“A Sane Mind, A Soft Heart, A Sound Body” July/August 2002—$5.00

FORMED BY THE LIGHT FOR THE LIGHTFREE WILL AND NOETIC DESTINY

RELIGION IN TIME OF WARTHE SHADOW OF GOOD THINGS TO COME

A CHRISTIAN ESOTERIC MAGAZINE

THE LORD’S PRAYER*

Father, you who were, are, and will be

in our inmost being,

May your name be glorified and praised

in us.

May your kingdom grow in our deeds and inmost lives.

May we perform your will as you, Father, lay it down

in our inmost being.

You give us spiritual nourishment,

the bread of life, superabundantly

in all the changing conditions of our lives.

Let our mercy toward others

make up for the sins done to our being.

You do not allow the tempter to work in us

beyond the capacity of our strength.

For no temptation can live in your being,

Father, and the tempter is only appearance

and delusion, from which

you lead us, Father, through the light of knowledge.

May your power and glory work in us through all periods

and ages of time. Amen.

Front cover: Milky Way, JoeTuccione, Space.com. Back cover: Watercolor, Anthony Cardaci Mendes, 2001, The Path to Truth, Gift to the Rosicrucian Fellowship. This representation reflects the person-al conception of the artist. Above: Paramount Photos. *This version of The Lord’s Prayer was made and prayed by Rudolf Steiner. From The Christian Mystery, Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY

This Issue...Feature

We Are Eternal...Max Heindel..............................................................................2

EditorialSeeing Face to Face...............................................................................................3

Mystic LightThe Mystery of the Lost Word...Kent Lorimer.....................................................4Meditation—Formed by Light for Light...Friedrich Rittelmeyer.........................7Walking in the Middle of the Road, with the Sons of Cain...Anita Olin............12Keynotes of Max Heindel’s Teachings...Elsa Glover.........................................18The Tie with the Teacher...S.B.M........................................................................21Free Will and Noetic Destiny...Harold Percival..................................................23Staurolite or Fairy Crosses?...Ida Smith.............................................................28

From Max Heindel’ s WritingsReligion in Time of War......................................................................................30

Readers’ QuestionsProtection When out of the Body; Panorama of the Blind; Seeing Entities.......34Praying Spirits out of Purgatory..........................................................................35

Western W isdom Bible StudySolomon—Revelations of Truth...Corinne Heline..............................................36

AstrologyPersonality and Individuality...Bessie Leo..........................................................39Aspects to the Ascendant...Stephen Arroyo........................................................43

Religion and ArtThe Shadow of Good Things to Come...Ross Duffel. ........................................47

News PerspectivesLife and Death on Order.....................................................................................52

Book ReviewsFather Arseny—Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father...C.W.....................................53

Nutrition and HealthCosmic Biochemistry...Lillian R. Carque.............................................................55

HealingThe Key to All Cures...Max Heindel..................................................................58

For ChildrenThe Man Who Learned to Be Kind...L. Furze-Morrish......................................59

MiscellaneousThe Lord’s Prayer...Rudolf Steiner’s version.............................inside front coverStriving for Christ Consciousness—Here and Now...B.R..................................11Opportunity (poem)...Walter Malone..................................................................20Take Time (poem)...Author unknown.................................................................27Song for the Inanimate (poem)...Muriel Thurston..............................................60July/August 2002 Ephemerides.....................................................................61-62

“A Sane Mind,A Soft Heart,

A Sound Body”© 2002 The Rosicrucian Fellowship

A Christian Esoteric Magazine

Established byMax HeindelJune 1913

Volume 94, No. 4

July/August—2002USPS 471080—ISSN 0744-432X

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FEATURE

We are, have always been, will ever be. We are a portion of Eternity.Older than Creation, a part of one Great Whole,Is each individual and immortal Soul.

On Time’s whirring loom our garments we’ve wrought,Eternally weave we on network of Thought.Our kin and our country, by Mind brought to birth,Were patterned in heaven ere molded on Earth.

We have shone in the Jewel and danced on the Wave,We have sparkled in Fire defying the grave.Through shapes everchanging, in size, kind and name,Our individual essence still is the same.

And when we have reached to the highest of all,The gradations of growth our minds shall recall,So that link by link we may join them togetherAnd trace step by step the way we reached thither.

Thus in time we shall know, if only we doWhat lifts, ennobles, is right and true.With kindness to all, with malice to noneThat in and through us God’s will may be done.

—Max Heindel

We Are Eternal

freenaturepictures.com

ADVANCED MEMBERS of the plantworld begin to acquire their specialdistinction at this time of the year.The fruiting and seeding processesare well under way. We see and we

delight in what we see. That we can see is often anunacknowledged marvel. Without sight, what of thephysical world could we know? Certainly there aremodes of seeing. But knowledge begins with phys-ical looking, with observation of things. On the basisof what we see, we can learn to compare, analyze,discriminate and evaluate—all types of thinkingwhich are based on the data of sense perception.

There are blind persons whose debility was off-set, if not enhanced, by a superphysical vision: theseer Tiresias, who foresaw Oedipus’tragic end; theauthor of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the allegedlyblind poet Homer; the English poet John Milton,who dictated Paradise Lost, Paradise Regainedand Samson Agonistes (about the blinded Samson).These visionaries saw an inner landscape, what thepoet Gerard Manley Hopkins calls an “inscape.”

There are also the seeing blind, mentioned manytimes in the Bible, the literalists, the skeptics, theadamant disbelievers. They may include the mod-ern newtonian empiricists, for whom real is onlywhat is ponderable, quantifiable, measurable.There are also the closed-minded, and thereforeclosed-sighted, who wear blinders, who see whatthey want to see and nothing else.

As seeing is the precondition for materialknowledge, another kind of seeing is the precursorof spiritual knowledge—seeing with the eyes offaith, for faith is the evidence of things not seenand the substance of things hoped for. What is this“substance”? It is our spiritual identity, it is the

all-good that is God. What is this “hope”? That ouressence, the heart of our being, is one in and withGod, and that we can experience this Reality, wecan see It and wholly abide in its Presence.

What would the Song of Solomon be were notthe beloved visible? Visible to the eyes of love. Allearthly delights and beauties are aromas and linea-ments of spiritual being. The transcendent God isalso the descended God. Christ lived in and asJesus. What is epiphany but the showing of theinvisible in the visible, the seeding of starlight onearth. What is incarnation but the revelation ofGod in human form, “which we have seen with oureyes, which we have looked upon...the Word oflife; (for the life was manifested, and we have seenit, and bear witness, and show unto you that eter-nal life, which was with the Father).” This is amomentous revelation, is it not? Theophany—Godrevealing Himself in the organism of Cosmos; lifemanifesting the Father, life from the Father, lifethat lights up every soul born in human flesh.

The eyes were made by light for the light. God is(spiritual) light. The sun of God’s outermost presencesolarizes the physical world and engenders humaneyes to see it, to know it, and to praise it. God’s Son,the light of Love, irradiates our hearts and guidesus by the eyes of intuition (in + tueri, to look at) toknow the things of God in the world of spirit.

In the practice of contemplation, we focus themind’s eye on a mental image or idea. At first wesee through a glass darkly. How can we see “faceto face”? By love, with love, in love. As ThomasAquinas said, “Where love is there is the eye.”What shall we then know? All that God knows usand created us to be—spirit of His Spirit, light ofhis Light, I AM in the all of the all-seeing Eye.❐

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Seeing Face to Face

EDITORIAL

BY THE TIME of the Baby-lonian Captivity of Judea,which followed about a cen-tury after the Ten Tribes of theNorth, or Israel, had been car-

ried away into captivity by the Assyrians,Palestine had become a more or less homo-geneous nation, in the sense that the sever-al ethnic strains present in the land hadbecome assimilated, and that from thismelting pot had come those whom we nowcall the Hebrew people. This process hadbeen going on for about a thousand years,from the time of Abraham to the time of theBabylonian Exile. New incursions of foreign peo-ples continued to take place from time to time,however, and so, even up until the time of Christ,there would be pockets in which immigrant bloodstill remained in an original unassimilated state.

Yet the great mass of the population had becomethe Hebrew nation. The dominant ethnic strain wasthat of the Amorites, whose king type is the greatand mysterious Melchizedek, who ruled at Salem(Jerusalem), and to whom Abraham pledged hisallegiance, and whose language (in dialect)Abraham adopted. Bible scholars today are inves-tigating the possibility that Abraham, instead ofbeing Aramean, as formerly supposed, and as stat-ed in some passages in the Bible, was in reality ofthe same blood as Melchizedek, that is, Amorite.This is the tall, powerful, redheaded race whichhas continued to throw up into history the variousgreat heroes, such as Samson and Simon barKocheba. The latter was eight feet tall, and the

Bible seems to show that Samson was in similarproportion. Jesus of Nazareth is traditionallythought to have been at least six feet tall.

In the Bible and Apocrypha we are told thatJudah and Dan resembled the Amorites, so muchso that they could disguise themselves as Amoritesand mingle among the enemy undiscovered.

Dan, like Judah, was one of the southern tribes, butbeing unable to defend the territory assigned to it,which was near that of Judah, migrated to the North,where it became the twin tribe of Naphtali. HiramAbiff, the Master Workman of Solomon’s Temple,was of these two tribes, according to the Bible.

The term “Canaanite” really includes the sever-al races which had settled in Palestine from earlytimes. The Philistines, Greco-Cretan in origin, arethought to have entered Palestine at about the sametime the Hebrews came with Moses and Joshua,which explains the continuing warfare betweenthese two peoples. The Phoenicians called them-selves “Canaanite,” and they spoke a form of the

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The Mystery of theLost Word

MYSTIC LIGHT

Die Bibel in Bildern, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1789-1853)

Moses Before the Burning BushFrom out of the fiery aura Moses hears the archangel Michael speak.

same Western dialect spoken by Melchizedek, andwhich Abraham adopted. Aramean is the Easterndialect of a so-called Semitic language basic to thepeoples of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. TheWestern, or Amorite, dialect is therefore the root ofwhat we today call Hebrew. If recent scholars areright, Abraham learned and retained this tonguewhile still in Babylonia.

What was the cement which bound these peo-ples into one nation? It was the religion of Moses,the great lawgiver, educated and trained in Egypt,which created the Hebrew nation. Nowhere in his-tory is the power of an idea more clearly shownthan here, where the teaching of the great EgyptianInitiate brought a people and a nation into being.We have seen the same process repeated in theUnited States of America.

But an organized religion is basically a systemof ideas or concepts. What was the concept whichhad the power to create a nation dedicated to thecoming of a world savior in the Time of the End?It was the concept of the Immanence of Godhead,the understanding that God who created the uni-verse is in everything and is everywhere present;but that He is also transcendent—is not limited byHis creation but above and beyond it. This is theprimal Mystery Teaching of the Old Testament.

The Name of God conveys this concept, but it isnot merely one Name; it is a composite of manyNames. Its root, however, is the Hebrew wordehyeh, signifying Eternal Existence. In the Englishtranslation of the Bible this is given as I AM, or IAM THAT I AM, while the root spelling is usuallygiven, combined with vowels, as Jahweh, Jahve, orJehovah. It is not the fault of Moses that laterHebrews took this Divine Name to mean only theirown tribal gods or nature gods. The High Priestsand the King always knew the truth—that theName meant the Supreme God of the universe, theGod of all races and beings, and not merely a godof the various Hebrew tribes.

Each race which comes into being upon theEarth, however, does have its own archangelicruler or genius, and the Archangel Michael wasthis Genius of the Hebrew Race-Idea. It was hewho appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai,who gave to Moses the God-Name and the great

Teaching of the Mystery of Eternal Being. We readthe story in the third chapter of Exodus, whereMoses saw a bush that was burning yet was notconsumed. The “bush” burned because it was infact not a bush at all but the auric streamers of anArchangel; for the Archangels are fiery Sun Beings.Then, the Bible says, “God called to him out of thebush.” That is, a voice spoke to him, out of thefiery streamers of the archangelic aura.

Here, instead of saying “God spoke,” it wouldbe more correct to say “the god spoke,” meaningMichael the Archangel. He was, however, speak-ing God’s will for the future Hebrew nation, and inthis sense we may say that “God spoke.”

The archangelic Voice went on: “I am the God ofyour father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,and the God of Jacob.” He then commands Mosesto lead his people out of Egypt and back to the landof Canaan. To this Moses objects: “If I come to thepeople of Israel and say to them, The God of yourfathers hath sent me unto you, and they ask me,

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Courtesy of The Light of Christ Monastery, Borrego Springs, CA, www.monasteryicons.com

The Archangel MichaelThe Archangel Michael is the Race-spirit of the Jews (Dan 12:1).

What is his name? what shall I say to them.” Thenthe Archangel replied: “I AM WHO I AM. Say thisto the people of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you....this is my Name forever and thus am I to beremembered throughout all generations.”

The point to be observed here is that theArchangel has not, in fact, given his name at all.He says, “I Am who I am.”

The Name of God given to Moses, and which isnot, of course, recorded on any written or printedpage, signifies, as we have said, eternal existence;and this concept seems so abstract and vague thatorthodox scholars have come to look upon theHebrew reverence for the Name as a sort of super-stition. Because the real spelling and pronunciationof the Name had been lost, itis spoken of as The LostWord, for the Lost Word ofMasonry is nothing else thanthis, the true pronunciation ofthe Name of God. Of theArchangel Michael the Biblesays, “My Name is in him,”because he represents thetutelary deity of the Hebrew nation, who repre-sents God to that people. In astronomical terms,the Tetragrammaton is inscribed upon the fierygolden disc of the Sun.

Take note that it is not the Name but the Conceptwhich has the power. The Word, or Name of God,is expressed in all of creation; it is the ArchetypalSound which maintains universes and unfolds theprocesses of evolution; but behind the universaltone, or sound, is the archetypal Concept or Idea.

The Concept of Godhead is the single most pow-erful Idea which the human mind can entertain,and although, truly, human speech can pronounceneither the Sound of Creation nor the Name of anArchangel, yet there are certain sound-patternswhich were anciently known to Initiates in theMysteries which did have the power to producemiraculous effects.

Modern science is only now beginning to under-stand the hidden power of sound, especially in thesupersonic range of vibrations which are inaudibleto the human ear. In this supersonic range thevoices of the Creative Hierarchies, which are

collectively God, continue to chant the life-song ofour universe.In ancient times there were collec-tions of sacred Words, all of which together equat-ed to Godhead, the various patterns of which takensingly could be applied to a variety of phenomenaon the Earth plane. Some Words were words ofhealing; some commanded the Nature Spirits;some invoked the aid of Angels and Archangels;only a few pierced to the Throne of Godhead itself,into the pure reaches of Infinite Being.

From this we understand why the priesthoodtried to keep the Mystery of the I AM a deep secret.The I AM was no feeble superstition of a barbaricand priest-ridden people. It was a real sound-pattern of unimaginable power. However, as the

nation and its priesthooddegenerated, the symbolicmarks which stood for thissound pattern ceased to haveany meaning, for the true pat-tern could be transmittedonly in Initiation. It was notsomething that could be“handed down,” either in

writing or verbally. The Word had to be “lived”before it could be “spoken.” The Initiate mustbecome the Word, which was then incarnate inflesh and blood.

Such was the accomplishment of the greatestInitiate of the human race, the man Jesus ofNazareth, the descendant of the kings of Judah, inwhose flesh and blood the Tetragrammaton-Concept had become visible and tangible uponEarth; and who became the vehicle or carrier forthe mighty Christ Spirit, to the uplifting of theentire planet and all the living beings upon it.

As the Aquarian Age approaches, which is theAge of the Son of Man, knowledge of theMysteries of sound will become a common pos-session of the illumined, regenerate human race.The first step of that knowledge is the understand-ing that we are, as Virgin Spirits, the potentialImage of God. Gazing upon the glory of Godheadwe say rightly, I AM THAT. Such was the WisdomTeaching of the great Masters who wrote the Bible,and such is the Wisdom Teaching today. ❐

—Kent Lorimer

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The Word had to be“lived” before it could be

“spoken.” The Initiatemust become the W ord,

which was then incarnatein flesh and blood.

FROM THE PRACTICE of such exer-cises for the will as we here describe, apurification of the will will follow,which we could not expect beforehand,and have never known before. Then we

look at the life of the will in men around us, andsee how casual, how impure, how darkly uncon-scious, how eaten up by egoism it is. How petty asaims for the will are money, position, one’s ownhouse and garden, a peaceful evening of life. Andeven these aims live only fluctuatingly in the thinwills of men of today.

Now we begin to see how it is when a clearer,purer will lives in a man. By the great aim, whichwe take into our lives, our will itself acquiresgreatness, which works ever more strongly intoour daily activities, into our momentary wishes. Inthe greatness of his aim, man himself acquiresgreatness. By the great pattern which we seebefore us, which is Christ, our will gains that firewhich is not dangerous, to which we can dedicateourselves entirely. We have only to guard this fireagainst the impure flame of fanaticism—whichmay be quite concealed. But through the greatopposition upon which we look, our will gets thestrength of steel. It grows into the super-human,because it unites itself with the super-human.

It is a world full of suffering, if we feel in theindividual weakness of a man all the littleness, thelamentableness, the anxiety of soul, the lostness,the gnawing unrest, the dissatisfaction of humani-

ty. Do not let yourselves be deceived: those whocome forward with great pretensions of strength,and hurl around them arrogant words and actionsare generally such men as are weak within. Oftenit surprises one to find suddenly—this man isafraid! If one can get over one’s annoyance, anddoes not linger over the resistance which is per-haps necessary, one is seized with pity for theweaknesses of these men, which they carefullyconceal from themselves and others. Against thiscan be set up, without any arrogance or insinceri-ty, the “I am” of Christ, as a power for victorywhich breaks in with radiance from another world.Just where men are really disturbed, as in a publicmeeting, one need only hold this “I am” stronglywithin one, and let it radiate out into the unrest.That is “pacifism” in the sense of Christ. For thesaying, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for theyshall be called the children of God,” speaks in theoriginal text of the pacifici, the peacemakers. Theyshall be called the “children of God,” for such theyare, because in unrest one sees that they are bornfrom above.

If one can procure such revelations for men, theywill see another Christ than the one preached tothem. Our meditations will lead us to theseheights. Tolstoi says somewhere: “I have only onewish: to fulfill the divine will; and only one fear: toneglect the divine will. When godly fear destroysall earthly fear, then man joins the army of the realwarriors of the world.”

That which we are here discussing is like passingthe will through one consecration after another, tothe real world battle. Thus we see yet another

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Meditation—Formed by Light for Light

MYSTIC LIGHT

This is the 18th in a series of articles taken from FriedrichRittelmeyer’s Meditation, Guidance of the Inner Life, pub-lished by Floris Books, Edinburgh. Reprinted with permission.

world appear, which is perhaps least of all seen inits need of redemption. This is the world of dark-ness.

Again it is necessary to lead our gaze to some ofthe facts around us before we can have the rightimpulse to meditation. Darkness, according topresent-day views, is spread over the beginnings ofhumanity and of the earth; darkness over theirgoal, their meaning and their end; darkness overthe destiny of the individual after death; darknessalso over every individual appearance in its truebeing. In philosophy this has been expressed in theteaching that “the thing in itself” is always hiddenfrom us. Never did humanity have so few and suchuncertain thoughts about its origin and destiny astoday. Do not more illnesses and suicides comefrom this than is admitted?

We must now turn to the training of our sightthat it may see the darkness of the world. The menof the present day still live in a “dark age,” darkerin many respects than the “dark Middle Ages.”And that they talk about enlightenment is a proofthat they do not possess it. Even into theology,which ought to talk of the light, this world dark-ness spreads itself today. It ventures to speak onlyof the “unknown,” “mysterious,” “quite other”God. Thus it proclaims its need as if it were avirtue, and still asserts that religion has alwaysconsisted only in belief in this hidden power. Hewho closely examines what such a classical com-pendium as Religion in History and at the PresentDay has to say about God and the higher world,will be astonished. That is hidden by many valu-able individual items of historical knowledge. Butin orthodox theology also, such as the theology ofBarth, to which today many religious men turn, theworld darkness continues to live, feebly illuminat-ed by a few lamps taken from the Bible which arecalled “revelation.” Men live today, without know-ing it, as those live who dwell under the veil ofsmoke of a great city. They do not know that aboveit is a glorious world in which the light lives in athousand beauties. They see clearly that which isbeneath the curtain of cloud, but the worlds abovedo not exist for them.

In Plato’s time men still felt the life of humanityin the way he described in his famous picture of

the cave. Men live shut up in the dark, cast outfrom the real world. But upon the wall of theircave they see the shadows of those who pass byoutside. Today the cave is lit by electric light. Theysee clearly what is upon their walls. But the shad-ows of those who pass by outside they see nolonger. That there could be another dwelling thanthis well-appointed cave, they do not know.

Certainly, there are riches in their cave: “Drink,O eyes, what your lashes will hold of the goldensuperfluity of the world!” Gottfried Keller was thevoice of men today, when he wrote these words,and Friedrich Nietzsche was the soul of men to-day, when he loved them.

But the increasing number of suicides revealsthat men are not satisfied with this drink, good

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Oil on Canvas, Frederic Shields

Saint Paul in AthensPaul declared that the “unknown god” (“agnosto theos” isincised on the urn behind the woman), “ignorantly” wor-shiped by the Athenians, is the resurrected Christ Jesus.

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though it may taste. Goethe was a pioneer upon theway of humanity when he spoke these wordsthrough Faust: “Night seems more deeply deep topenetrate, but brightest light shines in the inwardpart.” This same Faust, who was intoxicated withthe glory of the world of the senses, seeks theinward light and values it, even when the outwardeyes are surrounded with darkness. For he is notblind now, he was blind before. A wisdom whichlights up the age is expressed in these words.

“And as Jesus passed by he saw a man whichwas blind from his birth” (John 9:1). Everyonewho comes into the world in these centuries is bornblind. Christ was the light of the world. Christwished his disciples to be the light of the world.His task, our task is to heal the blind. How doesthat come to pass?

Many remarkable things can be found by closeexamination of the simple picture presented by thisstory. He who calls himself “the light of the world”—and that in connection with this action—yetdoes not immediately open the eye by saying, “Letthere be light!” but he goes the way the sun went,when it formed the human eye. The more closelywe look at it, the more significant does this wayappear. “He spat on the ground and made clay ofthe spittle and He anointed the eyes of the blindman with clay.” Then he sent him to the pool ofSiloam with the command, “Go, wash.” With ourpresent-day feelings of taste, we are shocked bysuch a story. With our concepts of natural sciencewe are shocked by it. And we do not notice whatsublime spiritual teaching speaks in this story forall those who feel the necessity of lightening theworld’s darkness.

Christ gives a piece of His life. The spirit livesmore vividly and penetratingly in the watery ele-ment than in the material, as we saw in the story ofthe marriage at Cana. But Christ does not takewater, as it comes from heaven, but water as it haspassed through his earthly personality. Again, Hedoes not use it as it is, but He unites it with thepowers of the earth. But the healing does not fol-low immediately, an action is required from theblind man himself: that he should go to the pool ofSiloam and wash himself there.

One can only say that this is an earthly picture of

the working of deep wisdom. If we wish to heal aman of his earthly blindness, we have no otherthan heavenly wisdom. But this heavenly wisdomcannot be brought immediately to men. It onlyworks in the right way when it has passed throughour earthly personality. And this alone is notenough. The wisdom of the higher world mustunite itself with the forces of the earth upon whichwe live, if it is really to help man. Only thus itbecomes the true power of healing. Not as it mayrepresent itself to the angels in heaven, but as itunites itself to earthly being, is it real help. Andyet, we must not believe that the single act ofanother is sufficient, even if he were the greatest.Man must be brought to perform an action himself,and to go where complete healing is ready for him.The evangelist finds the name of the pool signifi-cant—Sent. That is the word which he himselfalways uses of Christ: “Him whom the Father hathsent.” And so, in his significant speech, the evan-gelist tells us the ultimate truth: only if you purifyyourself in Christ Himself shall you become ablereally to see.

Of course all such interpretations are absolutelypainful to the man of today, with the intellect onwhich he prides himself. Yet it must be admittedthat religious documents of past ages speak withdouble meaning in this way, apart from the hintwhich the evangelist himself gives. But now let usleave as an open question whether there was in theevangelist any knowledge or suspicion of thesetruths, and notice the mistakes made by men whenthey try to bring the light of truth into the darknessof the world. There are those who throw texts fromthe Bible at other people’s heads, and think thatthat helps. There are others who throw scientificdiscoveries at the heads of ordinary people and callit “educating the people.” Even...[spiritual] truthscan be used in these attempts at healing. Theresults are notorious. A spiritual truth has power toheal only when it has passed through a personality.It must have become a piece of a human life if it isreally to work. Abstract truths can be comprehend-ed easily by thought, even when they come lifelessand stale to men. The truths of life do not revealthemselves unless they come out of a life. Themore a lecture upon questions of life is penetrated

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in every sentence by the character of a fully humanperson, the more the life-sap of a man is percepti-ble in it, the more eagerly will it be taken in. Thisis true not only of lectures, it is true of every con-versation. As a helper of men, one has often theprimary impression—when one is giving advice—only when you let it appear that you have personalexperience, do men take you in earnest. That is thefirst thing.

And this is not the whole. Men often go awayuncomforted from a friend or pastor, and think:“What he has said may be all right and fit his owncase, but it does not suit my circumstances, it can-not be fulfilled through what is possible to me.”Only complete earthly activity gives completeearthly power. Personal wisdom must be added tolife on earth. That which is to help must not onlybe truly and personally experienced but it must bebrought to earth, it must be permeated by the earthon which we live. Very, very much remains theoryand principle and never brings help and healing, ingreat or small things, because, although it is rightand is perhaps worked out at great cost, it hasfailed to give earthly powers their due, and toallow them to work along with it. That is the sec-ond thing.

And the third thing must also be noticed.Enduring help and healing is only in Christ. ToHim we must point, as well as we can, to Him wemust lead, to the “Sent.” He is the new world whoheals the old. Otherwise there is only the singlebenefit, there is no lasting help. And he who is tobe healed must himself perform this action, mustpurify himself in Christ.

We must know and ponder all this if we wish tobe received into the ranks of the fighters forhumanity in the sense of Christ. It helps us to med-itate strongly. Christ’s action as a parable, when wehave once understood it, says everything, moreshortly, more impressively, more instructively thanmany words. In the picture of the man born blindwe see man before us, as he lives on the earth to-day. We see Christ before us as the light of theworld. We see a truth which can prove itself in lifein the help given by Christ, and in the way the helpis given. Great worlds and truths and purposes willshine in through such a picture. When such pic-

tures become transparent for us, the earth itselfbecomes transparent and we ourselves are healedfrom the world-darkness. Christ lives in this storyand out of it heals blindness today.

A time will come when men will not see beforethem stone and earth, hill and wood as today, butwhen all will be a transparent veil, soft and spiri-tual, and behind it they will see the working of theangels. Today we are able to prepare only a littlefor this time. But still we can do a mighty thing.We can carry Christ in us like the sunlight of a newworld. We can let him shine through our words,our bearing, our actions. So a higher world canflash forth before men, even if it happens only hereand there. So the eyes gradually fit themselves to

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Stained glass, Lancaster, England

Jesus Heals a Blind ManThe healing of the blind man from Bethesda proceeded fromthe archetypal body to the vital to the physical. At the inter-mediate stage, after Jesus’saliva was applied to his eyes,theman saw humans as trees (representing the etheric) walking.

© S

onia Halliday

perceive another world. “The eye is formed bylight for light,” says Goethe, of the bodily eye.This process is the type of that which must happentoday. There is “darkness upon the face of thedeep,” but “the spirit of God moves upon the faceof the waters.”

In man himself this new “Let there be light!”must be fulfilled. He himself must become translu-cent for it. It is deeply moving to perceive thistask: to become translucent in one’s earthly beingand one’s earthly life for the light of Christ, so thatthe light of heaven shines into the darkness of theworld. Every revelation of man in the world of thesenses, even his movement, gains a new meaning.Man can be the bearer of divine light, and thus canshine through the world of sense everywhere fromwithin. Christus verus Luciferus—Christ the truelightbearer—one must not only love this saying,one must translate it into action.

It can only succeed if we concentrate whollyupon the light in us, if we bring this light to all weare and do, so that the light shines through it all; ifall that is earthly exists for us only that it may beirradiated. That is the fight of light against dark-ness, as it can be carried on today.

Rembrandt represented in his whole artistic lifethe battle of light with darkness. Goethe regardedwith reverence this battle of light with darkness as aworshipping of God. Our calling is to be this battleof light with darkness, in all that we can bring intothedark world of the senses by our life and actions.

Thus we place ourselves rightly between Eastand West. The Easthas light, but not for the dark-ness. The Westhas darkness, but not with the light.Christ is the light in the darkness, and so are all inwhom He really is. “The light shines” again, “inthe darkness.”

We have spoken above of the glorious fact thatwe may live out our ego before men, “I am, be notafraid!” Now we recognize the glorious fact that anew world can arise out of this ego, as out of a sun:“Let there be light!”

Thus our meditation again trains us for the greatworld battle. The world of the senses becomes evermore wonderful when the light shines through it.Man is born blind “that the works of God shouldbe made manifest in him” (John 9:3). ❐

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STRIVING FOR CHRIST

CONSCIOUSNESS—HERE AND NOW

There is a spark of Divine essence hidden

within every human being. It is the hope of the

spiritual aspirant to find that spark and fan it

into a flame of living beauty. The degree of suc-

cess of his endeavors will depend on where he

places the “treasures” of his heart. If he places

his inner values on external forms, he will be

building the foundation of his life on shifting

sands. If, on the other hand, he places his inner

values on spiritual truths, he will be construct-

ing an edifice on solid rock.

Along the Path, the aspirant will meet the

most trying challenge of achieving the fine bal-

ance between involvement in outer activities

and inner efforts toward the attainment of his

spiritual goals. His former reliance on the sens-

es may lead him to believe that external forms

are the prime realities of life and that spiritual

precepts have only a dim and hazy reality by

comparison. His hope may be placed on out-

ward organization rather than on the principles

for which that organization was founded and

continues to exist.

The externally-oriented aspirant may dedi-

cate himself to a spiritual teacher in preference

to the ideals the teacher strives to live by or he

may put his faith in books and the veneration

of the writers. He may be tempted to give his

loyalty to a set of Teachings on spiritual

themes, instead of offering his devotion to the

spiritual realities behind those Teachings.

Unless he is careful in his loyalties, he could

reduce the Teachings to a code of intellectual

concepts.

Assuredly, it takes a great deal of strength to

rely on the Christ Light within rather than on

these outer realities. However, should any

external factor be truly working for the spiritu-

al development of mankind, it would exist only

to encourage the aspirant to seek the God with-

in himself. Christ alone is the answer to our

longings and the Goal of our aspirations.

—B.R.

IT IS A COMMON ENOUGH STORY—that of the man who walks down the middleof the road and receives the flying missilesfrom warring parties on both sides! The les-son in tolerance implied is almost too obvi-

ous to require comment: we all recognize the dan-gers as well as the virtues of the Middle Path. Occultstudents in particular pride themselves upon theirliberality of thought, their broadmindedness, theirtolerance, and sometimes arrogate to themselves thesole ownership of the Middle Path of Tolerance.Norare students of the Rosicrucian Philosophy exempt.

We all think we are tolerant because we are stu-dents of the Western Wisdom Teachings; but we failto realize that the actual expression of tolerance ispurely an individual matter, and has nothing to dowith the Rosicrucian Philosophy. Nor must we mis-take indifference for tolerance. It is easy when youbelong to nothing to praise everything, or to blameeverything; but to be wrapped heart and soul in anidea or movement and then to praise whole-hearted-ly the work of a counter idea or movement, that istolerance; that is walking the Middle Way. Let ustherefore, in the cause of clarity, define the truly tol-erant individual as one who, sometimes affiliated,sometimes not, is able to discern and value the truthand beauty in almost all human activities and asso-ciations, regardless of his own personal inclinations.

Consider for a moment that it is seldom that anyphilosophy, especially a religious philosophy, is vio-lently partisan. The founders of philosophic systemsare usually too keenly aware of their human limita-tions to set up themselves or their teachings as infal-lible.

It has been truly said that a teacher’s greatest pun-ishment is to have disciples, for it is the adherents to

a philosophy who declare war over non-essentials inthe teachings.

Thus, for instance, early Christianity split intofactions over the so-called Arian heresy, and mod-ern Protestantism argues about baptism, whetherand when and how it shall be administered; whileamong modern Catholics the younger generation isdisputing with the older as to the necessity ofConfession and minute attention to ceremonial.These disputes, however, have little to do withChristianity itself, with what C. S. Lewis calls“mere [core] Christianity,” and will ultimately beswept aside in a perfect concord of Truth. All truereligions take the Middle Way in their esotericteachings, but wars and rumors of wars down thecenturies bear witness that the followers of suchteachings were unable to tell the side from the mid-dle, and so fell into fighting.

The Rosicrucian Philosophy, being an esotericinterpretation of Christianity, takes the MiddleRoad; but alas, we who are the students thereof findit exceedingly hard to keep from falling into theditches of error and bigotry where our compatriotsof the churches have been entrenched. This is nocriticism of the Church. The Church is doing a beau-tiful work for humanity, but its instruments arehuman, and therefore subject to those errors whichare the outcome of mortality and fallibility. We, too,are subject to error, in equal degree. The humanmind is normally myopic and needs the spectaclesof Love, as well as of Reason, to correct its vision.Otherwise we cannot see to walk the Mid-Path ofTolerance and Compassion.

But, we cannot merely make up our minds tolove, and then love. We must love something. Nor isit an excuse for inaction to say, “Well, if I can’t do

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Walking in the Middle of the RoadWith the Sons of Cain

MYSTIC LIGHT

this in the right spirit I won’t do it at all.” We learnby doing; and in doing a good deed, in speaking agood word, we gradually arouse love in others andtheir reaction will awaken the right spirit in us, forwe are all one in Christ Jesus. All that is necessaryis that we desire to have the right spirit.

This is the only way to develop the Love to cor-rect our mental near-sightedness. But we must notlimit our practice to our collaborators. We mustpractice on our opponents too. Nor should we fallinto the error of believing that it is enough to bemorally and emotionally tolerant. We must be intel-lectually tolerant, also. We must have an intelligentunderstanding of the beliefs of our opponents. This,too, is an expression of love, albeit on the mentalplane.

Occult students, being of the “Sons of Cain,” thatis, prone to judge all life by reasonrather than byfaith, will find this intellectual tolerance the hardestof all to attain. They can sympathize with the sin-cerity of their opponents’beliefs, but they cannothelp feeling just a little contemptuous of the appar-ent intellectual weakness which they discoveramong the Sons of Seth (those who live by faith).And that means that the descendants of Lucifer havenot yet learned the lesson which their arrogantancestor learned when he fell from heaven. Let theSons of Cain beware, lest they fail to amalgamatethe experience of ages! For as Lucifer fell when herefused to work with water, in the Moon Period ofthe earth’s evolution, so we, too, may fall if werefuse to raise up Seth within us by means of theLove or Madonna (the water) principle, throughwhich, immaculate, is born Jesus, the vehicle of theChrist Within.

We who are of the Sons of Cain, in order to cor-rect our especial weaknesses, must strive intellectu-ally to understand the truths and cosmic beauties oforthodox Christianity. In order to do this we mustfirst of all rid ourselves of our scorn for Creeds.Creeds, we may state as our fundamental hypothe-sis, are the natural fruits of crystallization, and allspiritual philosophies when garbed in words willcrystallize therein. Even our own beloved philoso-phy—Max Heindel foresaw the day—is tending tocrystallize itself into the equivalent of a creed, andwill some day go the way of all man-expressed

philosophies, though its spirit will live on forever.As proof of the crystallizing process, we observe

that even today there are hundreds of people who,because of a few psychic experiences in their lives,are willing to take Max Heindel’s words for every-thing under the sun, physical or spiritual, even whenthey do not understand his inspired words. (Andhow many of us do?) These people did not flock toTheosophy, because their religious instinct was builtup around the Christ ideal. Therefore, they acceptedRosicrucianism.

Creeds are made for the rank and file of people.Creeds (from Latin credere, to believe, trust) aresimply explicit formulations of belief. As the

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Oil on copper plate, Carl Bloch (1834-1890), Frederiksborg Castle, Copenhagen, Denmark

The AnnunciationEsoterically, the annunciation indicates the work of theChristian aspirant’s “First or Preparatory Degree....TheBlessed Virgin Mary was the first of our humanity to attainthe power invested by this degree....The Degree ofAnnunciation is related primarily to the cultivation of puri-ty,” whose attainment confers a dynamic power, as in“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”(Quote from Corinne Heline’s Mystery of the Christos.)

Rosicrucian Philosophy reaches out to humanity,and millions of believers flock to its banner—asthey assuredly will; it is so written—what will bethe result? The majority of them will be drawn fromthe masses who now comprise orthodoxChristianity, orthodox Freemasonry, and agnosti-cism. From where else can they be drawn? We arenot a life wave of pioneers.

Of course, as evolution advances, the materialvehicle of the spirit becomes more and more rari-fied; nevertheless, there is room for crystallizationof that vehicle relative to the needs of its energizingspirit, and when a certain point of crystallization isreached, it must disintegrate. It has then outlived itsusefulness.

Where man-evolved philosophies are concerned,there are always the few who understand and themany who believe. It has always been so, from thevery beginning of man’s evolution as man. This hasresulted in the division between teachers and pupils,the teachers expounding, the pupils believing whenthey could not reason. Now the advanced studentscan understand the teacher, and have little difficultyin following his instructions, but there are manywho cannot keep up with them. For the benefit ofless advanced students it becomes necessary to pre-sent the teachings in the simplest form possible.Thus, in all religions and in all philosophies, wehave the equivalent of the Creed.

Unfortunately, creeds are not formed by theteacher, but by the advanced pupils after the teacheris no longer present with his illuminating explana-tions. The reason for this is not far to seek: everycosmic truth may be approached from differentangles. The resulting different views may appearcontradictory. So long as the teacher lives to explainthe apparent contradictions, all is well. But after heis gone, no one remains but the bright students, who,being but students, often fail in their judgments. Yet,there is no one else to decide these points for theirslower brethren, and the result is a Creed—that is, aclear and concise statement of the salient or funda-mental teachings of a philosophy or religion, which,though usually possessed of great significance, nev-ertheless may contain errors. Nor is this all. TheCreed itself is not always correctly understood by itsadherents, and this results in numerous commen-

taries by inferior intelligences; hence, greater con-fusion.

We find one example of this semantic and epis-temic confusion among the Christian churches, forthere were no Creeds until after the personal influ-ence of Christ and His apostles and their immediatedisciples had passed away from the earth.

Another example is the grip of material scienceupon the mass mind. Today the majority of peopleaccept scientific theories as God-given facts (usual-ly without the God), and with little or no effort totest or understand them. It is easy to demonstratethis fact: not one person in a hundred can prove, orgive the proof, that the earth is round instead ofoblong; that it rotates on its axis, or that it revolvesabout the sun. Yet he believes these facts as implic-itly as he believes in God. And not a few individu-als opt for the truth of “scientific” facts over, or tothe exclusion of, the truth of God. It would be inter-esting indeed to ask some of our young collegeagnostics to prove the scientific theories which theyaccept as the creed of their existence.

Humanity will not outgrow this condition ofthings in the approximately seven hundred yearsremaining of the Piscean Dispensation. Not at all! Itwill merely have adjusted itself to a new belief.True, that adjustment will have required the givingof an additional impetus to the mind, but let us notexpect too much of it! The adjustment from reli-gious to scientific domination—from faith to rea-son—required an intellectual stimulus, too, but ithas not created a new humanity.

So also, the Aquarian Dispensation will not abol-ish either the necessity for, or the abuse of, Creed.But then instead of the orthodox Creed there will bethe Rosicrucian Creed, or its equivalent, althoughthe Rosicrucian Philosophy, by its very nature, willnever crystallize into a form as set as the creeds ofthe Piscean Age—just as the tyranny of science, dueto a few centuries of evolution, is not (yet!) as rigidas the theological tyranny of the Middle Ages.

And thus, having seen that Creed or its equivalentis a natural outgrowth of evolution on the physicalplane, do not our rebellious Cain intellects becomejust a little humble? Do we not see the way to amal-gamate fire and water by intellectually understand-ing the Sons of Seth? Do we not realize that the

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Creeds of the Church are among the most valuabledocuments of humanity, filled with spiritual lightfor the heart?

We cannot at the present time go into a lengthydiscussion of the esoteric significance of the Creedsof the Orthodox Church; yet we cannot concludewithout giving some idea of how to go about find-ing this significance. It is needless to argue that wecannot get something out of nothing; therefore, if bymeditation upon a Creed we learn an occult fact ofwhich we were previously ignorant, but which canbe verified by occult authorities, then the Creed cer-tainly contains occult truth.Let us make a cursoryexamination of the Apostles’ Creed, occultly themost valuable document of the Church. The Creedis as follows:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creatorof heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ Hisonly-begotten Son, our Lord; who was conceivedby the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suf-fered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, diedand was buried; He descended into hell; thethird day He rose again from the dead; Heascended into heaven, and sitteth at the righthand of God the Father Almighty; from thenceHe shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Ibelieve in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholicchurch; the communion of saints; the forgivenessof sins; the resurrection of the body, and the lifeeverlasting. Amen.

Meditation upon this Creed in relation to theRosicrucian Philosophy will reveal the fact (if youdo not already know it) that Mary, in this formula-tion, represents the Heart; the Holy Ghost, the SexForce; Jesus, the Golden Wedding Garment; andChrist, the Life Spirit. The Creed, of course, has itscosmic significance, but the individual interpreta-tion will be of more intimate interest to us. PontiusPilate, representing the lower mind, shows us theintellect striving to do right, but falling into error. Toprove the accuracy of this analysis, let us see howthese factors work into the general scheme of theindividual Golgotha.

The regenerated sex force (the Holy Ghost), ris-ing as the Spirit Fire through the spinal canal,vibrates certain ethers to such an extent that they

become luminous. These ethers, however, are thosewhich in the heart (born of the Virgin Mary) wereextracted from the blood stream, flowed along theSilver Cord to the seed atom of the vital body at thesolar plexus, and were there refracted into the spinalcanal, where they arose in increasing volume to thehead. At last overflowing, they permeated the entireaura, forming the Golden Wedding Garment.Remember that this Golden Wedding Garment cor-responds to Jesus, and is actually therefore “born ofa virgin” (the purified Heart), having been con-ceived by the regenerated sex force, which buildsthe cross stripes of the heart. The Immaculate Heart,then, brings forth the Golden Wedding Garment as aresult of the feminine principles of Love, Purity, andService.

Then, as the Sun Spirit, Christ, took possession ofJesus’vehicles, so also does the Christ Within, theLife Spirit, take possession of this compositeGolden Wedding Garment.

Max Heindel informs us that matter is crystallizedforce or spirit. He likewise states that the Region ofArchetypal Forces is the dividing line between spir-it and matter. It follows, therefore, that the LifeSpirit is a veil of force (as are also the other twoaspects of the ego, the Divine and Human Spirits),through which the ego manifests. This Life SpiritForce cannot manifest in the physical world withouta vehicle correlated to that region. The GoldenWedding Garment is that vehicle. The more highly

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Silhouette paper-cut by S

ister Mary Jean D

orcy, O.P., ©

Daniel T

homas P

aulos

organized it is, the more powerfully can theego bring the Life Spirit Forces to bearupon life here in the physical region; and asthe Life Spirit is the vehicle which carriesthe records of all past incarnations, andwhich is in touch with, because correlatedto, the world of Cosmic Wisdom, it followsas a matter of course that the weaving of theGolden Wedding Garment will put us intouch with Cosmic Wisdom, so that ourminds will become illuminated, and weshall learn without recourse to books. Thenit is that the entire history of ourincarnationswill become revealed to us.

To understand what is meant by the state-ment that Christ Jesus was “crucified, diedand was buried; descended into hell, and onthe third day arose from the dead,” it is nec-essary to know what it is said He did in hell.According to Dante, in the Inferno, Heworked among the spirits in Purgatory dur-ing that time, and took with him a third ofthe souls of the dead, who ascended intoheaven thereafter. This reveals to us the fact, there-fore, that it is necessary for Jesus, immaculatelyconceived and born of the Virgin Heart, and over-shadowed with the Christ Power, to go down intothe hell of our own lower nature (sent there by thejudgment, the lower mind, or Pontius Pilate), and toraise its forces up into heaven with us. This willremind us of Max Heindel’s statement that spiritualdevelopment depends upon the victory of the vitalbody over the desire body. We remember also that itis necessary for the Initiate to meet and overcomethe Dweller on the Threshold, and a further fact isbrought to light by the Creed, namely, that theDweller is not completely transmuted at the firstInitiation. The Initiate redeems a part of theDweller, and vows to redeem the rest, as revealed inthe tradition of the Church that Christ took withHim a third of the souls in hell. Let us further notethat the Dweller is composed of three essences ofsin: the sin essence of evil deeds, the sin essence ofevil thoughts, and the sin essence of evil emotions,generated during all our earth lives.

To understand the significance of the “threedays”—a term often found in occult literature—we

must realize that the three segments of the spinalcord are ruled by the Moon, Mars, and Mercury. Inthe light of the Rosicrucian Teachings,it is evidentthat the Spinal Spirit Fire, which is raised throughthe spinal canal and colored chiefly according tothat one of the three planetary vibrations with whichit has most affinity, is not raised in its totality at thefirst Initiation. On the contrary, Initiation is con-summated when enough of the Fire has been raisedto furnish the motive power, and this same amountof power enables the Initiate to partially sublimateor redeem the Dweller.

The threefold Spirit Fire, whose ascent in spiritu-al development is correlated to the three fiery signs,Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, rises through the threesegments of the spinal cord and vitalizes the threepairs of spinal nerves at the base of the cerebellum,which thus represent the “three days.” The work ofthe candidate immediately following Initiation hasspecial reference to the three segments of the spinalcord and these three pairs of nerves, and the furtherraising of the Spinal Fire, by means of which theaforementioned partial sublimation of the Dweller isaccomplished. Therefore, the Christed individual

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Tempera and gold on panel, Master of the Osservanza, c. 1440-44, The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University

Christ in LimboEsoterically, each Christed Ego overcomes his individual Dweller, frees andconsciously assimilates the powers and identities of his past embodiments.

spends three days in hell, but takes into heaven withhim only one third of the population of hell.Continued work is necessary to raise sufficientpower to completely redeem the Dweller.

When Jesus (symbolized by the Golden WeddingGarment), now Christ Jesus (for He embodies theChrist Within, the Life Spirit), rises from the dead,He ascends into heaven where he sits on the righthand of the Father Within, the Divine Spirit. Thishas reference to the fact that the two PrimaryAspects of Spirit must always work together, for theFather and Son are one, and positive and negativemust unite in the work of creation. The ascensioninto heaven, of course, refers to the completion ofthe Initiatory experience, whereby the liberated egofunctions at will on two planes, in and out of thedense body.

“From thence He shall come to judge the quickand the dead” has reference to the ego’s judgmentupon all sins and good deeds of all our incarnations,together with retribution for the former, which judg-ment is impossible without the cosmic wisdom andmemory of the Christ Within, the Life Spirit, whichis therefore our Judge.

It seems hardly necessary to give the interpreta-tion of the concluding sentences of the Apostles’Creed, but a few words may be helpful for thosewho have not made a study of them

We all believe in the Holy Ghost, since it is thecreative power of life, (the sex force being oneaspect of it), and that is the power through which alllife in form is conceived. Without this principle ofDeity there could be no life of any kind.

We believe in the holy catholic church in thesense that catholic means universal, and we knowthat Christ’s teaching is destined to be embraced bythe whole world, for He is its indwelling Spirit,whose body we, humanity, the church and temple ofbelievers and knowers, are.

We believe in the communion of saints, for weknow that all pure and holy individuals, dedicated tothe service of humanity, have it in their power tocommune directly with Jesus and Christian RoseCross on the invisible planes; and we all have it inour power, by contact with the Christ Within, toconsciously know the love of the Cosmic Christ,and to commune with Him.

We believe in the forgiveness of sins, since weknow that the records of sin in the negative pole ofthe reflecting ether may be expunged by contrition,repentance, reform, and restitution. And that Jesusand the Christ Within help us to effect this forgive-ness is scarcely open to doubt; nor that this forgive-ness could not be so readily accomplished were itnot for the actual sacrifice on Golgotha nearly twothousand years ago.

We believe in the resurrection of the body in thesense that we are reborn again and again upon thisearth in a succession of physical bodies. In time wewill be permanently resurrected to the ethericregions (in the Jupiter Period for collective human-ity) to live in our soul bodies.

We believe in the life everlasting because weknow that as sparks of divinity sent out from Godthere can be no ontological death for us.

Having given this very inadequate account of themysteries of the Apostles’ Creed—that mostancient, occult document of the Orthodox Church,whose origin is supposedly traced to the Apostlesthemselves—we hope that we have presented thedoctrines of the Church in a new light, so that otherdevoted students of our the Rosicrucian Philosophywill be inspired to make an intensive study of theteachings of the Christian Church, Protestant,Orthodox, and Catholic, and thus hasten the day ofour amalgamation in Christ of the Cosmic Truths ofFreemasonry and Catholicism. Truly, the Churchhas its power; and its greatest power is Love. Wecan never hope to give to the world what the Churchhas given to the world unless we understand in ourhearts, and comprehend with our intellects, thepearls of wisdom incorporated in the great heart ofthe institutions of Seth.

We shall close herewith, proposing to all Sons ofCain that they earnestly endeavor to walk in theMiddle of the Road. This means to strive to under-stand intellectually the cosmic truths which are to befound in the beliefs of the Sons of Seth, and in thewords of one of our Rosicrucian students, “to feeland to know these truths in the heart; for ‘as a manthinketh in his heart, so is he.’Thus only through theunited power of head and heart will they learn tocast the Molten Sea.” ❐

—Anita Olin

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MYSTIC LIGHT

Keynotes of Max Heindel’s Teachings

MAX HEINDEL STATED that “The RosicrucianFellowship has been charged by the Elder Brothers with

the mission of promulgating the gospel of theAquarian Age, and of conducting acampaign of education and enlightenment, so that the world may be prepared forwhat is in store.”1 He frequently reiterated that The Rosicrucian Fellowship is to bethe herald of the Aquarian Age.2

The Aquarian Age is to be an age in which the Christ is born within each individ-ual.3 Aquarius is governed by the planet Uranus4 and Uranus promotes indepen-dence.5 Thus, people will want freedom in the Aquarian Age. The Aquarian Age willfoster the development of originality, creativity, and pioneering.6 The sword had itsreign in the Piscean Age, but science and reason will rule in the Aquarian Age.7

Aquarius is governed by Saturn and Saturn promotes diplomacy and justice.8

Thus, in the Aquarian Age, when conflicts arise attempt will be made todetermine by means of reason what is the logical and just solution.The Aquarian Age will also stimulate the development of an all-embracing love and altruism.9

Max Heindel gives a number of indications as to the directions inwhich people need to move if the Aquarian ideals are to be realized. It is the

purpose of this article to tabulate some of these indications.

Developing the Christ Light WithinMax Heindel states that “all limitations must have been swept away before we can

hope for success in the quest for truth.”10 A wall of creed inhibits the flow of uni-versal light and knowledge.11 In order to find Truth “we must leave father and moth-ers, creed, dogma, conventionalities, preconceived opinions and worldly desiresbehind; we must never fear conflict with established authorities, but we must followthe inner voice through fire if need be.”12 The Spirit of Truth can only be awakenedby one who is fearless and free.13 He adds that we will never find Truth in his or anyother books. So long as we run after outside teachers, we are simply wasting energy.Books and teachers may arouse our interest and urge us to live the life, but only in so

far as we make their precepts a part of our inner selves are we really seeking inthe right direction.14 Where then are we to find Truth? Max Heindel says,“There is only one answer—within.”15 We must learn to follow the Christ within,

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and that Christ is different for different people.16

Self-reliance is the cardinal virtue which aspirantsare required to cultivate in the Western MysterySchool. No one is allowed to lean on Masters, norto blindly follow Leaders. The Brothers of theRose Cross aim to emancipate the souls that cometo them; to educate, to strengthen, and to makethem co-workers.17 No one who is a ‘leaner,’can at the same time be a helper; eachmust stand alone.18

How are we to find the Christ Lightwithin?We must attune our inner nature tothe Christ vibrations of Loveand live a life of sacrificeand service.19 We mustperform the exercise ofRetrospection so that welearn to recognize our mis-takes and to judge betweenright and wrong.20We must learnto perform the exercise of Concen-tration because only in proportion asthe mind is stilled can the spirit reflectitself in the threefold body.21

Individual FreedomThe baby must crawl and fall; it must

rise, fall again and hurt itself. The experi-ence is unpleasant but unavoidable, andfar to be preferred to the consequences oftying the infant to a chair to save it fromfalling; then its limbs would become useless. Thisis why in The Rosicrucian Fellowship there mustbe absolute personal freedom.22 Each mustbecome master of his own fate and captain of hisown soul.23 It is contrary to the divine plan in anyway to coerce a man into doing that which he doesnot want to do.24 Liberty is the most precious pos-session of the soul.25 There is no greater crimethan to fetter a fellow-being in any manner.26

The Elder Brothers take care that pupils do notobligate themselves to them or any one else.27 TheElder Brothers never under any condition demandobedience to any mandate of theirs or commandpupils to do this or that. At most, they advise, leav-ing the pupil free to follow or not.28 The ElderBrothers never urge, never praise, and never blame.The urge must come from within the pupil.29

Within the Rosicrucian Fellowship the Teacherrecommended that the organization be made asloose as possible because “in the measure that thefree will of members is interfered with, the objectof the Rosicrucian Order, to foster individualityand self-reliance, is defeated. Laws and by-laws are

limitations, and for that reason should be as fewas possible.”30 The Rosicrucian Fellowship

should be an association which is entirelyvoluntary. The members are not bound byany oaths.31 Members must permit one

another to have free will,32 must not forcetheir opinions on one anoth-

er,33 and must be carefulnot to infringe upon therights of one another.34

Individual InitiativeWe, ourselves, have a pre-

rogative, for we are divine.35 We shouldseek for opportunities to initiate actionsand exercise our creative powers.36 If

we see that a task has to be performed,we should say to ourselves: Someonewill have to do that. Why not I?37We

need to learn the lesson of working for acommon purpose, without leadership,each prompted alike by the Spirit of Love

from within to strive for the physical,moral, and spiritual uplift of the world.38

Conflict ResolutionAlthough we seek the Christ Light within, our

vision of it may yet be imperfect. Therefore, indi-viduals who exercise their right to free thoughtmay sometimes find their ideas as to what shouldbe done may be in conflict with the ideas of others.What then is to be done? Max Heindel states thatmight does not make right,39 and that “the harm-less life is an absolute essential prerequisite to thehelpful life.”40The sacred spear, which symbolizesthe creative power in man, including the power ofspeech, must never be used to hurt, only to heal,41

and gentleness is an ideal to be striven for.42 Thus,conflicts are not to be resolved by force. There isanother way. The sword had its reign in the PisceanAge, but science (reason) will rule in the AquarianAge.43 The principle of arbitration of difficulties

needs to be established,44 and tact and diplomacyare always better than force.45 Peace is a matter ofeducation and to achieve it people need to learn todeal charitably, justly, and openly with one anoth-er, as nations as well as individuals.46

Universal Brotherhood

Max Heindel states that “The Fellowship disre-gards national and racial differences, endeavoringto join all together in a bond of love,”47 and herecommends that people practice UniversalBrotherhood by never mentioning or recognizingdifferences of nationality, for we are all one inChrist.48 He urges people to look beyond thesharply differentiated forms which blind them tothe inalienable unity of each soul with all others,49

and to forget the often unprepossessing exteriors ofothers, and serve the divine essence hidden within.50

Max Heindel adds that as long as one is tied tothe family, the nation, the tribe, one is siding withthe old blood, the old ways, and cannot amalga-mate into a Universal Brotherhood. That can onlycome when people marry internationally, becausewhen there are so many nations the way to unitethem is through marriage.51

May we all strive to achieve the goals of theAquarian Age as Max Heindel has outlined themfor us. ❐

—Elsa Glover

Note: All references in this article are to books written by MaxHeindel and published by the Rosicrucian Fellowship,Oceanside, CA

1. Teachings of an Initiate (TI), p.58 2. Questions and Answers, Vol. 2 (2Q&A), pp. 366, 465;

Rosicrucian Mysteries (RM), p.123. Message of the Stars (MS) p. 28 4. Simplified Scientific Astrology (SSA), p. 815. MS, p. 3486. MS, p. 348; 2Q&A, p. 3617. Gleanings of a Mystic (GM), p. 82; TI, p. 56 8. SSA, p. 81; MS, pp. 248-249 9. MS, p. 34710. MGO, p. 9211. MGO, p. 81; Letters to Students (LS), p. 6912. LS, p. 71 13. LS, p. 71 14. LS, pp. 98, 205 15. LS p. 98; Web of Destiny (WD), p. 84; TI, p. 29 16. 2Q&A, p. 501 17. Mysteries of the Great Operas (MGO) p. 23; WD, p. 36 18. LS, p. 6119. Ancient and Modern Initiation (AMI), p. 40; GM, p. 159 20. Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures (RCL), pp. 183-184

21. RCL, pp. 179, 184-18722. LS, pp. 51-5223. LS, p. 6124. LS, p. 27 25. LS, p. 72, 94 26. LS, p. 7227. LS, p. 94 28. TI, p. 15129. 2Q&A, p. 22630. TI, p. 15031. TI, p. 15032. LS, p. 29 33. LS, p. 9434. LS, p. 94; RCL, p. 26535. LS, pp. 19, 13436. LS, pp. 207-20837. LS, p. 1238. LS, p. 5339. GM, p. 38 40. RCL, p. 200; MGO, p. 5941. AMI, pp. 44-45; MGO, pp. 65-6642. TI, p. 95; LS, p. 1043. GM, p. 82 44. LS, p. 22645. GM, p. 11946. LS, p. 22647. LS, p. 156; Freemasonry and Catholicism (F&C), p. 8848. LS, p. 167 49. GM, p. 7050. The Rosicrucian Temple Service51. F&C, pp. 54-55

20 RAYS 02

OPPORTUNITY

They do me wrong who say I come no more

When once I knock and fail to find you in;

For every day I stand outside your door

And bid you wake and rise and fight and win.

Wail not for precious chances passed away.

Weep not for golden ages on the wane.

Each night I burn the records of the day.

At sunrise every soul is born again.

Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped.

To vanished joys be blind, and deaf, and dumb.

My judgments seal the dead past with its dead,

But never bind a moment yet to come.

Though deep in mire, wring not your hands

and weep,

I lend my arm to all who say, “I can.”

No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep

But he might rise and be again a man.

—Walter Malone

YOU ASK ME how I happened tojointhe esoteric organization of which Ispeak?* First, let me tell you thatnothing happens in this world bychance. All is governed by law. And

“no one cometh unto Me except my Father callethhim.” But being the hard-headed ScotchmanI am, ittook me longer to answer the call than it would havetaken a less skeptical person.

Therefore, I just drifted from one church to anoth-er seeking I knew not what, until I was drawn intomeetings where advanced thought was taught. Inone of these I mysteriously heard of the Society ofwhich I am now a member.

But even when a student in this Society I couldnot accept the belief in invisible teachers and “liber-ated ones” who, it was claimed, can guide us in ourevolution. But I patiently followed the advice of myinstructor not to question the teaching, but to waitfor light on such matters.

I had barely reached the second step in my stud-ies when such overwhelming proof of a hidden powernow working for and with me was presented to me,and the doubts I was holding on to began to fade.

The first proof I had came to me the morning fol-lowing the day upon which I obligated myself formy second step upon the path. I awoke before day-light and lay in the intermediate state between sleep-ing and waking when an astonishing vision arousedme to full consciousness.

In that vision I saw a heavy, block-shaped, graydoor in a wall partially open, and a white rose, moreexquisite than any earthly one I had ever seen,appeared in the doorway.

I was not then in the slightest degree clairvoyantnor clairaudient, but the strangest of impressions

came to me that this was to notify me that I had beenaccepted by those above us in the scale of evolution,and would therefore receive help in my advance-ment. And from that day astonishing help fromsome undisclosed source began to gravitate to me.

I cannot claim that life thereafter became a bed ofroses. Far from it! For hell itself seemed to open andforce upon me debts of karma that it did not seempossible I had ever been wretch enough to contract.Though, when I began to think I could not possiblystand any more, some strange force enveloped meand enabled me to swim through the roughest of thewaters, and caused some lifting rays of light to shineupon me in the darkest days.

Greatest of all, I so advanced mentally that I wasoften amazed at the way I could handle with easemany problems which I had never dared tacklebefore. Thus all my work went forward by leaps andbounds.

My greatest joy was in the inspirations given mefor the carrying on of a branch of literary work dur-ing my leisure hours which I had always intenselylonged to do, but for which I had been whollyunable to develop any talent.

I was well along on my second step, and hadbegun to long with all my heart to take the third stepand to qualify for greater esoteric work, when Imysteriously came into possession of a paper onwhich was written instructions that were guaranteedto prepare me for that step. Coming from the sourceit did, I thought it must be the very information Ineeded to help me on my way.

In order to quiet any doubts in my mind—forthose in our Society are taught that our designatedTeacher cannot help us if we interest ourselves inand work for other teachers—I followed the sugges-tion of a friend and wrote a letter to my invisibleTeacher, asking if I should follow the instructions

RAYS 02 21

The Tie with the Teacher

MYSTIC LIGHT

*This account was related to the author (S.B.M.) by anadvanced member of a Western esoteric movement.

given me. And I placed this letter under my pillowbefore I went to sleep.

That night I had a most glorious vision, but couldnot interpret it correctly. I finally decided to inter-pret it as supporting an intention to follow theinstructions. And it took eighteen long, unprofitable,unhappy, chaotic months to convince me of the mis-take I was making.

Instead of the smoothly-running days I for yearshad known, in spite of the karma I had cancelled,nothing went smoothly any day. I seemed to run incircles and accomplished nothing in spite of thehardest work.

Worst of all, inspiration for my literary work,which had formerly poured in upon me faster than Icould use it, now came to me no more. My mindwas wholly blank as far as that was concerned.

After months of striving to learn the cause of thissudden change, from most gratifying mental alert-ness to unremitting difficulty and sterility, I hadanother vision.

I appeared to be seated in a schoolroom, strivingto read some symbols chalked upon a blackboard. Iturned my eyes from the board for a moment, andwhen I looked again a man’s coat was hanging froma nail driven into the top of the board, thus conceal-ing the symbols. Immediately the words, “TheTeacher is gone,” seemed impressed upon my con-sciousness.

Yet even now I did not interpret this vision asapplying to myself and providing an explanation forwhy all creative power had left me. Rather I con-cluded that it applied to a wholly different matter.And yet further, more material help was to be givenme, for no sincere student is ever entirely forsaken.

Shortly after this vision, a magazine called TheInner Light, published by a famous Englishoccultist, fell into my hands. Imagine my amaze-ment when the publication’s editor related thatthrough ignorance she had been led into driftingaway from her teacher, and that her tie with him hadtherefore been broken. In her words: “Life was pur-poseless; my capacities were all reduced to a frac-tion of their former quantity and quality.”

Her whole experience had been so similar to theone through which I was passing that I immediatelybegan a retrospection of the past eighteen months ofmy own life in search of the hidden cause of myown trouble. And it was not long before I felt

assured that my following the instructions foradvancement not given me in my own Group wasresponsible for my difficulties. Following thisassurance, I recalled the visions I had had, and nowtheir hidden meanings were made plain to me.

In the first vision I had seen a glorified emblemused in the work of my own esoteric Society—across of dazzling light against a pentagram of goldraying from its center. But a gray cloud throughwhich the cross could not shine had begun toobscure the lower part of it.

Now I knew that this had warned me against let-ting any teaching, other than that which I had oblig-ated myself to uphold, obscure the instructionsgiven me by my Teacher.

The second warning or message—the image ofthe teacher’s coat hanging from a nail over theboard, concealing the teachings I so wished to learn,together with the words, “The Teacher is gone”—caused me more suffering than I had known in mylife.

I immediately discarded the foreign teachings andset about trying to atone for my error. But for manydays no consoling thoughts came to encourage meto believe that my striving to atone was being rec-ognized.

I reached a point of chastened resignation. I saidto myself: “This life cannot be much longer for meanyway, so I may as well make the best of it. WhatI have been through on account of that error shouldsurely teach me never to run after strange Godsagain, no matter how right and attractive they mayappear to me.” Then I clairaudiently heard a voicecall my name and make this statement: “Sins com-mitted through ignorance are not unpardonable.”

Immediately such a wave of joy swept over methat I could hardly contain myself, and the scripturetest, “He that was lost is found,” rushed through mymind.

Shortly after, life began to swing back into its for-mer progressive stride for me. To this moment dailywork runs smoothly and inspiration for my lovedavocation again pours in upon me. Greatest of all,other more important work is coming to me.

But daily I take time off in which to be thankfulthat my tie with the Teacher has been resumed. AndI earnestly pray with all my soul that it may neveragain be broken through my delinquency. ❐

—S.B.M.

22 RAYS 02

FREE WILL IS A PHRASE for one’sfreedom to feel, to desire, to think, or toact, as opposed to the inescapablenecessity to feel, to desire, to think, orto act, in a given way. It means the

absence of prevention, restraint and compulsionthat would interfere with physical, psychic andmental action and inaction. The phrase means thatone can feel, desire and think and do as he pleases,and not be limited by bounds or coerced by goads.

Not only in this phrase but in the language gen-erally, the word will is usedas if it were different fromwhat is called desire. But so-called will is an aspect of theactive side of the doer-in-the-body, which is desire,nothing more than that. [ForPercival the term “doer” isroughly synonymouswithEgo—Ed.] Will is one of the four functions ofdesire. Desire, which is conscious power, has fourfunctions: to be, to will, to do, and to have. To willis the second function of desire; it is followed by todo, and to have. Will is that one desire which con-trols the other desires, be it for the moment or fora long period. It controls to the degree that it canuse the conscious power which desire is. It getsstrength by exercise, that is, by long continueddesiring. It lasts until its object is attained or untilit is overcome by a stronger desire, which is thenthe will. The cause or starter of will is, immediate-

ly, feeling and remotely unsatisfied desire, whichis ultimately the longing for perfection and to beperfect. Will manifests by a surging up out of theinner depths, of a desire to attain an end. This man-ifestation may last for years. Will is weakened bythe interference of contrary desires, and it isstrengthened by continued exercise and by over-coming and compelling other desires.

Will is not free, cannot be free; it is much condi-tioned at all times. Each desire is will, but thatdesire is to be designated as will which at any time

controls the opposing desire.One of the desires as willdoes not always control theother desires.

At no time has a humanfreedom of will, eventhough there be no physicalobstacles to the actions,desires and thinking. A

human has a limited amount of freedom to will. Hehas set the limitations. In so far as he himself hasnot prevented himself from acting, desiring andthinking, he is free to act, to desire, to think. All hisbonds, obstacles or limitations are of his own mak-ing, but he is free to remove them when he wills.As long as he has not exercised that freedom, theyremain and they limit. He has made them by creat-ing thoughts and the only way to remove them isby thinking without creating other thoughts.

Past thoughts are exteriorized in the physicalbody and mark the limitations of the body whichare also limitations to the will. These physical lim-itations extend to the time when life begins, therace, the country and the nationality, the kind offamily in which the body is born, the sex, the kind

RAYS 02 23

Free Will and Noetic Destiny

MYSTIC LIGHT

This text is reprinted with permission from Harold Percival’sTHINKING AND DESTINY, published by The Word Foundation,Inc., P.O. Box 17510, Rochester, NY 14617. E-mail:logos @word-foundation.com; Web: www.word-foundation.org

All his bonds, obsta -cles or limitations are ofa human’ s own making,but he is free to remove

them when he wills.

of body, the physical heredity, the chief mundaneoccupations, particular diseases, some accidents,the critical events in life, and the time and natureof death. The limitations which a person has madeextend to his disposition, temperament, inclina-tions, moods and appetites, which are part of hispsychic nature, and to his insight, comprehension,reasoning and other mental endowments or theabsence of them.

The limitations which are obvious, and thereforeprincipally the physical limitations, are what peo-ple call destiny or foreordination. Because peoplelimit themselves in their perceptions and concep-tions and so are ignorant of the cause of thesetrammels, they speculate, and they attribute themto God and Divine Providence or to chance. Allthis is their problem, our problem, of free will. Itwill remain an unsolvable problem as long as menare ignorant of their own nature and of their rela-tions to what they suppose to be an extraneousdeity. That which limits their free will and deter-mines when their destiny shall be precipitated, isno extraneous being, but is the thinker of eachone’s own Triune Self.

A human is always free to consent or to object tothe conditions in which he is, including his psychicand mental conditions. Even if one of his numer-ous desires forces him to act, he can register agree-ment or objection; he is free to agree or object; andthis is due to another desire. His free will centersaround this point of freedom, the only freedom hehas. The point of freedom is the desire he lets rule.This desire is a psychic thing. In the beginning it isonly a point. Every human has such a point of free-dom and can by thinking extend the point to anarea of free will.

Originally desire was undivided. That was whenthe doer as feeling-and-desire was with and con-scious of the thinker and the knower as the TriuneSelf. The desire of the doer was for Self-knowl-edge, which was desire for its completion with theTriune Self. Then came the time when feeling-and-desire appeared to separate and be in two bodies,desire in the man body and feeling in the womanbody. Of course there could be no real separationof feeling from desire, but that was what the use ofthe body-mind showed when the doer began to

think with the body-mind through the senses. Itsthinking caused the doer to see feeling-and-desirein bodies apart from each other and caused anapparent but not a real division, because there canbe no desire without feeling nor can there be feel-ing without desire. Feeling-and-desire were in thewoman body, but feeling dominated desire. Also,desire-and-feeling were in the man body, butdesire dominated feeling. Continued thinking withthe body-mind prevailed and caused the desire forsex to separate from the desire for Self-knowledge.So the desire for sex exiled itself from theConscious Light in the Triune Self, and into thedarkness of the senses. Thus the doer lost the freeuse of the Conscious Light to make known to itits relation to its thinker and knower. The desirefor sex was thus separated from the desire for

24 RAYS 02

When individuals direct themselves toward the light of CosmicIntelligence and seek to realize their inner wholeness, humandesire will cease to externalize in physical forms the objectsof its attached thinking, and sex genders shall be obsolete.

Illustration is the modified cover of T

hinking and Destiny

Self-knowledge. The desire for Self-knowledge hasnever changed and can never be made to change.That desire for Self-knowledge still persists withthe human. But the desire for sex has continued todivide and to multiply into innumerable desires.

The multitude of desires are all marshaled andarranged under the generalship of the four senses.They attach themselves to objects of one or anoth-er of the four senses, for the direct or remote pur-pose of gratifying or ministering to or serving theirchief desire, the desire for sex. All these desires areattached, they have attached themselves, they arenot free. Yet they have the right and the power toremain attached or to free themselves from thethings to which they are attached. No one desire,nor the combined desires of all other powers, cancompel the least of thedesires to change itself.Each desire has the rightand is the power to changeitself, and to do or be what itwill of itself desire to do orto be. That desire may bedominated by a strongerdesire, but it cannot be madeto change or to do or be anything until it itself willsto change and do or be. In that right and power isconstituted its own free will.

The only desire which actually and truly is freeis the desire for Self-knowledge, for knowledge ofthe Triune Self. It is free because it has notattached itself to anything and it wills not to beattached to anything. And because it is free it willnot interfere with the right of any other desire toattach itself to anything. Therefore it is free.

Not one of the innumerable other desires is free,because they all have chosen to attach themselvesto the objects to which they are attached and towhich they choose to remain attached. But eachone has the right and it is the power to let go of thatto which it is attached; and it can then attach itselfto any other thing, or it can remain unattached andfree from anything, as it wills.

Each desire, therefore, is its own point of free-dom. It remains the point, or it may extend its pointto an area. The stronger desire controls the weakerand so extends its point to an area, and as it con-

tinues to control other desires it extends its area ofcontrol, and it can continue to dominate otherdesires until it has will or control over a vast areaof its own and over the desires of other doers. Andyet that dominating will is not free. It is not freebecause the desires it controls are not free, andthey are not free if they are controlled: because ifthey are free they act in accord, each by its ownwill, and are not controlled. The dominating desireas the will is not free merely by dominating theother desires. The test of its freedom as a point, orits extension to an area is: Is that desire, as will,attached to anything in any way related to the sens-es? If it is attached, it is not free.

How then does it extend its point of freedom ofwill to an area of will, a dominion where it controls

not only its own desires butthe desires of others? Itwills, and it may extend itswill over its other desires, bythinking. Merely by desiringno desire can extend itself sothat it controls other desires.But if it is strong enough, itwill compel thinking. By

continued thinking the desire extends itself as will.The will is increased by exercise. It is exercised bypersistence in the effort to think, persistenceagainst and irrespective of all obstacles or interfer-ences to thinking. By persistence in the effort tothink, obstacles are overcome and interferencesdisappear. The more the doer continues to think,the greater will be its will over its other desires. Itspower to think and to control its own desires willdetermine the dominion of its will over the desiresof other men.

Yet that overruling desire, though it has domin-ion over the will of others, is not really free. Thatdesire has increased its power by its will to think;only so has its thinking increased its power todesire, to will. Each of the desires over which ithas exercised its will and extended its dominion iscontrolled, but not changed. Each such desire willremain as it is until it wills to change itself or tochange other things. And the only means that anydesire has of changing itself is by thinking, think-ing to accomplish what it wills.

RAYS 02 25

The only desire whichactually and truly is free

is the desire for Self-knowledge, for knowl -

edge of the T riune Self.

Every desire wants knowledge, knowledge ofhow to get or to be what it wants to have or to be.The many desires continue to desire, but they donot think. If they will not think, they are controlledby a dominating desire that does think. Andbecause the desire that does think, refuses to thinkabout what it is and why it is attached to thingsaway from itself, it attaches itself to objects that itdoes not continue to want after it is attached. Whenit tires of one thing it changes to another andanother and is never satisfied. The reason that it isnever satisfied and never can be satisfied with anyof its attachments is that it has lost parts of itself,and it is dimly conscious that it is lost to them. Andit will not and cannot be satisfied until all thedesires of the original desire are again one undi-vided desire. Therefore, as it is afraid or refuses tothink about itself, it attaches itself to this thing andthat thing in the hope that it has at last found a partof itself that has been lost. But no thing to which itcan be attached can also be a part of itself. Andeven when a desire does think, it will not thinkabout itself.

Why? Because if it really has made the attempt,it finds that as soon as it tries to think about whatit is or who it is, it must let go of the objects towhich it is attached. Then the effort tires it, or it isafraid of being lost if it lets go of sights andsounds. Why does this happen? It happens becausefrom the earliest years it has been taught to use themind of the senses, the body-mind. The body-mindcan think only about the senses and the objects orthings related to the senses; it cannot think aboutdesire or about feeling except in the terms of thesenses. To think about feeling or about desireexclusive of the senses, the body-mind must bemade inactive, stilled. If or when desire makes aneffort to think about itself, it must be a long andpersistent effort, and the effort must be repeatedagain and again, because that effort is calling intoaction the desire-mind which has been dormant,inactive, except when moved by the body-mindwhich then draws on it for more Light in its think-ing. It would be too much to expect either feelingor desire to use the feeling-mind or the desire-mindto exclude the body-mind from their thinking.Therefore when one desire would think about

itself, let it think about itself in relation to the thingto which it is attached. With persistence, the think-ing will show to that desire what that thing is. Assoon as the desire is conscious of what that thingis, the desire knows that that thing is not what itwants. It will let go and never again will it attachitself nor can it be attached to that thing. Thatdesire is then free from that thing.

Now what happened during the thinking to freeit from its attachment? Thinking is the steady hold-ing of the Conscious Light within on the subject ofthe thinking. By thinking with the body-mind only,the body-mind can show by its Light what thesenses show the thing to be. That Light does notand cannot show what things really are. But whena desire turns its thinking on itself in relation to thething which it wants, then the desire-mind and thefeeling-mind focus the Conscious Light on thatdesire and on the thing which the desire wants orto which it is attached. And the desire at once letsgo and refuses ever again to be attached, becausethat desire then knows that it does not want thatthing. The doer in a human for whom certainthings have no attraction, has been freed from theattachments of its desires to those things by thisprocess of thinking in a former existence. But thedesires which have freed themselves may attachthemselves to other things.

How then, can the desire that frees itself fromone thing remain free from all other things? This isindeed important. It is done in this way: When theattached desire wills and thinks about itself, it isacting on its point of freedom. It is thinking toknow what it is and what its relation is to the thingof its attachment. It desires to know. Very well.Then let it identify itself as the desire to know thething of its attachment. And let it at the same timerelate itself in thinking to its other desire, “thedesire for Self-knowledge.” Let the desire to knowthen persist in thinking on the thing of its attach-ment and its relation to the desire for Self-knowl-edge, until the Conscious Light is focussed on thething of its attachment. As soon as the ConsciousLight shows that thing as it is, the desire knows itand knows that it is free. Then the free desire willthink of the desire for Self-knowledge and willrelate itself or at once identify itself with or as the

26 RAYS 02

desire for Self-knowledge. When this is done, thehuman in whom that desire is has an acceleration ofjoyous life and experiences a new sense of freedom.When the point of freedom has identified itself withor as the desire for Self-knowledge there is an areaof free will, and by a like freeing its other desiresfrom their attachments the area can be extended toinclude all the noetic atmosphere of the human. Atpresent human beings have only the point of free-dom; they do not extend it to an area of free will.

Free will will be a problem until men understandthat a human is a human being of a doer and thatthe doer is an integral but imperfect part of an oth-erwise perfect and immortal Triune Self. Free willis closely related to noetic destiny.

The doer, from the depth or heights of its owninner self, projects a portion of itself into a fleshbody which moves among other flesh bodies in anobjective world. The bodies are moved around bythe four senses, which also belong to nature. Thefour senses are attracted or repelled by objects ofnature. Chief among these objects are other fleshbodies. The four senses which are elementals [theauthor uses this word in a technical sense—Ed.],nature units, impersoned in a body and harnessedinto its systems and organs, play upon the feelingsof the impersoned portion of the doer and producethe illusions that the doer is the senses, that feelingis a fifth sense, that the body is the doer, that thedoer is nothing if it is not connected with a personor body, that the senses are the test for reality, andthat what the senses do not perceive is non-exis-tent. The four senses surround with glamour theother flesh bodies which then excite love and hate,greed and cruelty, pride and ambition. The foursenses intensify the hunger for food which is thehunger of nature for circulation. The four sensesdo not show to the doer, nature as it really is; theyhide nature and cast a glamour over it. The humanis thus in ignorance of his real nature, of the orga-nization of which he is a part, of his make-up, ofhis origin and of his destiny.

In a human the essential thing is the doer por-tion, feeling-and-desire, which are projected peri-odically from the doer part of the Triune Self intoa flesh body for a life on the earth crust. The doerin the human extends to the innermost of nature,

and beyond nature to the knower, and to theIntelligence. Feeling-and-desire are the essentialsof the human on earth; they persist after the deathof the body and through the life of another andother bodies. The succession of the human beingsof a doer constitute the twelve portions of the doer,and the entire doer is one of the three parts of theTriune Self. One life on earth is a part of a series,as one paragraph in a book, as one step in a pro-cession, or as one day in a life. The notion ofchance and that of a single life on earth are two ofthe outstanding errors of human beings. Thehuman sees only an outer aspect of a small sectionof the history of the doer, as presented in the life ofthat human. He does not see connections which, ifhe saw them, would appear as producing causes ofwhat the cross section shows. Therefore he is with-out an explanation of what he sees and feels as thephysical, psychic and mental limitations of hisbeing, and so he uses such terms as chance, acci-dent, and Providence to account for the mystery.But this question will cease to be troublesomewhen man knows more about himself and under-stands that his destiny is in his own hands. ❐

RAYS 02 27

TAKE TIME

Take time to think—It is the source of power.

Take time to play—It is the secret of perpetual youth.

Take time to read— It is the fountain of youth.

Take time to pray—It is the greatest power on earth.

Take time to love and be loved—It is a God-given privilege.

Take time to be friendly—Take time to laugh—

It is the road to happiness.It is the music of the soul.

Take time to give—It is too short a day to be selfish.

Take time to work—It is the price of success.

—Author Unknown

IN A STRANGE WORKSHOP deep in theearth and inaccessible to us of the outsideworld, there are innumerable tiny artists ply-ing a curious craft. Among the products oftheir craft are beautiful little crosses, some

of which are decorated with red garnets. These lit-tle crosses stay in the underground regions for per-haps thousands of years before geologic forces (asmaterial scientists term them) eventually movethem to the earth’s surface. They are found in threeperfect cross patterns: the St. Andrew (60° anglecrystals: it is said that St. Andrew was crucified ona cross-saltire or X-shaped cross); Greek; and, themost rare and sought after, Maltese. If they reachthe outside world without too much pressure, theirpatterns are flawless, but like most things, if muchpressure is brought to bear upon them, they arelikely to grow deformed.

Scientists have learned to translate the storieswritten in hills and dikes and earth formations, andso the history of the little crosses has been prettywell deciphered by them—except for one or twoimportant facts.

These odd little minerals are found in the NewEngland states and along the east Appalachians toGeorgia, in Virginia (home of the Fairy Stone StatePark), New Mexico, and various places in Europe.The matrix in which they occur is usually a meta-morphic schist.

Material science tells us that the artists whodesign these crosses are atoms of iron, aluminum,and silica. Scientists say that these atoms seeming-ly push surrounding materials aside as they workin the liquid magna, in order to form their own per-fect, chemical pattern—magma so hot that noother kind of life could exist in it. It is also in this

molten fluid that the garnets are formed andembedded in the crosses. As a matter of fact, it isin this fluid that most of our other gem stones arefashioned, each according to its own special min-eral pattern, the pattern being determined by thekind of mineral atoms that are grouped into mole-cules to build the gem crystal.

Most every mineral hobbyist has a group of fairycrosses in his collection, and nearly every collectorhas heard people say, “But those must have beencarved!” Most of us have always thought of min-erals as being inanimate and lifeless, but of coursean inanimate and lifeless thing could not carveitself into a beautiful pattern.

In the Middle Ages people marveled at thestrange phenomena of the natural world. It seemedevident to them that intelligence played a signifi-cant part in the creation of Nature’s artistry, andthey attributed it to the work of fairies. One legendof the little crosses relates that they crystallizedfrom fairies’tears as the little creatures wept overthe crucifixion of Christ. Another states that theycame down from heaven. It is from these legendsthat they derived their name “fairy crosses.” Theyhave been used as baptismal stones and good luckcharms since the seventeenth century. The ancientscalled them “lapis crucifer.”

Scientific research in the nineteenth century dis-pelled most of the “superstition” about the crosses,the scientists offering the theory that they wereformed by atoms. If the mineralogists whodescribed them in their textbooks experiencedwonder at the clever ability of the atoms, they didnot mention it, leaving all such “speculation” to thefield of philosophy. The Encyclopedia Britannicapictures one of the crosses in its perfect symmetry,

28 RAYS 02

Staurolite or Fairy Crosses?

MYSTIC LIGHT

and states briefly that it is a common occurrence.Every so often I ask some student of mineralogy

how he thinks the atoms actually do create theirgeometrical patterns. Usually the answeris, “ Oh, they just line themselves up thatway.” It is rather amazing how few won-der about or are even interested in primalcauses.

God places these curious little gemstones before us as much as to say, “Nowfind out how I did it,” and the most weseem to think about are test tubes, mag-nifying glasses, and the specimen thatwill eventually dissolve into dust. The Life andIntelligence that moved the atoms around and cre-ated the law by which their exquisite patternsare formed we have been afraid to talkabout. A few seem actually resentful tohave that point brought up.

It is true that we have to discount agood deal of the superstition of theMiddle Ages, but a hundred yearsfrom now, or a great deal sooner, inthe light of advanced knowledge, our materialisticideas will be discounted as being more absurd thansuperstitious. Superstition at least recognized thatNature’s forces had to be engineered by an intelli-gence of some kind.

Minerals are not at all the inanimate things wehave been accustomed to believe. Physicists havenow found that they encompass a miniature worldof breathtaking magnificence—of infinitesimal“solar systems” operated with mathematical preci-sion. And strangely, this world wasdiscovered through ingenious math-ematical calculations and experi-ments. Scientists who have glimpsedthe wonder of the engineering featsof atoms have declared the discov-ery to be the end of the philosophyof materialism. One scientist has been creditedwith the remark that when man discovers whatmakes the atom work he will have arrived veryclose to God and His method of creation.

Fairy crosses, so-called, are mineral crystals. Theirscientific name is staurolite, from the Greek, mean-ing stone cross. Their crystal form is orthorhombic

(trimetric). They occur both as “simple” or singlecrystals, and twinned. The twinned crystals are thecrosses. The process by which they become

twinned points to magnetic forces andlaws of positive and negative polarityabout which we still have much to learn.

The specimens in my collection areprobably many thousands of years old.But today in Nature’s secret laboratory thebusy little gnomes are turning out on their

assembly lines thousands of little stonecrosses for those descendants of ourgreat, great grandchildren who will col-

lect minerals.As Max Heindel tells us, it is the gnomes, the

elemental beings composed of chemicalether, that “cut the crystals in all the min-

erals and make the priceless gems thatgleam from golden diadems. Withoutthem there would be no iron for our

machinery nor gold wherewith to pay forit. They are everywhere and theproverbial bee is not busier.”

The history of the cross as a religious symboldates back into obscure antiquity, long before thecoming of Christ. It was a mystic symbol for theadepts of the earlier centuries. Today it is thesacred emblem of the Christian world; and still isthe mystic symbol of schools of natural and meta-physical laws. (Afew are now beginning to won-

der where natural laws ceaseand metaphysical laws begin,

or vice versa; or if they areall natural laws or allmetaphysical laws, thedifference being merelyin our lack of understand-

ing.) However, locked inthese little crosses ofNature, along with other

natural phenomena, are profound secrets that whendiscovered will revolutionize our thinking.

God has placed His textbooks all around us: inthe splendor of the skies and in the changing sea-sons of earth’s loveliness. Others He has laidhumbly at our feet. ❐

—Ida Smith

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“Greek Cross” staurolite(in a phyllite matrix)

“St Andrew’s Cross” staurolite

“Maltese Cross” stauroliteMaltese Cross

THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFICdogmas that represent man’s thoughtabout himself and his environmentatits worst, whether savage or sage, haveexhibited what Schopenhauer calls

“the will to live quite in the primitive biologicalway,” says the London Light, in discussing a bookentitled Le Sens de la Mort(The Meaning ofDeath),by M. Paul Bourget. The story itself is ofthe present day, but lack of space prevents us fromrepeating even the most abbreviated form of theplot. What immediately concerns us is the diver-gent views touching life and death that are mademanifest during the discussion between two of theleading characters. One of these men is a famoussurgeon who has just discovered himself to bedoomed to death in a few months by cancer. Theother is a healthy young man.

These two gentlemen are inspecting a hospitaltogether when the young man remarks that thearrangements there are almost too comfortable. Tothis the great surgeon objects, “No, what is the useof suffering when it is possible to escape it?” Hisquestion is passionately resentful because he issuffering very much himself.

The young man, who has never suffered,answers, “To pay.”

“Pay what?” demanded the surgeon, who has nottold the secret of his suffering to others.

“The debts of our faults and the faults of others,”answers the young man.

This interpretation the elder man resents, for his

conceptions are mainly materialistic. “Our faults,as if we had asked to be born! and the faults of oth-ers—it is monstrous!”

“But,” says the young man, “since everything inlife leads up to suffering and death, if suffering anddeath have not that meaning of expiation, whatmeaning have they, what meaning has life?”

The answer of the great surgeon is short, for heis filled with intense resentment. “None,” he con-cludes.

It is needless to say to the student of the deeperphilosophies that both are wrong. It is not true thateverything in life leads up to suffering and death.The mission of pain and suffering is not merely

30 RAYS 02

Religion in Time of War

FROM MAX HEINDEL’S WRITINGS

The reader may find this article of special interest inasmuchas it is not contained in book form. Max Heindel wrote it, inhis capacity as editor of the Rays, for the April, 1918 issue.

Oil on canvas, 1916, Evelyn de Morgan 1850-1919

The Field of the SlainThe artist, a theosophist, depicts a beneficient (haloed) Angelof Deathacting in the capacity of an Invisible Helper or LayBrother, gathering the comatose souls of the batttlefield deadand conveying them to their proper place in the Desire World.

expiation. There is no angry God who aims to geteven with us for our wrong doings. We stand hereface to face with a law, a good law, designed toteach us the lessons which are necessary for ouradvancement to greater heights in the scale of evo-lution. So that by a succession of existences inearthy bodies of increasingly finer texture, welearn the lessons of life and how to adjust our-selves to the conditions here by right thought andright action. Who has a body so good and perfectthat he would like to dwell in it forever? Surely noone. We all have our pains and aches and all aresubject to suffer.

Therefore death should be looked upon not asthe king of terrors but as the merciful relief froman outgrown garment, that a new one and bettermay serve us in a futurelife, and enable us toprogress further uponthe path of unfoldment.This is seen in all king-doms. If the primordialflora had not been sub-ject to death and decay,no higher forms of plant life could ever have comeinto existence upon earth. And if death had notreleased the spirit that ensouled the primitive ani-mal form, reptiles would still inhabit the earth tothe exclusion of the higher mammalian types.Similarly, if man had not died, the primitive humanforms, absolutely unfit for the expression of lifeand intellect to which we have today attained,would still be the only ones here.

It is true that we reap what we have sown, butthe only purpose of this reaping is not expiation;we are at the same time learning lessons how toavoid past mistakes on future occasions and con-form to the laws of nature. We are not here only topay for our mistakes, but to learn by them, andsuch primitive ideas of atonement as expressed inthe answer of the young man must be rooted out ofhuman conception, that nobler forms of religionmay take its place.

All through the constitution of the Universe runsthe principle of justice, but not cold, hard justice;justice it is, tempered with mercy, for that whichwe recognize as the laws of nature in their

manifestations are in fact great Intelligences, theMinisters of God, the Seven Spirits before theThrone, and the Recording Angels. They are com-passionate beyond any conception we can have ofthis term, and whatever befalls a human beingunder their guidance is suited just to his needs.

We are told that not even a sparrow falls to theground without our Father in Heaven knowing it.And if nature, or God, or the Universe, phrase ithow we will—the power that progressively broughtto birth the nonindividualized spirit in formsascending upwards in the scale to man, conservingin each form all progressive developments of lowerforms—if this ineffable power is justified even toman as regards the destiny of all creatures belowhim, the plain assumption in reference to his own

fate is that he, being thehighest in the four king-doms of life now evolv-ing in this world, mustbe provided for when hedies, as well as before hewas born. Such is thelogical conclusion, and

the more we examine the question, the more is thatconclusion justified among those who have studiedthe matter and are in a position to know.

In this connection, it is as strange as it is illumi-nating to note the different ways in which the [firstworld] war affects people of different religiousbeliefs. Speaking generally, we may say that thereare three great religious systems represented amongthe combatants—the Hindus, the Muslims, and theChristians—and each of these three classes meetdeath in a different way, on account of what theybelieve during life. Besides, their belief makesthem act differently when they enter the invisibleworlds. For the sake of elucidation and compari-son, we may take the Hindu first. He believes inkarma, that is to say, that most of the things whichbefall him in this life are the result of action in for-mer lives. This karma, it seems, is, to say the least,very difficult to change, if it can be done at all.Perhaps to some extent some of the most intelli-gent believe that this karma may be changed, but itis the writer’s understanding that as a race Hindusbelieve that karma cannot be avoided and they are

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The laws of nature in theirmanifestations are in fact greatintelligences, the ministers ofGod, Who are compassionate

beyond any conception.

here for the purpose of working it out. While they are thus expiating the result of their

past actions in former lives, they are also makingnew karma and thus laying the foundation for theirfuture lives. In this respect they believe that theyhave free will, except as restricted by their envi-ronment, and thus they are able to change theirlives in the future.

When a man is imbued with this belief and goesto war, he takes it as a matter of course that if hemeets death, it is karma. He fights fearlesslybecause he feels that if it is not his karma to die,then he will come out safe, whatever he does. Ifsuffering comes to him, he looks upon that also askarma and strives to take it as patiently as possible.Furthermore, if, when after death he finds himselfin the invisible world, he is calm and collected, heknows that his relatives, though they may grievefor him, will not do so in an inordinate measurebecause they know that it is karma and thereforefeel that it is no use to rebel. Furthermore, hebelieves that in due time he will come to birthagain and will meet his dear ones in altered forms;thus there is no real cause for unrestrained grief.

The Turks have a somewhat similar belief inkismet, which is their name for fate. They believethat every thing in human life to the very smallestdetail is predestined and that therefore it does notmatter how they act or do not act—whatever is tobefall will befall, regardless of any action or exer-cise of ingenuity on their part. Hence it has alwaysbeen reported that Muslim soldiers went forth towar in an absolute disregard of their lives; that theyfought with unexcelled bravery, and endured allprivations without a murmur, knowing that whenthey had fought the good fight they would be trans-lated to paradise, where the beautiful Houris wouldminister to their welfare forever. Though at thepresent time all religions seem to have fallen moreand more into indifference, the effect of this beliefis still seen to a considerable extent by theInvisible Helpers who take care of the victims ofwar when they pass over. They usually find theMuslims to be calm and resigned to their fate.

But when we consider the case of the Christians,the matter is very different. It is true that theChristian religion also teaches that what a mansows that shall he also reap, but religious teachings

have had but a very small place among the Westernnations compared to the grip which they have uponthe people of the East, such as the Hindu andMuslims. Their religion is part of every day life. Atcertain times, the Orientals of whatever religiondevote themselves to prayer and are very sincere intheir religious observance. In the Western world,on the other hand, people are generally ashamed ofbeing thought too religious.

Recently, one of the New York papers had a fullpage advertisement, if the writer remembers right-ly, which stated that business men ought to go tochurch as that is a good asset in business, for itmarked them as respectable citizens and would gainfor them more credit. What an unworthy motive tohold out as an inducement! There was, of course,considerable indignation over this advertisement,but it shows the dilemma of the church, how theyare put to it to keep up their membership andattendance, and how few, even among studentsseeking mystic development, read this great book,the Bible.

The writer has often noticed that whenever aquestion comes up concerning the Bible, or someone is asked to read from the Bible, very few canpronounce the names properly, or name the variousbooks in the Bible. These are all signs which go toshow that religion with us in the Western world isneither studied nor practiced daily by the greatmajority. On one occasion, while discussing thisquestion with a business man, he remarked that hehad no time for the study of religion during theweek, therefore he paid a minister to study, andwent to church on Sunday in order that the minis-ter might there give him the benefit of what he hadlearned during the past week. Those who study theBible are called cranks and shunned as such.

Hence the idea concerning the meaning of suf-fering and death expressed by the surgeon in thebook which gave rise to the thoughts here expressed.But even where the idea of mercy and vicariousatonement is embraced, that goes to the oppositeextreme and teaches that immediately a man feelsthat he has sinned and is sorry, he is at once for-given, as expressed in the couplet,

Between the stirrup and the ground, He pardon sought, and pardon found.

32 RAYS 02

This conveys the idea that one may live a life ofsin up to the very moment of death and then on thedeathbed, by saying that we are sorry, we may beforgiven for the whole score of our life. Thiswrong idea has become so ingrained in the publicconsciousness that we have lost respect for the lawthat “as we sow so shall we also reap,” and aredepending altogether on grace; that is to say, if weever give the matter any thought at all, and in thewriter’s estimation, nothing short of a thorougheducation of the people of the Western world to thefact of their responsibility can ever waken the reli-gious life again.

If the churches want to succeed and increasetheir attendance, if they want to spread the king-dom of Christ upon earth, then this is really theway. They must reawaken the sense of individualresponsibility which has been lost partly by thesale of indulgences practiced by the CatholicChurch, which has given those who believe in itthe feeling that the justice and equality which isrooted in universal law could be cheated by thepayment of a few paltry dollars. This was a blow atthe very foundation upon which religion stands,and as a result we have today in the present war aspectacle which is too horrible for contemplation.And while our brothers whom we call heathen facedeath and adjust themselves to conditions in theworld beyond because they are imbued with asense of this responsibility for their own actions,and a sense of the divine guardianship, which hasall things in its great care, we who pride ourselvesupon being the most civilized people, Christians,face death in a manner that is altogether unbecom-ing. When we are not beside ourselves in anger andrage and pass over in that condition, we cry and areunhappy because of the dear ones we left behind,and a small class is commiserating for having beentaken out of earthly life and enjoyments thereexperienced. There is sorrow and mental sufferingamong the Christians, so-called, that is unequalledand unparalleled among those who come from theEast, and were it not that relatives of those peoplewho are now passing over by the hundreds of thou-sands have pressed into service to soothe and quietthem until they find their balance and thus mini-mize the dreadful condition, it seems as if this earthmust have been swallowed up in an ocean of sorrow.

It seems therefore to the writer that in order toeffect the regeneration of the Western world, peo-ple must be educated concerning the action of thetwin laws which are at the root of human progres-sion, for when we thoroughly understand thatunder the law of consequence we are responsiblefor our actions, but that the retribution is not metedout by an angry God, any more than when wethrow a stone up in the sky, God takes that stoneand throws it back at us. Action and reaction fol-low each other just as ebb and flow, night and day,winter and summer, and this law coupled with thelaw of rebirth, which gives us a new chance in anew environment and better body, enables us towork our way from the human to the divine, as wehave worked our way from microbe to man. ❐

RAYS 02 33

Illumination, fifteenth century, The Rohan Master, from Grandes heures de Rohan

The Deceased Before His JudgeMichael and the devil contend for the dead man’s soul todetermine his place in the Desire World. The man’s own life’sactions shall, in fact, be the arbiter of his excarnate destiny.

QUESTION: Can another entity gainpossession of a person’s lower vehi-cles while the ego is out as anInvisible Helper, and how long andhow strong is the silver cord?

Answer: There is no danger what-ever of another entity taking possession of one’slower vehicles while the ego, with its higher vehi-cles, is out as an unconscious Invisible Helper. Theunconscious Invisible Helper is fully protectedwhile out of his body. With those who haveevolved to the point where they can leave theirbodies consciously, however, it is different. Theyare themselves responsible for any consequenceswhich may result from the leaving of their bodies.

The silver cord is composed of three parts: oneof ether, one of desire stuff, and one of mind stuff.No occult development is possible until the thirdpart of the silver cord has been developed, but afterit is completed, the ego may leave its dense bodyand roam the wide world, either consciously orunconsciously, depending upon one’s spiritualdevelopment. In either case, the ductility and elas-ticity of the third part of the silver cord, which ismade of mind stuff, serves as a link with the lowervehicles. There is no danger of its being severedunless it has become more tenuous through illness.

THE PANORAMA OF THE BLIND

Question: Does a man who has been complete-ly blind in his past life, when he views its panora-ma, actually see the pictures that existed aroundhim?

Answer: The subconscious mind consists of the

records imprinted on the negative atoms of thevital body’s reflecting ether. When such a man ascited is freed from his dense body, his spiritualpower comes back in some measure and he is ableto read these pictures with his spiritual vision.

The panorama presents itself to him in a mannersimilar to the way the scenes of a moving pic-ture are shown, except that they are presented inreverse order, from the time of passing to themoment of birth.

Now since this record is independent of thephysical sight, and since the reading of the recordis dependent upon spiritual sight, it is true that peo-ple who have been blind during their past life actu-ally do see the pictures of that life in the after-death panorama.

SEEING ENTITIES

Question: There is one thing in this world Iwould like to get the best of, but invariably it getsthe best of me, especially at critical moments. Forinstance, I have a thing practically accomplishedwhen an outside influence comes along andmakes me fail. I feel as though some drug had beeninjected into me, and I become numb and dizzyand momentarily blinded. My whole life has beenruined by this power over me.

A number of years ago mental voices started tocome to me. Then what appeared to be a goodforce showed me how easily anyone might betricked by such things. One night, after one ofthese experiences, I opened my eyes and saw onthe footboard of the bed two shapes with greatpeaked, heads and strange sharp ears. There they

34 RAYS 02

Protection When out of the BodyThe Panorama of the Blind; Seeing Entities

Praying Spirits out of Purgatory

READERS’ QUESTIONS

sat eyeing me with their big, mighty eyes rollingaround greedily. But when I moved, they flew outof the window. What is it all about? Perhaps youcan enlighten me.

Answer: It is evident that you are mediumisticto some extent. When one becomes mediumistic,his finer vehicles have become abnormally sensi-tive to the vibrations from the invisible planes, andhe easily gets into contact with them and perhapssees some of the entities which live there. If he isof a negative mental type, these entities may grad-ually acquire a certain degree of control over him.Among these beings are those that are good andthose that are bad. Some are devoted to the fur-thering of the plan of evolution, and others areseeking to frustrate it.

The fact that you seem to come under the domi-nation of some force which at the critical momentcauses you to fail would indicate that some adverseinfluence from the other side is working againstyour welfare, affecting you at key moments in ahypnotic way, putting suggestions into your mindthat are false, and even, perhaps, directing vibra-tions against you which make you dizzy. All phe-nomena of this sort are distinctly negative andmost objectionable. When a person has been care-less or negligent in the matter of self-control formany lives, psychic negativeness may finallyreach the stage where entities from the other sideof an inimical sort gain entrance to his aura andseek to bring about his failure.

The solution is perfectly evident: Do your ownthinking. Start to become positive in all of yourthinking, in all of your desires, and all of your acts.This will automatically compel you to use yourwill, which will thus be built up. Gradually thefiner vehicles—the mind, the desire body, and vitalbody—will become positive, and thereby form anunyielding barrier to evil influences. If you do this,in time you will arrive at the point where suchinfluences as those mentioned will automaticallybe shut out.

Then the phenomena which now trouble youwill disappear. The positive individual creates hisown thoughts and directs their activity. The nega-tive person receives the thoughts of others, and iscontrolled by them.

PRAYING SPIRITS OUT OF PURGATORY

Question: What is meant by “praying” a spiritout of purgatory? Can this be done?

Answer: No one can be “prayed” out of purgatory.The action of the purgatorial forces frees the spiritfrom its base desires and corrects the weaknesses andvices that hinder its progress by making it suffer inthe identical manner best adapted to that purpose.

Purgatorial activity is divided into two distinctclasses; namely, the eradication of bad habits, andthe reaction of evil deeds done to others. Desires inthe physical world which cannot be gratified aftera time burn themselves out, so to speak, and ceaseto be. Something similar takes place in the purga-torial region. There the spirit has no dense vehicle,and that is what makes the difference in regard tothe gratification of its various desires. For exam-ple, the man who drank alcoholic beverages duringearth life, now has no alimentary canal in whichchemical combustion can take place, thereby gen-erating fumes, which are a delight to the desirebody. The vicious man can no longer kill, nor canthe miser collect gold, et cetera. And so, throughlack of gratification, these desires finally wearthemselves out, exactly as they do in the physicalworld, and the spirit is freed from them.

In relation to the reaction of evil done to others,as the panorama of life unrolls backward, it pre-sents to the spirit the scenes wherein it has donewrong to others, and then the evil reacts on the egoin such a way that where it has made another suf-fer, either mentally or physically, it feels itself asthe injured one and endures all the anguish andpain that the victim felt in life. As the speed of pur-gatorial existence is three times faster than that ofordinary earth life, the intensity of suffering islikewise trebled.

Thus the spirit is finally purged of all evil by theaction of the Law of Consequence and not by theprayers of others. And as soon as this is done, it isready to leave the purgatorial region and enter theFirst Heaven world. However, it must be remem-bered that the purgatory experiences are not con-tinuous; there is an interval of respite after eachperiod of suffering. During these intervals theprayers of the spirit’s friends and loved ones are agreat comfort to it. ❐

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SOLOMON ’S M ISSION TO THE WORLD

LEGEND STATES that the birth ofSolomon was attended by hosts ofAngels singing triumphant chorals justas they did at the birth of Jesus. It isalso said that the Archangel Gabriel,

guardian of mothers and children, was present tobestow his blessing upon the infant.

Nathan, a prophet of God who guided David inways of Truth, was appointed teacher and guardianof the youthful Solomon. So the child grew anddeveloped in an environment of righteousness andwisdom, thus qualifying him to perform his greatwork for the upliftment of mankind.

One day, when Solomon was about thirteen yearsof age, the Court was assembled in the majesticHall of Cedars when an Angel appeared and placeda golden leaf in the hands of King David. Upon thisleaf was inscribed questions in mystic characters.David announced, “Whoso answers these questionsshall become king of Israel after me.” Then he read:“What is everything? What is nothing.”

Breaking the silence that followed, Solomon onlymade reply: “God is everything, the world is noth-ing.” David continued reading:

“What is of most account, and what is of least?”Once more it was Solomon who made reply: “Peaceis of most account, and fear is of least.”

Solomon’s foremost work was to build the greatMystery Temple. Teachings emanating from thisTemple were to serve the entire present Fifth RootRace throughout its evolutionary span. Mt. Moriah,like the Mt. of Olives previously referred to, was an

area of great spiritual power. On it Solomon wasinstructed to erect a magnificent Temple and dedi-cate it in service to the divine purpose of bringingabout the redemption of mankind. It was ordainedthat the Lord Christ should be received into thisTemple, and that the wondrous meaning and mis-sion of His coming to us should be relayed to theworld therefrom. Mankind, however, did not live upto the divine precepts of Solomon and later Templeservers did not recognize the expected Messiah whenHe did come. Hence, the day of the Crucifixioninaugurated the doom of the Temple. It was only amatter of time before its complete destruction.

Jesus, foreseeing the fate of Jerusalem and theTemple, wept over the tragedy that was to overtake

36 RAYS 02

Solomon—Revelations of Truth

WESTERN WISDOM BIBLE STUDIES

Stained glass, 1890, Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), Leigh, Staffordshire, UK

King Solomon Holding the Temple.

both. He knew that the city’s inhabitants had failedto achieve the high destiny which had been pre-pared for them. As He beheld the long centurieslying ahead, He saw a future filled with strife andravaging wars, with their aftermath of sorrow, painand death, before the day of their redemption.David and Solomon, both high Initiates, came toearth to work for the regeneration of the human racein anticipation of the glorious coming of theBlessed Lord. It was not they who failed. Rather, itwas the entire Fifth Root Race.

Solomon, by means of his initiate powers, wasable to control denizens of both the upper andnether realms. The forty-nine paths of wisdom wereopen to him, so mystic legends state. (4 plus 9 gives13, the initiatory number belonging to the thenapproaching Christian Dispensation.) He eventransmuted the vicious powers of demons into thoseserving the good of man. He controlled NatureSpirits and, at will, could send them to the further-most confines of the world. He delivered many per-sons from bondage to the evil of obsession.

The macrocosm is a reflection of the microcosm.Man’s physical body, his temple, is a reflection ofthe solar Temple of the universe. The Master taughtthat it was this human temple which might bedestroyed and then, through Initiation, be raised upagain in three days. In mystic Masonry it is the tem-ple built by two kings and a widow’s son. The lat-ter, Hiram or Khurum by name, becomes theMaster Builder—his name meaning high, white,lifted up. King Solomon represents the heart. KingHiram of Tyre is the head. Hiram, the master work-man and a widow’s son, symbolizes an aspirantwho is working to unite the love power of the heartwith the intellect of the head.

Every masonic candidate is admonished to keephis working tools in the column of Jachin, the head.Boaz, the feminine heart column, is the fallen pillarwhich cannot be raised until the power of love bal-ances that of reason. Only when love is truly “thefulfilling of the law” will the column of Boazresume its upright position. These are the twocolumns that guard the entrance to all initiatoryTemples, and every neophyte must past betweenthem on his quest for Light.

Many are the legends connected with the Molten

Sea. This sea, in the form of a flower, was (and is)supported by twelve oxen. As a “widow’s son”(neophyte) becomes a “master-builder” by thealchemy of transmutation within himself, his“molten sea” becomes a crystal wherein the out-lines of past, present and future are indeliblyimpressed. This ability enables him to transform hisphysical vehicle into the “flower body” of anInitiate—a work done under the guidance andinstruction of the twelve zodiacal Hierarchies. Itwas such attainment that placed Solomon amongthe Wise Men of all ages. And the “lake” uponwhich he stood to welcome the Queen of Shebasymbolizes his own personal “molten sea.”

Solomon’s throne was fashioned of the fine goldof Ophir inlaid with marble and incrusted with rarejewels. On each of the six steps to it were two gold-en lions and two golden eagles standing face toface, indicative of the Leo-Aquarian Age and itspioneers who have learned to build the gloriouslight body typified by Solomon’s Temple. No work-man was ill during the seven years that the Templewas under construction, nor was the perfect condi-tion of their tools impaired. “When completed, theTemple shone like a golden hill set upon a silvermountain. The altar of bronze increased so that itmight embrace the earth. The molten sea encom-passed the spirit of all waters. The curtains caughtand held the shimmering shadows of blue air, andthe candlestick, the glory of celestial fire.”Surrounding the Temple was a grove of goldentrees bearing perpetual fruits that fell only whenapproached by an enemy. Within the sanctuary wasan ivory wand, the touch of which gave injury to theunclean but proved harmless to the pure. A trans-parent wall within the interior of the sanctuaryremained crystal clear on the approach of the right-eous but darkened when the unworthy came near.

At the dedication of the Temple, these wordswere spoken by the Lord, the manifestation of spir-itual law: “I have hallowed this house, which thouhast built, to put my name there forever; and mineeyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.”—1Kings 9:3 Legends state that Solomon placed agolden key in the door of the Holy of Holies to therhythms of heavenly music and chanting

“Open wide the doorway of the Holy of Holies,

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that the King of Glory may go unto his rest.”SOLOMON ’S SUPREME INITIA TION

“And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fameof Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, shecame to prove him with hard questions.

“And she came to Jerusalem with a very greattrain, with camels that bare spices, and very muchgold, and precious stones: and when she came toSolomon, she communed with him of all that was inher heart.

“And Solomon told her all her questions: therewas not anything hid from the king, which he toldher not.” —1 Kings 10:1-3

The coming of this beautiful queen of wisdom isthe triumphal crowning of Solomon’s life. The wis-dom, of which he sings as being above the price ofrubies, was at last his own possession. Before itsattainment he never could have penned the match-less Song of Songs, the Song of the Mystic mar-riage—described as “a love song set to lilies.” Itproclaims the final blending of the lower nature withthe higher, the sublimation of the material into thespiritual. This is the highest achievement of divinealchemy. It must take place within the consciousnessand life of a disciple, for it brings him into commu-nion with those celestial planes whereon the glory ofthe song becomes his own personal experience.

The name Sheba means seven with its sevenfoldinterpretation: “the Beautiful, the Old, the One, theGiver, the Dangerous, the First, the Last.” She wasthe queen of all Arabian flowers. Balkris, her name,means benediction. Solomon spent three years inpreparation for her coming. He built two mightywalls that began at the frontier of Israel and endedat the gates of Jerusalem. One was of silver and theother of gold, and between them was a crystal lakein which the entire world was mirrored. It wasthereon that he awaited her arrival. Sheba camearrayed in seven robes as subtle as woven air, andshe approached Solomon as he was standing on thiscrystal “Lake” as though he were in water. Her giftsto the king were priceless pearls while his to her wereeight green rose trees of mystic Damascus, all starrywith blossoms, and jars containing the waters ofeternal life from the well of Siloam—the last beinga phrase from an old Egyptian Mystery Temple.

“And when the queen of Sheba had seen all

Solomon’s wisdom, and the house that he hadbuilt, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of hisservants, and the attendance of his ministers, andtheir apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent bywhich he went up unto the house of the Lord, therewas no more spirit in her.

“And she said to the king, It was a true report thatI heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thywisdom. Howbeit, I believed not the words, until Icame, and mine eyes had seen it: and behold, thehalf was not told to me: thy wisdom and prosperityexceedeth the fame of which I heard.

“Happy are thy men, happy are these thy ser-vants, which stand continually before thee, and thathear thy wisdom.”—1 Kings 4-8

In the great tent of the king, guests who wereassembled for the reception of the gifts were over-shadowed by invisible hosts of the angelic choir.Solomon saluted the fair queen with the words:“You are holy as the Ark of God; your body is Hishouse.” At these words of the king’s salutation,many of the guests wavered and departed; butBalkris, Queen of Sheba, swayed and stood uprightand alone in the middle of the royal tent.

“Many are called but few are chosen.”Others also wavered and turned away, unable to

walk longer in the Master’s way—the straight andnarrow path of Initiation which leads to the portalsof the mystic Temple, where gifts are bestowedupon a successful aspirant who is wedded to wis-dom and has learned the glory of the house notmade with hands, but eternal in the heavens. It is atthe completion of this “house” that he earns thewages of the Master and acquires ability to travel inforeign countries, the supreme attainment for pio-neers of the human race.

From Jerusalem, Solomon reigned over all Israelthe cabalistic period of forty years. At the time ofhis transition. his eyes beheld a vision of the future:the destruction of the earthly tabernacle, because itwas impermanent, transitory. Said another greatChristian Initiate: “Things seen are temporal; thingsunseen, eternal.” Solomon, King of peace, raisingaloft the sacred ring bearing the ineffable name,admonished: “Build ye the Temple invisible andeternal.” ❐

—Corinne Heline

38 RAYS 02

THE SYMBOLS used in astrology areperfect ideographs to the astrologerwhen engaged in his delineation ofnativities, for his success to a consid-erable extent depends upon his skill in

interpreting its very wonderful symbology; and itis mainly owing to this fact that the inner truths ofthe science have been so very carefully preserved,so that now they are once again being slowlyrevealedto us after many centuries of concealment.

We have come to look upon the Moon as thesymbol or representative of the Personality, itswaxing and waning being similarly expressed inthe changes that take place almost daily in the per-sonal life. The Sun, on the other hand, stands as arepresentative of the Individuality, or the real man,the immortal part that dieth not.

To those who are interested in the inner oresoteric side of our science, it is important that acorrect knowledge of all that is involved in theterms that are the subject of this article be fullyunderstood.

The relation of the Individuality to thePersonality may be roughly symbolized by a tree,whose leaves, when the sap or vital principle iswithdrawn from them, fade and fall and are trod-den under foot. They are gone into the grave ofthings. Will they return? We know that cannot be,but the tree will reclothe itself anew with otherleaves, will again feed and inform them with thesap flowing within, the vital principle that pro-ceeds from the “One Life”—the Spirit animatingall Nature. Without carrying our analogy too far,we may liken the personality to the leaves of a tree.

This personality is the garb assumed by the indi-viduality for each life period as the most fittingexpression of its actual condition, status, and needs.Certain physical traits, partly due to heredity, asindicated by the rising sign, are recognized; butthese become modified, or even disappear, as thecharacter develops and manifests.

Now the ordinary person and the materialist(especially the latter) mistake the personality, withits desires, passions and appetites, for the real man;whereas, it is only his outer expression, just as theclothes of the actor, though appropriate to the parthe plays, do not constitute the actor himself.Shakespeare says: “Each man in his time playsmany parts”—each manstanding for the realbeing, and the many partsfor the personalities—successive earthly lives.

RAYS 02 39

Personality and Individuality

ASTROLOGY

Hans Holbein II, from Sebastian Müster’s Canones, printed in Basel, 1534

The moon’s phases illustrate the mutability of the personalityand justify its lunar symbol, while the sun, a perpetualsource of light, represents the enduring individuality or Ego.

The personality can be seen and known, but theindividuality (symbolized by the tree in the firstanalogy) can only be perceived by the eye of thesoul. Thus it naturally follows that most of us aredeluded by appearances, and consequently, weoften make the personality the sole object of thelife, working only for physical and personalinterests, worldly success, comfort, and enjoy-ment—and therefore naturally feeling that whenthe body dies all is over. This is the materialisticview, and even some of our religious men, whopiously declare that the spirit “returns to God whogave it,” do not realize this in consciousness, thoughthey may intellectually assent to it.

Few really grasp the true relation between thehigher and lower self, whichseem, as it were, separated foreach life period, the lower orphysical self being the instru-ment which the higher uses forgathering experience on earth.

“The soul is immortal, andits future is the future of a thingwhose growth and splendor has no limit.” It is agrowing entity, feeding on the earthly experiencegathered by its physical vehicle.

On retiring from this earth’s sphere of action, thepersonality hands on to the individuality the expe-rience gained by its contact with matter—the netresults, so to speak, of the past life. In this way,faculty after faculty is evolved, virtue after virtueunfolded, power after power is gained by the soul.For many lives, its progress must necessarily beslow, because it is young and does not realize thepurpose of manifestation and evolution. It is notready or willing to obey and cooperate with thelaw, so that little experience worth handing up issecured, the personality living for itself alone, lostin the delights and gratification of the senses, for-getful of its lord and of the purpose for which itincarnated.

It must be remembered that the immortal soul,the real man, the individuality, is dependent on itsinstrument, the personality, to gather its experi-ence, much as our physical body depends on itshands to feed and work for it, or its feet to carry it.

Astrologers will understand the saying, “The

Moon must fall ere the Sun can rise,” for it is onlyas the lunar form holds itself as a vehicle for thesolar influence to permeate, order, and inspire—the personality realizing that it is but a channel forthe divine life to use, and allowing that life toinfluence and direct it, trying ever to shape itself tothe divine will—that real wisdom can be secured,and the true purpose of evolution can be fulfilled.

Skeptics and materialists argue that when theform perishes, man’s life is blotted out and leavesno trace, even his nobler nature perishing with thephysical brain. But the materialist is not anastrologer nor an occultist, and he ignores alto-gether the immortal and individualized spirit,because he cannot prove its existence by physical

means.How, some may ask, can

pure spirit, formless, undiffer-entiated, become an individualspirit?

It can only become individu-alized by a descent into matter,by conjunction with human

consciousness which, without its presence, wouldscarcely be raised a degree above the more highlyevolved animals.

The question is often mooted, by earth’s toilersand workers, as well as by the jaded and satiatedpleasure-seeker, Is life worth living?

The pessimist, who believes in only one life, isforced to answer, No! The social reformer andpolitical economist holds that the end and aim oflife is personal (?) happiness—the greatest happi-ness to the greatest number; but in the face of thewant, pain, and misery rampant in the world, theycan scarcely claim to have hit on either a solutionto the problem or a panacea for the evil.

What answer can astrology—one of the sevenkeys to wisdom—give to this query? If the ques-tion be studied from the occult standpoint, as itwas in past ages, when the science of the stars wasa world’s religion, it proclaims each earth-life asonly one phase in the evolution of the individual,by means of a long struggle with matter, and byspecific experiences gained through a material per-sonality. But it never teaches that life or happinessis an end in itself; although right living in any life

40 RAYS 02

The lunar formholds itself as a vehicleand vessel for the solarinfluence to permeate,

order and inspire.

produces that harmony and peace which alone canbe truly called happiness.

When the higher stages of consciousness arereached, the highest joy is felt in living and servingthe higher Self, and in maintaining a constantstruggle against the temptations of the lowernature, until finally the complete conquest of self-ishness is attained. Of course, this means a life ofconscious work, effort, and struggle, the rescue ofthe mind from the senses; for if the horses of thesenses run away with the driver, or the mind, theyare likely to drag him down and destroy him.

So many persons seem to suffer under the lash ofthe senses that sometimes we feel sad on account ofthose who cannot be convinced of any necessityfor a nobler life. Yet there is no occasion for regretwhen we realize the fact that if one life is wasted,it must be re-lived, and that man can only delay,but cannot prevent, his evolution; for man’seventual perfection is the will of the Logos, theGod of our solar system.

Still, the Christ, or divine principle, in each mustever be, while crucified on the cross of matter, the“man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” forthe cross is the burden of the flesh and the carnalappetites.

What is the meaning of that strange and hardsaying, “man must lose his life ere he can find it”?It has two interpretations. The life of the animalmust first be yielded to the life of the intellect, andfinally, the life of the mind must be surrendered tothat of the soul. There are thus three types ofman—animal, human, divine. Such are some of thestages we each pass through during the soul’s pil-grimage. We must endeavor to become unselfishand non-personal, and then we shall not be boundnor limited, neither by Mars nor Saturn, neither bysensation nor by concrete mental conceptions.

A true realization of personality and individuali-ty would be the understanding that the lower is theservant, not the master; the agent, not the actor.This does not mean that the physical instrument isto be neglected. Nor does it mean that fasting orasceticism is to be practiced, or any part of thenature killed out—but harmonized and broughtunder the control of the higher nature. Forevery force we have is ours by divine right, and

it is for us to use it legitimately, controlling andtransmuting, not destroying. Asceticism, as well asprofligacy, say the sages and Rishis of old, are tobe avoided. The middle path is the path of safety.

The physical body is the instrument for work onthe physical plane. How does a good workmantreat his tools? He keeps them clean and well-protected, otherwise they would be useless forservice. Just so must the body be kept in goodcondition, pure, clean and healthy, if useful work isto be accomplished.

Now the personality is more than the physicalform; it embodies passions, affections, desires,intellect, and social proclivities; it is concernedwith the sphere of human duties around us. Everyone of us, each in his own place, has to work outhis own salvation by means of this personality, forthe human has eventually to become the divine—“God manifest in the flesh”—and just in propor-tion as we seize and utilize our present opportuni-ties will further opportunities present themselves;for we are the makers of our own destiny, the

RAYS 02 41

Lithograph, 19th century, Library of Congress, Washington D. C.

The Scourging of ChristEach Christian individualizes the life of Christ Jesus. The per-sonality experiences verbal lashings and interior emotionalflayings, the buffetings of contrary events and conflictingimpulses while it is bound to the pillar of the physical body.

Lithograph by Lehman &

Bolton

awarders of our own joys or woes. “As we sow, wemust and shall inevitably reap,” is God’s law, thelaw of the universe.

Our position today is simply the result of causesset in motion by ourselves, and while reaping theharvest of past sowing, we are sowing fresh seedfor future reaping; some of this seed may spring upin this life, some may be postponed to a future life.

If we tried to realize these facts of life and des-tiny, we would be less discontented with our posi-tion and condition in the world; for even supposingwe could override the law and remove ourselvesand others from the position and circumstances weso deplore, we would be robbing the soul of itsexperience.

One of our poets sings truly, being inspired, asall true poets are,

Thou camest not to thy place by accident, It is the very place alone for thee.

We can all help forward the work of evolution, ifwe will, no matter whether our position be lofty orlowly, great or humble. True, those who hold aposition of great influence in the world can workfor others on a larger scale than those who hold alesser post; but we are inclined to measure thingsfrom an outside standpoint that is often erroneous.We think of work as being only, or chiefly, exter-nal, seen and recognized, but in very truth thereverse is more often the case.

If we are poor in this world’s goods, we maybe rich in thought, pure in mind, and by sendinginto the world’s thought-stream good, pure andlofty thoughts, we are actively working to raisehumanity.

Helping by pen or speech, though useful, is stillnot so far-reaching in its power as devotion,aspiration, and unseen aid rendered to our fellows;for the unseen is mightier than the recognized, theunmanifest than the manifest.

The widow’s mite, the cup of cold water, givenwith true devotion or unselfish love, affordexamples of the truth that it is motive which is,after all, of the greatest consequence; and if thatmotive be desire for the spiritual welfare ofhumanity, then we liberate a spiritual force that canbe used in man’s service.

Most people attach too much importance to rankand prestige, luxury and fame. These things takeon a totally different aspect when judged by thesoul’s measure. That measure is moral character.

One important lesson that life teaches is to doour own duty, the duty that lies nearest. It is forthat experience we are incarnated, and if we shirkthe task today we shall only have to pick it uptomorrow. In doing our own work, we need notneglect helping our brothers and sisters by our loveand sympathy, trying, as far as we can, to fulfill thelaw of the Master, “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”

A life of usefulness and service yields a largereturn to the individuality, for all unselfish deeds,all acts of kindness and self-denial, becomethe permanent stock of the immortal soul. But awasted life, i.e., a selfish one, causes the personal-ity sorrow and suffering, as it will have to work outits redemption in future lives. The higher self,however, suffers only in having an unprofitableservant that yields its master no experience (fornothing of evil can be carried to the soul, virtuealone can be wrought into the individuality); it ismerely one earth-life wasted.

What are we each doing with our personality? Isit master or servant? Are we living selfishly, orotherwise? personally, or individually?

It is by making the personality a vehicle for thesoul’s use, by realizing self through non-self, thatman eventually transcends limitation and finallycompletes his emancipation from matter.

We must each make our own at-one-ment, unity,and harmony. As we seek to do so, life becomesworth living and the peace that passes all under-standing becomes ours; for as we slowly climb,step by step, the golden ladder of perfection, so do wedraw nearer to the true perfection—the Divinityfrom Whom we come.

The way is hard, the struggle severe. But the endis bliss and joy unspeakable, for shall we not hearat last: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,enter thou into the joy of thy Lord”? Then shall werealize, realize in utter bliss—no dull pigments ofearth may paint, nor any fallen language voice, thesupreme ecstasy of that final at-one-ment—“I andmy Father are one.” ❐

—Bessie Leo

42 RAYS 02

ONE ADDITIONAL fac-tor which participates inthe Ascendant complexmentioned above* is anyclose aspect to the Ascen-

dant. Traditionally, such aspects havebeen said to influence one’s characterand temperament, although very fewbooks include guidelines for interpret-ing these aspects. In this brief section, Ido not propose to give a systematic listof “interpretations” for such aspects.However, there are a few key points tokeep in mind in order to recognize those Ascendantaspects which are most important in a particularchart.

As a general rule, the Ascendant aspects showhow one most characteristically expresses himselfor herself in the outer world, either easily and nat-urally (certain conjunctions, the sextiles, and—most of all—the trines) or with some degree ofstress, tension, inhibition, or extraordinarily strongambition (squares and oppositions). In otherwords, aspects to the Ascendant reveal whethervarious dimensions of oneself (symbolized bynatal planets) are in harmony or discord with themode of expression toward which the Ascendant’senergies constantly urge us.

The oppositions with the Ascendant in somecases reveal an inner division in the individual, astate of being wherein the person endures an

almost constant tension since there is a strong urgetoward modes of activity which are in many wayscompletely opposite. This inner tension can gener-ate great energy and manifest as a particularlycomplex type of consciousness. Oftentimes, such aperson will alternate between the two life orienta-tions over a number of years, at times giving con-scious emphasis to one mode of self-expressionand at other times focusing on the other orienta-tion. It often seems that the progressed Moon ortransiting Saturn and Jupiter periodically bring outone side or the other of the person’s nature.

The square to the Ascendant is often symbolicof some quality in the person’s early environment,usually having manifested either as a type ofoppression or inhibition (especially when the plan-et involved is in the 4th house), or as an unusuallystrong pressure toward achievement or recognition(often when the planet involved is in the 10thhouse). In other words, there are basically twotypes of squares with the Ascendant, which may be

RAYS 02 43

Aspects to the Ascendant

ASTROLOGY

*This text is contained in Astrology, Karma, and Transfor-mation by Stephen Arroyo, and is reprinted with permissionfrom CRCS Publications, P.O. 1460, Sebastopol, CA95472

Joe Tucciarone, Space Art, www.space.com

On the Edge

classified as follows: 1) the 4th housetype of square often indicates emotionalpatterns that hold us back from reachingthe spontaneity of expression shown bythe Ascending sign; and 2) the tenth housesquare often reveals forces within us thatpull us onward toward some kind ofachievement.

The sextile with the Ascendant general-ly shows that the energy of the planetinvolved may be put into operation quitesmoothly once a period of learning hastaken place. Some small adjustment mayhave to be made before that dimension ofexperience becomes fully integrated withthe energy of the Ascendant, but the tran-sition period is usually rapid and encour-aging.

The conjunctions and trines with the Ascendantshould be treated together due to their participationin an important,but rarely mentioned, astrologicalphenomenon. This phenomenon is the triangleformed by the “fire houses” (houses 1, 5, and 9).The triangle formed by the fire signs is of coursementioned in most basic textbooks of astrology, asare the triangles (or trinities) associated with thesigns of the other elements. But the triangle of thefire houses has been mentioned in very few books.The reason for this apparent neglect is that this tri-angle represents a pattern of energy flow which inmany cases verges on the transcendent.

I have already mentioned how the Ascendantcan be seen as representing a mode of expressionand energy release which is timeless, spontaneous,and so natural that it eludes our capturing itsessence in words. And, in a general way, this qual-ity applies also to the entire triangle of the firehouses; for the fire houses deal with pure beingand becoming. The purity of self-expression repre-sented by them can in some cases be accuratelyclassified as spiritual (mainly in those cases wherethe person has ceased to identify his ego with thecreative forces flowing through him and insteadsees himself only as a channel for the manifesta-tion of a greater power).

I stumbled on to the importance of the firehouses early in my astrological studies, years before

I had ever seen mention of this phenomenon inprint. This realization occurred when I drew upand studied the charts of about a dozen spiritualmasters. When I tried to discover common factorsin all of their charts, it became apparent that theonly thing that was regularly emphasized in themajority of those charts was the emphasis on thefire house placement of planets. After trying tounderstand this pattern, without much success, Ihad a vivid dream in which I was shown a flow offiery energy circling around the triangle formed bythe Ascendant and the 5th and 9th houses. Theimmediacy of realization that accompanied thatdream is impossible to describe in words, but itwas a direct and profound lesson about the energyflow represented by these houses. The diagram ofthe “Fiery Triangle” (above) is an attempt to con-vey that dream image.

The practical application of this idea is recog-nizing the potential shown in a chart where natalplanets are located, in close trine to the Ascendantor in conjunction to it. This does not mean thatsuch planetary placements always indicate greatspirituality, for, in most cases, emphasis on thesehouses cannot accurately be labeled a “spiritual”orientation since most people are undeniably ego-centric. In general, however, there is a particularlydynamic flow of creative energy which can beexpressed spontaneously and powerfully. What-ever dimension of experience is symbolized by a

44 RAYS 02

9th HOUSE CUSP

ASCENDANT

5th HOUSE CUSP

planet closely trining or conjuncting the Ascendantmay be put into active expression with a degree ofnaturalness, immediacy, and positive energygreater than that represented by most other astro-logical factors. For example, one who has Marseither conjunct the Ascendant or in trine to it fromeither the 5th or the 9th house areas may be a nat-ural leader and be characterized by a markeddegree of courage and maybe even a certain rough-ness of demeanor. Or one who has Saturn in a sim-ilar position may be characterized by a sense ofpracticality, a capacity for good timing, and theexpression of wisdom farbeyond his or her years.

Although each of thefire houses may be differ-entiated from the othersand given its own set ofmeanings, we should beaware of the fact that anyplanet situated within thisdynamic triangle will belikely to exert a powerfulimpression on the individual’s orientation to life.Infact, one of the simplest ways of characterizing thefire houses as a group is to say that the signs on the1st, 5th, and 9th house cusps, together with theplanets located in those houses (especially thoseclosely aspecting the Ascendant), signify dominantqualities in the individual’s overall attitude towardlife. Since our attitude toward life determines agreat many of our experiences (for you attract whatyou express in life), one can easily see why thesefactors in any chart play such an important role inthe person’s overall life pattern.

The other point to be considered is that our atti-tude toward ourselves is inseparable from our atti-tude toward life in general. In fact, one might saythat they are the same thing. It is obvious that ouroverall attitude toward life emanates directly fromour attitude toward ourselves; and the opposite isalso true, for we have all seen the transformation inself-confidence that an individual can experiencewhen a positive life philosophy has been adopted.The fiery triangle thus symbolizes the essentialquality of our innermost sense of self, as well asindicating our general approach to life itself.

The 1st house and its planets can indicate eithera spontaneous flow of vital energy with such posi-tive vibrations that the person is characterized byan almost radiant aura, or a high degree of self-centeredness and often excessive pride. Naturally,these two ways of being represent the extrememanifestations of such energies, but it is notuncommon to find people who clearly exemplifythese extremes.

Any planet conjunct the Ascendant can indicatethat we have considerable pride in that part of our-selves. For example, the Sun conjunct the Ascendant

frequently correlates witha child-like simplicityand generosity in somecases, or with a childishglee in showing off one’sabilities through dramat-ic displays (and oftenboth).

The Sun conjunct theAscendant is similar toLeo rising in many ways,

although the arrogance and self-centerednessfound so often in those with Sun conjunctAscendant is usually much mare blatant than inthose who have a Leo Ascendant. Another examplemight be the person who has Mercury conjunct theAscendant, where we often find a considerablepride in one’s learning and intellectual abilities. Insome cases with the Mercury conjunction, a ten-dency to try to figure out every little thing causesunnecessary problems and constant worrying.These people often have particularly sharp mindsand the ability to verbalize ideas with an extraordi-nary sense of drama, although their opinions canbe their worst enemy.

The 5th house and its planets reveal creativeresources which can be tapped in abundance, aswell as being key symbols of the person’s level ofself-confidence, or at least what he or she feelsmust be done in order to attain real self-confi-dence. Since the 5th house corresponds to theSun’s own sign, Leo, it is not surprising that I havegradually become inclined to consider this houseas the strongest house in the chart after the 1st; forthe 5th house emphasizes not only the individual’s

RAYS 02 45

Any planet in the 5th house(especially if in close trine tothe Ascendant) may color aperson’ s entire scope andmethod of self-projection

just as strongly as a planetin the 1st house.

creative potentials but also vibrations that charac-terize the person’s overt way of pouring forth hisor her energies spontaneously. And, in actual prac-tice, any planet in the 5th house (especially if inclose trine to the Ascendant) may color a person’sentire scope and method of self-projection just asstrongly as a planet in the 1st house.

The 9th house and its planets signify creative,future-oriented beliefs and aspirations. The 9thhouse’s connection with one’s general attitudetoward life may be more obvious than that of the1st or 5th house, since the 9th house has tradition-ally connoted one’s religious or philosophical ori-entation. As many books have stated, the 9th houseand its planets are related intimately with the high-er mind; and since our higher aspirations andbeliefs are among the most dominant factors informing our life attitudes, one can see how readily9th house factors harmonize with the overall ori-entation of the fire house triangle.

Of these three, the 5th house has been most mis-understood, due to the common practice of empha-sizing only its connection with children, gambling,love “affairs,” and other pleasures. However, the5th house has deeper connotations which areclosely related to the transcendent meaning of thefire triangle we’ve been discussing. I must say thatit is quite surprising to me that generations ofastrologers can continue to place so little relativeemphasis on the very house that corresponds to theSun itself.

Although 5th house energies often manifest asspeculation, love affairs, sensual pleasures, andchildish self-centeredness, all of these activitiesare rooted in the urge to take some risks in order tolet a greater power manifest through the individualpersonality. As has been stated, the 5th houseshows either the power of love or the love ofpower. At best, it indicates one’s capacity for let-ting God’s love and light flow through you and asimple trust in the goodness of life itself. It is relatedto our ability to allow the creative forces of life tomanifest through us, as shown by its connectionswith children of both mind and body (the desire tohave something greater than our limited ego beborn through us).

Both children and true creativity teach us the

lesson that we must do what we love to do in orderto attain a joyous sense of vitality. This kind of joyis a gift or an act of divine grace, not a “pleasure”in a sensual way. By far the best presentation ofthis dimension of the 5th house appeared in DennisElwell’s article on the subject in the Journal of theBritish Astrological Associationin the summer of1973. In this insightful piece of writing, he states:

The fifth house...represents a barometer ofour confidence in life, and particularly in itsincalculable elements; and of the extent towhich life secures us in the sense of our ownworth by little signs of approval which arrivelike a gift, an unsought blessing.

Some of these “little signs” might be “falling inlove,” which is of course quite beyond our control,having a child or a creative work be born throughus (which again we cannot control), or even win-ning at gambling. Elwell points out that love isperhaps blind, as is so often said, but he goes on toclarify the spiritual meaning of the 5th house andSun principles that are symbolic of this kind oflove:

Perhaps it is only when we are “in love” withsomeone that we see them as they should beseen!...When we fall in love our temperaturesget reversed: now we regard ourselves coldly,and our shortcomings become all too obvious,while we feel warmth, admiration, and enthusi-asm for someone else.

When in love, the sky is bluer, all life experi-ences are intensified, and everything looks betterbecause we are then seeing things as they are; forthe fire of love has burned away our ego! We mighttherefore say that the 5th house principle repre-sents either the fire of ego, or the fire of love whichburns up the ego. And, in a general way, the entiretriangle of the fire houses comprises this essentialsignificance. Planets in these houses therefore arealmost always of great importance, and particularlythose which closely aspect the Ascendant can beconsidered as indicators of extraordinary develop-mental power. ❐

46 RAYS 02

ST. PAUL DESCRIBES the Tabernaclein the Wilderness as a “shadow of goodthings to come” (Heb. 10:1ff), a physi-cal pattern on earth of spiritual realitiesin the soul and spirit worlds.

At first thought, it might seem as though theTabernacle in the Wilderness was only a portablemeeting place, like a modern mobile home or cir-cus tent.

Arguing against such a view, one may point tothe fact that Yahweh God gave directly to Moses:

1) a verbal (mental) blueprint of the Tabernacle;2) a precise description of both the Tabernacle’s

articles of furniture and 3) the dress of the priests who were to officiate

within the Tabernacle.4) Detailed directions for this project comprise

most of the last 16 chapters of Exodus.God’s Presence, the Shekinah Glory, dwelled

within the Holy of Holies so potently that he whowas unprepared for such an encounter wasdestroyed by the high vibrations prevailing there-in. This fact also symbolizes the complete regener-ation, the seeming death of the personality, whichoccurs following the ego’s entry into the divinesilence of the inner sanctum or heaven world.Preparatory to this entry, the candidate submitshimself to the divine fire which continually con-sumes the sacrifices placed upon the Brazen Altarstanding before the entrance to the Hall of Service.

Ancient Rabbis believed that the Tabernacle,

which shows a cruciform pattern, symbolized thehuman body, a view echoed by Paul in 2 Cor. 5:1-6and clearly detailed in the above illustration.

The pattern of the Tabernacle in the Wildernessis essentially the same as that of the much granderTemple of Solomon in Jerusalem.

The Old Testament records the carrying of theArk of the Covenant through the Wilderness to thePromised Land and later into Solomon’s Temple.This story, however, is far more than an historicalevent, it is the symbol of every aspirant’s journeyfrom a wilderness of barren and materialistic liv-ing to the promised land of conscious communionwith the God within, a condition which requiresthat the body temple be purified and capable ofsafely receiving the high vibrations of divinity.

RAYS 02 47

The Shadow of GoodThings to Come

RELIGION AND ART

Most of the images in this article are pictures of a scalemodel of a Tabernacle created in Holland in 1982 andreprinted here with permission of Evangelische Omroep.

Illustration by Caesar C

havez, fromN

ew A

ge Bible

Vol. 1 by C

orinne Heline

Then it is the ‘Solomon’s Temple’body.The Sinai Desert, and other wilderness areas in

which the Tabernacle was pitched, represents bar-ren or uncultivated living, the life we leaduntil we ascend the mount of illumination and

complete the journey to the Promised Land.Tabernacle literal-ly means tent, ortemporary dwell-ing place. Thus thehuman physicalbody is the tempo-rary dwelling ofthe soul, its earthlytabernacle, the tentof flesh.

The enclosure isdivided into threesections: the outercourt, called theC o u r t o f t h e

Congregation, the Tabernacle with its East Room,and the West Room.

The tent or tabernacle proper measured 50 cubitson the East and West sides, and 100 cubits on theNorth and South sides. While a cubit is based on

the distancebetween thetip of the fin-ger and thee l b o w, o rabout eigh-teen inches,these figures

might best be regarded asmeasurements relating theTabernacle to the humanbeing which it symbolizes.

The gate shows blue, scar-let and purple colors on awhite background. Blue isthe color of the Father, scar-

let the color of theHoly Spirit andpurple is a mixtureof the two. Thewhite backgroundhides the goldenray of the Christ,which was latent in that age and, after the Mysteryof Golgotha (when “the fullness of Christ shouldappear”), becameincreasingly activewithin the humanbeing.

The enclosurewith i ts BrazenAltar and Laver of

48 RAYS 02

light seen through smoke of sacrifice.

light from pure oilin candlesticks

inner light

Outer Court

East Room

West Room

physical body lower emotions & desires

pure desiremind and knowledge

higher mind and spirit

Correspondences between the Tabernacle and Occult Human Anatomy

TABERNACLEArea

Outer Court

East Room

West Room

MENTALDEVELOPMENT

Ignorance

Knowledge

Wisdom

STATUS INISRAEL SOCIETY

Common Person

Priest

High Priest

CHRISTIAN PARALLELAND INNER ATTRIBUTES

500 Elders—5 Senses

70 Disciples—7 Virtues

12 Apostles—12 developedqualities of the soul

EntranceTabernacle

Enclosure

Gate

Symbolic colors

Foreground, view from above

Tabernacle proper (residence of God)

Purification is symbolic of the life wherein theaspirant must kindle the fire of remorse for wrongdoing so that he may be purified.

The East Room is called the Hall of Servicewhere knowledge is acquired and reason is used inthe service of mankind.

The West Room, or Holy of Holies, is the “landyet promised,” which we are not yet able to enterdue to insufficient soul growth, as evidenced bythe lack of a “wedding garment.” Acquiring thewedding garment requires that we give loving,

self-sacrif icing,prayerful serviceto man and God,as symbolized bythe articles in theEast Room.

The Brazen Altarwas kept continu-ally burning with a

fire of divine origin. The sacrifice of burnt offeringsshows that the first step to the holy life is repen-tance. The modern truth seeker must offer himselfas a living sacrifice (see Rom. 12:1). The aspirantmust ask of himself the question, “Is there a divinefire within me [conscience] which is sacrificingthe interests of the flesh for the sake of the spirit?”

The Altar of Burnt Offerings was overlaid withbrass, a metal compounded of copper and zinc,which is not found in nature, suggesting that sin isa compound of “good things in ill proportion”which can only be purified in the service of Godthrough the shedding of blood, or dedicating

the life essence toSpirit, and the puri-fication by fire, orthe operation ofthe Spirit. It shouldbe noted that therewere several admis-sible kinds of sac-rifices and, in gen-

eral, these were eaten by the Priests,an action whichimplies that what we sacrifice is not lost or wastedbut, instead, feeds the inner person, providing knowl-edge,wisdom, faith, and freedom from possessiveness.

The four horns at the four corners of the Altarwere used to tie the sacrifices. Our consciousnessis bound to the fourelements until we experience

resurrection above purely material concerns.The priests were

required to washtheir hands andfeet in the MoltenSea, or Laver ofP u r i f i c a t i o n ,before going intothe Holy Room, ordeath would result;that is, dedication to high purposes by “washing”away lower orimpure mot ivesand atune-ment tothe higher wi l l(spirit) must occurbefore we canenter the HolyRoom. The BrazenLaver s igni f iesConsecration, while the Brazen Altar signifiesJustification, bothof which must bea c c o m p l i s h e dbefore entering theHoly Room.

The Tabernaclehad four coverings,composed of hairor skin from threeanimals, including lamb’s skin, which suggestsself-sacrifice. Thefour layers maybear a relation tothe four rivers, orethers, f lowingout of Eden, orthe vital body. Thefour coatsmay alsorefer to the physi-cal, vital, desire,and lower mentalsheaths throughwhich the Ego, orthree-fold Spirit,functions. The threeouter layers drawnfrom animal sourcesand the interiorly

RAYS 02 49

Brazen Altar

Horn of the Brazen Altar

Four Coats

Hair of Goats

Red Skins of Lambs

Skin of Badger

Molten Sea

50 RAYS 02

Holy Room—South ViewHoly Room—Entrance Holy Room

Golden Candlestick

Seven Branches of Candlestick

Cups of Candlestick

Table of Shewbread

visible linen layer may represent the path ofthe Sun Spirit and the condition of humanconsciousness during the fourseasons: Fromthe Fall of consciousness, its Winter of separa-tion from the light, the Spring of its rebirth,and the Summer of its liberation.

The Holy Room could only be entered bythe Priests, as this required the knowledge,dedication, and purity symbolized by havingpassed through the Outer Court.

In the East or Holy Room there is no lightbut what emanates from the Seven BranchedCandlestick, which suggests the light of rea-son and knowledge. The seven stems orbranches may refer to the seven creativePeriods, the seven planets, the seven Spiritsbefore the Throne, the seven days of the week,and other septenaries. The candlestick waskept always burning with pure olive oil. Onthe branches of the candlestick were almond-shaped knobs. The Hebrew word for almond,shaked, means hasten. Thus almonds suggesthastened development by intense, loving, sac-rificing service leading to illumination.

Bread is the product of toil and twelveloaves suggest the twelve working hours ofthe day, the twelve months of the year inwhich to work, the twelve tribes of Israel,andtwelve qualities of soul to be developed byloving service to one’s fellow man.

Every Sabbath day these loaves werechanged, the old ones being used by thepriests, and the frankincense was burned as amemorial in place of the bread.

Only incense prepared by a special formulawas used. The rising of the incense vapors with-in the Tabernacle was accompanied by theascending prayers of those outside in the Courtof the Congregation. The Tabernacle symbol-izesspiritual power, wisdom, and love.

The veil before the Holy of Holies couldbe passed once each year, and only by theHigh Priest, indicating that the Ego does not

Altar of Incense

Altar of Incense—Detail

Incense on Stacks of Shewbread

Veil before the Holy of Holies

Gold Interior

Angels on the Veil

dwell constantly within the realm of spirit but must goout into the world for experience inlife’s school.

The figures of the two Angels on theveil remind the candidate that purity, aspossessed by the angels, is necessarybefore we can pass into the innerpart of the sanctuary. As one of theBeatitudes says, “Blessed are the purein heart, for they shall see God.” Thesanctuary is also the New Eden which can be re-enteredonly when we are restored to harmonywith God, which includes the perfectblending of man’s masculine and femi-nine aspects, symbolized by the twoangels. God’s law requires that thehead and the heart be balanced.

In the Holy of Holies is the Ark ofthe Covenant, containing the Tables ofthe Law, the Golden Pot of Manna, andAaron’s Rod which budded. No external light was pro-vided; that is, one enters here only ifone has evolved the light within, theLight which lighteth every man thatcomes into the world.

The Tables of Law are an emblem ofthe occult truth that God writes hislaws in our minds and in the fleshytablets of our hearts. Since divine lawsas archetypes are already written in ourhigher mind, we can never break them without conse-quence because our thoughts andactions are witnessed to by the SilentWatcher within, our true judge. TheTables of the Law within the Ark sug-gest that God’s love is greater thanexternal Law or its overseers, inter-preters, or enforcers.

In the Golden Pot was Manna, soulnourishment that must be gathered daily.Paul is referring to this soul sustenance when he saysthat “though our outward man perish, yet the inwardman is renewed day by day.” When we live responsiblyin the present moment, patiently persisting in well doing,we work toward self-renewal and regeneration. Theword manna corresponds to manas or mind. Thus man,the thinker or mind-bearer, or manna, designates thehuman spirit or Ego, the I AM. This I AM is also theChrist, the true Manna, the Bread of life that camedown from heaven (John 6:33-35). Note that the Mannawithin the Ark was preserved and never changed.

The Golden Pot suggests the Wedding Garment spokenof in Matthew 22:12-13. In Ancientand Modern Initiation Max Heindelwrites that in the ancient mystery tem-ple, it was required that “by service he[the aspirant] should evolve withinhimself and around himself anotherlight, the golden ‘wedding garment,’which is also the Christ light of theSoul Body. By lives of service this glo-

rious soul-substance gradually pervades his whole aurauntil it is ablaze with a golden light.Not until he has evolved this inner illu-mination can he enter into the darkenedprecincts of the second Tabernacle, asthe Most Holy place is sometimescalled” (p 42). The light ether thatlargely composes this soul body emitsa golden radiance.

Aaron’s Rod is symbolical of thepowers of the regenerated man in whom the life force

has ascended the spine to the head orthe Holy of Holies. Again, quotingHeindel: “The wand of the magician,the holy spear of Parsifal the Grailking, and the budding Rod of Aaron areemblems of this divine creative force,which works wonders of sucha naturethat we call them miracles” (AMI, p 44).

The Mercy seat on the top of the Arkis placed above the Tables of Law, indicating that God’s

love assumes and supercedes the Law.When humanity fell into material con-sciousness, Cherubim guarded ethericEden and its secret of eternal life witha flaming sword. Later, the door ofSolomon’s Temple depicted a Cherubimholding a flower, a symbol of purity,reminding the aspirant that the path toheaven is the path of creative purity,

and also that attainment of the New Eden conscious-ness requires the flowering of soul qualities developedby blending the forces of the heart and the head.

Seen from above, the Tabernacle presents the figureof a cross, made by drawing a line from the Ark to theBrazen Altar, and a crossing line from the GoldenCandlestick to the Altar of Shewbread. This “shadow ofgood things to come” points to that future time whenhuman hearts and minds will be fully infused by theChrist’s life and light. ❐

—Ross Duffel

RAYS 02 51

Looking East

Cherubim—Detail

Ark of the Covenant

Holy of Holies

LAMENTABLY, only a small fractionof the world population knows and fullyunderstands the law of cause and effect asit affects human affairs. Most people areunable or unwilling to conceptualize, let

alone believe in, the existence of the nonmaterialworld. They resist or find incomprehensible the factthat thought orders and actuates not only dailyevents, but creates all physical forms. Nothing “justhappens.” Auto-encoded atoms and sheer chanceplay no role in creation.

We may marvel at a city. It is the result of prodi-gious human will, labor, and imagination. Andwhile angelic hierarchies, working with life and soulsubstance, build plants and animal bodies, in time,this activity will be assumed by conscious humanintention—when humanity proves its readiness toassume this responsibility. But we’re not there quiteyet. Not that we aren’t trying—trying by often leap-ing before looking, and acting on the wrong motive.

Human intrusion into what were formerly sacred andinviolable areas is now commonplace, especially inmicrobiology, as it concerns embryos and genes, atone end of the life spectrum, and in legal ethics, asit pertains to elective dying. Increasingly, personsignorant of the spiritual truths that govern humanexistence, who live in a kind of metaphysical vacuum,are asserting the right to regard life not as a giftfrom the Creator, but as a thing to be manipulated, acommodity that is owned and transacted.

Proponents of material science, the religion ofmany emancipated from the “myth” of God, main-tain that technique can improve life, as by correct-ing defective genes and producing designer bodies.Already the American Society for ReproductiveMedicine, which establishes guidelines on newreproductive technologies followed by most U.S.fertility clinics, has permitted pre-implantationgenetic diagnosis (PGD), enabling prospective

parents to select the sex of their children (LifeSiteNews, September 28, 2001). We can envision a timewhen the human genotype is sufficiently mappedout and understood to allow for embryonic adjust-ments based on a 100-item parental wishlist!

Prescreening human ova for defective genes cer-tainly sounds reasonable. And that has been donerecently for a woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s.Only healthy embryos were inserted during in-vitrofertilization and a child was born spared “the familycurse” (Time, March 11, 2002). However, the motherwill probably die of the disease before the child is10. No doubt anticipation of these novel strategieswas made by the Recording Angels. Nonetheless,biomedical intervention would seem to be compli-cating their work! Couples and single parents nowhave ways to foil biological destiny throughsurro-gate motherhood, and non-coital fertilization. Butspiritual and moral destiny cannot be avoided,however one seeks to modify or escape the agencyby which lessons are learned and hardships areintroduced in one’s life, including “ending it all.”

The November 2000 issue of Lancet found that“administration of lethal drugs together with thewithholding of life-saving drugs accounted for some10 percent of deaths in Belgium,” which is poised tolegalize mercy killings and assisted suicides. Yet ithas long abolished the death penalty. Rather, asPatrick Reardon, writing in Touchstone (December2001), observes, “it has simply abolished all sanecontrols over the death penalty.”

The point is that we each, by our past actions,have created a destiny for ourselves, which is ourbest instructor for self-development. The gift of lifeblesses us with suffering as well as comfort. We areobliged, by a just and merciful God, to experiencethe consequences of our past deeds so we may moreconsciously and more fully live from a love andwisdom that now and ever sustains us. ❐

52 RAYS 02

Life and Death on Order

NEWS PERSPECTIVES

IN THE SIXTH PHASE (designated as“race” in the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception)of this fifth Epoch of the Earth Period, whenthe sun will have precessed into Aquarius, ashort-lived but great and joyful civilization

of high spirituality will flourish in Russia and theSlavic lands. As Max Heindel writes, this culturewill be borne on the wings of music and, phoenix-like, will rise out of the “deep sorrow and untoldsuffering” of these people. Some of this suffering isdescribed in Father Arseny, Priest, Prisoner,Spiritual Father (St. Vladimir’s SeminaryPress,Crestwood, New York, 2001), though not in thevast and shattering way achieved by AlexanderSolzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,and Gulag Archipelago. But the essence is here,and something far more important, proof of theinvincibility of faith in Christ.

In her forward, the book’s translator writes thatduring the Stalin years alone (1924-1953) six hun-dred bishops, forty thousand priests, and one hun-dred twenty thousand monks and nuns were killed.Many of these died in the harsh conditions ofprison or labor camps; others were shot or buriedalive. “By the end of Stalin’s dictatorship, onlysome two hundred priests remained active in theSoviet Union. The scale of this martyrdom isunprecedented in the history of the ChristianChurch....Perhaps the strength of religious faith inRussia can be measured by the ferocity of thebattle which the communist regime thought itworthwhile and necessary to put up against.”

Notwithstanding the horrendous loss of life andthe shuddering brutality, the indomitable faith ofFather Arseny shows why the atheistic state ofCommunist Russia was engaged in a loosing battle.

Educated as a scholar of Church art, FatherArseny became an Orthodox priest and thereforean enemy of the totalitarian regime. Arrested in1933, he survived in prison camps until his releasein 1958—miraculously survived. Two among manyinstances of spiritual intervention are here noted.

Accused of breaking Camp Rules, Prisoner18376 (Father Arseny) and prisoner Alexei werecommitted to a metal shed measuring 3 feet by 6feet for 48 hours at -22° F. Freezing within hourswas certain. Father Arseny said to Alexei: “We willpray. For the first time God has allowed us to prayaloud in this camp, with our full voice. We will pray,and the rest is God’s will.” And he prayed: “O,Lord our God, Jesus Christ! Thou didst say withThy purest lips that if two or three agree to ask forthe same thing, then Thy Heavenly Father will granttheir prayer because, as Thou didst say, ‘When two orthree are gathered in my name, I am among them.’”

After a while Alexei thought he was losing hismind. Everything around him had been trans-formed: The cell had grown wider. It was a church.A bright light suffused the space. Father Arsenywas dressed in brilliant white vestments, while twomen in the same bright raiment, radiating whitelight, assisted Father Arseny. After a while Alexeiwas told to lie down and sleep on the metal floor.He was warm. He awoke when the lock on the celldoor was struck. Father Arseny was still praying. Itwas two days later. The light from the cell rapidlyfaded. Disbelief was on the face of the supervisor.An attending doctor thought he would be seeingfrozen cadavers. “What kept you warm?”

“Our faith in God, and prayers,” Father Arsenyanswered.

Christian martyrs (martus, witness) died under

RAYS 02 53

Father Arseny Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father

BOOK REVIEWS

torture as witnesses to the power of belief. Whatthey showed to the pagan world was seen as awe-some courage, or extraordinary folly. Father Arsenyknew he could accomplish far more by being adiscreet believer, by living with his faith quietly sothat he could give hope, occasional counsel, andencouragement to others. His faith was not conspic-uous. He did not have a prepossessing exterior. Hewas a gentle, mild-mannered man. He only talkedwhen directly addressed. Usually he was remotefrom prison life, when not engaged in the gruelingday labor, standing by his cot, often allthrough thenight, praying the Jesus Prayer (Christ Jesus, havemercy on me, a sinner.) while his exhausted prisonmates were sleeping. In the morning he felt newstrength, as if he had eaten and slept.

Father Arseny died in the barracks. Then hecame back to life. Weak and frail from malnour-ishment (he had given much of his meager diet toothers), he developed a high fever and found him-self outside his body looking at his wasted form.Then he went through what now is routinely called“a near-death experience,” in which he saw a“blinding light” and refused to walk toward it: “Heunderstood he could not leave these people.” Heprayed and there opened to him a vision of thesouls of all the camp members, guards and prison-ers, and a flame of light shone in almost all ofthem. “O Lord! I lived among these people and didnot even notice them. How much beauty they carrywithin them....I was blinded by pride.” Then hefound himself at the altar of a church. His prisonjacket was a robe of light. Deceased bishops,including his spiritual father, stood at the side ofthe altar, looking at him with joy. After praying tothe Mother of God, a voice spoke to him: “Thetime of your death has not yet come, Arseny. Youmust serve people some time longer. God is send-ing you back to help his people. Go and serve. Iwill not leave you.” In time, he awoke in his bodysurrounded by mourners. He told them, “TheMother of God has sent me back to you.”

Father Arseny’s impact on the inmates, manycruel and hardened criminals, was astonishing. Hesoftened and converted defiant sinners and violentskeptics. Or rather, his manner and holy presenceconverted them. Outwardly frail, he showed himself

stronger than the strongest,and he was fearless inaiding the underdog. He stopped bloodshed with acommand and could break a mob’s murderousanger by invoking God’s name with irresistibleauthority. He even resorted to physical force toavert serious harm to another.

The prison experiences constitute less than one-half of the book. When Father Arseny was releasedfrom the Gulag, it was still dangerous to professthe Christian faith in public. In time, his villageresidence became a virtual mecca for Christiansseeking absolution and spiritual guidance from thisman of God. He startled many by reading theirthoughts, telling them about their lives, gently sug-gesting omissions from their confessions.

A note about the composition of this book. It isnot a biography. It is “a spiritual encounter.” It is acompilation of individual testimonies, recollectionsby persons who knew Father Arseny, fellow pris-oners, friends, spiritual children, teachers, doctors,lawyers, artists. Their memories and accounts weregathered by the editor, who calls himself “theservant of God Alexander.” These narratives weregiven to Father Arseny to correct and verify priorto their publication.

For him, good people and bad people did notexist; they were simply people who needed help. Ifone were to label Father Arseny, “mystic” could beused, but it would be inadequate. He was not adreamer. He was a doer, very much in this world—and he knew it through and through. His knowl-edge was by intuition, truth beamed straight to hisheart. For his heart was pure, though he calledhimself a sinner. And his mind was transparent andkeen, though he only revealed his wide and deepknowledge when it would truly help another.

Father Arseny is not hagiography. But one can-not help but be profoundly moved by the love,mercy, and virtue of this evolved soul. He waswhat St. Francis prayed to be, “an instrument ofGod’s peace.” His sanctity inspired painful self-revelation, so that conversion and healing couldbegin. As for his many miracles, he dismissed anyspecial achievement: “Everything in life is a mira-cle: the main miracle is that by the will of God manlives on earth. Believe in this!” ❐

—CW

54 RAYS 02

ACCORDING TO PARACELSUS,the fifteenth century occult physi-cian cited by Max Heindel as work-ing under Rosicrucian influence,universal sympathy, attraction, and

mutual interaction and relationship prevail every-where in the universe between those forms or qual-ities of will that are identical or harmonious intheir nature. Sympathy exists between stars andplants, between planets and planets, betweenplants and plants, and between plants and theorgans of the body.

Man is not constituted out of separate materialessentially distinct from all other cosmic sub-stance. He is organized from the whole of themacrocosm and of all its component parts. That iswhy he is capable of receiving the influences resid-ing in the whole universe. For the soul of the greatcosmos has the same divisions, proportions, andparts as has the soul of man, and the material bodyof man draws its sustenance from material naturein a manner analogous to that of the fetus receiv-ing its nourishment from its mother. Man’s ownsoul is the quintessence of everything in creation,and is connected sympathetically with the wholeof Nature; hence, every change that takes place inthe macrocosm may be sensed by the eternalessence surrounding his spirit, and it may come tothe consciousness and comprehension of man.

Each planet has a different rate of vibration ormotion; some are strong, others are weak or neu-tral. Each has a prototype in an organ in the humanbody. Every planet co-ordinates with a specificpart of human anatomy. These vibrations impingeon the human body—the epitome of the cosmos—

but only to the degree that the blood stream ischemically pure and the body normal in functionare we in a position to respond to the correspond-ing cosmic rate of vibration emitted by a givenplanet at a specific time of the year.

Because Spirit or Life is the all-pervading andunlimited Source from which all proceeds and towhich all must return, many students of meta-physics and occult philosophies assume erroneous-ly that there is only one end to the pole of being,and that end has everything, is everything, anddoes everything. The spiritual element becomesactive only to the extent that the human instrumentthrough which it desires to act enables it to mani-fest that activity.

Power can be generated, namely, the invisiblebrought into the objective, only because of theattraction of the more ponderable substances. Theyare of the nature of Mothers or magnets. Just as thefemale attracts the male, so does matter (materormother) attract Father Spirit, the masculine princi-ple which gives the initial impetus to all creativeprocesses. The feminine principle, however,always does the active creative work on all planes;it is analogous to the Universal Mother Nature,from whose womb all things are born. Spirit andmatter, father and mother, positive and negative arethe two ends of the Pole of Being; comprising oneand the same essence, they complement each other.

A seed sown in the soil may grow and produce aplant, but this could not be achieved unless theseed were acted upon by the sun. Similarly, with-out terrestrial energies and substances, no amountof sunlight will make a plant from a seed.

According to some life-chemists, individual

RAYS 02 55

Cosmic Biochemistry

NUTRITION AND HEALTH

organs and systems of the human body are corre-lated with specific mineral salts which are essentialto its integrity of structure and functional activity.

Furthermore, the mineral salt corresponding to aparticular sign of the zodiac and function of thebody is consumed more rapidly at a certain time

56 RAYS 02

This illustration appeared in the early editions of The Message of the Starsbut was later withdrawn because, according tocertain authorities, it impermissibly alleges or implies therapeutic benefits deriving from the use of cell salts for various ail-ments. It should be made clear that though some persons claim value from the use of inorganic mineral salts, this was not MaxHeindel’s position. As he writes in Occult Principles of Health and Healing, “There are twelve salts in the body; they are veryvital and represent the twelve signs of the zodiac. These salts are required for the building of the body. They are not mineralsalts as generally supposed, but are vegetable. The mineral has no vital body, and it is only by way of the vital body that assim-ilation is accomplished; therefore, we have to obtain these salts through the vegetable kingdom. Doctors claim to do this, butthey are not aware that fire used in the process drives out and destroys the vital body of the plant just as cremation treats ourbody, and leaves only the mineral parts. Therefore, if we desire to renew the supply of any salt in our body, we must obtain it fromthe uncooked plant. To the sick this is the way it should be administered.” More recently, the chelation of inorganic minerals,a process that chemically binds elemental substances with organic “carriers” (aspartates, gluconates, orotates, ascorbates,etc.), significantly enhances the assimilation of the mineral component. While cell salts (sometimes called tissue salts) are cur-rently in wide use by homeopathsand some naturopaths, it remains that the most assimilable and vital form of minerals isfound in fresh organic produce. The above diagram shows the correlation between the twelve zodiacal signs and their asso-ciated planets, the medical manifestation of each sign, and the mineral salt appropriate in each instance. This information isgiven in a more legible form as follows: a—F, inflammatory, potassium phosphate;b—C, lymphatic, sodium sulfate;c—B,neural, sodium chloride;d—Y, nutritive, calcium floride;e—0, vital, magnesium phosphate;f—B, neural, potassiumphosphate;g—C, lymphatic, sodium phosphate;h—F, inflammatory, calcium sulfate;i—K, plethoric, silica (silicondioxide);j—L, chronic, calcium phosphate;k—^, spasmodic, sodium chloride;l—+, comotic, iron phosphate.

than are other salts essential to one’s well being.In their book Zodiac and the Salts of Salvation

(Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, ME), InezEudora Perry and George Carey) write: “Natureand Nature’s God now demand an expansion ofconsciousness in man. Disorganization, disruption,and spasmodic reaction take place in the bodies ofpersons chemically starved in those ‘mothers’ormaterials (mineral cell-salts) which Father Spiritdemands at this time.

“Each human being [body] is a battery, an aggre-gation of cells, and the law governing its chargingis exactly the same as that with which electriciansare familiar. It must have the necessary material toattract electricity, the proper kind and the rightquantity. Spirit is never deficient. The trouble lieswith the human battery. The only material that is soconstituted that it has the power to produce light orfire is potassium phosphate,” a basic mineral cell-salt. Potassium phosphate abounds in all proteinfoods (Greek protosor first substance), occurringnaturally in all grains, nuts, legumes, seeds, fleshfoods, fish, and dairy products. This salt also pro-vides the foundation building material for all fruitsand vegetation, and the is the principal mineralbasis of all protoplasm or cell structures. Manypeople, however, because of deficient digestion,abnormal function of the liver or other vital organsand glands, are hindered in their capacity to extractsufficient electricity from foods ingested; hencethe consumption of the accessory mineral cell-salt,potassium phosphate, is well nigh imperative.

Obviously natural foods must not only containelements for the renewal of tissues and for the pro-duction of bodily heat and energy. While the min-eral salts furnish little or no potential energy, theyare none the less indispensable in the performanceof all the physiological functions of the system, inthe processes of digestion and assimilation, secre-tion and excretion, in the neutralization of poisonsconstantly arising from processes of oxidation inthe cells, and in the purification of the blood fromwaste matter.

If the chemical elements are not furnished in theright proportions, the living cells of the body arerapidly broken down in order to make up for thisdeficiency of our diet. Thus the mineral reserves of

the organism are depleted, thereby lowering ourpowers of resistance. Sodium, calcium, and ironespecially are Nature’s real antitoxins, insuring asthey do an ample supply of life-giving oxygen andthe quick removal of such poisonous wastes as car-bonic acid, uric acid, etc., from the system. Bloodenriched with alkaline salts makes the digestivejuices stronger and more effective. In this way morenutriment is extracted from a certain quantity offood than when the blood is in an acid condition.

Despite the fact that the mineral salts comprisebut five per cent of the human organism, they arenevertheless most vital constituents, each elementhaving some distinct physiological duty. They holdthe key to nearly all the material manifestations oflife. They are indispensable in the formation ofcells and tissues, giving them firmness and form.They are also the conveyors of vital electricity andmagnetism, constantly recharging the humandynamo. The life-giving oxygen is carried to allparts of the body through their medium. To enjoyperfect health and immunity from disease, ourblood stream must therefore contain all the neces-sary minerals in their wonderful combinations. Forit is the blood that transports them to the differentparts of the body, nourishing and cleansing the tis-sues and creating animal heat, magnetism, andelectricity.

The form or shape of each organ, part, or cellmust be constructed in accordance with a geomet-rically perfect pattern. This is possible only by thepresence of the exact number of particles and otherchemical elements entering into their structure, fornormal function is impossible when numerical andchemical imperfections exist. The indwellingSpirit is moreover inhibited in its efforts to mani-fest Christ Consciousness or perfection, nor canSpirit reside indefinitely in any vehicle, form,body, or coat of flesh if there is insufficient chem-ical attraction to retain it therein. Growth, action,and physiological processes must inevitablybecome chaotic or cease. To the extent that thecells of the cerebrum become chemically and geo-metrically perfect can they serve as a fitting receiv-ing and broadcasting mechanism of the Fatherwithin. ❐

—Lillian R. Carque

RAYS 02 57

FOR SOME TIME I have been among thesick, and many of those around me are seri-ously afflicted. One finds them talking everyday about medicines, foods, climates andvarious treatments, to one or more of which

they look for a cure. This isonly natural; it would notseem reasonable for a sufferer to neglect the use ofphysical means in which he had faith.

There are physical measures which will relieve everyailment and help effect a cure and if we do not employthem we are negligent in our duty. But is it right for apatient to place his faith entirely in something outsidehimself for a cure? We do not believe it is. We believehe is responsible for his condition and a cure mustcome principally as a result of his own efforts, eitherconsciously or subconsciously put forth.

Sickness of any nature is evidence of discord—inharmony. It shows we have violated a Law ofNature—we have sinned. Very often we cannot recall aviolation commensurate with the severity of our sick-ness. Medical Astrology will give us Light. We know itis possible to cast an infant’s horoscope as soon as it isborn and tell the weak parts of its body and its tenden-cies toward certain ailments. Heredity, alone, will notsatisfactorily explain those tendencies.

We do not believe a just God would permit any soulto be born with a predisposition to certain diseasesunless it deserved them. The infant has not sinned orviolated Nature’s Laws in this life. There seems onlyone reasonable answer to what causes it to be born withthose tendencies. It has sinned in a past life. In that for-mer life it held certain false and distorted ideas which itbuilt into this body as it came to rebirth. We build ourown bodies and build them according to our previousthoughts and ideas. We learn to build right by buildingwrong. We only attract harmony—health—to theextent that we previously manifested them.

If sinning or violating Nature’s Laws is the cause ofdisease, the remedy suggests itself: We must changeour life. We must live in harmony with God—Good,Universal Law. We mast earnestlyseek to know where-

in we have sinned. We must strive to control the weak-nesses that brought discord into our body. And if wehave grown to maturity, we know what those weak-nesses are, for they have already manifested as tempta-tions or violations in this life. Christ taught the forgive-ness of sins. He taught us that if we learned our lessonsthe Law would not permit former violations—sins—toreact upon us and cause us to suffer. He would forgiveus and “wipe the deed off the slate”; that is, if we hadchanged our life and there was little chance of our com-mitting the same offense again. In that teaching therelies a great hope for us.

We believe, in effecting a cure of any ailment, the mostefficient means, aside from using all physical measuresin which we have faith, is to earnestly and prayerfullyseek out our weaknesses and eradicate them.For someof us this is not easy, as it necessitates changing ourlives and requires time, patience, and perseverance.

But by living in harmony with Universal Law wemake it possible for our Father, the Great Physician, torestore harmony in our bodies; and such a cure is a per-manent cure. We have sought and are manifesting “theKingdom of Heaven and its Righteousness and allthings will be added unto us”—health included. ❐

—Max Heindel

Visible Helpers are just as necessary as InvisibleHelpers, and our friends and patients may share in ahigh privilege, as well as add much to the power of lib-erated healing force, by joining us in prayer for thesick. Our Healing Service is held every evening in theHealing Temple at 6:30 (7:30 when Daylight time is ineffect) and in the Pro-Ecclesia at 4:15 P.M. when theMoon is in a cardinal sign on the following dates:

July...........................2—9—16—22—29August............................6—12—18—26

Relax, close your eyes, and make a mental pictureofthe pure white rose in the center of the RosicrucianEmblem on the west wall of our Pro-Ecclesia, and con-centrate on Divine Love and Healing.

58 RAYS 02

The Key to All Cures

HEALING

ONCE UPON A TIME, a very longtime ago, there lived a cruel King,who was very tyrannical and wicked.He used to beat and torture his peo-ple and took their goods away by

force, so that they had very little to eat. Soldiersguarded him day and night lest some of the peoplehe had ill-treated should kill him.

One day the King died, but he did not go toHeaven. Instead he went to the Fairies’prisonhouse. When he got there the Fairy chieftains hadhim brought before them bound hand and foot.

“You have been a cruel and wicked King,” theysaid sternly. “You have ill-treated the people inyour care. You have starved and beaten your peo-ple, and have been altogether selfish and greedy.Now it is necessary that you should know what itis to suffer.”

Although the King was frightened and beggedthem not to do it, they locked him up in a small celland gave him nothing but bread and water to liveon. Whenever he screamed and shouted, his angerbrought evil creatures into existence which wereallowed to come into his cell. He was in great fearof these, and so it was a terrible punishment to himto have to endure their presence. He cried out inpain, and the Fairy chiefs who ruled in Fairylandsaid to him: “These creatures would not come nearyou if you had not ill-treated others. You madethem with your bad thoughts. When you are reallysorry and can promise never to do such thingsagain, then we will let you out.”

“ Oh, but I am sorry,” said the King.“We don’t think so,” replied the Fairy chiefs.

“At present you are not properly sorry—onlyfrightened and angry.”

“How shall I become sorry, O Fairies?” askedthe King, finding that he could not pretend in Fairy-land. (Remember that Fairyland is real, not a placewhere one can pretend, as many people think.)

“Every night when you are going to sleep youmust think of your evil deeds and with them thinkof the pain you have suffered. Then you must tryand put yourself in the place of those you wronged,”said the Fairy chiefs. “Every morning when youwake you must say to yourself, ‘Today I am goingto be better and kinder.’ This will make you betterin time.” With that the Fairy chiefs left him.

The King started to argue with them and wasgoing to say something in an angry manner whenthe evil creatures again appeared. This so fright-ened him that he determined to try to do what thechiefs had told him. Every night he thought of hiscruelties, and every morning he felt himselfbecoming sorrier, and said so to himself. In the endhe grew really sorry for everything he had doneand promised the Fairies he would never do suchthings again.

The chiefs of Fairyland, who could see he meantwhat he said this time, then let him out of prisonand taught him how to be good. Every day he wasgiven lessons to learn, until he was ready foranother visit to earth and another chance to prac-tice what he had learned. After a long time he cameback to earth one day as a small baby in a humblehome of very poor parents who had to struggle hardfor their living. And they were by no means pleasedto see him, as it meant one more mouth to feed.

His parents ill-treated him and made him dohard work without much to eat, until he finallybecame a man and could look after himself. Hehad forgotten the Fairies, the prison house, and his

RAYS 02 59

The Man Who Learned to be Kind

FOR CHILDREN

lessons, but whenever he wanted to feel angry atthe treatment his parents were giving him a Voicespoke inside him warning him that this was wrong.The same thing happened whenever he was aboutto be greedy or selfish. The Voice said it waswrong, although it did not tell him why.

The Voice spoke to him so often that he finallylearned to be kind in spite of the things his parentsdid to him. The other people in the village werekind to him because he did things for them andhelped them. Sometimes he gave up his ownscanty food for others hungrier than himself, andthe people of the village began to love him andbrought their troubles to him. They gave him littlepresents of money and goods, and with these hepurchased horses and cattle and many kinds ofgoods, and he grew rich in time.

Then he bought a big house, hired servants, andsettled down to a life of ease. But the Voice wouldnot let him rest. So strongly did it speak to him,unheard by others, that he began to give his wealthaway again to the needy. Then the Voice left himalone; but whenever selfishness or greed cameover him, then it rebuked him.

At last he gave his wealth away altogether andlived quietly, using his house and goods for thosewho were poor or sick. He gained a great name forgoodness of heart, and all the country people formany miles round loved him, so much so that theynamed a village after him, and the King who ruledthose parts did him honor. But he did not forget theVoice and went on doing good to everyone.

In the end the Voice changed inside him. It nolonger spoke to him telling him he should not dowrong, for he had lost all wish to do wrong. TheVoice then became a multitude of Fairy voicestelling him of Fairyland and bringing back memo-ries of his own life there. But they did not tell himof the prison house, because there was no need anymore for that. Every night when he slept the Fairyvoices led him into the dreamland which borderson the realm of the Fairies. He spent many happyhours there, helping to cure sick people, and as areward being taught many things which may onlybe learned in Fairyland.

From that time on he who had once been a cruelKing, hated, feared, and guarded by soldiers,

became a saint, loved by all men and calling noman his enemy. Think of him when unpleasantthings are happening to you, and listen to your ownVoice inside you. You have one too! ❐

—L. Furze Morrish

60 RAYS 02

SONG FOR THE INANIMATE

For every lowly thing, and meek,

That has not yet the power

To praise God vocally, I speak

In its behalf this hour.

The flowing grace of animal,

The claw, the quivering ear,

Are in themselves antiphonal

Te Deums He can hear.

The tree and flower express their prayer;

The essence of their soul

Wafts up to Him on perfumed air

And fills all Heaven’s bowl.

And mighty rivers! None can doubt

Their inner urgency;

They sing serenely, flowing out

To meet their destined sea.

And winds, and wheat fields, and the grass—

Their subtle songs of praise

Make music as the seasons pass

To glorify His days.

But muted ones I represent:

The crock, the stewing pan,

The humble rug that is content

To ease the feet of man.

The patient chair on which we sit,

The paper on the wall,

The candle that has not been lit—

Father, I speak for all.

Lord, hearken to our silent lyre,

Our wordless minstrelsy;

In praise of Thee we dare aspire

To serve humanity.

—Muriel Thurston