[PAGE 113 cont'd]                            MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION


                             THE FIRST HEAVEN.

    When  the purgatorial existence is over the purified spirit  rises  into
the first heaven,  which is located in the three highest Regions of the  De-
sire World,  where  the  results  of  its sufferings are incorporated in the




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seed-atom  of  the desire body,  thus imparting to it the quality  of  right
feeling,  which acts as an impulse to good and a deterrent from evil in  the
future.   Here the panorama of the past again unrolls itself  backward,  but
this  time it is the good acts of life that are the basis of feeling.   When
we  come  to scenes where we helped others we realize anew all  the  joy  of
helping  which  was  ours  at the time, and in  addition  we  feel  all  the
gratitude  poured out to us by the recipient of our help.   When we come  to
scenes where we were helped by others, we again feel all the gratitude  that
we then felt toward our benefactor.   Thus we see the importance of appreci-
ating  the  favors  shown  us  by  others,   because  gratitude  makes   for
soul-growth.   Our happiness in heaven depends upon the joy we gave  others,
and the valuation we placed upon what others did for us.

    It  should be ever borne in mind that the power of giving is not  vested
chiefly  in the monied man.   Indiscriminate giving of money may even be  an
evil.  It is well to give money for a purpose we are convinced is good,  but
service is a thousandfold better.  As Whitman says,

Behold!  I do not give lectures, or a little charity;
When I give, I give myself.

A   kind  look,   expression  of  confidence,   a  sympathetic  and   loving
helpfulness--these  can be given by all regardless of wealth.  Moreover,  we
should particularly endeavor to help the needy one to help himself,  whether
physically,  financially,  morally, or mentally, and not cause him to become
dependent upon us or others.

    The ethics of giving,  with the effect on the giver as a spiritual  les-
son,  are  most beautifully shown in Lowell's "The Vision of  Sir  Launfal."
The young and ambitious knight,  Sir Launfal,  clad  in  shining  armor  and




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astride a splendid charger,  is setting out from his castle to seek The Holy
Grail.  On his shield gleams the cross, the symbol of the benignity and ten-
derness  of Our Savior,  the meek and lowly One,  but the knight's heart  is
filled  with pride and haughty disdain for the poor and needy.   He meets  a
leper  asking alms and with a contemptuous frown throws him a coin,  as  one
might cast a bone to a hungry cur, but

The leper raised not the gold from the dust,
"Better to me the poor man's crust,
Better the blessing of the poor,
Though I turn empty from his door.
That is not true alms which the hand can hold;
He gives only worthless gold
Who gives from a send of duty;
But he who gives from a slender mite,
And gives to that which is out of sight--
That thread of all-sustaining Beauty
Which runs through all and doth all unite,--
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,
The heart outstretches its eager palms,
For a god goes with it and makes it store
To the soul that was starving in darkness before.

    On his return sir Launfal finds another in possession of his castle, and
is driven from the gate.

An old bent man, worn out and frail,
He came back from seeking the Holy Grail;
Little he recked of his earldom's loss,
No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross,
But deep in his heart the sign he wore,
The badge of the suffering and the poor.

    Again he meets the leper, who again asks alms.  This time the knight re-
sponds differently.

And Sir Launfal said:  "I behold in thee
An image of Him Who died on the tree;
Thou also hast had they crown of thorns,
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,




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And to thy life were not denied
The wounds in the hands and feet and side;
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;
Behold, through him I give to Thee!"

    A look in the leper's eye brings remembrance and recognition, and

The heart within him was ashes and dust;
He parted in twain his single crust,
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,
And gave the leper to eat and drink.

    A transformation takes place:

The leper no longer crouched by his side,
But stood before him glorified,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And the Voice that was softer that silence said,
"Lo, it is I, be not afraid!
In many lands, without avail,
Thou has spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold, it is here!--This cup which thou
Did'st fill at the streamlet for me but now;
This crust is by body broken for thee,
This water the blood I shed on the tree;
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In whatso we share with another's need;
Not what we five, but what we share--
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three--
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."

    The first heaven is a place of joy without a single drop of  bitterness.
The spirit is beyond the influence of the material, earthly conditions,  and
assimilates  all  the good contained in the past life as it  lives  it  over
again.  Here all ennobling pursuits to which the man aspired are realized in
fullest measure.   It is a place of rest,  and the harder has been the life,
the more keenly will rest be enjoyed.   Sickness,  sorrow,  and pain are un-
known quantities.   This is the Summerland of the spiritualists.  There  the
thoughts  of  the  devout  Christian   have   built   the   New   Jerusalem.




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Beautiful houses,  flowers,  etc.,  are the portion of those who aspired  to
them;  they build them themselves by thought from the subtle  desire  stuff.
Nevertheless these things are just as real and tangible to them as our mate-
rial  houses  are to us.   All gain here the satisfaction which  earth  life
lacked for them.

    There  is  one class there who lead a particularly  beautiful  life--the
children.  If we could but see them we would quickly cease our grief.   When
a  child dies before the birth of the desire body,  which takes place  about
the  fourteenth year,  it does not go any higher than the first heaven,  be-
cause it is not responsible for its actions,  any more than the unborn child
is responsible for the pain it causes the mother by turning and twisting  in
her womb.  Therefore the child has not purgatorial existence.  That which is
not quickened cannot die,  hence the desire body of a child,  together  with
the mind,  will persist until a new birth, and for that reason such children
are very apt to remember their previous life as instanced in the case  cited
elsewhere.

    For  such children the first heaven is a waiting-place where they  dwell
from one to twenty years,  until an opportunity for a new birth is  offered.
Yet it is more than simply a waiting-place,  because there is much  progress
made during this interim.

    When a child dies there is always some relative awaiting it, or, failing
that there are people who loved to "mother"  children in the earth life  who
find delight in taking care of a little waif.  The extreme plasticity of the
desire  stuff makes it easy to form the most exquisite living toys  for  the
children,  and their life is one beautiful play; nevertheless their instruc-
tion is not neglected.  They are formed into classes according to their tem-
peraments, but  quite regardless of age.   In the Desire World it is easy to




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give  object-lessons in the influence of good and evil passions  on  conduct
and happiness.   These lessons are indelibly imprinted upon the child's sen-
sitive and emotional desire body, and remain with it after rebirth,  so that
many a one living a noble life owes much of it to the fact that he was given
this  training.   Often when a weak spirit is born,  the Compassionate  ones
(the  invisible  Leaders who guide our evolution) cause it to die  in  early
life that it may have this extra training to fit it for what may be  perhaps
a  hard life.   This seems to be the case particularly where the etching  on
the  desire body was weak in consequence of a dying person having been  dis-
turbed by the lamentations of his relatives, or because he met death by  ac-
cident or on the battle-field.  He did not under those circumstances experi-
ence  the  appropriate intensity of feeling in his  POST MORTEM   existence,
therefore,  when  he is born and dies early life,  the loss is  made  us  as
above.   Often the duty of caring for such a child in the heaven life  falls
to those who were the cause of the anomaly.  They are thus afforded a chance
to  make up for the fault and to learn better.   Or perhaps they become  the
parents  of  the  one they harmed and care for it during the  few  years  it
lives.   It  does not matter then if they do lament  hysterically  over  its
death,  because there would be no pictures of any consequence in  a  child's
vital body.

    This heaven is also a place of progression for all who have been  studi-
ous,  artistic, or altruistic.  The student and the philosopher have instant
access to all the libraries of the world.   The painter has endless  delight
in ever-changing color combinations.  He soon learns that his thought blends
and shapes these colors at will.   His creations glow and scintillate with a
life  impossible of attainment to one works with the dull pigments of Earth.




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He is,  as it were,  painting with living, glowing materials and able to ex-
ecute  his designs with a facility which fills his soul with  delight.   The
musician has not yet reached the place where his art will express itself  to
the fullest extent.   The Physical World is the world of FORM.   The  Desire
World,  where we find purgatory and the first heaven,  is  particularly  the
world of COLOR.;  but the World of Thought, where the second and third heav-
ens are located, is the sphere of TONE.  Celestial music is a fact and not a
mere figure of speech.  Pythagoras was not romancing when spoke of the music
of the spheres,  for each one of the heavenly orbs has its definite tone and
together they sound the celestial symphony which Goethe also mentions in the
prolog  to his "Faust,"  where the scene is laid in heaven.   The  Archangel
Raphael says,

The Sun intones his ancient song
    'Mid rival chant of brother spheres.
His prescribed course he speeds along
    In thund'rous way throughout the years.

    Echoes of that heavenly music reach us even here in the Physical  World.
They are our most precious possession,  even though they are as elusive as a
will-o'-the-wisp,  and cannot be permanently created,  as can other works of
art--a statue,  a painting, or a book.  In the Physical World tone dies  and
vanishes the moment after it is born.  In the first heaven these echoes are,
of course, much more beautiful and have more permanency, hence there the mu-
sician hears sweeter strains than ever he did during earth life.

    The experiences of the poet are akin to those of the musician,  for  po-
etry  is the soul's expression of it innermost feelings in words  which  are
ordered according to the same laws of harmony and  rhythm  that  govern  the




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outpouring of the spirit in music.  In addition,  the poet finds a wonderful
inspiration  in the pictures and colors which are the chief  characteristics
of the Desire World.   Thence he will draw the material for use in his  next
incarnation.   In like manner does the author accumulate material  and  fac-
ulty.   The philanthropist works out his altruistic plans for the upliftment
of  man.   If he failed in one life,  he will see the reason for it  in  the
first  heaven and will there learn how to overcome the obstacles  and  avoid
the errors that made his plan impracticable.

    In  time a point is reached where the result of the pain  and  suffering
incident to purgation, together with the joy extracted from the good actions
of  the past life,  have been built into the seed-atom of the  desire  body.
Together  these  constitute what we call conscience,  that  impelling  force
which  warns  us against evil as productive of pain and inclines  us  toward
good as productive of happiness and joy.  Then man leaves his desire body to
disintegrate,  as he left his dense body and vital body.   He takes with him
the  forces only of the seed-atom,  which are to form the nucleus of  future
desire  bodies,  as it was the persistent particle of his past  vehicles  of
feeling.

    As stated above, the forces of the seed-atom are withdrawn.   To the ma-
terialist  force and matter are inseparable.   The occultist  knows  differ-
ently.  To him they are not two entirely distinct and separate concepts, but
the two poles of one spirit.

    MATTER is crystallized spirit.
    FORCE is the same spirit not yet crystallized.

    This has been said before,  but it cannot be too strongly impressed upon
the mind.  In this connection the illustration of the snail is very helpful.
Matter,  which  is  crystallized  spirit,  corresponds to the snail's house,




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which is crystallized snail.  The chemical force which moves matter,  making
it  available for the building of form, and the snail which moves its  house
are also good correspondences.  That which is now the snail will in time be-
come the house,  and that which is now force will in time become matter when
it has crystallized further.   The reverse process of resolving matter  back
into spirit is also going on continually.  The coarser phase of this process
we  see as decay when a man is leaving his vehicles behind and at that  time
the spirit of an atom is easily detachable from the coarser spirit which has
been manifesting as matter.

                             THE SECOND HEAVEN

    At  last  the  man,  the Ego, the threefold spirit,  enters  the  second
heaven.   He  is  clad  in the sheath of  mind,  which  contains  the  three
seed-atoms--the quintessence of the three discarded vehicles.

    When the man dies and loses his dense and vital bodies there is the same
condition as when one falls asleep.  The desire body, as has been explained,
has no organs ready for use.   It is now transformed from an ovoid to a fig-
ure resembling the dense body which has been abandoned.   We can easily  un-
derstand that there must be an interval of unconsciousness resembling  sleep
and then the man awakes in the Desire World.   It not infrequently  happens,
however, that such people are, for a long time, unaware of what has happened
to them.   They do not realize that they have died.  They know that they are
able to move and think.  It is sometimes even a very hard matter to get them
to believe that they are really "dead."  They realize that something is dif-
ferent, but they are not able to understand what it is.




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    Not so, however, when the change is made from the first heaven, which is
in the Desire World,  to the second heaven,  which is in the Region of  Con-
crete Thought.   Then the man leaves his desire body.   He is perfectly con-
scious.   He passes into a great stillness.   For the time being  everything
seems  to fade away.   He cannot think.  No faculty is alive,  yet he  knows
that he IS.  He has a feeling of standing in "The Great Forever;"  of stand-
ing  utterly alone,  yet unafraid;  and his soul is filled with a  wonderful
peace, "which passeth all understanding."

    In occult science this is called "THE GREAT SILENCE."

    Then comes the awakening.  The spirit is now in its  home-World--heaven.
Here the first awakening brings to the spirit the sound of "the music of the
spheres."   In  our Earth life we are so immersed in the little  noises  and
sounds of our limited environment that we are incapable of hearing the music
of the marching orbs, but the occult scientist hears it.   He knows that the
twelve signs of the Zodiac and the seven planets from the sounding-board and
strings of "Apollo's seven-stringed lyre."  He knows that were a single dis-
cord to mar the celestial harmony from that grand Instrument there would  be
"a wreck of matter and a crash of worlds."

    The power of rhythmic vibration is well known to all who have given  the
subject even the least study.  For instance, soldiers are commanded to break
step  when crossing a bridge,  otherwise their rhythmic tramp would  shatter
the strongest structure.   The Bible story of the sounding of the ram's horn
while marching around the walls of the city of Jericho is not nonsensical in
the eyes of the occultist.  In some cases similar things have happened with-
out the world smiling in supercilious incredulity.   A few years ago, a band




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of musicians were practicing in a garden close to the very solid wall of  an
old castle.   There occurred at a certain place in the music a prolonged and
very piercing tone.   When this note was sounded the wall of the castle sud-
denly  fell.   The musicians has struck the keynote of the wall and  it  was
sufficiently prolonged to shatter it.

    When it is said that this is the world of tone,  it must not be  thought
that there are no colors.   Many people know that there is an intimate  con-
nection between color and tone;  than when a certain note is struck,  a cer-
tain  color  appears simultaneously.   So it is also in  the  Heaven  World.
Color  and  sound are both present;  but the tone is the originator  of  the
color.   Hence it is said, that this is particularly the world of tone,  and
it is this tone that builds all forms in the Physical World.   The  musician
can hear certain tones in different parts of nature, such as the wind in the
forest, the breaking of the surf on the beach, the roar of the ocean and the
sounding  of many waters.   These combined tones make a whole which  is  the
key-note of the Earth--its "tone."    As geometrical figures are created  by
drawing a violin bow over the edge of a glass plate containing sand,  so the
forms we see around us are the crystallized sound-figures of the  archetypal
forces which play into the archetypes in the Heaven World.

    The  work done my man is the Heaven World is many-sided.   It is not  in
the least an inactive,  dreamy not illusory existence.   It is a time of the
greatest  and  most important activity in preparing for the  next  life,  as
sleep is an active preparation for the work of the following day.

    Here  the quintessence of the three bodies is built into  the  threefold
spirit.  As much of the desire body  as the man had worked upon during life,




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by purifying his desires and emotions, will be welded into the human spirit,
thus giving an improved mind in the future.

    As  much  of the vital body as the life spirit had worked  upon,  trans-
formed,  spiritualized,  and thus saved from the decay to which the rest  of
the vital body is subject,  will be amalgamated with the life spirit to  in-
sure a better vital body and temperament in the succeeding lives.

    As much of the dense body as the divine spirit has save by right  action
will be worked into it and will bring better environment and opportunities.

    The  spiritualization of the vehicle is accomplished by  cultivation  of
the faculties of observation,  discrimination and memory,  devotion to  high
ideals, prayer, concentration, persistence and right use of the life forces.

    The second heaven is the real home of man--the  Ego, the Thinker.   Here
he dwells for centuries,  assimilating the fruit of the last earth life  and
preparing the earthly conditions which will be best suited for his next step
in progress.   The sound or tone which pervades this Region,  and is  every-
where apparent as color, is his instrument, so to speak.   It is this harmo-
nious sound vibration which, as an elixir of life, builds into the threefold
spirit  the quintessence of the threefold body,  upon which it  depends  for
growth.

    The  life in the second heaven is an exceedingly active one,  varied  in
many different ways.   The Ego assimilates the fruits of the last earth life
and prepares the environment for a new physical existence.  It is not enough
to  say that the new conditions will be determined by conduct and action  in
the life just closed.   It is required that the fruits of the past be worked
into  the World which is to be the next scene of activity while the  Ego  is
gaining  fresh physical experiences and gathering further fruit.   Therefore
all the denizens of the Heaven World work upon the models of the Earth,  all




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of  which are in the Region of Concrete Thought.   They alter  the  physical
features  of the Earth,  and bring about the gradual changes which vary  its
appearance,  so that on each return to physical life a different environment
has been prepared, wherein new experiences may be gained.   Climate,  FLORA,
and FAUNA are altered by man under the direction of higher Beings, to be de-
scribed later.   Thus the world is just what we ourselves,  individually and
collectively, have made it; and it will be what we make it.  The occult sci-
entist  sees  in  everything  that happens a cause  of  a  spiritual  nature
manifesting  itself,  not omitting the prevalence and alarmingly  increasing
frequency  of  seismic disturbances,  which it traces to  the  materialistic
thought of modern science.

    It  is  true that purely physical causes can bring  about  such  distur-
bances,  but is that the last word on the subject?   Can we always  get  the
full  explanation by merely recording what appears on the  surface?   Surely
not!   We see two men conversing on the street and one suddenly strikes  the
other,  knocking him down.   One observer may say that an angry knocked  the
man down.   Another may scoff at this answer and declare that he saw the arm
lifted,  the muscles contract,  the arm shooting out and coming  in  contact
with the victim, who was knocked down.  That is also true, but it is safe to
say that had there not FIRST been the angry thought, the blow would not have
been struck.   In like manner the occultist says that if materialism had not
been, seismic disturbances would not have occurred.

    Man's work in the Heaven World is not confined solely to the alternation
of the surface of the Earth which is to be the scene of his future struggles
in  the  subjugation  of the Physical World.  He is also actively engaged in




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learning  how to build a body which shall afford a better means  of  expres-
sion.  It is man's destiny to become a Creative Intelligence and he is serv-
ing his apprenticeship all the time.   During his heaven life he is learning
to build all kinds of bodies--the human included.

    We have spoken of the forces which work along the positive and  negative
poles  of the different ethers.   MAN HIMSELF IS PART OF THAT FORCE.   Those
whom we call dead are the ones who help us to live.  They in turn are helped
by the so-called "nature spirits,"  which they command.   Man is directed in
this work by Teachers from the higher creative Hierarchies, which helped him
to build his vehicles before he attained self-consciousness, in the same way
he  himself now builds his bodies in sleep.   During heaven life they  teach
him consciously.  The painter is taught to build an accurate eye, capable of
taking in a perfect perspective and of distinguishing colors and shades to a
degree inconceivable among those not interested in color and light.

    The mathematician has to deal with space, and the faculty for space per-
ception is connected with the delicate adjustment of the three semi-circular
canals which are situated inside the ear, each pointing in one of the  three
dimensions in space.   Logical thought and mathematical ability are in  pro-
portion  to  the accuracy of the adjustment of these  semi-circular  canals.
Musical ability is also dependent upon the same factor,  but in addition  to
the  necessity for the proper adjustment of the  semi-circular  canals,  the
musician requires extreme delicacy of the "fibres of Corti,"  of which there
are about ten thousand in the human ear,  each capable of interpreting about
twenty-five gradations of tone.   In the ears of the majority of people they
do not respond to more than from  three  to  ten of the possible gradations.




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Among  ordinary  musical people the greatest degree of efficiency  is  about
fifteen sounds to each fivre; but the master musician, who is able to inter-
pret and bring down music from the Heaven World, requires a greater range to
be able to distinguish the different notes and detect the slightest  discord
in the most complicated chords.   Persons who require organs of such exceed-
ing delicacy for the expression of their faculties are specially taken  care
of, as the higher state of their development merits and demands.  None other
ranks  so high as the musician,  which is reasonable when we  consider  that
while the painter draws his inspiration chiefly from the world of color--the
nearer Desire World--the musician attempts to bring us the atmosphere of our
heavenly home world (where,  as spirits, we are citizens),  and to translate
them into the sounds of earth life.  His is the highest mission,  because as
a  mode of expression for soul life,  music reigns supreme.   That music  is
different from and higher than all the other arts can be understood when  we
reflect  that a statue or painting, when once created,  is permanent.   They
are drawn from the Desire World and are therefore more easily  crystallized,
while music,  being of the Heaven World, is more elusive and must be re-cre-
ated each time we hear it.  It cannot be imprisoned,  as shown by the unsuc-
cessful  attempts to do so partially by means of such mechanical devices  as
phonographs  and piano-players.   The music so reproduced loses much of  the
soul-stirring sweetness it possesses when it comes fresh from its own world,
carrying  to the soul memories of its home and speaking to it in a  language
that no beauty expressed in marble or upon canvas can equal.

    The instrument through which man senses music is the most perfect  sense
organ in the human body.  The eye is not by any means true,  but the ear is,




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in the sense that it hears every sound without distortion, while the eye of-
ten distorts what it sees.

    In addition to the musical ear,  the musician must also learn to build a
long,  fine  hand with slender fingers and sensitive  nerves,  otherwise  he
would not be able to reproduce the melodies he hears.

    It is a law of nature that no one can inhabit a more efficient body that
he is capable of building.  He first learns to build a certain grade of body
and  afterwards he learns to live in it.   In that way he discovers its  de-
fects and is taught how to remedy them.

    All  men  work  unconsciously at the building  of  their  bodies  during
ante-natal life until they have reached the point where the quintessence  of
former bodies--which they have saved--is to be built in. Then they work con-
sciously.   It will therefore be seen that the more a man advances  and  the
more he works on his vehicles, thus making them immortal,  the more power he
has to build for a new life.   The advanced pupil of an occult school  some-
times  commences to build for himself as soon as the work during  the  first
three  weeks (which belongs exclusively to the mother) has  been  completed.
When  the period of unconscious building has passed the man has a chance  to
exercise  his  nascent  creative  power,  and  the  true  original  creative
process--"Epigenesis"--begins.

    Thus  we see that man learns to BUILD his vehicles in the Heaven  World,
and to use them in the Physical World.   Nature provides all phases of expe-
rience in such a marvelous manner and with such consummate wisdom that as we
learn  to  see deeper and deeper into her secrets we are more and  more  im-
pressed  with our own insignificance and with an ever-growing reverence  for
God, whose visible symbol nature is.  The  more we learn of her wonders, the




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more we realize that this world system is not the vast perpetual motion  ma-
chine unthinking people would have us believe.  It would be quite as logical
to  think  that if we toss a box of loose type into the air  the  characters
will have arranged themselves into the words of a beautiful poem by the time
they reach the ground.   The greater the complexity of the plan the  greater
the  argumental weight in favor of the theory of an intelligent  Divine  Au-
thor.

                              THE THIRD HEAVEN

    Having  assimilated all the fruits of his last life and altered the  ap-
pearance of the Earth in such a manner as to afford him the necessary  envi-
ronment for his next step towards perfection; having also learned by work on
the bodies of others, to build a suitable body through which to express him-
self in the Physical World and having at last resolved the mind into the es-
sence  which builds the three-fold spirit,  the naked individual spirit  as-
cends  into  the  higher  Region  of the World of Thought--the third heaven, 
Here, by the ineffable harmony of this higher world,  it is strengthened for
its next dip into matter.

    After  a time comes the desire for new experience and the  contemplation
of a new birth.   This conjures up a series of pictures before the vision of
the  spirit--a panorama  of the new life in store for it.   But,  mark  this
well--this panorama contains only principal events. The spirit has free will
as  to detail.   It is as if a man going to a distant city had a  time-limit
ticket,  with initial choice of route.   After he has chosen and  begun  his
journey it is not sure that he can change to another route during the  trip.
He may stop over in as many places as he wishes, within his time limit,  but
he cannot go back.  Thus as he proceeds on his journey,  he becomes more and





[PAGE 130]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

more limited by his past choice.  If he had chosen a steam road,  using soft
coal,  he must expect to be soiled and dusty.   Had he chosen a road burning
anthracite or using electricity he would have been cleaner.   So it is  with
the man in a new life.   He may have to live a hard life,  but he is free to
choose whether he will live it cleanly or wallow in the mire.   Other condi-
tions are also within his control, subject to limits of his past choices and
acts.

    The pictures in the panorama of the coming life,  of which we have  just
spoken,  begin at the cradle and end at the grave.  This is the opposite di-
rection  to that in which they travel in the after-death  panorama,  already
explained,  which passes before the vision of the spirit immediately follow-
ing its release from the dense body.  The reason for this radical difference
in  the two panoramas is that in the before-birth panorama the object is  to
show the returning Ego how certain CAUSES or acts always PRODUCE certain EF-
FECTS.   In the case of the after-death panorama the object is the  reverse,
i.e.,  to show how each event in the past life was the EFFECT of some  CAUSE
further back in the life.   Nature,  or God,  does nothing without a logical
reason,  and the further we search the more apparent it becomes to  us  that
Nature is a wise mother, always using the best means to accomplish her ends.

    But  it may be asked,  Why should we be reborn?   Why must we return  to
this  limited and miserable earth existence?  Why can we not get  experience
in  those  higher  realms without coming to Earth?   We are  tired  of  this
dreary, weary earth life!

    Such queries are based upon misunderstandings of several kinds.   In the
first  place,  let us realize and engrave it deep upon the  tablets  of  our
memory that THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS NOT  HAPPINESS,  BUT  EXPERIENCE.  Sorrow




[PAGE 131]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

and  pain are our most benevolent teachers, while the joys of life  are  but
fleeting.

    This seems a stern doctrine and the heart cries out passionately at even
the  thought that it may possibly be true.   Nevertheless,  it is true,  and
upon examination it will be found not such a stern doctrine after all.

    Consider the blessings of pain.   If we could place our hand upon a  hot
stove  and feel no pain,  the hand might be allowed to remain until  it  and
perhaps the arm were burned away,  without our knowing anything about it un-
til too late to save them.   It is the pain resulting from the contact  with
the hot stove  which makes us snatch our hand away before serious damage  is
done.   Instead of losing the hand,  we escape with a blister which  quickly
heals.   This is an illustration from the Physical World.  We find that same
principle  applies in the Moral and Mental Worlds.   If we outrage  morality
the  pangs of conscience bring us pain that will prevent us  from  repeating
the act and if we do not heed the first lesson,  nature will give us  harder
and harder experiences until at last the fact is forced into our  conscious-
ness that "the way of the transgressor is hard."   This will continue  until
at last we are forced to turn in a new direction and take a step onward  to-
ward a better life.

    Experience is "knowledge of the effects which follow acts."  This is the
object of life,  together with the development of "Will," which is the force
whereby we apply the results of experience.  Experience must be gained,  but
we  have the choice whether we gain it by the hard path of personal  experi-
ence  or  by observation of other people's acts,  reasoning  and  reflecting
thereon, guided by the light of whatever experience we have already had.





[PAGE 132]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

    This is the method by which the occult student should learn,  instead of
requiring the lash of adversity and pain.  The more willing we are to  learn
in  that  way,  the less we shall feel the stinging thorns of "the  path  of
pain" and the more quickly shall we gain "the path of peace."

    The choice is ours,  but so long as we have not learned all there is  to
learn in this world,  we must come back to it.  We cannot stay in the higher
worlds  and  learn there until we have mastered the lessons of  earth  life.
That would be as sensible as to send a child to kindergarten one day and  to
college the next.   The child must return to the kindergarten day after  day
and  spend years in the grammar school and the high school before its  study
has developed its capacity sufficiently to enable it to understand the  les-
sons taught in college.

    Man  is also in school--the school of experience.  He must  return  many
times before he can hope to master all the knowledge in the world of  sense.
No one earth life, however rich in experience,  could furnish the knowledge,
so nature decrees that he must return to Earth, after intervals of rest,  to
take  up his work where he dropped it, exactly as a child takes up its  work
in school each day,  after the intervening sleep of night.   It is not argu-
ment against this theory to say that man does not remember his former lives.
We cannot recall all the events of our present lives.   We do not  recollect
our labors in learning to write, yet we have acquired a knowledge of the art
of writing,  which proves that we did learn.   All the faculties we  possess
are a proof that we acquired them sometime,  somewhere.   Some people do re-
member their past,  however,  as a remarkable instance related at the end of
the next chapter will show, and is but one among many.

    Again, if their were no return to Earth, what is the use of living?  Why




[PAGE 133]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

strive for anything?  Why should a life of happiness in an eternal heaven be
the reward for a good life?   What benefit could come from a good life in  a
heaven where everybody is already happy?  Surely in a place where  everybody
is happy and contented there is no need for sympathy, self-sacrifice or wise
counsel!   No one would need them here; but on Earth there are many who need
those very things and such humanitarian and altruistic qualities are of  the
greatest  service  to struggling humanity.  Therefore the Great  Law,  which
works for Good,  brings man back to work again in the world for the  benefit
to himself and others, with his acquired treasures,  instead of letting them
go to waste in a heaven where no one needs them.

                          PREPARATIONS FOR REBIRTH

    Having  thus seen the necessity for repeated embodiments,  we will  next
consider the method by which this purpose is accomplished.

    Previous to taking the dip into matter,  the threefold spirit is  naked,
having  only the forces of the four seed-atoms (which are the nuclei of  the
threefold body and the sheath of mind).   Its descent resembles the  putting
on of several pairs of gloves of increasing thickness,  as previously illus-
trated.  The forces of the mind of the last life are awakened from their la-
tency in the seed-atom.  This begins to attract to itself materials from the
highest subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought,  in a manner  similar
to that in which a magnet draws to itself iron filings.

    If we hold a magnet over a miscellaneous heap of filings of brass,  sil-
ver,  gold,  iron, lead and other metals, we shall find that it selects only
iron filings and that even of them it will  take no  more  than its strength




[PAGE 134]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

enables it to lift.   Its attractive power is of a certain kind and is  lim-
ited to a certain quantity of that kind.  The same is true of the seed-atom.
It can take, in each Region, nothing except the material for which it has an
affinity and nothing beyond a certain definite quantity even of that.   Thus
the  vehicle built around this nucleus becomes an exact counterpart  of  the
corresponding vehicle of the last life minus the evil which has been  expur-
gated  and plus the quintessence of good which has been incorporated in  the
seed-atom.

    The material selected by the threefold spirit forms itself into a  great
bell-shaped  figure,  open at the bottom and with the seed-atom at the  top.
If  we conceive of the illustration spiritually we may compare it to a  div-
ing-bell  descending  into a sea composed of fluids of  increasing  density.
These  correspond to the different subdivisions of each World.   The  matter
taken into the texture of the bell-shaped body makes it heavier,  so that it
sinks  into  the next lower subdivision and it takes from  that  its  proper
quota of matter.   Thus it becomes still heavier and sinks yet deeper  until
it  has  passed  through the four subdivisions of  the  Region  of  Concrete
Thought  and  the sheath of the new mind of the man is complete.   Next  the
forces in the seed-atom of the desire body are awakened.   It places  itself
at the top of the bell,  INSIDE,  and the materials of the seventh Region of
the Desire World draw around it until it sinks to the sixth Region,  getting
more  material there,  and this process continues until the first Region  of
the Desire World is reached.  The bell has now two layers-the sheath of mind
outside and the new desire body inside.

    The seed-atom of the vital body is next aroused into activity,  but here
the  process of information is not so simple as in the case of the mind  and
the  desire  body,  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  those vehicles were




[PAGE 135]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

comparatively unorganized,  while the vital body and the dense body are more
organized and very complicated.  The material, of a given quantity and qual-
ity, is attracted in the same manner and under the operation of the same law
as  in the case of the higher bodies, but the building of the new  body  and
the placement in the proper environment is done by four great Beings of  im-
measurable wisdom,  which are the Recording Angels,  the "Lords of Destiny."
They  impress the reflecting ether of the vital body in such a way that  the
pictures  of the coming life are reflected in it.   It (the vital  body)  is
built  by the inhabitants of the Heaven World and the elemental  spirits  in
such a manner as to form a particular type of brain.  But mark this, THE RE-
TURNING EGO ITSELF INCORPORATES THEREIN THE QUINTESSENCE OF ITS FORMER VITAL
BODIES  AND IN ADDITION TO THIS ALSO DOES A LITTLE ORIGINAL WORK.   This  is
done that in the coming life there  may be some room for original and  indi-
vidual expression, not predetermined by past action.

    It is very important to remember this fact.   There is too great a  ten-
dency  to  think that all which now exists is the result of  something  that
previously existed,  but if that were the case there would be no margin left
for new and original effort and for new causes.   The chain of cause and ef-
fect is not a monotonous repetition.  THERE IS AN INFLUX OF NEW AND ORIGINAL
CAUSES ALL THE TIME.  That is the real backbone of evolution--the only thing
that  gives it meaning and makes it other than an unrolling of latent  actu-
alities.  This is "Epigenesis"--the free-will that consists of  the  freedom
the  inaugurate  something entirely new,  not merely a  choice  between  two
courses of action.  This is the important factor which alone can explain the
system  to  which  we  belong  in  a  satisfactory  manner.  Involution  and




[PAGE 136]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Evolution is themselves are insufficient; but coupled with Epignesis we have
a full triad of explanation.

    The fate of an individual generated under the law of Consequence,  is of
great  complexity and involves association with Egos in and out of  physical
existence, at all times.  Even those living at one time may not be living in
the same locality,  so that it is impossible for one individual's destiny to
be  all  worked out in one lifetime or in one place.  The Ego  is  therefore
brought into a certain environment and family with which it is some way  re-
lated.   As regards the fate to be worked out,  it is  sometimes  immaterial
into which one of several environmental the Ego is reborn,  and when such is
the case, it is allowed its choice as far as possible, but once an Ego is so
placed the agents of the Lords of Destiny watch unseen,  that no act of free
will shall frustrate the working out of the portion of fate selected.  If we
do aught of such as to circumvent that part, they will make another move, so
as  to enforce fulfillment of the destiny.   It cannot be too often  reiter-
ated,  however,  that this does not render man helpless.   It is merely  the
same law that governs after we have fired a pistol.   We are then unable  to
stop the bullet, or even to deflect it from its course in any way.   Its di-
rection was determined by the position in which the pistol was held when  we
fired.   That  could have been changed at any time before  the  trigger  was
pulled,  as up to that time we had full control.  The same is true regarding
new  actions  which make future destiny.   We may,  up to a  certain  point,
modify  or even altogether counteract certain causes already set in  motion,
but once started, and no further action taken, they will get beyond our con-
trol.   This is called "ripe" fate and it is this kind that is meant when it
is  said  that  the  Lords of Destiny check every attempt to shirk it.  With





[PAGE 137]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

regard to out past we are to a great extent helpless,  but in regard to  fu-
ture action we have full control,  except insofar as we are hampered by  our
past actions.   By and by, however, as we learn that we are the cause of our
own  sorrow or joy,  we shall awake to the necessity of ordering  our  lives
more  in harmony with the laws of God and thus rise above these laws of  the
Physical World.  That is the key to emancipation; as Goethe says:

                From every power that all the world enchains
                Man frees himself when self-control he gains.

    The vital body,  having been molded by the Lords of Destiny,  will  give
form to the dense body,  organ of organ.  This matrix or mold is then placed
in  the womb of the future mother.   The seed-atom for the dense body is  in
the  triangular head of one of the spermatozoa in the semen of  the  father.
This  alone makes fertilization possible and here is the explanation of  the
fact  that  so  many times sex-unions are  unfruitful.   The  chemical  con-
stituents  of  the seminal fluid and the ova are the same at all  times  and
were these the only requirements,  the explanation of the phenomenon of  in-
fertility,  if  sought in the material, visible world alone,  would  not  be
found.   It becomes plain, however, when we understand that as the molecules
of  water freeze only along the lines of force in the water and manifest  as
ice  crystals instead of freezing into a homogeneous mass,  as would be  the
case if there were no lines of force previous to coagulation,  so there  can
be no dense body built until there is a vital body in which to build the ma-
terial;  also there must be a seed-atom for the dense body,  to act as gauge
of  the  quality and quantity of the matter which is to be built  into  that
dense body.  Although  at  the  present  stage of development there is never





[PAGE 138]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

full harmony in the materials of the body, because that would mean a perfect
body, yet the discord must not be so great as to be disruptive of the organ-
ism.

    Thus while heredity in the first place is true only as regards the mate-
rial of the dense body and not the soul qualities,  which are entirely indi-
vidual,  the  incoming Ego also does a certain amount of work on  its  dense
body,  incorporating in it the quintessence of its past physical  qualities.
No  body is an exact mixture of the qualities of its parents,  although  the
Ego  is restricted to the use of the materials taken from the bodies of  the
father and mother.   Hence a musician incarnates where he can get the  mate-
rial to build the slender hand and the delicate ear,  with it sensitive  fi-
bres of Corti and its accurate adjustment of the three semicircular  canals.
The arrangement of these materials, however, is, to the extent named,  under
the  control of the Ego.   It is as though a carpenter were given a pile  of
boards to use in building a house in which to live,  but is left to his  own
judgement as to the kind of house he wishes to build.

    Except  in the case of a very highly developed being,  this work of  the
Ego  is  almost  negligible at the present stage of  man's  evolution.   The
greatest scope is given in the building of the desire body,  very little  in
that  of  the vital body and almost none in the dense body;  yet  even  this
little is sufficient to make each individual an expression of his own spirit
and different from the parents.

    When  the impregnation of the ovum has taken place,  the desire body  of
the  mother works upon it for a period of from eighteen to twenty-one  days,
the Ego remaining outside in its desire body and mind sheath,  yet always in
close touch with the mother.   Upon the expiration of that time the Ego  en-
ters the mother's body.  The bell-shaped  vehicles draw themselves down over




[PAGE 139]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

the  head  of the vital body and the bell closes at the bottom.   From  this
time the Ego broods over its coming instrument until the birth of the  child
and the new earth life of the returning Ego commences.
[PAGE 139 cont'd]                            MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

                          BIRTH OF THE DENSE BODY

    The  vehicles of the new-born do not at once become active.   The  dense
body is helpless for a long time after birth.  Reasoning from analogy we can
readily  see that the same must be the case with the higher  vehicles.   The
occult  scientist sees it,  but even without clairvoyance reason  will  show
that  this  must  be  so.   As the dense body is  slowly  prepared  for  the
separate,  individual life within the protecting cover of the womb,  so  the
other  bodies are gradually born and nurtured into activity,  and while  the
times given in the following description are but approximate,  they are nev-
ertheless  accurate enough for general purposes and show the connection  be-
tween the Microcosm and the Macrocosm--the individual and the world.

    In  the  period  immediately  following  birth  the  different  vehicles
inter-penetrate one another, as, in our previous illustration, the sand pen-
etrates the sponge and the water both sand and sponge.  But, though they are
all  present,  as in adult life,  they are MERELY PRESENT.   None  of  their
positive faculties are active.   The vital body cannot use the forces  which
operate along the positive pole of the ethers.   Assimilation,  which  works
along the positive pole of the chemical ether,  is very dainty during child-
hood  and  what  there is of it is due to the macrocosmic  vital  body,  the
ethers  of which act as a womb for the child's vital body until the  seventh
year, gradually ripening it  during  that  period.  The propagative faculty,




[PAGE 140]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

which works along the positive pole of the life ether, is also latent.   The
heating  of  the  body--which  is  carried on along the positive pole of the 
light ether--and the  circulation  of the blood are due to  the  macrocosmic  
vital body,  the ethers acting on  the child and slowly developing it to the  
point where it can control these functions itself.  The forces working along  
the negative pole of the ethers are so much the more active.   The excretion  
of solides,  carried on  along  the  negative  pole  of  the chemical  ether  
(corresponding  to   the  solid  subdivision  of  the  Chemical  Region), is  
too unrestrained,  as is also the excretion of fluid,  which is  carried  on 
along the  negative pole of the life ether (corresponding to the  second  or  
fluid subdivision of the Chemical  Region).  The  passive  sense-perception,  
which  is   due   to  the  negative  forces  of the  light  ether,  is  also  
exceedingly prominent.  The child is very impressionable and it is "all eyes 
and ears." 

    During the earlier years the forces operating along the negative pole of
the reflecting ether are also extremely active.  In those years children can
"see" the higher Worlds and they often prattle about what they see until the
ridicule of their elders or punishment for "telling stories" teaches them to
desist.

    It is deplorable that the little ones are forced to  lie--or at least to
deny  the truth--because  of the incredulity of their "wise"  elders.   Even
the  investigations  of the Society for Physical Research have  proven  that
children  often  have invisible playmates, who frequently visit  them  until
they  are  several years old.   During those years the clairvoyance  of  the
children is of the same negative character as that of the mediums.

    It is the same with the forces working in the desire body.   The passive
feeling of physical pain is present,  while the feeling of emotion is almost




[PAGE 141]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

entirely absent.   The child will, of course,  show emotion on the slightest
provocation,  but the duration of that emotion is but momentary.   It all on
the surface.

    The  child also has the link of mind,  but is almost incapable of  indi-
vidual  thought  activity.   It is exceedingly sensitive to  forces  working
along the negative pole and is therefore imitative and teachable.

    Thus  it  is  shown that all the negative qualities are  active  in  the
new-born  entity,  but before it is able to use its different vehicles,  the
positive qualities must be ripened.

    Each vehicle is therefore brought to a certain degree of maturity by the
activity of the corresponding vehicle of the macrocosm, which acts as a womb
for it until that degree is reached.

    From  the first to the seventh year the vital body grows and slowly  ma-
tures  within  the  womb of the macrocosmic vital body and  because  of  the
greater  wisdom  of this vehicle of the macrocosm the child's body  is  more
rounded and well-built than in later life.

                          BIRTH OF THE VITAL BODY.

    While  the macrocosmic vital body guides the growth of the child's  body
it is guarded from the dangers which later threaten it when the unwise indi-
vidual vital body takes unchecked charge.  This happens in the seventh year,
when the period of excessive, dangerous growth begins, and continues through
the next seven years.  During this time the macrocosmic desire body performs
the function of a womb for the individual desire body.

    Were the vital body to have continual and unrestrained sway in the human
kingdom, as it has in the plant, man would grow to an enormous size.   There
was a time in the far distant past when  man  was  constituted like a plant,




[PAGE 142]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

having only a dense body and a vital body.   The traditions of mythology and
folk-lore all over the world concerning giants in olden times are absolutely
true, because then men grew as tall trees, and for the same reason.

                         BIRTH OF THE DESIRE BODY.

    The  vital body of the plant builds leaf after leaf,  carrying the  stem
higher  and higher.   Were it not for the macrocosmic desire body  it  would
keep on in that way indefinitely,  but the macrocosmic desire body steps  in
at a certain point and checks further growth.   The force that is not needed
for further growth is then available for other purposes and is used to build
the  flower  and the seed.   In like manner the human vital body,  when  the
dense body comes under its sway,  after the seventh year,  makes the  latter
grow very rapidly,  but about the fourteenth year the individual desire body
is  born  from the womb of the macrocosmic desire body and is then  free  to
work on its dense body.   The excessive growth is then checked and the force
theretofore  used for that purpose becomes available for  propagation,  that
the human plant may flower and bring forth.  Therefore the birth of the per-
sonal desire body marks the period of puberty.  From this period the attrac-
tion  towards  the  opposite  sex  is  felt,  being  especially  active  and
unrestrained in the third septenary period of  life--from the fourteenth  to
the twenty-first year, because the restraining mind is then still unborn.

                             BIRTH OF THE MIND.

    After the fourteenth year, the mind is in turn brooded over and nurtured
by  the macrocosmic mind,  unfolding its latent possibilities and making  it
capable of original  thought.  The  forces  of  the  individual's  different




[PAGE 143]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

vehicles have now been ripened to such a degree that he can use them all  in
his evolution, therefore at the twenty-first year the Ego comes into posses-
sion of its complete vehicle.   It does this by means of the blood-heat  and
by  developing individual blood.   This is done in connection with the  full
development of the light ether.

                     THE BLOOD THE VEHICLE OF THE EGO.

    In infancy,  and up to the fourteenth year,  the red marrow-bones do not
make  all  the blood corpuscles.   Most of them are supplied by  the  thymus
gland,  which is largest in the fetus and gradually diminishes as the  indi-
vidual blood-making faculty develops in the growing child.  The thymus gland
contains, as it were, a supply of blood corpuscles given by the parents, and
consequently the child, which draws its blood from that source, does not re-
alize its individuality.   Not until the blood is made by the child does  it
think of itself as "I," and when the thymus gland disappears,  at the age of
fourteen, the "I" feeling reaches its full expression, for then the blood is
made and dominated entirely by the Ego.   The following will make clear  the
idea and its logic:

    It  will  be  remembered that assimilation and growth  depend  upon  the
forces  working along the positive pole of the vital body's chemical  ether.
That is set free at the seventh year, together with the balance of the vital
body.   Only the chemical ether is fully ripe at that time;  the other parts
need  more  ripening.   At the fourteenth year the life ether of  the  vital
body,  which has to do with propagation, is fully ripe.   In the period from
seven  to fourteen years of age the excessive assimilation has stored up  an
amount  of force which goes to the sex organs and is ready at the  time  the
desire body is set free.




[PAGE 144]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

    This  force  of  sex  is stored in the blood during  the  third  of  the
seven-year periods and in that time the light ether, which is the avenue for
the  blood-heat,  is developed and controls the heart,  so that the body  is
neither too hot nor too cold.  In early childhood the blood very often rises
to  an abnormal temperature.   During the period of excessive growth  it  is
frequently the reverse, but in the hot-headed,  unrestrained youth,  passion
and temper very often drive the Ego out by over-heating the blood.   We very
appropriately call this an ebullition or boiling over of temper and describe
the effect as causing the person to "lose his head," i.e.,  become incapable
of  thought.   That is exactly what happens when passion,  rage,  or  temper
overheats the blood, thus drawing the Ego outside the bodies.   The descrip-
tion is accurate when,  of a person in such a state,  we say,  "He has  lost
control of himself."   The Ego is outside of his vehicles and they are  run-
ning amuck,  bereft of the guiding influence of thought, part of the work of
which  is to act as a brake on impulse.   The great and terrible  danger  of
such outbursts is that before the owner re-enters his body some  disembodied
entity may take possession of it and keep him out.   This is called  "obses-
sion."   Only  the man who keeps cool and does not allow excess of  heat  to
drive  him out can think properly.   As proof of the assertion that the  Ego
cannot  work  in the body when the blood is either tool hot or too  cold  we
will  call  attention to the well-known fact that excessive heat  makes  one
sleepy and, if carried beyond a certain point, it drives the Ego out,  leav-
ing the body in a faint,  that is,  unconscious.   Excessive cold has also a
tendency to make the body sleepy or unconscious.   It is only when the blood
is at or near the normal temperature that the Ego can use it as a vehicle of
consciousness.




[PAGE 145]                                   MAN AND THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION

    To further show the connection of the ego with the blood we may  mention
the burning blush of shame,  which is an evidence of the manner in which the
blood  is  driven to the head, thus over-heating the  brain  and  paralyzing
thought.   Fear is the state when the Ego wants to barricade himself against
some outside danger.  He then drives the blood to the center and grows pale,
because the blood has left the periphery of the body and has lost heat, thus
paralyzing thought.   His blood "freezes," he shivers and his teeth chatter,
as when the temperature is lowered by atmospheric conditions.   In fever the
excess of heat causes delirium.

    The  full-blooded person,  when the blood is not too hot,  is active  in
body and mind, while the anemic person is sleepy.  In one the Ego has better
control; in the other less.  When the Ego wants to think it drives blood, at
the proper heat,  to the brain.   When a heavy meal centers the activity  of
the Ego upon the digestive tracts, the man cannot think; he is sleepy.

    The old Norsemen and the Scots recognized that the Ego is in the  blood.
No  stranger  could become associated with them as a relative until  he  had
"mixed blood"  with them and thus become one of them.   Goethe,  who was  an
Initiate,  also showed this in his "Faust."  Faust is about to sign the com-
pact with Mephistopheles and asks, "Why not sign with ordinary ink?  Why use
blood?"   Mephisto answers,  "Blood is a most peculiar essence."   He knows,
that who has the blood has the man; that without the warm blood,  no Ego can
find expression.

    The proper heat for the real expression of the Ego is not present  until
the mind is born from the macrocosmic  Concrete Mind,  when  the  individual





[PAGE 146]                                  THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

is  about twenty-one years old.   Statutory law also recognizes this as  the
earliest age when the man is deemed fit to exercise a franchise.

    At  the  present stage of human development the man goes  through  these
principal stages in each life cycle, from one birth to the next.




                          DIAGRAM: A LIFE-CYCLE








[PAGE 147]                                REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE


                                CHAPTER IV.

                    REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE.

    Only  three theories worthy of note have ever been brought  forward  to
solve the riddle of Life and Death.

    In the previous chapter we have, to some extent, explained one of these
three theories--that  of Rebirth,  together with it companion law,  the law
of  Consequence.   It may not be out of place to compare the theory of  Re-
birth  with the other two theories advanced,  with a view  to  ascertaining
their relative and foundation in nature.   To the occultist there can be no
question.   He does not say what he "believes"  in it any more than we need
to say that we "believe"  as to the blooming of the rose or the flowing  of
the river,  or the operation of any of the visible workings of the material
world,  which are continually going on before our eyes.   We do not say  of
these things that we "believe;" we say that we "know," because we see them.
So the occult scientist can say "I know"  in regard to Rebirth,  the law of
Consequence and their corollaries.   He sees the Ego and can trace its path
after it has passed out of the dense body at death until it has  reappeared
on earth through a new birth.   Therefore to him no "belief"  is necessary.
For the satisfaction of others,  however,  it may be well to examine  these
three theories of life and death in order to arrive at an intelligent  con-
clusion.



[PAGE 148]                                THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

     Any  great law of nature must necessarily be in harmony with  all  her
other  laws.   Therefore it may be very helpful to the inquirer to  examine
these theories in their relation to what are admitted by all parties to  be
"known laws of nature," as observed in that part of our universe with which
we are more familiar.  To this end we will first state the three theories:

(1) The Materialistic Theory holds that life is a journey from the womb  to
    the  tomb;  that mind is the result of certain correlations of  matter;
    than  man  is  the highest intelligence in the Cosmos;  and,  that  his
    intelligence perishes when the body disintegrates at death.

(2) The Theory of Theology asserts that at each birth a newly-created  soul
    enters  the arena of life fresh from the hand of God,  passing from  an
    invisible state through the gate of birth into visible existence;  that
    at  the end of one short span of life in the material world  it  passes
    out through the gate of death into the invisible beyond,  whence it re-
    turns  no more;  that  its happiness or misery there is determined  for
    all eternity by its actions during the infinitesimal period intervening
    between birth and death.

(3) The  Theory  of Rebirth teaches that each soul is an integral  part  of
    God,  enfolding all divine possibilities as the seed enfolds the plant;
    that  by means of repeated existences in an earthly body  of  gradually
    improving quality,  the latent possibilities are slowly developed  into
    dynamic powers;  that none are lost by this process,  but that all man-
    kind  will ultimately attain the goal of perfection and  re-union  with
    God.




[PAGE 149]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE

The first of these theories is monistic.  It seeks to  explain all facts of
existence as processes within the material world.   The two other  theories
agree  in  being dualistic,  that is,  they ascribe some of the  facts  and
phases of existence to a super-physical,  invisible state,  but they differ
widely on other points.

    Bringing  the materialistic theory into comparison with the known  laws
of  the universe,  we find that the continuity of force is as  well  estab-
lished as the continuity of matter and both are beyond the need of elucida-
tion.   We also know that matter and force are inseparable in the  Physical
World.  This is contrary to the materialistic theory, which holds that mind
perishes at death.   When nothing can be destroyed,  mind must be included.
Moreover we know that mind is superior to matter, for it molds the fact, so
that  it becomes a reflection or mirror of the mind.   We  have  discovered
that  the particles of our bodies are constantly changing;  that  at  least
once  in  seven years there is a change in every atom of  matter  composing
them.   If the materialistic theory were true, the consciousness ought also
to undergo an entire change, with no memory of that which preceded, so that
at  no  time could man remember any event more than seven years.   We  know
that is not the case.   We remember the events of our childhood.   Many  of
the most trivial incidents though forgotten in ordinary consciousness, have
been  distinctly recalled in a swift vision of the whole life  by  drowning
persons,  who have related the experience after resuscitation.  Similar ex-
periences  in states of trance are also common.   Materialism is unable  to
account for these phases of sub- and super-consciousness.  It ignores them.
At the present stage of scientific investigation,  where leading scientists
have  established  beyond  a doubt the existence of  these  phenomena,  the
policy  of ignoring them is a serious defect in a theory claiming to  solve
the greatest problem of life--Life itself.



[PAGE 150]                                 THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

    We may therefore safely pass from the materialistic theory as being in-
adequate to solve the mystery of life and death and turn to a consideration
of the next theory.

    One of the greatest objections to the orthodox theological doctrine, as
it is expounded, is its entire and confessed inadequacy.  Of the myriads of
souls  which have been created and have inhabited this Globe since the  be-
ginning of existence, even if that beginning dates back no further than six
thousand years, the insignificant number of only "one hundred and forty and
four thousand"  are to be saved!   The rest are to be tortured forever  and
ever!   The devil gets the best of it all the time.  One cannot help saying
with Buddha, "If God permits such misery to exist He cannot be good, and if
He is powerless to prevent it, He cannot be God."

    Nothing  in nature is analogous to such a method of creation  in  order
that destruction may follow.  It is represented that God desires ALL should
be saved and is averse to the destruction of any,  having for their  salva-
tion "given His only Son," and yet this "glorious plan of salvation"  fails
to save!

    If a trans-Atlantic liner with two thousand souls on board sent a wire-
less message that she was sinking just off Sandy Hook, would it be regarded
as a "glorious plan of salvation"  if a fast motor-boat capable of rescuing
only two or three people, were sent to her aid?   Certainly not!   It would
more likely be denounced as a "plan of destruction"  if adequate means were
not provided for the saving of at least majority of those in danger.

    But the theologians'  plan of salvation is vastly worse than this,  be-
cause two or three of  two thousand is an immensely greater proportion than




[PAGE 151]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE

the orthodox theological plan of saving only 144,000 out of all the myriads
of souls created.  We may safely reject this theory also,  as being untrue,
because unreasonable.  If God were allwise He would have evolved a more ef-
ficacious plan.  So He has, and the above is only the theory of the theolo-
gian. The teaching of the Bible is very different, as will appear later.

    We  turn now to consider the doctrine of Rebirth,  which  postulates  a
slow process of development, carried on with unwavering persistence through
repeated embodiments in forms of increasing efficiency whereby all are,  in
time, brought to a height of spiritual splendor at present inconceivable to
us.   There  is  nothing unreasonable nor difficult to  accept  in  such  a
theory.  As we look about us we find everywhere in nature this striving for
perfection in a slow,  persistent manner. We find no sudden process of cre-
ation  or destruction,  such as the theologian postulates,  but we do  find
"Evolution."

    Evolution  is "the history of the progression of the Spirit  in  Time."
Everywhere, as we see about us the varied phenomena in the universe, we re-
alize that the path of evolution is a spiral.  Each loop of the spiral is a
cycle.   Each  cycle merges into the next, as the loops of the  spiral  are
continuous, each cycle being the improved product of those preceding it and
the creator of those more developed states which succeed it.

    A straight line is but the extension of a point.   It occupies but  one
dimension in space.   The theory of the materialist and that of the theolo-
gian  would be analogous to this line.   The materialist makes the line  of
life start at birth,  and to be consistent,  the death hour must  terminate
it.  The theologian  commences his line with the creation of  the soul just




[PAGE 152]                                 THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

previous to birth.   After death the soul lives on,  it fate  irretrievably
determined by the deeds of a few short years.   There is no coming back  to
correct mistakes.  The line runs straight on, implying a modicum of experi-
ence and no elevation for the soul after death.

    Natural  progression does not follow a straight line such as these  two
theories  imply;  nor  even  a  circular  path,  for  that  would  imply  a
never-ending  round of the same experiences and the use of only two  dimen-
sions in space.  All things move in progressive cycles and in order to take
full  advantages  of all the opportunities for advancement offered  by  our
three-dimensional universe,  it is necessary that the evolving life  should
take the three-dimensional path--the spiral--which goes ever onward and up-
ward.

    Whether we look at the modest little plant in our garden,  or go to the
redwood  district of California and examine one of the giant Sequoias  with
its thirty-foot diameter, it is always the same--every branch, twig or leaf
will be found growing in either a single or a double spiral, or in opposite
pairs,  each balancing either,  analogous to ebb and flow,  day and  night,
life and death and other ALTERNATING activities in nature.

    Examine  the vaulted arch of the sky and observe the fiery  nebulae  or
the path of the Solar-Systems--everywhere the spiral meets the eye.  In the
spring the Earth discards its white blanket and emerges from its period  of
rest its winter sleep.   All activities are exerted to bring forth new life
everywhere.   Time  passes.   The corn and the grape are ripened  and  har-
vested.  Again the busy summer fades into the silence and inactivity of the
winter.  Again the snowy coverlet enwraps the Earth.  But her sleep  is not




[PAGE 153]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE

forever; she will wake again to the song of the new spring, which will mark
for her a little further progress along the pathway of time.

    So with the Sun.  He rises in the morning of each day, but each morning
he is further along on his journey through the year.

    Everywhere the spiral--ONWARD, UPWARD, FOREVER!

    Is it possible that this law, so universal in all other realms,  should
be inoperative in the life of man?  Shall the earth wake each year from its
winter  sleep;  shall the tree and the flower live again and man  die?   It
cannot  be!   The same law that wakes the life in the plant to  new  growth
will wake the human being to new experience, to further progress toward the
goal  of perfection.   Therefore the theory of Rebirth,  which teaches  re-
peated  embodiment in gradually improving vehicles,  is in  perfect  accord
with  evolution and the phenomena of nature,  which the other two  theories
are not.

    Regarding life from an ethical viewpoint,  we find that the law of  Re-
birth  coupled with the companion law of Consequence,  is the  only  theory
that will satisfy a sense of justice,  in harmony with the facts of life as
we see them about us.

    It is not easy for the logical mind to understand how a "just and  lov-
ing"  God can require the same virtues from the milliards whom He has  been
"pleased to place in differing circumstances" according to no apparent rule
nor  system,  but willy-nilly,  according to His own capricious mood.   One
lives in luxury;  the other on "kicks and crusts."   One has a moral educa-
tion and an atmosphere of high ideals; the other is placed in squalid  sur-
roundings  and taught to lie and steal and that the more he does  of  both,
the more of a success he is.   It is just to require the same of both?   Is
it right to reward one for living a good life when  he  was  placed  in  an





[PAGE 154]                                 THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

environment  that made it extremely difficult for him to go astray,  or  to
punish the other,  who was handicapped to such an extent that he never  had
an  idea of what constitutes true morality.   Surely not!   Is it not  more
logical  to think that we may have misinterpreted the Bible than to  impute
to God such a monstrous plan and method of procedure?

    It  is  useless to say that we must not inquire into the  mysteries  of
God;  that they are past our finding out.   The inequalities of life can be
satisfactorily  explained by the twin laws of Rebirth and  Consequence  and
made to harmonize with the conception of a just and loving God,  as  taught
by Christ Himself.

    Moreover,  by  means  of these twin laws a  way  to  emancipation  from
present  undesirable  position or environment is show,  together  with  the
means of attaining to any degree of development, no matter how imperfect we
may be now.

    What we are, what we have, all our good qualities are the result of our
own actions in the past.  What we lack in physical, moral, or mental excel-
lence may yet be ours in the future.

    Exactly  as we cannot do otherwise than take up our lives each  morning
where  we laid them down the preceding night,  so by our work  in  previous
lives  have we made the conditions under which we now live and  labor,  and
are at present creating the conditions of our future lives.  Instead of be-
moaning  the lack of this or that faculty which we covet,  we must  set  to
work to acquire it.

    If one child plays beautifully on a musical instrument,  with hardly an
effort at learning,  while another,  despite persistent effort,  is a  poor
player in comparison, it merely shows that one  expended  the  effort  in a




[PAGE 155]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE

previous life and is easily regaining a former proficiency,  while the  ef-
forts of the other have been started only in the present life,  and in con-
sequence we see the uphill work.  But, if the latter persist, he may,  even
in the present life,  become superior to the former unless the former  con-
stantly improves.

    That we do not remember the effort made in acquiring a faculty by  hard
work  is immaterial,  it does not alter the fact that the  faculty  remains
with us.

    Genius  is the hall-mark of the advanced soul,  which by hard  work  in
many  previous  lives has developed itself in some way  beyond  the  normal
achievements of the race.  It reveals a glimpse of the degree of attainment
which will be the common possession of the coming Race.   It cannot be  ac-
counted for by heredity,  which applies only in part to the dense body  and
not to qualities of the soul.   If genius could be accounted for by  hered-
ity, why is there not a long line of mechanical ancestry previous to Thomas
Edison,  each  more  capable than his predecessor?   Why  does  not  genius
propagate  itself?   Why is not  Siegfried the son,  greater  than  Richard
Wagner, the father?

    In cases where the expression of genius depends upon the possession  of
specially  constructed  organs,  requiring ages  of  development,  the  Ego
naturally  is reborn in a family the Egos of which have,  for  generations,
labored to build a similar organism.  That is why twenty-nine musicians  of
more  or  less genius were born in the Bach family during a period  of  two
hundred and fifty years.   That genius is an expression of the soul and not
of  the  body is shown by the fact that it did not  gradually  improve  and
reach efflorescence in the person of John Sebastian Bach, but that the pro-
ficiency which reached its highest expression in him towered high above an-
cestors and descendants alike.




[PAGE 156]                                 THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

    The  body is simply an instrument, the work it yields  being  dependent
upon  the Ego which guides it,  as the quality of the melody  is  dependent
upon the musician's skill,  aided by the TIMBRE of the instrument.   A good
musician cannot fully express himself on a poor instrument,  and even  upon
the same instrument,  all musicians do not and cannot play alike.   Because
an Ego seeks rebirth as the son of a great musician it does not necessarily
follow that he must be a still greater genius,  as would be the case if the
physical heredity were a fact and genius were not a soul-quality.

    The  "Law of Attraction"  accounts in quite as satisfactory manner  for
the facts we ascribe to heredity.   We know that people of like tastes will
seek another.  If we know that a friend is in a certain city, but are igno-
rant  of  his address,  we will naturally be governed by the law  of  asso-
ciation  in our efforts to find him.   If he is a musician,  he  will  most
likely  be found where musicians are wont to assemble;  if he is a  student
inquiry will be made at public libraries, reading-rooms and book stores, or
if he is a sporting man we would seek him at race tracks, pool-rooms or sa-
loons.   It is not probable that the musician or the student would frequent
the  latter places and it is safe to say that our search for  the  sporting
man would not be successful if we sought him in a library or at a classical
concert.

    Similarly,  the Ego ordinarily gravitates to the most  congenial  asso-
ciations.   It is constrained to do so by one of the twin forces of the De-
sire World--the force of Attraction.

    The  objection may be urged that there are people of entirely  opposite
tastes,  or bitter enemies even,  in the same family, and if the law of As-
sociation governed why should they be attracted thereto?



[PAGE 157]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE

    The explanation of such cases is that during the Ego's earth lives many
relations have been established with various people.   These relations were
pleasant or otherwise, involving on one hand obligation which were not liq-
uidated at the time;  or on the other involving the infliction of an injury
and  a feeling of very strong hate between the injured and his enemy.   The
law of Consequence requires an exact adjustment of the score.   Death  does
not "pay it all" any more than moving to another city will liquidate a mon-
etary debt.  The time comes when the two enemies will meet again.   The old
hate has brought them together in the same family,  because it is the  pur-
pose of God that all shall love one another;  therefore hate must be trans-
formed into love and though, perchance, they may spend many lives "fighting
it out," they will at some time learn the lesson and become friends and mu-
tual  benefactors  instead of enemies.   In such cases the  Interest  these
people had in one another set in action the force of Attraction,  and  that
brought  them  together.   Had they simply been mutually  Indifferent  they
could not have become associated.

    Thus do the twin laws of Rebirth and Consequence solve,  in a  rational
manner,  all the problems incident to human life as man  steadily  advances
toward the next stage in evolution--the Superman.  The  trend of humanity's
progress  is  onward and upward forever,  says  this  theory--not  as  some
people  think who have confounded the doctrine of Rebirth with the  foolish
teaching of some Indian tribes who believe that man is reborn in animals or
plants.   That would be retrogression.   No authority for this doctrine  of
retrogression  can  be  found  in  nature  or  in  the  sacred books of any




[PAGE 158]                                 THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

religion.   In one (and one only) of the religious writings of India is  it
touched upon.   In the Kathopanishad (ch.  v,  verse 9)  it is stated  that
"Some men,  according to their deeds,  go into the womb and others into the
'sthanu.'"  "Sthanu"  is a Sanskrit word, which means "motionless,"  but it
also means ~a pillar," and has been interpreted to mean that some men,  be-
cause of their sins, go back to the motionless plant kingdom.

    Spirits  incarnate only to gain experience;  to conquer the  world;  to
overcome the lower self and attain self-mastery.   When we realize this  we
shall understand that there comes a time when there is no further need  for
incarnation because the lessons have all been learned.  The teaching of the
Kathopanishad  indicates  that instead of remaining tied to  the  wheel  of
birth  and  death,  man will at some time go into the motionless  state  of
"Nirvana."

    In the Book of Revelation we find these worlds:   "Him that  overcometh
will I make a PILLAR in the temple of my God AND HE SHALL GO NO MORE  OUT,"
referring to entire liberation from concrete existence.   Nowhere is  there
any authority for the doctrine of the transmigration of souls.   A man  who
has evolved so far as to have an individual, separate soul cannot turn back
in his progress and enter the vehicle of animal or plant, which are under a
group-spirit.   The  individual  spirit  is a  higher  evolution  that  the
group-spirit and the lesser cannot obtain the greater.

    Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his beautiful poem, "The Chambered Nautilus,"
has  embodied this idea of constant progression in gradually improving  ve-
hicles,  and  final liberation.   The nautilus builds its spiral  shell  in
chambered sections,  constantly leaving the smaller ones, which it has out-
grown, for the one last built:




[PAGE 159]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE


****************************************
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

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

    The necessity,  previously referred to,  of obtaining an organism of  a
specific  nature,  brings to mind an interesting phase of the twin laws  of
Rebirth and Consequence.   These laws are connected with the motion of  the
Cosmic bodies, the Sun, the planets and the signs of the  Zodiac.  All move
in  harmony  with these laws,  guided in their orbits by  their  indwelling
spiritual Intelligences--the Planetary Spirits.

    On  account of the precession of the equinoxes the Sun  moves  backward
through the twelve signs of the Zodiac at the rate of approximately one de-
gree of space in 72 years,  and through each sign (30 degrees of space)  in
about 2,100 years, or around the whole circle in about 26,000 years.

    This is due to the fact that the Earth does not spin upon a  stationary
axis.   Its  axis has a slow,  swinging motion of its own  (just  like  the
wabble of a spinning top  that  has  almost  spent  its force), so  that it



[PAGE 160]                                 THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

describes  a circle in space and thus one star after another  becomes  Pole
Star.

    Because  of this wabbling motion the Sun does not cross the equator  in
the same place every year,  but a few hundred rods further back,  hence the
name,  the "precession of the equinoxes," because the equinox  "precedes"--
comes to early.

    All happenings on the Earth in connection with the other Cosmic  bodies
and  their inhabitants are connected with this and other Cosmic  movements.
So are also the laws of Rebirth and Consequence.

    As  the Sun passes through the different signs of in the course of  the
year,  the climatic and other changes affect man and his activities in dif-
ferent  ways.   Similarly the passage of the Sun by the procession  of  the
equinoxes,  through  the  twelve signs of the  Zodiac--which  is  called  a
World-year,  brings about conditions on the Earth of a far greater variety.
It  is necessary to the growth of the soul that it should  experience  them
all.   In fact,  as we have seen,  the man himself makes  these  conditions
while  in the Heaven World between births.   Therefore,  every Ego is  born
twice  during the time the Sun is passing through one sign of the   Zodiac;
and, as the soul itself is necessarily double-sexed, in order to obtain all
experiences, it is reborn alternately in a male and a female body.  This is
because  the experience of one sex differs widely from that of  the  other.
At  the same time,  the outside conditions are not greatly altered  in  one
thousand years and therefore permit the entity to receive experience in the
same identical environment from the standpoint of both man and woman.

    These are the general terms upon with the law of Rebirth operates,  but
as  it is not a blind law, it is subject to frequent modifications,  deter-
mined by the Lords of Destiny, the Recording Angels, as, for instance, in a




[PAGE 161]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE

case where an Ego needs a sensitive eye or ear and there is an  opportunity
for giving it the required instrument in a family with which relations have
previously been established.   The time for the re-embodiment of the Ego is
question may lack,  perhaps,  two hundred years of being ripe according  to
the average period, but it is seen by the Lords of Destiny that unless this
opportunity  is embraced,  the Ego will perhaps have to spend four or  five
hundred  years  in heaven in excess of the time  required,  before  another
chance will present itself.   Therefore the Ego is brought to rebirth ahead
of schedule time,  so to speak,  the deficiency of rest in the third heaven
being made up at another time.   So we see that,  not only do the  departed
work on us from the Heaven World,  but we also work on them,  attracting or
repelling them.   A favorable opportunity for procuring a suitable  instru-
ment may attract an Ego to rebirth.   Had no instrument been available,  he
would  have been kept longer in heaven and the surplus time  deducted  from
his succeeding heaven lives.

    The law of Consequence also works in harmony with the stars,  so that A
MAN IS BORN AT THE TIME  WHEN THE POSITIONS OF THE BODIES IN THE SOLAR SYS-
TEM WILL GIVE THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO HIS EXPERIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT IN
THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. That is why Astrology is an  absolutely  true  science,
though  even  the best astrologer may misinterpret it,  because,  like  all
other human beings,  he is fallible.  The stars show accurately the time in
a  man's  life when the debt which the Lords of Destiny have  selected  for
payment is due, and to evade it is beyond the power of man.  Yes, they show
the very day, although we are not always able to read them correctly.

    Perhaps  the  most  striking  instance  known  to  the  writer  of this




[PAGE 162]                               REBIRTH AND THE LAW OF CONSEQUENCE

inability to escape what is written in the stars,  though perfectly  cogni-
zant of it,  occurred in Los Angeles, California,  in 1906.   Some instruc-
tions in astrology were given to Mr. L., a well-known lecturer.   Mr.  L.'s
own horoscope was taken up, because a pupil will be more interested in that
than  in the nativity of a stranger.   He is also enabled to check the  ac-
curacy  of  the interpretation of the signs which are given  to  him.   The
horoscope revealed a liability to accidents and Mr.  L.  was shown how  ac-
cidents and other events in the past figured to the time of occurrence.  In
addition,  he was told that another accident would befall him and  that  it
would occur on the twenty-first of the following July,  or the seventh  day
after,  i.e.,  one the twenty-eighth,  the latter day being regarded as the
more  dangerous.   He was warned against conveyances of any  kind  and  the
place  of  the threatened injury was designated as the  breast,  shoulders,
arms and lower part of the head.  He was thoroughly convinced of the danger
and promised to remain at home on that day.

    The  writer  went north to Seattle and a few days before  the  critical
time wrote to Mr. L. and again warned him.  Mr. L.  answered that he remem-
bered the warning and would act accordingly.

    The  next  communication  in regard to the matter came  from  a  mutual
friend, who stated that on the 29th of July Mr. L. had gone to Sierra Madre
on an electric car which had collided with a railroad train,  Mr.  L.  sus-
taining injuries of the exact description mentioned and also having a  ten-
don cut in the left leg.

    The question was why Mr. L., having entire faith in the prediction, had
disregarded the advice.   The explanation came three months later,  when he
had recovered sufficiently to write.  The letter said,  "I thought the 28th
was the 29th."


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