The Rosicrucian Mysteries, Max Heindel [have you read this book TXT] 📗

Our Message And Mission

A Sane Mind

A Soft Heart

A Sound Body

Before entering upon an explanation of the teachings of the Rosicrucians, it may be well to say a word about them and about the place they hold in the evolution of humanity.

For reasons to be given later these teachings advocate the dualistic view; they hold that man is a spirit enfolding all the powers of God as the seed enfolds the plant, and that these powers are being slowly unfolded by a series of existences in a gradually improving earthy body; also that this process of development has been performed under the guidance of exalted beings who are yet ordering our steps, though in a decreasing [pg 006] measure, as we gradually acquire intellect and will. These exalted Beings, though unseen to the physical eyes, are nevertheless potent factors in all affairs of life, and give to the various groups of humanity lessons which will most efficiently promote the growth of their spiritual powers. In fact, the earth may be likened to a vast training school in which there are pupils of varying age and ability as we find it in one of our own schools. There are the savages, living and worshipping under most primitive conditions, seeing in stick or stone a God. Then, as man progresses onwards and upwards in the scale of civilization, we find a higher and higher conception of Deity, which has flowered here in our Western World in the beautiful Christian religion that now furnishes our spiritual inspiration and incentive to improve.

These various religions have been given to each group of humanity by the exalted beings whom we know in the Christian religion as the Recording Angels, whose wonderful prevision enable them to view the trend of even so unstable a quantity as the human mind, and thus they are enabled to determine what steps are necessary to lead [pg 007] our enfoldment along the lines congruous to the highest universal good.

When we study the history of the ancient nations we shall find that at about six hundred years B. C. a great spiritual wave had its inception on the Eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean where the great Confucian Religion accelerated the progress of the Chinese nation, then also the Religion of the Buddha commenced to win its millions of adherents in India, and still further West we have the lofty philosophy of Pythagoras. Each system was suited to the needs of the particular people to whom it was sent. Then came the period of the Sceptics, in Greece, and later, traveling westward the same spiritual wave is manifested as the Christian religion of the so-called “Dark Ages” when the dogma of a dominant church compelled belief from the whole of Western Europe.

It is a law in the universe that a wave of spiritual awakening is always followed by a period of doubting materialism, each phase is necessary in order that the spirit may receive equal development of heart and intellect without being carried too far in either direction. The Great Beings aforementioned, Who care for our progress, always [pg 008] take steps to safeguard humanity against that danger, and when they foresaw the wave of materialism which commenced in the sixteenth century with the birth of our modern Science, they took steps to protect the West as they had formerly safeguarded the East against the Sceptics who were held in check by the Mystery schools.

In the thirteenth century there appeared in central Europe a great spiritual teacher whose symbolical name was

Christian Rosenkreuz.
or
Christian Rose Cross.

who founded the mysterious Order of the Rosy Cross, concerning which so many speculations have been made and so little has become known to the world at large, for it is the Mystery school of the West and is only open to those who have attained the stage of spiritual unfoldment necessary to be initiated in its secrets concerning the Science of Life and Being.

If we are so far developed that we are able to leave our dense physical body and take a soul flight into interplanetary space we shall find that the ultimate physical atom [pg 009] is spherical in shape like our earth; it is a ball. When we take a number of balls of even size and group them around one, it will take just twelve balls to hide a thirteenth within. Thus the twelve visible and the one hidden are numbers revealing a cosmic relationship and as all Mystery Orders are based upon cosmic lines, they are composed of twelve members gathered around a thirteenth who is the invisible head.

There are seven colors in the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. But between the violet and the red there are still other five colors which are invisible to the physical eye but reveal themselves to the spiritual sight. In every Mystery Order there are also seven brothers who at times go out into the world and there perform whatever work may be necessary to advance the people among whom they serve, but five are never seen outside the temple. They work with and teach those alone who have passed through certain stages of spiritual unfoldment and are able to visit the temple in their spiritual bodies; a feat taught in the first initiation which usually takes place outside the temple as it is not [pg 010] convenient for all to visit that place physically.

Let not the reader imagine that this initiation makes the pupil a Rosicrucian, it does not, any more than admission to a High School makes a boy a member of the faculty. Nor does he become a Rosicrucian even after having passed through all the nine degrees of this or any other Mystery School. The Rosicrucians are Hierophants of the lesser Mysteries, and beyond them there are still schools wherein Greater Mysteries are taught. Those who have advanced through the lesser Mysteries and have become pupils of the Greater Mysteries are called Adepts, but even they have not reached the exalted standpoint of the twelve Brothers of the Rosicrucian Order or the Hierophants of any other lesser Mystery School any more than the freshman at college has attained to the knowledge and position of a teacher in the High school from which he has just graduated.

A later work will deal with initiation, but we may say here that the door of a genuine Mystery School is not unlocked by a golden key, but is only opened as a reward for meritorious service to humanity and any one [pg 011] who advertises himself as a Rosicrucian or makes a charge for tuition, by either of those acts shows himself to be a charlatan. The true pupil of any Mystery School is far too modest to advertise the fact, he will scorn all titles or honors from men, he will have no regard for riches save the riches of love given to him by those whom it becomes his privilege to help and teach.

In the centuries that have gone by since the Rosicrucian Order was first formed they have worked quietly and secretly, aiming to mould the thought of Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon, Shakespeare, Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical activities of the day are at their lowest ebb, and the spiritual impulse at its highest flood tide, they have sent out from their temple soul-stirring vibrations to counteract materialism and to further the development of soul powers. To their activities we owe the gradual spiritualization of our once so materialistic science.

With the commencement of the twentieth century a further step was taken. It was realized that something must be done to make [pg 012] religion scientific as well as to make science religious, in order that they may ultimately blend; for at the present time heart and intellect are divorced. The heart instinctively feels the truth of religious teachings concerning such wonderful mysteries as the Immaculate Conception (the Mystic Birth), the Crucifixion (the Mystic Death), the cleansing blood, the atonement, and other doctrines of the Church, which the intellect refuses to believe, as they are incapable of demonstration, and seemingly at war with natural law. Material advancement may be furthered when intellect is dominant and the longings of the heart unsatisfied, but soul growth will be retarded until the heart also receives satisfaction.

In order to give the world a teaching so blended that it will satisfy both the mind and heart, a messenger must be found and instructed. Certain unusual qualifications were necessary, and the first one chosen failed to pass a certain test after several years had been spent to prepare him for the work to be done.

It is well said that there is a time to sow, and a time to reap, and that there are certain times for all the works of life, and in accordance [pg