctly to teach
him the way.

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

_Note_:--

_Pages 19 to 26 inclusive, describing Mt. Ecclesia, have been transferred
to the back of the book._ (Transcriber's Note: They are pages 191 through
200.)





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 have 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.

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 once 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 "Oh death where is thy sting, oh 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
pictured 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 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 Aristotle, one pointing upwards, the other towards the earth, each
looking the other in the face, mutely, but with deeply concentrated will.
Each seeking to convince the other that his attitude is right for each
bears the conviction 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 existed 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 remain 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 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
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 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 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 naturally believe that
it saw many different and distorted shapes where 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 to 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 proverbial grain of salt,
for he has no intention to deceive. He is therefore inclined rather to
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 the reader 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
matter and that therefore death, and dissolution of the body terminate
existence._

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 in the cases
where a person who was entranced and thought dead for days has suddenly
awakened and told all that had taken place around the body. Such eminent
scientists 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 independently
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
scientists have reached their conclusion after years of careful
investigation. They have found that the so-called dead can, and under
certain circumstances 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 argument of materialism to the contrary, for it is based
upon 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 harmony with the laws of
nature 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 of 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_.

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
consisting of body, soul and spirit. The two latter are usually taken to
be synonymous, but we insist 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
cognition 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 ether which is 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 accurate
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 engraven upon the
phonographic disc. This breath-record starts with the first breath of the
newborn 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 soulgrowth.

The record of our evil acts is also derived from our breath in the moments
when they were committed. The pain and suffering they bring cause the
spirit to expel the breath-record from its 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
expurgation however, remains with the spirit as _conscience_, to deter
from repetition of the same evil in later lives.

Thus both our good and evil acts are recorded through the agency of the
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 that 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 teaching, for
the spirit is uncreate and eternal as God Himself, and therefore the
orthodox theory cannot be true.

3) THE THEORY OF REBIRTHS _which teaches that each spirit is an integral
part of God, that it enfolds all divine possibilities as the acorn enfolds
the oak; that by means of many existences in an earthy 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 ultimately attain to perfection and reunion with God, each bringing
with it the accumulated experience which is the fruitage of its pilgrimage
through matter._

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! Lis't 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.


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 little of what may be learned, however, and no one has attained to
perfection, or can attain in one single short life, but we note that
everywhere in nature slow persistent unfoldment makes for higher and
higher development of every thing 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 rest and inactivity of winter. The busy day alternates
with the quiet of night. The ebb of the ocean is succeeded by the
flood-tide. Thus, as all other things move in cycles, the life that
expresses 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
environment.

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
intervenes between two days at school and the spirit also has its rest
from active life 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. If we apply ourselves to learn the lessons of
life, we shall of course advance 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 institutions 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 account 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
inexorable 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."


Or, as an unknown poet 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 go 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 occupation. John the Baptist also, was born to be a herald of the
coming Savior 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
fitted, how else could they have received their training if not in earlier
lives?

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
incident 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
Elijah_," in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew, the twelfth verse, He
said: "Elijah has come already and they knew him not, but have done to him
whatsoever 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
circumstances which give to a few the ease and comfort, the health and
wealth, which are denied to the many.

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 afterwards lives, so does the spirit take the
substance 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 notorious 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
circumstances 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, by congenial spirits, and the returning Ego also carries with it
its likes and dislikes which cause it to seek parents among the class to
which it belongs.

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
contract 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 coming 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 forces
them to tolerate each other, and perhaps 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 have a very distinct recollection of previous lives. A friend
of the writer's 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 describe 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. Another 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
invisible 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.

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 centuries, 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 emphasize 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. It
is determined by the movement of the sun known to astronomers as
_precession of the equinox_, by which the sun moves through one of the
signs of the Zodiac in about 2100 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 2100 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 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
certain 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 Intelligences 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 Oh! 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 thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."





CHAPTER III. THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLD


_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 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 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 matter he would observe a still finer, third layer corresponding
to the shell of the egg, except that this third layer is the finest most
subtile of the three grades of matter, and that it inter-penetrates 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, its
atmosphere, and also the ether, of which physical science speaks
hypothetically 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,
liquids and gases, but in so far that they do move, these forms obey a
separate and distinct impulse, and when this impelling energy leaves, the
form becomes 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 rotates under the still more subtile 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 form of the bird, the animal and the
human being also cease their motion 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 rapidity of motion which led him to construct the steam engine
and other devices 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
solids, 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 impossibilities.

Furthermore, there is in the world a vast number of things, from the
simplest and most crude instruments, to the most intricate and cunning
devices 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, 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 invent 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 subtile
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
exceedingly 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 to thoroughly master the science of anatomy it is necessary to spend
years in 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 properly understand 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
chosen science.

The youngest lawyer, fresh from law school knows more about the most
intricate cases, in his own estimation, than the judges upon the Supreme
Court bench who spend long hours, weeks and months, seriously deliberating
over their decisions. But those who, without having studied, think they
understand and are fitted to discourse upon the greatest of all sciences,
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 divisions and distinctions made in anatomy or chemistry.

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 responded to the slightest 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 Professor 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 confused 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 substances 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
Region_ of the Physical World there is also a finer grade of matter called
Ether, 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 they infer
that it must exist in order to account for transmission of light and
various other phenomena. 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 vibrations to the tympanum of our ear, and that would be
lacking. But if an electric light were lighted, we should at once perceive
its rays; it would illumine the room despite the lack of air. Hence there
must be a substance, capable of being set into vibration, between the
electric light and our eyes. That medium scientists call ether, but it is
so subtile that no instrument has been devised whereby it may be measured
or analyzed and therefore the scientists are without much information
concerning it, though forced to postulate 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
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 instruments 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 are
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
possessor 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 or 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 easily as we walk through the atmosphere, able to read at will the
innermost thoughts of those about him; if not actuated by the most pure
and unselfish motives, he would be a scourge to humanity. Therefore that
power is safeguarded as we would withhold the dynamite bomb from an
anarchist 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
property and end many lives. The force is the same, but used differently,
according 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 all
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 mountain canyons is in fact ether of the kind known to occult
investigators as "_chemical ether_." Many people who see this ether, are
unaware that they are possessed 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 until the subject of clairvoyance is
thoroughly understood.

The reason is, that as ether is physical matter, etheric sight depends
upon the sensitiveness of the optic nerve while spiritual sight is
acquired by developing latent vibratory powers in two little organs
situated in the brain: the Pituitary body and the Pineal gland.
Nearsighted people even, 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 optic nerve responds more rapidly to fine than to
coarse vibrations.

When anyone views an object with etheric sight he sees _through_ that
object 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 furthest
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.

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, and 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 issues from the cavity described a constant flow
of a certain harmonious _tone_. Thus this world wherein we now consciously
live and which we perceive by means of our physical senses is preeminently
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 furthest 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.

The forms upon a painting are illusory yet they express _life_, on account
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, and therefore it touches a cord 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,
The Reflecting Ether.

_The Chemical Ether_ is the avenue of expression for forces promoting
assimilation, 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
pictures are reproduced time and again.

We have been speaking of ether as an avenue of _forces_, a word which
conveys no meaning to the average mind, because force is invisible. But to
an occult investigator the forces are not merely names such as steam,
electricity, etc. He finds them to be intelligent beings of varying
grades, both sub and superhuman. What we call "laws of nature," are great
intelligences 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 and Elves or Fairies, which
roamed about the mountains and forests. These were the _earth_ spirits.
They also told of the Undine or _water_-sprite, which inhabited rivers and
streams, 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 chlorophyll 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 explanation
of the phenomenon of wind and storm but have failed signally, nor can 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 view-point 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, but they are mostly active underground. They are 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, marshall 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
mechanic 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 takes shape. The dog is a being from a lower evolution
and does not comprehend the purpose of the mechanic but it _sees_ both the
workman, his labor and the result thereof, which manifests as an engine.

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
intelligences 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
advance 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
while_ lower than the angels (Paul's letter to the Hebrews, second
chapter, seventh verse; _see marginal reading_.)

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 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 announced the birth of Isaac, they _promised_ a child
to the man who had obeyed God. Later _these same angels_ destroyed Sodom
for _abuse of the creative 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 archangel) Gabriel and announced the birth
of John, later he appeared 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 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 even 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 beauties 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 nonexistent 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 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 scepticism, reasonings and objections and
sneers notwithstanding we would be obliged to maintain that we perceive
light and color.

The man 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 operation,
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
acquired by anyone, he also perceives for himself the facts related by
others. Neither is it an argument against the existence of spiritual
realms that seers 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 and 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 authors, and we maintain that the man who has read most
widely these varying tales concerning a certain Country _and wrestled with
the contradictions of narrators_, will have a more comprehensive idea of
the country or people of whom he has read, than the man who has only read
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.

In this world matter and force are widely different. The chief
characteristic 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 incessant motion, responsive to the slightest _feeling_ of a vast
multitude of beings 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 upon 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 different 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 religious 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.

The Desire World is the abode of those who have died, for some time
subsequent 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
Madonna, 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 harmony with actual facts.

Among the entities who are, so to speak, "_native_" to that realm of
nature, none are perhaps better known to the Christian world than the
Archangels. 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 Archangels.

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
manner that we use our body. They are expert manipulators of forces in the
Desire 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 Archangels 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 interests of the people
they rule. This we may see, for instance, from the book of Daniel, where
the Archangel Michael (not to be confounded with the Michael, who is
ambassador from the sun to the earth), is called the prince of the
children of Israel. Another Archangel tells Daniel, (in the tenth chapter)
that he intends to fight the prince of Persia by means of the Greeks.

There are varying grades of intelligence among human beings, some are
qualified to hold high and 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 spirits is readily observable in the people it
governs. 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 Italians, 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 separate spirit is not individualized and
self-conscious, the resemblance is not only much more marked physically
but extends even to traits and characteristics. 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 cannot 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 individual 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 studied its idiosyncrasies,
we shall know the traits of the whole tribe of beavers. 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
diversified that there are countries where people who live only a few
miles apart speak a dialect so different that they understand each other
with great difficulty, 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
linguistic 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 difference of language our mode of speech is exceedingly
productive of misunderstandings. The same words often convey most opposite
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 American Lakes and a third person's thoughts may be
turned towards the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. If we speak of a "light",
one may think of a gas-light, 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
themselves of the opportunity was a gentleman who had for many years been
a veritable "metaphysical tramp," roaming from lecture to lecture, hearing
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
seeing on the door of the newly opened reading room, the legend: "Free
Reading 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 consideration, 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
misunderstandings 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 he spoke on earth.

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
terminology and expresses it in his own language. When that opera is to be
played by an Italian band master, 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 nationality. 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 language peculiar to the
higher Regions of the Desire World and the still more subtile realms in
nature, it is intelligible to all, an exact mode of expression.

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, have spoken of various classes of beings
native to these realms. The Zoroastrian Religion, for instance, mentions
_Seven Ameshaspends_ 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 Ameshaspends. Each of them rules over two months in the year while
the seventh: 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 affairs of the earth.

The Ameshaspends, 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 one group of twenty-eight classes, and another
group 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 pair 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 knowing 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 ancient system of philosophy.

Still another class of beings should be mentioned: those who have entered
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 to slowly 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 propelling 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 Savior 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 nonexistent there, as we shall presently
explain, so the writer has never been able to time himself, but has on
several occasions timed others when he was in the physical body and they
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 reality much
more alive than we, is well founded in facts.

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 imprisoned. 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, 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 of one's neighbor. Love of our neighbor the
Savior enjoined upon us as the Supreme Commandment which is the
fulfillment of all laws, and as Astrology teaches us to _bear_ and
_forbear_, it helps as nothing else can in the development of the 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, ere 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
attendance 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. Being
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
concentration 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 mentioned,
that nothing there is opaque.

In this world the rotation of the opaque earth upon its axis is
responsible 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 obstructed by the opaque earth we term the resulting
darkness: Night. The passage 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 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 demise.

When the occult investigator wishes to study an event in the past history
of man, he may most readily call up the picture from _the memory of
nature_, 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 wabbling motion 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 was in about seven degrees of the Zodiacal
sign Aries. During the two thousand years which intervene 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 whole circle of the Zodiac 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 a very 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 to consciously
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, since unimbued with a sense of its form or sound, nor
past or future, but all is one eternal NOW. There seems to be neither
pleasure nor pain and yet there is no absence of feeling but it all seems
to center in the one idea:--"_I am_"! The human Ego stands face to face
with itself as it were, and for the time being all else is shut out. This
is the experience of anyone who passes that breach between the Desire
World and the World of Thought, whether involuntarily, in the course of an
ordinary cyclic pilgrimage of the soul, which we shall later elucidate
when speaking of the post-mortem existence, or by an act of the will, as
in the case of the trained occult investigator, all have the same
experience in transition.

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

There are two main divisions in the Physical World: the Chemical Region
and the Etheric Region. The World of Thought also has two great
subdivisions: The Region of concrete Thought and the Region of abstract
Thought.

As we specialize the material of the Physical World and shape into a dense
body, and as we form the force-matter of the Desire World into a desire
body, so do we appropriate a certain amount of mindstuff from the Region
of concrete Thought; but we, as spirits, clothe ourselves in
spirit-substance from the Region of abstract Thought and thereby we become
individual, separate Egos.

_The Region of Concrete Thought._

The Region of concrete Thought is neither shadowy nor illusory. It is the
acme of reality and this world which we mistakenly regard as the only
verity, is but an evanescent replica of that Region.

A little reflection will show the reasonableness of this statement and
prove our contention that all we see here is really crystallized thought.
Our houses, our machinery, our chairs and tables, all that has been made
by the hand of man is the embodiment of a thought. As the juices in the
soft body of the snail gradually crystallize into the hard and flinty
shell which it carries upon its back and which hides it, so everything
used in our civilization is a concretion of invisible, intangible
mind-stuff. The thought of James Watt in time congealed into a steam
engine and revolutionized the world. Edison's thought was condensed into
an electric generator which has turned night to day, and had it not been
for the thought of Morse and Marconi, the telegraph would not have
annihilated distance as it does today. An earthquake may wreck a city and
demolish the lighting plant and telegraph station, but the thoughts of
Watt, Edison and Morse remain, and upon the basis of their indestructible
ideas new machinery may be constructed and operations resumed. Thus
thoughts are more permanent than things.

The sensitive ear of the musician detects a certain musical note in every
city which is different from that of another city. He hears in each little
brook a new melody, and to him the sound of wind in the treetops of
different forests give a varying sound. In the Desire World we noted the
existence of forms similar to the shapes of things here, also that
seemingly _sound proceeds from form_, but in the Region of concrete
Thought it is different, for while each form occupies and obscures a
certain space here, form is nonexistent when viewed from the standpoint of
the Region of concrete Thought. Where the form was, a transparent, vacuous
space is observable. _From that empty void comes a sound_ which is the
"keynote" that _creates_ and maintains the _form_ whence it _appears_ to
come, as the almost invisible core of a gas-flame is the source of the
light we perceive.

Sound from a vacuum cannot be heard in the Physical World, but the harmony
which proceeds from the vacuous cavity of a celestial _archetype_ is "the
voice of the silence," and it becomes audible when all earthly sounds have
ceased. Elijah heard it not while the storm was raging; nor was it in
evidence during the turbulence of the earthquake, nor in the crackling and
roaring fire, but when the destructive and inharmonious sounds of this
world had melted into silence, "the still small voice" issued its commands
to save Elijah's life.

That "keynote" is a direct manifestation of the Higher Self which uses it
to impress and govern the Personality it has created. But alas, part of
its life has been infused into the material side of its being, which has
thus obtained a certain will of its own and only too often are the two
sides of our nature at war.

At last there comes a time when the spirit is too weary to strive with the
recalcitrant flesh, when "the voice of the silence" ceases.

The earthly nourishment we may seek to give, will not avail to sustain a
form when this harmonious sound, this "word from heaven" no longer
reverberates through the empty void of the celestial archetype, for "man
lives not by bread alone," but by the WORD, and the last sound-vibration
of the "keynote" is the death-knell of the physical body.

In this world we are compelled to investigate and to study a thing before
we know about it, and although the facilities for gaining information are
in some respects much greater in the Desire World, a certain amount of
investigation is necessary nevertheless to acquire knowledge. In the World
of Thought, on the contrary, it is different. When we wish to know about
any certain thing there, and we turn our attention thereto, then that
thing speaks to us, as it were. The sound it emits at once gives us a most
luminous comprehension of every phase of its nature. We attain to a
realization of its past history; the whole story of its unfoldment is laid
bare and we seem to have lived through all of those experiences together
with the thing we are investigating.

Were it not for one enormous difficulty, the story thus obtained would be
exceedingly valuable. But all this information, this life-picture, flows
in upon us with an enormous rapidity in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, so that it has neither beginning nor end, for, as said, in the World
of Thought, all is one great NOW, Time does not exist.

Therefore, when we want to use the archetypal information in the Physical
World, we must disentangle and arrange it in chronological order with
beginning and ending before it becomes intelligible to beings living in a
realm where Time is a prime factor. That rearrangement is a most difficult
task as all words are coined with relation to the three dimensions of
space and the evanescent unit of time, the fleeting moment, hence much of
that information remains unavailable.

Among the denizens of this Region of concrete Thought we may note
particularly two classes. One is called the powers of darkness by Paul and
the mystic investigator of the Western World knows them as Lords of Mind.
They were human at the time when the earth was in a condition of darkness
such as worlds in the making go through before they become luminous and
reach the firemist-stage. At that time we were in our mineral evolution.
That is to say: The Human Spirit which has now awakened was encrusted in
the ball of mindstuff, which was then the earth. At that time the present
Human Spirits were as much asleep as is the life which ensouls our
minerals of today, and as we are working with the mineral chemical
constituents of the earth, molding them into houses, railways,
steam-boats, chairs, etc, etc., so those beings, who are now Lords of
Mind, worked with us when we were mineral-like. They have since advanced
three steps, through stages similar to that of the Angels and Archangels,
before they attained their present position and became creative
intelligences. They are expert builders of mind stuff, as we are builders
of the present mineral substances and therefore they have given us
necessary help to acquire a mind which is the highest development of the
human being.

According to the foregoing explanation it seems to be an anomaly when Paul
speaks of them as evil and exhorts us to withstand them. The difficulty
disappears, however, when we understand that good and evil are but
relative qualities. An illustration will make the point clear:--Let us
suppose that an expert organ builder has constructed a wonderful organ, a
masterpiece. Then he has followed his vocation in the proper manner, and
is therefore to be commended for the good which he has done. But if he is
not satisfied to leave well enough alone, if he refuses to give up his
product to the musician who understands how to play upon the instrument;
if he intrudes his presence into the concert hall, he is out of place and
to be censured as evil. Similarly the Lords of Mind did the greatest
possible service to humanity when they helped us to acquire our mind, but
many subtle thought influences come from them, and are to be resisted, as
Paul very properly emphasizes.

The other class of beings which must be mentioned are called Archetypal
Forces by the Western School of occultism. They direct the energies of the
creative Archetypes native to this realm. They are a composite class of
beings of many different grades of intelligences, and there is one stage
in the cyclic journey of the Human Spirit when that also labors in, and is
part of, that great host of beings. For the Human Spirit is also destined
to become a great creative intelligence at some future time, and if there
were no school wherein it could gradually learn to create, it would not be
able to advance, for nothing in nature is done suddenly. An acorn planted
in the soil does not become a majestic oak over night, but many years of
slow, persistent growth are required before it attains to the stature of a
giant of the forest. A man does not become an Angel by the mere fact of
dying and entering a new world any more than an animal advances to be a
man by the same process. But in time all that lives, mounts the ladder of
Being from the clod to the God. There is no limitation possible to the
spirit, and so at various stages in its unfoldment the Human Spirit works
with the other nature forces, according to the stage of intelligence which
it has attained. It creates, changes and remodels the earth upon which it
is to live. Thus, under the great law of cause and effect, which we
observe in every realm of nature, it reaps upon earth what it has sown in
heaven, and vice versa. It grows slowly but persistently and advances
continually.

_The Region of Abstract Thought._

Various religious systems have been given to humanity at different times,
each suited to meet the spiritual needs of the people among whom it was
promulgated, and, coming from the same divine source:--God, all religions
exhibit similar fundamentals or first principles.

All systems teach that there was a time when _darkness_ reigned supreme.
Everything which we now perceive was then non-existent. Earth, sky and the
heavenly bodies were uncreate, so were the multitudinous forms which live
and move upon the various planets.--All, all, was yet in a fluidic
condition and the Universal Spirit brooded _quiescent_ in limitless Space
as the One Existence.

The Greeks called that condition of homogeneity _Chaos_, and the state of
orderly segregation which we now see; the marching orbs which illumine the
vaulted canopy of heaven, the stately procession of planets around a
central light, the majestic sun; the unbroken sequence of the seasons and
the unvarying alternation of tidal ebb and flow;--all this aggregate of
systematic order, was called _Cosmos_, and was supposed to have proceeded
from Chaos.

The Christian Mystic obtains a deeper comprehension when he opens his
Bible and ponders the first five verses of that brightest gem of all
spiritual lore: the Gospel of St. John.

As he reverently opens his aspiring heart to acquire understanding of
those sublime mystical teachings he transcends the form-side of nature,
comprising various realms of which we have been speaking, and finds
himself "in the spirit," as did the prophets in olden times. He is then in
the Region of abstract Thought and sees the eternal verities which also
Paul beheld in this, the third, heaven.

For those among us who are unable to obtain knowledge save by reasoning
upon the matter, however, it will be necessary to examine the fundamental
meaning of words used by St. John to clothe his wonderful teaching, which
was originally given in the Greek language, a much simpler matter than is
commonly supposed, for Greek words have been freely introduced into our
modern languages, particularly in scientific terms, and we shall show how
this ancient teaching is supported by the latest discoveries of modern
science.

The opening verse of the gospel of St. John is as follows: "In the
_beginning_ was the _Word_, and the _Word_ was with _God_, and the _Word_
was _God_." We will examine the words: "beginning," "Word" and "God." We
may also note that in the Greek version the concluding sentence reads:
"and God was the Word," a difference which makes a great distinction.

It is an axiomatic truth that "out of nothing, nothing comes," and it has
often been asserted by scoffers that the Bible teaches generation "from
nothing." We readily agree that _translations_ into the modern languages
promulgate this erroneous doctrine, but we have shown in _The Rosicrucian
Cosmo Conception_ (chapter on "the Occult Analysis of Genesis"), that the
Hebrew text speaks of an _ever-existing essence_, as the basis whence all
forms, the earth and the heavenly lights included, were first created, and
John also gives the same teaching.

The Greek word _arche_, in the opening sentence of the gospel of St. John
has been translated _the beginning_, and it may be said to have that
meaning, but it also has other valid interpretations, vastly more
significant of the idea John wished to convey. It means:--an elementary
condition,--a chief source,--a first principle,--primordial matter.

There was a time when science insisted that the elements were immutable,
that is to say, that an atom of iron had been an atom of iron since the
earth was formed and would so remain to the end of time. The Alchemists
were sneered at as fanciful dreamers or madmen, but since Professor J. J.
Thomson's discovery of the electron, the atomic theory of matter, is no
longer tenable. The principle of radio-activity has later vindicated the
Alchemists. Science and the Bible agree in teaching, that all that is, has
been formed from one homogeneous substance.

It is that basic principle which John called _arche_:--primordial
matter,--and the dictionary defines Archeology as: "the science of the
origin (_arche_) of things." Masons style God the "Grand Architect," for
the Greek word tektos means builder, and God is the Chief Builder
(_tektos_) of _arche_: the primordial virgin matter which is also the
chief source of all things.

Thus we see that when the opening sentence of St. John's gospel is
properly translated, our Christian Religion teaches that once a virgin
substance enfolded the divine Thinker:--God.

That is the identical condition which the earlier Greeks called Chaos. A
little thought will make it evident that we are not arbitrary in finding
fault with the translation of the gospel, for it is self-evident that a
word cannot be the beginning, a thought must precede the word, and a
thinker must originate thought before it can be expressed as a word.

When properly translated the teaching of John fully embodies that idea,
for the Greek term _logos_ means both the reasonable thought,--(we also say
Logic),--and the word which expresses this (logical) thought.


    1) _In the primordial substance was thought, and the thought was
    with God And God was the word_,

    2) THAT, [The Word], _also was with God in the primal state_.


Later the divine WORD; the Creative Fiat, reverberates through space and
segregates the homogeneous virgin substance into separate forms.


    3) _Every thing has come into existence because of that prime
    fact_, [The Word of God], _and no thing exists apart from that
    fact._

    4) _In that was Life._


In the alphabet we have a few elementary sounds from which words may be
constructed. They are basic elements of expression, as bricks, iron and
lumber are raw materials of architecture, or as a few notes are component
parts of music.

But a heap of bricks, iron and lumber, is not a house, neither is a
jumbled mass of notes music, nor can we call a haphazard arrangement of
alphabetical sounds a word.

These raw materials are prime necessities in construction of architecture,
music, literature or poetry, but the contour of the finished product and
the purpose it will serve depends upon the arrangement of the raw
materials, which is subject to the constructor's design. Building
materials may be formed to prison or palace; notes may be arranged as
fanfare or funeral dirge; words may be indited to inspire passion or
peace, all according to the will of the designer. So also the majestic
rhythm of the Word of God has wrought the primal substance: _arche_, into
the multitudinous forms which comprise the phenomenal world, according to
His will.

Did the reader ever stop to consider the wonderful power of a human word.
Coming to us in the sweet accents of love, it may lure us from paths of
rectitude to shameful ignominy and wreck our life with sorrow and remorse,
or it may spur us on in noblest efforts to acquire glory and honor, here
or hereafter. According to the inflection of the voice a word may strike
terror into the bravest heart or lull a timid child to peaceful slumber.
The word of an agitator may rouse the passions of a mob and impel it to
awful bloodshed, as in the French Revolution, where dictatorial mandates
of mob-rule killed and exiled at pleasure, or, the strain of "Home, Sweet
Home" may cement the setting of a family-circle beyond possibility of
rupture.

Right words are true and therefore free, they are never bound or fettered
by time or space, they go to the farthest corners of the earth, and when
the lips that spoke them first have long since mouldered in the grave,
other voices take up with unwearying enthusiasm their message of life and
love, as for instance the mystical "Come unto me" which has sounded from
unnumbered tongues and brought oceans of balm to troubled hearts.

Words of Peace have been victorious, where war would have meant defeat,
and no talent is more to be desired than ability to always say the right
word at the auspicious time.

Considering thus the immense power and potency of the human word, we may
perhaps dimly apprehend the potential magnitude of the Word of God, the
Creative Fiat, when as a mighty dynamic force it first reverberated
through space and commenced to form primordial matter into worlds, as
sound from a violin bow moulds sand into geometrical figures. Moreover,
_the Word of God still sounds_ to sustain the marching orbs and impel them
onwards in their circle paths, the Creative Word continues to produce
forms of gradually increasing efficiency, as media expressing life and
consciousness. The harmonious enunciation of consecutive syllables in the
Divine Creative Word mark successive stages in evolution of the world and
man. When the last syllable has been spoken and the complete word has
sounded, we shall have reached perfection as human beings. Then Time will
be at an end, and with the last vibration of the Word of God, the worlds
will be resolved into their original elements. Our life will then be "hid
with Christ in God," till the Cosmic Night:--Chaos,--is over, and we wake to
do "greater things" in a "new heaven and a new earth."

According to the general idea Chaos and Cosmos are superlative antitheses
of each other. Chaos being regarded as a past condition of confusion and
disorder which has long since been entirely superseded by cosmic order
which now prevails.

As a matter of fact, Chaos is the seed-ground of Cosmos, the basis of all
progress, for thence come all IDEAS which later materialize as Railways,
Steamboats, Telephones, etc.

We speak of "thoughts as being conceived by the mind," but as both father
and mother are necessary in the generation of a child, so also there must
be both _idea_ and _mind_ before a _thought_ can be conceived. As semen
germinated in the positive male organ is projected into the negative
uterus at conception, so ideas are generated by a positive Human Ego in
the spirit-substance of the Region of abstract Thought. This idea is
projected upon the receptive mind, and a conception takes place. Then, as
the spermatozoic nucleus draws upon the maternal body for material to
shape a body appropriate to its individual expression, so does each idea
clothe itself in a peculiar form of mindstuff. It is then a thought, as
visible to the inner vision of composite man, as a child is to its parent.

Thus we see that ideas are embryonic thoughts, nuclei of spirit-substance
from the Region of abstract Thought. Improperly conceived in a diseased
mind they become vagaries and delusions, but when gestated in a sound mind
and formed into rational thoughts they are the basis of all material,
moral and mental progress, and the closer our touch with Chaos, the better
will be our Cosmos, for in that realm of abstract realities truth is not
obscured by matter, it is self-evident.

Pilate was asked "what is Truth," but no answer is recorded. We are
incapable of cognizing truth in the abstract while we live in the
phenomenal world, for the inherent nature of matter is illusion and
delusion, and we are constantly making allowances and corrections whether
we are conscious of the fact or not. The sunbeam which proceeds for 90
millions of miles in a straight line, is refracted or bent as soon as it
strikes our dense atmosphere, and according to the angle of its
refraction, it _appears_ to have one color or another. The straightest
stick appears crooked when partly immersed in water, and the truths which
are so self-evident in the Higher worlds are likewise obscured, refracted
or twisted out of all semblance under the illusory conditions of this
material world.

"The truth shall set you free," said Christ, and the more we turn our
aspirations from material acquisitiveness and seek to lay up treasure
above, the more we aim to rise, the oftener we "get in the spirit," the
more readily we "shall know truth" and reach liberation from the fetter of
flesh which binds us to a limited environment, and attain to a sphere of
greater usefulness.

Study of philosophy and science has a tendency to further perception of
truth, and as science has progressed it has gradually receded from its
erstwhile crude materialism. The day is not far off when it will be more
reverently religious than the church itself. Mathematics is said to be
"dry," for it doesn't stir the emotions. When it is taught that "the sum
of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees," the dictum is at once
accepted, because its truth is self-evident and no feeling is involved in
the matter. But when a doctrine such as the Immaculate Conception is
promulgated and our emotions are stirred, bloody war, or heated argument,
may result, and still leave the matter in doubt. Pythagoras demanded that
his pupils study mathematics, because he knew the elevating effect of
raising their minds above the sphere of feeling, where it is subject to
delusion, and elevating it towards the Region of abstract Thought which is
the prime reality.

In this place we are dealing with worlds in particular, and will therefore
defer comment upon the remainder of the first 5 verses of St. John's
gospel:


    "_And Life became Light in man,_
    5) _and Light shines in Darkness._"


We have now seen that the earth is composed of three worlds which
interpenetrate one another so that it is perfectly true when Christ said
that "heaven is within you" or, the translation should rather have been
_among you_. We have also seen that of these three realms two are
subdivided. It has also been explained that each division serves a great
purpose in the unfoldment of various forms of life which dwell in each of
these worlds, and we may note in conclusion, that the lower regions of the
Desire World constitute what the Catholic religion calls _Purgatory_, a
place where the evil of a past life is transmuted to good, usable by the
spirit as conscience in later lives. The higher regions of the Desire
World are the _first Heaven_ where all the good a man has done is
assimilated by the spirit as _soul_ power. The Region of concrete Thought
is the _second Heaven_, where, as already said, the spirit prepares its
future environment on earth, and the Region of abstract Thought is the
_third Heaven_, but as Paul said, it is scarcely lawful to speak about
that.

Some will ask: is there then no hell?--No! _The mercy of God_ tends as
greatly towards the principle of GOOD as "_the inhumanity of man_" towards
cruelty, so that he would consign his brother men to flames of hell during
eternity for the puerile mistakes committed during a few years, or perhaps
for a slight difference in belief. The writer has heard of a minister who
wished to impress his "flock" with the reality of an eternity of hell
flames, and to demonstrate the fallacy of a heretical notion entertained
by some of his parishioners that when sinners come to hell they burn to
ashes and that is the end.

He took with him an alcohol lamp and some asbestos into the pulpit and
told his audience that God would turn their souls into a substance
resembling asbestos. He showed them that though the asbestos were heated
red hot it did not decompose into ashes. Fortunately the day of the hell
preacher has gone by, and if we believe the Bible which says that "in God
we live and move and have our being," we can readily understand that _a
lost soul would be an impossibility_, for were one single soul lost, then
logically a part of God Himself would be lost. No matter what our color,
our race or our creed, we are all equally the children of God and in our
various ways we shall obtain satisfaction. Let us therefore rather look to
Christ and forget Creed.


    _Creed or Christ?_

    No man loves God who hates his kind,
      Who tramples on his Brother's heart and soul.
    Who seeks to shackle, cloud or fog the mind
      By fears of Hell has not perceived our goal.

    God-sent are all religions blest;
      And Christ, the Way, the Truth and Life,
    To give the heavy-laden rest,
      And peace from Sorrow, Sin and Strife.

    At his request the Universal Spirit came
      _To all the churches_, not to one alone.
    On Pentecostal morn a tongue of flame
      Round _each_ apostle as a halo shone.

    Since then, as vultures ravenous with greed,
      We oft have battled for an empty name,
    And sought by Dogma, Edict, Creed,
      To send each other to the flame.

    Is Christ then divided? Was Cephas or Paul
      Nailed to the deathly tree?
    If not--then why these divisions at all?
      Christ's love doth embrace you and me.

    His pure sweet love is not confined
      By creeds which segregate and raise a wall;
    His love enfolds, embraces _Humankind_
      No matter what ourselves or Him we call.

    Then why not take Him at His word?
      Why hold to creeds which tear apart?
    But one thing matters, be it heard,
      That brother-love fill every heart.

    There is but one thing that the world has need to know;
      There is but one balm for all our human woe
    There is but one way that leads to heaven above;
      That way is human sympathy and love.





CHAPTER IV. THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN


Our chapter head, "the constitution of man," may surprise a reader who has
not previously studied the Mystery teachings, or he may imagine that we
intend to give an anatomical dissertation, but such is not our intention.
We have spoken of the earth upon which we live as being composed of
several invisible realms in addition to the world we perceive by means of
our senses. We have also spoken of man as being correlated to these
various divisions in nature, and a little thought upon the subject will
quickly convince us that in order to function upon the various planes of
existence described, it is necessary that a man should have a body
composed of their substance, or at least have specialized for his own use,
some of the material of each of these worlds.

We have said that finer matter, called desire stuff and mind stuff,
permeates our atmosphere and the solid earth, even as blood percolates
through all parts of our flesh. But that is not a sufficient explanation
to account for all facts of life. If that were all, then minerals, which
are interpenetrated by the world of thought and the world of desire, would
have thoughts and desires as well as man. This is not the case, so
something more than mere interpenetration must be requisite to acquire the
faculties of thought and feeling.

We know that in order to function in this world, to live as a physical
being among other like beings, we must have a physical body all our own,
built of the chemical constituents of this visible world. When we lose it
at death, it profits us nothing that the world is full of just the very
chemicals needed to build such a body. We cannot then specialize them, and
therefore we are invisible to all others. Similarly, if we did not possess
a special body made of ether, we should be unable to grow and to
propagate. That is the case with the mineral. Had we no separate
individual desire body, we should be unable to feel desires and emotions,
there would be no incentive to move from one place to another. We should
then be stationary as plants, and did we not possess a mind, we should be
incapable of thought, and act upon impulse and instinct as animals.

Some one may of course object to this last statement, and contend that
animals do think. So far as our domesticated animals are concerned that is
partially true, but it is not quite in the same way that we think and
reason. The difference may perhaps best be understood if we take an
illustration from the electrical field. When an electric current _of high
voltage_ is passed through a coiled copper wire, and another wire is
placed in the center of the coils, that wire will become charged with
electricity _of a lower voltage_. So also the animal, when brought within
the sphere of human thoughts, evolves a mental activity of a lower order.

Paul, in his writings, also mentions _the natural body_ and the _spiritual
body_ while the man himself is a spirit inhabiting those vehicles. We will
briefly note the constitution of the various bodies of man invisible to
the physical sight but as objective to spiritual sight as the dense body
to ordinary vision.

_The Vital Body._

That body of ours which is composed of ether is called the "_vital body_"
in Western Mystery Schools, for, as we have already seen, ether is the
avenue of ingress for vital force from the sun and the field of agencies
in nature which promote such vital activities as assimilation, growth and
propagation.

This vehicle is an exact counterpart of our visible body, molecule for
molecule, and organ for organ, with one exception, which we shall note
later. But it is slightly larger, extending about one and one-half inches
beyond the periphery of our dense vehicle.

The spleen is the entrance gate of forces which vitalize the body. In the
etheric counterpart of that organ solar energy is transmuted to vital
fluid of a pale rose color. From thence it spreads all over the nervous
system, and after having been used in the body it radiates in streams,
much as bristles protrude from a porcupine.

The rays of the sun are transmitted either directly, or reflected by way
of the planets and the moon. The rays directly from the sun give spiritual
illumination, the rays received by way of the planets produce
intelligence, morality, and soul growth, but the rays reflected by way of
the moon make for physical growth, as seen in the case of plants which
grow differently when planted in the light of the moon from what is the
case when they are planted when the moon is dark. There is also a
difference in plants sown when the moon is in barren and fruitful signs of
the Zodiac.

The solar ray is absorbed by the human spirit which has its seat in the
center of the forehead, the stellar ray is absorbed by the brain and
spinal cord, and the lunar ray enters our system through the spleen.

The solar, stellar and lunar rays are three-colored, and in the lunar ray
which supplies our vital force, the blue beam is the life of The Father,
which causes germination, the yellow beam is the life of The Son, which is
the active principle in nutrition and growth, and the red beam is the life
of the Holy Spirit, which stimulates to action, dissipating the energy
stored by the yellow force. This principle is particularly active in
generation.

The various kingdoms absorb this life-force differently, according to
their constitution. Animals have only 28 pairs of spinal nerves. They are
keyed to the lunar month of 28 days and therefore dependent upon a
Groupspirit for an infusion of stellar rays necessary to produce
consciousness. They are altogether incapable of absorbing the direct ray
of the sun.

Man is in a transition stage, he has 31 pairs of spinal nerves which keys
him to the solar month, but the nerves in the so-called
cauda-equina--literally horse-tail--, at the end of our spinal cord, are
still too undeveloped to act as avenues for the spiritual ray of the sun.
In proportion as we draw our creative force upward by spiritual thought we
develop these nerves and awaken dormant faculties of the spirit. But it is
dangerous to attempt that development except under guidance of a qualified
teacher, and the reader is earnestly warned not to use any method
published in books, or sold, for their practice usually leads to dementia.
The safe method is never sold for money or any earthly consideration
however large or small; it is always freely given as a reward of merit.
"Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be
opened", said the Christ. If our life is a prayer for illumination, the
search will not be uncertain, nor the knock without response.

When solar energy has been transmuted in the spleen it traverses the whole
nervous system of the body glowing with a most beautiful color of a
delicate rosy hue. It answers the same purpose as electricity in a
telegraph system. We may string wires between cities, erect telegraph
stations, install receivers and transmitters. We may even have operators
ready at the keys, but until electric fluid is turned into our wires, the
telegraph keys will refuse to click. So also in the body, the human spirit
is operator, and from the central station of the brain, nerves ramify, go
through the whole body to all the different muscles. When this vitalizing
fluid of which we are speaking traverses the nervous system, the Ego may
send his commands to the muscles and cause them to move but if the vital
fluid for any reason does not flow into a certain part of the body such as
an arm or a limb, then the spirit is powerless to move that part of the
body and we say that it is paralyzed.

When we are in health, we specialize solar energy in such great quantities
that we cannot use it all in the body and therefore it radiates through
the pores of our skin in straight streams and serves a similar purpose as
an exhaust fan. That machine drives the foul air out of a room or building
and keeps the atmosphere within pure and sweet. The excessive vital force
which radiates from the body drives out poisonous gases, deleterious
microbes and effete matter thus tending to preserve a healthy condition.
It also prevents armies of disease germs, which swarm about in the
atmosphere, from entering; upon the same principle that a fly cannot wing
its way into a building through the exhaust fan. Thus it serves a most
beneficent purpose even after it has been utilized in our body and is
returning to the free state.

It is a curious and most astounding sight when one first observes how,
from exposed parts of the body such as hands and face, there suddenly
commences to flow a stream of stars, cubes, pyramids and a variety of
other geometrical forms. The writer has more than once rubbed his eyes
when he first perceived the phenomenon, for it seemed that he must be
suffering from hallucinations. The forms observed are chemical atoms
however, which have served their purpose in the body and are expelled
through the pores.

When one has eaten a meal, vital fluid is consumed by the body in great
quantities, for it is the cement whereby nature's forces build our food
into the body. Therefore the radiations are weakest during the period of
digestion. If the meal has been heavy, the outflow is very perceptibly
diminished, and does not then cleanse our body as thoroughly as when the
food has been digested, nor is it as potent in keeping out inimical germs.
Therefore one is most liable to catch cold or other disease by overeating,
a fault which should be avoided by all who wish to keep in good health.

During ill health the vital body specializes but little solar energy.
Then, for a time, the visible body seems to feed upon the vital body as it
were, so that the vehicle becomes more transparent and attenuated at the
same rate as the visible body exhibits a state of emaciation. The
cleansing odic radiations are almost entirely absent during sickness,
therefore complications set in so easily.

Though science has not directly observed this vital body of man, it has
upon several occasions postulated the existence of such a vehicle as
necessary to account for facts in life and the radiations have been
observed by a number of scientists at different times and under varying
conditions. Blondlot and Charpentier have called them N-rays after the
city of Nantes where the radiations were observed by these scientists,
others have named them "The Odic fluid". Scientific investigators who have
conducted researches into psychic phenomena have even photographed it when
it has been extracted through the spleen by materializing spirits. Dr.
Hotz for instance obtained two photographs of a materialization through
the German medium, Minna-Demmler. On one a cloud of ether is seen oozing
out through the left side of the medium, shapeless and without form. The
second picture, taken a few moments later, shows the materialized spirit
standing at the medium's side. Other photographs obtained by scientists
from the Italian medium Eusapio Palladino show a luminous cloud
over-hanging her left side.

We said in the beginning of this description that the vital body is an
exact counterpart of the dense body with one exception: it is of the
opposite sex or perhaps we should rather say polarity. As the vital body
nourishes the dense vehicle, we may readily understand that blood is its
highest visible expression, and also that a positively polarized vital
body would generate more blood than a negative one. Woman who is
physically negative has a positive vital body, hence she generates a
surplus of blood which is relieved by the periodical flow. She is also
more prone to tears, which are white bleeding, than man, whose negative
vital body does not generate more blood than he can comfortably take care
of. Therefore it is not necessary for him to have the outlets which
relieve excess of blood in woman.

_The Desire Body._

In addition to the visible body and the vital body we also have a body
made of desire stuff from which we form our feelings and emotions. This
vehicle also impels us to seek sense gratification. But while the two
instruments of which we have already spoken, are well organized, the
desire body appears to spiritual sight as an ovoid cloud extending from
sixteen to twenty inches beyond the physical body. It is above the head
and below the feet so that our dense body sits in the center of this
egg-shaped cloud as the yolk is in the center of an egg.

The reason for the rudimentary state of this vehicle is, that it has been
added to the human constitution more recently than the bodies previously
mentioned. Evolution of form may be likened to the manner in which the
juices in the snail first condense into flesh and later become a hard
shell. When our present visible body first germinated in the spirit, it
was a thought-form, but gradually it has become denser and more concrete
until it is now a chemical crystallization. The vital body was next
emanated by the spirit as a thought-form and is in the third stage of
concretion which is etheric. The desire body is a still later acquisition.
That also was a thought form at its inception, but has now condensed to
desire stuff, and the mind, which we have only recently received, is still
but a mere cloudy thought form.

Arms and limbs, ears and eyes are not necessary to use the desire body,
for it can glide through space more swiftly than wind without such means
of locomotion as we require in this visible world.

When viewed by spiritual sight, it appears that there are in this desire
body a number of whirling vortices. We have already explained that it is a
characteristic of desire stuff to be in constant motion, and from the main
vortex in the region of the liver there is a constant outwelling flow
which radiates towards the periphery of this egg-shaped body and returns
to the center through a number of other vortices. The desire body exhibits
all the colors and shades which we know and a vast number of others which
are indescribable in earthly language. Those colors vary in every person
according to his characteristics and temperament and they also vary from
moment to moment as passing moods, fancies or emotions are experienced by
him. There is however in each one a certain basic color dependent upon the
ruling star at the moment of his birth. The man in whose horoscope Mars is
peculiarly strong usually has a crimson tint in his aura, where Jupiter is
the strongest planet the prevailing tint seems to be a bluish tone, and so
on with the other planets.

There was a time in the earth's past history when incrustation was not yet
complete, and human beings of that time lived upon islands here and there,
amid boiling seas. They had not yet evolved eyes or ears, but a little
organ: the pineal gland, which anatomists have called _the third eye_,
protruded through the back of the head and was a _localised organ of
feeling_, which warned the man when he came too near a volcanic crater and
thus enabled him to escape destruction. Since then the cerebral
hemispheres have covered the pineal gland, and instead of a single organ
of feeling, the whole body inside and out is sensitive to impacts, which
of course is a much higher state of development.

In the desire body every particle is sensitive to vibrations similar to
those which we call sight, sounds and feelings and every particle is in
incessant motion rapidly swirling about so that in the same instant it may
be at the top and bottom of the desire body and impart at all points to
all the other particles a sensation of that which it has experienced thus
every particle of desire stuff in this vehicle of ours will instantly feel
any sensation experienced by any single particle. Therefore the desire
body is of an exceedingly sensitive nature, capable of most intense
feelings and emotions.

_The Mind._

This is the latest acquisition of the human spirit, and in most people who
have not yet accustomed themselves to orderly, consecutive thought, it is
a mere inchoate cloud disposed particularly in the region of the head.
When looking at a person clairvoyantly there appears to be an empty space
in the center of the forehead just above and between the eyebrows. It
looks like the blue part of a gas flame. That is mind stuff which veils
the human spirit, or Ego, and the writer has been told that not even the
most gifted seer can penetrate that veil which is said to have been spoken
of in ancient Egypt as "_the veil of Isis_" which none may lift and live,
for behind that veil is the Holy of Holies, the temple of our body, where
the spirit is to be left secure from all intrusion.

To those who have not previously studied the deeper philosophies the
question may occur: But why all these divisions; even the Bible speaks
only of soul and body, for most people believe soul and spirit to be
synonymous terms. We can only answer that this division is not arbitrary
but necessary, and founded upon facts in nature. Neither is it correct to
regard the soul and the spirit as synonymous. Paul himself speaks of _the
natural body_ which is composed of physical substances: solids, liquids,
gases and ethers; he mentions _a spiritual body_, which is the vehicle of
the spirit composed of the mind and desire body, and _the spirit itself_,
which is called Ego in Latin or "I" in English.

That term "I" is an appelation which can only be made by the human spirit
of itself. We may all call a dog, dog; or we may call a table, table, and
any one else may apply the same name to the dog and to the table, but only
a human being can be called "I" and only he himself can apply that most
exclusive of all words, I, for this is the badge of self-consciousness,
the recognition by the human spirit of _itself_ as an entity, separate and
apart from all others.

Thus we see that the constitution of man is more complex than appears upon
the surface, and we will now proceed to note the effect upon this
multiplex being of various conditions of life.





CHAPTER V. LIFE AND DEATH


_Invisible Helpers and Mediums._

There are two classes of people in the world. In one class the vital and
dense bodies are so firmly cemented that the ethers cannot be extracted
under any circumstances but remain with the dense body at all times and
under all conditions from birth to death. Those people are insensible to
any supersensuous sights or sounds. They are therefore usually exceedingly
sceptic, and believe nothing exists but what _they_ can see.

There is another class of people in whom the connection between the dense
and the vital bodies is more or less loose, so that the ether of their
vital bodies vibrates at a higher rate than in the first class mentioned.
These people are therefore more or less sensitive to the spiritual world.

This class of sensitives may again be divided. Some are weak characters,
dominated by the will of others in a _negative_ manner, as mediums, who
are the prey of disembodied spirits desirous of obtaining a physical body
when they have lost their own by death.

The other class of sensitives are strong _positive_ characters, who act
only from within, according to their own will. They may develop into
trained clairvoyants, and be their own masters instead of slaves of a
disembodied spirit. In some sensitives of both classes it is possible to
extract part of the ether which forms the vital body. When a disembodied
spirit obtains a subject of that nature, it develops the sensitive as _a
materializing medium_. The man who is capable of extracting his own vital
body by an act of will, becomes a citizen of two worlds, independent and
free. Such are usually known as _Invisible Helpers_. There are certain
other abnormal conditions where the vital body and the dense body are
separated totally or in part, for instance if we place our limb in an
uncomfortable position so that circulation of the blood ceases. Then we
may see the etheric limb hanging down below the visible limb as a
stocking. When we restore circulation and the etheric limb seeks to enter
into place, an intense prickly sensation is felt, due to the fact that the
little streams of force, which radiate all through the ether, seek to
permeate the molecules of the limb and stir them into renewed vibration.
When a person is drowning, the vital body also separates from the dense
vehicle and the intense prickly pain incident to resuscitation is also due
to the cause mentioned.

While we are awake and going about our work in the Physical World, the
desire body and mind both permeate the dense and the vital bodies, and
there is a constant war between the desire nature and the vital body. The
vital body is continually engaged in building up the human organism, while
the impulses of the desire body tend to tire and to break down tissue.
Gradually, in the course of the day, the vital body loses ground before
the onslaughts of the desire body, poisons of decay slowly accumulate and
the flow of vital fluid becomes more and more sluggish, until at length it
is incapable of moving the muscles. The body then feels heavy and drowsy.
At last the vital body collapses, as it were, the little streams of force
which permeate each atom seem to shrivel up, and the Ego is forced to
abandon its body to the restorative powers of sleep.

When a building has become dilapidated and is to be _restored_ and put in
thorough repair, the tenants must move out to let the workmen have a free
field. So also when the building of a spirit has become unfit for further
use, it must withdraw therefrom. As the desire body caused the damage, it
is a logical conclusion that that also must be removed. Every night when
our body has become tired, the higher vehicles are withdrawn, only the
dense and vital bodies are left upon the bed.

Then the process of restoration commences and lasts for a longer or a
shorter time according to circumstances.

At times however, the grip of the desire body upon our denser vehicles is
so strong that it refuses to let go. When it has become so interested in
the proceedings of the day, it continues to ruminate over them after the
collapse of the physical body, and is perhaps only half extracted from
that vehicle. Then it may transmit sights and sounds of the desire world
to the brain. But as the connections are necessarily askew under such
conditions, the most confused dreams result. Furthermore, as the desire
body compels motion, the body is very apt to toss about when the desire
body is not fully extracted, hence the restless sleep which usually
accompanies dreams of a confused nature.

There are times of course when dreams are prophetic and come true, but
such dreams result only _after_ complete extraction of the desire body,
under circumstances where the spirit has seen some danger perhaps, which
may befall, and then impresses the fact upon the brain _at the moment of
awakening_.

It also happens that the spirit goes upon a soul flight and omits to
perform its part of the work of restoration, then the body will not be fit
to re-enter in the morning, so it sleeps on. The spirit may thus roam
afield for a number of days, or even weeks, before it again enters its
physical body and assumes the normal routine of alternating waking and
sleep. This condition is called _trance_, and the spirit may remember upon
its return what it has seen and heard in the super-physical realm, or it
may have forgotten, according to the stage of its development and the
depth of the trance condition. When the trance is very light, the spirit
is usually present in the room where its body lies all the time, and upon
its return to the body it will be able to recount to relatives all they
said and did while its body lay unconscious. Where the trance is deeper,
the returning spirit will usually be unconscious of what happened around
its body, but may recount experiences from the invisible world.

A few years ago a little girl by the name of Florence Bennett in Kankakee,
Illinois, fell into such a trance. She returned to the body every few
days, but stayed within only a few hours each time, and the whole trance
lasted three weeks, more or less. During the returns to her body she told
relatives that in her absence she seemed to be in a place inhabited by all
the people who died. But she stated that none of them spoke about dying
and no one among them seemed to realize that they were dead. Among those
she had seen was a locomotive engineer who had been accidentally killed.
His body was mangled in the accident which caused death. The little girl
perceived him there walking about minus arms, and with lesions upon his
head, all of which is in line with facts usually seen by mystic
investigators. Persons who have been hurt in accidents go about thus,
until they learn that a mere wish to have their body made whole will
supply a new arm or limb, for desire stuff is most quickly and readily
molded by thought.

_Death._

After a longer or shorter time there comes in each life a point where the
experiences which a spirit can gain from its present environment have been
exhausted, and life terminates in death.

Death may be sudden and seemingly unexpected, as for instance by
earthquake, upon the battle-field, or by accident, as we call it, but in
reality, death is never accidental or unforeseen by Higher Powers. Not a
sparrow falls to the ground without divine Will. There are along life's
path partings of the way, as it were; on one side the main line of life
continues onward, the other path leads into what we might call a blind
alley. If the man takes that path, it soon ends in death. We are here in
life for the sake of gaining experience and each life has a certain
harvest to reap. If we order our life in such a manner that we gain the
knowledge it is intended we should acquire, we continue in life, and
opportunities of different kinds constantly come our way. But if we
neglect them, and the life goes into paths which are not congruous to our
individual development it would be a waste of time to let us stay in such
environment. Therefore the Great and Wise Beings, Who are behind the scene
of evolution, terminate our life, that we may have a fresh start in a
different sphere of influence. The law of conservation of energy is not
confined to the Physical World, but operates in the spiritual realms also.
There is nothing in life that has not its purpose. We do wrong to rail
against circumstances, no matter how disagreeable, we should rather
endeavor to learn the lessons which are contained therein, that we may
live a long and useful life. Some one may object, and say: You are
inconsistent in your teachings. You say there is really no death, that we
go into a brighter existence, and that we have to learn other lessons
there in a different sphere of usefulness! Why then aim to live a long
life here?

It is very true that we make these claims, and they are perfectly
consistent with the other assertions just mentioned, but there are lessons
to be learned _here_ which cannot be learned in the other worlds, and we
have to bring up this physical body through the useless years of
childhood, through hot and impulsive youth, to the ripeness of manhood or
womanhood, before it becomes of true spiritual use. The longer we live
after maturity has been attained, when we have commenced to look upon the
serious side of life and started to truly learn lessons which make for
soulgrowth, the more experience we shall gather and the richer our harvest
will be. Then, in a later existence, we shall be so much more advanced,
and capable of taking up tasks that would be impossible with less length
of life and breadth of activity. Besides, it is hard to die for the man in
the prime of life with a wife and growing family whom he loves; with
ambitions of greatness unfulfilled; with hosts of friends about him, and
with interests all centered upon the material plane of existence. It is
sad for the woman whose heart is bound up in home and the little ones she
has reared, to leave them, perhaps without anyone to care for them; to
know that they have to fight their way alone through the early years when
her tender care is needed, and perhaps to see those little ones abused,
and she unable to lift a hand, though her heart may bleed as freely as it
would in earth life. All these things are sad, and _they bind the spirit
to earth_ for a much longer time than ordinarily, they hinder it from
reaping the experiences it should reap upon the other side of death, and
they make it desirable along with other reasons already mentioned to live
a long life before passing onwards.

The difference between those who pass out at a ripe old age, and one who
leaves this earth in the prime of life, may be illustrated by the manner
in which the seed clings to a fruit in an unripe state. A great deal of
force is necessary to tear the stone from a green peach; it has such a
tenacious hold upon the fruit that shreds of pulp adhere to it when
forcibly removed, so also the spirit clings to the flesh in middle life
and a certain part of its material interest remain and bind it to earth
after death. On the other hand, when a life has been lived to the full,
when the spirit has had time to realize its ambitions or to find out their
futility, when the duties of life have been performed and satisfaction
rests upon the brow of an aged man or woman; or when the life has been
misspent and the pangs of conscience have worked upon the man and shown
him his mistakes; when, in fact, the spirit has learned the lessons of
life, as it must have to come to old age; then it may be likened to the
seed of the ripe fruit which falls out clean, without a vestige of flesh
clinging thereto, at the moment the encasing pulp is opened. Therefore we
say, as before, that though there is a brighter existence in store for
those who have lived well, it is nevertheless best to live a long life and
to live it to the fullest extent possible.

We also maintain, that no matter what may be the circumstances of a man's
death, it is not accidental; it has either been brought about by his own
neglect to embrace opportunities of growth, or else life has been lived to
the ultimate possible. There is one exception to that rule, and that is
due to man's exercise of his divine prerogative of interference. If we
lived according to schedule, if we all assimilated the experiences
designed for our growth by the Creative Powers, we should live to the
ultimate length, but _we ourselves_ usually shorten our lives by not
taking advantage of opportunities, and it also happens that _other men_
may shorten our lives and cut them off as suddenly as the so-called
accident whereby the divine rulers terminate our life here. In other
words, murder, or fatal accidents brought about _by human __
carelessness_, are in reality the only termination to life not planned by
invisible leaders of humanity. No one is ever compelled to do murder or
other evil, or there could not come to them a just retribution for their
acts. The Christ said that evil must come but _woe unto him by whom it
cometh_, and to harmonize that with the law of divine justice: "as a man
soweth, so shall he also reap," _there must at least be absolute free will
in respect to evil acts_.

There are also cases where a person lives such a full and good life of
such vast benefit to humanity and to himself, that his days are lengthened
beyond the ultimate, as they are shortened by neglect, but such cases are
of course too few to allow of their being dwelt upon at length.

Where death is not sudden as in the case of accidents, but occurs at home
after an illness, quietly and peacefully, dying persons usually experience
a falling upon them as of a pall of great darkness shortly before
termination of life. Many pass out from the body under that condition, and
do not see the light again until they have entered the super-physical
realms. There are many other cases however, where the darkness lifts
before the final release from the body. Then the dying person views both
worlds at once, and is cognizant of the presence of both dead and living
friends. Under such circumstances it very often happens that a mother sees
some of her children who have gone before, and she will exclaim joyously:
Oh, there is Johnny standing at the foot of my bed; my but hasn't he
grown! The living relatives may feel shocked and uneasy, thinking the
mother suffering from hallucinations, while in reality she is more
clear-sighted than they; she perceives those who have passed beyond the
veil who have come to greet and help her to make herself at home in the
new world she is entering.

Each human being is an individual, separate and apart from all others, and
as experiences in the life of each differ from those of all others in the
interval from the cradle to the grave, so we may also reasonably infer
that the experiences of each spirit vary from those of every other spirit
when it passes through the gates of birth and death. We print what
purports to be a _spirit message_ communicated by the late Professor James
of Harvard at the Boston spirit temple, and in which he describes
sensations which he felt when passing through the gate of death. We do not
vouch for its authenticity as we have not investigated the matter
personally.

Professor James had promised to communicate after death with his friends
in this life, and the whole world of psychic research was and still is on
watch for a word from him. Several mediums have claimed that Professor
James has communicated through them, but the most remarkable are those
given through the Boston spirit temple as follows:


    "And this is death, only to fall asleep, only to awaken in the
    morning and to know that all is well. I am not dead, only arisen.

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

    "I only know that I experienced a great shock through my entire
    system, as if some mighty bond had been rent asunder. For a moment
    I was dazed and lost consciousness. When I awakened I found myself
    standing beside the old body which had served me faithfully and
    well. To say that I was surprised would only inadequately express
    the sensation that thrilled my very being, and I realized that
    some wonderful change had taken place. Suddenly I became conscious
    that my body was surrounded by many of my friends, and an
    uncontrollable desire took possession of me to speak and touch
    them that they might know that I still lived. Drawing a little
    nearer to that which was so like and yet unlike myself, I
    stretched forth my hand and touched them, but they heeded me not."

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

    "Then it was that the full significance of the great change that
    had taken place flashed upon my newly awakened senses; then it was
    that I realized that an impenetrable barrier separated me from my
    loved ones on earth, and that this great change which had taken
    place was indeed death. A sense of weariness and longing for rest
    took possession of me. I seemed to be transported through space,
    and I lost consciousness, to awaken in a land so different and yet
    so similar to the one which I had lately left. It was not possible
    for me to describe my sensations when I again regained
    consciousness and realized that, though dead, I was still alive.

    "When I first became conscious of my new environment I was resting
    in a beautiful grove, and was realizing as never before what it
    was to be at peace with myself and all the world."

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

    "I know that only with the greatest difficulty shall I be enabled
    to express to you my sensations when I fully realized that I had
    awakened to a new life. All was still, no sound broke the silence.
    Darkness had surrounded me. In fact, I seemed to be enveloped in a
    heavy mist, beyond which my gaze could not penetrate. Soon in the
    distance I discerned a faint glimmer of light, which slowly
    approached me, and then, to my wonder and joy, I beheld the face
    of her who had been my guiding star in the early days of my earth
    life."


One of the saddest sights witnessed by the seer at a death-bed is the
tortures to which we often subject our dying friends on account of
ignorance of how to care for them in that condition. We have a science of
birth; obstetricians who have been trained for years in their profession
and have developed a wonderful skill, assist the little stranger into this
world. We have also trained nurses attendant upon mother and child, the
ingenuity of brilliant minds is focused upon the problem of how to make
maternity easier, neither pains nor money are spared in these beneficent
efforts for one whom we have never seen, but when the friend of a
lifetime, the man who has served his kind well and nobly in profession,
state, or church, is to leave the scene of his labors for a new field of
activity, when the woman--who has labored to no less good purpose in
bringing up a family to take its part in the world's work--has to leave
that home and family, when one whom we have loved all our lives is about
to bid us the final farewell, we stand by utterly at a loss how to help;
perhaps we even do the very things most detrimental to the comfort and
welfare of the departing one.

Probably there is no form of torture more commonly inflicted upon the
dying than that which is caused by administering stimulants. Such potions
have the effect of drawing a departing spirit into its body with the force
of a catapult, to remain and to suffer for sometime longer. Investigators
of conditions beyond have heard many complaints of such treatment. When it
is seen that death must inevitably ensue, let not selfish desire to keep a
departing spirit a little longer prompt us to inflict such tortures upon
it. The death chamber should be a place of the utmost quiet, a place of
peace and of prayer, for at that time, and _for three and one-half days
after the last breath_, the spirit is passing through a Gethsemane and
needs all the assistance that can be given. The value of the life that has
just been passed depends greatly upon conditions which then prevail about
the body; yes even the conditions of its future life are influenced by our
attitude during that time, so that if ever we were our brother's keeper in
life, we are a thousand times more so at death.

Post-mortem examinations, embalming and cremation during the period
mentioned, not only disturb the passing spirit mentally, but are
productive of a certain amount of pain, for there is still a slight
connection with the discarded vehicle. If sanitary laws require us to
prevent decomposition while thus keeping the body for cremation, it may be
packed in ice till the three and one-half days have passed. After that
time the spirit will not suffer, no matter what happens to the body.

_The Panorama of a Past Life._

No matter how long we may keep the spirit from passing out however, at
last there will come a time when no stimulant can hold it and the last
breath is drawn. Then the silver cord, of which the Bible speaks, and
which holds the higher and the lower vehicles together, snaps in the heart
and causes that organ to stop. That rupture releases the vital body, and
that with the desire body and mind float above the visible body for from
one to three and one-half days while the spirit is engaged in reviewing
the past life, an exceedingly important part of its post-mortem
experience. Upon that review depends its whole existence from death to a
new birth.

The question may arise in the student's mind: How can we review our past
life from the cradle to the grave when we do not even remember what we did
a month ago, and to form a proper basis for our future life, this record
ought to be very accurate, but even the best memory is faulty? When we
understand the difference between the conscious and sub-conscious memory
and the manner in which the latter operates, the difficulty vanishes. This
difference and the manner in which the sub-conscious memory keeps an
accurate record of our life experiences may be best understood by an
illustration, as follows: When we go into a field and view the surrounding
landscape, vibrations in the ether carry to us a picture of everything
within the range of our vision. It is as sad as it is true however, that
"we have eyes and see not," as the Savior said. These vibrations impinge
upon the retina of our eyes, even to the very smallest details, but they
usually do not penetrate to our consciousness, and therefore are not
remembered. Even the most powerful impressions fade in course of time so
that we cannot call them back at will when they are stored in our
conscious memory.

When a photographer goes afield _with his camera_ the results which he
obtains are different. The ether vibrations emanating from all things upon
which his camera is focused, transmit to the sensitive plate an impression
of the landscape true to the minutest detail, and, mark this well, this
true and accurate picture is in no wise dependent upon whether the
photographer is observant or not. It will remain upon the plate and may be
reproduced under proper conditions. Such is the subconscious memory, and
it is generated automatically by each of us during every moment of time,
independently of our volition, in the following manner.

From the first breath which we draw after birth to our last dying gasp, we
inspire air which is charged with pictures of our surroundings, and the
same ether which carries that picture to the retina of our eye, is inhaled
into our lungs where it enters the blood. Thus it reaches the heart in due
time. In the left ventricle of that organ, near the apex, there is one
little atom which is particularly sensitized, and which remains in the
body all through life. It differs in this respect from all other atoms
which come and go, for it is the particular property of God, and of a
certain spirit. This atom may be called the book of the Recording Angel,
for as the blood passes through the heart, cycle after cycle, the pictures
of our good and evil acts are inscribed thereon to the minutest detail.
This record may be called the sub-conscious memory. It forms the basis of
our future life when reproduced as a panorama just subsequent to death. By
removal of the seed atom--which corresponds to the sensitized plate in a
camera,--the reflecting ether of the vital body serves as a focus, and as
the life unrolls slowly backwards from death to birth the pictures thereof
are etched into the desire body which will be our vehicle during our
sojourn in purgatory and the first heaven where evil is eradicated and
good assimilated, so that in a future life the former may serve as
_conscience_ to withhold the man from repeating mistakes of the past, and
the latter will spur us to greater good.

A phenomenon similar to the panorama of life usually takes place when a
person is drowning. People who have been resuscitated speak of having seen
their whole life _in a flash_. That is because under such conditions the
vital body also leaves the dense body. Of course there is no rupture of
the silver cord, or life could not be restored. Unconsciousness follows
quickly in drowning, while in the usual post-mortem review the
consciousness continues until the vital body collapses in the same manner
that it does when we go to sleep. Then consciousness ceases for a while
and the panorama is terminated. Therefore also the time occupied by the
panorama varies with different persons, according to whether the vital
body was strong and healthy, or had become thin and emaciated by
protracted illness. The longer the time spent in review, and the more
quiet and peaceful the surroundings, the deeper will be the etching which
is made in the desire body. As already said, that has a most important and
far reaching effect, for then the sufferings which the spirit will realize
in purgatory on account of bad habits and misdeeds will be much more keen
than if there is only a slight impression, and in a future life the still
small voice of conscience will warn so much more insistently against
mistakes which caused sufferings in the past.

When conditions are such at the time of death that the spirit is disturbed
by outside conditions, for instance the din and turmoil of a battle, the
harrowing conditions of an accident or the hysterical wailings of
relatives, the distraction prevents it from realizing an appropriate depth
in the etching upon the desire body. Consequently its post-mortem
existence becomes vague and insipid, the spirit does not harvest fruits of
experience as it should have done had it passed out of the body in peace
and under normal conditions. It would therefore lack incentive to good in
a future life, and miss the warning against evil which a deep etching of
the panorama of life would have given. Thus its growth would be retarded
in a very marked degree, but the beneficent powers in charge of evolution
take certain steps to compensate for our ignorant treatment of the dying
and other untoward circumstances mentioned. What these steps are, we shall
discuss when considering the life of children in heaven, for the present
let it be sufficient to say that in God's kingdom every evil is always
transmuted to a greater good though the process may not be at once
apparent.

_Purgatory._

During life the collapse of the vital body at night terminates our view of
the world about us, and causes us to lose ourselves in unconsciousness of
sleep. When the vital body collapses just subsequent to death, and the
panorama of life is terminated, we also lose consciousness for a time
which varies according to the individual. A darkness seems to fall upon
the spirit, then after a while it wakes up and begins dimly to perceive
the light of the other world, but is only gradually accustomed to the
altered conditions. It is an experience similar to that which we have when
coming out of a darkened room into sunlight, which blinds us by its
brilliancy, until the pupils of our eyes have contracted so that they
admit a quantity of light bearable to our organism.

If under such a condition we turn momentarily from the bright sunlight and
look back into the darkened room, objects there will be much more plain to
our vision than things outside which are illumined by the powerful rays of
the sun. So it is also with the spirit, when it has first been released
from the body it perceives sights, scenes and sounds of the material
world, which it has just left, much more readily than it observes the
sights of the world it is entering. Wordsworth in his Ode to Immortality
noted a similar condition in the case of new-born children, who are all
clairvoyant and much more awake to the spiritual world than to this
present plane of existence. Some lose the spiritual sight very early,
others retain it for a number of years and a few keep it all through life,
but as the birth of a child is a death in the spiritual world and it
retains the spiritual sight for a time, so also death here is a birth upon
the spiritual plane, and the newly dead retain a consciousness of this
world for some time subsequent to demise.

When one awakes in the Desire World after having passed through
aforementioned experiences, the general feeling seems to be one of relief
from a heavy burden, a feeling perhaps akin to that of a diver encased in
a heavy rubber suit, a weighty brass helmet upon his head, leaden soles
under his feet and heavy weights of lead upon his breast and back,
confined in his operations on the bottom of the ocean by a short length of
air tube, and able only to move clumsily with difficulty. When after the
day's work such a man is hauled to the surface, and divests himself of his
heavy garments and he moves about with the facility we enjoy here, he must
surely experience a feeling of great relief. Something like that is felt
by the spirit when it has been divested of the mortal coil, and is able to
roam all over the globe instead of being confined to the narrow
environment which bound it upon earth.

There is also a feeling of relief for those who have been ill. Sickness,
such as we know it, does not exist there. Neither is it necessary to seek
food and shelter, for in that world there is neither heat nor cold.
Nevertheless, there are many in the purgatorial regions who go to all
bothers of housekeeping, eating and drinking just as we do here. George Du
Maurier in his novel "Peter Ibbetson" gives a very good idea of this
condition in the life lived between the hero and the Countess of Towers.
This novel also illustrates splendidly what has been said of the
sub-conscious memory, for Geo. Du Maurier has somewhere, somehow
discovered an easy method which anyone may apply to do what he calls
"dreaming true." By taking a certain position in going to sleep, it is
possible, after a little practice, to compel the appearance, in a dream,
of any scene _in our past life_ which we desire to live over again. The
book is well worth reading on that account.

When a fiery nebula has been formed in the sky and commences to revolve, a
little matter in the center where motion is slowest commences to
crystallize. When it has reached a certain density it is caught in the
swirl, and whirled nearer and nearer to the outward extremity of what has,
by that time, become the equator of a revolving globe. Then it is hurled
into space and discarded from the economy of the revolving sun.

This process is not accomplished automatically as scientists would have us
believe,--an assertion which has been proven in _The Rosicrucian Cosmo
Conception_ and other places in our literature. Herbert Spencer also
rejected the nebular theory because it required a First Cause, which he
denied, though unable to form a better hypothesis of the formation of
solar systems,--but it is accomplished through the activity of a Great
Spirit, which we may call God or by any other name we choose. As above, so
below, says the Hermetic axiom. Man, who is a lesser spirit, also gathers
about himself spirit-substance, which crystallizes into matter and becomes
the visible body which the spiritual sight reveals as placed inside an
aura of finer vehicles. The latter are in constant motion. When the dense
body is born as a child it is extremely soft and flexible.

Childhood, youth, maturity and old age are but so many different stages of
crystallization, which goes on until at last a point is reached where the
spirit can no longer move the hardened body and it is thrown out from the
spirit as the planet is expelled from the sun. That is death!--the
commencement of a disrobing process which continues in purgatory. The low
evil passions and desires we cultivated during life have crystallized the
desire stuff in such a manner that that also must be expelled. Thus the
spirit is purged of evil under the same law that a sun is purged of the
matter which later forms a planet. If the life lived has been a reasonably
decent one, the process of purgation will not be very strenuous nor will
the evil desires thus expurgated persist for a long time after having been
freed, but they quickly disintegrate. If, on the other hand, an extremely
vile life has been led, the part of the expurgated desire nature may
persist even to the time when the spirit returns to a new birth for
further experience. It will then be attracted to him and haunt him as a
demon, inciting him to evil deeds which he himself abhors. The story of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not a mere fanciful idea of Robert Louis
Stevenson, but is founded upon facts well known to spiritual
investigators. Such cases are extremes of course, but they are
nevertheless possible and we have unfortunately laws which convert such
possibilities to probabilities in the case of a certain class of so-called
criminals. We refer to laws which decree capital punishment as penalty of
murder.

When a man is dangerous he should of course be restrained, but even apart
from the question of the moral right of a community to take the life of
anyone--which we deny--society by its very act of retaliatory murder defeats
the very end it would serve, for if the vicious murderer is restrained
under whatever discipline is necessary in a prison for a number of years
until his natural death, he will have forgotten his bitterness against his
victim and against society, and when he stands as a free spirit in the
Desire World, he may even by prayer have obtained forgiveness and have
become a good Christian. He will then go on his way rejoicing, and will in
the future life seek to help those whom he hurt here.

When society retaliates and puts him to a violent death shortly after he
has committed the crime, he is most likely to feel himself as having been
greatly injured, and not without cause. Then such a character will usually
seek to "get even" as he calls it, he will go about for a long time
inciting others to commit murder and other crimes. Then we have an
epidemic of murders in a community, a condition not infrequent.

The regicide in Servia shocked the Western World by wiping out an entire
royal house in a most shockingly bloody manner, and the Minister of the
Interior was one of the chief conspirators. Later he wrote his memoirs,
and therein he writes that whenever the conspirators had tried to win
anyone as a recruit, they always succeeded when they burned incense. He
did not know why, but simply mentioned it as a curious coincidence. To the
mystic investigator the matter is perfectly clear. We have shown the
necessity of having a vehicle made of the materials of any world wherein
we wish to function. We usually obtain a physical vehicle by going through
the womb, or perhaps in a few special cases from a particularly good
materializing medium, but where it is only necessary to work upon the
brain and influence someone else to act, we need but a vehicle made of
such ether as may be obtained from fumes of many different substances.
Each kind attracts different classes of spirits, and there is no doubt
that the incense burned at meetings where the conspirators were successful
was of a low and sensual order and attracted spirits who had a grudge
against humanity in general and the King of Servia in particular. These
malcontents were unable to injure the King himself, but used a subtle
influence which helped the conspirators in their work. The released
murderer who has a grudge against society on account of his execution, may
enter low gambling saloons where the fumes of liquor and tobacco furnish
ample opportunity for working upon the class of people who congregate in
such places, and the man whose spiritual sight has been developed is often
sadly impressed when he sees the subtle influences to which those who
frequent such places are exposed. It is a fact of course that a man must
be of a low caliber to be influenced by low thoughts, and that it is as
impossible to incite a person of benevolent character to do murder--unless
we put him into a hypnotic sleep--as to make a tuning fork which vibrates
to C sing by striking another attuned to the key of G, but the thoughts of
both living and dead constantly surround us, and no man ever thought out a
high spiritual philosophy under the influence of tobacco fumes or while
imbibing alcoholic stimulants. Were capital punishment, newspaper
notoriety of criminals, the _manufacture_ of liquor and tobacco eliminated
from society, the gun factories would soon cease to advertise and go out
of business along with most of the locksmiths. The police force would
decrease, so would jails and taxes would be correspondingly minimized.

When a person enters purgatory he is exactly the same person as before he
died. He has just the same appetites, likes and dislikes, sympathies and
antipathies, as before. There is one important difference, however,
namely, that _he has no dense body wherewith to gratify his appetites_.
The drunkard craves drink, in fact, far more than he did in this life, but
has no stomach which can contain liquor and cause chemical combustion
necessary to bring about the state of intoxication in which he delights.
He may and does enter saloons, where he interpolates his body into the
body of a physical drunkard, so that he may obtain his desires at second
hand as it were, he will incite his victim to drink more and more. Yet
there is no true satisfaction. He sees the full glass upon the counter but
his spirit hand is unable to lift it. He suffers tortures of Tantalus
until in time he realizes the impossibility of gratifying his base desire.
Then he is free to go on so far as that vice is concerned. He has been
purged from that evil without intervention of an angry deity or a
conventional devil with hell's flames and pitchfork to administer
punishment, but under the immutable law that as we sow so shall we reap,
he has suffered exactly according to his vice. If his craving for drink
was of a mild nature, he would scarcely miss the liquor which he cannot
there obtain. If his desires were strong and he simply lived for drink, he
would suffer veritable tortures of hell without need of actual flames.
Thus the pain experienced in eradication of his vice would be exactly
commensurate with the energy he had expended upon contracting the habit,
as the force wherewith a falling stone strikes the earth is proportionate
to the energy expended in hurling it upwards into the air.

Yet it is not the aim of God to "get even;" _love_ is higher than _law_
and in His wonderful mercy and solicitude for our welfare He has opened
the way of repentance and reform whereby we may obtain forgiveness of sin,
as taught by the Lord of Love: the Christ. Not indeed contrary to law, for
His laws are immutable, but by application of a higher law, whereby we
accomplish here that which would otherwise be delayed until death had
forced the day of reckoning. The method is as follows:

In our explanation concerning the sub-conscious memory we noted that a
record of every act, thought and word is transmitted by air and ether into
our lungs, thence to the blood, and finally inscribed upon the tablet of
the heart:--a certain little _seedatom_, which is thus the book of
Recording Angels. It was later explained how this panorama of life is
etched into the desire body and forms the basis of retribution after
death. When we have committed a wrong and our conscience accuses us in
consequence, and this accusation is productive of sincere repentance
_accompanied by reform_, the picture of that wrong act will gradually fade
from the record of our life, so that when we pass out at death it will not
stand accusingly against us. We noted that the panorama of life unwinds
backwards just after death. Later, in the purgatorial life it again passes
before the spiritual vision of the man, who then experiences the exact
feeling of those whom he has wronged. He seems to lose his own identity
for the time being, and assumes the condition of his one time victim, he
experiences all the mental and physical suffering himself which he
inflicted upon others. Thus he learns to be merciful instead of cruel, and
to do right instead of wrong in a future life. But if he awakens to a
thorough realization of a wrong previous to his death, then, as said, the
feeling of sorrow for his victim and the restitution or redress which he
gives of his own free will, make the suffering after death unnecessary,
hence--"his sin is forgiven."

The Rosicrucian Mystery teaching gives a scientific method whereby an
aspirant to higher life may purge himself continually, and thus be able to
entirely avoid existence in purgatory. Each night after retiring the pupil
reviews his life during the past day _in reverse order_. He starts to
visualize as clearly as possible the scene which took place just before
retiring. He then endeavors to impartially view his actions in that scene
examining them to see whether he did right or wrong. If the latter, he
endeavors to _feel and realize as __ vividly as possible_ that wrong. For
instance, if he spoke harshly to someone, and upon later consideration
finds it was not merited, he will endeavor to _feel_ exactly as that one
felt whom he wronged and at the very earliest opportunity to apologize for
the hasty expression. Then he will call up the next scene in backward
succession which may perhaps be the supper table. In respect of that scene
he will examine himself as to whether he ate to live, sparingly and of
foods prepared without suffering to other creatures of God, (such as flesh
foods that cannot be obtained without taking life). If he finds that he
allowed his appetite to run away with him and that he ate gluttonously, he
will endeavor to overcome these habits, for to live a clean life we must
have a clean body and no one can live to his highest possibilities while
making his stomach a graveyard for the decaying corpses of murdered
animals. In this respect there occurs to the writer a little poem by Ella
Wheeler Wilcox:


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

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

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


Thus the pupil will continue to review each scene _in reverse order_ from
night till morning, and to _feel really sorry_ for whatever he has done
amiss. He will not neglect to _feel glad_ either when he comes to a scene
where he has done well, and _the more intensely he can feel, the more
thoroughly he will eradicate the record upon the tablet of the heart and
sharpen his conscience_, so that as time goes on from year to year, he
will find less cause for blame and enhance his soul power enormously. Thus
he will grow in a measure impossible by any less systematic method, and
there will be no necessity for his stay in purgatory after death.

This evening exercise and another, for the morning, if persistently
performed day by day, will in time awaken the spiritual vision as they
improve life. This matter has, however, been so thoroughly treated in
number 11 of the lecture series: "_Spiritual Sight and Insight; its safe
culture and control_," that it is unnecessary to dwell upon the matter
further in this place.

_The First Heaven._

In the first heaven, which is located in the higher regions of the Desire
World, the panorama of life again unrolls and reveals every scene where we
aimed to help or benefit others. They were not felt at the time the spirit
was in the lower regions, for higher desires cannot express themselves in
the coarse matter composing the lower regions of the Desire World, but
when the spirit ascends to the first heaven it reaps from each scene all
the good which it expressed in life. It will feel the gratitude poured out
by those whom it helped; if it comes to a scene where itself received a
favor from others _and was grateful_, it will experience the gratitude
anew. The sum of all these feelings is there amalgamated into the spirit
to serve in a future life as incentives to good.

Thus, the soul is purged from evil in purgatory, and strengthened in good
in the first heaven. In one region the extract of sufferings become
_conscience_ to deter us from doing wrong, in the other region the
quintessence of good is transmuted to _benevolence_ and altruism which are
the basis of all true progress. Moreover, purgatory is far from being a
place of _punishment_, it is perhaps the most beneficent realm in nature,
for _because of purgation we are born innocent_ life after life. The
tendencies to commit the same evil for which we suffered remain with us
and temptations to commit the same wrongs will be placed in our path until
we have consciously overcome the evil here; temptation is not sin,
however, the sin is in yielding.

Among the inhabitants of the invisible world there is one class which
lives a particularly painful life, sometimes for a great many years,
namely, the suicide who tried to play truant from the school of life. Yet
it is not an angry God or a malevolent devil who administers punishment,
but an immutable law which proportions the sufferings differently to each
individual suicide.

We learned previously, when considering the World of Thought, that each
form in this visible world has its archetype there,--a vibrating hollow
mold which emits a certain harmonious sound; that sound attracts and forms
physical matter into the shape we behold, much in the same manner as when
we place a little sand upon a glass plate and rub the edge with a violin
bow, the sand is shaped into different geometrical figures which change as
the sound changes.

The little atom in the heart is the sample and the center around which the
atoms in our body gather. When that is removed at death, the center is
lacking, and although the archetype keeps on vibrating until the limit of
the life has been reached--as also previously explained,--no matter can be
drawn into the hollow shape of the archetype and therefore the suicide
feels a dreadful gnawing pain as if he were hollowed out, a torture which
can only be likened to the pangs of hunger. In his case, the intense
suffering will continue for exactly as many years as he should have lived
in the body. At the expiration of that time, the archetype collapses as it
does when death comes naturally. Then the pain of the suicide ceases, and
he commences his period of purgation as do those who die a natural death.
But the memory of sufferings experienced in consequence of the act of
suicide will remain with him in future lives and deter him from a similar
mistake.

In the first heaven there is a class who have not had any purgatorial
existence and who lead a particularly joyous life: the children. Our homes
may be saddened almost beyond endurance when the little flower is broken
and the sunshine it brought has gone. But could we see the beautiful
existence which these little ones lead, and did we understand the great
benefits which accrue to a child from its limited stay there, our sorrow
would be at least ameliorated in a great measure, and the wound upon our
heart would heal more quickly. Besides, as nothing else in the world
happens without a cause, so there is also a much deeper cause for infant
mortality than we are usually aware of, and as we awake to the facts of
the case, we shall be able to avoid in future the sorrow incident to loss
of our little ones.

To understand the case properly we must revert to the experiences of the
dying in the death hour. We remember that the panorama of the past life is
etched upon the desire body during a period varying from a few hours to
three and one-half days, just subsequent to demise. We recall also, that
upon the depth of this etching depends the clearness of the picture, and
that the more vivid this panorama of life, the more intensely will the
spirit suffer in purgatory and feel the joys of heaven; also, that the
greater the suffering in purgatory the stronger the conscience in the next
life.

It was explained how the horrors of death upon the battlefield, in an
accident or other untoward circumstances would prevent the spirit from
giving all its attention to the panorama of life with the result that
there would be a light etching in the desire body, followed by a vague and
insipid existence in purgatory and the first heaven. It was also stated
that hysterical lamentations in the death chamber would produce the same
effect.

A spirit which had thus escaped suffering proportionate to its misdeeds,
and which had not experienced the pleasure commensurate with the good it
had done, would not in a future life have as well developed a conscience
as it ought to have, nor would it be as benevolent as it ought to be, and
therefore the life, terminated under conditions over which the spirit had
no control, would be partly wasted. The Great Leaders of humanity
therefore take steps to counteract such a calamity and prevent an
injustice. The spirit is brought to birth, caused to die in childhood, it
re-enters the Desire World and in the first heaven it is taught the
lessons of which it was deprived previously.

As the first heaven is located in the Desire World,--which is the realm of
light and color,--where matter is shaped most readily by thought, the
little ones are given wonderful toys impossible of construction here. They
are taught to play with _colors which work upon their moral character_ in
exactly the manner each child requires. Anyone who is at all sensitive is
affected by the color of his clothing and surroundings. Some colors have a
depressing effect, while others inspire us with energy, and others again
soothe and comfort us. In the Desire World the effect of colors is much
more intense, they are much more potent factors of good and evil there
than here, and in this color play, the child imbibes unconsciously the
qualities which it did not acquire on account of accident or lamentations
of relatives. Often it also falls to the lot of such relatives to care for
a child in the invisible world, or perhaps to give it birth and see it
die. Thus they receive just retribution for the wrong committed. As wars
cease, and man learns to be more careful of life, and also how to care for
the dying, infant mortality, which now is so appalling, will decrease.

_The Second Heaven._

When both the good and evil of a life has been extracted, the spirit
discards its desire body and ascends to the second heaven. The desire body
then commences to disintegrate as the physical body and the vital body
have done, but it is a peculiarity of desire stuff, that once it has been
formed and inspired with life, it persists for a considerable time. Even
after that life has fled it lives a semi-conscious, independent life.
Sometimes it is drawn by magnetic attraction to relatives of the spirit
whose clothing it was, and at spiritualistic seances these _shells_
generally impersonate the departed spirit and deceive its relatives. As
the panorama of the past life is etched into the shells they have a memory
of incidents in connection with these relatives, which facilitates the
deception. But as the intelligence has fled, they are of course unable to
give any true counsel, and that accounts for the inane, goody-goody
nonsense of which these things deliver themselves.

When passing from the first to the second heaven, the spirit experiences
the condition known and described previously as "The Great Silence," where
it stands utterly alone conscious only of its divinity. When that silence
is broken there floats in upon the spirit celestial harmonies of _the
world of tone_ where the second heaven is located. It seems then to lave
in an ocean of sound and to experience a joy beyond all description and
words, as it nears its heavenly home--for this is the first of the truly
spiritual realms from which the spirit has been exiled during its earth
life and the subsequent post-mortem existence. In the Desire World its
work was _corrective_, but in the World of Thought the human spirit
becomes one with the nature forces and its _creative_ activity begins.

Under the law of causation we reap exactly what we sow, and it would be
wrong to place one spirit in an environment where there is a scarcity of
the necessities of life, where a scorching sun burns the crop and millions
die from famine, or where the raging flood sweeps away primitive
habitations not built to withstand its ravages, and to bring another
spirit to birth in a land of plenty, with a fertile soil which yields a
maximum of increase with a minimum of labor, where the earth is rich in
minerals that may be used in industry to facilitate transportation of
products of the soil from one point to another. If we were thus placed
without action or acquiescence upon our part, there would be no justice,
but as our post-mortem existence in purgatory and the first heaven is
based upon our moral attitude in this life so our activities in the second
heaven are determined by our mental aspirations and they produce our
future physical environment, for in the second heaven, the spirit becomes
part of the nature forces which work upon the earth and change its
climate, flora and fauna. A spirit of an indolent nature, who indulges in
day dreams and metaphysical speculations _here_, is not transformed by
death respecting its mental attitude any more than regarding its moral
propensities. It will dream away time in heaven, glorying in its sights
and sounds. Thus it will neglect to work upon its future country and
return to a barren and arid land. Spirits, on the other hand, whose
material aspirations lead them to desire so-called solid comforts of
hearth and home, who aim to promote great industries and whose mind is
concerned in trade and commerce, will build in heaven a land that will
suit their purpose: fertile, immineralized, with navigable rivers and
sheltered harbors. They will return in time to enjoy upon earth the fruits
of their labors in the second heaven, as they reap the result of their
life upon earth in purgatory and the first heaven.

_The Third Heaven._

In the third heaven most people have very little consciousness for reasons
explained in connection with the Region of Abstract Thought, for there the
third heaven is located. It is therefore more of a place of waiting where
the spirit rests between the time when its labors in the second heaven
have been completed and the time when it again experiences the desire for
rebirth. But from this realm inventors bring down their original ideas;
there the philanthropist obtains the clearest vision of how to realize his
utopian dreams and the spiritual aspirations of the saintly minded are
given renewed impetus.

In time the desires of the spirit for further experiences draws it back to
rebirth, and the Great Celestial Beings who are known in the Christian
Religion as Recording Angels, assist the spirit to come to birth in the
place best suited to give it the experience necessary to further unfold
its powers and possibilities.

We have all been here many times and in different families, we have had
relations of varying nature with many different people and usually there
are several families among whom we may seek re-embodiment to work out our
self-generated destiny and reap what we have sown in former life. If there
are no special reasons why we should take birth in any particular family
among certain friends or foes, the spirit is allowed to choose its own
place of birth. Thus it may be said that most of us are in our present
places by our own prenatal choice.

In order to assist us in making that choice the Recording Angels call up
before the spirit's vision a panorama in general outlines of each of the
offered lives. This panorama will show what part of our past debts we are
to pay, and what fruits we may be expected to reap in the coming life.

The spirit is left free to choose between the several lives offered. But
once a choice has been made no evasion is possible during life. We have
free will with regard to the future, but the past "_mature_" destiny we
cannot escape, as shown by the incident recorded in _The Rosicrucian Cosmo
Conception_, where the writer warned a well known Los Angeles lecturer
that if he left his home upon a certain day, he would be injured by a
conveyance, in head, neck, breast and shoulders. The gentleman believed
and intended to heed our warning. Nevertheless he went to Sierra Madre to
lecture upon the fateful day. He was injured in the places stated by a
collision and later explained: "I thought the twenty-eighth was the
twenty-ninth."

When the spirit has made its choice, it descends into the second heaven
where it is instructed by the Angels and Archangels how to build an
archetype of the body which it will later inhabit upon earth. Also here we
note the operation of the great law of justice which decrees that we reap
what we sow. If our tastes are coarse and sensual, we shall build an
archetype which will express these qualities; if we are refined and of
aesthetic taste, we shall build an archetype correspondingly refined, but
no one can obtain a better body than he can build. Then, as the architect
who builds a house in which he afterwards lives, will suffer discomfort if
he neglects to properly ventilate it, so also the spirit feels disease in
a poorly constructed body, and as the architect learns to avoid mistakes
and remedy the short-comings of one house when building another, so also
the spirit which suffers from defects in its body, learns in time to build
better and better vehicles.

In the Region of Concrete Thought, the spirit also draws to itself
materials for a new mind. As a magnet draws iron filings but leaves other
substances alone, so also each spirit draws only the kind of mind-stuff
which it used in its former life, plus that which it has learned to use in
its present post-mortem state. Then it descends into the Desire World
where it gathers material for a new desire body such as will express
appropriately its moral characteristics, and later it attracts a certain
amount of ether which is built into the mold of the archetype constructed
in the second heaven and acts as cement between the solids, liquids and
gaseous material from the bodies of parents which forms the dense physical
body of a child, and in due time the latter is brought to birth.

_Birth and Child Life._

It must not be imagined, however, that when the little body of a child has
been born, the process of birth is completed. The dense physical body has
had the longest evolution, and as a shoemaker who has worked at his trade
for a number of years is more expert than an apprentice and can make
better shoes and _quicker_, so also the spirit which has built many
physical bodies produces them quickly, but the vital body is a later
acquisition of the human being. Therefore we are not so expert in building
that vehicle. Consequently it takes longer to construct that from the
materials not used up in making the lining of the archetype, and the vital
body is not born until the seventh year. Then the period of rapid growth
commences. The desire body is a still later addition of composite man, and
is not brought to birth until the fourteenth year when the desire nature
expresses itself most strongly during so-called "hot" youth, and the mind,
which makes man man, does not come to birth until the twenty-first year.
In law that age is recognized as the earliest time he is fitted to
exercise a franchise.

This knowledge is of the utmost importance to parents, as a proper
understanding of the development which should take place in each of the
septenary epochs enables the educator to work intelligently with nature
and thus fulfill more thoroughly the trust of a parent than those who are
ignorant of the Rosicrucian Mystery Teaching. We shall therefore devote
the remaining pages to an elucidation of this matter and of the importance
of the knowledge of astrology upon the part of the parent.

_The Mystery of Light, Color and Consciousness._

"God is Light," says the Bible, and we are unable to conceive of a grander
simile of His Omnipresence, or the mode of His manifestation. Even the
greatest telescopes have failed to reach the boundaries of light, though
they reveal to us stars millions of miles from the earth, and we may well
ask ourselves, as did the Psalmist of old: Whither shall I flee from Thy
Presence? If I ascend into heaven Thou art there, If I make my bed in the
grave (the Hebrew word _sheol_ means _grave_ and not hell), Thou art
there, If I take the wings of morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of
the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me.

When, in the dawn of Being, _God the Father_ enunciated _The Word_, and
_The Holy Spirit_ moved upon the sea of homogeneous _Virgin Matter_,
primeval _Darkness_ was turned to _Light_. That is therefore the prime
manifestation of Deity, and a study of the principles of Light will reveal
to the mystic intuition a wonderful source of spiritual inspiration. As it
would take us too far afield from our subject we shall not enter into an
elucidation of that theme here, except so far as to give an elementary
idea of how divine Life energizes the human frame and stimulates to
action.

Truly, God is ONE and undivided, He enfolds within His Being all that is,
as the white light embraces all colors. But He appears three-fold in
manifestation, as the white light is refracted in three primary colors:
Blue, Yellow and Red. Wherever we see these colors they are emblematical
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three primary rays of divine
Life are diffused or radiated through the sun and produce _Life_,
_Consciousness_ and _Form_ upon each of the seven light-bearers, the
planets, which are called "the Seven Spirits before the Throne." Their
names are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Bode's
law proves that Neptune does not belong to our solar system and the reader
is referred to "Simplified Scientific Astrology" by the present writer,
for mathematical demonstration of this contention.

Each of the seven planets receives the light of the sun in a different
measure, according to its proximity to the central orb and the
constitution of its atmosphere, and the beings upon each, according to
their stage of development, have affinity for some of the solar rays. They
absorb the color or colors congruous to them, and reflect the remainder
upon the other planets. This reflected ray bears with it an impulse of the
nature of the beings with which it has been in contact.

Thus the divine Light and Life comes to each planet, either directly from
the sun, or reflected from its six sister planets, and as the summer
breeze which has been wafted over blooming fields carries upon its silent
invisible wings the blended fragrance of a multitude of flowers, so also
the subtle influences from the garden of God bring to us the commingled
impulses of all the Spirits and in that varicolored light we live and move
and have our being.

The rays which come directly from the sun are productive of spiritual
illumination, the reflected rays from other planets make for added
consciousness and moral development and the rays reflected by way of the
moon give physical growth.

But as each planet can only absorb a certain quantity of one or more
colors according to the general stage of evolution there, so each being
upon earth: mineral, plant, animal and man can only absorb and thrive upon
a certain quantity of the various rays projected upon the earth. The
remainder do not affect it or produce sensation, any more than the blind
are conscious of light and color which exist everywhere around them.
Therefore each being is differently affected by the stellar rays and the
science of Astrology a fundamental truth in nature, of enormous benefit in
the attainment of spiritual growth.

From a horoscopic figure in mystic script we may learn our own strength
and weakness, with the path best suited to our development, or we may see
the tendencies of those friends who come to us as children, and what
traits are dormant in them. Thus we shall know clearly how to discharge
our duty as parents, by repressing evil before it comes to birth and
fostering good, so that it may bring forth most abundantly the spiritual
potencies of the soul committed to our care.

As we have already said, man returns to earth to reap that which he has
sown in previous lives and to sow anew the seeds which make for future
experience. The stars are the heavenly time keepers which measure the
year, the moon indicates the month when time will be propitious to harvest
or to sow.

The child is a mystery to us all, we can only know its propensities as
they slowly develop into characteristics, but it is usually too late to
check when evil habits have been formed and the youth is upon the downward
grade. A horoscope cast for the time of birth in a scientific manner shows
the tendencies to good or evil in the child, and if a parent will take
time and trouble necessary to study the science of the stars, he or she
may do the child intrusted to his or her care an inestimable service by
fostering tendencies to good and repressing the evil bent of a child ere
it has crystallized into habit. Do not imagine that a superior
mathematical knowledge is necessary to erect a horoscope. Many construct a
horoscope in such an involved manner, so "fearfully and wonderfully made"
that it is unreadable to themselves or others, while a simple figure easy
of reading may be constructed by anyone who knows how to add and subtract.
This method has been thoroughly elucidated in Simplified Scientific
Astrology which is a complete text book, though small and inexpensive, and
parents who have the welfare of their children thoroughly at heart should
endeavor to learn for themselves, for even though their ability may not
compare with that of a professional astrologer, their intimate knowledge
of the child and their deep interest will more than compensate for such
lack and enable them to see most deeply into the child's character by
means of its horoscope.

_Education of Children._

Respecting the birth of the various vehicles and the influence which that
has upon life, we may say that during the time from birth to the seventh
year the lines of growth of the physical body are determined, and as it
has been noted that sound is builder both in the great and small, we may
well imagine that rhythm must have an enormous influence upon the growing
and sensitive little child's organism. The apostle John in the first
chapter of his gospel expresses this idea mystically in the beautiful
words: "In the beginning was the WORD ... and without it was not anything
made that was made ... and the word became flesh;" the word is a rhythmic
sound, which issued from the Creator, reverberated through the universe
and marshaled countless millions of atoms into the multiplex variety of
shapes and forms which we see about us. The mountain, the mayflower, the
mouse and the man are all embodiments of that great Cosmic Word which is
still sounding through the universe and which is still building and ever
building though unheard by our insensitive ears. But though we do not hear
that wonderful celestial sound, we may work upon the little child's body
by terrestrial music, and though the nursery rhymes are without sense,
they are nevertheless bearers of a wonderful rhythm, and the more a child
is taught to say, sing and repeat them, to dance and to march to them, the
more music is incorporated into a child's daily life, the stronger and
healthier will be its body in future years.

There are two mottoes which apply during this period, one to the child and
the other to the parent: _Example_ and _Imitation_. No creature under
heaven is more imitative than a little child, and its conduct in after
years will depend largely upon the example set by its parents during its
early life. It is no use to tell the child "not to mind," it has no mind
wherewith to discriminate, but follows its natural tendency, as water
flows down a hill, when it imitates. Therefore it behooves every parent to
remember from morning till night that watchful eyes are upon him all the
time waiting but for him to act in order to follow his example.

It is of the utmost importance that the child's clothing should be very
loose, particularly the clothing of little boys, as chafing garments often
produce vices which follow a man through life.

If anyone should attempt to forcibly extract a babe from the protecting
womb of its mother, the outrage would result in death, because the babe
has not yet arrived at a maturity sufficient to endure impacts of the
Physical World. In the three septenary periods which follow birth, the
invisible vehicles are still in the womb of mother nature. If we teach a
child of tender years to memorize, or to think, or if we arouse its
feelings and emotions, we are in fact opening the protecting womb of
nature and the results are equally as disastrous in other respects as a
forced premature birth. Child prodigies usually become men and women of
less than ordinary intelligence. We should not hinder the child from
learning or thinking of _his own volition_, but we should not goad them on
as parents often do to nourish their own pride.

When the vital body is born at the age of seven a period of growth begins
and a new motto, or relation rather, is established between parent and
child. This may be expressed in the two words _Authority_ and
_Discipleship_. In this period the child is taught certain lessons which
it takes upon faith in the authority of its teachers, whether at home or
at school, and as memory is a faculty of the vital body it can now
memorize what is learned. It is therefore eminently teachable;
particularly because it is unbiased by pre-conceived opinions which
prevent most of us from accepting new views. At the end of this second
period: from about twelve to fourteen, the vital body has been so far
developed that puberty is reached. At the age of fourteen we have the
birth of the desire body, which marks the commencement of self-assertion.
In earlier years the child regards itself more as belonging to a family
and subordinate to the wishes of its parents than after the fourteenth
year. The reason is this: In the throat of the foetus and the young child
there is a gland called the thymus gland, which is largest before birth,
then gradually diminishes through the years of childhood and finally
disappears at ages which vary according to the characteristics of the
child. Anatomists have been puzzled as to the function of this organ and
have not yet come to any settled conclusion, but it has been suggested
that before development of the red marrow bones, the child is not able to
manufacture its own blood, and that therefore the thymus gland contains an
essence, supplied by the parents, upon which the child may draw during
infancy and childhood, till able to manufacture its own blood. That theory
is approximately true, and as the family blood flows in the child, it
looks upon itself as part of the family and not as an Ego. But the moment
it commences to manufacture its own blood, the Ego asserts itself, it is
no longer Papa's girl or Mamma's boy, it has an "I"-dentity of its own.
Then comes the critical age when parents reap what they have sown. The
mind has not yet been born, nothing holds the desire nature in check, and
much, very much, depends upon how the child has been taught in earlier
years and what example the parents have set. At this point in life
self-assertion, the feeling "_I am myself_", is stronger than at any other
time and therefore authority should give place to _Advice_; the parent
should practice the utmost tolerance, for at no time in life is a human
being as much in need of sympathy as during the seven years from fourteen
to twenty-one when the desire nature is rampant and unchecked.

It is a crime to inflict corporal punishment upon a child at any age.
Might is never right, and as the stronger, parents should always have
compassion for the weaker. But there is one feature of corporal punishment
which makes it particularly dangerous to apply it to the youth: namely,
that it wakens the passional nature which is already perhaps beyond the
control of a growing boy.

If we whip a dog, we shall soon break its spirit and transform it into a
cringing cur, and it is deplorable that some parents seem to regard it as
their mission in life to break the spirit of their children with the rule
of the rod. If there is one universal lack among the human race which is
more apparent than any other, it is lack of will, and as parents we may
remedy the evil in a large measure by guiding the wills of our children
along such lines as dictated by our own more mature reason, so that we
help them to grow a backbone instead of a wishbone with which
unfortunately most of us are afflicted. Therefore, never whip a child;
when punishment is necessary, correct by withholding favors or withdrawing
privileges.

At the twenty-first year the birth of the mind transforms the youth into a
man or a woman fully equipped to commence his own life in the school of
experience.

Thus we have followed the human spirit around a life cycle from death to
birth and maturity, we have seen how immutable law governs his every step
and how he is ever encompassed by the loving care of the Great and
Glorious Beings who are the ministers of God. The method of his future
development will be explained in a later work which will deal with "The
Christian Mystic Initiation."





MT. ECCLESIA


(Transcriber's Note: This chapter is the series of pages which, earlier,
the author said "had been transferred" to the back of the book.)

A DESCRIPTION OF THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP

Work in the physical world requires physical means of accomplishment;
therefore a tract of land was bought in 1911 in the town of Oceanside,
ninety miles south of Los Angeles, California. _Southern California was
selected because of the abundance of ether in the atmosphere there, and
this spot was found to be particularly favored in that respect._

On this commanding site having a wide view of the great Pacific Ocean, of
snow capped mountains and smiling valleys, we began to establish our
headquarters in the latter part of 1911. Soon after this we erected a
sanctuary, the Pro-Ecclesia, where the Rosicrucian Temple Service is held
at appropriate times. The Rose Cross Healing Circle holds its meetings
there to help sufferers, and it is the place appointed for the united
morning and evening devotions of the workers. In the latter half of 1920
we built an Ecclesia, which is designed to be a Temple of Healing. The
building, a beautiful domed structure, is of steel and reinforced
concrete. It is twelve sided in shape, corresponding to the twelve signs
of the zodiac. At the present writing, January, 1921, the final work upon
it is just being completed. The esoteric work of the Fellowship will be
carried on here.

We have also built a two-story Administration Building to house the
general office, the book department, the correspondence school in
Christian Mysticism which links Headquarters with students all over the
world, and the editorial offices of our monthly publications, notably the
"_Rosicrucian Fellowship Magazine--Rays from the Rose Cross_." We have also
an astrological department which conducts a correspondence school. Its
offices are located on the second floor.

The whole first floor is occupied by a modern printing plant and book
bindery required to furnish the immense amount of literature needed in
this work. In the book department we publish all the standard works and
text books of the Rosicrucian Philosophy written by Max Heindel. We are
now in process of publishing in book form his former lessons to students.

In October, 1920, a Training School was established for the preparation of
candidates for the lecture field. It is our intention to thereby maintain
a Lecture Bureau, from which we will send our lecturers throughout the
country to disseminate the teachings and carry the message of our
philosophy to the people to a greater extent than has before been
possible.

A Dining Hall with seating capacity for over one hundred people affords
ample accommodation for workers, students, and patients. The scientific
meatless diet served there preserves or restores health, as required in
each case. Furthermore, it improves the vitality and mentality in an
astonishing degree. A large dormitory, and a number of cottages and tents
provide living quarters for all.

By the liberal use of water and the expenditure of much labor, Mount
Ecclesia is gradually being transformed into a luxuriant tropical park.
There is a deep spiritual purpose in this attempt to make the visible
centre of the new world movement beautiful, for it fosters in the workers
a poise and peace which are absolutely essential to the proper performance
of their work. Without that they cannot escape being disturbed by the
flood of sorrow and trouble which flows into Headquarters from members all
over the world; without that they cannot continue to put heart into the
letters of help, hope and cheer which continually go out to souls who are
groaning under the burden of sickness, but by bathing their souls in the
beauty of the surroundings, whether consciously or not, they gain in
strength and grow in grace, they become better and better fitted for the
Great Work in the Master's Vineyard.

In order to aid those who feel the upward urge, to prepare intelligently
and reverently for the unfoldment of their inner latent spiritual powers,
the Rosicrucian Fellowship maintains two correspondence courses which
furnish instruction to students all over the world. One deals with
_Astrology_, the other with _Christian Mysticism_.

The Astrology to which we refer is not to be confounded with
fortune-telling; it is a phase of the Mystic Religion, as sublime as the
stars with which it deals, and to the Mystic they are not dead bodies
moving in space in obedience to so-called blind natural law, but they are
the embodiments of "_The Seven Spirits before the Throne_," mighty
Star-Angels who use their benevolent influences to guide other less
exalted beings, humanity included, upon the path of evolution.

There is a side of the moon which we never see, but that hidden half is as
potent a factor in creating the ebb and flow, as the part of the moon
which is visible. Similarly, there is an invisible part of man which
exerts a powerful influence in life, and as the tides are measured by the
motion of sun and moon, so also the eventualities of existence are
measured by the circling stars, which may therefore be called "the Clock
of Destiny," and knowledge of their import is an immense power, for to the
competent Astrologer a horoscope reveals every secret of life.

Thus, when you have given an astrologer the data of your birth, you have
given him the key to your innermost soul, and there is no secret that he
may not ferret out. This knowledge may be used for good or ill, to help or
hurt, according to the nature of the man. Only a friend should be trusted
with this key to your soul, and it should never be given to anyone base
enough to prostitute a spiritual science for material gain.

To the medical man Astrology is invaluable in diagnosing diseases and
prescribing a remedy, for it reveals the hidden cause of all ailments, in
a manner that has often perplexed the skeptic and dumbfounded the scoffer.

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

If you are a parent the horoscope will aid you to detect the evil latent
in your child and teach you how to apply the ounce of prevention. It will
show you the good points also, that you may make a better man or woman of
the soul entrusted to your care. It will reveal systemic weakness and
enable you to guard the health of your child; it will show what talents
are there, and how the life may be lived to a maximum of usefulness.
Therefore, the message of the marching orbs is so important that you
cannot afford to remain ignorant thereof.

In order to aid those who are willing to help themselves we maintain a
Correspondence Class in Astrology, but make no mistake, we do not teach
fortune-telling; if that is what you are looking for, we have nothing for
you.

OUR LESSONS ARE SERMONS

They embody the highest moral and spiritual principles, together with the
loftiest system of ethics, for Astrology is, to us, a phase of religion;
we never look at a horoscope without feeling that we are in a holy
presence, face to face with an immortal soul, and our attitude is one of
prayer for light to guide that soul aright.

WE DO NOT CAST HOROSCOPES

Despite all we can say, many people write enclosing money for horoscopes,
forcing us to spend valuable time writing letters of refusal and giving us
the trouble of returning their money. Please do not thus annoy us; it will
avail you nothing.

THE COURSE IN CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM

_Christ_ taught the multitude in _parables_, but explained the _mysteries_
to His disciples. _Paul gave milk_ to the babes, but _meat_ to the strong.

Max Heindel, the founder and leader of the Rosicrucian Fellowship,
endeavored to follow in their steps and give to interested and devoted
students a _deeper teaching_ than that promulgated in public.

For that purpose we conduct a correspondence course in _Christian
Mysticism_. The General Secretary may admit applicants to the preliminary
course, but _advancement_ in the deeper degrees depends upon merit. It is
for those alone who have been _tried_, and found true.

HOW TO APPLY FOR ADMISSION

Anyone who is not engaged in fortune-telling or similar methods of
commercializing spiritual knowledge will, upon request, receive an
application blank from the General Secretary, Rosicrucian Fellowship. When
this blank is returned properly filled, he may admit the applicant to
instruction in either or both correspondence courses.

THE COST OF THE COURSE

There are no fixed fees; no esoteric instruction is ever put in the
balance against coin. At the same time, it cannot be given "_free_," "_for
nothing_," for those who work to promulgate it must have the necessities
of life. Type, paper, machinery and postage also cost money, and _unless
you pay your part someone else must pay for you_.

There are a few who cannot contribute, and who need these teachings as
much or more than those who may take comfort from financial ease or
affluence. If they make their condition known, they will receive as much
attention as the largest contributors, but others are expected to
contribute for their own good as well as for the good of the work.
Remember, _a closed hand that does not give cannot receive_.





INDEX


Abstract Thought, _see_ Thought, World of, Region of Abstract Thought.

Action, incentive to, 158.

Adepts, pupils of schools of the Greater Mysteries, 10.

Air, charged with pictures of surroundings, 37, 155.

Alchemy, proved by radio-activity, 108.

Alcohol, results of using, 166.

Ambassador from sun, 87.

Ameshaspends, Seven Spirits before the Throne, 87.

Angels, densest body of, composed of ether, 73;
  expert builders in ether, 74;
  family spirits, 80;
  guardians of propagative force, 74;
  instruct ego in building archetype, 184;
  one step beyond human stage, 73.

Angels, Recording, _see_ Recording angels.

Animals, dependent upon group spirit for infusion of stellar rays, 124;
  keyed to lunar month, 124;
  thought processes of, 122.

Aquarian Age, intellect of, 15.

Archangels, densest vehicle of, 79;
  instruct ego in building archetype, 184;
  less evolved become group spirits, 81;
  native of Desire World, 79;
  race and national spirits, 80;
  various grades of, 80;
  work with humanity politically and industrially, 80.

Arche, primordial matter of, 108.

Archetypal forces direct archetypes, 103.

Archetype, duration of, 175;
  vibratory mold, 175.

Assimilation, through ether, 123.

Astrology, estimation of time by, in Desire World, 94;
  value of, 190.

Atom, physical, spherical shape of, 9.

Atom, seed, _see_ Seed atom.

Atoms, chemical, expelled through skin, 127.

Attitude, mental, results of, 181.

Benevolence, acquired in First Heaven, 174.

Bennett, Florence, trance of, 141.

Black magic, punishment of, 17.

Blood, charged with pictures of surroundings, 155;
  relation of, to vital body, 129.

Blue, in stellar ray, life of the Father, 124, 188.

Bode's law and Neptune, 189.

Body, dense, _see_ Dense body.
  desire, _see_ Desire body.
  vital, _see_ Vital body.

Brain, absorption of stellar rays through, 124.

Breath, record of, 37, 38.

Capital punishment, menace of, 164.

Carelessness, power of, to shorten life, 147.

Causation, law of, attraction of like to like, 48;
  determines environment, 48, 180;
  flexibility of law of, 52.

Chaos, (Cosmic night) seed ground of Cosmos, 112;
  state of orderly segregation, 105.

Chemical atoms, expelled through skin, 127.

Chemical ether, assimilation and growth by, 69;
  seen as blue haze, 65.

Child, post-mortem experiences of, easily investigated, 51;
  prodigies, 195.

Children, clairvoyance of, 160;
  danger of mental forcing, 195;
  discipline of, 195;
  individual blood developed in, 196;
  imitativeness of, 194;
  proper clothing of, 194;
  life of, in First Heaven, 176;
  understanding of, through astrology, 192.

Christ, higher laws taught by, 169;
  rebirth taught by, 46.

Christianity, the flowering of previous religions, 6.

Clairvoyance of children, 160;
  of the dying, 148;
  varieties of, 136.

Clairvoyants, separation of vital body of, 137.

Clairvoyants, trained, positive powers of, 137.

Colors, emotional effect produced by, 178.

Colors, primary, symbolize God, 188.

Community affected by executions, 165.

Concentration in Desire World, 91.

Concrete Thought, _see_ Thought, World of, Region of Concrete Thought.

Conditions of life related to past action, 43.

Conscience, assimilated pictures of past experience, 38, 156.

Consequence, law of, _see_ Causation, law of.

Conservation, law of, and survival of spirit, 35.

Cord, Silver, _see_ Silver Cord.

Corporal punishment, inadvisability of, 197.

Cosmic night, _see_ Chaos.

Cosmos, aggregate of systematic order, 105.

Countries, egos work upon, 180.

Creation of Cosmos, 188.

Creative force, develops spinal nerves, 125.

Creative Hierarchies, aid humanity, 6;
  guide man's evolution, 5, 52;
  safeguard man from materialism, 8.

Criminals, care of, 164;
  execution of, a menace, 164.

Crucifixion, the Mystic Death, 12.

Crystallization in man's evolution, 163.

Dead, care of, 152;
  inhabit Desire World, 88;
  intense activity of, 89.

Death, disrobing process of ego, 163;
  foreseen by higher powers, 142;
  peaceful, helpfulness of, 147;
  premature, ill effects of, 145;
  problem of, 27;
  provides fresh start, 143.

Debts, binding nature of, 49.

Demmler, Minna, materializations by, 129.

Dense body, chemical constituents of, 57;
  crystallized spirit substance, 162;
  disease of, due to imperfect archetype, 185;
  energized by divine life, 188;
  improves as spirit progresses, 5;
  quality of, dependent upon ego, 184;
  most evolved of man's vehicles, 186.

Desire, created and guided by thought, 58;
  forms impelled into action by, 56.

Desire body, basic individual color of, 132;
  born at fourteenth year, 186;
  capable of sense perception, 133;
  cause dreams, 139;
  circulation in currents, 133;
  colors of, 132;
  destructive action of, 138;
  extends beyond dense body, 130;
  gives ability to experience desire and emotion 121, 130, 133;
  impels motion, 56, 139;
  impels to sense gratification, 130;
  main vortex, in the liver, 131;
  rapid locomotion of, 131;
  recent acquisition of, 130;
  shape of, ovoid, 130;
  shell of, persists after death, 163, 179;
  vortices of, 131;
  war of, with vital body, 138;
  withdrawal of, in sleep, 138.

Desire stuff, constant motion of, 77, 131;
  elasticity of, 77;
  force combined with matter, 77;
  modeled by thought, 142;
  permeates atmosphere, 120;
  persistence of, 179;
  responsiveness to feeling, 77.

Desire World, archangels native to, 79;
  dead remain in, varying lengths of time, 78;
  difficulty of concentration in, 91;
  diversity of tongues in, 83;
  effect of colors in, 178;
  ego's corrective work in, 168-170;
  estimation of time in, 93;
  existence of, makes man's desires possible, 57;
  force and matter closely related in, 77;
  form blends into sound in, 95;
  head only perceptible in some regions of, 79;
  large population of, 77;
  seasons non-existent in, 93;
  second vehicle of earth, 55;
  time non-existent in, 92;
  universal mode of expression in, 85;
  vision pertaining to, 66;
  world of color, 68.

Earth composed of three interpenetrating worlds, 55, 116;
  structure of dense body, obtained from, 57;
  training school of, 6, 43;
  worked upon, by the disembodied, 104.

Earth lives, intervals between, 52.

Earth spirits, fairies and elves, 70.

Eastern Wisdom, unsuited to Western peoples, 14.

Ego, _see_ Spirit, threefold.

Egyptians painted group spirits, 82.

Electron, discovery of, 107.

Elves, spirits of mountains, 70.

Emotions, relation of, to desire body, 186.

Enmity overcome by its own discomforts, 49.

Environment, suffering caused by, 49.

Ether, avenue for solar forces, 70, 74, 123;
  nature of, 62;
  permeates atomic structure of dense matter, 62.

Ether, chemical, _see_ Chemical ether.

Ether, life, _see_ Life ether.

Ether light, _see_ Light ether.

Ether, reflecting _see_ Reflecting ether.

Etheric sight, distinguished from spiritual, 66;
  extension of physical, 65;
  penetrates opaque substances, 66;
  shows all objects same color, 67.

Ethers, separation of, 136.

Ever-existing essence, 107.

Evil and good acts recorded by breath, 38;
  destruction of, 39;
  transmutation of, to good, 158.

Evolution, from life to life, 53;
  manifests in rest and activity, 42;
  of vehicles, manner of, 185;
  persistent unfoldment in, 42.

Fairies, spirits of the mountains, 70.

Fate, ripe, unavoidability of, 184.

Faults, correction of, 169.

Feeling, right, increases conscience, 172.

First cause, necessity for, 162.

First hand knowledge, possible to all, 52.

First Heaven, good of past life reaped in, 173;
  good strengthened in, 174;
  panorama of life in, 173;
  upper regions of Desire World, 173.

Fluid, vital, cessation of flow of, 138.

Forgiveness of sin, 164, 169.

Form, archetypes of, 175;
  incapable of feeling, 60.

Forms, impelled into action by desire, 56.

Forms, physical, built from chemical substance, 55.

Free will, existence of, 147;
  pertaining to future, 184.

Generation caused by red ray of Holy Spirit, 124.

Germination caused by blue ray of Father, 124.

Gnomes, earth spirits, 70.

God, immanence of, 187.

Good amalgamates with spirit, 39;
  and evil acts recorded by breath, 38.

Great Silence between Desire World and World of Thought, 95, 180;
  may be entered by acts of will, 96.

Group spirit, brings stellar influence to animals, 124;
  less evolved archangels, 81;
  painted by Egyptians, 82.

Growth, physical, carried on through ether, 123;
  caused by yellow rays of Son, 124;
  relation of, to moon, 124;
  relation of, to vital body, 186.

Growth, spiritual, must be slow, 103.

Heaven, among you, 116.

Heaven, First, _see_ First Heaven.

Heaven, Second, _see_ Second Heaven.

Heaven, Third, _see_ Third Heaven.

Hell, existence of, impossible, 117.

Helpers, Invisible, _see_ Invisible Helpers.

Heredity, of the physical only, 47.

Hierarchies, Creative, _see_ Creative Hierarchies.

Higher Self dominates lower by keynote, 99.

Higher senses of man, 16.

Higher vehicles, permeability of, 138;
  withdrawal of, in sleep, 138.

Holy of Holies, temple of our bodies, 134.

Hotz, Dr., spirit photographs taken by, 129.

Humanity, two classes of, 136.

I, badge of self-consciousness, 135.

Ideas clothe themselves in mind stuff, 113;
  embryonic thoughts, 113;
  generated by ego in Region of Abstract Thought, 113;
  originate in chaos, 112.

Ignorance, man's one sin, 42.

Illumination, induced by solar rays, 123.

Immaculate conception, the Mystic Birth, 12.

Immortality of spirit, 39.

Incense, evil effects of, 165.

Incentive, induced by etchings of life panorama, 158.

Individual auric color, dependent upon ruling planet, 132.

Infant mortality, causes of, 176-179.

Intelligence induced by planetary rays, 123.

Interval between earth lives, 52.

Invisible Helpers, faculties of, 137;
  linguistic abilities, valuable to, 83.

Izzards, 87.

James, Professor William, reputed communication from, 149-151.

Jehovah, _see_ Holy Spirit.

John, Gospel of, spiritual significance of, 105.

Jupiter, auric color of, 132.

Karma, _see_ Causation, law of.

Keynote, creates and maintains form, 98;
  manifestation of Higher Self, 99;
  stopping of, terminates life, 100;
  Voice of Silence, 99.

Knowledge, the only salvation, 42.

Laws of nature, living intelligences, 53.

Life, dualistic theory of, 29;
  lengthened by good deeds, 147;
  long, value of, 144, 146;
  monistic theory of, 29;
  object of, gaining of experience, 142;
  shortened by neglected opportunities, 146.

Life ether, propagation accomplished through medium of, 69.

Life panorama, backward unfoldment of, 156;
  duration of, 153;
  importance of, 153, 158;
  insufficient, causes infant mortality, 177;
  sub-conscious memory, basis of, 154;
  terminated by collapse of vital body, 157.

Light, relation of, to creation, 188.

Light ether, motion due to, 69;
  transmits solar force, 69.

Likes and dislikes determine environment, 48.

Liver, main vortex of desire body, 131.

Logos, Reasonable Thought, 109.

Love, higher than law, 168;
  supreme commandment, 90.

Lunar ray enters body through spleen, 124.;
  induces physical growth, 123, 190.;
  three-fold constitution of, 124..

Magic, black, punishment of, 17.

Man, born innocent of sin, 174;
  composite being of body, soul, spirit, 36;
  desires of, impel to action, 56;
  gathers spiritual substance, 162;
  Great Beings safeguard, 198;
  has evolved from lower forms, 73;
  higher vehicles of, 120;
  keyed to solar month, 125;
  made a little lower than angels, 73;
  spinal nerves of undeveloped, 125;
  spiritual faculties of, 15.

Mars, auric color of, 132.

Materialism and spirituality, necessity of, 7.

Materialistic theory of life, 34-36.

Materialization through incense, 165;
  through mediums, 129.

Mathematics, benefit derived from study of, 115.

Matter, illusory nature of, 114.

Mediums and negative clairvoyance, 137;
  read in reflecting ether, 70.

Memory of Nature, events recorded in, 94.

Memory of past lives, 50.

Memory, sub-conscious, _see_ Sub-conscious memory.

Metamorphosis in higher worlds, 32.

Michael, ambassador from sun to earth, 87.

Michael, archangel, guardian of Jews, 80.

Mind, born at twenty-first year, 186, 198;
  cloudy thought form , 131, 133;
  material for, acquired in Region of Concrete Thought, 185;
  recent acquisition of, 131.

Mind, Lords of, expert builders of mind stuff, 102;
  help man to acquire mind, 103;
  human during dark stage of earth, 101;
  Powers of Darkness, 101;
  worked with man in mineral stage, 102.

Mind stuff, permeability of, 120;
  veils inner spirit, 134.

Monistic, theory of life, 29.

Moon rays, _see_ Lunar rays.

Morality induced by planetary rays, 123, 190.

Music in Desire World, 68;
  soul-speech of World of Thought, 68.

Mystery Orders formed on cosmic lines, 9;
  seven world workers in, 9.

N-rays, etheric radiation of, 128.

Nature, laws of, control nature spirits, 72;
  Great Intelligences, 70.

Nebulae, fiery formation of, 161.

Nebular theory postulates First Cause, 162.

Negative development, mediumship allied to, 137.

Nephesh, 37.

Neptune outside of our solar system, 189.

Occult orders, _see_ Mystery orders.

Odic fluid, _see_ Solar fluid.

Opportunities, each life contains, 142.

Over-eating, ill-effects of, 128.

Painting, related to Desire World, 68.

Palladino, Eusapio, materializations through, 129.

Panorama of Life, _see_ Life Panorama.

Patriotism, inspired by archangels, 80.

Periodicity, law of, determines time of actions, 13.

Personality governed by keynote, 99.

"Peter Ibbettson," occult information in, 161.

Physical body, anchor of mind, 92.

Physical embodiment, value of, 90, 143.

Pineal gland, localized organ of feeling, 132;
  spiritual sight through development of, 66;
  third eye, 132.

Planetary ray, _see_ Stellar ray.

Planetary spirits, color belonging to, 189;
  names of, 189.

Planets, absorption of solar rays by, 188.

Post-mortem experiences, usefulness of, 143.

Powers of Darkness, _see_ Mind, Lords of.

Powers, spiritual, difficulty of obtaining, 64;
  microscopic and telescopic, 64;
  possible to all, 64.

Prayer, forgiveness of sin through, 164.

Precession of equinoxes, measure of time, 94.

Predestination of great leaders, 45, 46.

Primary colors symbolize God, 188.

Probation, long, necessity for, 64.

Propagation carried on through life ether, 123.

Psychometrists read in reflecting ether, 70.

Puberty, cause of, 196.

Pituitary body and clairvoyance, 66.

Punishment, corporal, evils of, 198.

Purgatory, evil habits corrected in, 167;
  evil of past lives transmuted in, 116;
  experiences in, based on moral attitude of preceding life, 181;
  review of life experiences in, 170.

Race likeness caused by race spirits, 81.

Race Spirits, _see_ Archangels.

Rebirth, law of, alternation of sex in, 52;
  believed in, by Jews, 46;
  Biblical foundation for doctrine of, 46;
  explanation of inequalities, 43, 47;
  harmonious with nature's methods, 47;
  intervals between, 52;
  preparations for, 185;
  special talents of individual, evidence of, 46;
  specially adapted to ego's need, 52;
  taught by Christ, 46.

Recording angels aid ego in choice of environment, 183;
  give race religions, 6, 14;
  show ego life panorama, 183.

Red in stellar ray, life of Holy Spirit, 124;
  produces form, 188.

Reflecting ether, impressions of universe recorded in, 69;
  mediums and psychometrists read in, 70.

Regret, time wasted in, 92.

Reincarnation, _see_ Rebirth.

Religions, all have origin in God, 104.

Repentance, benefits received through, 169.

Restrospection, exercise of, 170-173.

Ripe fate, unavoidability of, 184.

Rose Cross, initiates into science of life and being, 8;
  Mystery school of the West, 8;
  thirteen Brothers of, 9;
  thirteenth member, the invisible head, 9;
  works to mould public opinion, 11.

Rosicrucian Fellowship, herald of the Aquarian Age, 15;
  purpose and work of, 14-18.

Rosicrucians, hold doctrine of man's potential divinity, 5;
  hierophants of Lesser Mysteries, 10;
  influence of, upon writers of modern times, 11;
  midnight service of, 11;
  object of, to unite religion and science, 12;
  work with evolved humanity, 9.

Ruling planet, relation of color of, 132.

Salamanders, fire spirits, 71;
  produce volcanic eruptions, 72.

"School of Athens," painting of, 29.

Science discovers spiritual side of universe, 34;
  established proofs of spirit survival, 35;
  spiritualized by Rosicrucians, 11.

Sculpture belongs to physical world., 68.

Second Heaven, ego prepares future environment in, 116;
  located in Region of Concrete Thought, 116.

Seed atom, basis of sub-conscious memory, 156;
  etchings of, 37;
  sample and center of other dense atoms, 175;
  transmits pictures to desire body, 156.

Sensitives, separation of ethers in vital body of, 136.

Servia, regicides in, 165.

Seven Spirits before the Throne, _see_ Planetary Spirits.

Sex, alternation of, 52.

Shells, discarded desire bodies, 179;
  retain life panorama, 179;
  spiritualistic impersonations by, 179.

Sight, spiritual, accompanies development of pineal gland and pituitary
            body, 66;
  varieties of, 67.

Silence, Great, _see_ Great Silence.

Silence, Voice of, _see_ Voice of the Silence.

Silver cord holds higher and lower vehicles together, 153;
  snapping of, 153.

Solar fluid, absorption of, by different kingdoms, 124;
  aids in digestion, 127;
  cleansing power of, 128;
  expels disease germs, 127;
  muscular movement by means of, 126;
  permeates nervous system, 123, 126;
  radiates from body, 123;
  transformed to rose color, 123, 126.

Solar rays, direct and indirect, 123;
  spiritual illumination from, 123;
  three-fold constitution of, 124.

Soul, differentiated from spirit, 134;
  product of breath, 37.

Soul flights, time non-existent in, 89.

Soul growth induced by planetary rays, 123.

Soul power, assimilated from past action, 116;
  developed by good action, 38.

Sound, power of, over matter, 175.

Spinal cord, absorbs stellar ray, 124.

Spencer, Herbert, and nebular hypothesis, 162.

Sphinx, faces east, 28;
  riddle of, 28.

Spirit, threefold (ego) abandons vital body in sleep, 138;
  absorbs solar ray, 124;
  destined to become creative intelligence, 103;
  disembodied, relief of, at leaving body, 161;
  distinguished from soul, 134;
  drawn to rebirth by desire for experience, 182;
  earth-bound, condition of, 144;
  encrusted in mind stuff, 101;
  free will of, 184;
  freedom of, in choosing environment, 183;
  has seat in forehead, 124;
  immortality of, 39;
  improvement in vehicles of, 185;
  individualization of, in childhood, 196;
  instructed in building archetype, 184;
  many earth lives of, 183;
  no limitations possible for, 104;
  sowing and reaping of, 104;
  sufferings of, in purgatory, 163;
  uncreate and eternal, 39;
  various human relations of, 183;
  works with archetypes, 103, 180.

Spirits, planetary, _see_ Planetary Spirits.

Spiritual investigations, 63.

Spiritual powers, _see_ Powers, spiritual.

Spiritual sight, _see_ Sight, spiritual.

Spiritual thought, spinal nerves developed by, 125.

Spirituality followed by materialism, 7.

Spleen, entrance for solar forces, 123;
  transmutation for solar energy in, 123.

Stellar ray, absorption of, by brain and spinal cord, 124;
  animals incapable of absorbing, 124;
  induces morality, 123, 190;
  threefold nature of, 124.

Stimulants, effects of, upon dying, 152.

Storms caused by nature spirits, 71.

Sub-conscious memory, basis of future life, 156;
  consciously utilized, 161;
  in seed atom, 155;
  retentiveness of, 154.

Suicide, sufferings of, 174.

Sun, movements of, 94.

Superman, evolution of man into, 53.

Survival after death, established by scientists, 35.

Sylphs, spirits of mists, 70.

Tears, white bleeding, 130.

Temptation, repetition of, 174.

Theological theory of life, 36-39.

Third Heaven, few have consciousness in, 182;
  in Region of Abstract Thought, 116, 182;
  inspiration of philanthropist, 182;
  place of awaiting rebirth, 182;
  source of inventor's inspiration, 182.

Thompson, J. J., discovery of electron by, 107.

Thought, objects of physical world, crystallized, 97, 131;
  result of union, idea and mind stuff, 113.

Thought, world of, earth's finest vehicle, 55;
  home of spirit, 58;
  knowledge gained in, 100;
  makes man's thought possible, 57;
  realm of tone, 180;
  spirit's work in, 180;
  time non-existent in, 101;
  tonal vision pertaining to, 67.

Thought, World of, Region of Abstract Thought, abstract verities of, 106;
  Third Heaven in, 116.

Thought, World of, Region of Concrete Thought, acme of reality, 97;
  mind built in, 185;
  physical world replica of, 97;
  Second Heaven, 116.

Thymus Gland, function of, 196.

Time, end of, 112;
  relatively non-existent in higher worlds, 92.

Tobacco, fumes of, disembodied work through, 166.

Trance, caused by flight of spirit, 140;
  kinds of, 140.

Truth, freedom by, 114;
  self-evident in higher worlds, 114.

Undines, spirits of water, 70.

Vehicles, improvements in, 185.

Veil of Isis, 134.

Vibration, external, transferred to blood, 37;
  universality of, 36.

Vital body, born at seventh year, 195;
  collapse of, in sleep, 138;
  composed of ether, 122;
  connected with spleen, 123;
  disintegration of, stops life panorama, 157;
  extends beyond dense vehicle, 123;
  in sickness lacks solar rays, 128;
  in third stage of evolution, 131;
  nourishes dense body, 129;
  photographed by scientists, 129;
  polarity of, 129;
  propagation by, 121;
  recuperative work of, 138;
  second vehicle acquired by man, 186;
  separation of ethers of, 137;
  war with desire body, 138;
  well organized state of, 130.

Vital Fluid, _see_ Solar fluid.

Voice of the Silence, 99.

Volcanic eruptions produced by salamanders, 72.

Vortices, whirling, of desire body, 131.

War causes infant mortality, 177, 179.

Wave of spirituality inspired great religions, 7.

Whipping children, evil of, 198.

Will, lack of, racial defect, 198.

Wind, changes of, caused by sylphs, 71.

Word, Creative Fiat, 109.

Word, creative, and key-note, 100;
  God was, 106;
  power of, 110, 193;
  still sounds in cosmos, 112.

World, Desire, _see_ Desire World.

World of Thought, _see_ Thought, World of.

World, physical, world of form, 68.

Worlds, higher, difficulty of investigating, 32.

Yellow in stellar ray, life of Son, 124;
  produces consciousness, 188.

Zoroastrian religion, deities of, 86.





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_Our Invisible Government._

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_The Mysterium Magnum of the Rose Cross._

_Stumbling Blocks._

_Why I Am a Rosicrucian._

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***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES***



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