[PAGE 270 cont'd]                               ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

                       THE RACES AND THEIR LEADERS.

   Before  considering  in detail the evolution of the Lemurians it  may  be
well to take a general survey of the Races and their Leaders.

   Some  very valuable works on Occultism,  bringing before the  public  the
teachings  of the Eastern Wisdom, have nevertheless contained  certain  mis-
takes,  owing  to a misunderstanding of the teachings by those who  were  so
fortunate as to receive them.   All books, not written directly by the Elder
Brothers, are liable to contain such errors.  Considering the extreme intri-
cacy and many complications of the subject,  the wonder is not that mistakes
do occur,  but that they are not more frequent.   Therefore the writer  does
not  presume to criticise,  recognizing that more numerous and more  serious
mistakes may be embodied in the present work, owing to his own misconception
of  the teaching.   He simply sets forth in the next few paragraphs what  he
has  received,  which shows how the differing (and seemingly  contradictory)
teaching  of  two  such valuable works as "The Secret  Doctrine"  by  H.  P.
Blavatsky, and "Esoteric Buddhism," by A. P. Sinnett, may be reconciled.


[PAGE 271]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

   That  part  of  human evolution which is to be  accomplished  during  the
present sojourn of the life wave on our Earth is divisible into seven  great
stages or Epochs;  but these cannot appropriately be called Races.   Nothing
to  which that name could be correctly applied appears until the end of  the
Lemurian Epoch.   From that time different Races succeed one another through
the  Atlantean  and Aryan Epochs,  and will extend slightly into  the  Sixth
great Epoch.

   The  total number of Races--past,  present and future--in our  scheme  of
evolution is sixteen; one at the end of the Lemurian Epoch, seven during the
Atlantean Epoch, seven more in our present Aryan Epoch and one in the begin-
ning  of the Sixth Epoch.   After that time there will be nothing  that  can
properly be called a Race.

   Races  did not exist in the Periods which have preceded the Earth  Period
and they will not exist in those Periods which follow it.   It is only here,
at the very nadir of material existence, that the difference is so great be-
tween man and man as to warrant the separation into Races.

   The  immediate Leaders of humanity (apart from the creative  Hierarchies)
who helped man to take the first tottering steps in Evolution, after Involu-
tion had furnished him with vehicles, were Beings much further advanced than
man along the path of evolution.   They came on this errand of love from the
two planets which are located between the Earth and the Sun--Venus and  Mer-
cury.

   The Beings who inhabit Venus and Mercury are not quite so far advanced as
those  whose present field of evolution is the Sun,  but they are very  much
further  advanced than our humanity.  Therefore they stayed somewhat  longer
with  the  central  mass  than  did  the  inhabitants of the Earth, but at a


[PAGE 272]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

certain point their evolution demanded separate fields, so those two planets
were thrown off, Venus first, and then Mercury.  Each was given such proxim-
ity  to the central orb as insured the rate of vibration necessary  for  its
evolution.   The inhabitants of Mercury are the furthest advanced, hence are
closer to the Sun.

   Some of the inhabitants of each planet were sent to the Earth to help na-
scent humanity and are know to occult scientist as the "Lords of Venus"  and
the "Lords of Mercury."

   The Lords of Venus were leaders of the masses of our people.   They  were
inferior beings of the Venus evolution, who appeared among men and were know
as  "messengers  of the Gods."   For the good of our humanity they  led  and
guided it,  step by step.   There was no rebellion against their  authority,
because man had not yet evolved an independent will.  It was to bring him to
the  stage  where he would be able to manifest will and judgment  that  they
guided him, until he should be able to guide himself.

   It  was  known that these messengers communed with the Gods.   They  were
held in deep reverence and their commands were obeyed without question.

   When  under  the tuition of these Beings mankind had  reached  a  certain
stage of progress,  the most advanced were placed under the guidance of  the
Lords of Mercury,  who initiated them into the higher truths for the purpose
of making them leaders of the people.   These Initiates were then exalted to
kingship  and were the founders of the dynasties of Divine Rulers  who  were
indeed kings "by the grace of God," i.e., by the grace of the Lords of Venus
and  Mercury,  who were as Gods to infant humanity.   They  guided  and  in-
structed   the   kings   for   the   good   of   the   people  and  not  for


[PAGE 273]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

self-aggrandizement and arrogation of rights at their expense.

   At that time a Ruler held a sacred trust to educate and help his  people;
to alleviate and promote equity and well-being.  He had the light of God  to
give him wisdom and guide his judgment.   Hence,  while those kings reigned,
all things prospered, and it was indeed a Golden Age.  Yet, as we follow the
evolution of man in detail, we shall see that the present phase or period of
development,  though it cannot be called a golden age in any but a  material
sense,  cannot be called a golden age in any but a material sense, is never-
theless a necessary one, in order to bring man to the point where he will be
able to rule himself,  for SELF-MASTERY IS THE END AND AIM OF ALL RULERSHIP.
NO  MAN CAN SAFELY REMAIN UNGOVERNED WHO HAS NOT LEARNED TO GOVERN  HIMSELF,
and  at the present stage of development, that is the hardest task that  can
be given him.   It is easy to command others;  it is hard to force obedience
from oneself.

                           INFLUENCE OF MERCURY.

   The purpose of the Lords of Mercury at that time,  and of all Hierophants
of Mysteries since then, as also all the occult schools of our day,  was and
is  to teach the candidate the art of Self-Mastery.   In the measure that  a
man  has  mastered himself,  AND IN THAT MEASURE ONLY,  is he  qualified  to
govern others.   Were the present rulers of the masses able to govern  THEM-
SELVES we should again have the Millenium or Golden Age.

   As the Lords of Venus worked on the masses of a long past ago,  so do the
Lords  of Mercury now work on the Individual,  fitting him for mastery  over
self and (incidentally only,  not primarily) for mastery over others.   This
work  on  their  part  is  but  the  beginning of what will be an increasing


[PAGE 274]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Mercurial  influence during the remaining three and one-half Revolutions  of
the Earth Period.

   During  the first three and one-half Revolutions Mars held  sway,  polar-
izing  the iron,  preventing the formation of the red blood and keeping  the
Ego  from immuring itself in the body until the latter had attained  at  the
requisite degree of development.

   During  the last three and one half Revolutions Mercury will  operate  to
extricate the Ego from its densest vehicle by means of Initiation.

   Incidentally,  it may be noted that, as Mars polarized the iron,  so Mer-
cury has polarized the metal bearing its name and the workings of that metal
will  show  very  well this tendency to take the dense body  away  from  the
spirit--to liberate the latter from the former.

   That dread disease,  syphilis, is an example of condition were the Ego is
fettered and immured in the body to a particularly cramping extent.   Suffi-
cient mercury relieves the condition,  lessens the hold of the body upon the
Ego  and leaves the latter to that comparative freedom within the  body,  an
overdose  of mercury causes paralysis,  thus taking the dense body from  the
man in an improper way.

   The  Lords of Mercury taught man to leave and re-enter the body at  will;
to  function in his higher vehicles independent of the dense body,  so  that
the  latter  becomes a cheerful dwelling house instead of  a  closely-locked
prison--a useful instrument instead of a clogging fetter.

   Therefore occult science speaks of the Earth Period as Mars-Mercury,  and
so it may be said truly that we have been in Mars and are going to  Mercury,
as taught in one of the occult works previously mentioned.  It is also true,


[PAGE 275]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

however,  that we have never inhabited the planet Mars,  nor are we to leave
the earth at some future time to take up our adobe on the planet Mercury, as
the other work mentioned states,  with the intention of correcting an  error
in the first one.

   Mercury, now being in obscuration, is exercising very little influence on
us,  but it is emerging from a planetary rest and as time goes on its influ-
ence  will be more and more in evidence as a factor in our  evolution.   The
coming  Races  will have much help from the Mercurians,  and the  people  of
still later Epochs and Revolutions will have even more.

                            THE LEMURIAN RACE.

   We are now in a position to understand the information which is to follow
concerning  the people who lived IN THE LATTER PART of the  Lemurian  Epoch,
whom we may call the Lemurian Race.

   The  atmosphere  of  Lemuria  was still  very  dense--somewhat  like  the
fire-fog  of the Moon Period,  but denser.  The crust of the Earth was  just
starting to become quite hard and solid in some places,  while in others  it
was still fiery, and between islands of crust was a sea of boiling, seething
water.   Volcanic outbursts and cataclysms marked this time when the  nether
fires fought hard against the formation of the encircling wall which was  to
imprison them.

   Upon the harder and comparatively cool spots man lived surrounded by  gi-
ant  fern-forests and animals of enormous size.   The forms of both man  and
animal were yet quite plastic.  The skeleton had formed, but man himself had
great  power  in molding the flesh of his own body and that of  the  animals
about him.


[PAGE 276]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

   When he was born he could hear and feel,  but his perception of light cam
later.   We have analogous cases in animals like cats and dogs, the young of
which receive the sense of sight some time after birth.  The Lemurian had no
eyes.   He had two sensitive spots which were affected by the light  of  the
Sun  as it shone dimly through the fiery atmosphere of ancient Lemuria,  but
is  was not until nearly the close of the Atlantean Epoch that he had  sight
as  we  have  it today.   Up to that time the building of  the  eye  was  in
progress.   While  the Sun was within--while the Earth formed  part  of  the
light-giving mass--man need no external illuminant; he was luminous himself.
But when the dark Earth was separated from the Sun it became necessary  that
the  light should be perceived,  therefore as the light rays  impinged  upon
man,  he perceived them.  Nature built the eye as a light-perceiver,  in re-
sponse to the demand of the already-existing function,  which is  invariable
the case, as Professor Huxley has so ably shown.  The amoeba has no stomach,
yet it digests.   It is all stomach.  The necessity for digesting food built
in  the stomach in the course of time,  but digestion took place before  the
alimentary  canal was formed.   In an analogous manner,  the  perception  of
light  called forth the eye.   The light itself built the eye and  maintains
it.   Where there is no light there can be no eye.   In cases where  animals
have  withdrawn  and dwelt in caves--keeping away from the  light--the  eyes
have degenerated and atrophied because there were no light rays to  maintain
them and no eyes were needed in the dark caves.   The Lemurian needed  eyes;
he had a perception of light,  and the light was commencing to build the eye
in response to his demand.

   His  language consisted of sounds like those of Nature.   The sighing  of
the  wind  in  the  immense  forests  which grew in great luxuriance in that


[PAGE 277]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

super-tropical  climate,  the  rippling of the brook,  the  howling  of  the
tempest--for Lemuria was storm-swept--the thunder of the waterfall, the roar
of  the volcano--all these were to him voices of the Gods from whom he  knew
himself to have descended.

   Of the birth of his body he knew nothing.   He could not SEE either it or
anything else, but he did PERCEIVE his fellow beings.  It was,  however,  an
inner perception,  like our perception of persons and things in dreams,  but
with this very important difference, that his dream-perception was clear and
rational.

   Thus  he knew nothing at all about his body,  in fact he did not know  he
had  a  body any more than we know we have a stomach when that organ  is  in
good health.   We remember its existence only when our abuse of it causes us
to feel pain there.   Under normal conditions we are entirely unconscious of
its  processes.   Similarly did the body of the Lemurian  serve  him  excel-
lently,  although he was unaware of its existence.   Pain was the  means  of
making him aware of his body and of the world without.

   Everything in connection with the propagation of the race and the  bring-
ing to birth was done by direction of the Angels under the leadership of Je-
hovah,  the Regent of the Moon.  The propagative function was  performed  as
stated  times of the year when the lines of force,  running from  planet  to
planet, were focussed at proper angles.  Thus the creative force encountered
no obstruction and parturition was painless.  Man was unaware of birth,  be-
cause  at  that time he was unconscious of the physical world as he  now  is
during sleep.   It was only in the intimate contact of sex relation that the
spirit  became  aware  of  the  flesh and them man "knew" his wife.  That is


[PAGE 278]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

shown  is such passages of the Bible as "Adam KNEW Eve and she  bore  Seth";
"Elkanah KNEW Hannah and she bore Samuel"; and Mary's question, "How I shall
conceive, seeing I KNOW no man?"  This is also the key to the meaning of the
"Tree of Knowledge," the fruit of which opened the eyes of Adam and Eve,  so
that they came to know both good and evil.   Previously they had known  only
good,  but when they began to exercise the creative function  independently,
they  were  ignorant  of  stellar  influences,  as  their  descendants,  and
Jehovah's supposed curse was not a curse at all,  but a simple statement  of
the result which must inevitably follow use of their generative force  which
failed  to take into consideration the effect of the stellar rays on  child-
birth.

   Thus  the ignorant use of the generative force is  primarily  responsible
for pain, sickness and sorrow.

   The Lemurian knew no death because when, in the course of long ages,  his
body dropped away, he entered another, quite unconscious of the change.  His
consciousness was not focussed in the physical world,  therefore the  laying
aside  of one body and the taking of another was no more to him than a  leaf
or  twig drying and falling away from the tree and being replaced by  a  new
growth.

   Their  language was to the Lemurians something holy.   It was not a  dead
language  like  ours--a  mere orderly arrangements of  sounds.   Each  sound
uttered by the Lemurian had power over his fellow-beings,  over the  animals
and even over nature around him.  Therefore, under the guidance of the Lords
of  Venus,  who  were  the messengers of God--the  agents  of  the  creative
hierarchies--  the power of speech was used with great reverence,  as  some-
thing most holy.

   The  education of the boys differed greatly from that of the girls.   The
Lemurian   methods   of   education   seem  shocking  to  our  more  refined


[PAGE 279]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

sensibilities.   In  order to spare the reader's feelings,  only  the  least
cruel  of them will be touched upon.  Strenuous in the extreme as  they  may
seen,  it  must  be  remembered that the Lemurian body  was  not  nearly  so
high-strung  as are the human bodies of the present day;  also that  it  was
only  by the very harshest measures that the exceedingly  dim  consciousness
could be touched at all.   As time went on and the consciousness became more
and more awakened,  such extreme measures as those used then became unneces-
sary  and  have passed away,  but at that time they  were  indispensable  to
arouse the slumbering forces of the spirit to a consciousness of the outside
world.

   The education of the boys was designed especially to develop the  quality
of  Will.   They were made to fight one another,  and these fights were  ex-
tremely brutal.   They were impaled upon spits,  with full power to  release
themselves,  but by exercising the will power they were to remain  there  in
spite of the pain.   They learned to make their muscles tense,  and to carry
immense burdens by the exercise of the Will.

   The education of the girls was intended to promote the development of the
imaginative  facility.   They also were subjected to  strenuous  and  severe
treatment.   They were put out in the great forests, to let the sound of the
wind  in the tree tops speak to them and to listen to the furious  outbursts
of flood and tempest.   They thus learned to have no fear of those paroxysms
of  nature and to perceive only the grandeur of the warring  elements.   The
frequent volcanic outbursts were greatly valued as a means of education, be-
ing particularly conducive to the awakening of the faculty of memory.

   Such  educational  methods  would  be entirely out of the question at the


[PAGE 280]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

present day,  but they did not make the Lemurian morbid,  because he had  no
memory.  No matter what painful or terrifying experience he endured,  every-
thing was forgotten as soon as past.   The above mentioned strenuous experi-
ences  were for the purpose of developing memory,  to imprint these  violent
and constantly repeated impacts from without upon the brain,  because memory
is  necessary that the experiences of the past may be used as guides to  Ac-
tion.

   The  education  of  the girls developed the  first  germinal,  flickering
memory.   THE FIRST IDEA OF GOOD AND EVIL WAS FORMULATED BY THEM because  of
their experiences,  which worked chiefly on the imagination.   Those experi-
ences most likely to leave a recollection were thought "Good;"  those  which
did not produce that much desired result were considered "Evil."

   Thus woman become the pioneer in culture,  being the first to develop the
idea of "a good life,"  of which she became the esteemed exponent among  the
ancients and in that respect she has nobly led the vanguard ever since.   Of
course,  as all Egos incarnate alternately as male and female,  there is re-
ally no pre-eminence.  It is simply that those who for the time being are in
a  dense  body of the feminine gender have a positive vital  body,  and  are
therefore  more responsive to spiritual impacts than when the vital body  is
negative as in the male.

   As we have seen, the Lemurian was a born magician.  He felt himself a de-
scendant of the Gods,  a spiritual being;  therefore his line of advancement
was by gaining not spiritual,  but MATERIAL knowledge.   The Temples of Ini-
tiation for the most advanced did not need to reveal to man his high origin;
to educate him to perform feats of magic; to instruct him how to function in


[PAGE 281]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

the desire world and the higher realms.  Such instruction is necessary today
because now the average man has no knowledge of the spiritual world, nor can
he function in superphysical realism.   The Lemurian,  however,  in his  own
way,  did possess that knowledge and could exercise those faculties,  but on
the other hand, he was ignorant of the Laws of the Cosmos of facts regarding
the physical world which are matters of common,  everyday knowledge with us.
Therefore at the School Initiation he was taught art, the laws of Nature and
facts relating to the physical universe.  His will was strengthened and  his
imagination  and memory wakened so that he could correlate  experiences  and
devise  ways and means of action when his past experiences did not serve  to
indicate a proper course of procedure.  Thus,  the Temples of Initiation  in
the  Lemurian times were High Schools for the cultivation of Will-power  and
Imagination, with "post-graduate courses" in Art and Science.

   Yet, though the Lemurian was a born magician, he never misused his powers
because  he felt himself related to the Gods.   Under his direction  of  the
Messengers of the Gods,  already spoken of,  his forces were directed toward
the molding of forms in the animal and the plant worlds.  It may be hard for
the materialist to understand how he could do such work if he could not  see
the world about him.   It is true man could not "see"  as we understand  the
term  and  as he now sees objects outside in space with his  physical  eyes.
Still,  as the purest of our children are clairvoyant to this day while they
remain  in a state of sinless innocence,  possessed an  internal  perception
which gave them only a dim idea of the OUTWARD shape of any object;  but il-
luminated  so  much  the  brighter  its inner nature, its soul-quality, by a


[PAGE 282]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

spiritual apperception born of innocent purity.

   Innocence,  however,  is not synonymous with Virtue.   Innocence  is  the
child of Ignorance and could not be maintained in a universe where the  pur-
pose  of  evolution is the acquisition of Wisdom.   To attain  that  end,  a
knowledge of good and evil,  right and wrong,  is essential,  also choice of
action.

   If,  having knowledge and choice,  man ranges himself on the side of Good
and Right he cultivates Virtue and Wisdom.  If he succumbs to temptation and
does wrong knowingly, he fosters vice.

   God's  plan  is not to be brought to naught,  however.   Every act  is  a
seed-ground for the law of Consequence.  We reap what we sow.   The weeds of
wrong action bear flowers of sorrow and suffering,  and when the seeds  from
then have fallen into a chastened heart, when they have been watered by  the
tears of repentance Virtue will eventually blossom forth.   What blessed as-
surance,  that out of every evil we do, Good will eventually accrue,  for in
our Father's Kingdom naught but Good can endure.

   Therefore,  the "Fall"  with its consequent pain and suffering is  but  a
temporary state where we see through a glass darkly,  but anon we shall  be-
hold again face to face the God within and without,  who is every  perceived
by the pure in heart.

                             THE FALL OF MAN.

   This  is cabalistically described as the experience of one pair  who,  of
course,  represent humanity.   They key is given in the verse where the Mes-
senger  of  the  Gods  says  to the woman, "in sorrow thou shalt bring forth


[PAGE 283]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

children;"  the clue is also found in the sentence of death which  was  pro-
nounced at that same time.

   It  will be observed that previous to the Fall the consciousness was  not
focussed  in  the physical world.  Man was unconsciousness  of  propagation,
birth and death.   The Angels who have charge of and work in the vital  body
(the  medium of propagation) regulated the propagative function and  brought
the sexes together at certain seasons of the year,  using the solar and  the
lunar forces when they produced conditions most propitious for  fecundation,
the  union  being achieved unconsciously by the participants at  first,  but
later it produced a momentary physical cognition.  Then the period of gesta-
tion caused no inconvenience and parturition was painless,  the parent being
plunged in deep sleep.   Birth and death involved no break in the  conscious
and were therefore non-existent to the Lemurians.

   Their consciousness was directed inward.   They perceived physical things
in a spiritual way,  as we perceive them in a dream--at which time all  that
we see is within ourselves.

   When "their eyes opened" and their consciousness was directed outward to-
ward the facts of the physical world, conditions were altered.   Propagation
was directed,  not by the Angels,  but by man,  who was ignorant of the  op-
eration of the Sun- and Moon- forces.  He also abused the sex-function,  us-
ing it for sense-gratification,  with the result that pain attended the pro-
cess  of  child-bearing.   Then his consciousness  became  focussed  in  the
physical  world,  although  all things did not appear  to  his  vision  with
clearly  defined  outlines  until the latter part of  the  Atlantean  Epoch.
Still he came by degrees to know death because of the break made in his con-
sciousness when it was shifted to the higher worlds at death and back to the


[PAGE 284]                                     ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

physical world at rebirth.

   The "opening of the eyes" was brought about in the following manner:   We
remember  that when the sexes separated, the male became an  expression  for
Will, which is one part of the twofold soul-force; the female expressing the
other part,  Imagination.  If woman were not imaginative she could not build
the new body in the womb and were not the spermatozoon an embodiment of  the
concentrated  human will,  it could not accomplish impregnation and so  com-
mence  the germination,  which results in the continued segmentation of  the
ovum.

   These  twin-forces,  Will  and Imagination, are  both  necessary  to  the
propagation of bodies.  Since the separation of the sexes,  however,  one of
these  forces remains within each individual and only the part given out  is
available for propagation.   Hence the necessity for one-sexed being who ex-
presses the complementary soul-force.   This was previously explained;  also
that  the part of the soul-force not used for propagation becomes  available
for INNER growth.  So long as man sent out the full, dual sex-force for gen-
eration,  he  could accomplish nothing in the direction of  soul-growth  for
himself.   But since then the part not used through the sex organ  has  been
appropriated by the indwelling spirit to build the brain and the larynx  for
its expression.

   Thus man built on,  all through the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch and
the  first two-thirds of the Atlantean Epoch until,  by the above  mentioned
use of this half of his sex-force, he became fully-conscious, thinking, rea-
soning, being.

   In  man  the  brain is the link between the spirit and the outside world.


[PAGE 285]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

He  can know nothing of the outside world except through the medium  of  the
brain.   The sense organs are merely carriers to the brain of  impacts  from
without  and  the brain is the instrument which interprets  and  coordinates
those  impacts.   The Angels belonged to different evolution and  had  never
been  imprisoned in a dense and cumbrously slow vehicle such as ours.   They
had learned to obtain knowledge without a physical brain.   Their lowest ve-
hicle is the vital body.  Wisdom came to them as a gift,  without the neces-
sity of laboriously thinking it out through a physical brain.

   Man,  however, had to "fall into generation," and work for his knowledge.
The spirit, by means of one part of the sex-force directed inward, built the
brain  to gather knowledge from the physical world,  and the same  force  is
feeding  and  building  the brain today.  It is subverted  from  its  proper
course inasmuch as it should have gone outward for procreation,  but man re-
tains it for selfish purposes.   No so the Angels.   They had experienced no
division  of  their  soul-powers,  therefore they could send  out  the  dual
soul-force WITHOUT SELFISH RESERVATION.

   The force that goes outward for the purpose of creating another being  is
Love.   The Angels sent our their WHOLE LOVE,  WITHOUT SELFISHNESS OR DESIRE
and in return, Cosmic Wisdom flowed into them.

   Man sends out only part of his love;  the residue he selfishly keeps  and
uses to build his inner organs of expression, to improve HIMSELF;  thus does
his  love  become  selfish  and sensual.  With  one  part  of  his  creative
soul-power he selfishly loves another being because he desires  co-operation
in  propagation.   With the other part of his creative soul-power he  things
(also for selfish reasons) because he desires knowledge.


[PAGE 286]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

   The  Angels love without desire,  but man had to go through  selfishness.
He must desire and work for wisdom selfishly,  that me may reach selfishness
at a higher stage.

   The  Angels helped him to propagate even after the subversion of part  of
the soul-force.   They helped him to build the physical brain,  but they had
knowledge  that could be transmitted by means of it,  because they  did  not
know how to use such an instrument and could not speak directly to the brain
being.  All they could do was to control the physical expression of the love
of  man and guide it through the emotions in a loving,  innocent  way,  thus
saving man the pain and trouble incident to the exercise of the sex-function
without wisdom.

   Had  that REGIME lasted,  man would have remained simply  God-guided  au-
tomaton and would never have become a personality--an individual.   That  he
had become so is due to a much maligned class of entities called the Lucifer
Spirits.

                           THE LUCIFER SPIRITS.

   These spirits were a class of stragglers in the life wave of the  Angels.
In  the  Moon Period they worked themselves far ahead of the great  mass  of
those  who are now the most advanced of our humanity.   They have  not  pro-
gressed  as far as the Angels who were the pioneer humanity of the Moon  Pe-
riod, however, but they were so much in advance of our present humanity that
it  was impossible for them to take a dense body as we have done;  yet  they
could  not  gain  knowledge without the use of an inner  organ,  a  physical
brain.   They were half-way between man who has a brain and the  Angels  who
need none--in short, they were demi-gods.

   They  were  thus  in  a  serious situation,  The only way they could find


[PAGE 287]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

an avenue through which to express themselves and gain knowledge was to  use
man's physical brain, as they could make themselves understood by a physical
being endowed with a brain, which the Angels could not.

   As  said,  in the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch man did not  see  the
physical  world as we do now.   To him the desire world was much more  real.
He   had   the   dream-consciousness   of   the   Moon   Period--an    inner
picture-consciousness; he was unconscious of the world outside himself.  The
Lucifers  had no difficultly in manifesting to his inner  consciousness  and
calling  his attention to his outward shape,  which he had  not  theretofore
perceived.  They told him how he could cease being simply the servant of ex-
ternal  powers,  and  could become his own master and like  unto  the  gods,
"knowing good and evil."   They also made clear to him that he need have  no
apprehension  if his body died,  inasmuch as he had within himself the  cre-
ative  ability to form new bodies without the mediation of the Angels.   All
of  which  information was given with the one purpose of  turning  his  con-
sciousness outward for the acquirement of knowledge.

   This  the Lucifers did that they might profit by it  themselves--to  gain
knowledge as man acquired it.   They brought to him pain and suffering where
there was none before; but they also brought him the inestimable blessing of
emancipation  from outside influence and guidance,  thereby starting him  on
the  road to the evolution of this own spiritual powers--an evolution  which
will  eventually enable him to upbuild himself with wisdom such as  that  of
the Angels and other Beings Who guided him before,  he first exercised  free
will.

   Before man's enlightenment by the Lucifer Spirits he had not known  sick-
ness,  pain  nor  death.  All  of  these  resulted  from  the  unwise use of


[PAGE 288]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

the  propagative faculty and its abuse for the gratification of the  senses.
Animals in their wild state are exempt from sickness and pain, because their
propagation  is  carried on under the care and direction of  the  wise-group
spirit at only those times of the year which are propitious to that process.
The sex-function is designed solely for the perpetuation of the species  and
under no circumstances for the gratification of sexual desire.

   Had man remained a God-guided automaton, he would have known no sickness,
pain,   no  death  unto  this  day;  but  he  would  also  have  lacked  the
brain-consciousness  and independence which resulted from his  enlightenment
by the Lucifer Spirits,  the "light-givers,"  who opened the eyes of his un-
derstanding  and taught him to use his then dim vision to gain knowledge  of
the Physical World which he was destined to conquer.

   From that time there have been two forces working in man.   Once force is
that of the Angels,  who build new beings in the womb by means of Love which
is turned downward for procreation;  they are therefore the perpetuators  of
the race.

   The other force is that of the Lucifers,  who are the instigators of  all
mental activity,  by means of the other part of the sex-force, which is car-
ried upward for work in the brain.

   The Lucifers are also called "serpents"  and are variously represented in
different  mythologies.   More will be said about them when we come  to  the
analysis of Genesis.  For the present enough  has been said to warrant us in
pursuing  the  main  line of investigation' which leads  us  to  follow  the
progress of man's evolution still further,  through the Atlantean and  Aryan
Epochs, down to the present day.


[PAGE 289]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

   What  has been said about the enlightenment of the Lemurians  applies  to
only  a minor portion of those who lived in the latter part of  that  Epoch,
and who became the Seed for the Seven Atlantean Races.   The greater part of
the Lemurians were animal-like and the FORMS inhabited by them have degener-
ated into the savages and anthropoids of the present day.

   The  student is requested to note carefully that it was the  FORMS  which
degenerated.   There is a very important distinction to be kept in mind  be-
tween  the bodies (or forms) of a race, and the Egos (or life) which is  re-
born in those race-bodies.

   When a race is born, the FORMS are ensouled by a certain group of spirits
and  have inherent capability of evolving to a certain stage  of  completion
and no further.   There can be no standing still in nature,  therefore  when
the  limit of attainment has been reached the bodies or forms of  that  race
begin  to  degenerate,  sinking  lower and lower until at last the race dies
out.

   The reason is not far to seek.  New race bodies are particularly flexible
and  plastic,  affording great scope for the Egos who are reborn in them  to
improve  these vehicles and progress thereby.   The most advanced  Egos  are
brought to birth in such bodies and improve them to the best of their  abil-
ity.   These Egos,  however, are only apprentices as yet, and they cause the
bodies to gradually crystallize and harden until the limit of improvement of
that particular kind of body has been reached.   Then forms for another  new
race  are created,  to afford the advancing Egos further scope for more  ex-
tended experience and greater development.  They discard the old race bodies
for  the  new,  their  discarded  bodies  becoming  the habitations for less


[PAGE 290]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

advanced Egos who, in their turn, use them as stepping-stones on the path of
progress.  Thus the old race bodies are used by Egos OF INCREASING INFERIOR-
ITY,  gradually degenerating until at last there are no Egos low  enough  to
profit  by  rebirth  in  such bodies.  The  women  become  sterile  and  the
race-FORMS die.

   We   may   easily   trace  this  process  by   certain   examples.    The
Teutonic-Anglo-Saxon  race  (particularly the American branch of it)  has  a
softer  more  flexible body and a more high-strung nervous system  than  any
other  race on earth at the present time.   The Indian and Negro  have  much
harder bodies and,  because of the duller nervous system, are much less sen-
sitive  to lacerations,   An Indian will continue to fight  after  receiving
wounds the shock of which would prostrate or kill a white man,  whereas  the
Indian will quickly recover.   The Australian aborigines or Bushmen  furnish
an example of a race dying out on account of sterility,  notwithstanding all
that the British government is doing to perpetuate them.

   It  has been said by white men against the white race,  that wherever  it
goes the other races dies out.   The whites have been guilty of fearful  op-
pression  against those other races,  having in many cases massacred  multi-
tudes of the defenseless and unsuspecting natives--as witness the conduct of
the Spaniards towards the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, to specify but one
of many instances.   The obligations resulting from such betrayal of  confi-
dence and be paid--yea, the last, least iota!--by those incurring them.   It
is equally true,  however, that even had the whites not massacred,  starved,
enslaved, expatriated and otherwise maltreated those older races, the latter
would nevertheless have died out just as surely, though more slowly, because
such   is   the   Law   of   Evolution--the   Order   of  Nature.   At  some


[PAGE 291]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

future time the white race-bodies when they become inhabited by the Egos who
are now embodied in red, black, yellow or brown skins, will have degenerated
so far that they also will disappear,  to give place to other and better ve-
hicles.

   Science speaks only of evolution.  It fails to consider that LINES OF DE-
GENERATION which are slowly but surely destroying such bodies as have  crys-
tallized beyond possibility of improvement.
[PAGE 291 cont'd]                                     EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

                           THE ATLANTEAN EPOCH.

   Volcanic cataclysms destroyed the greater part of the Lemurian  continent
and in its stead rose the Atlantean continent,  where the Atlantic Ocean now
is.

   Material  scientists,  impelled by the story of Plato  to  undertake  re-
searched regarding Atlantis,  have demonstrated that there is ample  founda-
tion for the story that such a continent did exist.   Occult scientists know
that  it existed and they also know that the conditions there were  such  as
shall now be described.

   Ancient  Atlantis differed from our present world in many ways,  but  the
greatest difference was in the constitution of the atmosphere and the  water
of that Epoch.

   From  the southern part of the planet came the hot,  fiery breath of  the
volcanoes which were still abundantly active.  From the north swept down the
icy blasts of the Polar region.   The continent of Atlantis was the  meeting
place of those two currents,  consequently its atmosphere was always  filled
with  a thick and murky fog.   The water was not so dense as now,  but  con-
tained a greater proportion of air.   Much water was also held in suspension
in the heavy, foggy Atlantean atmosphere.

   Through  this  atmosphere the Sun never clearly shone.  It appeared to be


[PAGE 292]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

surrounded by an aura of light-mist,  as do street-lamps when seen through a
dense fog.  It was then possible to see only a few feet in any direction and
the outlines of all objects not close at hand appeared dim,  hazy and uncer-
tain.  Man was guided more by internal perception than by external vision.

   Not  only the country,  but also the man of that time was very  different
from  anything existent on earth at the present time.   He had a  head,  but
scarcely any forehead; his brain had no frontal development; the head sloped
almost abruptly back from a point just above the eyes.  As compared with our
present  humanity;  he was a giant;  his arms and legs were much longer,  in
proportion to this body, than ours.  Instead of walking,  he progressed by a
series  of flying leaps,  not unlike those of the kangaroo.   He  had  small
blinking eyes and his hair was round in section.  The latter peculiarity, if
no  other,  distinguishes the descendants of the Atlantean races who  remain
with  us at the present day.   Their hair was straight,  glossy,  black  and
ROUND in section.  That of the Aryan, thought it may differ in color, is al-
ways OVAL in section.   The ears of the Atlantean sat much further back upon
the head than do those of the Aryan.

   The higher vehicles of the early Atlanteans were not drawn into a concen-
tric position in relation to the dense body,  as are ours.   The spirit  was
not quite an INdwelling spirit;  it was partially outside,  therefore  could
not control its vehicles with as great facility as though it dwelt  entirely
inside.   The head of the vital body was outside of and held a position  far
above  the physical head.   There is a point between the eyebrows and  about
half an inch below the surface of the skin,  which has a corresponding point
in  the  vital  body.  This point is not the pituitary body, which lies much


[PAGE 293]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

deeper  in the head of the dense body.  It might be called "the root of  the
nose."   When these two points in the dense and the vital bodies  come  into
correspondence,  as they do in man today,  the trained clairvoyant sees then
as a black spot,  or rather as a vacant space,  like the invisible core of a
gas flame.   This is the seat of the indwelling spirit in the man--the  Holy
of Holies in the temple of the human body, barred to all but that indwelling
human  Ego whose home it is.   The trained clairvoyant can see with more  or
less distinctness, according to his capacity and training, all the different
bodies  which  form the aura of man.  This spot alone is  hidden  from  him.
This is the "Isis"  whose veil none may lift.   Not even the highest evolved
being on earth is capable of unveiling the Ego of the humblest and least de-
veloped creature.   That, and that alone upon earth, is so sacred that it is
absolutely safe from intrusion.

   These two points just spoken of--the one in the dense body and its  coun-
terpart in the vital body--were far apart in the men of the early Atlanteans
days,  as they are in the animals of our day.  The head of the horse's vital
body is far outside the head of its dense body.   The two points are  closer
together in the dog than in any other animal except, perhaps,  the elephant.
When they come into correspondence we have an animal prodigy, able to count,
spell, etc.

   On  account  of the distance between these two  points,  the  Atlantean's
power  of perception or vision was much keener in the inner Worlds  than  in
the dense Physical World,  obscured by its atmosphere of thick,  heavy  fog.
In the fullness of time,  however, the atmosphere slowly became clearer;  at
the same time,  the point spoken of in the vital body came closer and closer


[PAGE 294]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

to  the corresponding point in the dense body.   As the two approached  each
other,  man gradually lost touch with the inner Worlds.   They became dimmer
as the dense Physical World became clearer in outline.  Finally, in the last
third of the Atlantean Epoch,  the point in the vital body was united to the
corresponding point in the dense body.   Not until then did man become fully
awake in the dense Physical World;  but at the same time that full sight and
perception in the Physical World were gained,  the capability of  perceiving
the inner Worlds were gradually lost to most of the people.

   In an earlier time the Atlantean did not clearly perceive the outline  of
an object or a person,  but he saw the soul and at once knew its attributes,
whether they were beneficial to him or otherwise.   He knew whether the  man
or animal he was regarding was kindly or inimically disposed toward him.  He
was  accurately taught by spiritual perception how to deal with  others  and
how to escape harm.  therefore when the Spiritual World gradually faded from
his consciousness, great was his sorrow at the loss.

   The Rmoahals were the first of the Atlantean Races.   They had but little
memory  and that little was chiefly connected with sensation.   They  remem-
bered colors and tomes,  and thus to some extend they evolved Feeling.   The
Lemurian  had  entirely lacked Feeling,  in the finer signification  of  the
word.   He  had the sense of touch,  could feel the physical  sensations  of
pain,  ease and comfort, but not the mental and spiritual ones of joy,  sor-
row, sympathy and antipathy.

   With  memory  came to the Atlanteans the rudiments of a  language.   They
evolved words and no longer made use of mere sounds,  as did the  Lemurians.
The Rmoahals began to give names to things.   They were yet a spiritual race
and,  their  soul-powers  being  like  the  forces of nature.  They not only


[PAGE 295]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

named the objects around them,  but in their words was power over the things
they named.   Like the last of the Lemurians,  their Feelings as spirits in-
spired them, and no harm was ever done to one another.  To them the language
was  holy,  as the highest direct expression of the spirit.   The power  was
never  abused or degraded by gossip or small talk.   By the use of  definite
language  the  soul in this race first became able to contact  the  soul  of
things in the outside world.

   The Tlavatlis were the second Atlantean Race.  Already they began to feel
their worth as separate human beings.  They became ambitious,  they demanded
that their works be remembered.   Memory became a factor in the life of  the
community.   The remembrance of the deeds done by certain ones would cause a
group  of  people to choose as their leader one who had  done  great  deeds.
This was the germ of Royalty.

   This  remembrance of the meritorious deeds of great men was carried  even
beyond the time when such leaders died.   Mankind began to honor the  memory
of ancestors and to worship them and others who had shown great merit.  That
was  the  beginning of a form of worship which is practiced to this  day  by
some Asiatics.

   The  Toltecs were the third Atlantean Race.   They carried still  further
the  ideas of their predecessors, inaugurating Monarchy and Hereditary  Suc-
cession.   The Toltecs originated the custom of honoring men for  the  deeds
done by their ancestors, but there was then a very good reason for so doing.
Because of the peculiar training at that time,  the father had the power  to
bestow  his  qualities upon his son in a way impossible to  mankind  at  the
present time.

   The  education consisted of calling up before the soul of the child  pic-
tures  of  the  different  phases  of  life.  The consciousness of the early


[PAGE 296]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Atlantean was,  as yet, principally an internal picture-consciousness.   The
power of the educator to call up these pictures before the soul of the child
was the determining factor upon which depended the soul qualities that would
be possessed by the grown man.  The instinct and not the reason was appealed
to and aroused and by this method of education the son,  in the great major-
ity  of cases,  readily absorbed the qualities of the father.   It  is  thus
evident that there was at that time good reason for bestowing honor upon the
descendants  of great men,  because the son almost always inherited most  of
his  father's good qualities.   Unfortunately,  that is not the case in  our
time,  although we still follow the same practices of honoring the  sons  of
great men; but we have no reason whatever for doing so.

   Among the Toltecs,  experience came to be highly valued.  The man who had
gained  the most varied experience was the most honored and sought.   Memory
was  them so great and accurate that our present memory is nothing  in  com-
parison.   In an emergency,  a Toltec of wide practical experience would  be
very likely to remember similar cases in the past,  and suggest what  action
should be taken.   Thus be became a valuable adviser to the community when a
situation developed which none of the members had previously encountered and
they were unable to think or reason from analogy as to how to deal  promptly
with the emergency.   When such an individual was not available,  they  were
compelled to experiment in order to find what was best to do.

   In  the  middle third of Atlantis we find the beginning of  separate  na-
tions.   Groups of people who discovered in one another similar  tastes  and
habits  would leave their old homes and found a new colony.  They remembered


[PAGE 297]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

old  customs  and followed them in their new homes as far  as  they  suited,
forming new ones to meet their own particular ideas and necessities.

   The  Leaders  of mankind initiated great Kings at that time to  rule  the
people,  over whom they were given great power.   The masses  honored  these
kings with all the reverence due to those who were thus truly Kings "by  the
grace of God."  This happy state, however, had in it the germ of disintegra-
tion, for in time the Kings become intoxicated with power.  They forgot that
it  had been put into their hands by the grace of God,  as a  sacred  trust;
that  they were made Kings for the purpose of dealing justly by and  helping
the people.   They began to use their power corruptly,  for selfish ends and
personal  aggrandizement  instead of for the common good,  arrogating  them-
selves  privileges  and authorities never intended for them.   Ambition  and
selfishness ruled then and they abused their high,  divinely derived powers,
for  purposes of oppression and revenge.   This was true,  not only  of  the
Kings, but also of the nobles and the higher classes, and when one considers
the  power possessed by them over their fellow beings of the less  developed
classes,  it is easy to understand that is misuse would bring about terrible
conditions.

   The Original Turanians were the fourth Atlantean Race.   They were  espe-
cially vile in their abominable selfishness.  They erected temples where the
Kings were worshiped as gods, and caused the extreme oppression of the help-
less  lower  classes.   Black magic of the worst and  most  nauseating  kind
flourished and all their efforts were directed towards the gratification  of
vanity and external display.

   The  Original  Semites  were the fifth and most important  of  the  seven
Atlantean  Races,  because in them we find the first germ of the  corrective
quality  of  Thought.  Therefore the Original Semitic Race become the "seed-


[PAGE 298]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

race" for the seven races of the present Aryan Epoch.

   In the Polarian Epoch man acquired dense body as an instrument of action.
In  the Hyperborean Epoch the vital body was added to give power  of  motion
necessary  to  action.   In the Lemurian Epoch  the  desire  body  furnished
incentive to action.

   The  mind was given to man in the Atlantean Epoch to give purpose to  ac-
tion, but as the Ego was exceedingly weak and the desire nature strong,  the
nascent mind coalesced with the desire body, the faculty of Cunning resulted
and was the cause of all the wickedness of the middle third of the Atlantean
Epoch.

   In  the Aryan Epoch Thought and Reason were to be evolved by the work  of
the Ego in the mind to conduct Desire into channel leading to the attainment
of spiritual perfection,  which is the Goal of Evolution.   This faculty  of
Thought  and  of forming Ideas was gained by man at the expense of  loss  of
control over the vital forces--i.e., power over Nature.

   With  Thought and Mind man can present exercise power over the  chemicals
and minerals only,  for his mind is now in the first of mineral stage of its
evolution,  as was his dense body in the Saturn Period.   He can exercise no
power over plant or animal LIFE.  Wood and various vegetable substances, to-
gether  with different parts of the animals, are used by man in  his  indus-
tries.   These  substances  are all in the final  analysis  chemical  matter
ensouled by mineral life,  of which the BODIES in all the kingdoms are  com-
posed,  as previously explained.   Over all these varieties of chemical min-
eral combinations man at his present stage may have dominion,  but until  he
has reached  the  Jupiter Period, that dominion will not be extended so that


[PAGE 299]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

he can work with life.   In that Period, however,  he will have the power to
work with plant life as the Angels do at present in the Earth Period.

   Material scientist have labored for many years in an endeavor to "create"
life,  but they will not succeed until they have learned that they must  ap-
proach the laboratory table with the deepest reverence,  as they would  draw
near to the alter in a Temple--with purity of heart and with holy hands, de-
void of greed and selfish ambition.

   Such is the wise decision of the Elder Brothers,  who guard this and  all
the  deep secrets of Nature until man shall be fit to use them for  the  up-
lifting  of  the race--for the glory of God and not for personal  profit  or
self-aggrandizement.

   It was,  however, this very loss of power over the vital forces which the
Atlanteans suffered that made it possible for man to evolve further.   After
that,  no matter how great his selfishness became,  it could not prove abso-
lutely destructive of himself and of Nature, as would have been the case had
the growing selfishness been accompanied by the great power possessed by man
in his innocent former state.   Thought that works only IN man is  powerless
to command Nature and can never endanger humanity, as would be possible were
Nature's forces under man's control.

   The Original Semites regulated their desires to some extent by the  mind,
and instead of mere desires, came cunning and craftiness--the means by which
those people sought to attain their selfish ends.   Though they were a  very
turbulent people,  they learned to curb their passions to a great extend and
accomplish  their purposes by the use of cunning,  as being more subtle  and
potent  than  mere brute strength.   They were the first  to  discover  that
"brain" is superior to "brawn."


[PAGE 300]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

   During the existence of this Race,  the atmosphere of Atlantis  commenced
to  clear definitely,  and the previously mentioned point in the vital  body
came  into correspondence with its companion point in the dense  body.   The
combination  of  events  gave man the ability to see  objects  clearly  with
sharp, well-defined contours; but it also resulted in loss of sight pertain-
ing to the inner Worlds.

   Thus  we  see,  and it may be well to definitely state it as a  law:   No
progress is ever made that is not gained at the cost of some previously pos-
sessed faculty, which is later regained in a higher form.

   Man  built  brain at the expense of the temporary loss of  the  power  to
bring  forth offspring from himself alone.  In order to get  the  instrument
wherewith to guide his dense body,  be became subject to all the difficulty,
sorrow and pain which is involved in the co-operation necessary to the  per-
petuation  of the race;  he obtained his reasoning power at the cost of  the
temporary loss of his spiritual insight.

   While reason benefited him in many ways, it shut from his vision the soul
of things which had previously spoken to him,  and the gaining of the intel-
lect which is now man's most precious possession was at first but sadly con-
templated  by  the Atlantean,  who mourned the loss of spiritual  sight  and
power which marked its acquisition.

   The  exchange of spiritual powers for physical faculties  was  necessary,
however, in order that man might be able to function, independent of outside
guidance,  in the Physical World which he must conquer.   In time his higher
powers  will be regained when,  by means of his experiences in  his  journey
through  the  denser Physical World,  he has learned to use  them  properly.
When  he  possessed  them, he had no knowledge of their proper use, and they


[PAGE 301]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

were  too precious and too dangerous to be used as toys,  with which to  ex-
periment.

    Under the guidance of a great Entity,  the Original Semitic Race was led
eastward from the continent of Atlantis, over Europe,  to the great waste in
Central Asia which is known as the Gobi Desert.   There it prepared them  to
be the seed of the seven Races of the Aryan Epoch,  imbuing them potentially
with the qualities to be evolved by their descendants.

   During all the previous ages--from the commencement of the Saturn Period,
through the Sun and Moon Periods,  and in the three and one-half Revolutions
of the Earth Period (the Polarian, Hyperborean,  Lemurian,  and earlier part
of  the  Atlantean Epochs)--man had been led and guided  by  higher  Beings,
without the slightest choice.  In those days he was unable to guide himself,
not yet having evolved a mind of his own; but at last the time had come when
it  was necessary for his further development that he should begin to  guide
himself.   He must learn independence and assume responsibility for his  own
actions.   Hitherto he had been compelled to obey the commands of his Ruler;
now his thoughts were to be turned from the visible Leaders,  the Lords from
Venus,  whom  he worshiped as messengers from the gods--to the idea  of  the
true God,  the invisible Creator of the System.  Man was to learn to worship
and obey the commands of a God he could not see.

   Their  Leader  therefore  called  the people  together  and  delivered  a
soul-stirring oration, which might be thus expressed:

   Hitherto, you have seen Those who led you, but there are Leaders of vary-
ing  grades  of  splendor,  higher  than  They,  Whom you have not seen, Who


[PAGE 302]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

guided your every tottering step in the evolution of consciousness.

   Exalted above all these glorious Beings stands the invisible God Who  has
created the heaven,  and the earth upon which you dwell.   He has willed  to
give you dominion over all this land, that you may be fruitful and  multiply
in it.

   This invisible God only,  must you worship,  but you must worship Him  in
Spirit and in Truth, and not make any graven image of Him, nor use any like-
ness to picture Him to yourselves, because He is everywhere present,  and is
beyond any comparison or similitude.

   If you follow His precepts, He will bless you abundantly in all good.  If
you stray from His ways,  evil will follow.   The choice is yours.   You are
free; BUT YOU MUST ENDURE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR OWN ACTIONS.

   The education of man proceeds by four great steps.   First,  he is worked
upon from without unconsciously.   Then he is placed under the Rulership  of
Divine Messengers and Kings whom he sees,  and whose commands he must  obey.
Next he is taught to revere the commands of a God whom he does not see.  Fi-
nally,  he learns to rise above the commands;  to become a law unto himself;
and, by conquering himself of his own free will, to live in harmony with the
Order of Nature, which is the Law of God.

   Fourfold also are the steps by which man climbs upward to God.

   First, through fear, he worships the God whom he begins to sense,  sacri-
ficing to propitiate Him, as do the fetish-worshipers.

   Next,  he learns to look to God as the GIVER of all things,  and hopes to
receive  from  Him material benefits HERE AND NOW.   He  sacrifices  through
avarice,  expecting  that  the  Lord will repay an hundredfold, or to escape


[PAGE 303]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

SWIFT punishment by plague, war, etc.

   Next, he  is  taught  to worship God by prayer and the living of  a  good
life; and that he must cultivate faith in a Heaven where he will be rewarded
in the FUTURE;  and to abstain from evil that he may escape a FUTURE punish-
ment in Hell.

   At last he comes to a point where he can do right without any thought  of
reward,  bribe, or punishment, but simply because "it is right to do right."
He loves right for its own sake and seeks to govern his conduct thereby, re-
gardless of present benefit or injury,  or of painful results at some future
time.

   The  Original Semites had reached the second of these steps.   They  were
taught to worship an invisible God and to expect to be rewarded my  material
benefits, or punished by painful afflictions.

   Popular Christianity is at the third step.  Esotoric Christians,  and the
pupils  of  all occult schools are trying to reach the highest  step,  which
will  be generally achieved in the Sixth Epoch,  the new Galilee,  when  the
unifying  Christian religion will open the hearts of men,  as  their  under-
standing is being opened now.

   The  Akkadians  were  the sixth and the Mongolians  the  seventh  of  the
Atlantean  Races.   They evolved the faculty of thought still  further,  but
followed lines of reasoning which deviated more and more from the main trend
of  the developing life.   The Chinese Mongolians maintain to this day  that
the  old  ways are the best.  Progress constantly requires new  methods  and
adaptability, keeping ideas in a fluid state, therefore those races fell be-
hind and are degenerating, with the remainder of the Atlantean Races.

   As  the  heavy  fogs,  of Atlantis condensed more and more, the increased


[PAGE 304]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

quantity of water gradually inundated that continent, destroying the greater
part of the population and the evidences of their civilization.

   Great  numbers were driven from the doomed continent by the  floods,  and
wandered  across Europe.   The Mongolian races are the descendants of  those
Atlantean refugees.   The Negroes and the savage races with curly hair,  are
the last remnants of the Lemurians.

                             THE ARYAN EPOCH.

   Central  Asia was the cradle of the Aryan Races,  who descended from  the
Original Semites.  Thence have the different Races gone out.  It is unneces-
sary to describe them here,  as historical researches have sufficiently  re-
vealed their main features.

   In  the present (the Fifth or Aryan) Epoch,  man came to know the use  of
fire  and other forces,  the divine origin of which was  purposely  withheld
from him,  that he might be free to use them for higher purposes or his  own
development.   Therefore  we have in this present Epoch  two  classes:   One
looks upon this Earth and upon man as being of divine origin; the other sees
all things from a purely utilitarian viewpoint.

   The most advanced among humanity at the beginning of the Aryan Epoch were
given the higher Initiations,  that they might take the place of the messen-
gers of God,  i.e.  the Lords of Venus.  Such human Initiates were from this
time forth the only mediators between God and man.  Even they did not appear
publicly nor show any signs of wonders that they were Leaders and  Teachers.
Man was left entirely free to seek them or not, as he desired.

   At  the  end of our present Epoch the highest Initiate will  appear  pub-
licly,  when  a  sufficient  number  of  ordinary  humanity desire, and will


[PAGE 305]                                             EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

voluntarily  subject themselves to such a Leader.   They will thus form  the
nucleus for the last Race,  which will appear at the beginning of the  Sixth
Epoch.   After  that time races and nations will cease to  exist.   Humanity
will form one spiritual Fellowship as before the end of the Lemurian Epoch.

   The names of the Races which have spread over the Earth during the  Fifth
Epoch, up to the present time, are as follows:

         1.---The Aryan, which went south to India,
         2.---The Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldean.
         3.---The Persian-Graeco-Latin.
         4.---The Celtic.
         5.---The Teutonic-Anglo-Saxon (to which we belong).

   From the mixture of the different nations now taking place in the  United
States will come the "Seed" for the last Race, in the beginning of the Sixth
Epoch.

   Two  more Races will be evolved in our present Epoch,  one of them  being
the Slav.   When, in the course of a few hundred years, the Sun,  because of
the precession of the equinoxes,  shall have entered the sign Aquarius,  the
Russian  people  and  the  Slav Races in general  will  reach  a  degree  of
spiritual development which will advance them far beyond their present  con-
dition.   Music will be the chief factor in bringing this about,  for on the
wings of music the soul which is attuned may fly to the very Throne of  God,
where the mere intellect cannot reach. Development attained in that  manner,
however, is not permanent, because it is one-sided, therefore not in harmony
with the law of evolution, which demands that development,  to be permanent,
must  be  evenly  balanced--in  other  words, that spirituality shall evolve


[PAGE 306]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

through,  or at least equally with, intellect.   For this reason the  Slavic
civilization will be short-lived,  but it will be great and joyful while  it
lasts, for it is being born of deep sorrow and untold suffering, and the law
of Compensation will bring the opposite in due time.

   From  the  Slavs will descend a people which will form the  last  of  the
seven  Races of the Aryan Epoch,  and from the people of the  United  States
will  descend the last of all the Races in this scheme of  evolution,  which
will run its course in the beginning of the Sixth Epoch.

                     THE SIXTEEN PATHS TO DESTRUCTION.

   The  sixteen Races are called the "Sixteen paths to destruction"  because
there is always,  in each Race,  a danger that the soul may become too  much
attached to the Race; that it may become so enmeshed in Race characteristics
it cannot rise above the RACE idea, and will therefore fail to advance; that
it may, so to speak, crystallize into that Race and consequently be confined
to the Race bodies when they start to degenerate, as happened to the Jews.

   In Periods,  Revolutions,  and Epochs where there are no Races,  there is
much more time,  and the likelihood of becoming fossilized is not so  great,
nor  so  frequent.   But  the  sixteen Races are born  and  die  in  such  a
relatively  short time there is grave danger that the one who gets too  much
attached to conditions may be left behind.

   Christ is the great unifying Leader of the Sixth Epoch, and He enunciated
this law when He uttered those little-understood words:  "If any man come to
me,  and  hate  not his father,  and mother,  and wife,  and  children,  and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.


[PAGE 307]                                            EVOLUTION ON THE EARTH

   "And  whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me cannot  be  my
disciple.

   ".  .  .  whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath,  he
cannot be my disciple."

   Not that we are to leave, nor underestimate family ties,  but that we are
to rise above them.  Father and mother are "bodies";  all relations are part
of the Race--which belongs to Form.   The souls must recognize that they are
not Bodies,  nor Races, but Egos striving for perfection.   If a man forgets
this,  and  identifies himself with his Race--clinging to  it  with  fanatic
patriotism--he  is  likely to become enmeshed in and sink with it  when  his
compeers have passed to greater heights on the Path of Attainment.


[PAGE 308]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

                                CHAPTER XIII.

                             BACK TO THE BIBLE.

   In  our age the missionary spirit is strong.   The Western  churches  are
sending  missionaries all over the world to convert the people of every  na-
tion  to a belief in their creeds; nor are they alone in  their  proselyting
efforts.   The East has commenced a strong invasion of Western  fields,  and
many  Christians  who have become dissatisfied with the  creeds  and  dogmas
taught by the clergy and impelled to search for truth to satisfy the demands
of  the intellect for an adequate explanation of the problems of life,  have
familiarized themselves with, and in many cases accepted, the Eastern teach-
ings of Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.

   From an occult point of view, this missionary effort,  whether from  East
to West or VICE VERSA, is not desirable, because it is contrary to the trend
of evolution.  The great Leaders of humanity Who are in charge of our devel-
opment  give us every aid necessary to that end.   Religion is one of  these
aids,  and there are excellent reasons why the Bible,  containing  not  only
one,  but both the Jewish and Christian religions, should have been given to
the  West.   If we earnestly seek for light we shall see the Supreme  Wisdom
which  has  given us this double religion and how no other religion  of  the
present day is suitable to our peculiar needs.  To  this end we will in this


[PAGE 309]                                                 BACK TO THE BIBLE

chapter  touch again upon certain points previously brought out  in  various
places and connections.

   In the Polarian,  Hyperborean and Lemurian Epochs the task of leading hu-
manity was a comparatively easy one, for man was then without mind, but when
that  disturbing element came in during the first part of the Atlantean  Ep-
och, he developed Cunning, which is the product of the mind unchecked by the
spirit.   Cunning acts as an aid to desire, regardless of whether the desire
is good or bad, whether it will bring joy or sorrow.

   In the middle of the Atlantean Epoch the spirit had drawn completely into
its  vehicles and commenced to work in the mind to produce Thought and  Rea-
son: the ability to trace a given cause to its inevitable effect, and to de-
duce  from  a  given effect the cause which produced  it.   The  faculty  of
Reasoning  or Logic was to become more fully developed in the  Aryan  Epoch,
and  therefore the Original Semites (the fifth race of the Atlantean  Epoch)
were a "chosen people,"  to bring out that germinal faculty to such a  ripe-
ness that it would be impregnated into the very fibre of their  descendants,
who would thus become the New Race.

   To  transmute  Cunning  into Reason proved no  easy  task.   The  earlier
changes in man's nature had been easily brought about.  He could then be led
without  difficulty because he had no conscious desire,  nor mind  to  guide
him, but by the time of the Original Semites he had become cunning enough to
resent limitations of his liberty and to circumvent repeatedly the  measures
taken  to hold him in line.   The task of guiding him was all the more  dif-
ficult because it was necessary he should have some liberty of choice,  that
he might in time learn self-government.  Therefore  a  law was enacted which


[PAGE 310]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

decreed IMMEDIATE REWARDS for obedience and INSTANT PUNISHMENT for disregard
of its provisions.   Thus was man taught,  coaxed and coerced into reasoning
in a limited manner that "the way of the transgressor is hard,"  and that he
must "fear God," or the Leader Who guided him.

   Out of all who were chosen as "seed"  for the new Race,  but few remained
faithful.   Most of them were rebellious and, so far as they were concerned,
entirely  frustrated  the purpose of the Leader by  intermarrying  with  the
other Atlantean Races,  thus bringing inferior blood into their descendants.
That is what is meant in the Bible where the fact is recorded that the  sons
of God married the daughters of men.  For that act of disobedience were they
abandoned and "lost."  Even the faithful died, according to the body, in the
Desert of Gobi (the "Wilderness") in Central Asia, the cradle of our present
Race.   They reincarnated, as their own descendants of course,  and thus in-
herited  the "Promised Land,"  the Earth as it is now.   They are the  Aryan
Races, in whom Reason is being evolved to perfection.

   The  rebellious ones who were abandoned are the Jews,  of whom the  great
majority are still governed more by the Atlantean faculty of Cunning than by
Reason.   In them the race-feeling is so strong that they  distinguish  only
two classes of people:   Jews and Gentiles.   They despise the other nations
and are in turn despised by them for their cunning, selfishness and avarice.
It is not denied that they give to charity,  but it is principally,  if  not
exclusively,  among their own people and rarely internationally, as was done
in  the case of the earthquake disaster in Italy,  where barriers of  creed,
race and nationality were forgotten in the HUMAN feeling of sympathy.

   In such cases as that and the San Francisco disaster, the inner spiritual


[PAGE 311]                                                 BACK TO THE BIBLE

nature  of man becomes more in evidence than under any other  circumstances,
and  the close observer may then discern the trend of evolution.   The  fact
then  becomes manifest that though the stress of ordinary life  our  actions
may deny it,  nevertheless at heart we know and acknowledge the great  truth
that we are brothers and the hurt of one is really felt by all.   Such inci-
dents,  therefore, point out the direction of evolution.  The control of man
by Reason must be succeeded by that of Love,  which at present acts indepen-
dent of and sometimes even contrary to the dictates of Reason.   The anomaly
arises from the fact that Love,  at present,  is rarely quite unselfish  and
our Reason is not always true.   In the "New Galilee,"  the coming Sixth Ep-
och, Love will become unselfish and Reason will approve its dictates.   Uni-
versal Brotherhood shall then be fully realized,  each working for the  good
of all, because self-seeking will be a thing of the past.

   That this much-to-be-desire end may be attained,  it will be necessary to
select another "chosen people"  from the present stock to serve as a nucleus
from which the new Race shall spring.   This choosing is not to be done con-
trary to the will of the chosen.  Each man must choose for himself;  he must
WILLINGLY enter the ranks.

   Races are but an evanescent feature of evolution.   Before the end of the
Lemurian Epoch there was a "chosen people,"  different from the ordinary hu-
manity of that time, who became the ancestors of the Atlantean Races.   From
the fifth race of those another "chosen people"  was drawn,  from which  the
Aryan Races descended,  of which there have been five and will be two  more.
Before a new Epoch is ushered in, however, there must be "a new Heaven and a
new earth";  the physical features of the Earth will be changed and its den-
sity decreased.  There will be one Race at the beginning  of the next Epoch,


[PAGE 312]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

but  after that every thought and feeling of Race will disappear.   Humanity
will again constitute one vast Fellowship,  regardless of all  distinctions.
Races  are  simply steps in evolution which must be taken,  otherwise  there
will be no progress for the spirits reborn in them.   But,  though necessary
steps,  they are also extremely dangerous ones,  and are therefore the cause
of grave concern to the Leaders of mankind.   They call these sixteen  Races
"the sixteen paths to destruction,"  because ,  while in previous Epochs the
changes came after such enormous intervals that it was easier to get the ma-
jority  of  the entities in line for promotion,  it is  different  with  the
Races.   They  are comparatively evanescent; therefore extra  care  must  be
taken that as few of the spirits as possible become enmeshed in the  fetters
of Race.

   This  is  exactly  what  happened to the spirits  reborn  in  the  Jewish
Race-bodies.   They attached themselves so firmly to the Race that they  are
drawn  back  into it in successive births.  "Once a Jew,  always a  Jew"  is
their slogan.  They have entirely forgotten their spiritual nature and glory
in the material fact of being "Abraham's seed."   Therefore they are neither
"fish  nor flesh."   They have no part in the advancing Aryan Race  and  yet
they  are beyond those remnants of the Lemurian and Atlantean peoples  which
are still with us.  They have become a people without a country,  an anomaly
among mankind.

   Because  of  their bondage to the Race-idea,  their one-time  Leader  was
forced to abandon them,  and they became "lost."   That they might cease  to
regard themselves as separate from other peoples, other nations were stirred
up  against them at various times by the Leaders of humanity and  they  were
led  captive  from  the  country  where they had settled, but in vain.  They


[PAGE 313]                                                 BACK TO THE BIBLE

stubbornly refused to amalgamate with others.  Again and again they returned
in a body to their arid land.  Prophets of their own Race were raised up who
mercilessly rebuked them and predicted dire disaster, but without avail.

   As  a final effort to persuade them to cast off the fetters of  Race,  we
have  the  seeming  anomaly that the Leader of the coming  Race,  the  Great
Teacher Christ,  appeared among the Jews.  This still further shows the com-
passion and Wisdom of the great Beings Who guide evolution.   Among all  the
Races  of the Earth,  none other was "lost"  in the same sense as the  Jews;
none other so sorely needed help.  To send them a stranger, not one of their
own Race,  would have been manifestly useless.  It was a foregone conclusion
that they would have rejected him.   As the great spirit known as Booker  T.
Washington  incarnated among the negroes,  to be received by them as one  of
themselves, and thus enabled to enlighten them as no white man could, so the
great  Leaders hoped that the appearance of Christ among the Jews as one  of
their  own  might bring them to accept Him and His teachings and  thus  draw
them  out of the meshes of the Race-bodies.  But sad it is to see how  human
prejudice can prevail.  "He came unto His own and" they chose Barabbas.   He
did  not glory in Abraham,  nor any other of their ancient  traditions.   He
spoke of "another world," of a new earth, of Love and Forgiveness, and repu-
diated  the doctrine of "an eye for an eye."   He did not call them to  arms
against Caesar; had He done so, they would have hailed Him as delivered.  In
that  respect  He was misunderstood even by His disciples,  who  mourned  as
greatly  over their vanished hope of an earthly kingdom as over  the  Friend
slain by Roman hands.


[PAGE 314]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

   The  rejection  of  Christ by the Jews was the  supreme  proof  of  their
thralldom to Race.   Thenceforth all efforts to save them AS A WHOLE by giv-
ing them special prophets and teachers, were abandoned and,  as the futility
of exiling them IN A BODY had been proven,  they were,  as a last expedient,
scattered among all the nations of the earth.  Despite all, however, the ex-
treme tenacity of this people has prevailed even to the present day, the ma-
jority being yet ORTHODOX.  In America, however, there is now a slight fall-
ing away.   The younger generation is commencing to marry outside the  Race.
In  time,  an increasing number of bodies, with fewer and fewer of the  Race
characteristics,  will thus be provided for the incarnating spirits  of  the
Jews of the past.  In this manner will they be saved in spite of themselves.
They become "lost"  by marrying into inferior Races;  they will be saved  by
amalgamating with those more advanced.

   As the present Aryan Races are reasoning human beings, capable of profit-
ing by past experience, the logical means of helping them is by telling them
of  past stages of growth and the fate that overtook the  disobedient  Jews.
Those rebels had a written record of how their Leaders had dealt with  them.
It set forth how they had been chosen and rebelled; were punished;  but were
yet hopeful of ultimate redemption.   That record may be profitably used  by
us,  that we may learn how NOT to act.  It is immaterial that, in the course
of ages, it has become mutilated, and that the Jews of today are still under
the  delusion of being "chosen people";  the lesson that may be  drawn  from
their experience is none the less valid.  We may learn how a "chosen people"
may harass their Leader, frustrate His plans, and become bound to a Race for
ages.  Their  experience  should be a warning to any future "chosen people".


[PAGE 315]                                                 BACK TO THE BIBLE

This Paul points out in unmistakable terms (Heb. ii. 3-4);  "For if the word
spoken by angels was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience  re-
ceived  a just recompense of reward,  How shall we escape if we  neglect  so
great salvation?"   and Paul was speaking to Christians,  for the Hebrews to
whom he wrote this were converted,  had accepted Christ and were people whom
he expected would,  in some future life,  be among the new "chosen  people",
who  would  WILLINGLY  follow a Leader and evolve the faculty  of  Love  and
spiritual  perception,  the intuition which shall succeed  self-seeking  and
Reason.

   The  Christian teaching of the New Testament belongs particularly to  the
pioneer  Races of the Western World.  It is being specially implanted  among
the  people of the United States,  for as the object of the new Race of  the
Sixth Epoch will be the unification of all the Races,  the United States  is
becoming  the  "melting pot"  where all the nations of the earth  are  being
amalgamated  and from this amalgamation will the next "chosen  people,"  the
nucleus, be chiefly derived.

   Those spirits,  from all countries of the earth, who have striven to fol-
low  the teachings of the Christ, consciously or otherwise,  will be  reborn
here,  for the purpose of giving them conditions suitable for that  develop-
ment.   Hence  the  American-born Jew is different from  the  Jew  of  other
countries.  The very fact that he has been reborn in the Western World shows
that he is becoming emancipated from the Race spirit, and is consequently in
advance of the crystallized Old World orthodox Jew, as were his parents,  or
they  would not have conceived the idea of severing the old ties and  moving
to America.  Therefore the American-born Jew is the pioneer who will prepare
the path which his compatriots will follow later.


[PAGE 316]                                      ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

   Thus we can see that the Bible contains the teaching peculiarly needed by
the Western peoples,  that they may be taught a lesson by the awful  example
of  the Jewish Race as recorded in the Old Testament,  and learn to live  by
the teachings of the Christ in the New,  willingly offering up their  bodies
as a LIVING sacrifice upon the altar of Fellowship and Love.


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