<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>The<br/>
Rosicrucian Mysteries</h1>
<h2>An Elementary Exposition of<br/>
Their Secret Teachings</h2>
<h3>By</h3>
<h3>Max Heindel</h3>
<hr class="page" />
<SPAN name="toc1" id="toc1"></SPAN>
<h1><span style="font-size: 173%">Chapter I. The Order of Rosicrucians and the Rosicrucian Fellowship</span></h1>
<p>Our Message And Mission</p>
<p><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">A Sane Mind</span></span></p>
<p><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">A Soft Heart</span></span></p>
<p><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">A Sound Body</span></span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page006"></span><SPAN name="Pg006" id="Pg006" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page007"></span><SPAN name="Pg007" id="Pg007" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
our enfoldment along the lines congruous to
the highest universal good.</p>
<p>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 <span class="tei tei-q">“Dark Ages”</span> when
the dogma of a dominant church compelled
belief from the whole of Western Europe.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page008"></span><SPAN name="Pg008" id="Pg008" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>In the thirteenth century there appeared
in central Europe a great spiritual teacher
whose symbolical name was</p>
<p>Christian Rosenkreuz.<br/>
or<br/>
Christian Rose Cross.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page009"></span><SPAN name="Pg009" id="Pg009" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">head</span></em>.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page010"></span><SPAN name="Pg010" id="Pg010" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
convenient for all to visit that place physically.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page011"></span><SPAN name="Pg011" id="Pg011" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>With the commencement of the twentieth
century a further step was taken. It was realized
that something must be done to make
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page012"></span><SPAN name="Pg012" id="Pg012" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page013"></span><SPAN name="Pg013" id="Pg013" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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 <span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">The Rosicrucian
Cosmo Conception</span></span>”</span> in November, 1909,
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page014"></span><SPAN name="Pg014" id="Pg014" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
more than a year before the expiration of the
first decade of the twentieth century. This
book marked a new era in so-called <span class="tei tei-q">“occult”</span>
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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">vice versa</span></span>. 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.</p>
<p><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Rosicrucian Fellowship</span></span></p>
<p>For the purpose of promulgating the Rosicrucian
teachings in the Western World, the
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page015"></span><SPAN name="Pg015" id="Pg015" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">material</span></em> 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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page016"></span><SPAN name="Pg016" id="Pg016" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page017"></span><SPAN name="Pg017" id="Pg017" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">occultists</span></em>.</p>
<p>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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">mystics</span></em>.</p>
<p>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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">automatically</span></em> 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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page018"></span><SPAN name="Pg018" id="Pg018" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
soundless voice within his heart will speak
more distinctly to teach him the way.</p>
<p>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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">living</span></em> 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.</p>
<p><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Note</span></span>:—</p>
<p><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Pages 19 to 26 inclusive, describing Mt. Ecclesia,
have been transferred to the back of the book.</span></span>
(Transcriber's Note: They are pages <SPAN href="#Pg191" class="tei tei-ref">191</SPAN> through
<SPAN href="#Pg200" class="tei tei-ref">200</SPAN>.)</p>
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page027"></span><SPAN name="Pg027" id="Pg027" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
<hr class="page" />
<SPAN name="toc3" id="toc3"></SPAN>
<SPAN name="pdf4" id="pdf4"></SPAN>
<h1><span style="font-size: 173%">Chapter II. The Problem of Life and Its Solution</span></h1>
<p>THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The thought of this leap and of what lies
beyond must inevitably force itself upon
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page028"></span><SPAN name="Pg028" id="Pg028" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page029"></span><SPAN name="Pg029" id="Pg029" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">existence</span></em> 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 <span class="tei tei-q">“Oh death where is thy sting, oh
grave where is thy victory.”</span></p>
<p>Various theories of life have been advocated
to solve this problem of life. We may
divide them into two classes, namely <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">the
monistic theory</span></em>, which holds that all the
facts of life can be explained by reference
to this visible world wherein we live, and <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">the
dualistic theory</span></em>, which refers part of the
phenomenon of life to another world which
is now invisible to us.</p>
<p>Raphael in his famous painting <span class="tei tei-q">“the
School of Athens”</span> 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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page030"></span><SPAN name="Pg030" id="Pg030" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page031"></span><SPAN name="Pg031" id="Pg031" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
have found the solution, and thus direct the
inquirer how he also may arrive at a conclusion.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page032"></span><SPAN name="Pg032" id="Pg032" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">form</span></em> which is evanescent,
because they are incapable of viewing
the <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">life</span></em> that is the permanent basis of that
form.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page033"></span><SPAN name="Pg033" id="Pg033" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">life</span></em> which is permanent and stable,
disregarding the <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">form</span></em> 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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page034"></span><SPAN name="Pg034" id="Pg034" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
without reasoning it out for himself. Thus,
if he is deceived, he will be self-deceived and
the author is blameless.</p>
<p><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Three Theories of Life.</span></span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>1) <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Materialistic Theory</span></span> <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">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.</span></span></p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page035"></span><SPAN name="Pg035" id="Pg035" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">the law of conservation
of matter</span></span> and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">the law of conservation
of energy</span></span>. Mind is a form of energy,
and immune from destruction as claimed by
the materialist. Therefore we disbar the
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page036"></span><SPAN name="Pg036" id="Pg036" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
materialistic theory as unsound, because out
of harmony with the laws of nature and with
well established facts.</p>
<p>2) <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Theory of Theology</span></span> <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">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</span></span>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>All things are in a state of vibration. Vibrations
from objects in our surroundings
are constantly impinging upon us and carry
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page037"></span><SPAN name="Pg037" id="Pg037" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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, <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">internally</span></em> an accurate
picture of our external surroundings.</p>
<p>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 <span class="tei tei-q">“soul”</span> is a
product of the breath. Genesis also shows
the connection between breath and soul in the
words: <span class="tei tei-q">“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”</span> (The same word: <span class="tei tei-foreign"><span style="font-style: italic">nephesh</span></span>, is
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page038"></span><SPAN name="Pg038" id="Pg038" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
translated breath and soul in the above quotation.)</p>
<p>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. <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">Thus the breath-records
of our good acts are the soul which is
saved</span></em>, 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.</p>
<p>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 <span class="tei tei-q">“the soul that sinneth, it
shall die.”</span> The memory of the suffering
incidental to expurgation however, remains
with the spirit as <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">conscience</span></em>, to deter from
repetition of the same evil in later lives.</p>
<p>Thus both our good and evil acts are recorded
through the agency of the breath,
which is therefore the basis of the soul, but
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page039"></span><SPAN name="Pg039" id="Pg039" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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 ... <span class="tei tei-q">“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.”</span></p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-q">“lost soul”</span> 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.</p>
<p>3) <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-variant: small-caps">The Theory of Rebirths</span></span> <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">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
</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page040"></span><SPAN name="Pg040" id="Pg040" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN><span style="font-style: italic">
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.</span></span></p>
<p>Or, as we may poetically express it:</p>
<p>WE ARE ETERNAL.</p>
<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">On whistling stormcloud; on Zephyrus wing,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The Spirit-choir loud the World-anthems sing</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Hark! Lis't to their voice </span><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">we have passed through death's door</span></span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">There's no Death; rejoice! life lives evermore.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">We are, have always been, will ever be.</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">We are a portion of Eternity</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Older than Creation, a part of One Great Whole,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Is each Individual and immortal Soul.</span></div>
</div>
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page041"></span><SPAN name="Pg041" id="Pg041" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">On Time's whirring loom our garments we've wrought</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Eternally weave we on network of Thought,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Our kin and our country, by Mind brought to birth,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Were patterned in heaven ere molded on earth.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">We have shone in the Jewel and danced on the Wave,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">We have sparkled in Fire defying the grave;</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Through shapes everchanging, in size, kind and name</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Our individual essence still is the same.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And when we have reached to the highest of all,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The gradations of growth our minds shall recall</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">So that link by link we may join them together</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And trace step by step the way we reached thither.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Thus in time we shall know, if only we do</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">What lifts, ennobles, is right and true.</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With kindness to all; with malice to none,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">That in and through us God's will may be done.</span></div>
</div></div>
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page042"></span><SPAN name="Pg042" id="Pg042" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
<p>We venture to make the assertion that
there is but one sin: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Ignorance</span></span> and but one
salvation: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Applied Knowledge</span></span>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page043"></span><SPAN name="Pg043" id="Pg043" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page044"></span><SPAN name="Pg044" id="Pg044" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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 <span class="tei tei-q">“Light of Asia.”</span></p>
<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">The Books say well, my Brothers! each man's life</span></span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The outcome of his former living is;</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">The bygone right breeds bliss.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Each has such lordship as the loftiest ones</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Nay for with powers around, above, below</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">As with all flesh and whatsoever lives</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><em class="tei tei-emph" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%; font-style: italic">Act</span></em><span style="font-size: 90%"> maketh joy or woe.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">For gentle worthiness and merit won;</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">For things done or undone.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
</div></div>
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page045"></span><SPAN name="Pg045" id="Pg045" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
<p>Or, as an unknown poet says:</p>
<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">One ship sails East and another sails West</span></span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">With the self same winds that blow.</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">'Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Which determines the way they go.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">As we voyage along through life.</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">'Tis the act of the soul, which determines the goal</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">And not the calm or the strife.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
</div></div>
<p>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.</p>
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page046"></span><SPAN name="Pg046" id="Pg046" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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: <span class="tei tei-q">“Whom do men say that
I the Son of Man am?”</span> The Apostles replied:
<span class="tei tei-q">“Some say that Thou art John the
Baptist; some, Elias; and others Jeremias or
one of the Prophets.”</span> 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.</p>
<p>But to Nicodemus He said unequivocally:
<span class="tei tei-q">“Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God”</span> and in the eleventh
chapter of Matthew, the fourteenth verse, He
said, speaking of John the Baptist: <span class="tei tei-q">“<em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">this
</span><span class="tei tei-pb" id="page047"></span><SPAN name="Pg047" id="Pg047" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN><span style="font-style: italic">
is Elijah</span></em>,”</span> in the seventeenth chapter of
Matthew, the twelfth verse, He said: <span class="tei tei-q">“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.”</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The theory of Heredity advanced by Materialists
applies only to the <em class="tei tei-emph"><span style="font-style: italic">form</span></em>, 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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page048"></span><SPAN name="Pg048" id="Pg048" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page049"></span><SPAN name="Pg049" id="Pg049" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page050"></span><SPAN name="Pg050" id="Pg050" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
later they may learn to love where they
hated.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page051"></span><SPAN name="Pg051" id="Pg051" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page052"></span><SPAN name="Pg052" id="Pg052" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
to become able to know at first hand
that which is here taught.</p>
<p>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 <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">precession of the equinox</span></span>,
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.</p>
<p>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
<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page053"></span><SPAN name="Pg053" id="Pg053" class="tei tei-anchor"></SPAN>
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.</p>
<p>Oliver Wendell Holmes has so beautifully
voiced that aspiration and its consummation
in the lines:</p>
<div class="block tei tei-quote" style="margin-bottom: 1.80em; margin-left: 3.60em; margin-top: 1.80em; margin-right: 3.60em">
<div class="tei tei-lg" style="margin-bottom: 0.90em; margin-top: 0.90em">
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">“</span><span style="font-size: 90%">Build thee more stately mansions Oh! my soul,</span></span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">As the swift seasons roll,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Leave thy low-vaulted past;</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Let each new temple, nobler than the last,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast.</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Till thou at length art free,</span></div>
<div class="tei tei-l" style="text-align: left"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 90%">Leaving thy outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.</span><span style="font-size: 90%">”</span></span></div>
</div></div>
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