[PAGE 223]                                          STRAGGLERS AND NEWCOMERS

                                CHAPTER IX.

                         STRAGGLERS AND NEWCOMERS.

   In  following through the preceding chapter the evolution of  life,  con-
sciousness  and  form--the  triple  phase of  manifestation  of  the  virgin
spirit--which is the LIFE that gathers the FORM about itself and gains  CON-
SCIOUSNESS thereby,  we have spoken as though there were only one class;  as
though the virgin spirits,  without exception, had made constant and uniform
progress.

   This was done for the sake of simplicity,  because stragglers there were,
as there are in any great body or company.

   In school there are, every year, those who fail to reach the standard re-
quired  for promotion into a higher grade.   Similarly,  in every Period  of
Evolution,  there are those who fall behind because they have  not  attained
the standard necessary to pass onward to the next higher stage.

   Even so early as the Saturn Period there were some who failed to  improve
sufficiently to take the next forward step.  At that stage the Higher Beings
were working with the life,  which was itself unconscious,  but that  uncon-
sciousness did not prevent the retardation of some of the virgin spirits who
were not so pliable, nor so readily adaptable as others.

   In that one word "Adaptability,"  we have the great secret of advancement
or  retardation.  All  progress  depends  upon  whether an evolving being is


[PAGE 224]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

flexible,  adaptable and pliable,  so as to be able to accommodate itself to
new conditions,  or whether it is crystallized, set, and incapable of alter-
ation.  Adaptability is the quality which makes for progress, whether an en-
tity is at a high or a low stage of evolution.   Lack of it is the cause  of
the retardation of the spirit and retrogression of the Form. This applies to
the  past,  present and future,  the division of the qualified and  the  un-
qualified, thus, being made with the exact and impersonal justice of the law
of Consequence.  There never was, or ever shall be any arbitrary distinction
made between the "sheep" and the "goats."

   The  hardened  unresponsive condition of some of the Saturn  beings  pre-
vented  the awakening of the divine spirit within them,  therefore they  re-
mained simply mineral, all they had gained being the germinal dense body.

   Thus there were two classes,  or kingdoms, in the Sun Period,  i.e.,  the
stragglers of the Saturn Period, who were still mineral, and the pioneers of
the  Saturn Period,  who were capable of receiving the germ of a vital  body
and becoming plant-like.

   In  addition  to those two kingdoms there was also a  third--a  new  life
wave, which was just commencing its activity at the beginning of the Sun Pe-
riod.  (That is the life wave which now ensouls our animals).

   The matter into which the new life wave entered, together with the strag-
glers of the Saturn Period,  composed the mineral kingdom of the Sun Period.
There  was,  however,  a great difference in those two sub-divisions of  the
second  kingdom.   It is possible for the stragglers to make a  "spurt"  and
overtake the pioneers,  who are now our humanity, but impossible for the new
life wave of the Sun Period to do that.  It will reach a stage corresponding


[PAGE 225]                                          STRAGGLERS AND NEWCOMERS

to the human, but under very different conditions.

   The division of stragglers and pioneers took place in the seventh Revolu-
tion of the Saturn Period,  when the divine spirit was awakened by the Lords
of the Flame.   Then it was found that some of the evolving entities were in
such  an unresponsive,  hardened condition that it was impossible to  arouse
them.   They therefore remained without the spark of spirit upon which their
progress  depended and they were obliged to remain at the same level,  being
unable  to  follow  the others in whom the  spiritual  spark  was  awakened.
truly, truly, all that we are or are not is the result of our own effort, or
our own inaction.

   These stragglers and the newly arrived life wave formed dark spots in the
otherwise glowing gas sphere which was the densest Globe of the Sun  Period,
and our present Sunspots are an atavistic remainder of that condition.

   In the sixth Revolution of the Sun Period the life spirit was awakened by
the  Cherubim,  and again it was found that some who had safely  passed  the
critical point in the Saturn Period, had fallen behind in the Sun Period and
were  unfit  to have the second aspect of the spirit vivified.   Thus  there
were  another class of stragglers,  who had lagged behind the crest wave  of
evolution.

   In  the seventh Revolution of the Sun Period of Lords of the flame  reap-
peared to awaken the divine spirit in those who failed to qualify for it  at
the end of the Saturn Period, but had attained to the point where they could
receive  the spiritual impulse in the Sun Period.   The Lords of  the  flame
also awakened the germ of divine spirit in as many of the new life wave  en-
tities as were ready, but here also there were stragglers.


[PAGE 226]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

   Thus at the beginning of the Moon Period there were the following
classes:

1-The Pioneers  who  had  successfully passed through the Saturn and the Sun
         Periods.  They  had  dense and vital bodies, divine and life spirit
         germinally active.
2-The Stragglers  of  the  Sun  Period, who had dense and vital bodies, also
         divine spirit--all germinal.
3-The Stragglers  of the Saturn Period, who had been promoted in the seventh
         Revolution  of the Sun Period.  They had the germ of dense body and
         divine spirit.
4-The Pioneers  of the  new Life Wave, who had the same vehicles as class 3,
         but belong to a different scheme of evolution from ours.
5-The Stragglers  of the  new Life Wave, who had only the germ for the dense
         body.
6-The New  Life  Wave,  which entered upon its evolution at the beginning of
         the  Moon  Period  and  is  the life that ensouls our plants of the
         present day.

   It  is necessary to remember that Nature hastens slowly.   She  makes  no
sudden changes in forms.  To her, time is nothing; the attainment of perfec-
tion is everything.  A mineral does not change to a plant at one bound,  but
by gradual, almost imperceptible degrees.  A plant does not become an animal
in a night.  It requires millions of years to bring about the change.   Thus
at all times there are all stages and gradations to be found in nature.  The
Ladder of Being stretches without break from protoplasm to God.

   Therefore we have to deal,  not with six different kingdoms corresponding
to the above six classes which entered the arena of evolution at the  begin-
ning of the Moon Period,  but with three kingdoms only--mineral,  plant  and
animal.

   The  lowest class in the Moon Period composed the new life  stream  which
there commenced its evolution.   It formed the hardest mineral part,  yet it
must be borne in mind that it was by no means as hart as the mineral of  the
present time, but only about as dense as our wood.


[PAGE 227]                                          STRAGGLERS AND NEWCOMERS

   This  statement does not contradict former ones which described the  Moon
as watery, nor does it conflict with diagram 8, showing the densest Globe in
the Moon Period as located in the Etheric Region, which is etheric.   As be-
fore stated, the fact that the past of evolution is spiral prevents any con-
dition ever being duplicated.   There are similarities,  but never reproduc-
tions  of  identical  conditions.   It is not always  possible  to  describe
conditions  in exact terms.   The best available term is used to  convey  an
idea of the conditions existing at the time under consideration.

   Class 5 in our list was nearly mineral,  yet on account of having  passed
through and beyond the mineral condition during the Sun Period,  it had some
plant characteristics.

   Class  4 was almost plant and did evolve to a plant before the  close  of
the Mood Period.  It was, however, more nearly allied to the mineral kingdom
that the next two classes,  which formed the higher kingdom.   We may there-
fore  group  classes 4 and 5 together,  as forming a sort of  half  step,  a
"mineral-plant" kingdom, which composed the surface of the ancient planet of
the Moon Period.   It was something like our present peat,  which is also  a
state between the mineral and the plant.   It was soggy and wet,  consistent
with the statement that the Moon Period was watery.

   Thus  the fourth,  fifth and sixth classes composed the different  grada-
tions  of the mineral kingdom in the Moon Period--the highest  being  nearly
plant and the lowest the hardest mineral substance of that time.

   Classes  2 and 3 formed the plant kingdom,  though they were both  really
more than plants, yet were not quite animal.  They grew in the mineral-plant
soil;  they  were  stationary  like  plants;  yet  they could not have grown


[PAGE 228]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

in a purely mineral soil, as our plants do now.   Good examples of what they
were  life  may be found in our parasitic plants,  which cannot  grow  in  a
purely mineral soil, but seek the food already specialized by the real plant
or tree.

   Class 1 was composed of the pioneers of the life wave of virgin  spirits.
In the Moon Period they were going through a sort of animal-like  existence.
Yet  they were like the animals of our time only in so far as they  had  the
same vehicles and were under the control of a group-spirit,  which  included
the  whole human family.   In appearance they were very different  from  our
present animals,  as shown by the partial description given in the  previous
chapter.   They did not touch the surface of the planet,  but  floated  sus-
pended by umbilical-like cords.   Instead of lungs they had a gill-like  ap-
paratus through which they breathed the hot steamy "fire-fog."   These  fea-
tures of the Moon existence are still recapitulated by the embryo during the
period  of gestation.   At certain stages of development it has  the  gills.
The Moon beings at that time had also the  horizontal spine of the animal.

   During the Moon Period several more divisions of classes occurred than in
the preceding periods,  because they were, of course,  stragglers who failed
to keep abreast of the crestwave of evolution.   As a result there were,  at
the beginning of the Earth Period,  5 classes,  some of them containing sev-
eral divisions,  as diagram l0 will show.   These divisions occurred at  the
following times and for the following reasons:

   In  the  middle  of the fifth Revolution of the  Moon  Period,  when  the
Seraphim  bestowed  the germ of the human spirit upon the pioneers  who  had
fitted themselves to pass on, some were  found  wanting  when weighed in the


[PAGE 229]                                          STRAGGLERS AND NEWCOMERS

balance and therefore unfit to receive the spiritual impulse which  awakened
the threefold spirit.

   In  the sixth Revolution of the Moon Period the Cherubim  reappeared  and
vivified the life spirit of those who had been left behind in the Sun Period
but  had  since reached the necessary stage of development (Class 2  in  our
previous list),  and also in those stragglers of the Sun Period who had  now
evolved  a  vital  body during their plant existence  in  the  Moon  Period.
(These latter were class 3 in the previous list.)

   Class 4 in the previous list had been going through a low stage of  plant
existence; nevertheless the majority of them had evolved the vital body suf-
ficiently to allow of the awakening of the life spirit.

   Thus,  the three last named all possessed the same vehicles at the begin-
ning of the Earth Period, although only the two first named (class 3a and 3b
in diagram l0) belong to our life wave, and have a chance of even yet  over-
taking  us  if  they pass the critical point which will  come  in  the  next
Revolution  of the Earth Period.   Those who cannot pass that point will  be
heal over until some future evolution reaches a stage where they can drop in
and proceed with their development in a new human period.   They will be de-
barred  from going forward with our humanity because it will be advanced  so
far  beyond their status that it would prove a serious clog to our  progress
to drag them along.   They will not be destroyed, but simply held in waiting
for another period of evolution.

   Progression  with  our present wave of evolution is what  is  meant  when
"salvation"  is spoken of in the Christian religion,  and it is something to
be earnestly sought, for though the "eternal damnation" of those who are not
"saved"   does   not   mean   destruction   nor   endless   torture,  it  is


[PAGE 230]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

                                DIAGRAM 10

   
  (Showing the different classes of the several life waves which are  evolv-
ing in the four kingdoms of the earth;  their status AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
EARTH  PERIOD  and  the vehicles they THEN possessed; also their recent sta-
tus.)


[PAGE 231]                                          STRAGGLERS AND NEWCOMERS

nevertheless a very serious matter to be held in a state of inertia for  in-
conceivable milliards of years, before a new evolution shall have progressed
to such a stage that those who fail here can have an opportunity to proceed.
The spirit is not conscious of the lapse of time,  but it is none the less a
serious loss,  and there must also be feeling of unhomelikeness when at last
such spirits find themselves in a new evolution.

   So far as the present humanity is concerned, that possibility is so small
as to be almost negligible.   It is said, however,  that of the total number
of virgin spirits which started evolution in the Saturn Period,  only  about
three-fifths will pass that critical point in the next Revolution and go  on
to the end.

   The greatest apprehension of occult scientists is materialism,  which  if
carried too far,  not only prevents progress but will destroy all the  seven
vehicles of the virgin spirit, leaving it naked.  Such an one will then have
to commence at the very beginning of the new evolution.  All the work it has
done since the dawn of the Saturn Period will have been utterly wasted.  For
this  reason,  the present period is to our humanity,  the most critical  of
all.   Therefore occult scientists speak of the Sixteen Races,  of which the
Germano-Anglo-Saxon is one,  as "the sixteen possibilities for destruction."
May the reader safely pass them all, for their grip is worse than the retar-
dation in the next Revolution.

   Speaking generally,  class 5 in the foregoing list was given the germ  of
the divine spirit during the seventh Revolution, when the Lords of Flame re-
appeared.   Therefore  they were pioneers of the last  life  wave,  entering
evolution at the Moon Period.  They passed their  mineral  existence  there.


[PAGE 232]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

The  stragglers  of  that  life wave were thus  left with only the germ of a
dense body.

   In  addition to the above,  there was also a new life wave  (our  present
mineral  kingdom) entering upon its evolution at the beginning of the  Earth
Period.

   At  the  end of the Moon Period these classes possessed the  vehicles  as
they are classified in diagram 10, and started with them in the beginning of
the Earth Period.   During the time which has elapsed since then,  the human
kingdom  has been evolving the link of mind,  and has thereby attained  full
waking consciousness.  The animals have obtained a desire body, the plants a
vital body; the stragglers of life wave entered evolution in the Moon Period
have  escaped the hard and fast conditions of rock soils;  while  life  wave
that  entered  evolution here in the Earth Period forms the hard  rocks  and
stones.

   Thus have the different classes obtained the vehicles ascribed to them in
diagram 3, to which the reader is referred.


[PAGE 233]                                                  THE EARTH PERIOD

                                CHAPTER X.

                             THE EARTH PERIOD.

   The Globes of the Earth Period are located in the four densest states  of
matter--the Region of Concrete Thought, the Desire World,  the Etheric,  and
the  Chemical Regions (See Diagram 8).   The densest Globe (Globe D) is  our
present Earth.

   When we speak of "the DENSEST Worlds"  or "the DENSEST states of matter,"
the  term  must be taken in a relative sense.   Otherwise it would  imply  a
limitation in the absolute,  and that is absurd.   Dense and attenuated,  up
and down,  east and west,  are applicable only relatively to our own  status
and position.   As there are higher,  finer Worlds than those touched by our
life wave,  so there are also denser states of matter which are the field of
evolution  for other classes of beings.   Nor must it be thought that  these
denser worlds are elsewhere in space; they are interpenetrated by our worlds
in  a manner similar to that in which the higher Worlds interpenetrate  this
Earth.  The  fancied  solidity  of  the  Earth  and  the forms we see are no
bar to the passage of a denser body any more than out solid sense walls  bar
the passage of a human being clothed in his desire body.   Neither is solid-
ity  synonymous  with density,  as may be illustrated by aluminum,  a  solid
which  is less dense than the fluidic mercury;  nevertheless the latter,  in
spite of its density, will evaporate or exude through many solids.

   This being the fourth Period, we have at  present  four elements.  In the


[PAGE 234]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Saturn Period there was but one element,  Fire--i.e.,  there was warmth,  or
heat,  which is incipient fire.  In the second, or Sun Period, there were to
elements,  Fire and Air.   In the third,  or Moon Period,  there were  three
elements,  Water being added; and in the fourth, or Earth Period,  was added
the  fourth element,  Earth.   Thus it will be seen that a new  element  was
added for each Period.

   In  the  Jupiter Period an element of a spiritual nature will  be  added,
which  will unite with the speech so that words will invariable  carry  with
them  understanding--not misunderstanding,  as is frequently the  case  now.
For instance, when one says "house," he may mean a cottage, while the hearer
may get the idea of a tenement flat building.

   To this environment of the four elements, as specified above, the differ-
ent classes mentioned in diagram 10 were brought over by the Hierarchies  in
charge  of them.   We remember that in the Moon Period these classes  formed
three kingdoms--animal, animal-plant and plant-mineral.  Here on Earth, how-
ever,  the conditions are such that there can be no large half-way  classes.
There  must  be four distinctly different kingdoms.   In  this  crystallized
phase  of existence the lines between them must be more sharply  drawn  than
was the case in former Periods,  where one kingdom gradually merged into the
next.   Therefore  some  of the classes mentioned in  diagram   10  advanced
one-half step, while others went back a half a step.

   Some of the mineral-plants advanced completely into the plant kingdom and
became  the verdure of the fields.   Others went down and became the  purely
mineral soil in which the plants grew.   Of the plant-animals some  advanced
into the animal kingdom, ahead of time,  and  those  species  have  yet  the


[PAGE 235]                                                  THE EARTH PERIOD

colorless plant-blood and some,  like star-fishes, have even the five points
like the petals of flowers.

   All  of class 2 whose desire bodies could be divided into two  parts  (as
was  the case with all of class 1) were fitted to become human vehicles  and
were therefore advanced into the human group.

   We  must carefully remember that in the above paragraphs we  are  dealing
with Form,  not with the Life which dwells in the Form.   The instrument  is
graded to suit the life that is to dwell in it.  Those of class 2,  in whose
vehicles the above mentioned division could be made were raised to the human
kingdom,  but were given the indwelling spirit at a point in time later than
class 1.   Hence, they are not now so far evolved as class 1, and are there-
fore the lower races of mankind.

   Those  whose desire bodies were incapable of division were put  into  the
same division as classes 3a and 3b.  They are our present anthropoids.  They
may yet overtake our evolution if they reach a sufficient degree of advance-
ment  before the critical point already mentioned,  which will come  in  the
middle  of the fifth Revolution.   If they do not overtake us by that  time,
they will have lost touch with our evolution.

   It  was said that man had built his threefold body by the help of  others
higher than he, but in the previous Period there was no co-ordinating power;
the  threefold spirit,  the Ego,  was separate and apart from its  vehicles.
Now the time had come to unit the spirit and the body.

   Where the desire body separated,  the higher part become somewhat  master
over the lower part and over the dense and vital bodies.   It formed a  sort
of animal-soul with which the spirit could  unit  by  means  of  the link of


[PAGE 236]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

mind.  Where there was no division of the desire body, the vehicle was given
over to desires and passions without any check,  and could therefore not  be
used as a vehicle WITHIN which the spirit could dwell.   So it was put under
the  control of a group-spirit which ruled if from WITHOUT.   It  became  an
animal body,  and that kind was now degenerated into the body of the anthro-
poid.

   Where there was a division of the desire body,  the dense body  gradually
assumed  a vertical position,  thus taking the spine out of  the  horizontal
currents of the Desire World in which the group-spirit acts upon the  animal
through the horizontal spine.  The Ego could then enter, work in and express
itself  through the vertical spine and build the vertical larynx  and  brain
for its adequate expression in the dense body.   A horizontal larynx is also
under  the  domination  of the group-spirit.  While it  is  true  that  some
animals,  as the starling, raven, parrot,  etc.,  previously mentioned,  are
able,  because of the possession of a vertical larynx, to UTTER words,  they
cannot use them understandingly.  THE USE OF WORDS TO EXPRESS THOUGHT IS THE
HIGHEST  HUMAN PRIVILEGE and can be exercised only by a reasoning,  thinking
entity like man.   If the student will keep this in mind,  it will be easier
to follow the different steps which lead up to this result.

                THE SATURN REVOLUTION OF THE EARTH PERIOD.

   This is the Revolution during which,  in each Period.  the dense body  is
reconstructed.   This time it was given the ability to form a brain and  be-
come a vehicle for the germ of mind which was to be added later.  This addi-
tion  constituted the final reconstruction of the dense body,  rendering  it
capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency possible to such a ve-
hicle.

   Unspeakable Wisdom has  been  employed  in  its  construction.  It  is  a


[PAGE 237]                                                  THE EARTH PERIOD

marvel.  It can never be sufficiently impressed upon the mind of the student
what  immeasurable facilities for the gaining of knowledge are contained  in
this  instrument,  and what a great boon it is to man;  how much  he  should
prize it and how thankful he should be to have it.

   Some examples of the perfection of construction intelligent  adaptability
displayed  in this instrument have previously been given,  but in  order  to
further impress this great truth upon the mind of the student,  it might not
be out of place to illustrate more fully this Wisdom,  also the work of  the
Ego in the blood.

   It  is generally know,  in a vague kind of way,  that the gastric  juices
acts upon the food to promote assimilation; but only a very few people, out-
side of the medical profession, are aware that there are many different gas-
tric  juices,  each appropriate to the treatment of a certain kind of  food.
The researches of Pavloff,  however, have established the fact beyond doubt,
that there is one kind of juice for the digestion of meat, another for milk,
another for acid fruit,  etc.  That fact, by the way,  is the reason why all
foods do not mix well.  Milk, for instance, requires a gastric juice that is
widely different from almost any other kind except that required for the di-
gestion  of starchy foods,  and is not readily digested with any food  other
than cereals.   This alone would show marvelous wisdom; that the Ego working
subconsciously is able to select the different juices which are  appropriate
to the different kinds of food taken into the stomach,  making each of  just
the right strength and quantity to digest the food.   What makes the  matter
still more wonderful,  however, is the fact that the gastric juice is poured
into the stomach in ADVANCE of the food.


[PAGE 238]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

   We do not consciously direct the process of mixing this fluid.  The great
majority of people know nothing of metabolism or any other phrase of chemis-
try.  So it is not enough to say that, as we taste what is coming, we direct
the process by means of signals through the nervous system.

   When  this fact of the selection of juices was first  proven,  scientists
were sorely puzzled trying to learn how the right kind of juice was selected
and  caused to enter the stomach BEFORE the food.   They thought the  signal
was  given along the nervous system.  But it was demonstrated  beyond  doubt
that the proper juice was poured into to the stomach even though the nervous
system was blocked.

   At last Starling and Bayliss, in a series of experiments of brilliant in-
genuity,  proved  that infinitesimal parts of the food are taken up  by  the
blood as soon as the good enters the mouth,  go in advance to the  digestive
glands and cause a flow of the proper juice.

   This again,  is only the physical side of the phenomena.   To  understand
the whole wonderful connection, we must turn to occult science.   That alone
explains why the signal is carried by the blood.

   The blood is one of the highest expressions of the vital body.   The  Ego
guides  and controls its dense instrument by means of the  blood,  therefore
the blood is also the means used to act on the nervous system.   During some
of the time that digestion is going on,  it acts partially through the  ner-
vous system,  but (especially at the commencement of the digestive  process)
it acts directly upon the stomach.  When, during scientific experiments, the
nerves were blocked, the direct way through the blood was still open and the
Ego derived the necessary information in that way.

   It  will  also  be  seen  that  the  blood  is driven to wherever the Ego


[PAGE 239]                                                  THE EARTH PERIOD

unfolds the greatest activity at any time.   If a situation requires  sudden
though  and action,  the blood is promptly driven to the head.   If a  heavy
meal  is  to be digested the greater portion of the blood leaves  the  head,
centering around the digestive organs.  The Ego concentrate s its efforts on
ridding the body of the useless food.  Therefore a man cannot think well af-
ter  a heavy meal.   He is sleepy because so much blood has left  the  brain
that the residue is insufficient to carry on the functions necessary to full
waking consciousness,  besides,  nearly all the vital fluid or solar  energy
specialized by the spleen is absorbed by the blood rushing through that  or-
gan after a meal in greater volume than between meals.  Thus the rest of the
system is also deprived of the vital fluid in a large measure during  diges-
tion.   It  is the Ego that drives the blood into the brain.   Whenever  the
body goes to sleep, the table will invariably tip towards the feet,  raising
the head.  During coition the blood is centered in the sex organs, etc.  All
these examples tend to prove that during the waking hours,  the Ego works in
and  controls the dense body by means of the blood.   The larger portion  of
the total amount goes to that part of the body where at any given time,  the
Ego unfolds any particular activity.

   The  reconstruction  of the dense body in the Saturn  Revolution  of  the
Earth   Period   was   for  the  purpose  of   rendering   it   capable   of
inter-penetration by the mind.  It gave the first impulse to the building of
the  frontal part of the brain;  also the incipient division in the  nervous
system  which has since become apparent in its  subdivisions--the  voluntary
and the sympathetic.   The latter was the only one provided for in the  Moon
Period.  The voluntary nervous system  (which has transformed the dense body


[PAGE 240]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

from a mere automation acting under stimuli from without,  to an  extraordi-
nary  adaptable instrument capable of being guided and controlled by an  Ego
from within) was not added until the present Earth Period.

   The  principal  art of the reconstructive work was done by the  Lords  of
Form.  They are the Creative Hierarchy which is most active in the Earth Pe-
riod,  as were the Lords of Flame in the Saturn Period,  the Lords of Wisdom
in the Sun Period, and the Lords of Individuality in the Moon Period.

   The Earth Period is pre-eminently the Period of Form,  for there the form
or matter side of evolution reaches its greatest and most pronounced  state.
Here  spirit is more helpless and suppressed and Form is the  most  dominant
factor--hence the prominence of the Lords of Form.

                  THE SUN REVOLUTION OF THE EARTH PERIOD.

   During  this Revolution the vital body was reconstructed  to  accommodate
the germinal mind.  The vital body was fashioned more in the likeness of the
dense  body,  so that it could become fitted for use as the densest  vehicle
during the Jupiter Period,  when the dense body will have become  spiritual-
ized.

   The Angels,  the humanity of the Moon Period,  were aided by the Lords of
Form in reconstruction.   The organization of the vital body is now next  in
efficiency to the dense body.   Some writers on this subject call the formed
a link,  and contend that it is simply a mold of the dense body,  and not  a
separate vehicle.

   While  not desiring to criticise,  and admitting that this contention  is
justified  by the fact that man,  at his present stage of evolution,  cannot
ORDINARILY use the vital body  as  a  separate  vehicle--because  it  always


[PAGE 241]                                                  THE EARTH PERIOD

remains  with the dense body and to extract it IN TOTO would cause death  of
the dense body--yet there was a time when it was not so firmly  incorporated
with the latter, as we shall presently see.

   During  those epochs of our Earth's history which have already been  men-
tioned as the Lemurian and the Atlantean, man was involuntarily clairvoyant,
and it was precisely this looseness of connection between the dense and  the
vital bodies that made him so.  (The Initiators of that time helped the can-
didate to loosen the connection still further, as in the voluntary clairvoy-
ant.

   Since then the vital body has become much more firmly interwoven with the
dense body in the majority of people, but in all sensitives it is loose.  It
is  that looseness which constitutes the difference between the psychic  and
the  ordinary person who is unconscious of all but the vibrations  contacted
by means of the five senses.  All human beings have to pass through this pe-
riod  of  close  connection of the vehicles and  experience  the  consequent
limitation  of  consciousness.    There  are,  therefore,   two  classes  of
sensitives, those who have not become firmly enmeshed in matter, such as the
majority of the Hindus,  the Indians, etc.,  who possess a certain low grade
of clairvoyance, or are sensitive to the sounds of nature, and those who are
i the vanguard of evolution.   The latter are merging from the acme of mate-
riality,  and are again divisible into two kind,  one of which develops in a
passive, weak-willed manner.  By the help of others they re-awaken the solar
plexus  or other organs in connection with the involuntary  nervous  system.
These are therefore involuntary clairvoyants, mediums who have no control of
their faculty.   They have retrograded.   The other kind is made up of those



[PAGE 242]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

who by their own wills  unfold  the  vibratory powers of the organs now con-
nected with the voluntary nervous system and thus become trained occultists,
controlling  their own bodies and exercising the clairvoyant faculty as they
will to do.   They are called voluntary or trained clairvoyants.

   In the Jupiter Period man will function in his vital body as he now  does
in his dense body; and as no development in nature is sudden, the process of
separating the two bodies has already commenced.   The vital body will  then
attain a much higher degree of efficiency than the dense body of today.   As
it is a much more pliable vehicle, the spirit will then be able to use it in
a manner impossible of realization in the case of the present dense vehicle.

                 THE MOON REVOLUTION OF THE EARTH PERIOD.

   Here the Moon Period was recapitulated, and much the same conditions pre-
vailed (on an advanced scale) as obtained on Globe D of that Period.   There
was the same kind of fire-fog atmosphere; the same fiery core the same divi-
sion of the Globe into two parts,  in order to allow the more highly evolved
beings a chance to progress at the proper rate and pace,  which it would  be
impossible for beings such as our humanity to equal.

   In  that Revolution the Archangels (humanity of the Sun Period)  and  the
Lords of Form took charge of the reconstruction of the desire body, but they
were  not  alone in that work.   When the separation of the Globe  into  two
parts occurred, there was a similar division in the desire bodies of some of
the  evolving beings.   We have already noted that where this division  took
place, the form as ready to become the vehicle of an INdwelling spirit,  and
in  order to further this purpose the Lords of Mind (humanity of the  Saturn
Period) took possession of the higher part of the desire  body and implanted


[PAGE 243]                                                  THE EARTH PERIOD

in it the separate selfhood, without which the present man with all his glo-
rious possibilities, could never have existed.

   Thus in the latter part if the Moon Revolution the first germ of separate
personality was implanted in the higher part of the desire body by the Lords
of Mind.

   The  Archangels were active in the lower part of the desire body,  giving
it the purely animal desires.   They also worked in the desire bodies  where
there  was no division.   Some of these were to become the vehicles  of  the
animal  group-spirits,  which work on them from without,  but do  not  enter
wholly into the animal forms,  as the individual spirit does into the  human
body.

   The desire body was reconstructed to render it capable of being interpen-
etrated  by the germinal mind which,  during the Earth Period,  will be  im-
planted  in  all those desire bodies in which it was possible  to  make  the
before-mentioned division.

   As  has  been previously explained,  the desire body  is  an  unorganized
ovoid, holding the dense body as a dark spot within its center, as the white
of  an egg surrounds the yolk.   There are a number of sense centers in  the
ovoid,  which have appeared since the beginning of the Earth Period.  In the
average  human being these centers appear merely as eddies in a current  and
are not now awake,  hence his desire body is of no use to him as a  SEPARATE
vehicle of consciousness;  but when the sense centers are awakened they look
like whirling vortices.

                     REST PERIODS BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS.

   Hitherto  we have noted only the Cosmic Nights between Periods.   We  saw
that  there was an interval of rest and assimilation between the Saturn  and
the sun Periods; another Cosmic Night between the  Sun and the Moon Periods,


[PAGE 244]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

etc.   But in addition to these,  there are also rests between  the  Revolu-
tions.

   We might liken the Periods to the different incarnations of man; the Cos-
mic Nights between them to the intervals between deaths and new births;  and
the  rest between Revolutions would then analogous to the rest of sleep  be-
tween two days.

   When  a Cosmic Night sets in,  all manifested things are resolved into  a
homogenous mass--the Cosmos again becomes Chaos.

   This periodical return of matter to primordial substance is what makes it
possible for the spirit to evolve.  Were the crystallizing process of active
manifestation to continue indefinitely would offer an insurmountable barrier
to the progress of Spirit.  Every time matter has crystallized to such a de-
gree  that it becomes too hard for the spirit to work in,  the latter  with-
draws  to  recuperate  its exhausted energy, on the same  principle  that  a
power-drill  which has stopped when boring in hard metals,  is withdrawn  to
regain  its  momentum.   It is then able to bore its way  further  into  the
metal.

   Freed from the crystallizing every of the evolving spirits,  the chemical
forces in matter turn Cosmos to Chaos by restoring matter to its  primordial
state, that a new start may be made by the regenerated virgin spirits at the
dawn of a new Day of Manifestation.  The experience gained in formed Periods
and  Revolutions enables the Spirit to build up to the point  last  reached,
with  comparative celerity,  also to facilitate further progress  by  making
such alterations as its cumulative experience dictates.

   Thus  at  the  end of the Moon Revolution of the Earth  Period,  all  the
Globes  and  all  life  returned  to  Chaos,  re-emerging  therefrom  at the


[PAGE 245]                                                  THE EARTH PERIOD

beginning of the fourth Revolution.

                THE FOURTH REVOLUTION OF THE EARTH PERIOD.

   In the exceeding complexity of the scheme of evolution,  there are always
spirals within spirals, AD INFINITUM.  So it will not be surprising to learn
that  in every Revolution the work of recapitulation and rest is applied  to
the  different  Globes.   When the life wave reappeared on Globe A  in  this
Revolution,  it went though the development of the Saturn Period; then after
a rest which, however did not involve the complete destruction of the Globe;
but only an alteration,  it appeared on Globe B,  where the work of the  Sun
Period  was recapitulated.   Then after a rest,  the life wave passed on  to
Globe C,  and the work of the Moon Period was repeated.   Finally,  the life
wave  arrived on Globe D,  which is our Earth,  and not until then  did  the
proper work of the Earth Period begin.

   Even then,  the spiral within the spiral precluded its beginning  immedi-
ately on the arrival of the life wave from Globe C,  for the bestowal of the
germ of mind did not actually take place until the fourth Epoch,  the  first
three Epochs being still further recapitulations of the Saturn, Sun and Moon
Periods, but always on a higher scale.
[PAGE 246]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

                                CHAPTER XI.

               THE GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM.

                                  CHAOS.

   In  the previous pages nothing has been said about our Solar System,  and
of  different planets which compose it,  because it was not until the  Earth
Period was reached that the present differentiation was made.  The Earth Pe-
riod is the acme of diversification,  and although we have been speaking  of
only one class of virgin spirits--those who,  in the strictest and most lim-
ited  sense,  are concerned with the Earth evolution--there are  in  reality
seven "Rays" or streams of life, all pursuing different evolutions,  yet all
belonging to the original class of virgin spirits to which our humanity  be-
longs.

   In the previous Periods all of these different sub-classes or Rays  found
a suitable environment for their evolution on the same planet.  But,  in the
Earth Period, conditions became such that in order to provide for each class
the  degree of heat and the vibration necessary for its particular phase  of
evolution,  they were segregated on different planets,  at varying distances
from the Sun--the central source of life.  This is the RAISON D'ETRE of  our
System and all other Solar Systems in the Universe.

   Before  proceeding with the description of evolution of our  humanity  on
the Earth after its separation from the central Sun, it is necessary for the
maintenance of sequential order in the description to explain the  differen-
tiation which scattered the planets of our System in space.


[PAGE 247]                             GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SOLAR SYSTEM

   Active  manifestation--particularly in the Physical  World--depends  upon
separateness;  upon the limitation of life by form.   But during the interim
between Periods and Revolutions the marked distinction between form and life
ceases.   This applies not only to man and the lower kingdoms,  but  to  the
Worlds  and Globes which are the basis of form for the evolving life.   Only
the  seed-atoms  and the nuclei or centers of the  World-Globes  remain--all
else is one homogenous substance.   There is but one Spirit pervading space.
Life and Form, its positive and negative poles, are one.

   This state of things was what Greek mythology described as "Chaos."   The
ancient Norsemen and the Teutonic mythology call it "Ginnungagap," which was
bounded upon the northern side by the cold and foggy "Niflheim"--the land of
mist and fog--and upon the south side by the fire "Muspelheim."   When  heat
and cold entered into space which was occupied by Chaos or Ginnungagap, they
caused the crystallization of the visible universe.

   The Bible also gives on the idea of infinite space preceding the activity
of the Spirit.

   In  our present materialistic period we have unfortunately lost the  idea
of all that lies behind that word Space.   We are so accustomed to  speaking
of "empty" space, that we have entirely lost the grand and holy significance
of the word,  and are thus incapable of feeling the reverence that this idea
of Space and Chaos should inspire in our breasts.

   To the Rosicrucians,  as to any occult school,  there is no such thing as
empty or void space.  To them SPACE IS SPIRIT in its attenuated form;  while
MATTER  IS CRYSTALLIZED SPACE OR SPIRIT.   Spirit is manifestation is  dual,
that   which   we   see   as  Form  is   the   negative   manifestation   of
Spirit--crystallized  and  inert.  The  positive pole of Spirit manifests as


[PAGE 248]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Life,  galvanizing  the negative Form into action,  but both Life  and  Form
originated in Spirit, Space, Chaos!

   To get an idea from everyday life which will illustrate,  we may take the
hatching  of  an egg.   The egg is filled with a moderately  viscous  fluid.
This fluid, or moisture, is subjected to heat, and out of the soft,  fluidic
substance  comes  a living chick,  with hard bones  and  comparatively  hard
flesh, and with down that has a comparatively hard quill, etc.

   When a living chick can come out of the inert fluid of an egg without the
addition of any hardening substance from outside,  is it a far-fetched  idea
to  claim that the universe is crystallized Space or Spirit?   There is  not
doubt that the claim will seem foolish to many; but this book is not for the
purpose of convincing the world at large that these things ARE.   It is  in-
tended  to  aid those who inherently feel that these things must be  and  to
help them to see the light upon this great World-mystery,  which the  writer
has been permitted to behold.  The special object at present is to show that
Spirit is active all the time--in one way during Manifestation,  and in  an-
other during Chaos.

   Modern science would sneer at the idea that life could exist upon A Globe
which is in the process of formation.   That is because science cannot  dis-
sociate  Life  and  Form and cannot conceive of Form  except  as  solid  and
tangible--cognizable by one of our five physical senses.

   The  occult scientist,  in accordance with the above definitions of  Life
and Form, holds that life may exist independently of Concrete Form; may have
Forms  not  perceptible  to  our  present  limited  senses,  and amenable to


[PAGE 249]                             GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SOLAR SYSTEM

to none of the laws which apply to this present concrete state  of matter.

   It is true that the Nebular Theory holds that all existence (which is  to
say all Form, the Worlds in Space and whatever Forms there may be upon them)
has come from the fiery nebular;  but it does not recognize further fact in-
sisted upon by occult science--that the fiery nebula is Spirit.  It does not
admit that the whole atmosphere around us, the space between the worlds,  is
Spirit and that there is a constant interchange going on all the  time--Form
dissolving into Space, and Space crystallizing into Form.

   Chaos  is not a state which has existed in the past and has now  entirely
disappeared.   It is all around us at the present moment.   Were it not that
old  forms--having outlived their usefulness--are constantly being  resolved
back into that Chaos, which is also as constantly giving birth to new forms,
there could be no progress; the work of evolution would cease and stagnation
would prevent the possibility of advancement.

   It  is  axiomatic that "The oftener we die,  the better  we  live."   The
Poet-Initiate, Geothe says:

   Who has not this--
   Ever dying and bringing to birth--
   Will aye remain a sorry guest
   Upon this dismal earth.

and Paul says "I die daily."

   Therefore, as students of occult science, it is necessary to realize that
even  during  active manifestation,  IT IS CHAOS THAT IS THE  BASIS  OF  ALL
PROGRESS.  Our life during Chaos is based upon our life in active manifesta-
tion,  and  vice versa,  i.e.,  what we are able to  achieve  during  active
manifestation, and the ability to progress at all,  is  the  result  of  the


[PAGE 250]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

existence in Chaos.  The interim between Periods and Revolutions is in real-
ity  much more important to the growth of the soul that concrete  existence,
though  the latter is the basis of the former and therefore cannot  be  dis-
pensed with.   The importance of the Chaotic interim lives in the fact  that
during  that  period  the evolving entities of all classes  are  so  closely
united that they are really one;  consequently those which are of lower  de-
velopment  during manifestation are in closest contact with the more  highly
evolved,  thus experiencing and benefiting by a much higher  vibration  that
their own.  This enables them to live over and assimilate their past experi-
ences in a manner impossible when hampered by Form.

   We  have seen the benefit to the spirit in man from the  interim  between
death and a new birth.   There the form still exists,  though much more  at-
tenuated that the dense body;  but in the Cosmic Night and intervals of rest
between  Periods and Revolutions,  when there is perfect freedom from  form,
the beneficial results of past experiences can be much more effectively  as-
similated.

   We  have  a word which was originally coined to convey the  idea  of  the
state of things between manifestations.  This word,  however,  has been used
in  a  material  sense to such an extend that it has lost  its  primal  sig-
nificance.  That word is Gas.

   It may be thought that this is a very old word,  which has nearly  always
existed as a synonym for a state of matter lighter than liquids, but such is
not the case.   The word was first used in "Physica,"  a work which appeared
in 1633, the author of it being Helmont, a Rosicrucian.

   Helmont, did not call himself a Rosicrucian; no true Brother does so pub-
licly.  Only the Rosicrucian knows the brother  Rosicrucian.  Not  even  the


[PAGE 251]                             GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SOLAR SYSTEM

most intimate friends or relatives know of man's connection with the  order.
Those  only  who are Initiates themselves know the writers of the  past  who
were Rosicrucians,  because ever through their works shine the  unmistakable
words,  phrases and signs indicative of the deep meaning that remains hidden
from the non-Initiate.   The Rosicrucian Fellowship is composed of  students
of  the teachings of the Order.  which are now given publicly,  because  the
world's  intelligence is growing the the necessary point  of  comprehension.
This work is one of the first few fragments of the Rosicrucian knowledge be-
ing publicly given out.  All that has been printed as such,  previous to the
last few years, has been the work of either charlatans or traitors.

   Rosicrucians such as Paracelsus, Comenius, Bacon, Helmont and others gave
hints in their works and influenced others.   The great controversy concern-
ing  the  authorship of Shakespeare (which has to no avail blunted  so  many
goose-quills and wasted so much good ink that might have served useful ends)
would never have arisen had it been known that the similarity in Shakespeare
and Bacon is due to the fact that both were influenced by the same Initiate,
who also influenced Jacob Boehme and a pastor of Ingolstadt, Jacobus Baldus,
who lived subsequent to the death of the Bard of Avon, and wrote Latin lyric
verse.   If  the first poem of Jacob Baldus is read with a certain  key,  it
will be found that by reading down and up the lines,  the following sentence
will  appear:   "Hitherto I have spoken from across the sea by means of  the
drama; now I will express myself in lyrics."

   In  his "Physica,"  Helmont,  the Rosicrucian wrote:   "Ad  huc  spiritum
incognitum Gas voco," i.e., "This hitherto unknown Spirit I call Gas."  Fur-
ther on in the same work he says. "This vapor which I have called Gas is not


[PAGE 252]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

far removed from the Chaos the ancients spoke of."

   We must learn to think of Chaos as the Spirit of God,  which pervades ev-
ery part of infinity; it will then be seen in its true light,  as the occult
maxim puts it:   "Chaos is the seed-ground of the Cosmos,"  and we shall  no
longer wonder how "something can come out of nothing,"  because Space is not
synonymous with "nothing."  It holds within itself the germs of all that ex-
ists during a physical manifestation, yet not quite all;  for by the wedding
of  Chaos with Cosmos there is something new brought forth each time,  which
did not exist before; something that was not foreshown and latent.  The name
of that something is Genius--the cause of Epigenesis.

   It appears in all kingdoms.   It is the expression of progressive  spirit
in man,  animal and plant.  Chaos is therefore a holy name; a name that sig-
nifies the Cause of all we see in Nature and inspires a feeling of  devotion
in every tried,  true and trained occultist.   He regards the visible  sense
world as a revelation of the hidden potentialities of the Chaos.

                         THE BIRTH OF THE PLANETS.

   To express himself in the dense physical world,  it was necessary for man
to evolve a suitable dense body.   In a world like this he must have a  body
with limbs, organs, a muscular system by means of which to move about;  also
a brain to direct and co-ordinate his movements.  If the conditions had been
different the body would have been modified accordingly.

   It is necessary for all beings, high or low in the scale of existence, to
possess  vehicles for expression in any particular world in which  they  may
wish to manifest.  Even the Seven Spirits before  The  Throne  must  possess


[PAGE 252a]                                     ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

          DIAGRAM 11: THE 1, 3, 7, AND 10 ASPECTS OF GOD AND MAN


[PAGE 253]                             GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SOLAR SYSTEM

these  necessary vehicles,  which of course are differently conditioned  for
each of Them.   Collectively,  They are God, and make up the Triune Godhead,
and He manifests in a different way through each of Them.

   There is no contradiction in ascribing different numbers to God.   We  do
not sin against the "oneness"  of light because we distinguish three primary
colors  into which it divides itself.   The white light of the Sun  contains
the  seven colors of the spectrum.  The occultists sees even twelve  colors,
there being five between red and violet--going one way around the circle--in
addition to the red,  orange, yellow, green, etc.,  of the visible spectrum.
Four of these colors are quite indescribable,  but the fifth--the middle one
of the five--is similar to the tint of a new blown peach blossom.   It is in
fact the color of the vital body.   Trained clairvoyants who describe it  as
"bluish-grey,"  or "reddish-grey," etc., are trying to describe a color that
has no equivalent in the physical world; and they are therefore compelled to
use the nearest descriptive terms afforded by our language.

   Perhaps Color will enable us to realize the oneness of God with the Seven
Spirits before The Throne better than anything else.  WE will therefore turn
to diagram 11.

   We see here a white triable looming up from a dark background.   White is
synthetic,  containing all colors within itself, as God contains within Him-
self all things in the Solar System.

   Within  the  white triangle are a blue, a red and a yellow  circle.   All
other  colors are simply combinations of these three primary colors.   These
circles correspond to the three aspects of God, which are without beginning,
and end IN GOD; though externalized only during active manifestation.


[PAGE 254]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

                           TABLE OF VIBRATIONS*

            Whose Effects are Recognized and Studied by Science

     1st Octave.........................................2
      2d Octave.........................................4
      3d Octave.........................................8

     4th Octave........................................16
     5th Octave........................................32
     6th Octave........................................64
     7th Octave.......................................128
     8th Octave.......................................256    Sound.
     9th Octave.......................................512
    10th Octave.....................................1,024
    15th Octave....................................32,768

    20th Octave.................................1,048,576    Unknown.

    25th Octave................................33,554,432
    30th Octave.............................1,073,741,824    Electricity.
    35th Octave............................34,359,738,368

    40th Octave.........................1,099,511,627,766
    45th Octave........................35,184,372,088,832    Unknown.

    46th Octave........................70,368,744,177,664
    47th Octave.......................140,737,488,355,328    Heat.
    48th Octave.......................281,474,976,710,656

    49th Octave.......................281,474,976,710,656    Light.

    50th Octave.....................1,125,899,906,842,624    Chemical Rays.

    51st Octave.....................2,251,799,813,685,248
    57th Octave...................144,115,188,075,855,872    Unknown.

    58th Octave...................288,230,376,151,711,744
    59th Octave...................576,460,752,303,423,488
    60th Octave.................1,152,921,504,606,846,976    X-Rays.
    61st Octave.................2,305,843,009,213,693,952

    62d  Octave.................4,611,686,018,427,387,904    Unknown.

*Taken  from  Professor  William Crooke's presidential  address  before  the
British Association for the Advancement of Science.


[PAGE 255]                             GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SOLAR SYSTEM

   When these three colors are interblended, as shown in the diagram,  there
appear four additional colors,  the three secondary colors--each due to  the
blending  of two primary colors--and one color (indigo) which  contains  the
entire  gamut  of colors,  making in all the seven colors of  the  spectrum.
These colors represent the Seven Spirits before the Throne.   The colors are
different, as are also the Seven Spirits, each having a different mission in
the Kingdom of God--our Solar System.

   The  seven  planets circling around the Sun are the dense bodies  of  the
Seven Planetary Genii.  Their names are:  Uranus with one satellite,  Saturn
with eight moons,  Jupiter with four moons,  Mars with two moons,  the Earth
and its moon, Venus and Mercury.*

   Bodies are always found to suit the purpose they are made to serve, hence
the dense bodies of the Seven Planetary Spirits are spherical, that form be-
ing  best  adapted to the enormous velocity with which they  travel  through
space.   The Earth, for instance, travels about 66,000 miles per hour in its
orbit.

   Man's  body had a different shape in the past from that of  the  present,
and  from that which it will have in the future.   During involution it  was
approximately spherical, as it still is during ante-natal life,  because the
intra-uterine development is recapitulation of past stages of evolution.  At
that  stage  the organism developed the sphere,  because  during  involution
man's energies were directed inward,  upon the building of its own vehicles,
as the embryo develops within the sphere of the uterus.

   Man's dense and vital bodies have straightened ,  but his higher vehicles
still retain their ovoid form.  In the dense  body,  the  co-ordinating  and



*Astronomical discoveries since the writing of  this book attribute 4 satel-
lites to Uranus, 9 to Saturn, and 11 to Jupiter. 




[PAGE 256]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

governing brain is situated at one extremity.   This is the most unfavorable
position  for  such an organ.   Too long time is required  for  impulses  to
travel from one extremity to the other--from the brain to the feet,  or  for
impacts on the feet to reach the brain.   In cases of burns,  for  instance,
science  has demonstrated that valuable time is lost,  the skin being  blis-
tered  before a message can be carried from the injured place to  the  brain
and back again.

   This inefficiency would be greatly lessened if the brain were in the cen-
ter of the body.  Sensations and the responses thereto could be more quickly
received and transmitted.  In the spherical planets the Planetary Spirit di-
rects FROM THE CENTER the movements of its vehicle.  In future man will bend
over,  as shown in diagram 12.  He will become a sphere, directing his ener-
gies outward because a spherical form affords the greatest facility for  mo-
tion in all directions, and indeed, for combination of simultaneous motions.

   The  Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception teaches that there is a further  evolu-
tion in store for planets.

   When  the beings upon a planet have evolved to a sufficient  degree,  the
planet becomes a Sun--the fixed center of a Solar System.   When the  beings
upon  it  have evolved to a still greater degree,  and consequently  it  has
reached its maximum brilliancy,  it breaks up into Zodiac,  becoming,  so to
speak, the womb for a new Solar System.

   Thus  the  great hosts of Divine Beings who,  until then,  were  confined
within that Sun, gain freedom of action upon a great number of stars, whence
they  can  affect in different ways the system which grows up  within  their
sphere of influence.  The planets, of man-bearing worlds,  within the Zodiac
are   constantly   being  worked  upon  by  these  forces,  but  in  various


[PAGE 257]                             GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SOLAR SYSTEM

                                DIAGRAM 12:

                MAN'S FORM OF BODY (PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE)


[PAGE 258]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

ways, according to the stage they have reached in evolution.

   Our Sun could not become a Sun until it had sent out from itself all  the
beings  who were not sufficiently evolved to endure the high rate of  vibra-
tion  and  the great luminousity of the beings who were qualified  for  that
evolution.   All the beings upon the different planets would have been  con-
sumed had they remained in the Sun.

   This visible Sun, however, though it is the place of evolution for Beings
vastly above man,  is not by many means the Father of the other planets,  as
material science supposes.   On the contrary, it is itself an emanation from
the Central Sun,  which is the invisible source of all that is in our  Solar
System.   Our visible Sun is but the mirror in which are reflected the  rays
of energy from the Spiritual Sun.   The real Sun is as invisible as the real
Man.

   Uranus  was  the first planet to be thrown off from the nebula  when  its
differentiation began in Chaos, at the dawn of the Earth Period.   There was
no light but the dim light of the Zodiac.  The life that left with Uranus is
of a rather backward strain and is said to evolve very, very slowly.

   Saturn was next differentiated.   It is the field of action for the  life
which is at the stage of evolution corresponding to the Saturn Period.  This
planet  was differentiated before the ignition of the nebula and  (like  all
nebula  when  passing through their Saturn Period of evolution)  was  not  a
source of light, but a reflector.

   Jupiter was differentiated shortly afterwards, when the nebula had become
ignited.   The heat of Jupiter is not so great as that of the Sun,  Venus or
Mercury, but on account of its immense bulk, it is capable of  retaining its


[PAGE 259]                             GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SOLAR SYSTEM

heat  and thus remains a suitable field of evolution for very  advanced  be-
ings.  It corresponds to the stage which will be reached by the Earth itself
in the Jupiter Period.

   Mars is a mystery,  and only a limited amount of information may be given
out.   We may say,  however, that the life on Mars is of a very backward na-
ture and that the so-called "canals"  are not excavations in the surface  of
the planet.   They are currents such as, during the Atlantean Epoch,  spread
over our planet,  and the remains of which can still be observed in the  Au-
rora  Borealis and the Aurora Australis.  The shifting of the  Martian  "ca-
nals"  noted by astronomers, is thus accounted for.  If they were really ca-
nals,  they could not possibly shift, but currents emanating from the  Poles
of Mars may do so.

   The Earth,  including the Moon, was next set out from the Sun,  and later
Venus and Mercury.  These and Mars will be referred to later,  in connection
with the evolution of man on the earth,  and need not be further  considered
at this time.

   When  a planet has Moons it indicates that there are some beings  in  the
life  wave  evolving  on that planet who are too backward to  share  in  the
evolution of the main life wave,  and they have therefore been set out  from
the  planet  to prevent them from hindering the progress  of  the  pioneers.
Such is the case with the beings inhabiting our Moon.   In the case of Jupi-
ter  it is thought probable that the inhabitants of three of its moons  will
eventually  be  able  to rejoin the life on the parent  planet,  but  it  is
thought  that at least one of the others is an eighth sphere,  like our  own
Moon, where retrogression and disintegration of the already acquired vehicle
will result from too close adherence to material existence  upon the part of


[PAGE 260]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

the evolving beings who have brought themselves to that deplorable end.

   Neptune  and its satellites do not properly belong to our  Solar  System.
The other planets--or rather their Spirits-- exercise an influence over  the
whole of humanity, but the influence of Neptune is largely restricted to one
particular class the astrologers.   The writer,  for instance,  has  several
times felt its compelling influence in a marked way.

   When  laggards  inhabiting a Moon have retrieved their position  and  re-
turned  to the parent planet;  or,  when continued retrogression has  caused
complete disintegration of their vehicles, the abandoned Moon also commences
to  dissolve.   The momentum of a spiritual impulse which propelled it in  a
fixed orbit for aeons, may endure for aeons after the Moon has been vacated,
and  from the physical point of view it may still seem to be a satellite  of
the planet in encircles.  As the time goes on, however, and the power of at-
traction exercised by the parent planet diminishes, its orbit widens,  until
it  reaches  the  limit  of our solar system.   It  is  then  expelled  into
interstellar space;  dissolved in Chaos.  The expulsion of these cinder-like
dead worlds is analogous to the manner in which hard and foreign bodies  im-
bedded  in  the human system make their way through the flesh to  the  skin.
The Asteroids illustrate this point.  They are fragments of Moons which once
encircled Venus and Mercury.   The beings once confined upon them are  known
in esotericism as "The Lords from Venus" and "The lords from Mercury;"  they
retrieved  their lost estate in a large measure by service to our  humanity,
as will be later described, and are now sage on their present planet,  while
the Moons they inhabited have partly disintegrated, and are already far out-
side the earth's orbit.  There are other "seeming" moons in our system,  but
the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception does not notice them,  as they are  outside
the pale of evolution.


[PAGE 261]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

                               CHAPTER XII.

                          EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH.

                            THE POLARIAN EPOCH.

   While  the material which now forms the Earth was yet a part of the  Sun,
it  was,  of  course in a fiery condition;  but as the fire  does  not  burn
spirit,  our human evolution commenced at once,  being confined particularly
to the Polar Region of the Sun.

   The  highest evolved beings which were to become human were the first  to
appear.   The substances which now from the Earth were all molten,  and  the
atmosphere now from the Earth were all molten,  and the atmosphere was  gas-
eous, yet man recapitulated his mineral stage anew.

   From that attenuated chemical substance of the sun man himself built  his
first mineral body, assisted by the Lords of Form.  If this statement is ob-
jected to on the ground that man could not build unconsciously,  the case of
the mother can be cited in answer.  Is she conscious of building the body of
the babe in her womb?  Yet surely no one will say that she has nothing to do
with  it!   The only difference is that the mother builds unconsciously  for
the babe; and man built unconsciously for himself.

   Man's first dense body did not even remotely resemble his present  splen-
didly  organized  vehicle.   That has been evolved only  in  the  course  of
myriads of years.   The first dense body was a large,  baggy object with  an
opening at the top, from which an organ projected.  This was a kind of organ


[PAGE 262]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

of  orientation and direction.   In the course of time the dense  body  drew
more  closely  together and condensed.   If it came too close to  places  of
greater heat than it could endure, it disintegrated.  In time the organ grew
sensitive  to the condition that threatened destruction and the  dense  body
automatically moved to a safer place.

   This  organ  has now degenerated into what is called  the  pineal  gland.
Sometimes it is called "the third eye," but that is a misnomer,  because  it
never was an eye, but rather the localized organ for the sensing of heat and
cold,  which faculty is now distributed over the entire dense body.   During
the Polarian Epoch this sense was thus localized,  as the sense of sight  is
now in the eye,  and that of hearing in the ear.  The extension of the sense
of  feeling  since that time indicates the manner in which the  entire  body
will be improved, so that at some future time any part of it will be able to
perceive all things.   The senses of sign and hearing will be extended  over
the entire body,  as the sense of feeling is now.  Them man will be all eyes
and ears.   Specialized sense organs indicate limitation.   Sense perception
by the whole is comparative perfection.

   At  the  early  stage of which we are now speaking there was  a  kind  of
propagation.   These immense baggy creatures divided in halves in  a  manner
similar  to  the division of cells by fission,  but the  separated  portions
would not grow, each remaining only half as large as the original form.

                          THE HYPERBOREAN EPOCH.

   At different points on the fiery globe there began in the course of  time
the formation of crust-islands in a sea of fire.

   The  Lords  of  Form  appeared,  with  the  Angels  (humanity of the Moon


[PAGE 263]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

Period), and clothed man's dense form with a vital body.  Those baggy bodies
then began to increase in size by drawing themselves material from the  out-
side osmosis,  as it were.  When they propagated, it was no longer by divid-
ing into halves,  but into two un-equal parts.   Both parts grew until  each
had attained the original size of the parent.

   As  the Polarian Epoch was really a recapitulation of the Saturn  Period,
it  may be said that during that time man passed through the mineral  state;
he had the same vehicle--the dense body--and a consciousness similar to  the
trance state.   For analogous reasons, the plant state was passed through in
the  Hyperborean  Epoch,  as  man  had  a dense  and  a  vital  body  and  a
dreamless-sleep-consciousness.

   Man began his evolution on the Earth after Mars had been thrown off  from
the  central mass,  and that which is now the Earth was yet undetached  from
the Sun; but at the close of the Hyperborean Epoch the incrustation had pro-
gressed so far that it had become an obstacle to the progress of some of the
higher  evolved  beings in the Sun.  The fiery condition also  hindered  the
evolution of some of the lower grades of creatures, such as man, who at that
stage required a denser world for his further development.   Therefore,  the
part  which is now the Earth was thrown off from the Sun at the end  of  the
Hyperborean  Epoch,  and commenced to revolve around the parent  body  in  a
somewhat different orbit than at present.  Shortly afterwards Venus and Mer-
cury were thrown off for similar reasons.

   Crystallization always commences at the pole of a planet where motion  is
slow.  The consolidated part gradually works outwards towards the equator in


[PAGE 264]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

obedience to the centrifugal force.   If that force is stronger than the co-
hesive tendency the consolidated mass is thrown outwards into space.

   At  the time when the Earth-globe was separated from the parent-mass,  it
included that part which is now our Moon.   On this great globe was evolving
the  life wave now passing through the human kingdom,  also the  life  waves
which entered evolution in the Sun,  Moon,  and Earth Periods,  and are  now
evolving through the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms.

   Mention  has been made of the stragglers of various Periods who in  later
Periods were enabled to take a step upward in evolution.   There were  some,
however,  who did not take this step.  They did not evolve,  and were there-
fore  left further and further behind,  until they became a drag and a  hin-
drance to the progressive ones.   It became necessary to get them out of the
way, that the evolution of the others might not be retarded.

   In the beginning of the Lemurian Epoch, these "failures"  (note that they
were  FAILURES ,  not merely stragglers) had crystallized that part  of  the
Earth  occupied by them to such a degree that it become as a huge cinder  or
clinker,  in the otherwise soft and fiery Earth.   They were a hindrance and
an obstruction,  so they,  with the part of the Earth they had crystallized,
were thrown out into space beyond recall.  That is the genesis of the Moon.

                       THE MOON--THE EIGHTH SPHERE.

   The seven Globes,  A to G,  inclusive,  are the field of Evolution.   The
Moon is the field of Disintegration.

   If Earth had not segregated from the original Globe which is now the Sun,
the rapidity of the vibrations would have disintegrated man's vehicles.   He
would have grown so rapidly that the growth of the  mushroom would seem slow


[PAGE 265]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

in comparison.   He would have become old before he had time to pass through
youth.   That such is the effect of too much Sun is shown by the rapidity of
growth  at the tropics,  where maturity and old age are reached much  sooner
than in the north.   On the other hand had the Moon remained with the Earth,
man would have crystallized into a statue.  The separation of the Earth from
the Sun,  which now sends its rays from a far distance,  enables man to live
at  the proper rate of vibration, to unfold slowly.   The Moon-forces  reach
him  from the exact distance necessary to enable him to build a body of  the
proper density.   But although the latter forces are active in the  building
of the form.,  they also cause death when their continued work finally crys-
tallizes the tissues of the body.

   The  Sun works in the vital body and is the force which makes  for  life,
and wars against the death-dealing Moon force.

                            THE LEMURIAN EPOCH.

   In  this Epoch appeared the Archangels (the humanity of Sun Period).  and
the Lords of Mind (the humanity of Saturn Period).   These Hierarchies  were
assisted  by the Lords of Form,  who were given charge of the Earth  Period.
They  helped man to build his desire body,  and the Lords of Mind  gave  the
germ of Mind to the greater part of the pioneers who formed class 1, accord-
ing to the classification in diagram 10.

   The Lords of Form vivified the Human spirit in as many of the  stragglers
of  the Moon Period as had made the necessary progress in the three and  one
half  Revolutions which had elapsed since the commencement of the Earth  Pe-
riod, but at that time the Lords of Mind could  not  give  them  the germ of


[PAGE 266]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Mind.   Thus a great part of nascent humanity was left without this link be-
tween the threefold spirit and the threefold body.

   The  Lords of Mind took charge of the higher part of the desire body  and
of  the  germinal  mind,  impregnating them with  the  quality  of  separate
selfhood,  without which no separate,  self-contained beings such as we  are
today would be possible.

   We owe to the Lords of Mind the separate personality,  with all the  pos-
sibilities  for experience and growth thus afforded.   And this point  marks
the birth of the Individual.

                         BIRTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

   Diagram 1 will make clear the fact that the personality is the  reflected
picture of the Spirit, the mind being the mirror, or focus.

   As when reflected in a pond, the images of trees appear inverted, the fo-
liage seeming to be the deepest down in the water,  so the highest aspect of
the  spirit (the Divine Spirit) finds its counterpart in the lowest  of  the
three bodies (the dense body).  The next highest spirit (the life spirit) is
reflected in the next lowest body (the vital body).   The third spirit  (the
human spirit) and its reflection,  the third body (the desire body),  appear
closest of all to the reflecting mirror, which is the mind,  the latter cor-
responding to the surface of the pond--the reflecting medium in our analogy.

   The  Spirit  came down from the higher Worlds during involution;  and  by
concurrent action,  the Bodies were built upward in the same period.   It is
the  meeting of these two streams in the focusing Mind that marks the  point
in time when the individual, the human being,  the  Ego,  is  born--when the


[PAGE 267]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

Spirit takes possession of its vehicles.

   Yet we must not suppose that this at once raised man to his present  sta-
tus in evolution, making him the self conscious, thinking being he is today.
Before that point could be reached a long and weary road had to be traveled,
for  at the time we are considering,  organs were in their most  rudimentary
stage and there was no brain that could be used as an instrument of  expres-
sion.   Hence the consciousness was the dimmest imaginable.   In short,  the
man  of that day was very far from being as intelligent as  our  present-day
animals.  The first step in the direction of improvement was the building of
a  brain  to use as an instrument of mind in the Physical World.   That  was
achieved by separating humanity into sexes.

                         SEPARATION OF THE SEXES.

   Contrary to the generally accepted idea, the Ego is bisexual.   Were  the
Ego sexless, the body would necessarily be sexless also, for the body is but
the external symbol of the indwelling spirit.

   The sex of the Ego does not, of course,  express itself a such in the in-
ner worlds.  It manifests there as two distinct qualities--Will and Imagina-
tion.  The Will is the male power and is allied to the Sun forces;  Imagina-
tion  is  the female power and is always linked to the  Moon  forces.   This
accounts for the imaginative trend of woman and for the special power  which
the Moon exercises over the female organism.

   When  the matter of which the Earth and the Moon were  afterwards  formed
was still a part of the Sun, the body of man-in-the-making was yet  plastic,
and the forces from that  part  which  afterwards  became Sun, and that part


[PAGE 268]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

which  is  now Moon worked readily in all bodies,  so that the  man  of  the
Hyperborean Epoch was hemaphrodite--capable of producing another being  from
himself without intercourse with any other.

   When  the Earth separated from the Sun and shortly afterwards  threw  off
the Moon,  the forces from the two luminaries did not find equal  expression
in all,  as formerly.   Some bodies become more amenable to the forces  from
one, and some to those from the other.

                            INFLUENCE OF MARS.

   In  the  part  of  the  Earth Period  preceding  the  separation  of  the
sexes--during  the three and one-half Revolutions which  intervened  between
the  time  when Mars was differentiated and the beginning  of  the  Lemurian
Epoch--Mars  traveled in a different orbit from the present,  and  its  aura
(that part of its finer vehicles which extends beyond the dense planet) per-
meated the body of the central planet and polarized the iron with it.

   As iron is essential to the production of warm, red blood,  all creatures
were  cold-blooded,  or rather,  the fluid parts of the body were no  warmer
than the surrounding atmosphere.

   When the Earth was set free from the Central Sun,  that event changed the
orbits  of the planets and thus the influence of Mars over the iron  in  the
Earth was minimized.   The Planetary Spirit of Mars finally withdrew the re-
mainder of that influence,  and although the desire bodies of the Earth  and
Mars still penetrate, the dynamic power of Mars over the iron (which is Mars
metal)  has ceased and iron (which is a Mars metal) has ceased and iron  has
become available for use on our planet.

   Iron  is in reality the basis of separate existence.   Without  iron  the
red, heat-giving blood would be an impossibility,  and the Ego could have no


[PAGE 269]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

hold  in  the body.   When red blood developed--in the latter  part  of  the
Lemurian  Epoch--the body become upright and the time had come when the  Ego
could begin to dwell within the body and control it.

   But to dwell within is not the end and aim of evolution.   It is simply a
means  by  which the Ego may better express itself through  its  instrument,
that it may manifest in the Physical World.   To that end the sense  organs,
the larynx, and above all, a brain, must be built and perfected.

   During the early part of the Hyperborean Epoch, while the Earth was still
united with the Sun,  the solar forces supplied man with all the  sustenance
he  needed  and  he unconsciously radiated the surplus for  the  purpose  of
propagation.

   When the Ego entered into possession of its vehicles it became  necessary
to  use  part of this force for the building of the brain and  larynx.   The
latter  was originally a part of the creative organ.   The larynx was  built
while the dense body was yet bent together in the bag-like shape already de-
scribed,  which is still the form of the human embryo.   As the  dense  body
straightened  and became upright,  part of the creative organ remained  with
the upper part of the dense body and later became the larynx.

   Thus the dual creative force which had hitherto worked is only one direc-
tion,  for the purpose of the creating another being,  became divided.   One
part  was directed upward to build the brain and larynx,  by means of  which
the  Ego  was to become capable of thinking and  communicating  thoughts  to
other beings.

   As  a result of this change only one part of the force essential  in  the
creation of another being was available to one individual,  hence it  became
necessary for each individual  to  seek  the  co-operation  of  another, who


[PAGE 270]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

possessed that part of the procreative force which the seeker lacked.

   Thus  did the evolving entity obtain brain consciousness of  the  outside
world  at the cost of half its creative power.   Previous to that  time,  it
used  within itself both parts of that power to externalize  another  being.
As a result of that modification,  however, it has evolved the power to cre-
ate  and express thought.   Before then,  it was a creator in  the  physical
world only; since then it has become able to create in the three worlds.


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