[PAGE 481]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

                                 LOST SOULS

                              QUESTION NO. 151.

   IS THERE ANY BASIS IN FACT FOR THE TEACHING OF SOME SCHOOLS OF  OCCULTISM
REGARDING LOST SOULS AND STRAGGLERS?   I HAVE READ A BOOK WHICH VIVIDLY  DE-
SCRIBES  A  PLACE CALLED AVITCHI,  WHERE THE SOULS RESIDE WHEN IN  THE  LAST
STAGES OF DISINTEGRATION.   THE SCHOOL IN QUESTION IT SEEMS HOLDS THAT  SOME
SOULS  UNDERGO PROGRESSIVE RETROGRESSION,  BECOMING LOWER AND LOWER IN  EACH
SUCCESSIVE  EMBODIMENT UNTIL ULTIMATELY EXTINGUISHED AS INDIVIDUAL SOULS  BY
ABSORPTION IN THE COSMIC SOUL.   NOW, AS I UNDERSTAND THE ROSICRUCIAN TEACH-
INGS,  ALL SOULS WITHOUT EXCEPTION ARE ON THE UPWARD SPIRAL, AND WHILE THERE
MAY  BE  A  RETROGRESSION AS BETWEEN TWO SUCCESSIVE LIVES  IN  THE  PHYSICAL
WORLD,  YET THE ULTIMATE OUTCOME IS PROGRESS,  NOT RETROGRESSION.   I DO NOT
BELIEVE  THAT  IT IS ANY PART OF THE TRUE ROSICRUCIAN  TEACHINGS  THAT  SOME
SOULS DETERIORATE UNTIL ANNIHILATED.  THE ABOVE REMARKS ALSO APPLY TO STRAG-
GLERS.  KINDLY ADVISE THE CORRECT TEACHING ON THIS SUBJECT.

   ANSWER:   The Rosicrucians teach that life is a great school where  there
are  pupils in all different stages of development.   In the  most  advanced
class there are some who have learned almost all the lessons that it is pos-
sible to teach in our present condition and environment, and these are about
to  graduate  into  other  conditions  where  they will be afforded a larger


[PAGE 482]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

opportunity for advancement.   There are also backward Spirits in the  lower
classes which have, so to speak, been lazy and neglected to grasp opportuni-
ties for advancement.   Between the lowest and the highest classes there are
a great number of gradations,  and certain tests for examination are made of
humanity as a whole at different points in the evolutionary career, just the
same as in a school examinations of the pupils are held at certain times  of
the year for the purpose of determining if they are fitted to advance into a
next  higher  grade.   Those who pass this examination are  promoted,  while
those who fail are required to pass another term in the class where they are
so that they may learn the required lessons necessary as a basis for further
advancement.   Those who pass the examination are saved,  and those who fail
are  lost to the class as a whole.   However,  this is only  temporary,  and
those who have been backward may catch up gain and at the following examina-
tion  pass those who were promoted the year before.   Then  these  erstwhile
stragglers are saved and the others lost.

   So it is also in the school of life.  Those who fail to pass the examina-
tion  at one time,  and are temporarily "lost,"  may catch up gain and  even
pass those who had once passed them.   That is the true teaching  concerning
the  so-called  lost souls,  and it is confirmed by the  Bible.   The  Greek
AIONIAN  is  translated  everlasting,  but  it  has  no  such   meaning   as


[PAGE 483]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

infinite  duration.   Liddell & Scott's dictionary gives the meaning  as  an
"age, an indefinite period, a lifetime," etc.  Thus those who overcome,  and
are,  as the saying is,  saved,  have a passport to a new age of unfoldment,
and  are  thus given AGE lasting happiness.   Those who fail are  given  AGE
lasting  punishment of being in a lower grade in life's  school.   Generally
speaking,  however, the doctrine that a soul or Ego may be lost in the sense
of being annihilated is altogether without foundation,  for,  as it is said,
"IN  God we live and move and have our being,"  so that if a  single  Spirit
were lost, a part of God would be lost.  That of course is unthinkable.

   It is said that there is no rule without exception, and there is one con-
dition  which almost gives a foundation for the teaching concerning  Avitchi
promulgated  by the Eastern schools.  According to their  philosophy,  there
are two states (not places,  but STATES) of consciousness,  Avitchi and Nir-
vana.  They say that when the Spirit by repeated embodiments and lives lived
in the most noble manner has reached a state of sublime spirituality,  it is
absorbed by the Cosmic Soul as the dewdrop is swallowed up in the sea.   Its
individual consciousness plus the fruitage of all its lives is swallowed  up
by  the  Universal Spirit,  this being according to the Eastern  teaching  a
state  of the highest bliss.   Conversely, those who by lives  of  continued
evil pass a certain point,  commence to sink lower and lower on the scale of
attainment,  and as their consciousness has been so saturated in  evil  that
there  was  no  room  for good, individual consciousness is gradually purged


[PAGE 484]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

from  them  in the effort to eradicate the evil,  until at last  the  Spirit
stands  naked  and unconscious.   It is then absorbed in  the  Cosmic  Soul,
bringing with it only sorrow and disappointment of the most intense  nature.
But this teaching regarding both good and evil is as already said,  contrary
to  the  Western Mystery Teachings,  and may at least only apply in  such  a
case as an exceedingly evil black magician.   In no case,  however,  is  the
Spirit lost,  but only the fruitage of its pilgrimage.   As we have eternity
for our evolution,  we may be certain that even such a Spirit would have op-
portunities later to enter the pilgrimage of evolution which will make it  a
self-conscious creative intelligence.


                                 EUTHANASIA

                              QUESTION NO. 152.

   IS "LEGALIZED EUTHANASIA,"  OR LAWFUL EXECUTION OF THE AGED,  INFIRM,  OR
SUFFERING PERSONS WHO DESIRE DEATH,  SUCH AS I READ IS BEING CONSIDERED IN A
CERTAIN CITY, LEGITIMATE IN YOUR OPINION?

   ANSWER:   At first blush and from the standpoint of people not versed  in
the  teachings  of  occultism such a measure would seem to have considerable


[PAGE 485]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

claim  to commendation.   Most people on seeing an animal suffering  agonies
and  beyond hope of recovery would feel prompted by humane instincts to  put
it out of its misery,  and the questions, "Why should we not do as much  for
our  fellow men and women?   Why should we keep them alive  in  excruciating
suffering maybe for months or years when we know they have no chance of  re-
gaining their health and that they are looking and longing for death to  put
them out of pain?"  seem from the common point of view to call for  acquies-
cence.   However, when we have a knowledge of the law of consequence and are
sure that what we sow we reap,  if not in this life then in some future  ex-
istence, the matter appears in a different light.

   We cannot escape our just dues.  The suffering that comes to us is needed
to teach us a lesson or mellow our character.   The only way to shorten such
suffering  is by an endeavor to understand why we are in the condition  that
brings  us pain.   If it is cancer of the stomach,  then how have we  abused
that organ?  By overindulgence of food of a nature not suited to our system?
Is  it the heart?   How many times have we lost our tempers and  raged  like
made,  putting  a tremendous strain on this part of the body?   Or  are  the
other  organs of our system weak and debilitated?   We may be sure  that  in
some way,  either in this life or a previous one, we have abused our body in
such a manner as to cause  these  ailments.  Otherwise  we  would not now be


[PAGE 486]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

suffering, and the sooner we take the lesson to heart and commence to live a
better  life  more in harmony with the laws of nature we  have  broken,  the
sooner our suffering will cease.

   It  is always in our own grasp to alter conditions,  though of course  we
cannot  remedy in a day what it has taken years or lives to break down,  but
certainly  there is no other way in which a permanent cure can be  effected.
Even if now,  by the enactment of such a law as contemplated,  the suffering
is shortened,  we may be sure that when the person so released from his body
is reborn his new vehicle will have the tendency to develop the same disease
from  which he escaped in such an untoward manner.   Besides,  as  has  been
thoroughly explained in THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION, this physical body
of ours is fashioned in an invisible mold which is called the archetype, and
so  long as that archetype persists our physical body remains  alive.   When
death occurs from natural causes, or even in the so-called accidents, (which
usually are not accidents at all but events used to terminate a life accord-
ing to the design of the invisible guardians of human affairs) the archetype
is disrupted and the Spirit flees.

   A suicide,  however,  is different.   In this case the archetype persists
after death for a number of years until death should have occurred according
to natural events,  and being unable to draw to itself the physical atoms it
imparts  to  the  suicide  during those years of his post-mortem existence a


[PAGE 487]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

continuous aching feeling,  something like a gnawing hunger,  or a dull  but
exceedingly  painful toothache.   If the plan you mention becomes a law  and
people  are allowed to obtain the services of others to commit suicide  (for
that is what it really amounts to),  there is no doubt that they will suffer
in  their post-mortem existence in the same manner as the suicide  who  pre-
scribed his own poison,  or cut his own throat.  It is a very dangerous plan
in other respects, also, and we trust no such practice will be sanctioned by
law.


                          NATURE OF THE HIGHER SELF

                              QUESTION NO. 153.

   WHAT PART OF THE THREE-FOLD SPIRIT IS THE HIGHER SELF?   IS IT THE DIVINE
SPIRIT?
   IN THE COSMO IT IS STATED THAT THE HUMAN SPIRIT IS THE EGO.   IS THE LIFE
SPIRIT NOT A PART OF THE EGO?

   IS ALL THE EGO ON THE PHYSICAL PLANE DURING EARTH LIFE,  OR ONLY A PARTS,
AS THE HINDUS TEACH?

   ANSWER:   The higher self is the threefold Spirit:  Divine, Life, and Hu-
man  Spirit,  but you must not think of these three as being  separated  one
from the other.  The Spirit is undivided as the white light which comes from
the Sun through interplanetary space, but as the light may be refracted into


[PAGE 488]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

three primary colors--blue, yellow, and red--when passing through the denser
atmosphere of the earth, so also the Virgin Spirit appears as threefold dur-
ing manifestation,  because sheaths of matter of varying density are  placed
around it.   When it is enveloped only in the substance of the World of  Di-
vine Spirit,  then it is the Divine Spirit;  when the Divine Spirit receives
in addition a sheath from the material of the World of Life Spirit,  then it
becomes the Life Spirit; and when it is finally clothed in the matter of the
Region  of Abstract Thought it becomes the Human Spirit--the Ego.   That  is
because  the Virgin Spirit enmeshed in these three layers of matter is  shut
off  from all consciousness of its Divine Father,  and being so  blinded  by
matter  that  it  can no longer see things from the  cosmic  viewpoint  when
reaching  OUTWARD  it turns its consciousness inward and beholds  itself  as
separate and apart from all others.  Hence, it is an Ego--an individual.  At
that point then egoism is born, and self-seeking begins.

   When the Human Spirit draws around itself for better expression the lower
and more concrete vehicles--the mind,  the desire body,  the vital  body--by
sinking itself in them,  by descending even to the Physical World,  it again
obtains consciousness of outward things.   Then having lost knowledge of the
World of God whence it originally came, it commences to conquer the physical
world and subdue it to its own ends.


[PAGE 489]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

   In this respect it differs radically from the Spirits of the other  three
kingdoms--mineral,  vegetable,  and animal.  The Group Spirit of the mineral
has as yet descended only to the Region of Abstract Thought.   Therefore the
consciousness of the mineral resembles the deepest TRANCE state.   The Group
Spirit  of  the vegetable and plant kingdom has descended to the  Region  of
Concrete Thought.   Therefore the consciousness of the plant kingdom is akin
to that which we have in the deepest DREAMLESS SLEEP.   The Group Spirits of
the  animals are found in the Desire World,  which is next to the  world  in
which we live.  Hence the consciousness of the animal is an internal picture
consciousness,  similar to that which we have in dreams,  the pictures being
sent by the Group Spirits to the animals to impress upon them what they  are
to do under certain circumstances.   That which we call instinct is thus the
wisdom  of the Group Spirits,  which impresses the animal concerning how  it
shall act.   The Human Spirit alone in all the kingdoms of evolving life  on
earth is an individualized Ego, and descends into the vehicles which are all
gathered in the physical world during the waking hours of the day.   Thus we
attain  to the waking consciousness whereby we are fully aware and awake  to
all  things pertaining to the world in which we then function,  are able  to
use our own reason, express our desires and emotions, and act as dictated by
our individual Higher Self--the indwelling Spirit, the Ego.


[PAGE 490]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

                           SOWING WITHOUT REAPING

                              QUESTION NO. 154.

   IN THE FIRST LECTURE SENT BY MR.  HEINDEL HE SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT  HAVING
ENGAGEMENTS  WITH  OUR DESTINY AND BEING ABLE TO CANCEL THEM  UNDER  CERTAIN
CIRCUMSTANCES.   NOW WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS THIS:   WHAT ARE  THOSE  CERTAIN
CIRCUMSTANCES?   I  REALIZE  THAT NOW I CAN BUILD FOR THE  FUTURE  AND  THAT
THINGS  THAT TAKE PLACE WITHIN MY OWN CONSCIOUSNESS I CAN CONTROL  ACCORDING
TO THE AMOUNT OF WILL THAT I HAVE AND THE DESIRE BACK OF THAT WILL TO TRY TO
DO WHAT IS RIGHT.  BUT WHAT ABOUT THE EFFORTS ALONG THE LINE OF WRONG INFLU-
ENCE?  WHAT IS ONE PURSUES THE LIFE OF THE ORDINARY PERSON AND BLUNDERS INTO
EVIL WAYS?   IS HE NOT STARTING SOMETHING FROM WHICH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ES-
CAPE?   OR CAN HE, BY STRIVING TO OVERCOME THE LOWER NATURE,  AND BUILDING A
BETTER CHARACTER,  FOREGO THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS OWN MISDEEDS?   THIS IS  A
QUESTION A FRIEND AND I HAVE HAD MANY ARGUMENTS OVER.  SHE HOLDS TO THE IDEA
THAT  IF  WE SEE WE ARE DUE FOR AN ACCIDENT OR TROUBLE OF ANY  KIND  WE  CAN
AVOID THOSE THINGS BY STAYING AWAY FROM WHERE THEY ARE LIKELY TO HAPPEN, BUT
IT DOES NOT SEEM LIKELY TO ME THAT WE CAN ESCAPE THE PAST.  IF WE COULD,  WE
WOULD NOT BUILD CHARACTER BY RUNNING AWAY FROM ANYTHING.  OF COURSE, THAT IS
A  MORE OR LESS FATALISTIC VIEW OF THE MATTER,  BUT I BELIEVE IN  TAKING  MY
MEDICINE LIKE A MAN.  THOUGH  I  KICK AGAINST THE PRICKS, AT THE SAME TIME I


[PAGE 491]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

FEEL DISGUSTED THAT I AM SUCH A WEAKLING.

   ANSWER:   There is one important point in the matter which it  seems  you
fail to take into consideration, though it has been plainly and emphatically
stated  in our literature.   "All the laws of nature,  including the law  of
consequence in its application to human life,  are under the  administration
of great Beings of sublime spirituality and superlative wisdom."   This  law
does not work blindly on the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth  for
a tooth,  but these great Beings and their agents administer all things with
a wisdom that is beyond the comprehension of our finite minds.   It has been
found,  however,  that where there is a desire or tendency or possibility of
running  away from a harvest of sorrow which has accrued from  certain  RIPE
destiny,  such plans are always circumvented by another move on the part  of
the invisible administrators of this law.

   If you will read again the case cited in THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION
of a certain lecturer who was warned by Mr.  Heindel that if he went out  of
his  house on a certain day he would meet with an accident to certain  parts
of  his body,  and how he forgot and thought the 28th was the 29th,  took  a
trip to another town to lecture and was injured,  as foretold,  in a railway
collision.   This case will perhaps illustrate our points.  The man had been
forewarned,  he  believed  in  the  warning  and  intended  to  heed it, but


[PAGE 492]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

undoubtedly the suffering accruing from that accident was due to him in  ex-
piation of certain wrongdoings.   Therefore the agents of the law of  causa-
tion caused him to forget the day of the month.

   This principle works also in another way.   You seem to think that  there
is  no way of escaping the harvest of the past but there is.   We have  also
repeatedly emphasized the fact that God,  or nature,  or the agents of  this
great  law,  do not aim to "get even" with us.   We are here in  this  great
school of life,  safeguarded by these laws of nature.  They are made for our
benefit and not for our hurt,  although they limit us in a certain way  just
as  we  limit  our children's liberties for the  purpose  of  guarding  them
against dangers of indiscretion.  When by our past actions we have laid up a
certain store of retribution for ourselves which is to be worked out at some
future time,  and then see our mistake,  turn over a new leaf,  and live  in
harmony with the law we had previously broken,  then by that action we  wipe
the slate clean with respect to our previous peccadillos.  The agents of the
great law, seeing that we have ceased from wrongdoing in that particular re-
spect,  would  not wantonly inflict suffering upon us.   Bear this  fact  in
mind:  all the laws of nature are under similar divine, intelligent adminis-
tration, for that is the difference between the fatalistic and the spiritual
viewpoints.   The hand of God, through His agents,  is everywhere,  from the
greatest things,  such as the travel of a planet in its orbit,  to the  most
trivial detail like the falling of a sparrow.  It is an actual  fact that in


[PAGE 493]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

God  we live and move and have our being.   We are under His loving care  in
everything  and  therefore nothing can happen to us that is not  in  harmony
with His great divine plan.  That plan certainly cannot be fatalistic!


                         MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHECIES

                              QUESTION NO. 155.

   DO YOU CONSIDER MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHECIES AUTHENTIC?

   ANSWER:   Half a century before America was discovered, "Mother Shipton,"
the Yorkshire seeress,  prophesied the discovery of an unknown land in which
gold would abound.   She saw the automobiles and railroads of today with the
many  accidents they would cause,  the telephone and the telegraph,  divers,
submarines, airships, and the great iron ships which have superseded vessels
of wood.  She foresaw the great political upheavals in the world, notably in
France,  her  alliance with England and an amalgamation of  the  Anglo-Saxon
races which may yet come to pass, notwithstanding their present strife.  She
beheld  the  emancipation  of the Jew and his  preferment  to  positions  of
prominence,  and  unprecedented  spread of knowledge among those of even the


[PAGE 494]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

most  lowly estate,  ending with the prediction of certain upheavals of  the
earth's  crust whereby old lands will become submerged and new land  appear,
and in 1991 she foresees the end of the world.

   The  last  named prophecies will probably cause most of us to  shake  our
heads in a skeptical manner,  but if we give the matter a little thought the
idea may not seem so farfetched.   We know that upheavals of the earth  have
taken place in the past, and earthquakes and volcanic outbursts show us that
the subterranean activities are not suspended by any means.   The writer has
seen  for a number of years great subterranean caverns filled with  oil  and
gas  which run in a general direction from Maine across the American  conti-
nent in a southwesterly direction,  beneath Southern California and far  out
into the South Pacific Ocean.  Their explosion would make a great gap in the
earth.   AT the same time he sees an archetype in the process  of  construc-
tions  which  shows  the  shape the earth will take at  that  place  when  a
cataclysm  or series of cataclysms have broken up the present shape of  this
continent  and the adjoining ocean.   Perhaps it is hazardous to set a  time
when  this remodeling of the earth will begin,  but the archetype or  matrix
molded in mind stuff, and representing the creative thought of the Grand Ar-
chitect  and His builders,  seems so nearly complete that,  judging  by  the
progress  made during the years the writer has watched its construction,  it
seems safe to say that by the middle  of the present century (1950),  if not


[PAGE 495]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

before,  the upheavals will have started.   it is not at all incredible that
there may be one of such magnitude in 1991 that the ancient seeress was jus-
tified in judging it the end of the world.   However,  perhaps the writer is
premature in judging that the upheavals will start in the middle of the cen-
tury.   They may be deferred to the end.  only time can decide,  but certain
it is that preparations for a great change have been going on for  centuries
and are now nearing completion in the invisible world.   Therefore,  we  may
expect  soon  to see Mother Shipton's prophecy concerning this  matter  ful-
filled as the ones mentioned in the beginning our note have been.

   We append the prophecy so that our readers may judge for themselves:

   Carriages without horses shall go,
   And accidents fill the world with woe;
   Primrose Hill in London shall be,
   And in its center a Bishop's See;
   Around the world thoughts shall fly
   In the twinkling of an eye;
   Water shall great wonders do.
   How strange! yet shall be true.

   The world upside down shall be,
   And gold found at the root of trees;
   Through hills man shall ride,
   And no horse or ass by his side;
   Under water men shall walk,
   Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk
   In the air men shall be seen,
   In white, in black, and in green.

   A great man shall come and go!
   Iron in water shall float
   As easy as a wooden boat,


[PAGE 496]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

   And gold shall be found
   In a land that's not now known.
   fire and water shall more wonders do,
   England shall at last admit a Jew;
   The Jew that was held in scorn
   Shall of a Christian be born.
   A house of glass shall come to pass
   In England, but alas!
   War will follow with the work
   In the land of the Pagan and Turk,
   And State and State in fierce strife
   Will seek each other's life.
   But when the North shall divide the South,
   An eagle shall build in the Lion's mouth.
   Taxes for blood and for war
   Shall come to every door.
   Three times shall lovely France
   Be led to play a bloody dance,
   Before her people shall be free,

   Three tyrant rulers shall she see--
   Three rulers in succession see,
   Each sprung from different dynasty;
   Then shall the worser fight be done,
   England and France shall be as one;
   The British olive next shall twine
   In marriage with the German Vine.
   Men shall walk over rivers and under rivers.
   All England's sons that plough the land
   Shall be seen book in hand;
   Learning shall so ebb and flow,
   The poor shall most wisdom know.
   Waters shall flow where corn doth grow.
   Corn shall grow where waters doth flow;
   Houses shall appear in the vales below.
   And covered by hail and snow.
   The world then to an end shall come,
   Nineteen hundred and ninety-one.



[PAGE 497]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

                              THE GOVERNING RAY

                              QUESTION NO. 156.

   IN  THE  COSMO IT IS STATED:   "ALL OCCULT SCHOOLS BELONG TO ONE  OF  THE
SEVEN PLANETARY RAYS,  AND ONE CAN JOIN ONLY THE SCHOOL OF THE RAY TO  WHICH
HE BELONGS.   TO WHAT RAY DOES THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP BELONG?   AND DOES
THIS  MEAN THAT ANYONE APPLYING FOR ADMISSION THERETO,  IF NOT OF  THE  SAME
RAY,  WOULD BE REJECTED?  UNDERSTANDING OF THIS POINT IS RENDERED STILL MORE
DIFFICULT BECAUSE OF THE STATEMENT,  I THINK,  IN THE ASTROLOGY BOOKS,  THAT
OUR FATHER STAR IS NOT KNOWN UNTIL THE LAST INITIATION.

   ANSWER:   There are two sets of people in the world, spoken of in the Ma-
sonic  Legend as the Sons of Seth and the Sons of Cain,  and represented  in
our   modern   times  by  Freemasonry  and   Catholicism,   statecraft   and
priestcraft--those who listen to the voice of intellect and follow the head,
and  those  who obey the voice of the heart and follow  their  emotions  and
feelings.   The Sons of Seth,  people who go along the devotional  path  and
follow their religion in whatever country they may be,  do not come in touch
with any Mystery School at any time of their existence.   They have followed
their spiritual teachers, docile as lambs, as water flows gently in an arti-
ficial canal, and among their leaders, from the time of Abel,  the shepherd,
we find great lights like Solomon, who was later reborn as Jesus, and is now


[PAGE 498]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

the invisible spiritual pillar of the Church, which he will eventually guide
into the haven of the Kingdom of Christ.  These people are the divine proto-
types,  Adam and Eve,  created by Jehovah, the regent of Luna,  the Queen of
the  waters of the world and the emotions of men.   Our emotions are as  un-
stable  as water,  which is governed in its periodical ebb and flow  by  the
Moon.

   The other stream of humanity,  called the Sons of Cain,  is that class in
whom the divine essence, the Ego, makes itself felt as a BURNING FIRE.   The
original creative instinct is keen within them, for when humanity was in its
cradle,  they  listened to the voice of the Lucifer Spirits and ate  of  the
Tree of Knowledge; hence they became enlightened.  The mind prospered at the
expense of the heart,  and from Cain,  Tubal-Cain,  and Methusaleh have come
all  the  craftsmen of the world.   They were the ones who  built  Solomon's
Temple under the leadership of Hiram Abiff, the Master Mason,  who was later
reborn as the Widow's Son of Naim,  raised by the strong grip of the Lion of
Judah,  and is now working through industry and statecraft under the name of
Christian  Rosenkreuz to bring his kindred into the kingdom of Christ  where
the  two streams will unite--where there will be neither priests nor  kings,
but one, even Christ, who will fill the dual office of King and Priest.

   In every vast company of men there are always some behind and some in ad-
vance,  and we may find individuals,  belonging to each of these two streams
of  humanity  among  the  lowest  types  as  well  as  among the most highly


[PAGE 499]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

civilized people on earth.  All along the path of evolution,  there are,  as
we  might say,  gates which lead to the path of initiation and which may  be
unlocked by anyone who has the proper key.   The locks are different at dif-
ferent points on the path of evolution,  and they are becoming more  compli-
cated,  for  we  are all by evolution now learning  lessons  which  were  in
by-gone ages taught in the process of initiation in the Mystery Schools.

   In each life we are born with a new horoscope.  Our Ascendant and planets
will  be  very different in each life according to the lessons  we  have  to
learn and the liabilities we are to liquidate from the past.  In one life we
may have Mars as ruler,  another life may be ruled by Venus,  or any one  of
the planets.   it is designed that the Spirit should learn all things in or-
der to become perfect,  and it must therefore evolve under the influence  of
all  the planets in order that everything in its nature may be  evenly  bal-
anced.  Nevertheless, the stamp of our Father Star or Father Fire, is always
there,  and this makes one who is inherently a martial spirit different from
one  who comes from the Jupiter Ray,  though their horoscopes may  be  quite
similar, perhaps, as in the case of twins.

   Children born with the same Greenwich Mean Time in Madrid,  New York,  or
Honolulu would be of widely different types,  stamped by their national  and
racial  peculiarities,  and yet their horoscopes would be much alike.   This
illustrates that it is not the horoscope itself that counts,  but the invis-
ible  influence  that  is  due  to the identity of the Father Fire or Father


[PAGE 500]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

Star; and when a man or woman is ready to enter the gate or path which leads
up  to the the Mystery School,  he or she will feel the right spiritual  at-
traction through the basic color vibration of the aura.   If this attraction
is followed,  it is sure to guide him to the right place,  where he will not
be refused.

   Generally  speaking,  it may be said that all the people of  the  Western
World belong to the Western Wisdom School of the Rosicrucians, and that they
make a mistake when they endeavor to enter a school belonging to or teaching
the  Eastern philosophy.   When Moses led the Israelites out of  Egypt,  the
land of the Bull,  where the animal was worshiped when the Sun by precession
was in the sign Taurus,  he gave the people under his guidance a new symbol,
the  Lamb.   From the time when the Sun by precession went through the  sign
Aries,  the  Lamb,  it has been and is idolatry to worship the  golden  Calf
(Taurus),  or  bow down before the serpents and scorpions,  which  were  the
priests of that dispensation (because Scorpio is the opposite sign from Tau-
rus).  Then came Christ, the Lamb of God, so-called, to inaugurate a new re-
ligion;  and we hear of a judgment when He shall come again under  the  sign
Libra, the scales, which is opposite Aries, to judge all of the world.

   Later, by precession, the Sun passed through the sign Pisces, the fishes,
and for two thousand years we have been abstaining from meat on certain days
and eating fish, while we worshiped the opposite sign Virgo,  the immaculate


[PAGE 501]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Virgin.  now the Sun is entering, by precession, within orb of the celestial
sign Aquarius,  the Son of Man, and in the coming Aquarian Age we shall have
an entirely different standard from what we have had before.  As a matter of
fact, we must learn to worship the CHRIST WITHIN, and this Christ is not the
same for each one of us.   This is the savior that is to lead us out of  our
present  condition.   The difference is the basic planetary ray that  is  in
each and every one of us.   So there is the horoscopic ray,  governed by the
planet which is ruler of our horoscope in each life; there is the individual
ray, which is governed by the sub-ray of our Father Fire or Father Star, un-
der which we originated;  and,  finally, there is the Father Fire or Ray it-
self.   It is this latter which is not revealed until the  last  initiation.
our  individual  ray is discovered unto us at the time we receive  the  dis-
cipleship instruction,  and the horoscopic ray is evident as soon as we cast
the figure and know how to read it.

   To clear up this point from another angle,  let us illustrate by  colors.
There are seven colors in the spectrum:   red,  orange,  yellow,  etc.   But
within  the  red  we  shall also find seven  sub-rays,  which  are  red-red,
red-orange,  red-yellow,  etc.   The same with the yellow ray--we shall find
there yellow-red, yellow-yellow, etc.  Similarly under the ray of Mars there
are some who are Mars-Saturn, others who are Mars-Sun,  others again who are
Mars-Venus, and so on.  Mars is then the Father Star,  while the name of the


[PAGE 502]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

other  planet  designates the individual Ray, and therefore we find  in  the
Mystery Schools, all over the world, people who are born with any one of the
twelve signs rising and any one of the planets ruling.  Also people with in-
dividual rays of the Sun, Venus, Mars, Mercury, etc.,  are found in both the
Eastern and Western Mystery Schools.   But the Mystery School itself is col-
ored by the deep,  overpowering planetary influence of the Father Fire,  the
Father Star, under which it originated.

   You  will  understand that as the Father Fire is not revealed  until  the
last  initiation,  this basic nature of any Mystery School  cannot  be  told
openly in public.  But you must differentiate between the Mystery School and
such an association as The Rosicrucian Fellowship and other kindred  societ-
ies,  which are only preparatory schools for their respective occult orders.
Such  schools as The Rosicrucian Fellowship and kindred organizations  would
naturally  be dominated by the planetary influence from the  fountain  head.
This therefore cannot be given.

   There  are  plenty of people who claim that they know all  and  who  will
smile mysteriously,  or give out misinformation which cannot be controverted
and proven false, because it concerns the secrets of initiation.  The writer
has always made it a rule to say honestly and without hesitation whenever  a
question was asked to which he could not give an answer:   "I do not  know."
To  profess  omniscience  is equivalent to a profession of divinity.  Though


[PAGE 503]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

the writer has met quite a number of "professors,"  he has met very few,  if
any, "possessors," and you will have to wait for the answer to that question
until you come to the proper point in initiation.

   Even in the case of the individual ray,  which is given to the  disciples
at  the  time they enter the path of discipleship,  it has been  found  that
people under the sign Gemini,  for instance,  which would be supposed to  be
ruled by Mercury,  had in their individual ray all the different other plan-
ets;  and the same with every one of the other signs.   The writer has given
time and study, endeavoring to find a rule, but it has proven absolutely fu-
tile.  There is only the one explanation, given by the Elder Brothers,  that
the individual ray is retained by the Spirit throughout its whole series  of
lives,  and perfectly independent of the horoscopical rays which change  ac-
cording  to its birth,  environment,  and the lessons to be learned in  each
life.


                     WHEREABOUTS OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUZ

                              QUESTION NO. 157.

   CAN YOU TELL US ANYTHING ABOUT CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUZ, HIS PERSON, HABITAT,
ENVIRONMENT,  OR WHAT PART OF THE WORLD HE IS IN?   IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT HE
IS ON THE WESTERN COAST.  PLEASE TELL ME IF IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO KNOW.


[PAGE 504]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

   ANSWER:   No,  it is not permissible to know.   The whereabouts  and  the
movements of the august head of the Rosicrucian Order are always shrouded in
mystery.   If you have read about Rosicrucian initiation as explained in the
COSMO  you  will remember that he does not even appear in the  body  at  the
Temple services so far as the lay brothers are able to determine, for though
the Temple is built of ether and the twelve Elder Brothers together with the
lay  brothers function in their soul bodies during the Temple  service,  the
majority among us are able to see a body built of even so tenuous  substance
as mind-stuff.  Hence it is evident that the presence of the head of the Or-
der  is altogether spiritual,  and it is said that he manifests only to  the
twelve who like him are able to function in the highest vehicles.

   Nevertheless,  as has also been explained in the COSMO,  the head of  our
august Order is always active in the affairs of the world,  working with the
governments of the nations in the western world to guide them along the  ap-
propriate path of their evolution.  To this end he appears in a physical em-
bodiment,  at least part of the time, and if memory serves the editor right,
a lay sister ventured to put a question concerning this matter to one of the
Elder Brothers shortly after the outbreak of the war.   The rest of us  held
our  breath  in  amazement  at  her  indiscretion.   She  wanted  to know if


[PAGE 505]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Christian  Rosenkreuz was on the throne of one of the warring nations.   The
Elder  Brother appeared considerably taken aback at the question,  but  told
her  that such matters could not be discussed,  as the slightest inkling  of
his identity might destroy his usefulness.   However,  he answered the ques-
tion  so far as to say that Christian Rosenkreuz was not to be found on  the
throne  of  any nation,  and at the same time he intimated that he  was  the
power behind the throne.   Nevertheless,  he gave no clue that could lead us
to look anywhere in particular.  We were of course,  left free to indulge in
our  own speculations,  and the editor thought of Russia,  where an  obscure
monk seemed to exercise a strange influence that commenced about the  latter
part of 1905 when Saturn and Mars were in conjunction in the sign  Aquarius,
which rules Russia.   Since the time of those great riots, this monk has had
a strange influence in the Empire.   We have never spoken of this to  anyone
before,  but now that we learn from a newspaper clipping that his career has
ended,  it will probably do no harm if our conjecture is correct.   In  that
case we predict that there are still further developments to be expected and
that the monk from Tomsk will be heard from again.  If we are mistaken,  the
speculation  can hurt no one and we give it and the newspaper  account  only
for what they are worth.

   This  monk  was  maligned in the highest degree and accused  of  all  the
crimes on the calendar, a fact which may make it difficult  to  believe that


[PAGE 506]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

he was indeed our holy Brother,  C.R.C.,  but a little reflection soon shows
that  a bad reputation may be borne by the most spiritual.   Was not  Christ
called a winebibber?   Was it not said,  "He hath a devil"?  and was He  not
crucified as a criminal?   What wonder then that the monk from Tomsk was ac-
cused of being drunken and dissolute.  What wonder that he was  assassinated
for  the supposed reason that he was winning the Czar over to a  scheme  for
the conclusion of a separate peace with Germany?

   There are millions in Russia who mourn him as a saint.   He was the  poor
man's  friend.   There are others who seek to brand him as a  sychophant,  a
hypocrite and an imposter, but one thing is absolutely certain, he was a man
possessed of an unusual power or they would not have feared him.

   The following clipping from a newspaper sent by a correspondent is one of
a number of accounts which have appeared in various places:

   "An incredible reign has just ended at Petrograd.   it was the reign of a
monk.   A simple peasant was Grigori Rasputin when he first appeared in  the
Russian  capital a half score years ago.   He came from Eastern  Russia--the
Russia  that merges into Asia and shares its mysticism.   This monk  trod  a
path  of  victory  to power.   How great this power was over  the  lives  of
180,000,000 people will never be known.

   "It is known, however, that Grigori Rasputin--'Saint Grigori' they called
him  toward  the  last--sent  explicit orders to ministers, and these orders


[PAGE 507]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

were obeyed.  it is known that his levees in the palace once occupied by the
Grand Duke Alexis were attended by the nobility of Russia--by high-born  la-
dies of the palace,  by generals in glittering uniforms, by all the high and
the mighty of the empire.  The poorest also came with prayers and petitions,
which were granted with the initialed order of Rasputin to heads of  govern-
ments.

   "It is also said that this saint who came from Asia exercised a  mysteri-
ous power over the conscience of the Czar;  that the Czarina bowed her impe-
rial head to his decrees;  that rulers were elevated to the skies or humbled
to the dust at his word.

   "And  the  strange  story of this monk who brought the  darkness  of  the
Middle Ages with him is not based upon hearsay.   Since 1912 the representa-
tives  of  the Russian people have been struggling to free Russia  from  the
grasp of this Richelieu who could barely read and write.

   "Again and again has the Duma denounced the 'dark forces' which dominated
the  palace.   Yet so powerful was this exalted peasant from Tomsk  that  he
could defy the unanimous vote of the Duma demanding his elimination from the
life  of Russia.   So strongly was he entrenched in the seat of  the  mighty
that  he  could  issue a decree commanding the Russian press  to  cease  its
clamor--and he could enforce his command.

   "There is no parallel to the  twilight  rule  of  this monk except in the


[PAGE 508]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

Middle Ages or in the 'Forbidden City'  of Peking.   In the Forbidden  City,
the  walled stronghold of the Manchus,  a concubine in our times rose to  be
empress dowager of 400,000,000 yellow persons.  Her rule was absolute.   The
shadowy figure of the nominally-reigning emperor was blotted out by the  em-
press dowager's actual power.  Tzu-Hsi, with her enamelled face and her gor-
geous finery, uttered the words that meant life or death to courtiers,  gov-
ernors, and viceroys.

   "What went on behind the walls of the Forbidden City none knew.   One  or
two European women were admitted to that domain of slaves and eunuchs.  What
they  reported was exceedingly interesting.   It afforded a glimpse  into  a
world which the Europeans believed to have passed forever with the advent of
gunpowder,  the railroad,  and the telegraph.   But the machinery that moved
that government by women and slaves remained a mystery.  The power that con-
trolled the lives of 400,000,000 people remained a shadow.

   "The story of Rasputin is more amazing than the story of the dowager  em-
press, Tzu-Hsi.  The holy man from Tomsk dominated, not a scheduled oriental
harem surrounded by high walls of brick and tradition,  but one of the  most
brilliant courts of Europe--the Europe of today,  the Europe that is dealing
with tragic facts.  The empire that Rasputin swayed with his strange preten-
sions  to a divine mission and divine powers is one of the deciding  factors
of  a  decisive  period  in  the  history  of civilization.  The anachronism


[PAGE 509]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

might well be regarded as incredible.

   "And yet this man undoubtedly played,  or tried to play,  a master's part
in the affairs, not only of Russia, but of Europe.  All Russia believes that
eight years ago Rasputin, by his mysterious powers prevented the outbreak of
war   between   Russia   and  Austria-Hungary  at  the   moment   when   the
Bosnia-Herzegovina  question stirred the fires of international  hatred  and
suspicion to a fresh blaze.

   "In the present crisis,  amid the solemn surroundings of the Russian Par-
liament, Rasputin has been accused of seeking to sell his country to the en-
emy  by trying to bring about a separate peace on humiliating terms  between
Russia and the Central Powers.   The crime that brought an end to his mystic
overlordship of the imperial mind and conscious has been greeted in the Duma
and by the Russian press as an act of national deliverance."


[PAGE 510]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

                        HUMANITY'S AVERSION TO SNAKES

                              QUESTION NO. 158.


   WHY  IS  HUMANITY AVERSE TO A SNAKE?  IS THE GROUP SPIRIT  OF  THE  SNAKE
MAN'S ENEMY?

   ANSWER:  You are mistaken in your supposition that humanity as a whole is
averse  to the snake.   Many species of snakes are altogether harmless,  and
very useful animals.   Placed in the basement of the house they will keep it
perfectly clear of vermin, mice, and rats.  In the garden they eliminate de-
structive animals such as gophers and field mice, which do considerable dam-
age.   Therefore  the wise farmer looks upon them with very  friendly  eyes.
But  the  question of aversion is not by any means confined to  the  snakes.
Millions of people are afraid of a mouse, a beetle, a spider, or other harm-
less animals.   it is simply a question of temperament,  and no Group Spirit
is  an enemy of humanity or of any other species of animals.   Whatever  may
seem to indicate that is a wrong view of the matter.


[PAGE 511]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

                         THE SOUL AND THE SOUL BODY

                              QUESTION NO. 159.

   WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SOUL AND THE SOUL BODY?

   ANSWER:   This is one of the most intimate questions which has ever  been
asked,  and it cannot be answered directly,  but only by  illustration.   As
children learn certain intellectual truths beyond their grasp by a pictorial
illustration,  infant humanity learned deep religious truths  through  myths
and allegories.

   The vital body is composed of four ethers.  The two lower ethers are par-
ticular  avenues of growth and propagation.   In the vital body of a  person
whose  chief concern is with the physical life,  who lives as it  were,  en-
tirely for the sensual enjoyment, these two ethers predominate, whereas in a
person who is rather indifferent to the material enjoyment of life,  but who
seeks to advance spiritually, the two higher ethers form the bulk of the vi-
tal body.  They are then what Paul calls the "soma psuchicon," or soul body,
which  remains  with man during his experiences in Purgatory and  the  First
Heaven  where the essence of the life lived is extracted.   This extract  is
the soul, whose two chief qualities are conscience and virtue.   The feeling
of  conscience is the fruit of mistakes in past earth lives,  which will  in
future  guide  the Spirit aright and teach it how to avoid similar missteps.


[PAGE 512]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

Virtue is the essence of all that was good in former lives,  and acts as  an
encouragement to keep the Spirit ardently striving upon the path of  aspira-
tion.   In the Third Heaven this amalgamates thoroughly with the Spirit  and
becomes  a part thereof.   Thus in the course of his lives man becomes  more
soulful,  and  the  soul qualities of conscience  and  virtue  becomes  more
strongly operative as guiding principles of conduct.

   But we can perhaps gain a better idea of the difference between soul  and
soul  body  if we consider the allegory contained in the  ancient  Atlantean
Mystery Temple, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.  This God-given symbol was
furnished with all the implements of soul growth necessary for the  develop-
ment of man.   Among them there was in the sanctuary the Table of Shewbread.
Upon  this table there were twelve little cakes made into two piles  of  six
each and on each pile there was a little heap of incense.   Now will you re-
member, please, that the grain from which these cakes were made was given by
God to man,  but it was necessary for man to plant it, to till the soil,  to
water and to nourish the tiny plants.  He must also harvest them, thresh the
grain  and crush it into flour.   He must knead the dough and bake the  read
before he could bring it into the temple and have bread to shew as a product
of this labor with the God-given grain.

   This   God-given   grain   represents   opportunity.    Twelve  kinds  of


[PAGE 513]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

opportunities  come to man each year through the twelve departments of  life
represented  by the twelve houses in his horoscope.   But many  may  neglect
these opportunities, as the ancient Israelites might have thrown their grain
in  a  corner and let it lie.   If so, he will have no read to shew  to  the
Lord.   He will be like the servant with one talent who went and buried  it.
On the other hand, if he tilled the soil and nourished the grain of opportu-
nity  for  service in the Lord's vineyard,  then there will be  an  increase
which  he  may harvest and prepare to bring into the Lord's  temple  at  the
proper time to shew that he had faithfully cultivated every opportunity  for
service, and made the most thereof according to ability.

   We note,  however,  that these twelve cakes of shew bread were not  them-
selves  offered up to the lord,  but on each pile of six there was a  little
heap of incense which represented the essence of the shew bread.  By analogy
this  is  the essence of our service;  you will understand  why  by  another
little  illustration found in the experience we go through to gain  physical
faculties.

   As  you remember,  during the time when we went to school and learned  to
write, we made most awkward motions and contortions with the arm and body in
order to form letters on the paper.   We blotted our copy books so that they
looked most hideous,  and our attempt at writing was anything but beautiful.
Nevertheless, by degrees we acquired the faculty, and in the course of years


[PAGE 514]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

we forgot all about the experience of those early days when we endeavored to
cultivate it.   But this is the point:  if we had not gone through that cum-
bersome experience we would not now possess the faculty of writing,  and an-
other point is this:   after we have acquired the faculty it is  unnecessary
to remember the cumbersome methods of its acquirement.  Similarly also,  the
coarse physical substance, the grain of the shewbread, was not to be offered
to the Lord,  but only the essence or aroma thereof,  the faculty of skilled
service, the benevolence which we have cultivated in doing good to others.

   The  two  little piles of incense were therefore taken to  the  altar  of
incense in front of the second veil and lighted.   There ascends a cloud  of
smoke in the outer or eastward part of the temple, but only the aroma,  pure
and free from smoke,  penetrates through the veil into the inner  sanctuary.
By analogy therefore we may liken the shewbread to the experiences which  we
go through in serving and helping others;  the frankincense which is on  top
of the pile of shewbread may be likened to the essence of sympathy and help-
fulness  which  we extract from these services,  the soul  growth  contained
therein.   This is seen about us as a golden aura which constitutes the soul
body.  But though this glorious vehicle is made of the two finest ethers, it
could  not by any process amalgamate with the Spirit itself,  any more  than
the incense  can burn without emitting smoke and leaving behind a residue of


[PAGE 515]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

ashes.  Therefore by the spiritual alchemy of the evening exercise of Retro-
spection,  or in the natural process after death,  this soul body is  burned
without the veil (in the first heaven), and the aroma or the soul penetrates
the veil to the very innermost sanctuary as pabulum for the Spirit.

   Thus  the Spirit carries with itself the aroma of all its past lives.   A
younger soul which has had only a few existences from which to draw  experi-
ences and soul growth, is cruel and selfish for it has not performed service
to others.  But one who has gone through many lives, who has learned by sor-
row  and suffering to feel and to do for others,  responds instantly to  the
cry of pain,  because the soul in him or her is the quintessence of  service
and therefore always ready to aid others regardless of personal comforts and
enjoyment.

                       RELATION BETWEEN SOUL AND MIND.

                              QUESTION NO. 160.

   WE HAVE HAD SOME DISCUSSION IN OUR CLASSES REGARDING THE SOUL.  SOME CON-
FUSION  OF OPINION EXISTS.   WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN THE SOUL  AND  THE
MIND?   ARE THE FORCES OF BOTH PERMANENTLY UNITED TO THE SPIRIT?  WHICH BODY
WILL  BE  USED IN THE LATER STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT,  THE MENTAL OR  THE  SOUL
BODY?


[PAGE 516]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

   ANSWER:   We will turn for our answer to page 366 of the COSMO.  There we
find  a chart which embodies the whole scheme of involution  and  evolution.
It  is not a very complicated chart, either,  and the student who wishes  to
master  the mystery of existence would do well to memorize  thoroughly  this
diagram.

   Reading on the left side thereof,  we learn that during a stage of uncon-
scious evolution the Spirit grew a threefold body and crystallized into  it.
This was the dense body, the vital body, and the desire body.   In the earth
period,  the focus of mind was given and this becomes the fulcrum upon which
involution turns to evolution.   Then a threefold stage of conscious  evolu-
tion  commences during which the growth of a threefold soul is  accomplished
by spiritualizing the three bodies into the soul.   We find that in the  re-
mainder  of  the Earth Period we extract the conscious soul from  the  dense
body;  in the Jupiter Period the intellectual soul is extracted from the vi-
tal body; and in the Vulcan Period we become creative intelligences by amal-
gamation of the threefold soul with the mind.

   In order to make this more clear, we will turn to page 421 where there is
a chapter on alchemy and soul growth.  There we read as follows:

   "The dense body was started in the Saturn Period,  passed through various
transformations  in  the Sun and Moon Periods,  and will reach  its  highest
development in the Earth Period.

   The vital body  was  started  in the Sun Period, was reconstructed in the


[PAGE 517]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Moon  and Earth Periods,  and will reach perfection in the  Jupiter  Period,
which is its fourth stage,  as the Earth Period is the fourth stage for  the
dense body.

   The  desire  body was started in the Moon Period,  reconstructed  in  the
Earth Period, will be further modified in the Jupiter Period,  reaching per-
fection in the Venus Period."

   "Referring  to Diagram 8 will show that the lowest Globe of  the  Jupiter
Period is located in the Etheric Region.   It would therefore be  impossible
to use the dense physical vehicle there, as only a vital body can be used in
the  Etheric Region.   Yet it must not be supposed that after  spending  the
time from the beginning of the Saturn Period to the end of the Earth  Period
in completing and perfecting this body,  it is then thrown away that man may
function in a "higher" vehicle!

   "Nothing  in nature is wasted.   In the Jupiter Period the forces of  the
dense body will be superimposed on the vital body.   That vehicle will  then
possess  the powers of the dense body in addition to its own  faculties  and
will therefore be a much more valuable instrument for the expression of  the
threefold Spirit, than if built from its own forces alone.

   "Similarly,  Globe D of the Venus Period is located in the  Desire  World
(see diagram 8).   Hence neither a dense nor vital body could be used as  an
instrument of consciousness.   Therefore the essences of the perfected dense
and vital bodies are incorporated  in  the completed desire body, the latter


[PAGE 518]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

thus becoming a vehicle of transcendent qualities, marvelously adaptable and
so  responsive  to the slightest wish of the indwelling Spirit that  in  our
present limitations it is beyond our utmost conception.

   Yet the efficiency of even this splendid vehicle will be transcended when
in  the Vulcan Period its essence,  together with the essences of the  dense
and vital bodies,  are added to the mind, which becomes the highest of man's
vehicles,  containing within itself the quintessence of all that was best in
all the vehicles.   The vehicle of the Venus Period being beyond our present
power of conception,  how much more so is that which will be at the  service
of the divine beings of the Vulcan Period!

   During  involution the creative Hierarchies assisted man to  arouse  into
activity the threefold Spirit, the Ego, to build the threefold body,  and to
acquire the link of mind.  Now, however, on the seventh day (to use the lan-
guage of the Bible),  God rests.  Man must work out his own salvation.   The
threefold  Spirit  must complete the working out of the plan  begun  by  the
Gods.

   The  Human Spirit,  which was awakened during involution in the Moon  Pe-
riod,  will be the most prominent of the three aspects of the Spirit in  the
evolution  of the Jupiter Period,  which is the corresponding Period on  the
upward arc of the spiral.  The Life Spirit,  which was started into activity
in  the  Sun  Period  will  manifest  its  principal  activity  during   the


[PAGE 519]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

corresponding  Venus  period,  and the particular influences of  the  Divine
Spirit  will be strongest in the Vulcan Period,  because it was vivified  in
the corresponding Saturn Period.

   All three aspects of the Spirit are active all the time during evolution,
but  the  principal activity of each aspect will be unfolded in  those  par-
ticular periods, because the work to be done there is its special work.

   When the threefold Spirit had evolved the threefold body and gained  con-
trol of it through the focus of mind,  it commenced to evolve the  threefold
soul by working from within.   How much or how little soul a man has depends
upon  the amount of work the Spirit has done in the bodies.   This has  been
explained  in  the chapter describing post-mortem experiences.   (See  pages
95-96 of the COSMO).   As much of the desire body as has been worked upon by
the Ego is transmuted into the emotional soul, and is ultimately assimilated
by the Human Spirit, the special vehicle of which is the desire body.

   As much of the vital body as has been worked upon by the Life Spirit  be-
comes the intellectual soul, and it builds the Life Spirit, because that as-
pect of the threefold Spirit has its counterpart in the vital body.

   As  much of the dense body as has been worked upon by the  Divine  Spirit
becomes  the conscious soul,  because the dense body is its material  emana-
tion.

   The conscious soul grows by action, external impacts, and experience.


[PAGE 520]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

   The  emotional soul grows by the feelings and emotions generated  by  ac-
tions and experiences.

   The intellectual soul as mediator between the other two grows by the  ex-
ercise  of memory,  by which it links together past and present  experiences
and  the  feelings  engendered thereby, thus creating  "sympathy"  and  "an-
tipathy"  which could not exist apart from memory,  because the feelings re-
sulting from experience alone would be evanescent.

   During  involution the Spirit progressed by growing bodies but  evolution
depends  upon soul growth--the transmutation of the bodies into  soul.   The
soul is,  so to say,  the quintessence, the power or force of the body,  and
when a body has been completely built and brought to perfection through  the
stages and periods as above described, the soul is fully extracted therefrom
and  is absorbed by the one of the three aspects of the Spirit which  gener-
ated the body in the first place, thus:

   The  conscious soul will be absorbed by the Divine Spirit in the  seventh
revolution of the Jupiter period;

   The  intellectual soul will be absorbed by the Life Spirit in  the  sixth
revolution of the Venus Period;

   The  emotional  soul will be absorbed by the Human Spirit  in  the  fifth
revolution of the Vulcan Period.

   So much for the evolution of soul.   We will now turn to the mind and the
various stages which brings it to perfection.

   We  read  on  page  426 of the COSMO:  "At the present time, however, the


[PAGE 521]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

mind  is not focused in a way that enables it to give a clear and true  pic-
ture of what the Spirit imagines.   It is not one pointed.   It gives  misty
and clouded pictures.   Hence the necessity of experiment to show the  inad-
equacies of the first conception,  and bring about new imaginings and  ideas
until  the image produced by the Spirit in mental substance has been  repro-
duced in physical substance.

   At the best,  we were able to shape through the mind only such images  as
have to do with form, because the human mind was not started until the Earth
Period, and therefore is now in its "form" or "mineral" stage.  Hence in our
operations we are confined to forms,  to minerals.   We can imagine ways and
means of working with the mineral forms of the three lower kingdoms, but can
do  little  or  nothing with living bodies.   We  may  indeed  graft  living
branches to a live tree, or a living part of animal or man to another living
part,  but it is not life with which we are working.   It is form only.   We
are  making different conditions,  but the life which already inhabited  the
form continues to do so still.   To create life is beyond man's power  until
the mind has become alive.

   In  the Jupiter Period the mind will be vivified to some extent  and  man
can then imagine forms which will live and grow, like plants.

   In the Venus period, when his mind has acquired "feeling,"  he can create
living, growing, and feeling things.


[PAGE 522]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

   When he reaches perfection,  at the end of the Vulcan Period,  he will be
able to "imagine" into existence creatures that will live, grow,  feel,  and
think.

   In the Saturn Period the life wave which is now man started on its evolu-
tion.   The Lords of Mind were then human.  They worked with man at that Pe-
riod, when he was mineral.  They now have nothing to do with the lower king-
dom, but are concerned solely with our human development.

   Our present animals started their mineral existence in the Sun Period, at
which  time the Archangels were human.   Therefore,  the Archangels are  the
rulers  and  guides of the evolution of that which is now animal,  but  have
nothing to do with plant or mineral.

   The  present plants had their mineral existence in the Moon Period.   The
angels were then human.   Therefore they have special concern with the  life
that now inhabits the plants,  to guide it up to the human stage;  but  they
have no interest in the minerals.

   Our  present humanity will have to work with the new life wave which  en-
tered  evolution in the Earth period and now ensouls the minerals.   We  are
now  working  with  it by means of the faculty  of  imagination,  giving  it
form--building it into ships, bridges, railways, houses, etc.

   In the Jupiter Period we shall guide the evolution of the plant  kingdom,
for  that which is at present mineral will then have a  plantlike  existence
and we must work with it  there  as  the angels are now doing with our plant


[PAGE 523]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

kingdom.  Our faculty of imagination will be so developed that we shall have
the  ability,  not only to create forms by means of it,  but to endow  those
forms with vitality.

   "In  the Venus Period our present mineral life wave shall  have  advanced
another step,  and we shall be doing for the animals of that period what the
archangels  are  now doing for our animals--giving them living  and  feeling
forms.

   "Lastly in the Vulcan Period it will be our privilege to give them a ger-
minal mind,  as the Lords of Mind did to us.   The present mineral will then
have  passed  through stages similar to those through which the  Angels  and
Archangels are now passing.  We shall then have reached a point in evolution
a little higher than that of the present Lords of Mind,  for remember  there
is never an exact reproduction anywhere, but always progressive improvement,
because of the spiral.

   "The Divine Spirit will absorb the Human Spirit at the close of the Jupi-
ter Period;  the Life Spirit at the close of the Venus Period,  and the per-
fected  mind,  embodying  all that it has  garnered  during  its  pilgrimage
through all the seven Periods,  will be absorbed by the Divine Spirit at the
close of the Vulcan Period."

   From the foregoing it will be clear that there is a distinct evolution of
soul and another equally distinct evolution of the mind.   Yet they are  not
at all independent of one another,  but  work  in  perfect  unison,  as  for


[PAGE 524]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

instance,  the  heart and lungs work together to keep up the rhythm  of  the
body.   Therefore it will be neither the mental,  nor the soul body that  we
shall  use in the later stages of our development,  but a composite  vehicle
containing increasingly the essence of all our bodies,  which will then be a
composite garment of the Spirit, so wonderful and glorious that it is beyond
even our faintest conception at the present time.



[PAGE 524]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

                             HOW TO FOSTER FAITH

                              QUESTION NO. 161

   THERE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN A GREAT DECLINE OF FAITH IN RECENT YEARS.   WHAT
REMEDY IS THERE FOR THIS FROM THE OCCULT VIEWPOINT?

   ANSWER:   There is an occult reason for the decline of faith,  and it  is
useless to discuss a remedy until a cause has been found.  No haphazard mea-
sure will turn humanity permanently back to the path of rectitude.   Let  us
first consider some of the causes commonly given,  and then we shall  under-
stand the occult scientific reason all the better.

   We often hear it sneeringly said that the reason the churches stand empty
is that the minister has no NEW message,  but  is  continually rehashing the


[PAGE 525]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

old Bible stories.   The reproach loses its force the moment the question is
asked:   "Have we learned the Bible by heart?"   We expect a child to repeat
the  multiplication table indefinitely until he knows and can apply it.   It
is  more  important that we should know the Bible thoroughly than  that  the
child should remember the table; hence repetition is necessary.

   The Athenians on Mars Hill were always seeking some new thing that  would
give  them  food for discussion,  but something more is  required  for  soul
growth.  Paul specifically informs us that although we may know all the mys-
teries, and all knowledge, and have not love, it profits us nothing.

   The  reproach  of the empty pews rests particularly upon  the  Protestant
churches of all denominations,  and it may not be out of place therefore  to
draw a comparison between their method and the method of the mother  church.
If we are anxious to learn we must put prejudice aside and strive to look at
the merits and demerits of each in an unbiased manner.

   Let us first look into the ordinary Protestant church, where the minister
strives  to give the people the gospel.  Many of the pews are empty.   Among
those present the ladies outnumber the men by six to one or more.   The min-
ister  is usually earnest and strives to be eloquent when he  addressed  the
Deity in prayer,  but he has heard the reproach of repetition so often  that
he is always afraid of having one service resemble another in the  slightest
degree.  A new prayer, a new sermon, a new song from  the  choir, everything


[PAGE 526]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

as NEW as possible, so as to escape that dreadful reproach.   He is almost a
nervous wreck because of the haunting thought that his people may think  him
"stale,"

   Next, let us go to a "popular" church and see what methods they use.  The
minister in these churches is always "progressive" and "up-to-date."   There
is  often a gymnasium and a physical culture instructor attached to the  es-
tablishment.   Every  night in the week there is a  meeting  connected  with
this,  that, or the other club.  There are picnics, lawn parties, and dances
in the summer, and church suppers in the winter.  Meetings for men and meet-
ings for women are usually sandwiched in, so that the whole is one  dazzling
phantasmagoria with never a dull moment during the week,  and on Sunday--ah,
that is the real treat, the great attraction--then the pastor entertains, as
only he knows how.   He is assisted by a matchless choir of high priced art-
ists  trained by an equally high priced conductor.   The music is  not  par-
ticularly  religious,  save as all good music fresh from  the  heaven  world
speaks to the spiritual man,  and awakens the memories of our eternal  home.
But it is a treat to the music lover and draws hundreds on that account.

   Between  the opening and the closing parts of the musical  program  comes
the so-called "sermon."   One of our contributors relates that once she  was
horrified  on  entering  a church to see on the pulpit this inscription:  "I


[PAGE 527]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

preach not the gospel."   The words of the context:  "Woe unto me if,"  were
hidden on the other side of the pulpit,  and the effect must have been star-
tling to say the least.   However, it is a motto that might be on the pulpit
of more than one "progressive" church, for though the "sermon" may open with
a quotation from the Bible,  that is usually the only reference to the  word
of God.   The rest is an excellent oration on whatever topic may be the most
live local or national issue,  or if there be a dearth from the general  so-
cial and political sources, there are always the temperance and purity prob-
lems.  True, they are worn, like the Gospels, but by taking a bottle of beer
on  the  pulpit,  working up a frenzy and smashing the cursed thing,  it  is
still possible to make an appeal to the jaded taste for sensationalism which
is ultimately developed by most of the pastor's hearers.   But by that  time
the "progressive" pastor gets a call to go and build up another church else-
where.

   This much is admitted universally:   under the continued pastorate of one
man the churchgoers lose interest.   However, this is not because their min-
isters are not sincere and hard working.   The great majority are  exemplary
in every way,  but somehow they cannot keep their hold on the people.   Some
denominations allot the churches under their jurisdiction to their ministers
for  a certain term,  and at the end of that time transfer them  to  another
section to work there awhile.


[PAGE 528]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

   Much may be said both for and against these various schemes,  but that is
beside the present discussion.   Only one remedy for lack of interest  seems
to  have a potency sufficiently powerful to meet the general approval  as  a
producer of at least temporary enthusiasm:  the revival.

   There people flock to hear a stranger,  always of strong,  dominant,  and
aggressive  personality,  with a voice that can speak in octaves from a  low
pleading call,  catching the crushed sinner, to the clarion cry which sounds
like the crack of doom to the recalcitrants.  Like the "progressive" pastor,
he is ably aided by a trained staff, choir,  and orchestra,  all arranged to
make a powerful appeal TO THE SENSATIONS.   People are "converted"  by thou-
sands and religion (?) takes on a new lease of life in that community.

   But,  alas, only for a while.  It is a fact needing no more than the bare
statement, that after a very little while all but a pitifully small percent-
age of the converts backslide,  and the poor minister must go on laboring to
keep  the  semblance of religion in a community  increasingly  negligent  of
spiritual matters.

   This  state  of affairs has become so notorious  that  comparatively  few
young  men  enter the seminaries.   There is thus a decline in  both  church
goers and ministers,  which,  if continued, can have but one ending--the ex-
tinction of the Protestant church.

   When  we investigate the methods of the Catholic church for the  sake  of
comparison and to arrive  at  the  correct conclusion regarding its power of


[PAGE 529]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

attraction,  we should first note the absolute contrast between the  service
there and that in the Protestant churches.  If we listen for a moment at the
door of a dozen of the edifices of protestant denominations,  we shall  find
that  each  minister has a different topic, but we may go  to  any  Catholic
church in the wide world, and we shall find that they are all using the same
ritual at the altar on a given day.  What the priest may say from the pulpit
is negligible in face of that all-important fact,  for words are vibrations.
They  are creative,  as demonstrated when sand and spores  form  geometrical
figures in response to the voice of a singer, and the Mass chanted in count-
less Catholic churches scattered all over the world reverberates with  cumu-
lative  power through the universe as one mighty anthem,  affecting all  who
are in tune therewith,  raising their religious fervor and loyalty to  their
church  in a manner unapproachable by the isolated and haphazard efforts  of
individuals, no matter how sincere.

   In  corroboration of this assertion regarding the cumulative power  of  a
ritual,  we may mention the phenomenal hold of Christian Science on its fol-
lowers.   The Christian Scientists have no high priced preachers.  Their mu-
sic is not out of the ordinary.  Yet their churches are filled to the doors,
and they are branching out at a wonderful rate because they have,  first,  a
message of vital interest, health, and wealth; and second, the occult effect
of  concentrated  effort  obtained by  using  identical  readings  in  every


[PAGE 530]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

Christian Science church in the world,  so that the cumulative effect may be
felt by every Christian Scientist who is in tune.  This effect would be much
stronger if the service were really occult,  and chanted to a certain strain
as is the Mass.

   Thus,  to sum up this phase of the matter, the persistently continued in-
dividual  attempts of Protestant preachers to guide their people by new  and
original sermons are a failure,  while concerted efforts centered in uniform
rituals repeated year after year, as put forth by Roman Catholics and Chris-
tian Scientists,  and even by the Freemasons and Fraternal Orders,  hold the
audience.

   In  order to understand this mystery and apply the remedy  intelligently,
it is necessary to understand the constitution of man, both during the years
of growth and also as an adult.

   In  addition  to the visible body of man which we see with  our  physical
eyes, there are other and finer vehicles that are unseen by the great major-
ity  of mankind.   Nevertheless they are not superfluous appendages  to  the
physical  body,  but are indeed much more important from the fact that  they
are  the springs of all action.  Without these finer vehicles  the  physical
body would be inert, senseless, and dead.

   The first of these vehicles we call the vital body because it is the  av-
enue of vitality which leavens the dead lump of the mortal coil in the years
of life, and gives us the power to move.


[PAGE 531]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

   The  second is the desire body,  which is the basis of our  emotions  and
feelings,  and which galvanizes this visible body into action.   These three
vehicles together with the mind constitute the personality which is then in-
formed by the Spirit.   Each of the bodies we have named has its own  essen-
tial nature,  and we may say that the keynote of the physical body is "iner-
tia,"  as  it  never moves unless impelled  through  these  finer  invisible
bodies.  The key note of the vital body is "repetition."  That is easily un-
derstood,,  when  we consider that although it has power to move  the  body,
such movements result only from repeated impulses of the same kind.   It  is
taught to coordinate the movements of the body as the Spirits wills.   If we
go to the organ for the first time and endeavor to play,  we are not at once
able to move the fingers in the desired manner to produce the proper  tones.
It requires repeated efforts to execute even the simplest co-ordinated move-
ments  of  the fingers requisite to making the proper harmony.   Because  of
this necessity for repetition it is an occult maxim that all occult develop-
ment begins with the training of the vital body.

   The  desire body,  which we sense as our emotional nature,  on the  other
hand, is always seeking something new.  This desire for change of condition,
change of scene, change of mood, love of emotion and sensation is due to the
activities  of the desire body,  which is like the sea in a storm,  full  of
waves, tossing hither and thither,  at  random  and without design, each one


[PAGE 532]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

one  powerful and destructive when unbridled and without allegiance  to  the
central directing power.

   The mind, indeed, is the focus through which the Spirit endeavors to sub-
due  the  lower personality and guide it according to the  ability  acquired
during  its evolutionary period.   But at the present time it is so vague  a
quantity that among the great majority of people it cannot be reckoned with,
and they are therefore led principally by their feelings and emotions, with-
out much amenability to reason or thought.

   Recognizing  the great and wonderful power of the emotional body and  its
amenability  to "rhythm,"  which may be said to be its keynote,  progressive
theology  has  addressed itself to and focused its efforts upon  appeals  to
this vehicle.  It is this part of our nature which enjoys the entertainments
of  the sensational vaudeville pastor.   This vehicle it is that  sways  and
groans under the rhythmic rant of the revivalist,  itself vibrant with  emo-
tion,  rising  and falling in the well calculated measure of  the  speaker's
voice.  Unity of pitch is soon established, a state of actual hypnosis where
the  victim can no more help going to "the mourners bench,"  than water  can
refrain from running down hill.   They realize powerfully for the time being
the  enormity of their sins and they are equally anxious to start  a  better
life.   Alas, however, the next wave of attraction to their emotional nature
washes away all the preacher has said, as well as all their resolutions, and
they stand exactly where they were before, much to the chagrin and sorrow of


[PAGE 533]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

the evangelist concerned.

   Thus  all  efforts to elevate humanity by work upon the  unstable  desire
body are and must always prove futile.  This the occult schools of all  ages
have recognized and they have therefore addressed themselves to the changing
of  the vital body by working with its keynote,  which is  repetition.   For
that  purpose,  they have written various rituals suited to humanity at  the
different stages of its development and in that way they have fostered  soul
growth,  slowly but surely,  and regardless of whether man was aware that he
was being worked upon in that manner or not.   The Ancient Atlantean Mystery
Temple,  which we speak of as the Tabernacle in the Wilderness,  had certain
rites  prescribed  in the mount by the divine hierarch who  was  their  par-
ticular  teacher.   Certain rites were performed during  week  days.   Other
rites  were used on the Sabbath,  and again other rites at the times of  the
new moons and on the great solar festivals.   Nor was it within the province
of any one from the high priest down,  to alter this ritual,  under pain and
penalty of death.

   Also among other ancient people do we find evidence of a ritual--the Hin-
dus,  the Chaldeans,  and the Egyptians all used it in their religious  ser-
vices.   Among the latter we have,  for instance,  the so-called BOOK OF THE
DEAD,  as an evidence of the occult value and the scope of such  ritualistic
services.    Even   among  the  Greeks,   though   they   were   notoriously
individualistic and anxious to give expression to  their  own conception, we


[PAGE 534]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

find  the ritual in the mysteries, and alter during the so-called  Christian
Era we have the same occultly inspired ritual in the Catholic Church,  as  a
means of fostering soul growth by work on the vital body.

   It  is not contended that there were no abuses within these various  sys-
tems  of religion,  that the priests were always hold men,  and  that  their
hands  were  clean  and spotless when they ministered at  the  sacrifice  or
ritual.   It  is  indeed  true that abuse at  times  became  so  great  that
re-organizations were necessary, and the Protestant movement was inaugurated
by  Martin  Luther in order to get away from the abuses that had  sprung  up
within the Catholic church.  However, all these systems had in them the ker-
nel  of truth and power in the fact that they worked for the development  of
the vital body,  and therefore,  no matter how corrupt the priests might be,
the ritual always retained its great power.   Hence when the reformers  left
the ritual behind them,  they were in exactly the same position as the Athe-
nians  on Mars Hill--they were forced to seek something new.   In  each  de-
nomination  there is a desire for truth.  Each of the sects today is  strug-
gling  to solve the problem of life in its own way,  but each is striking  a
new  note in a haphazard manner,  and therefore they are all failing,  while
the Catholic church with all its abuses still holds  a  wonderful  sway over


[PAGE 535]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

its adherents because of the concerted power of the ritual.

   In order that we may learn from them how to fill our churches and  foster
the  soul growth in our Protestant people,  we must first realize  the  fact
that  "in  unity there is strength."  We must cease our  senseless  disputes
about details.  Whether we "sprinkle," or "immerse," whether we are "predes-
tined"  or "free"--what does it really matter?   None was ever saved because
of this hair splitting.  The words of Abraham Lincoln, "In essentials unity,
in non-essentials liberty,  in all things charity,"  must be adopted  before
anything else can be done.   Agreement to that proposition in true consecra-
tion  to the great object must be the cornerstone,  and on that basic  prin-
ciple a Federation of the Protestant churches could thus be formed.  The de-
tails of government could be worked out by the membership.

   Having  attained this point,  the important question of ritual  could  be
worked out in two, or perhaps three ways:

   (1).   It  could consist of certain readings from the Bible  arranged  in
such  a manner that they would form a connected and consecutive service.   A
number of such rituals could be written so that each would be suitable for a
certain feast,  and on ordinary Sundays another ritual could be used in  all
the Protestant churches of the world.

   (2).  The ritual of the Episcopal church could be adopted as it is, or in
a modified form.


[PAGE 536]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

   (3).  An occultist capable of getting in touch with the cosmic sources of
knowledge might be found and persuaded to write a ritual that would have  in
it a power unattainable in any other way.

   The first of these ways would be the least effective.   The last would be
the most efficient method of attaining the desired end,  but conversely,  to
obtain a ritual by the last method would be much more difficult.

   Before a ritual can have its maximum effect,  however,  those who are  to
grow thereby must become attuned to it.   This involves work on their  vital
bodies while those vehicles are still in the making.

   It  is a matter of occult knowledge that birth is a fourfold  event,  and
that birth of the physical body is only one step in the process.   The vital
body  also undergoes a development analogous to the intra-uterine growth  of
the dense body.  It is born about the seventh year of life.  During the next
seven years the desire body is ripened and comes to birth at about the four-
teenth  year,  when  adolescence  is  reached,  and  the  mind  is  born  at
twenty-one, when the age of manhood and womanhood commences.

   These  occult facts are well known to the Catholic Hierarchy,  and  while
the Protestant ministers work upon the emotional nature, which is ever seek-
ing  something  new and sensational without realizing the  futility  of  the
struggle  and  the  fact that it is this most rampant  vehicle  that  drives
people  FROM  the  churches  in search of something more new and more sensa-


[PAGE 537]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

tional,  the  occultly informed Catholic Hierarchy concentrates  its  effort
upon the children.  "Give us the child up to its seventh year and it is ours
forever,"  they say, and they are right.  During these important seven years
they  impregnate the plastic vital bodies of their charges with their  views
by  means of repetition.   The repeated prayers,  the time and tune  of  the
various chants,  and the incense,  all have a powerful effect on the growing
vital body.  Nor does it matter that the ritual is in an unknown tongue, for
to the Ego this vibratory message is a divine color chant,  intelligible  to
all Spirits.   Neither does it matter that the child repeats like a  parrot,
without understanding, so long as it does repeat what is given it.  The more
the better,  for these occult vibrations are thereby incorporated in its vi-
tal body before it sets,  and remain with it through life.   Every time  the
Mass is intoned by the servants of the church in any part of the world,  the
cumulative vibratory power of their effort stirs those who have its line  of
force  in  their vital bodies in such a manner that they are  drawn  to  the
church with a generally,  irresistible force.  This is on the same principle
that  when a tuning fork is struck,  others of identical pitch  commence  to
sing.

   Some  Catholics  have  turned against the Catholic  church,  but  subcon-
sciously  and at heart they have remained Catholic to their dying  day,  for
the vital body is exceedingly  difficult  to  change, and the lines of force


[PAGE 538]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

build into it during its gestatory period are stronger than almost any indi-
vidual will.

   It follows,  therefore, that if we would change the tendency of the world
to pursue pleasure and sense gratification to the exclusion of religion,  we
would  do well to begin with the small children.   If we gather them at  the
altar  and teach them to love God's house and incorporate certain  universal
prayers and parts of the ritual in their forming vital bodies, avoiding even
the  semblance of a "church supper,"  but cultivating in all who  enter  the
ideal  of reverence for a holy place, we shall by degrees build  around  the
physical stone structure an invisible temple of Light and Life,  such as de-
scribed by Manson in "The Servant in the House."

                           THE SALE OF ALCHEMISTRY

                              QUESTION NO. 162

   IN THE ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY WE ARE TOLD THAT IN THE PHRASEOLOGY OF  THE
ALCHEMISTS  THE  MOON  FORCES WERE SPOKEN OF AS SALT.   HAS  THIS  ANY  SIG-
NIFICANCE  WITH REGARD TO THE FOLLOWING QUOTATION FROM MARK  9:49-50:   "FOR
EVERY  ONE SHALL BE SALTED WITH FIRE,  AND EVERY SACRIFICE SHALL  BE  SALTED
WITH SALT.  SALT IS GOOD; BUT IF THE SALT HAVE LOST ITS SALTNESS,  WHEREWITH
WILL  YE  SEASON  IT?  HAVE  SALT  IN  YOURSELVES,  AND  HAVE PEACE ONE WITH


[PAGE 539]                                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

ANOTHER"?

   ANSWER:   Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.  That was a command-
ment in the Mosaic law, Judaism as we may call it, and was originated by Je-
hovah.   However, the salt has another and deeper significance.  The idea is
that  if the salt is put upon the sacrifice it causes a chemical  fire,  and
that  was symbolical of that burning sensation we must feel by  remorse  for
misdeeds we have done.   Every transgression shall be punished and  expiated
by a certain sacrifice.   The salt and burning of the sacrifice were symbols
of something better to come.   The people at that time could not  themselves
be living sacrifices.   They could not have denied themselves anything,  but
they  did  love their possessions very,  very dearly.   Many  children  they
wanted,  and much land and much cattle, and therefore if the cattle and  the
things  that they prized most highly were taken from them on account of  sin
and transgression,  they felt it as they could not have felt an injury  done
to themselves.

   Thus this sacrifice was a sort of vicarious atonement,  and it stood as a
symbol  of the time later on when they should be a sacrifice themselves  and
feel remorse for whatever wrong they had done.   Then the sacrifice was  not
accepted  at the altar until it had been salted,  and similarly  the  living
sacrifice will not be accepted on the altar of repentance  until it has been


[PAGE 540]                                            ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY

salted.   That is, we must feel a burning anguish,  remorse,  and contrition
for every wrong we have done,  and only when we have done that is the sacri-
fice accepted.   Then the sacrifice was burned by a divinely enkindled fire.
This  indicates that after we have salted the living sacrifice of  ourselves
with our tears of contrition,  laying ourselves on the altar before God,  it
shall come to pass that,  "Though our sins be as scarlet they shall be white
as  snow."   The record will be wiped out from the life panorama.   Thus  we
cleanse  ourselves,  but the first requisite is that the sacrifice  must  be
salted with tears.

   The salting of the sacrifices in ancient times may have had something  to
do with the idea that Jehovah is the Spirit of the Moon and therefore  rules
the chemical element salt,  but the salt of the alchemist was not the  ordi-
nary salt.   That was the salt of tears and contrition,  and the  alchemists
did not profess to make base metal into gold, either.  What they proposed to
do  was to make the base elements of the body taken from the earth into  the
gold of the soul,  that golden wedding garment that shines around every  one
who  attains  to  spirituality and becomes a brighter light as  he  lives  a
higher and nobler life.


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