“A Sane Mind, A Soft Heart, A Sound Body” September/October 2003—$5.00

THE LETTER TO THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIAAFTER DYING

THE VIRGIN MARY AND CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZANIMALS AND INVISIBLE HELPERS

A CHRISTIAN ESOTERIC MAGAZINE

Back cover: Seasons, Corel Professional Photos. Front Cover: Planet Art. Stained glass from Christ Church Cathedral, 1832, Corel. Above: Clouds and Sky, Corel Photos

A PRAYER

My God, who is all about me, in me, and through me,

I need not speak unto Thee With the slow, limited speech of men.

What could I tell Thee, or what ask TheeThat is unknown to Thee, my Lord?

Nor need I even think to Thee,Nor with my lame, weak, faltering mind

Attempt to turn Thy glorious face to “meward.”Thou canst see within my transparent mind

All the thoughts that are or ever were.

Ah, but when I come to Thee with desiringGreater than words or thought—

With yearning which wrings the very bloodFrom my loving heart,

Then am I instantly enfoldedWithin Thy great, ecstatic bosom—

Oh, my Father, Mother, Love, and Life.

—S.O. Poole

AChristian Esoteric

Magazine

Established byMax Heindel

June 1913

Volume 88No. 3

May/June1996

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This Issue...Feature

Late I Have Loved Thee...St. Augustine...............................................................2

EditorialThe Virgin—Cosmic and Egoic............................................................................3

Mystic LightStudies in the Apocalypse—Part 5...Valentin Tomberg........................................4The Leaven of Life...Jack L. Burtt........................................................................9The Dark Night of Mother Teresa...Carol Zaleski..............................................11The Virgin Mary and Christian Rosenkreutz...Kwassi Laurent Djondo.............15After Dying (Part 2)...Marcia Malinova-Anthony..............................................21The Creation of Heroes—AMyth...Elsa Glover.................................................27Animals and Invisible Helpers...Amber Tuttle ...................................................28

From Max Heindel’ s WritingsImmortality of the Soul.......................................................................................33

Readers’ QuestionsWho Are the Manichees?....................................................................................35The Cross and Roses Meditation........................................................................36

Western W isdom Bible StudyThe Vicarious Atonement...AStudent.................................................................37

AstrologyToward Freedom...Elizabeth Ray........................................................................39The Wisdom of the Stars...Bessie Leo.................................................................44God’s Message Through Virgo...Rosicrucian Fellowship Staff Members..........47

News PerspectivesMicrocosmic Music.............................................................................................50

Book ReviewsEmanuel Swedenborg—Seeker, Scientist, Seer...C.W. .......................................52

Nutrition and HealthCosmic Illumination, A Story of Healing...Edna Tradewell.................................56

HealingThat Perilous Stuff...............................................................................................59

For ChildrenFairies...Max Heindel..........................................................................................60

MiscellaneousA Prayer...S.O. Poole.....................................................................inside front coverRest is Harmonious Action...Max Heindel.........................................................26Librans—ABrief Profile...Isabel Hickey............................................................43Emanuel Swedenborg (poem)...Jorge Luis Borges.............................................54September/October 2003 Ephemerides..........................................................61-62

“A Sane Mind,A Soft Heart,

A Sound Body”© 2003 The Rosicrucian Fellowship

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FEATURE

Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee: for

behold Thou wert within me, and I outside; and I sought Thee outside, and in my

unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that Thou hast made. Thou wert with me, and

I was not with Thee. I was kept from Thee by those things, yet had they not been in Thee, they

would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me to break open my deafness: and Thou

didst send forth Thy beams and shine upon me and chase away my blindness: Thou didst

breathe fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for Thee: I tasted Thee,

and now hunger and thirst for Thee: Thou didst touch me, and I have burned for Thy peace.

—St. Augustine

Photo:Lee M

arton

FOR those who treadthe path of faith anddevotion, the Churchis conceived to be thewomb of faith in which

the sinner is made ready, that theChrist may be formed in us. For millions Mary isidentified with the Church. Through her many andvaried appearances, she has nurtured that faith,deepening the piety of religious believers.

In Corinne Heline's The Blessed Virgin we readthat it is Mary, as the eternal Madonna, that "St.John saw in his sublime vision....the Woman clothedin the Sun with the Moon at her feet, and crownedwith the glory of the twelve stars representing thecelestial circle of the zodiacal hierarchies."

In the age of Pisces, the age of Faith, ChristJesus is seen as He who died on the Cross ofmatter, that we might live in spirit consciousness.Mary, the mother of Jesus, is represented by theopposite sign of Virgo, the sign of the "ImmaculateConception," which mediates the birth of Christ. Inscripture Mary responds to the Angel Gabriel,"Behold the handmaid of the Lord," exemplifyingperfect submission of the earthly self to the divineIdentity. Heline writes, "The feminine typifies anawakened and illumined soul, and the Christ con-sciousness can be born only in one so attained."

It is through purification of our vehicles andselfless service to others that we build the GoldenWedding Garment, enabling us to become bridesof Christ, the Life Spirit. Whether in any incarna-tion the Ego is male or female, the divine feminine,the heart element of impersonal love, must be ele-vated if we are to become spiritually whole, holy.

Mary, that high initiate and mother of ChristJesus, performs a special service to the Virgin

Spirits of Earth, preparing for thebirth of the Christ within our-selves, which parallels her histor-ical role in preparing for Hisingress into the Earth. The forma-tion of the Christ within, “putting

Him on,” is the objective of every Christian manand woman, every true spiritual aspirant.

Mary has appeared to numerous individuals andgroups of people, many of these apparitions occur-ring in the 20th century, increasing in number fromprevious centuries, as though a critical time isnearing. She appears differently to different peopleand comes to be known by a special name andvisage associated with each appearance.

In Thomas Petrisko's Call of Ages, one visionarymaintains that Mary "will be the Queen for theComing Age. The Queen will be white for thewhite people, black for the black people, and yel-low for the people with yellowish complexion."

There is much in the Marian apparitions thatseems to speak of the coming Age of Aquarius, ofUniversal Brotherhood, which, according to MaxHeindel, will be in full sway in about 500 years.

The messages received from Mary warn againstthe work of the Evil One in the world, Lucifer, thefallen angel, and his agents, who influence usthrough our debased passions, our lusts, and nega-tive lower emotions. A second class of spirits,briefly referred to in the Bible, cloud our mindagainst spiritual reality and our true Identity.

In her communications, Mary is repeatedly call-ing us to repent, to change our thinking, to repudi-ate the fallen ways of the world, and to pray forpeace. There is a message here for all of us, as westrive for a life of purity and selfless service, bothkeywords of Virgo, the Virgin. ❐

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The Virgin:

EDITORIAL

Cosmic and Egoic

Virgin of the Lilies (detail), W

illiam B

ouguereau, private collection

THE INTRODUCTION of thepersonal into the sphere of theobjective mission causes theobstruction of the spiritual lightwhich streams down for the pur-

pose of fulfilling the task.1 The “light sheath”[spiritual aura—Ed] ceases to radiate its beamsand becomes darkened. This is the darkeningwhich is called in the Apocalypse, “defilingthe garment of the name.” “Walking in whiteraiment” is, on the contrary, the state of beingillumined by the light of the Spirit, so that theman whose activity is objectively directed out-ward stands before the world presenting hisimpersonal spiritual side. And strictly speak-ing, he does not merely stand, he pursues apath laid down by Christ, in the sense of thepromise of the Letter: “But thou hast a few namesin Sardis which have not defiled their garments, andthey shall walk with Me in white, for they are wor-thy.” (Rev. 3:4).

The condition here described is the fulfillment ofthe special task of the age of the consciousnesssoul, for the important thing for this epoch is thatthe consciousness soul should set up a right rela-tionship with the Manas-principle—the spirit-self[Human Spirit]. The consciousness soul, like theother members of the soul, is developed by takingas ideal and model, not itself, but a higher memberof the human entity. Development consists inprogress in the direction of the future, and the future

towards which the consciousness soul must strive isManas, or the “name”. The ideal which hoversbefore the consciousness soul is to have such anobjectivity towards the world that all worldly thingsbecome of equal value, not in the sense of a dullindifference and the exclusion of the life of theheart (as often in the modern conception of a “sci-entific outlook”), but, on the contrary, in the senseof a capacity to make, when necessary, a personal,heartfelt concern of everything in the world. In thisobjectivity, the life of the heart grows wide enoughto absorb every detail of world happenings becausethe great purpose of these world happenings hasbecome a matter of the heart. This is the ideal whichgleams before a healthy, progressive consciousnesssoul as a goal worth striving for. The efforts made inthis direction lead ever nearer to the spirit self, the

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Letter to the Angel of the Church in SardisConclusion

Letter to the Angel of the Church in PhiladelphiaPart 1

MYSTIC LIGHT

Illuminated Manuscript, Folio 5r, early fourteenth century, Cloisters, New York City

The Seven Churches and the Seven Angels

This is the fifth article drawn from Valentin Tomberg’sStudies of the Apocalypse, ©1985 by Candeur Manuscripts.Reprinted by permission of the Anthroposophic Press.

Manas, and in this way, progress is achieved in theevolution of the consciousness soul.

The attainment of conscious relationship with theManas is what the Apocalypse describes as being“clothed in white raiment” and “walking withChrist.” It is given as a promise in the Letter to theAngel of the Church in Sardis, for this Letter isaddressed to the Being to whom belongs the mis-sion of the consciousness soul, and to the men espe-cially associated with it; just as, for instance, thepreceding Letter is addressed to the Being repre-senting the intellectual soul, and to the “Church”associated with it.

But when that provisional Manas stage is reached(for the perfected Manas stage cannot be realizeduntil the Jupiter period), this is what takes place.The name, that is, the part of the astral body illu-mined by the spirit-self, is projected into the life[vital] body, just as a seal is stamped on wax. The“name” is written in the “book of life.” This trans-ference of the illuminated part of the astral bodyinto the life of the ether body is an effect of theChrist impulse. The Christ impulse changes the“light” of the astral into the “life” of the etheric. Butthe result of this change is that the part of the etherbody thus impregnated does not fall prey to disso-lution after physical death: it becomes immortal.The person’s “name” is never “blotted out of thebook of life” (Rev. 3:5). But the words containanother significance. They also refer to the uninter-rupted memoryof the “name” retained by the indi-vidual being from incarnation to incarnation: A manwhose ether body bears within it the “name” of theearlier incarnation possesses together with it thememory of the spiritual quintessence of that incar-nation. His “name” remains ineffaceably written inthe “book of life,” which book he then also learnsspiritually to read. This “reading in the book of life”is the faculty of memory rendered possible by theChrist, the faculty by which man is enabled to drawvast stores of wisdom from past experiences out ofhis ether body and to turn them to account as ripefruit for the benefit of mankind and the world.

In this way, the problem of Death—which, in theEgypto-Chaldean age, contained, as it were, a trag-ic sting—will be liberated during the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch through human freedom by “a few

names which have not defiled their garments.” Bythis means also, for this section of humanity, theexperience of a new stage of freedom will becomepossible. The freedom-consciousness will be sostrengthened that, with his “name written in thebook of life” through Christ, man will becomecapable of sustainingthe consciousness of the real-ity of the Fatherwithout injury to his independenceand freedom. For the consciousness of the reality ofthe Father—that is, not the mere recognizing of theFather-principle, but the perceiving and feeling ofHis actual spiritual cosmic activity and signifi-cance—cannot be borne by man unless he falls,crushed, to the earth, unless his “name is written inthe book of life” by Christ, and “confessed beforethe Father and His angels.” For simultaneously withthe process of the “sealing” in the ether body,anotherprocess takes place: while the “name” (thatis, the part of the astral body which has becomeManas) is projected downward into the ether body,at the same time—also through the Christ—the wis-dom-content of that “name” is projected upwardsinto the sphere of the Father. The writing of thename which shall not be blotted out of the book oflife takes place at the same time as the confessingof the name before the Father and His angels.Thereby man’s freedom is raised into a new andhigher sphere, and the combined process, takingplace in two directions, is that of Initiation—therealization of a higher grade of freedom, and so alsoof responsibility. The promise of the Letter: “Hethat overcometh, the same shall be clothed in whiteraiment, and I will not blot out his name out of thebook of life, but I will confess his name before myFather, and before His angels” (Rev. 3:5) proclaimsa sublime prospect for the Fifth Post-Atlantean cul-ture-epoch; for it affirms that the destiny, the trials,and the history of this epoch will be such that willitself make the ascent to true Initiation possible.That which formerly could be replaced only by wayof the closed Mystery community is now, in theFifth Post-Atlantean culture-epoch, accessible inany situation of life by way of the karmic path ofthe “Angel in Sardis”; that is, by the open way ofthe spirit of the age. In this age, life itself willbecome an occult school for all who have not“defiled the garment” of their “name” by compro-

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mise.....[D]uring the epoch of the consciousness soul,

a part of the path to a definite stage of Initiation willbe open to mankind. It is this consciousness whichgives the concluding sentence of the Letter to theChurch in Sardis a still deeper meaning than that ofthe preceding Letters; namely, the exhortation: “Hethat hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saithunto the churches.”

THE LETTER TO THE ANGEL

OF THE CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA

The important point in the Fifth Post-Atlanteanculture community is to resume the struggle with‘Death’ which had been taken up during the Third,the Egypto-Chaldean culture-epoch. This, we haveseen, is essential in order to overcome the abstractand the mechanical by winning freedom from thebonds of materialism and selfishness. Similarly forthe Sixth Post Atlantean culture community it willbe important to have the reality of sufferingas thecenter of consciousness, just as in the Second Post-Atlantean, the ancient Persian culture-epoch, it wasthe center of destiny. For as the Fifth culture-epochis a repetition of the Third, so will the Sixth be arepetition of the Second. However, this “repetition”does not mean that the external factors of theancient Persian destiny will be repeated, but thatthere will be an inner recurrence of the strugglewith the “problem” of the ancient Persian culture-epoch. And this will take place in such a way thatthe “repetition” will be related to the spirit ofancient Persia as the spirit-self (Manas) is related tothe sentient (or astral) body. This means that allwhich at that time influenced man from the outerworld will now go forth from man into the outerworld as creative activity. Thus, for instance, theLight God, who as the glorious revelation of the sunexercised a powerful influence on souls from heav-en, will also exercise influence in the Sixth culturalepoch. This influence will no longer be poured fromheaven; the Sun influence will radiate from manhimself, and will then work through man’s activi-ties. Zarathustra’s Ormuzd will be just as surely thecenter of all spiritual life as He was in the days ofancient Persia; but He will no longer shine from thesun, He will shine from the hearts of men. For since

then He has followed the path which leads to thehearts of men. He became man and suffered humandeath. His path led Him through death to resurrec-tion; not only, however, to the resurrection whichovercomes death in the human body, but to the res-urrection which overcomes death in the soul. Thefact of Christ’s resurrection in the human soul wasthe event of Pentecost. And this event is the primalphenomenon of the Sixth culture-epoch, which iscalled in the Apocalypse, “the Church inPhiladelphia.” For the community of Pentecost wasnow no longer a circle gathered round Christ Jesus,but rather a circle from out of which Christ revealedHimself to the outer world. And the languagethrough which He revealed Himself was such that

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Created by Ariel Agemian exclusively for the Confraternity of the Precious Blood

The Angel of RevelationLeft arm earthward, its hand holding the tablets of OldTestament law, right arm raised heavenward toward the lightof the ascended Christ’s love, the Angel, like a Christiancolossus, feet ablaze, straddles and inspires St. John theEvangelist, who writes before the apocalyptic horsemen.

men of all nationalities could understand it.Now, these are the two main characteristics of the

Philadelphian spiritual culture: the immanence ofthe Christ in human consciousness; and the cos-mopolitan community resulting from this con-sciousness. In such a sense then the Sixth culture-epoch may be called the “Pentecost epoch.” Thisname for it acquires all the more significancebecause the consciousness which gives rise to theculture represented by that epoch must stand thetest of “keeping the word” and “not denying thename of Christ” (Rev. 3:8); that is to say, its con-cern is with the word of Christ and with relationshipto His being as these become realities in thePentecost event. What was given on that occasion,however, as a gracious dispensation, so to speak,must now be earned or submitted to in order that theculture-epoch of the spirit-self may be realized.And to understand what is meant by “keeping Myword” and “not denying My name,” we must studythe path which leads from the consciousness soul tothe spirit-self (Manas).

As we saw in the Studies of the New Testament[Rays: May/June 1999 to March/April 2000] inconnection with the seven stages of the Passion ofChrist Jesus, the Christ impulse finds no placeeither in the human organism or in the world. Thehuman organism is brimful of all sorts of sub-stances, biological forces, and egoisms; human civ-ilization—in the field of commerce, politics, andabstract intellectuality—is absorbed in profit,power, and pleasure. Indeed, in this age of the con-sciousness soul, human life tends more and more toeliminate all elements of true Christianity from itsdomain. Natural Science, for instance, has alreadymade a clean sweep of Christianity from its sphereof influence, and commerce and politics are busilyengaged in expelling it from theirs. The banishmentof Christianity from all departments of life goes onand on, the “realities” of the physical world rangethemselves in stronger and stronger opposition toChristianity, to that love-filled light of wisdomwhich is as essential to the human soul as sunlightand warmth is to a plant.

From the point of view of Christianity, the worldof men is hollow and cold, but in itself it is overfulland stifling. Yes, the “realities” of the physical

world of men are gradually developing in such away that Christianity has no more value or positionin that world than wordshave. What Christian truthis there which canbecome reality in the life of thepresent day, become reality, that is, without safe-guarding itself on every side by compromise? In theword alone can the Christ impulse become actualreality among men of today. It has the same oppor-tunity to live in the world, unadulterated and unfal-sified by compromise, as the word has. And now isthe time of great testing. The vast and mighty mass-es of the realities of the Chastel Merveil [forcesantagonistic to the pursuit of the Grail, the good] ofthe present age are opposed by the word alone, bynothing else at all. For against the organized anti-Christian millions, opposing millions of organizedChristians cannot and must not be arrayed. Anti-Christianity cannot and must not be fought with itsown weapons. Power, numbers, organization—allare opposed by the word alone, borne by the humanvoice. And the test consists in this: that in spite ofall, we must never say, “These are only words; theyare not realities,” but just because they can bewords only, the whole reality of the Christ impulsemust be experienced in them! Because the immensemass of anti-Christian and un-Christian forces fillsour entire lifesphere, we must let all the power ofthought, all the life of heart, all the feeling of truthindwell the word and oppose the hostile world withthat other world which can be experienced in theword! This can be done if we are really consciousof the fact that in the beginning the Word was withGod; that all things were made by the Word, andthat the Word which was once divine with God isnow human, with man. Then, when man is unitedwith his whole soul to Him who became man andspoke words, as man, to Him who instills divineforces into the human word—then man will knowthat the spirit-filled word of experienced and recog-nized spiritual truth can hold its own against thewhole massive stronghold of the ‘realities’ofhuman physical existence.

This position between a world which it seems canlive only in the word and exercise influence onlythrough the word, and a world whose rapaciouspower is eager to show that it can stifle and swallowup all free spiritual life—this position between two

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worlds, in fidelity to that world which, at first sight,appears to possess no other power or influence thanthe word uttered by the human voice—is the positionmeant in the Apocalypse by the “keeping my word ofpatience.” For this is the very path which the soulmust follow in order to make the transition from theconsciousness soul to the spirit-self. The path con-sists in an immense strengthening of consciousnessin the consciousness soul, and, at the same time, ofa definite orientation towards the spirit-self. Now,that strengthening of consciousness is attained, onthe one hand, by resisting the world of ‘facts’; andon the other hand, by not being misled by the ideathat nothing ‘weak’and ‘insignificant’as the word—the “mere word”—could be chosen to outweigh thisworld of facts. For consciousness is not strengthenedby physical facts opposing physical facts, but by theconsciousness of truth, finding, in accordance withits content, the strength within itself to see throughthe lies and illusions of the world of facts, and to facethem, unwavering and not deceived. In thus arrayingthe “little strength” which it still possesses against apower which is still colossal, consciousness joinsforces with the “little strength” in the world becauseit represents truth, and turns away from the “colossalpower” in the world because it is a lie with nothing

left to it but to convince by its magnitude.When we understand the test applied to

the consciousness of the consciousness soulwhich has declared for the spirit-self, thewords of the Letter to the Church inPhiladelphia acquire amazing significance:“I know thy works; behold I have set beforethee an open door, and no man can shut it;for thou hast a little strength, and hast keptmy word, and hast not denied my name”(Rev. 3:8).

So that which originally was “only word,”recognized as truth by the human conscious-ness, becomes the “open door” to a world;i.e., the faculty of constant, conscious, andreciprocal converse with the spiritual world,the ocean in which the physical world floatslike an ice floe. But in order that this mayhappen, the consciousness must not only sidewith the “little strength” against the “great”and “keep the word,” it must also “not deny

the name” of Christ.This means that it is not enough to be faithful as

a mere idealist to a universal world of ideas or thelike, but to be faithful to a world of which the cen-ter is a Sun dispensing radiance and warmth like thephysical sun, a world at whose center shines not anidea, but the Christ-sun, radiating warmth and light.For it is only so that converse with the spiritualworld can become converse with actual entities(human and hierarchic). Then it is no longer mere-ly a knowledge of truths and interdependences.When this converse is held in a light which rendersvisible the ‘countenances’of spiritual beings, andrenders audible their individual ‘voices,’then itbecomes a real converse with real individualbeings. And the light which causes the individual inthe spiritual world to stand out clearly from the uni-versal ocean of impersonal morality and truth is tobe obtained not by “keeping the word” alone, butalso by “not denying the name of Christ.” This sig-nifies that the “keeping of the word” describedabove not only means that ideals are to be heldaright in the face of external realities, it also hasthe special meaning that the ideals arising fromknowledge are to be filled and permeated by themoral life of the Christ impulse. ❐

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Fresco, detail from The Last Judgment, Giotto (1266-1337), Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy

Christ in Majesty

SINCE 1929, astronomers as well asother scientists have been puzzled bythe phenomenon generally known as“the expanding universe, or the“Hubble Effect,” named after the scien-

tist who by telescopic observation confirmed anapparent drifting apart of the numberless galaxieswhich constitute the material cosmos. Some ofthese, the more distant galaxies, appear to be drift-ing away from us and from each other at speedswhich are a considerable fraction of the speed oflight so that, at present, the universe is estimated tobe 18 billion light years in diameter—and expand-ing. Various explanations have been put forth, butso far none has proved sufficiently compelling.While the regnant theory (“the Big Bang”) postu-lates the cosmos to have originated from the explo-sion of a single incomprehensibly immense massof exceedingly dense matter, it fails when the sametheorists calculate that such a mass could not pos-sibly have been formed nor to have any feasibleexistence. The weak spot in all the materialist cos-mogenetic theories is their inability to explain“first things”—the “where,” the “how,” and espe-cially the “why” of the Beginning.

The Rosicrucian Teachings do offer an explana-tion for this origin, stating that the third aspect ofthe Supreme Being awakened cosmic root sub-stance from its inertia and set the countless insep-arate atoms spinning upon their axes and impartingto them varying rates of vibration.

This teaching is rejected by the materialist, sincehe acknowledges but one intelligent specie in thecosmos—man. Yet he is forced to admit that homo

sapiens, as sapient as he may be, is more creaturethan creator.

Still, the fact of the expanding universe is a real-ity and no purely material explanation can give the“why” of it. We must therefore look further afield.

In the making of bread the baker takes flour andother ingredients and to them he adds a substancesuch as yeast, which he calls “leaven,” or the “ris-ing agent.” The first mixture, the “sponge” con-taining this leaven, is allowed to set for a while inorder that the leaven may work. This produces aconsiderable enlargement. The sponge must thenbe transferred to a larger vessel where the remain-der of the flour is added. Again the leaven causesan increase in volume. The dough is then dividedinto sections, each of which requires a separatepan, for the bulk is now too great for a single con-tainer. Again the leaven is allowed to work, caus-ing the dough to fill the pans, which are thenplaced in the oven where the heat effects furtherexpansion, even to the point of causing the breadto overflow the pans if the baker has not a provid-ed sufficient space. In short, the whole process is amatter of ongoing expansion throughout.

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The Leaven of Life

MYSTIC LIGHT

Creation of a Star

Joe Tuccione

At the present time, our universe is behaving ina manner somewhat analogous to the rising dough.Based on terrestrial and satellite observations,galaxies are expanding just like baking bread.Since an expanding world requires greater room inwhich to expand, the worlds must inevitably spinfurther and further apart, giving each a wider orbitof activity and influence. Correspondingly, thesolar systems must themselves have more room,for even though to us they seem immensely distantfrom one another, they too are increasing theirspheres of activity, proportionate to the increase inthe rate of vibration (the heat applied to the dough).

Since galaxies themselves are separating, eachfrom the other, and since they appear everywhere inspace, it follows that space itself must be expanding.

We must concede a cause for every effect, so weask why is this expansion necessary? What isbehind it? Material science offers us no helpbecause it deals only with Form. The answer lies inform’s polar opposite—Life. If one could retro-spect to the beginning of this “Great Day” of man-ifestation, he would find conditions as MaxHeindel describes them in The RosicrucianCosmo-Conception: First appearing in the Worldof God, Who is Life, Virgin Spirit clothes itself insubstance of increasing density, descending intothought and desire worlds and finally into thephysical world, this over immense periods of time.

When the imprisoned Life Forces have contract-ed to a state of requisite density, reaching the nadirof their involutionary journey, a great changeensues. The imprisoned Life begins to orient itselftowards its spiritual origins, disengaging itselffrom the drag of matter, but taking with it wisdom,knowledge, and power, extracted by recapitulatingand consciously absorbing the essence of its invo-lutionary experiences. Some millions of years agoa new influx of Life Force was injected intoCreation. The dense material universe commencedto re-expand under the leavening influence of therenewed Life Forces. This process is continuingand must continue throughout future ages until thegreat “Day of Liberation” at the end of this GreatDay of Manifestation.

This change, this reversal from Involution toEvolution, augmented by the impulse of Epigenesis

from the World of Life Spirit, was in actual fact thebeginning of the redemption of all of creation,macrocosm and microcosm, from the toils of mate-riality. Christ Jesus said, “I am come that theymight have life and that they might have it moreabundantly.” Look what a little leaven does to thewhole lump! Look how the spiritual leaven of faiththe size of a mustard seed can create a great tree ofconviction and realization.

In the individual and in the composite whole,this Leaven of Life continues to work, raising andexpanding our consciousness together with theconsciousness of the whole Cosmos; yes, even ofthe Creator Himself. As Paul described thisprocess: “For we know that the whole creationgroaneth and travaileth...waiting for the adoption,to wit, the redemption of our body.” Our worlds,our bodies, are becoming less and less dense; thehard core of matter is being transmuted into ether,into desire substance, into thought, and eventuallyinto untrammeled spirit itself. So must our uni-verse continue to expand until the Living Leaven,the Spirit of God, shall have done Its work and werealize our grand destiny as “sons of God” in aspiritual universe of a grandeur impossible for usnow to conceive.

And we must remember that each individualSpirit contributes to this leavening. The LifeForces are working as a spiritual ferment in everyone of us, in every atom of our being, whether weknow it or not, making inevitable the final out-come. We each have a vital part to play in thegrand work of “hastening the Day of Liberation,”for our attitude can either advance or delay it. Thatis why Max Heindel stressed the necessity for“loving, self-forgetting service,” for it is the surest,most efficient means for opposing the inertia ofmaterialism and for activating the Christ Leaventhat will bring each “Life more abundant.”

Enzymatic service leavens the whole lump ofcorporeality. Like the aroma of fresh baked bread,the quintessences of our good deeds is a spiritualfragrance pleasing to our heavenly Father. It gen-erates the levitating soul body, which enables us torise from the dough of our material confines, and,in time, to collectively float the Earth. ❐

—Jack L. Burtt

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0N OCTOBER 19, 2003, Mother Teresa ofCalcutta (1910-1997) will be beatified inRome. During the three-and-a-half-yearinvestigation into her cause, no less thor-ough for having been hastened by the

waiver of the customary five-year waiting period,every nook and cranny of her life was studied forevidence that she is the great saint, the ChristianMahatma, that the world already believes her to be.The date chosen for her beatification, MissionSunday, is the Sunday closest to the twenty-fifthanniversary of the pontificate of John Paul II and tothe end of the Year of the Rosary. This may be takenas a sign of how close Mother Teresa’s cause is tothe Pope’s heart. In any case, the beatification ofMother Teresa makes a fitting colophon to the era ofturbulence and grace that will always be associatedwith his name. Since the pontificate of Gregory theGreat (590-604), nearly every generation ofChristians has felt itself living in a Church too old toproduce heroic saints. If during the days of JohnPaul II we are inclined to a similar despondency, wehave only to consider Mother Teresa to be remindedof how young the Church really is, how capable offidelity and passionate witness to Christ.

One would expect the canonization process to besteady and sure and, aside from a few marginaldetractors, uncontroversial, for no saint has everbeen more in the public eye. In her lifelong serviceto Christ in the poorest of the poor, and her simpleand consistent teachings on the law of love, she wasan open book. She tried always to be transparent toChrist, and in that very transparency her inner lifewas hidden, making her a difficult subject for biog-raphers. Malcolm Muggeridge observed that whenthe eighteen-year-old Agues Gonxha Bojaxhiu lefther family to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto,it was “the end of her biography and the beginningof her life.” It is only now with the end of her life,and the beginning of her cause, that the biographyresumes, and new dimensions of her character are

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The Dark Night ofMother Teresa

MYSTIC LIGHT

Given the imminent beatification of Mother Teresa, this arti-cle—which appeared in the May 2003 issue of First Things,and is reprinted with permission—gives further insight intothe reason for conferring the Catholic title of “Blessed” tohonor sanctity and spiritual achievement. This text is offeredin response to Max Heindel’s June 1916 Letter to Students,in which he urges us, “As followers of Christ,” to “pay trib-ute to the heroes and heroines who through years of suffer-ing fought for others by rendering tender care in childhood’shelpless days, by unflagging service in times of sickness, bypatient participation in poverty and in any and every troublethat might befall....let us honor them here and now.”

Mother Teresa, ©

Anna M

ay McC

allum

revealed.During November and December of last year, the

ZENIT News Agency published in four installmentsa study of The Soul of MotherTeresa: HiddenAspects of Her lnterior Life, by the Postulator ofMother Teresa’s cause, Father Brian Kolodiejchuk,M.C. In this study a new portrait of Mother Teresa’sinterior life emerges, drawn largely from letters shesent to her spiritual directors. She had wanted theletters to be destroyed, not intending to leave behindany record of her spiritual life (“I want the work toremain only His”), but they were preservednonetheless; and who among us would willinglydispatch them to the shredder? Fr. Kolodiejchuk’sstudy is just the tip of the iceberg—the documenta-tion submitted to the Congregation for the Causes ofSaints runs to eight volumes—but what it shows usis Mother Teresa as a classic Christian mystic whoseinner life was burned through by the fire of charity,and whose fidelity was tested and purified by anintense trial of faith, a true dark night of the soul.

Fr. Kolodiejchuk sees Mother Teresa’s life asunfolding in four phases:

1) Her childhood and youth, when from the timeof her First Communion at age five and a half shefelt her heart captivated by the love of Jesus and ofneighbor, and discovered her call to join the mis-sionary Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto. While it wasdifficult to leave her family, she found her time as aLoreto nun, teaching in the convent school inCalcutta, immensely rewarding. She was by allaccounts a happy though not particularly brilliantnun (she is remembered, among other things, forhaving fumbled the candles at Benediction). Thekeynote of this period is youthful zeal and joy.

2) The Vow of 1942. At age thirty-two, at the endof her annual retreat, with the permission of herspiritual director, Mother Teresa made a vow to giveherself utterly and unreservedly to Christ: “To giveGod anything that He may ask...not to refuse Himanything.”

3) The Call within a Call. On September 10,1946, the day celebrated by the Missionaries ofCharity as “Inspiration Day,” Mother Teresa wastraveling by train from Calcutta to a retreat house inDarjeeling. During this trip, the realization came toher that Jesus was calling her to serve him radicallyin the poorest of the poor. Only in private letters to

her spiritual director, Fr. Celeste Van Exem, S J.,and (under Fr. Van Exem’s cautious instruction) toArchbishop Ferdinand Périer, S .J., did she revealthat this call was more than just an inner prompting.Jesus appeared and spoke to her, in a series of inte-rior locutions and visions. ‘Wouldst thou not help?”Jesus asked her. “How can I?” Mother Teresaresponded, expressing her fear of incurring ridicule,loneliness, deprivation, and failure should she leaveher happy life as a Loreto nun, exchange her habitfor a rough sari, and take up the uncertain life Jesuswas demanding of her. Repeatedly he asked her,“Wilt thou refuse? You have become my spouse formy love. You have come to India for me. The thirstyou had for souls brought you so far. Are you afraidnow to take one more step for your spouse, for me,for souls?” And again: “I want Indian nuns,Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire oflove amongst the poor, the sick, the dying, and thelittle children....” The chief motivation for theMissionaries of Charity, as she would often say, wasnot to do social work, but to adore Christ in the lit-tlest and weakest of his children, and to bring Christthe souls for which he thirsts.

4) The Dark Night. Throughout 1946 and 1947,Mother Teresa experienced a profound union withChrist. But soon after she left the convent and beganher work among the destitute and dying on thestreet, the visions and locutions ceased, and sheexperienced a spiritual darkness that would remainwith her until her death. It is hard to know what ismore to be marveled at: that this twentieth-centurycommander of a worldwide apostolate and army ofcharity should have been a visionary contemplativeat heart; or that she should have persisted in radiat-ing invincible faith and love while suffering inward-ly from the loss of spiritual consolation. In letterswritten during the 1950s and 1960s to Fr. VanExem, Archbishop Périer, and to later spiritualdirectors, Fr. L. T Picachy, S J., and Fr. J. Neuner, SJ., she disclosed feelings of doubt, loneliness, andabandonment. God seemed absent, heaven empty,and bitterest of all, her own suffering seemed tocount for nothing, “...just that terrible pain of loss,of God not wanting me, of God not being God, ofGod not really existing.”

The dark night of Mother Teresa presents us withan even greater interpretive challenge than her

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visions and locutions. It means that the missionaryfoundress who called herself “God’s pencil” was notthe God-intoxicated saint many of us had assumedher to be. We may prefer to think that she spent herdays in a state of ecstatic mystical union with God,because that would get us ordinary worldlings offthe hook. How else could this unremarkablewoman, no different from the rest of us, bear tothrow her lot in with the poorest of the poor, sharingtheir meager diet and rough clothing, wiping lep-rous sores, and enduring the agonies of the dying,for so many years without respite, unless she weresomehow lifted above it all, shielded by spiritualendorphins? Yet we have her own testimony thatwhat made her self-negating work possible was nota subjective experience of ecstasy but an objectiverelationship to God shorn of the sensible awarenessof God’s presence.

In the history of Christian theology and spiritual-ity, there have been many accounts of divine dark-ness, with a host of different implications. It is anancient doctrine, emphasized by apophatic theolo-gians and mystics, that God dwells in inaccessiblelight, a light so searingly absolute that it cancels outall images and ideas we may form of Him, veilingthe divine glory in a dark “cloud of unknowing.”This tradition owes much to the ChristianNeoplatonist Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite andhis liturgically inspired vision of ascent to the divinethrone; as such, it says more about divine transcen-dence than about human desolation.

Among the monastic writers who flourished dur-ing the sunlit years of the twelfth century, divinedarkness was an essentially cheerful idea. Williamof St. Thierry positively delighted in our mind’sincapacity to see that God is present, for he countedon love to make good the deficiencies of our feebleintellect. Love is the eye with which we see God,William said; love itself is understanding. But loveis not to be confused with mere feelings. Feelingsburn out too easily; they can be manipulated orseduced. The love by which we see God must be anact of the will rather than a passing affection of theheart.

Later generations of Christian mystics dwelt uponthe more desolate kinds of darkness to which thespiritual life can lead: the darkness in which allmodes of prayer and spiritual practice become arid,

and all consolation in the love of God seems lost.Even in the desolate dark night of the soul, indeed,especially there, St. John of the Cross taught, God ispresent, purifying the soul of all passions and hin-drances, and preparing her for the inconceivableblessedness of divine union. Along with dark know-ing, there is dark loving, no less ardent for beingdeprived of all sensible and spiritual vision of thebeloved. Therefore St. John can say, “Oh, night morelovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Belovedwith lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!”

Yet only in the modern period has the dark nightof the soul taken the form of radical doubt, doubtingnot only one’s own state of grace, but God’s promis-es and even God’s existence. A wise Benedictine,John Chapman of Downside Abbey, made this pointin a 1923 letter to a non-monastic friend: “[I]n theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries most pioussouls seem to have gone through a period in whichthey felt sure that God had reprobated them....Thisdoesn’t seem to happen nowadays. But the corre-sponding trialof our contemporaries seems to bethe feeling of not having any faith; not temptationsagainst any particular article, but a mere feeling thatreligion is not true.”

For this annihilating temptation, Chapman wrote,“the only remedy is to despisethe whole thing, andpay no attention to it except (of course) to assure ourLord that one is ready to suffer from it as long as Hewishes.” The “feeling of not having any faith” ispainful because it is an authentic purgation, duringwhich “faith is really particularly strong all thetime,” and one is being brought into closer unionwith the suffering Christ.

This was exactly the way Mother Teresa learnedto deal with her trial of faith: by converting her feel-ing of abandonment by God into an act of abandon-ment to God. It would be her Gethsemane, she cameto believe, and her participation in the thirst Jesussuffered on the Cross. And it gave her access to thedeepest poverty of the modern world: the poverty ofmeaninglessness and loneliness. To endure this trialof faith would be to bear witness to the fidelity forwhich the world is starving. “Keep smiling,” MotherTeresa used to tell her community and guests,andsomehow, coming from her, it doesn’t seem trite.For when she kept smiling during her night of faith,it was not a cover-up but a manifestation of her

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loving resolve to be “an apostle of joy.”One can better understand, having read The Soul

of Mother Teresa, why she insisted that adoration ofChrist present in the Blessed Sacrament shouldoccupy the center of the Missionaries’daily work;and why she felt it imperative to establish purelycontemplative communities that would make theMissionaries of Charity an order of adoration aswell as apostolic service. Adoring Christ in theSacrament is also a way of dark knowing and darkloving. To all appearances he is absent, as Aquinassays in the Tantum ergo Sacramentum, so faith mustsupply what is lacking to our feeble senses.Humanly, there were times when Mother Teresa feltburnt out, but faith supplied what was lacking evento troubled faith; spiritually she was often desolate,but her vow endured and her visible radiance—towhich everyone attests—was undiminished. Thislifelong fidelity should not be confused with a Stoicdetermination to keep going in the face of defeat. Itwas something else entirely: objective Christian joy

Mother Teresa is not the only modern saint tohave undergone such a trial of faith; one thinks alsoof precursors like St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775),founder of the Passionists, and St. Jane Frances deChantal (1572-1641), foundress of the Visitandines;but above all of Mother Teresa’s namesake, St.Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), the FrenchCarmelite famous for her “Little Way.” [SeeMarch/April 2000 Raysfor a review—Ed.] The par-allels between Mother Teresa (Teresa of the ChildJesus) and St. Thérèse (Teresa of the Child Jesusand the Holy Face) are really quite remarkable.Thérèse also made a vow, informally as a youngchild, and formally on two occasions as a professedCarmelite nun, to refuse nothing to Jesus. LikeMother Teresa, she had longed to be sent forth in themissions as a herald of God’s love; since her frailtyprevented this, she rejoiced in being assigned mis-sionaries for whom she prayed and whom sheregarded with great affection as her spiritual broth-ers. She, too, felt multiple calls; indeed, she felt allcalls at once: “I feel the vocation of the warrior, thepriest, the apostle, the doctor, the martyr,” shewrote. “I feel within my soul the courage of theCrusader, the Papal Guard, and I would want to dieon the field of battle in defense of the Church.” Notfor feminist reasons did she say, “I feel in me the

vocation of the priest,” but rather because of ayouthful desire to be all in all for Christ. The “LittleWay” was her solution: “I understood that lovecomprised all vocations, that love was every-thing...my vocation is love!...In the heart of theChurch, my Mother, I shall be Love.” If love weredependent on mere feelings, however, her vocationwould have foundered, for as Thérèse wrote, “Donot believe I am swimming in consolations; oh, no,my consolation is to have none on earth.”

From Easter 1896 until her death from tuberculo-sis on September 30, 1897, at age twenty-four,Thérèse endured a trial of faith of the modern kind,which she described as like being enclosed in a darktunnel. She seemed to hear the darkness mockingher: “You are dreaming about the light, about afatherland embalmed in the sweetest perfumes; youare dreaming about the eternal possession of theCreator of all these marvels; you believe that oneday you will walk out of this fog which surroundsyou! Advance, advance; rejoice in death which willgive you not what you hope for but a night still moreprofound, the night of nothingness.” According totradition she died trusting and loving God in thevery grip of this doubt, and promising to spend herheaven doing good on earth.

Is it fanciful to consider the possibility thatMother Teresa, who died in the same month onehundred years later, who experienced the same ardentcall, made the same vow of surrender, suffered thesame desolation of faith, and embodied in the faceof that dark night the same teaching of fidelity insmall things, may have in some way been complet-ing the mission of St. Thérèse? Could it be that thismissionary contemplative and this contemplativemissionary are companions in a joint work of grace?

However that maybe, it was the same objectiveChristian joy that made Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiubecome a Saint Teresa for our time, and a saint-maker for our future. When we consider her life andthe ongoing life of her community, the Churchseems young again, and everything seems possible.If these days are in any sense a dark night for theChurch, then Mother Teresa shows the way forward:faith that we are undergoing a purification ratherthan a free-fall, and fidelity, in small things as wellas big, to the vows that bind in order to set free. ❐

—Carol Zaleski

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We are all Christs in the making, the love natureis unfolding in us all, and why should we not iden-tify ourselves with one or another of the Christianchurches which cherish the Christ ideal? Some ofthe best workers in the Fellowship are members,yes, and ministers, of churches. Many are hungryfor what we feed upon. We cannot share it with themby standing aloof, and we do ourselves harm byneglecting to take advantage of the great opportu-nity to aid in elevating the church.—Max Heindel

STUDENTS on the occult path of spiritu-al development may have a tendency,albeit unconscious, to feel superior totheir mystic brothers. In Heindel’sAncient and the Modern Initiationan

illustration shows a mountain with the two paths:one straight and one winding. It can readily be seenthat where the paths intersect orthodox churchmembers (“ordinary humanity”) are more advancedthan the occult school pupils at the lower intersec-tions. It is not usually easy for an occult student togo back to a traditional church. It is like pouringwater on fire, and he needs to make an extra effort.He would need to develop much humility and noone can develop humility without going through theschool of humiliation. The Rosicrucian Schoolmeets its members at the gate with knowledge(fire); the church meets her members at the gatewith faith (water). The Rosicrucian School pupilwill have to develop more devotion to achieve bal-ance, as the church member needs to develop men-tal understanding to gain his balance.

When I went back to church, which happens to be

the Catholic Church, I was interested in seeingwhere it was similar and where it differed from theRosicrucian teachings. Most apparent in theCatholic religion is the mystery that surrounds OurLady the Virgin Mary, and the special venerationthe faithful give her. Many questions came to mymind: Does the veneration of Mary contradict theRosicrucian teachings? What should be the attitudeof a Catholic Rosicrucian pupil towards Mary?What is the position of the feminine sex in theRosicrucian teachings? Is there any relationbetween Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus

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The Virgin Mary and

Christian Rosenkreutz

MYSTIC LIGHT

Christ, and Christian Rosenkreutz, the Founder ofthe Order of the Rose-Cross? Is there be any rela-tion between the Rosary and the Rose-Cross? In thecourse of my study I discovered many truths. Themost beautiful and the most wonderful discovery Imade concerns the genuine relation between theVirgin Mary and Christian Rosenkreutz. These rela-tions are of two types: the family relation and themystical relation.

Family RelationsAccording to the Western Wisdom Teachings,

Christian Rosenkreutz is the reincarnation ofLazarus, the Son of the Widow, who was raisedfrom the dead by our Lord. He was a disciple of ourLord Jesus Christ, the one He loved most. CorinneHeline states plainly in her book Mystery of theChristosthat John the beloved is the same person asLazarus and that Lazarus was his initiatory name.

James and John are the sons of Salome andZebedee. Salome and Mary, the mother of Jesus,have the same parents, they are the daughters ofAnna and Joachim. James and John are thereforeJesus’cousins; they are Mary’s nephews. It is thisstrong family tie between Salome and Jesus thatmotivates Salome to bring her two sons, John andJames, to Christ asking Him to give them seats inheaven, one at His right and the other at His left. Itis this family tie that causes many people to inferthat they are Mary’s children. John and James areJesus’cousins. In the Hebrew language the sameword is used for brother and cousin, just as it isfound in some other languages in the world. InGalatians 1:19 Paul the Apostle in Jerusalem toldCephas, “But other of the apostles saw I none, saveJames, the Lord’s brother.”

Mystical RelationMary is not only the physical mother of Jesus,

she is also the spiritual mother of our Lord. She par-took in all the sufferings that her son underwent.Mary has become “Our Lady of Perpetual Help”when she came to the rescue of the child Jesuswhen the latter saw in a vision the planet’s Dwelleron the Threshold.

According to the Western Wisdom Teachings,God has three aspects: the Father, the Son, and

Jehovah or the Holy Spirit. Each aspect has a posi-tive and negative polarity. Jehovah is the positivepole and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is the neg-ative pole of the Third Person. Jehovah workedthrough Moses, the Law Giver. Of the Holy Ghostan Angel told Enoch: “This is the Beloved, this isthe Holy Spirit who speaks to the Prophets, Queenof the Ocean of Light.” Moses was an instrumentfor Jehovah, Jesus was an instrument for the Christ,and Mary has been an instrument for the HolyGhost. She is described as “the Bride of the HolyGhost.” A certain mystic has written that “Mary’ssoul offers the Holy Ghost a glorious temple inwhich to dwell, a closed garden into the secrets ofwhich He alone can enter, an altar on which isoffered the purest of sacrifices.”

The Holy Ghost works best with someone inwhom the feminine qualities have been developed,and it is in the Virgin Mary that these qualities havebeen most fully and highly developed. The wordsfrom Song of Solomon(6:10)—“Who is she thatlooketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clearas the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”—have really been used for the Holy Ghost. At theAnnunciation the angel Gabriel prophesied: “TheHoly Spirit will descend on you and you will con-ceive.” Mary was present among the Apostles onthe day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghostdescended on the apostles. Anyone who wants toattract the Holy Ghost should first develop the fem-inine qualities and master the lower desire nature inhimself/herself.

The first building of the Elder Brothers wascalled the “House of the Holy Spirit.” The main dif-ference between Holy Mary and ChristianRosenkreutz is that Mary’s work is based on theheart (faith) and the water element, while ChristianRosenkreutz’s work is based on knowledge (themind) and the fire element. But we know that inorder to advance on the path, to attain the ChristConsciousness, we need to tread both paths: theheart (water) path and the mind (fire) path.Speaking of these two paths, the Talmud declares“The law may be likened to two roads, one of fire,the other of snow. To follow the one is to perish byfire; to follow the other is to die of cold. The mid-dle path alone is safe.”

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Today, there are many faithful who yearn for eso-teric knowledge, and they need to be satisfied. Theintellectual requirement of mankind has been sig-nificantly increased due to many factors, includingthe ubiquity of the print media, universal education,application of the scientific method, and the evolu-tion of the mind. Church leaders, priests, and min-isters spend more time for their training in the sem-inaries. There are today in the world a great numberof church goers who are highly intellectual. A goodpart of Christian youth has been exposed to highereducation and they need a higher aspect of thechristian teachings, something more than what isavailable in their catechism from Sunday Bibleclass.

While the Rosary has served as a teaching instru-ment for the less mentally evolved, the RosicrucianTeachings appeal to the more literate and mentallyinquisitive. As Max Heindel advises those who fol-low the mind path to go back to their churches inorder to make more rapid soul growth, so do churchmembers need to open themselves to esoteric teach-ings to complete their training. Some people thinkthat the mind is not important in the search for God.This is not correct. Those in the churches whoaspire to holiness but who lack esoteric knowledgeare given spiritual advisers to help them to interpretthe spiritual experiences they encounter on the pathto holiness. To be spiritually whole, each Christianmust develop both the Mind and the Heart. SaintLouis-Marie Grignion de Montfort was aware ofthis truth when he emphasized that recitation of theRosary should not be a passive work, but that boththe mind and the heart should be involved. Today’sChristian community needs to promote advancingtoward an intellectual esoteric mystical school. Inthe very near future, The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conceptionwill be greatly appreciated by the gen-eral world population because it is one of the booksthat appeals to both the mind and the heart.

Through the Virgin Mary and John the BelovedChrist seeks to re-establish the balance that manlost during the War in Heaven. Before that event,the constellations of Virgo and Scorpio were joined.The War in Heaven caused a shifting of the polaraxis of all planets, a change in the planetary rhythmof the entire solar system, and the separation of

constellations of Virgo and Scorpio. This disharmo-ny lasted until the coming of our Lord Christ. It waswhen He was on the cross that Christ brought theConstellations of Virgo and Scorpio together againat the spiritual level. Our Lord was able to realizethis Great Work through his two great disciples, theVirgin Mary and John the Beloved, representing,respectively, Virgo and Scorpio.

“When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and thedisciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith untohis mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then saith heto the disciple, behold thy mother. And from thathour that disciple took her unto his own home”(John 19:26-27).

According to the Western Wisdom Teachings,Christian Rosenkreutz is the reincarnation of

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Fresco, Fra Angelico assistant, c. 1450, Museo di San Marco, Florence

Jesus Consigning His Mother to Saint JohnFor the Rosicrucian student, the exalted status of the VirginMary is confirmed from the cross on Golgotha, “the place ofthe skull,” from which Christ speaks to his mother regardingJohn the Beloved (kneeling on her left), the future ChristianRose Cross:mulier ecce filius tuus, “woman, behold your son.”

Lazarus who is John, the Virgin Mary’s nephew. Atthe raising of Lazarus, Christ was initiating John,His most advanced Disciple, whose initiatory namewas Lazarus, into the new Sun Mysteries.

Christian Rosenkreutz founded the Order of theRose Cross in the year 1313 with the purpose ofgiving the world a body of Teachings that will raiseits consciousness through knowledge and loving,self-forgetting service to others. The cross in theRosicrucian emblem symbolizes matter, the physi-cal body, and the roses represent the soul. When theEgo consciously works in its several “bodies,” itgenerates soul which becomes pabulum for the spir-it. The Rosicrucian Fellowship is the only autho-rized preparatory school for the Order of the RoseCross. As a Christian school, the Fellowship’smission is to give to the world the WesternWisdom Teachings that promote Aquarian AgeConsciousness. The Aquarian Age will formallybegin in about the year 2600.

The RosaryIn the year 1214 the Virgin Mary founded the

Order of the Rosary, “Rosa Mystica.” As set forth inhis book The Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis deMontfort describes the origin of practice of theRosary as communicated to Saint Dominic by theHoly Virgin Mary. Montfort calls each bead of theRosary a “rose.” The Rosary Crucifix is composedof a cross and roses (“beads”). One construal of theword Rosary is a crown of roses. In reciting therosary one weaves a crown of roses for the head ofour Lord Jesus Christ.

While Rosaries vary in number of beads and ver-bal patterns, the simplest Rosary is composed of 5‘decades’of fifty beads which is properly recitedthree times, resulting in 150 Hail Marys, thus cor-relating it with the 150 Psalms. While the Apostle’sCreed is recited with the cross, with each decade ofbeads the rosarist contemplates one of the 15Mysteries that comprise the Gospel story, the pathof attainment. The five Joyful Mysteries are TheAnnunciation, The Visitation, The Nativity, ThePresentation in the Temple, and The Finding theLord in the Temple. The five Sorrowful Mysteriesare The Agony in the Garden, The Scourging at thePillar, The Crowning with Thorns, The Carrying of

the Cross, and The Crucifixion. The five GloriousMysteries are The Resurrection, The Ascension,Pentecost, The Assumption of the Virgin, and TheCoronation of the Virgin. Each cycle of 50 repeti-tions, according to Saint Louis De Montfort, corre-sponds to verses in Philippians 2:5-11 which formthe keynote of the Rosicrucian Temple Service.

The Joyous mysteries correlate with the text, “Letthis mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,who made himself of no reputation and took uponhimself the form of a servant, and was made in thelikeness of man.”

The five Sorrowful Mysteries correspond to thescripture passage, “And being found in fashion as aman, he humbled himself and became obedientunto death, even the death upon the cross.”

The five Glorious Mysteries correspond to thesentence: “Wherefore God hath highly exalted himand given him a name that is above every name;that at the name of Christ Jesusevery knee shouldbow, and that every tongue should confess thatChrist Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God theFather.”

The Rosary may be seen as scheme for relivingand internalizing the complete Gospel story so thatit conforms the heart and mind of the one who praysand contemplates with the lives and persons ofChrist Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

When added, the 15 mysteries give the numbersix, a key number for both Our Lady Mary andChristian Rosenkreutz. Six is the number for Service,keyword for the 6th House of the Zodiac and for thesign Virgo, the sign of the Virgin. It is also a pass-word for the Rosicrucian Fellowship. It is throughever wider vistas of service that man evolves togodhood. Our Lord Christ says, “He who would bethe greatest among you, let him be the servant of all.”

When we add the first 3 Holy Marys to the 150,we get to number 153, which totals nine, anotherimportant number in the life of the Virgin Maryand of every Christian. During the Angelus, whichis a devotional exercise commemorating theIncarnation and honoring Mary, the Angelus bellrings 3x3=9 times. When Peter, by the order of ourLord, cast his net, he caught 153 fishes, represent-ing the number of those who would be saved, asalso given in the Revelation figure of 144,000.

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According to the Western Wisdom Teachings ninedenotes the liberation of mankind. There are 9Lesser Initiations. The ninth calendar month,October, the month of the Rosary, is ruled by twoplanets: Mercury (Mind), ruling Virgo in the natur-al or sidereal zodiac, and Venus (affection), rulingLibra in the Intellectual Zodiac. During this timethe mystic can most easily blend the two forces ofthe Mind and of the Heart. These two qualities arewell blended in “Mary Catena Legionis,” a prayerto Mary as a force to fight the Evil One, whichbegins with the antiphon: “Who is that coming likedawn, fair as the Moon, shining as the Sun, terribleas an army in a pitched battle?”

Heartfelt recitation of the Rosary develops devo-tion. Performed reverently and with mental alert-ness, such practice will hasten the occult student’sspiritual development. Because Max Heindelthought that the Rosicrucian literature was lackingin the devotional element, he suggests readingsfrom Thomas à Kempis’The Imitation of JesusChrist. Mary is universal, she is the Mother of ourElder Brother Jesus who assisted the Christ for thesalvation of mankind.

At the beginning of this article we asked, Whatshould be the attitude of a Catholic Rosicrucianpupil towards Holy Mary and what is the positionof the feminine sex in the Rosicrucian teachings?The Rosicrucian or the Catholic Rosicrucian shouldfeel free to venerate the Blessed Mary and to recitethe Rosary if he is so disposed.

The Madonna and Child theme is ageless. Itholds for mankind the supreme ideal of perfectedmotherhood as embodied in the Blessed Mary, theimmaculate mother of Jesus, who was the bearer ofthe Christ. The Virgin Mary is one of the latestincarnations of the Eternal Madonna; before her,the Eternal Madonna has incarnated through manyother mothers such as: Isis in Egypt, the VirginFrigga in Scandinavia, the Queen of Heaven inMexico and the Americas, and, most notably, theVirgin Mary in Palestine. Mary was, and is, a greatspiritual teacher who bequeathed to her son theriches of her profound wisdom. She was the highestInitiate to incarnate in a feminine body.

In Mystery of the Christos, the capstone to herseven-volume study of the Bible, undertaken at the

urging of Max Heindel, Corinne Heline writes thatRaphael’s famous Sistine Madonna has been usedin schools of esoteric Christianity for meditativepurposes. Among the first pictures given to thesepioneers to study and interpret was that of theMother and Child. Each Mystery Temple had itsown healing sanctuary where patients were taughtto project their consciousness into the Memory ofNature and thereby receive the healing forces ema-nating from the holy figure of the Divine Mother.

The author of Revelation, who later becameChristian Rose Cross, writes of the Cosmic Mother:“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; awoman clothed with the sun, and the moon underthe feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars”(Rev 12:1).

The Catholic church venerates but does not wor-ship Holy Mary. The Virgin is petitioned, “HolyMary, mother of God, pray for us,” while the prayerto Jesus Christ is “God have mercy on us.” In ven-erating Mary, the Catholic Rosicrucian pupil doesnot practice Mariolatry; it is not the outer but theinner Virgin Mary to whom he appeals.

Members of the Rosicrucian Fellowship typical-ly work for the emancipation of women in everysphere of life. According to the Western WisdomTeachings, the human Ego is alternately embodiedin male and female bodies, enabling it to learn allthe lessons that can be extracted from the condi-tions existing on earth under the same planetaryvibrations. Anything that men currently do for theadvancement of women will directly favor theirlives when they are reborn as women.

When Max Heindel was asked about theRosicrucian viewpoint on women’s suffrage(1Q&A, pp 371-2), he answered that because thewoman has a positive vital body, she is “intuitivelyin touch with the spiritual vibrations of the uni-verse. She is more idealistic and imaginative, takinga great interest in all the things which make for themoral upliftment of the race, and it is only by themoral and the spiritual growth that humanity canadvance at this time, she is really the prime factorin evolution. It would be of an enormous benefit tothe race if she were given an equal right with manin every particular. For not until then can we hopeto see reforms brought about that will really unite

RAYS 03 19

humanity. “We see that by analogy, if we

will look into the home, the womanis really the central pillar aroundwhich both husband and childrencluster. According to her ability shemakes the home what it is; she is thecementing influence and the peace-maker. The father may pass out bydeath or otherwise, the childrenmay leave, whi le the motherremains, the home is there; butwhen the mother is taken away bydeath, the home is at once brokenup.

“Some have argued, ‘Yes, butwhen she is taken away by politicsthe home will be broken up just asmuch.’But of that there need be nofear. During the transition stage,while women have to fight for theirrights, and, possibly, a short timeafterward, until they have adjustedthemselves, there may in some cases be a neglect ofthe home, but in the places where it has alreadybeen tried, no homes have been broken up andmuch good has been achieved, for women canalways be counted upon to stand for any improve-ment which makes for morality. While laws areonly makeshifts to bring humanity to a higher planewhere each one will be a law unto himself, doingright without coercion, it is nevertheless necessarythat such reforms should be brought about at thepresent time by legislation.”

Both the Virgin Mary and Christian Rosenkreutz,who is the reincarnation of John the Beloved, haveattained the the Consciousness of the Vulcan Periodthrough the Great Work both have accomplishedunder the guidance of Christ Jesus. They have thussurpassed the Venus Period Consciousness, whichis a supreme Love Consciousness, described asObjective, Self-conscious, Creative consciousness.Our Lady has always been depicted with her Heartin the middle of her bosom, which reflects a perfectbalance between the Mind and the Heart. IfChristian Rosenkreutz were painted, his Heartwould have to be depicted in the middle of his

bosom as well. Being Adepts, Holy Mary andChristian Rosenkreutz have overcome death; theyhave unbroken consciousness, in or out of a physi-cal body. Holy Mary works primarily with thechurches and the devotional seeker. ChristianRosenkreutz works more with governments andscience and the mentally-oriented spiritual seeker.

Should a student of the Rosicrucian teachingsjoin a church? It is an individual matter. MaxHeindel writes: “Of course there is no compulsion.You are not required to join or attend a church, butif you do go there in the spirit of helpfulness, I canpromise you that you will experience a most won-derful soul growth in a very short time.”

The inner Christ can never be born within us ifthe inner Virgin Mary, the purified soul, is not firstborn within us. It is the Virgin Mary who bringsforth Jesus and Jesus attracts the Christ. When puri-fied, our physical, vital, and desire bodies becomethe inner Virgin Mary in each of us. As there is theinner Christ so should there be the inner VirginMary. Holy Mary does not belong to any particularchurch, Holy Mary is universal and individual. ❐

—Kwassi Laurent Djondo

20 RAYS 03

Watercolor, illustration for Dante’s Divine Comedy, William Blake, c. 1825, British Museum, London

St. John Joins the Other Saints and Dante and BeatriceLove incarnate lived in a body hallowed by the pure sacrificial love of Mary. Hewho became Christian Rose Cross, who was closest to the heart of Christ, is bestqualified to question Dante (below center) on love, after Peter (left) has questionedhim on faith, and St. Paul (right) has questioned him on hope. The blending oflove and knowledge is manifest in the profound wisdom of St. John’s Gospel.

JENNY TAUGHT SAM how to glide. Ittook him a while to get into the glidingmode, for the habit of walking was stillvery strong indeed. He would take a fewsteps before remembering that it was much

easier to glide—and much quicker. He could trav-el a great distance in almost no time. It felt great toglide without the need to carry the heavy densebody around. He enjoyed the freedom it gave him.He could go anywhere without passport, visa, orcar.

He found this lower invisible world to be quite astrange place. He was surprised to discover that hefelt no heat nor cold. Nor were there days andnights, just unceasing light everywhere, and glit-tering colors flowing in all directions. Everythingwas moving and changing shape. There was noneed for sleep or for clothes, though everyone waswearing some. Sam was still in the clothes he worewhen he fell off the cliff.

He realized he could change his shape or hisclothes by a mere thought. As soon as he remem-bered playing soccer on Sundays he instantly sawhimself in shorts and running shoes. He remem-bered his dog and immediately there it was, beforehis eyes, ethereal and devoted as always. He near-ly lost consciousness when an enormous crabappeared in front of him.

“Ha-ha-ha,” the crab laughed mischievously inPaul’s voice and slowly merged into the shape ofhis friend. For a while his large belly jiggled withlaughter.

“You have to get used to this Sam,” he said, wip-ing his eyes.

As Sam soon understood, Jenny was appointedby a higher authority to be his official guide. She

had a role to play in his life now. The next day shegave Sam a tour of the area.

She put a bandage on his eyes, took his hand,and off they went through the clouds to the “spe-cial place” Jenny had said they would visit. Whenthey arrived she made him sit on a large cushion ofcloud and open his eyes.

“This is Government Square,” she clapped herhands with excitement and pirouetted. “Grandparades and festivals are held here. Have a look.”

Sam had never seen anything like this. Belowwas an enormous square, much larger than RedSquare in Moscow. Four big boulevards were lead-ing to it, giving the impression of a gigantic crosswith the Square in its center. Most impressive werethe ever-changing colors, glittering waves of light,brightness, gradation of tones and sounds, and themovement of everything, as if every part of it werea living entity.

In the middle of the Square was a splendidgigantic fountain. The splashing of the watersounded at first like crystals dropping on marblestairs, then variously like an ocean breeze, wind inthe forest, waves churning around rocks, a harp inthe moonlight, or angels singing in Heaven.

Sam was astonished. It was the loveliest soundhe had ever heard. It was not constant or steady,but reminded him at one moment of deer runningin the savanna, or of the flapping wings of birds.

The water itself was changing colors. At onemoment it looked like burning flames, the next likemist, then like colored air or frozen ice. Inside thistransparent marvel a flamingo was performing themost beautiful and gracious ethereal dance.

Sam couldn’t move for the wonder of it all. Itwas heavenly, gorgeous, and peaceful. He didn’t

RAYS 03 21

After DyingPart 2

Mystic Light

22 RAYS 03

even know or notice that they had slowly descended to the foun-tain. He looked into the pooled water. The bottom was coveredwith shining gold coins, which somehow seemed to be tiny smil-ing faces.

“Just like people do on Earth,” Sam thought.The central building far in front of them was the Parliament. It was

massive and majestic. The very structure suggested power—heavystrong walls, through which colors circulated, and a peristyle of power-ful columns. The building had twelve sides, each presenting huge gates,rounded on top and decorated by one golden sign of the zodiac. In front ofeach gate stood an Angel with a flaming scepter.

Jenny told Sam to sit under a graceful linden tree, facing the buildings.“The one on the left is the Universal Bank,” Sam heard Jenny’s voice.

It was an stunning sight. The building was floating in the mist of a cloud.Its sides were constantly moving, while keeping the overall shape intact.Waves of glitter and colors were passing through the walls as if they werealive. The olympian-size structure was in the Corinthian style, with marblecolumns and statues outside and inside. The roof looked like it was on firewith glorious flames leaping high in the sky.

“And this one on the right is the Art Palace.” Jenny clapped her handsagain, fluttering and animated as a bird.

The building was entirely transparent. Sam could see clearly the playsbeing performed in it, a variety of concerts offering many styles of music,and spacious art galleries. The building seemed composed of formed air, amirage above a desert’s plain. Simultaneously he was hearing all themusic, all the recitation, all the singing, without one medium interferingwith any of the others, so that he was able to enjoy them all at the sametime.

“Incredible!” he exclaimed.Positioned around the facade were history’s most famous statues—the

majestic figure of the Apollo Belvedere, the harmonious Venus of Melos,Athena Palladium, Michelangelo’s David, the heroic Laocoon. Sam had

been assigned to write a school paper on the Laocoon. He

William

Blake, Illustration for E

dward Young’s N

ight Thoughts, D

over publications, Inc.

had studied it in books. Now it stood full size andin three dimensions before his eyes.

Sam remembered his strong desire while onearth to to see all these marvels of the world in oneplace. Here they were. He stood entranced beforethe bust of Nefertiti and the mask of Tutankhamun.

Then his attention was directed to a play.“It’ s Faust!” Sam jumped. “And this is the great

Geranowsky himself!”Sam could not believe his eyes. When

Geranowsky recited in the third act Sam fell to hisknees. His whole being was immersed in thedrama. For his mother was German. She had oftenspoken of German art and literature, for she wasan art teacher in her youth. She had nurtured inSam a love for beauty and culture.

The plays never ceased. Sam saw his favoriteplay by Oscar Wilde. Then he listened toMendelssohn violin concerto in E minor, played byYehudi Menuhin. Oh, Sam was really taken in.When Richard Burton opposed his king in Thomasà Beckett,he moved with him and recited withhim. How many times he had seen this film onEarth! His soul was lifted into the sublime. It wasjoy beyond recognition. But when Sam heard thevoice of Stephen O’Mara in Verdi’s Aidahe felt hewould never leave this place. He sang along,danced along, and played his violin in accompani-ment. This was the beauty of it, he could partici-pate without interfering with the progress of theopera. It was marvellous.

How long he was there he had no idea. For whenJenny touched his shoulder, she said:

“Sam, you have been sitting here for thirty eighthours. Let us move on. You will have years aheadto listen to the plays and operas. But you have toget familiar with other important things. I amgoing to take you now to the Universal Bank.”

Sam left unwillingly. He now learned that inPurgatory there is no need for sleep, or food. Hefelt no fatigue at all, even though he hadn’t eatenor slept for a long time.

A marble path surrounded by poplars led to theUniversal Bank. Walking along it Sam saw a flockof most unusual black and white birds which keptappearing and disappearing.

“This has a secret meaning,” Jenny whispered in

his ear. “They represent our debts which can betransmuted into credits by good deeds.”

There were many steps to climb, shimmeringquartz-like steps. The gold doors were figured withextraordinary skill. Once inside, Sam saw enor-mous crystal chandeliers hanging in the halls. Asthe two friends approached the entrance to themain hall, a heavenly bell rang. The marble herewas glowing in all tones of green. The colour hadan immediately soothing effect. On the wallsstrange images formed and dissolved. The soundof the bell echoed, passing back and forth in time.

“This is where the accounts of human lives arekept. Every good deed is deposited here as a cred-it. Every bad action is a debit. The words we speak,the feelings we emanate, the thoughts we create—they all go into our accounts as credits or debits,depending on their charge. Our state on Earth isclosely affected by the state of our heavenlyaccounts. People who have good (credit) accountshere, are fortunate on Earth. And people who haveno deposits in this bank are poor and unfortunate.”

“You mean that everyone on Earth receives onlywhat is his by merit? That people alone make theirfortune or lack of fortune?”

“Exactly. Nothing can come from nothing.Everything in the Universe is materialized from itsinvisible and prior counterpart. The swear words,lies, bad behavior, ill feelings, and destructivethoughts—they are all actual energies which aredeposited in the Universal Bank and at the endmaterialize as losses, impoverishing the peoplewho produced them. This law is especially applic-able for people who have broad public influence,such as TV programmers, movie stars, writers, andmusicians. When they promote ideas or languagethat corrupts, they will suffer the consequencesfrom introducing the negative influences into theworld. People are responsible for what they say,what they do, what they think...”

Sam was deeply moved. He wanted to see hisaccount. Immediately a Recording Angel appearedas if from nowhere. He was wearing a luminoussilver mantle and a diadem with a red gem in themiddle. Wisdom and compassion radiated from hiswhole being. The Angel pointed to the wall andinstantly it dissolved and a moving ethereal picture

RAYS 03 23

from the clouds in front of them appeared, show-ing a list of transactions long enough to circle theEarth several hundred times.

“This is the Records of Nature. You will exam-ine every transaction later under the supervision ofyour teachers,” said the Recording Angel. “Youwill do this for several years.”

Sam looked at it. Some of the transactions werein different colors. Some were in differentaccounts, sorted by year, by kind, and by impor-tance. Browsing through them Sam noticed a longlist of withdrawals, each for 50 cents.

“Wait. What is this for?”The answer appeared on the Records immedi-

ately. He saw himself as a teenager during a schoolrecess. He was with his classmates. When he spokehe peppered his speech with the commonly accept-ed crude expletives. As each swearword was spo-ken, the bank’s autocashier clicked a 50 cent debit.

“Oh, my God!” Sam was aghast.Holding his head in disbelief while looking at

his accounts, he saw small monkey faces accom-panying some of the entries.

Sam addressed one particular monkey whichwas making fun of him. “Why are you sticking outyour tongue?”

The monkey started laughing loudly. The livingwall, dissolving time and space, pictured Samlying to his best friend, whose girlfriend Samwanted for himself. He wanted the two to break up.

“Come on, Dave,” Sam was saying, “I saw herwith Mark the other day.”

David’s face turned red as a tulip. He was hurt.He looked hard at Sam, the silence between themfilled with trigger-sensitive explosive power.

Sam hadn’t meant to say such a thing. But it wassaid somehow. It slipped off his tongue. And it hada horrible consequence. The bond between Davidand his girlfriend was strong and they married lateron. But Sam lost his best friend. Ever since Samregretted this incident. But he never apologized orshowed his regret.

“I wonder what will be the payment for this?”Sam thought.

The monkey replied: “Someone will lie to you inthe same manner in your next life. Ha-ha-ha,” themonkey’s laughter filled the entire hall.

Embarrassed, Sam looked around. There wasnot a soul in the hall. Even Jenny wasn’t there.

Feeling already quite uncomfortable, his bloodsimmering and his heart beating faster, Sam saw inhis accounts a withdrawal of $12,000. “What isthat for!” Sam’s eyes flashed, troubled.

The Records showed him selling the house of awidow. She had financial troubles and had to sellher home. But Sam didn’t care and cheated her of$12,000, which he put in his pocket. He was veryhappy then. But the poor widow couldn’t pay herdebts and struggled for many years thereafter.

“Remember me?” asked the widow from theRecords.

Sam jumped backwards. She was not only a pic-ture image, but more alive than ever.

“You thought then that we would never meetagain,” she continued, “but here I am now.” Smiling,she disappeared, adding, “See you soon, boy.”

Sam needed time to think. He lost his wish tolook further at his accounts. He realized that soonhe would have many unpleasant encounters. Howmany times had he cheated, secretly robbed thecompany he worked for, manipulated contractsand deals to suit himself, often at the expense of

24 RAYS 03

Pen and ink, Marcia Malinova-Anthony

Freedom Rising from Sorrow

others.He only wanted to see the final balance. And

here it was, right before his eyes: Seventy-ninemillion, five hundred thousand units debt, forwhich one million dollars is to be payed!

“It can’t be!” he shouted, his arms waving angri-ly, his face flushed and contorted.“Seventy-nine million, five hun-dred thousand units...one milliondollars! It must be a mistake! I amsure there is a mistake!”

The Recording Angel appearedagain looking at him sympatheti-cally. He waited for a while, thenhe spoke calmly:

“Heaven never makes mistakes.People have no idea how theytransgress the Cosmic law.” Hecould not continue though, forSam impatiently interrupted Him.

“But how did the debt becomeso big?” Sam still did not believeit.

The Records of Nature from theclouds answered again: “Almostthree million life units for killinganimals by hunting; one millionunits for unkindness; one millionpollution units for lewd andvicious words; five million unitsfor smoking; twenty nine millionunits for flesh eating...

“Flesh eating! Everybody eats flesh.” Sam wasraving.

“That doesn’t make it right,” The RecordingAngel smiled.

At that moment the astral screen displayed thou-sands of angry domestic animals shouting at Sam:“Murderer! Murderer!”

Sam shivered from fear.The display continued: “...seven hundred thou-

sand units for dishonesty; nine hundred thousandunits for pride and overbearing; three million unitsfor selfishness and prodigality; five hundred thou-sand units for cruelty and severity; two millionunits for laziness and avarice; one million forresentfulness, suspicion, vanity; eight hundred

thousand for abuse of power; one million forunforgiveness and revenge; four and a half millionfor passion; five hundred thousand for raising yourson....”

“My son!” Sam jumped. “I have no son!”“Oh, yes, you have, but you don’t know it!” The

Recording Angel’s face was stern.Immediately the Records dis-

played a house and a child playingbasketball in the back yard. Hehad blond hair, his eyes, nose andlips were exactly like Sam’s. Hewas about seven years old. Ayoung woman with curly hair anda slim figure was ironing inside.

“I don’t know her!” Sam’s facewas distorted by his unwillingnessto accept the situation.

“You met only once. Do youremember, the night club inBerlin?”

The computer responded, dis-playing a smokey hall, dim lights,and a dance floor. There she was,sitting at the bar, smiling at him,her white teeth shining in the mist.

It was too much for Sam. Hewas silent. Staring at the child,torn by pain, his mind brooding,

the voice of the Angel broke intohis self-absorption, “This is not all,Sam.” The Recording Angel point-

ed to the wall. “Look at the amount of your totalaccount for all your lives so far.”

“682 billion grand units! What the hell is this?”Sam’s face now was ghastly pale, even though hehad no physical blood. Fear engulfed him.

“How much is one grand unit?” His voice wasweak, almost inaudible.

“100,000 ordinary units,” the Records so indi-cating.

Sam felt that there was not enough air to breathe,not remembering he didn’t need air. His hand auto-matically touched his left breast. His heart wasaching.

“I have to remind you, that this is not all, forChrist payed fifty billion grand units of your

RAYS 03 25

Engraving, William Blake, Illustration for Robert Blair’s The Grave, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

The Soul Explores the Grave

debt when he took the sin of the world upon Hisshoulders.”

Now Sam sank in his seat. When finally he was ableto continue his inquiries his voice was broken: “Howfor goodness sake am I ever going to pay all this?”

“For the moment you have to worry about yourlast life only. A time will come when everyone willbe required to pay his entire debt. But for now letus concentrate on the debt of your last life.” TheRecording Angel smiled.

For the first time Sam felt some kind of relief.“Wait a minute. How did I end up with one milliondollars debt?” Sam still wanted to know.

“Let us see. Do you remember that you droppedout of school so you could be eligible for socialsecurity benefits, which you received for threeyears?”

“So what? Everyone does it. The governmentpays this money. I didn’t steal it!”

“Yes. But don’t forget that humans are answer-able first to the Cosmic law, and here in Heaventhat action is viewed as transgression. You wereyoung and strong and capable of working for yourown keep. But you preferred to slack and live onthe dole at the expense of society. In this manneryou incurred about a $50,000 debt. Let’s see fur-ther... Here you claimed compensation by simulat-ing disability and received nearly a quarter of amillion. That is another debt to be payed.”

“How can I possibly pay one million dollars!”“You will pay part of it in your next life.” The

Recording Angel was gentle, but firm. “You willwork hard but will have to go through bankruptcyand experience many losses throughout your life.You will have several court cases, including oneinvolving the poor widow, and you will be forcedby law to pay back everything you took from oth-ers. You may also be sent to a labor camp andforced to stay there for...let’s say fifteen years withno compensation whatsoever. You will have to doa lot of good to transmute part of this debt.”

Sam felt angry, frustrated, and ashamed.Somehow Jenny was still out of sight. He was veryconfused. He started remembering some not verydignified events of his life. How many times heswore at his mother, his friends, and strangers.“Oh, poor me!” Offensive words and heartless

deeds, acts of anger, of hatred—now they allsurged forward, vividly real, cutting into hisawareness, each with its judgment of wrongdoing.

Reading his thoughts the Recording Angel said,“Some of this you will pay for here in Purgatory.You have to live the effects of your conduct onEarth. You will be feeling the hurt and harm youcaused others by your words and actions, and evenyour thoughts. The pain you feel, their pain, will bal-anceout your wrong and teach you what not to do.”

Sam remembered how tricky he had been andwhat pride he took in his deceptions. But he felt nopride right now. He wished he had never donethese things.

Jenny reappeared, but stood aside for a while.She knew what was going on in Sam’s soul.The Recording Angel said gave a farewell andvanished. ❐

—Marcia Malinova-Anthony

26 RAYS 03

REST IS HARMONIOUS ACTION

Rest is the storage battery that supplies the

power to run the dynamo of action. Life is per-

petual motion and too high tension soon snaps

the circuit. High tension is often necessary for

brief periods of time, but there must be frequent

respite for resuscitation.

Everybody must rest, recreate, vacate once in

a while. This rest should be actual, not imagi-

nary. Keep up some activity, but let it be differ-

ent, invigorating, harmonious. So many people

take a vacation, so called, but it is really of no

benefit to them. They fret and stew and worry,

make hard work out of what should be pleasure.

A real vacation, real recreation, actual rest, is

found so easily. Surcease from thought of busi-

ness, and earnest, enthusiastic interest in doing

something or going somewhere different—out of

the ordinary; no worry, no trouble, only willing-

ness and capacity to see everything from the

bright side, and perfect harmony in every

thought and action; that is rest, real rest, true

storing up of power and, energy to again jump

into the rapid stride when necessary. We all gain

so much from our vacations when we know that

rest is harmonious action.—Max Heindel

IN THE BEGINNING there was no thing—no earth, no sky, no sun, no stars, no space, notime. But there was God—which meansSpirit. As God looked around at the spiritswithin himself, he noticed a group of spirits

who did nothing but sit and watch cosmic videos ofGod’s thoughts. God said to himself, “These beingsare turning into couch potatoes. They have morepotential than that. I need to send them on a journeythat will enable them to become heroes.”

So, God created space. Not a boring old space, buta beautiful space—a space filled with His life-givingenergies flowing in intricate patterns in all direc-tions—energies that could give life and warm heartsand enlighten minds and inspire artists (although therewere not yet any hearts, minds, or artists around).

Then God created an earth in His space, andplaced the former couch-potato beings on this earth.Where the earth met the surrounding space, a patternof energies was formed. But still the creatures justsat where they were because there was nothing thatrequired them to change. So God set the earth intomotion in great sweeping arcs through His space.Now, as the energies of space swept over the earth,the creatures joined in the motion. Thus, time wascreated.

Now there were creatures living on an earth andenergized by constantly changing energy patterns. Itdidn’t take the creatures too long to figure out thatthey could make use of the energies and do creativethings. The only problem was that the things theydid were often destructive—and havoc soon reignedon the earth.

God saw all this and decided he needed to havesome negative reinforcement for the destructivebehavior of the creatures, so He created pain. Any

damage to a creature’s body caused that creaturepain. Creatures then, at least, started trying to protectthemselves from being damaged. The creaturesgradually also learned that in a society whateverrules apply to one must necessarily be applied to all,and thus if one does not want to be hurt, then he orshe must not go around hurting others.

Unfortunately, some creatures began to take onthe attitude that the way to avoid pain and sufferingwas to do nothing that was not absolutely necessary.Food, clothing and shelter were absolutely necessaryto avoid the pain associated with hunger, thirst, cold,heat, etc. But once the creatures had those things,some were satisfied to sit down and be couch pota-toes again, which was not God’s idea of what a heroshould be. So God created tests in the game of life,which would test whether the creatures had suchqualities as courage, initiative, problem-solving abil-ity, creativity, responsibility, and unselfishness. Therewards for those who passed the tests were thingslike spears with healing power, elixirs of life, andmystic marriages. To inform the creatures about thetests and the rewards, God created myths which toldthe creatures what they needed to do to get therewards. And the myths did inspire the creatures,and one by one they began to become heroes.

And God said, “It is good.” ❐—Elsa Glover

RAYS 03 27

The Creation of Heroes A Myth

Mystic LightD

ieB

ibel in Bildern, Julius S

chnorr von Carolsfeld (1789-1853)

HERE IS A MOST REMARKABLEaccount about a child and wild ani-mals, which will give you an idea ofwhat will be done in the future.*SomeHelperswent to the northern part of

South America to help some white people wholived in an outpost in a garrison on the edge of thejungle. The weather was very warm and the chil-dren were playing inside the yard by electric light.It was early in the morning but the people were up.

One of the children had a mountain lion and wasplaying with it. One child had a pet monkey, anoth-er had a hairless dog. A fourth child had a strangeanimal that the Helpers could not identify. Thisanimal was about the size of a police dog. The chil-dren and the animals all played together. The mon-key was riding on the backs of all of them. One ofthe Helpers was so amazed at these animals that hehad to take a good look to make sure just what wasgoing on, for he was much surprised. He asked thegirl who had the mountain lion to line up the ani-mals side by side.

“Oh, we do that all the time,” she said, “in play-ing soldiers. They are the cavalry.” She called eachanimal by name and they came to her. “We aregoing to play soldiers, so you line up,” she toldthem.

The animals lined up and the monkey got infront like a captain. “Forward march!” the littlegirl said, and they went forward. “Trot,” she said,and they trotted along. “Break ranks,” she ordered,and they walked every which way, but kept neareach other. “Attention! Forward, march!” the littlegirl commanded, and the animals obeyed perfectly.

“Where did you learn all this?” asked the manHelper of the girl.

“I learned it from my father, who is the captainhere and from another man who drills the menhere,” she answered.

The child’s father came out to meet thestrangers, and the man Helper asked him where hegot such as assortment of playmates for the chil-dren.

“That is nothing strange,” the man replied. “Thepeople in the jungles have all sorts of pets, fromsnakes to monkeys. Most of them want lions andcatamounts. I would take you to the chief’s house,but it is dangerous to go there in the dark and wewould surely get killed.”

The Helpers talked to this man and he told themjust where they were and what his work was.“Where can we find the native Indian Chief?” oneof them asked.

The man told the Helpers where to find him andthen told them to wait until daylight for he had adetachment going to him that morning. TheHelpers told the captain that they could not waitand had to go. The captain was very friendly andhe told the Helpers more about the children.“Nearly all of the white children have some kind ofwild animal for a pet and their pets protect themwhen they go out. No one here kills the wild ani-mals unless they attack first, but the jungle is dan-gerous all the time.”

“Do not get off the path to make a short cut,” thecaptain said, “or you may step into a hole or nativetrap and be killed.”

“All right, thank you,” said the Helpers and theystarted off.

When they got outside of the gate they

28 RAYS 03

Animals and Invisible Helpers

MYSTIC LIGHT

*The Work of Invisible Helpers, Vol 2, by Amber Tuttle, is outof print. Copies are available on the web.

dematerialized and went to the Chief’s hut. Theyfound him drinking tea and smoking. They spoketo him and he grunted a greeting to them. The manHelper told him what they had come for.

“Do you think I am going to call my children up toshow you that they will mind me?” the Chief asked.

“I do not mean your children or anyone else’schildren,” the Helper said. “Imean the animals.”

“Mm!” the Chief exclaimed.“Are not the animals ouryounger brothers?”

The Helper said, “yes.”“Were you not told that I am

the Chief?” Again the Helper said,”Yes.”“Then the animals are my chil-

dren,” the Chief said.The Chief’s voice woke up his

daughter and she came into theroom dressed in a very prettypajama suit. She appeared to beabout twenty-five years old. Shespoke to the strangers in excel-lent English.

The Helpers told her what theywanted and she asked her fatherto call the animals so that thestrangers could see that theyobey. The Chief let out two yellsand it seemed as if all the beastsand reptiles in the jungle came tohim. There were even alligatorsand crocodiles among them. TheChief told the animals and reptiles to form a halfcircle with the largest is the back, and the animalsdid just as they were told. Just then, the Chief’sdaughter began to rock to and fro as if about to fall.The man Helper sprang and caught her.

“Oh, since I have been away to school in theUnited States of America, these things frighten meto death,” she said. “Please tell my father to leadthem away. I thought he was only going to call oneor two. The children have some of the worst onesfor pets and they take great joy is frightening mewith them.”

“Why don’t you live in town instead of here?”

the Helper asked.“I love my parents,” the Indian lady said, “and I

am teaching the children and the adults and I lovemy work. None of the animals or reptiles everbother me, but they follow me around if I don’tdrive them away.”

There were many different species of animalsnear the Chief. The lady Helperkept near her companion for shealso was afraid of the animals.“Go among them and makefriends with them,” he suggest-ed, and she just looked at him.“You don’t need to go unless youwish,” he said. She did not wishto go, and remained there.

The other Helper went up to acurious animal that he was unfa-miliar with and studied it care-fully. It looked as if it had a tailon both ends of its body. Heasked the Chief what it was.

“He eats ants and insects andis harmless,” the Chief said.“Nothing hurts it, for it eats antsoff of anything. We call him thebenefactor of the animals, butman has another name for him.”When the man Helper started togo farther in among the animalsthe lady Helper called him back.

“Go to sleep,” the Chief said tothe animals. “I am sorry that I

woke you up. Be good.” The ani-mals then went away.

“Do white men ever come into the jungle?” theman Helper asked the Indian girl.

“Yes, sometimes a traveler will attempt to gothrough the jungle alone, but he never gets out, forhe is killed by some of the animals or snakes,” sheanswered. “The natives do not disturb the animalsunless they do something to them.”

The Helpers did not meet the girl’s mother.“Come again,” said the Chief, and he went onsmoking his pipe.

“Goodbye,” said the Helpers and they went away.This story gives us a better insight into natural

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Fritz E

ichenberg, © by the E

state of Fritz E

ichenberg

The Peaceable Kingdom

conditions in the more remote places on the earth.We do not seem to realize that the animals are ouryounger brothers and they are evolving just as weare. The Angels and the Group Spirits are caringfor them and the animals do feel the spiritualimpulse that is radiating from the Earth.

We respond a little, but we should respond muchmore than we do. One reason why our bodies arenot more sensitized so that we can contact theinner worlds, and why we are not more receptiveto the higher teachings, is because we eat meat. Weare eating the bodies of our younger brothers.

One night a few years ago some Helperswere going over the northern part of North

America and they saw two very pretty half-grownpolar bears in a trap. Their hind feet were badlyswollen, but when the Helpers went to them torelease them they showed fight.

The Helpers called the Group Spirit and askedhim to quiet the bears so that they could help them.The bears became very gentle and the Helpersfreed their feet and rubbed their legs down. Theygot up and began to walk around. They tried to lickthe Helpers' hands and rubbed against them in afriendly way as the Helpers played with them. TheHelpers looked up and saw the Group Spirit of thebear who was pleased and said, “Thank You.” Hishead looked like a kindly white bear’s.

He told the Helpers of a man who was caught inhis own trap and had been there six hours. “If youhurry you may be able to save him,” he said.

The Helpers hurried off to find the man, and thebears followed them as fast as they could. The manin the trap was about a mile away from where thebears had been imprisoned. When the young bearssaw the man they became very fierce and theywanted to get to him, but the Helpers quieted them.They got the man out of his trap and found that hisleft hand was broken at the wrist. It was so badlyfrostbitten that he might lose it.

The Helpers asked the trapper where he livedand he said that he lived about five miles away.The Helpers tried to get the bears to carry the man,but they would not, so they had to help him home.When the Helpers reached the house carrying theman and followed by the two young polar bears,

the men in the house wanted to shoot the bears, butthe Helpers would not let them. One Helper calledthe Group Spirit of the Salamanders, or fire spirits,and told him to make the Salamanders withholdthe spark that ignited the powder in the bullet shelluntil they left.

The bears followed the Helpers right into thehouse and the lady Helper made them sit down ina corner while she and her partner worked on theinjured man, who had by then lost consciousness.Everybody kept out of the room where the bearswere. They just could not understand how theHelpers could handle the bears and make themobey them.

A hunter came in while the Helpers were there,and when he saw the bears he tried to raise his gun,but he was shaking so much from fear that the gunfell to the floor. Then the lady Helper went up tothe bears and sat between them and told the man topick up his gun and put it away as her ursinefriends there would not hurt him.

Then the Helpers explained their teachings tothe people, and one man said that the philosophywas good to know for then one could catch all thebears and seals one would want and sell them andsoon get rich. The Helpers told them that it did notwork that way and that the animals are our youngerbrothers and that humans should protect and helpthem instead of murdering them for material gain.Then the Helpers left and the bears followed. TheHelpers then departed from them also and went ontheir way.

A few days later these same Helpers went backto see the man who caught his hand in the trap.They found that he was much better but the skinwas peeling off his hands and feet and face wherehe had been frostbitten. The man Helper told theman to grease his skin with vaseline or goose fat.

The people were all very much interested in thelady Helper and asked her where her pets were. “Oh,they are out in the woods somewhere,” she said.

One man then spoke up and said that he had abear in a cage that she could not pet. “The bear hasa broken front foot,” he said. “You may fix it or doanything you can for it.”

The Helpers went to see it and when the ladyHelper saw the poor bear’s foot swollen and

30 RAYS 03

hanging limp she became angry and went to thecage and asked the man to unlock the door as thebear would not hurt anyone.

“You are crazy,” said the man. “I can get fivehundred dollars for him on foot.”

“This is one five hundred dollars that you are notgoing to get,” she said. “If you do not open thedoor I will break it open.”

“Go ahead,” said the man, for he didn’t think shewould try to.

She went to the door and snapped off the lock.Whereupon the man raised his gun. The manHelper told him to put his gun down as it wouldnot go off. He squeezed the trigger five times butit would not fire.

The Helper then opened the door of the cage andwent in and told the bear that she had come to healhis foot and set him free.

He was a full-grown polar bear with a beautifulwhite fur coat. When the Helper turned his footaround to set it, the bear moaned. She told him thatit would be over in a few minutes.

After the Helper set the foot, a ray of light wentfrom her to the bear’s foot and he licked her handand the people watched in open-eyed wonder andamazement. She then broke the chain off his neckand she and the bear walked out. The Group Spiritof the polar bears appeared and thanked theHelpers. The Helper started toward the houseand the bear followed her. She told him that shewanted him to behave himself, and the GroupSpirit said that the bear would.

When they got to the house, the Helper told thepeople that the bear would not hurt them. She toldhim to sit down is a corner and he obeyed. She toldall the people that if they must trap bears and seals,they should kill all animals that became injured,unless they could help them, and thus save themfurther suffering. “If you fail to do this you willnever catch another one,” she said.

“I want my bear,” the man said to her.“No,”she said. “Had you fixed the bear’s foot I

would have left him alone; but since you just lethim suffer, I am going to set him free.” Then shewent over and sat down in front of the bear andpatted his head and he rubbed his head against her.The people were astonished by her powers.

The Helpers departed with the bear, leading himfar away. Then they disappeared from him. Hestopped in dismay and looked around as if to say,“Well!” and then he lumbered on.

These stories describe real experiences and illus-trate the type of work that is being done by InvisibleHelpers in cooperation with Higher Beings and theGroup Spirits who guide and direct the animals.

One night two Helpers were met by two LaySisters, who explained that they were going

to take them to some Group Spirits and give theminstruction and information about the Memory ofNature.

“Through the ages man has gained much usefulknowledge for the benefit of plant, animal, andman,” said one of these Lay Sisters. This knowl-edge is stored in the highest region of the World ofLife Spirit in the true Memory of Nature. Thosewho can go there, or read in that region, can knowall that he or she wishes to know, as this knowledge

RAYS 03 31

Tracing of papyrus, Thebes, 19the Dynasty, in The Gods of the Egyptians, by E.A. Wallis-

Budge, 1904

Consecration by Horus and Set of Seti IEgyptian hieroglyphs frequently depict their gods as animal-headed humans, ascribing to them the attributes of these ani-mals. Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury, was shown with both anibis head and a dog head, the latter relating to the Dog Staror Sirius (Canus Major) and associated with the zodiacal signGemini, ruled by Mercury. Animal Group Spirits are arch-angels, described in The Work of Invisible Helpersas havingthe animal head of the specie they guide and a human body.

is used for the three life waves. The Group Spiritshave free use of this knowledge for their charges.Thus, they are able to guide them with wisdom thatbaffles man.

Man’s brain is like a filter. When it is clean byright living, right action, right thinking, and ser-vice to mankind and to his younger brothers, theplants and animals, he draws from the storehouseof knowledge. He acquires the information that heneeds in this way until he has gained spiritual sightand is taught how to read in the Memory of Nature.Then he can do good work.

Man’s lower desires and selfishness haveclogged up his filtering plant (reason), and he mustsuffer pain and sorrow until he learns to keep itclean and think and do right for right’s sake.

They all went to the place where the GroupSpirits abode. The Lay Sister told several of themost vicious Group Spirits that the strangers werefriends of their animal charges and that they mustobey them.

The lady Helper asked where the records of thelives of people were kept, and the Lay Sistershowed them the Borderland of the World of LifeSpirit. “The Lords of Destiny stay here,” she said.“The records of the people are kept in the fifthregion.”

The Helpers had a glimpse of those MightyBeings and saw hosts of Angels there. They sawthe scrolls of several egos. Some of these scrollswere large and some were small. The smaller thescrolls the more advanced the egos are. One has tosee this region to understand how the life recordsare kept. It is very interesting and wonderful to beallowed to see into the inner worlds.

Two Helpers were sent to help a young goatthat was about to be killed. The people had

a truck farm somewhere in Illinois and they werevery poor. They decided to kill their son’s pet goatfor food while the boy was asleep. The boy wasvery fond of his pet and had allowed it to go intothe house. It was a brown and white kid, ten monthsold. It was as affectionate as a dog and followedthe boy everywhere and understood what he said.

The Helpers talked to the people and pleaded forthe kid’s life. One Helper told them that conditions

would be better for them in a few days and the kidwould only make about one good meal anyway.The people promised that they would not kill thekid, and the Helpers disappeared from them. Theywere amazed by this encounter, and the Helpersknew that it would have a good effect on them, forit would make them keep their promise.

The lady Helper looked for the Group Spirit ofthe goats and he motioned for her to come wherehe was. She went there and put her arms aroundthis beautiful Group Spirit and he let out his aura,which enveloped her and extended out a great dis-tance. The other Helper saw only the GroupSpirit’s bright aura for a moment. The lady Helperwas a very happy person for the rest of the night.The next morning both of these Helpers plainlyremembered helping these animals and contactingthe Group Spirits.

The Group Spirits have charge of the animalsand they send out impulses to guide their chargesand influence them to do what is best for them. Thespiritual impulses are felt by the Group Spirits andthey in turn send out impulses to the animals toimpel them do better. Thus, the animals are guidedfrom without, as we were long ago before our egosbecame indwelling.

Group Spirits are very wise beings who belongto a different evolution from ours. They look likeArchangels, except that they have heads thatresemble the animals that are under their charge.These Group Spirits function in spiritual bodieswhich are their lowest vehicles. The Group Spiritsthat have charge of the birds gather their wards inthe fall and cause them to migrate to the south, nei-ther too early nor too late to escape the winter’scold. They direct their return in the spring, causingthem to fly at just the proper altitude, which differsfor each species.

The Group Spirit of the beaver teaches hischarges to build their dams across streams at justthe proper angle. Bees are taught by their GroupSpirits to build hexagonal cells in which to storetheir honey, and snails are taught by their GroupSpirit how to fashion their houses in an accuratebeautiful spiral. All animals manifest the effects ofthe great spiritual influence that is at work in theworld. ❐

32 RAYS 03

IT is commonly assumedthat each individual soul hashad a beginning, but is nev-ertheless so constituted thatit is imperishable. This idea is

questioned by those who believe thatdeath ends all.

While there are a number of ways inwhich it is possible to demonstrate that deathdoes not end all, we are afraid that no amount ofargument will convince one who is not willing to beshown. You remember the parable Christ told aboutthe rich man and Lazarus, who dies, and when therich man desired that Lazarus be allowed to returnfrom the dead to warn his brothers, Christ said: "Ifthey will not believe Moses and the prophets, nei-ther would they believe if one rose from the dead."And that is the point. We have heard so-called sci-entists say that they would not be convinced of lifeafter death even though they actually saw a ghost,for having settled by reason and logic to their owncomplete satisfaction that there are no ghosts, theywould consider themselves suffering from an hallu-cination if they were actually to see an apparition.

Neither is it possible to give authoritative state-ments from the Bible. The word immortal is notfound in the Old Testament. Then it was said,"Dying thou shalt die," and long life was held outas a reward for obedience. Nor is the word found inthe four Gospels, but in the epistles of Paul itoccurs six times. In one passage he speaks of Christhaving brought immortality to light through thegospel. In another he tells us that "this mortalitymust put on immortality." In the third passage hemakes clear that this immortality is given to thosewho seek for it. In a fourth place he speaks of our

state, "When this mortal shall haveput on immortality." In a fifth placehe declares that "God only hasimmortality." The sixth passage is

an adoration of the King Eternal,immortal and invisible. Thus the Bible does not by any

means teach that the soul is immortal, buton the other hand it says emphatically, "the

soul that sinneth it must die."Were the soul inherently and intrinsically imper-

ishable that would be an impossibility. Nor can we prove immortality from the Bible by

passages as John 3:16: "God so loved the worldthat He sent His only begotten Son, that whosebelieveth on Him should not perish but have ever-lasting life." If we rely upon that word to prove thatthe soul is without end, possessed of interminablelife, we must also accept the passages which statethat the souls are doomed to everlasting torment asclaimed by some of the orthodox sects. But as amatter of fact these passages do not provide a lifeof unending bliss or torment. If you will takeLiddel and Scott's Greek dictionary and look up theword, you will find that the word translated ever-lasting in the Bible is a Greek word, aionian, whichmeans “for a little while," "an age," "a little time,""a life-time." You will readily see that in the case ofOnesimus, concerning whom Paul writes toPhilemon, "for perhaps he therefore departed for aseason that thou shouldst receive him forever."This word forever could only mean the few years ofOnesimus' life on earth, and not infinite duration.

What then is the solution? Is immortality only afigment of the fancy and incapable of proof? By nomeans, but we must differentiate sharply between

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of the Soul

FROM MAX HEINDEL’S WRITINGS

Immortality

the soul and the Spirit. These two words are toooften taken as synonymous, and they are not. Wehave in the Bible the Hebrew word ruach, and theGreek word pneuma, both meaning Spirit, whilethe Hebrew word neshammah and the Greek wordpsyke mean soul. In addition to these we have theHebrew word nephesh, which means breath, buthas been translated life in some places and soul inothers, as suited the purpose of the translators ofthe Bible. And that is what creates confusion. Forinstance, we are told in Genesis that Jehovahformed man from the dust of the earth and blewinto his nostrils the breath (nephesh) and manbecome a breathing creature (nephesh chayim), nota living soul.

Regarding death we are told in Ecclesiastes 3:19-20, also in other places, that there is no differencebetween the man and the animal, "as the one diethso dieth the other, for they have all one breath,"(nephesh again). Thus is indicated that man has nopre-eminence above the beast and all go unto oneplace. But there is a very definite distinction madebetween the Spirit and the body, for we are told that"when the silver cord is loosed, then shall the bodyreturn to the dust whence it was taken and the Spiritto God who gave it." The word death is nowhereconnected with the Spirit, and the doctrine of theimmortality of the Spirit is taught definitely at leastonce in the Bible: Matthew 11:14, where the Christsaid concerning John the Baptist, "This is Elijah."The Spirit which had ensouled the body of Elijahwas reborn as John the Baptist. It must thereforehave survived bodily death and have been capableof continuity of life.

For the deeper and more definite teachings con-cerning this matter we must, however, go to themystic teaching, and we learn from TheRosicrucian Cosmo-Conception that the VirginSpirits sent out into the wilderness of the world asLight-rays from the Divine Flame, which is ourFather in heaven, first underwent a process of invo-lution into matter, each ray crystallizing itself intoa threefold body. Then mind was given, andbecame the fulcrum upon which the involutionturns to evolution, and epigenesis, the divine cre-ative ability inherent in the indwelling Spirit, is thelever by which the threefold body is spiritualized

into the threefold soul and amalgamated with thethreefold Spirit, soul being the extract of experi-ence whereby the Spirit is nourished from igno-rance to omniscience, from impotence to omnipo-tence, and thus finally becomes like its Father inheaven.

It is impossible for us with our present limitedcapabilities to even conceive of the magnitude ofthis task, but we can understand that we are a long,long way from omniscience and omnipotence, sothat this must require many lives. Therefore we goto the school of life, as the child goes to our schoolshere. And as there are nights of rest between thechildren's school days, so there are nights of deathbetween our days in life's schools. The child takesup its studies each day where it left off the previousafternoon. So also we, when coming to rebirth, takeup the lessons of life where we left off in our pre-vious existence.

If the question is asked why we do not rememberour previous existences if we have had them, theanswer is easy. We do not now remember what wedid a month ago, a year, or a few years ago. Howthen could we expect to remember so much fartherback? We had a different brain attuned to the con-sciousness of the previous life. Nevertheless,thereare people who remember their past existences andmore are cultivating the faculty every year, it beinglatent within each human being.

But, as Paul says very properly in the fifteenthchapter of First Corinthians, "if the dead rise not,then our faith is vain and we are of all men the mostmiserable." Therefore the neophyte who has passedthe door of initiation into the invisible world isalways brought to the bedside of a dying child. Hesees the Spirit pass out and is told to watch thatSpirit in the invisible world until it seeks a newembodiment. For this purpose a child is generallyselected which is destined to seek rebirth within ayear or two. Thus, within a comparatively shorttime, the neophyte sees for himself how a Spiritpassed out through the portal of death and entersphysical life again through the womb. Then he hasthe proof. Reason and faith must suffice those whoare not prepared to pay the price for firsthandknowledge, which is not to be bought for gold. Theprice is paid in one's lifeblood. ❐

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WILL YOU please give me some in-formation concerning the Manichees?In The Cosmo-ConceptionMaxHeindel stated only that they were ahigher order than the Rosicrucians.

The history books seem to indicate that they are extinct,and that St. Augustine belonged to them.Answer: Mani (or Manes or Manicheus) was born nearCtesiphon in Mesopotamia somewhere around 216A.D., and died around 277 A.D. His father is supposedto have been a member of the sect of “Baptizers.”Orthodox people do not admit that he was a Christian,but we believe that he was Gnostic Christian. Manicalled himself “I, Mani, the Apostle of Jesus Christ,”and said that he had come to fulfill Christ’s prophecy ofthe “Comforter” who would teach the fullness of Truth.He combined Zoroaster’s teachings and Buddha’steachings (probably also Taoism) with the NewTestament. Being a Persian he did not deem it neces-sary to become a Jew first in order to be a Christian.Hence Manicheanism did not have much to do with theOld Testament. Orthodoxy refuses to accept asChristian anyone who does not accept the OldTestament along with the New. Many early Christiansclung to their own scriptures; the Greeks and Egyptiansclung to Hermes Trismegistus along with the Gospels.

Mani evidently felt that he had solved the problem ofgood and evil and the nature of reality. His basic systemwas like that expounded in the gospel of Truth discov-ered some years ago at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. To thishe added the extensive angelology of the Persians—just as the Jews had done earlier. Aramaic was the offi -cial language of the Western Persian Empire, andAramaic is the Eastern dialect of the same languagethat Hebrew is the Western dialect of. In other words,the Persians had the same angel words as the Hebrews,in Aramaic, which was the language spoken by JesusHimself. Mani wrote in Syriac and Persian, and in

“code” or cyphers. Many Manichean books were dis-covered in the 1930’s.

The legend of the Light Elves and Night Elves men-tioned in The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception indicatesthat the Manicheans had undertaken to solve this prob-lem of the conquest of evil in just the way that MaxHeindel describes. However, the so-called Manicheanteachings on the nature of Truth and Reality were notoriginal with Mani. As said, they were found in theGospel of Truth, written somewhere around the middleof the second century, whereas Mani lived in the third.

Zoroastrian angelology is, of course, a true part ofChristianity and esoteric Judaism. There is no questionbut that during the Exile the Hebrew prophets inBabylon and Persia worked hand-in-hand with theZoroastrian Teachers. Even the Bible indicates that.

The exoteric Manicheans, however, are not the InnerMystery School of which Max Heindel speaks as evennow working on the chief problem of the JupiterPeriod. Just as The Rosicrucian Fellowship is the exo-teric preparatory school for the Order of the RoseCross, so the Manichean movement, including theCatharists and Albigenses of Southern France, repre-sents the external representative of a great MysterySchool on the inner Planes.

But virtually all of the basic spiritual concepts ofManicheanism are also to be found in Rosicrucianism,because these are, of course, universally and eternallytrue. Wherever minds are open to Truth, these conceptswill will be revealed. Only bigotry keeps them out.

So far as the Manichean cosmogony is concerned, thatis just a matter of science. It was partly based on “reve-lation” (reading in the Memory of Nature) and partly onexternal scientific discoveries. Modern scientists arereworking their cosmogony, modifying the NebularHypothesis, and making new discoveries in evolution,the nature of matter, etc. All of these changes will even-tually be incorporated into the religion of the Aquarian

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Who Are the Manichees?The Cross and Roses Meditation

READERS’ QUESTIONS

Age, which will therefore have a new cosmogony.Yes, St. Augustine was a member, but he never

entered the esoteric school. In Manicheanism there wasa very complete inner teaching, and this Augustine didnot get. He was one of the “auditors,” in the outerschool, similar to our category of “students.” He quar-reled with a Manichean lecturer on a matter of astrono-my, and then joined the Roman Catholic Church, intowhich, in fact, he had been born. His mother, Monica,was a devout Catholic and prayed continually for hisrestoration to her Church.

Due to bitter persecution from all sides, the exotericOrder of Mani was driven undercover, but theManicheans simply disguised themselves in any waypossible and worked from within the ranks of their ene-mies. Mani was crucified by the Persian priesthood,bigots and persecutors who did not like Mani’sChristianity. Mani’s Order existed in Europe and Asiafor more than a thousand years, and it may be restoredin some form with the next few centuries.

Question: What is the meditation on the black crossand the seven red roses?Answer: The cross in the early versions of theRosicrucian emblem was shown as black, including theoriginal cross planted on Mt. Ecclesia to commemoratethe founding of the Rosicrucian Fellowship’sHeadquarters. In referring to the Foundation Day cere-monies in his November 1911 Letter to Students, MaxHeindel writes: “We made a large cross of the samestyle as our emblem, and on the three upper ends wehad painted, in gilt letters, the initials: C. R. C. These,you know, represent the symbolical name of our greatHead, and designate our emblem as the Christian RoseCross, which conveys an idea of beauty and a higherlife so different from the gloom of death usually associ-ated with the black cross.”

In fact, the Rosicrucian Order, for which theFellowship is the authorized Preparatory School, isnamed after its Founder, Christian Rose Cross(Rosenkreutz in German), a name which, as stated inThe Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, embodies “themanner and the means by which the present day man istransformed into the Divine Superman. This symbol,‘Christian Rosen Kreutz,’[The] Christian Rose Cross,shows the end and aim of human evolution, the road tobe traveled, and the means whereby that end is gained.The black cross, the twining green stem of the plant, thethorns, the blood red roses—in these is hidden the solu-tion of the World Mystery—Man’s past evolution, pre-sent constitution, and particularly the secret of his

future development” (p. 519). The emblem has under-gone some evolution, including the conversion of thecross from black to white. In anticipation of the firstProbationer’s meeting on June 3, 1913, a Mt. Ecclesiacarpenter had cut out two crosses. Mrs. Heindel hadpainted one of them black with a white border on oneside and the reverse side white with a black border. ButMax Heindel said what was needed was a pure whitecross, together with seven red roses. The second crosswas, accordingly, painted all white. For this meetingMrs. Heindel affixed the white cross to a golden starwhich she had painted upon a blue curtain and fastenedthree white roses within a garland of red artificial roses.However, after the emblem was unveiled, the two whiteside roses slowly slipped down “as if invisible fingerswere moving” them, until they were held by a bottomleaf of the most beautiful central rose about two inchesbelow the lower limb of the cross. “The vibrations inthe room became so high that some were spellbound.Max Heindel attempted to rise in order to speak butwas so overcome that his voice failed him while tearsstreamed down his cheeks. All those present wereassured that the thirteenth Brother, ChristianRosenkreutz, was present in his vital body. After a fewwords from Max Heindel, all disbanded in silence.”

Thus the single white rose positioned at the crux ofthe four arms of the cross was confirmed. It signifies:(1) the indwelling Spirit (Ego) radiating its four instru-ments (physical, vital, and desire bodies and mind); (2)the etheric larynx that will be able to speak the creativeword; (3) for healing services it represents the heart ofthe invisible helper; (4) and, generally, it symbolizesthe aspirant’s ideal of purity of life, “the path of chasti-ty.” The five-pointed star symbolizes “that inestimableinfluence for health, helpfulness and spiritual upliftwhich radiates from every servant of humanity,” whichis the soul body, St. Paul’s soma psuchicon. The sevenred roses signify: (1) human blood cleansed from pas-sion, making possible the occult development of sevenetheric centers of the vital body, correlated with theseven ductless glands and; (2) the purification of thedesire nature, which promotes development of theseven centers of the desire body (see illustration in theCosmopp. 68-69), latent in most persons, but capable(as with the etheric centers) of becoming extrasensoryorgans, making possible various superphysical abili-ties—thus, in both above instances, occasioning theRosicrucian salutation: “May the roses bloom uponyour cross.” Since this composite emblem is nothingless than a symbol of God in manifestation, continuedmeditation upon it will richly inform the student. ❐

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THE CONCEPT of the VicariousAtonement has generated both contro-versy and confusion from the time ofits first enunciation to the present day.The doctrine of Vicarious Atonement,

that is, atonement by substitution, has raised manyquestions and prompted many objections, some ofwhich we will consider.

This doctrine states that Christ, the only begot-ten Son of God, came to earth, was incarnate in ahuman body, was crucified, died, and then rosefrom the grave. His sacrifice was accepted by Godas a propitiation for the sins of men. His pure pas-sionless blood was imbued with the power tocleanse men from their sins. To avail one’s self ofthe cleansing blood that remits sins and gain eter-nal life one must believe the doctrine as stated, onemust have faith in Christ’s power to save, and thenobey his commandments and do his works.

Questions and objections which this doctrine hasevoked include: Just what does the VicariousAtonement do for the individual and in what way?How can the death of one man, even though he bedivine, have any bearing upon the eternal salvationof another? How can we reconcile our ideas of aGod of Love with one who requires the death ofany man in order to satisfy what would appear tobe revenge for transgression of His law? How canblood have any cleansing properties?

Rosicrucian Philosophy provides an answer tothese questions somewhat as follows. The spreadof religion in all ages has been accomplished pri-marily through two agencies—the school ofknowledge, and the school of faith. The formeruses the mind as its most active instrument, and

through the aid of those advanced Beings who areguiding our evolution, come into possession at var-ious times of a certain degree of supersensible oroccult knowledge pertaining to the cosmic schemeof evolution and man’s part in it. This school isrepresented in the current era by various exotericsocieties such as the Rosicrucian Fellowship,behind which are corresponding esoteric Orders.

The school of faith uses the heart as its mostactive instrument. It accepts the doctrine of life andthe creedal system purveyed by its priests and min-isters. The doctrine of Vicarious Atonement is theprincipal dogma of the school of faith.

Upon investigation, we find that “living of thelife” is the essential feature of both schools andthat it matters comparatively little which agentinduces us to so live. We also come to realize thatsalvation is simply the opportunity to progress inour evolution and does not mean we obtain a tick-et of admission to some region of perpetual joy.

The school of knowledge asserts that the objectof the present phase of evolution is to “build theChrist within.” That is, we are to weave the vehi-cle that scripture calls the “Wedding Garment,”which humanity must begin to fashion if we are tocontinue evolving in the 6th and 7th culture peri-ods of this 5th Epoch. Building the Christ withinmeans developing the Intellectual Soul so it can beassimilated by and nourish the Life Spirit. TheIntellectual Soul is the concentrated wisdomextracted from the feelings, emotions, thoughts,and ideas generated by self-conscious living. It isbuilt primarily through the agency of altruism andunselfishness, undergirded by a purification of thedesire nature. These three attributes have largely

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The Vicarious Atonement

WESTERN WISDOM BIBLE STUDY

been made possible through the advent of Christ,who purified the psychic atmosphere of the earthby permeating it with his own highly evolveddesire body. The desire body of man can now becomposed of purer desire stuff than in the daysprior to Christ’s Incarnation in Jesus, thereby facil-itating right action and the avoidance of evil.Fortifying the Life Spirit, the Christ within,enables us to perceive “the fundamental unity ofeach with all,” since the Life Spirit is the spirit ofunification. Understanding this fact makes altru-ism both logical and mandatory.

After a conversion to the belief in the doctrine ofVicarious Atonement, the sincere convert immedi-ately begins to transform his life by practicing per-sonal virtue, resisting temptation, and by dailyengaging in charitable works and unselfish service.

As a result of self-discipline and the perfor-mance of good works, he achieves the same objec-tive as does a member of the school of knowledge;that is, he purifies his desire nature, he developsunselfishness, and, proportional to his fidelity andzeal, he begins to live from the promptings of theChrist within, and thereby attains a correspondingdegree of soul power.

Thus we see that the statements contained in thedoctrine of Vicarious Atonement are literally true:Christ did come to earth to save sinners; His deathwas necessary to take away the sin of the world,and in time the sins of men; belief in Christ doeslead to salvation, because it leads to living theChrist-centered life.

The fervor and spiritual exhilaration shown bysome orthodox Christians, insofar as they are nottransient emotionalism, are the bi-products of acommitment to righteousness. The Christ withinimparts a joy and consolation to the convert whohas an intuition of the presence of the Savior in hisheart, Who is bestowing upon him a personalbenediction for service well done. This is but a per-sonal response to an impersonal fact.

The doctrine of Vicarious Atonement is anincomplete exposition of the truth, simplified sothat it can be understood, generate faith, andinspire the spiritual novice to begin to live accord-ing to God’s law and will. The doctrine contains allthe vital elements needed for initial spiritual

growth. However, at some point in his evolution,the devotee of the school of faith will of his ownvolition want to begin to cultivate the mental sideof his nature so he may love creation and itsCreator with his mind as well as with his heart.

The doctrine of Vicarious Atonement givescourage to the faint of heart, since it conveys theidea that each has a Helper and Protector who isever present to lighten his burdens. And again, thisis literally true, for Christ now lives within theearth through the medium of his desire body anddoes lighten the burdens of his followers by mak-ing it easier for them to do right and avoid evil,than would be the case through their own unaidedefforts. He does not do this personally; the help isa global, ever-present, impersonal force, availableto him who seeks it. Subjectively or objective, itexists and provides the needed salvific power.

The error in the popular understanding of thedoctrine of Vicarious Atonement is the idea thatbelief or faith saves; whereas, in reality, it is theliving of a righteous life that achieves results—notfaith alone, or the truth of the doctrine which thisfaith embraces. In a word, faith without works isdead. In and of itself, belief is of comparatively lit-tle importance. The person who leads an altruisticand unselfish life, performing helpful deeds, doingfor others out of love, builds the Christ within,regardless of whether or not he knows of, orbelieves in, the existence of Christ. To be sure,there are disadvantages connected with agnosti-cism, chief among which, perhaps, is the appear-ance of illusion upon entering the spiritual worldafter death, and the relative difficulty of obtainingone’s poise in that world. But eventually the con-structive work done in a good life will remove thishandicap. Thus we see that persecution for heresy,in this instance regarding an occult view ofVicarious Atonement, is founded upon a misunder-standing. Sadly, such dogmatism in the past hasgenerated tremendous conflict and bloodshed.

Eventually, the two schools of spiritual develop-ment—the school of occult knowledge and theschool of mystic faith—will eventually coalesce.And, comparatively speaking, this convergencewill take place in the not too distant future. ❐

—A Student

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JOYCE COLLIN-SMITH, the author ofCall No Man Master, spent many yearswith a number of different teachers andtheir followers. Her experiences led her toaccept a basic motto, which stems by tradi-

tion from Pythagoras, who forbade his pupils tocall him Master: "I too am a student. Call no manmaster. The master is in yourself."

Collin-Smith’s book is described as “fifty yearsof spiritual adventures—in praise of teachers yetwary of gurus.” She accepted the Gurdjieff con-cept of humankind as a self-evolving species,where each individual needs to make continuingefforts to awaken from sleep and grow towardshigher consciousness—this being the purpose ofhumanity on Earth.

"In truth the Way is always your own. In solitudeand with an inward promise, you make the firststep, even if it is over a precipice of time and cir-cumstance, saying, For this I give myself. Andmiraculously you are caught in the arms of Fateand turned to face Reality."

L. Frank Baum reached the same conclusionfrom a different approach. A self-described "inde-cisive" author, Baum came from a well-to-do fam-ily whose estate was called, appropriately,"Roselawn." When he was a boy, his parents triedto cure him of his day-dreaming by sending him tomilitary school, but that attempt failed, and he wasreleased after suffering a seizure, which was diag-nosed as a "heart-attack." Wouldn't you suffer aheart-attack if you were a daydreamer and got sentto military school? Baum’s family supported andindulged him while he wrote whimsical storiesand dabbled in acting, playwriting, and theater-

management, finally creating the The Wizard ofOz.

Both Joyce and Frank Baum see humankind as aself-evolving species, where each individual needsto wake to higher stages of consciousness and cando so through the guidance of the Master within.

On September 22,* the Sun will reach anequinoctial point and enter the cardinal sign ofLibra. Equinoxes and solstices mark turning pointsor new beginnings and their cardinal nature isindicative of a focus of energy that initiates activi-ty. Initiate. Initiative. Initiation. You take the firststep. On the yellow brick road? Yes. For what? Forlife. For everlasting life. How do we attain ever-

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ASTROLOGY

*This article was given as a Chapel talk in September 2002.

Johfra, Courtesy of Ellen Lorien

Libra

Toward Freedom

lasting life? Through spiritual advancement, grow-ing toward higher consciousness in order that wemay adapt to the rarefied conditions which willprevail as we progress through the Aquarian ageand onward toward liberation.

In Atlantis the dense mist which enveloped theearth cooled, condensed, and flooded the variousbasins. The atmosphere cleared, and along with thisatmospheric change a physiological adaptation inman took place. The gill clefts, which had enabledhim to breathe in the dense water-laden air, gradu-ally atrophied, and their function was taken over bylungs, pure air passing to and from the lungsthrough the larynx. This allowed the spirit, untilthen penned up within the lump of flesh, to expressitself in words and daylit actions in order to gain theexperience needed to build the soul body, the somapsuchicon, the golden wedding garment.

According to Heindel, the most significantevents occur at the equinoctial and solstitial pointsas the sun moves into the four cardinal signs,Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. The Cardinalsigns are the signs of initiative and initiation..

The Autumn equinox occurs in the sign of theScales, a time of weighing, of measuring, of deter-mining values—and then acting on those values.Libra is the seventh sign and the first in the secondhalf of the zodiac. Whereas the first half repre-sents our early life and our self-development, theseventh house or sign represents our relations withthe outer world, particularly with other individu-als. It is the house of "the other," the spouse, thelover, the partner, the co-worker, the enemy, and itis in these relationships and the decisions that wemake regarding these relationships that we receivemost of our trials and opportunities for growth.

On one side of Libra, Virgo stands for generationin its primordial aspect as a spiritual function,which leads to regeneration—but only after itpasses through the scales of decision and values.On the other side of Libra, Scorpio requires a deci-sion regarding the use of the creative force—whether for good or ill, regeneration or degenera-tion—and thus confronts us with the choice of liv-ing for the higher or the lower self, of choosingbetween light or darkness.

Libra refers to the weighing of the soul, knowing

how to balance between the legitimate requirementsof the flesh (the animal soul) and the call andculture of the spirit. Without cultivating equipoise,no spiritual advancement can be made. Venus isthe ruler of Libra, but it is Saturn's exaltation inthis sign that makes this work possible, for Saturngives the capacity for law and order. It givespatience and deliberation, application, and resolu-tion—the qualities so necessary for spiritualunfoldment and to the expression of love in all ofour relationships with others.

Libra associates with the element of air. Its workcomes under the direction of the ArchangelMichael and his Hosts and is concerned, as St. Paulphrases it, with the renewing of the mind. In thewords of Heindel, from Gleanings of a Mystic:

Nature is the symbolic expression of God. Shedoes nothing in vain or gratuitously, but there isa purpose behind every thing and every act. There-fore we should be alert and regard carefully thesigns in the heavens, for they have a deep andimportant meaning concerning our own lives.

The intelligent understanding of their purposeenables us to work much more efficiently withGod in His wonderful efforts for the emancipationof our race from bondage to the laws of nature,and for its liberation into a full measure of thestature of the sons of God—crowned with glory,honor, and immortality.

The precession of the equinox, due to a wobbleof the Earth on its axis, refers to the sun’s vernalcrossing of the equator one degree backward inthe zodiac every 72 years—a motion which, inabout twenty-six thousand years, will bring thesun full circle to its earlier point of departure.This cycle is analogous to and bears evidence ofan evolutionary growth spiral.

Previous to the sixth century, the symbol of theChrist was a cross with a lamb resting at its foot. Itconveyed the idea that at the time when the Christwas born the sun at the vernal equinox crossed theequator in the sign Aries, the Lamb. The symbolsof different religions have their origin in thisastronomical fact. At the time when the sun, byprecession, crossed the vernal equinox in the signTaurus, a religion was practiced in Egypt in which

40 RAYS 03

the Bull was worshiped, analogous to our currentworship of the Lamb of God. At an earlier time,when the Norse God Thor drove his twin goatsacross the sky, the vernal equinox was in the signGemini, the Twins.

There was a dispute in the earlier centuriesregarding the propriety of having the lamb as asymbol of our Savior. Some claimed that the ver-nal equinox at His birth was in the sign Pisces, theFishes, and that the Christ’s symbol should be afish. Evidence of that dispute can be seen in thebishop's miter, shaped like the head of a fish. Theearliest Christians were identified by the fish, theGreek word for which, ichthys, served as anacronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.

Today the vernal equinox is about seven degreesfrom Aquarius. Since, technically, Earth is withinorb of the Waterbearer, we could argue whether weshould use the ciphers for Pisces and Virgo orthose for Aquarius and Leo. In about 500 years, byprecession, we will enter the sign of Aquarius. Weare in a time of transition.

1350 years before Christ, when the vernalequinox was in Aries, Akhenaten instituted amonotheistic religion, the worship of the Sun GodAten. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac. Numberone. Monotheism—One God. Those who haveseen the exhibit of “The Pharaohs of the Sun” mayhave noticed that the stylized sculpture of the headof Akhenaten looks like the head of the ram, com-plete with ram's horns as part of the headdress.

It is really and actually true that "in God we liveand move and have our being." Outside of Him wecould have no existence; we live by and throughHis life; we move and act by and through Hisstrength; it is His power which sustains ourdwelling place, the earth, and without His unwa-vering spiritual radiations the universe itself woulddisintegrate. We are taught that man was made inthe likeness of God, and we are given to under-stand that according to the law of analogy we havecertain latent powers which are similar to those wesee so potently expressed in the labor of Deity inthe universe. This gives us a particular interest inthe annual cosmic drama involving the apparentdeath and resurrection of the sun.

As above, so below. The life of the God Man, ChristJesus, was historically enacted in conformity with

the solar story, and it foreshadows in a similarmanner all that may happen to the Man God ofwhom this Christ Jesus prophesied when He said:The works that I do shall ye do also; and greaterworks shall ye do; whither I go thou canst not fol-low me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

So, what happens when we take that initiative—when we take that first step? When we succeed, wegain more freedom. We advance in our spiritualcapabilities. But do we increase our faculties,expand our consciousness? Maybe yes, maybe no.With our new-found freedom, we assume greaterresponsibility. We gain knowledge. Can we handleit—more freedom and responsibility? Moreknowledge? Knowledge carries added responsibil-ity and occult knowledge must always and only beused for altruistic purpose, never for personal gain.

When we take initiative and do not succeed, it'sa different story; we pick ourselves up, dust our-selves off and begin again. Sometimes we end updoing time—time in the wilderness. Or we get a"time-out," which gives us time to reflect and

RAYS 03 41

Oil on canvas, 1625-29, Gerard Seghers, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Repentance of St. Peter“We cannot trust too much in ourselves, for we often wantin grace and understanding.”—Thomas à Kempis

retrospect, to sort things out. We may seem to losea bit of precious time which sets us back, but if weare willing and able to be honest with ourselves,we end up wiser and we gain humility, and, per-haps, an ounce of compassion.

Can we be surprised that the Apostle who blun-dered the most received the keys to Heaven? WhenPeter, the outspoken disciple, objected to Jesus'foretelling of His impending suffering and death,Christ rebuked him, saying, “Get thee behind me,Satan: for thou savorest not the things that be ofGod, but the things that be of men.”

Pledging his loyalty unto death, in response toChrist’s words that Satan desired to sift him aswheat, Peter was told “the cock shall not crow thisday before thou shalt three times deny that thouknowest me.” We have been as earnest as Peter inavowing our good intentions, only to violate themand fall grievously short—and to weep bitterly forthe failure—and to learn from it.

Several decades ago, an author advanced a prin-ciple, an idea based on the observation that in hier-archically structured organizations new employeestypically start in the lower ranks, but when theyprove to be competent in the tasks to which theyare assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank.This makes sense.

If you do your work well, you get promoted.This process of climbing up the hierarchical laddercan go on indefinitely, until the employee reachesa position for which he or she is no longer quali-fied. At that moment the process typically stops,since the established rules of bureaucracies make itvery difficult to "demote" someone to a lowerrank, even if the person would be much better fit-ted and more happy in the lower position. Theresult is that most of the higher levels of an orga-nization will be filled by incompetent people, whogot there because they were quite good at doingdifferent (and usually, but not always, easier) tasksthan the ones they are expected to do in their cur-rent position. The term describing this phenome-non is called the Peter Principle, introduced in abook by that title authored by L. Peter. I hadalways thought that the Peter Principle referred tothe Apostle Peter, because while he was undoubt-edly a competent fisherman, he, as are all new

aspirants to the higher life, under-qualified for dis-cipleship.

A good question to ask is, do we learn morefrom our successes or from our failures? Do welearn more from our friends or from our enemies?Do we learn and evolve more from the things thatcome easy or from the really tough challenges oflife? In the secular world, it is suggested that if aspecies were to overcome all the obstacles in itsway then "the Red Queen Principle" would ensurethat new obstacles arose. The Red Queen principleis not a law of nature, it is merely a truism. If somespecies is ever fortunate enough to overcome all itsobstacles, then there is no reason why new obsta-cles should arise. Indeed many species have man-aged to survive, largely unaltered, for millennia,just because they have evolved to the point wherethey are fully able to cope with their environment.It is only when the environment changes, which itneed not necessarily do, that they will once againhave to start running just in order to stay in place.

If ever a species would overcome all its evolu-tionary problems, then the "Red Queen Principle"would make sure that new, more complex prob-lems would arise, so that the species would contin-ue to balance on the edge of its competence.

What the secular world calls the Red QueenPrinciple, we call God's Grand Design. The quar-ter of the year that begins with the Sun's ingressinto the Cardinal sign of Libra, culminates in theflexible, adaptable, common or mutable sign ofSagittarius. Every equinoctial or solstitial cyclebegins with the Sun in a Cardinal sign and culmi-nates with the Sun moving into a mutable or adap-tive sign.

The Centaur of Sagittarius, half man and halfbeast, represents the higher and lower natures ofman. The untransmuted or unredeemed elementsof the animal-soul, which retard spiritual growthmust be purified and finally transmuted. Thearcher, who has free-range because he has gained adegree of freedom, must aim his arrow of aspira-tion high—to the heavens.

The Archangel Michael endeavors to aid man inthe Great Overcoming. The symbolic image ofMichael as the dragon slayer possesses a planetaryas well as a personal significance, for the collective

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RAYS 03 43

evil of the race, every year, creates a miasmiccloud over the earth which, under certain condi-tions, may suggest the form of a dragon or serpent.Each year at the Autumn Equinox Michael entersinto conflict with this dragon-cloud, and each yearhe vanquishes it anew, slaying the evil cloud sothat the fresh inflow of the Christ's magnetic heal-ing currents can course freely through our planet.

In imitation of the Sun's ascent into the Northernheavens, the Candidate to the higher life mustlearn that his place is with the Father, and that ulti-mately he is to ascend to that exalted place.Furthermore, as the sun does not stay in that highdegree of declination, but cyclically descendsagain toward the Autumn equinox and Winter sol-stice to complete the circle again and again for thebenefit of humanity, so also must everyone whoaspires to become a Cosmic Character, a savior ofmankind, be prepared to offer himself as a sacri-fice again and again for his fellow men. ❐

—Elizabeth Ray

Librans—A Brief ProfileLibra is the turning point in the evolutionary

process. The nadir of selfness has been reached andin this sign, relationships involving cooperation areborn. This is the ‘union’or marriage sign of thezodiac, and the soul can no longer function in the‘me’ consciousness. It has to become the ‘we’con-sciousness. Now the soul has to balance the world ofappearance (the personality) with the inner world ofreality (the soul). Venus is the ruler of this sign, foronly through love and cohesiveness can true unionbe attained. The development of relationships is themost important attainment for the Libran. One of theLibran’s weaknesses is wanting to be all things to allmen. So great is their desire to be liked by everyone,they will not take a stand on an issue, even whenthey know it to be right inwardly. “Peace at anyprice,” is their motto, but sometimes the price is toohigh. When integrity is involved, it is well to be will-ing to pay the price. It is difficult for the Libran to begenerous for there is tenacity and Saturn is exaltedin this sign. Librans are very secretive aboutfinances and personal matters and will resent anyattempt to pry into their affairs. They have an exec-utive and legal type mind. Many lawyers have plan-ets in this sign. Librans are not the stay-at-hometypes like Virgo and Cancer. They like to travel and

explore horizons, either mentally or physically.Librans can work up a storm where other people areconcerned. On the surface there is a diplomacy andsweetness, but beneath the velvet glove is a fist ofiron. It is hard for a Libran to believe they are dom-inating and self-willed, but it is true. The esotericruler of Libra is Uranus. This explains a great deal.

There is a tendency to stay overlong in theparental nest due to a strong identification with themother. Because of a strong sense of duty andresponsibility it is difficult for the Libran to get awayfrom “the womb of the past.” This blockage causesdeep seated resentment which becomes strongerbecause it is unexpressed.

Librans are the diplomats par excellence for theyare friendly, outgoing, and interested in living life tothe fullest. Their desire for approbation is verystrong. In group associations they shine becausethey are tactful and conscientious, have a strongsense of justice and the will to do good. ❐

—Isabel Hickey(From Astrology, A Cosmic Science, published by CRCSPublications, Sebastapol, CA.)

St. Michael and the Blessed Virgin

© A

nna May M

cCallum

STUDENTS OF ASTROLOGY may, Ithink, be classed as truth-seekers, tryingto comprehend somewhat of the greatmystery of being, seeking to discoversome attributes of the Law-giver. Truth

is Law, and however dimly the mind apprehendsthe external workings of the planetary rulers, thefact of it having been focussed upon so mighty atheme must necessarily cause it to become wider,clearer, and more tolerant, contemplating a per-fectly ordered plan of life, majestic and mighty inits scope and yet perfect in the smallest detail—from the vast cosmic wheel of destiny, born out oftime and space, down to the tiny wheel of fate, rul-ing the little man born into time and space.

And yet the little wheel is fashioned on the planof the larger one, and the Great Man, eternal in theheavens, is the prototype of the little earthly man,made in the divine image.

Each man or woman forms in himself a tinyworld, or sphere, or zodiac, marked out into itstwelve signs or houses, the whole forming a circle,sphere, or egg—body, soul and spirit; and thusman is a star, or a world, in himself. He does notrealize this, even though he may know of it intel-lectually, because his soul is drawn downward bythe desires of the flesh and cannot therefore see theLight-bearer, the spiritual principle which dwellswithin the heart.

Indeed, many earthly pilgrimages are spent inseeking the external forms which are around himon every side, some of which attract with such anabsorbing force that he yearns to clasp the desiredobject, only to find it, when within his reach, life-less clay.

Desire for external things can but give external

experiences, but after many lives spent in this fash-ion the sleeping soul within bestirs herself andcries out for something satisfying amidst thechanges and vicissitudes of daily life. When thishappens, the soul is beginning to detach herselffrom matter and is seeking her true mate, spirit.

Men usually desire four things in life—Love,Wealth, Fame and Power; other things are usuallypushed on one side as being unpractical. How bestto get on in life, to get the most for oneself, is thevital question; and to (animal) man spirit and soulcan only count as something to be pushed awayand entirely forgotten, for as St. Paul says,“Spiritual things are as foolishness unto him.”

Even when a man has to a very great extent tran-scended the animal evolution, doubt yet exists inhis mind as to whether it is ‘legitimate’to lookbehind the veil. But as a matter of fact everythingis “behind the veil” until some daring investigatorbrings it to the front, and the spirit of truth followsno easy beaten track on a conventional road, butseeks to discover, if it may be, some law guidingevolution.

Spiritual development is an opening of the por-tals to that other world where spiritual conscious-ness is the breath of life, and the awakening of thespiritual consciousness means, literally, being borninto a new world.

Many today are seeking the soul’s deliverancefrom the bonds of matter, heartsick and weary,feeling that there is a spiritual life and a con-sciousness which transcends anything they haveyet experienced. But how to attain this conscious-ness? That is the crux of the matter. In the past, asin the present, seers and mystics have written wholetreatises on religion and religious experiences. But

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The Wisdom of the Stars

ASTROLOGY

any book, even if it be the greatest scripture inthe world, can only point out the way; we our-selves must tread the path if we would know. Inother words, we must seek for no outer “atone-ment,” but must realize that inner AT-ONE-MENT which is practically the New Birth thatthe Christ spoke of.

Three steps take us within the entrance of thetemple, but they are steep and difficult for theneophyte to negotiate. They are sometimescalled Pure Love, True Knowledge, and Self-Effacement.

Now the student of Astrology knows intellec-tually, even if he has not yet realized by innerexperience, that the real self is spirit, which spir-it is clothed upon by an organized form com-posed of spiritual substance, with parts like andcorresponding to those of the corporeal body;and he knows, too, that the change of vesturecalled death in no way transforms the mentalconstitution or changes the moral character.

The Wisdom of the Stars declares thatCharacter, Aspiration, and Harmony, in otherwords, conformity to Divine Law, are needed asa preparation for that mystic marriage of thesoul, by which she receives into the womb ofdarkness, called ignorance, the light-sparkwhich like a great searchlight, reveals her to her-self. “I AM THAT,” says the Hindu Yogi, hundredsand hundreds of times to himself. But though hemay know this as an intellectual conception, hewill never know it as an accomplished fact untilthe marriage of Light with Darkness, Life withForm, has been accomplished.

The light of the star—not the personal star of thehoroscope, but the star of the Monad or eternalSpirit—must shine forth, and the ‘Counterfeit ofthe Spirit’must drop away ere that mystic marriagewhich illuminates the soul can take place. Of thismarriage wisdom is born, in that supreme momentwhen spirit, soul, and body, become as one. Thetwelve Nidanas of Buddhism, that is the severalpowers of the twelve signs, become vivified, andthe man is born out of time into eternity: He hasbecome wise with the wisdom of God. For purematter and pure spirit have coalesced in that mys-tic “union” described by all the ancient writers.

Pure matter! The vestures must indeed be unsulliedto reflect the King in his beauty who stands withinthe Temple.

What has the Wisdom of the Stars to teach hervotaries concerning that moment when manbecomes as God?

Venus intones: Spotless purity must compose thewedding garment. Mars declares: Courage withinthe soul to do and dare. Mercury enjoins: Attunethe mind and then fix it on the Divine spouse.Saturn teaches: The neophyte must wear the jewelof Truth, whose luster alone can detect the pitfallsalong the way. Jupiter proclaims: Compassion andcharity must be the mantle which the candidatewho would become God-like must wear. Lastly,Uranus bids the pilgrim soul break his staff inpieces and lean only on his own strength; to suc-ceed in this aim, nothing outside can avail him.

“Within thyself deliverance must be sought,”

RAYS 03 45

a

b

cla

b c d e fg

h

d e

fg

h

i i

0 0

k k

l l

When Christ entered the Earth through the agency of Jesus’blood, He provided man with a new planetary prototype. Nowhuman individuality is membered into the Cosmic Body of Christ.

says the Light of Asia, and it is for this deliverancewe are all yearning within the prison-house of thebody, whether we know it consciously or not. Thedeepest study of the stars should surely teach us soto live that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

To the true student of Astrology no thought cansurely be too high, too “transcendental,” for thestars, those mystic lamps of heaven, themselvesare transcendental, and the angels of the stars areever concerned with the spiritual development ofmortal men and women.

Do we waste our time studying a philosophy thatis not of the earth? Folly, is it, to try and becomewise with the wisdom of God?

After all, the only wisdom any man can strivetowards is the knowledge of God. That we do notknow the Father is the proof of our ignorancetoday, and if it be true that in Him we live andmove and have our being, then how dark must bethe vestures that shut us out from His light and Hislove!

Jacob Boehme declares that Mercury, or thelight-bringer, travails in the womb of Saturn, wait-ing for her day of deliverance. Saturn is Form andLimitation—separateness has been brought aboutby his influence. Time and Space are conditioned,more or less, by his ruling. But when Mercury, orthe child (which means the young Christ), is bornout of the womb of Saturn, then Time and Spaceare not, so far as his transcendental consciousnessis concerned; the Man of the Hour, or the person-ality, and the Immortal Man, wrought out of theindividuality, must have reached atonement. Thestudent of Astrology has only approached the firstletter of the alphabet which spells self-knowledge;but even that self-knowledge is and can be only ofthe little self. When we have mastered the last let-ter of the wisdom of the stars, we shall havebecome adepts, or Masters of Wisdom.

What is the reason that we are all content to beignorant? If we believe that God exists, why do wenot find Him? It is because the nucleus of theChrist has not yet been formed within us: themystic union has not taken place. Our desire-nature gravitates to matter, the counterfeit of spirit.We are all in love, more or less, with ourselves,and therefore we do not want God.

It is true that we talk of Him in our churches andwe sing His praises, but we all deny Him in ourlives. When we can love for love’s sake only, anddesire wisdom for its own sake alone, then we aregetting ready for that mystic union from which theChrist is born, the Divine child of a Divine father.

The little wheel of life, the horoscope, is a guideto tell us where we stand in the pilgrimage of evo-lution, and how we can best acquit ourselves in thebattle of life—which of our garments is soiled anddiscolored, what we can best do with the materialwe have brought with us. To the earnest studentwho tries to understand by the symbology some-what of God’s wisdom, it gives the clue to thatcenter of consciousness which is most developed;it points out the line of evolution on which the soulhas travelled in the past, and which has thusbecome the line of least resistance in the present.

As I have said before, a knowledge aboutAstrology will not make a mystic or a saint, but thepractice of Astrology in our daily lives will. ForAstrology is one of the roads to the Temple ofWisdom, and suits the occult and mystic nature,the thinker and profound philosopher. It cannothelp either “psychics” or “mediums,” for theknowledge of Astrology must be apprehended bythe mind—the lower mind for its lower mysteries,and the higher mind, or pure reason, for the highermysteries.

The pure mind alone can fathom cosmicAstrology and follow the sweep of our SolarLogos, for an understanding as mighty as thisrequires a consciousness apart from the brain.

The great Seers and Adepts of the past saw withthe eye of the mind and were called Illuminati.They have given us a few isolated facts touchingworlds and world periods; cycles and cyclic revo-lutions. But the mystery of Astrology, like all truewisdom, can only be grasped by an unfolded con-sciousness as mighty as the truth it would embrace.

While we are yet within the Circle of Necessity,we see as“through a glass, darkly,” and that may becalled our fate; but our destiny is to know. For theWisdom of the Stars remains the same today,tomorrow, and for ever: God’s history written inthe sky. ❐

—Bessie Leo

46 RAYS 03

IT IS TO THE LORDS OF LEO that weowe our dense body, the temple of theindwelling Ego and the instrument used bythe Divine Spirit in building the ConsciousSoul. It is the Lords of Wisdom (Virgo) who

gave us the germ of the vital body, that radiantbody of ethers used by the Life Spirit in buildingthe Intellectual Soul. But this is only one phase ofthe manifold service rendered to our life wave bythe Lords of Wisdom who, through that service,have risen to the place of greatest responsibilityamong the seven Creative Hierarchies now work-ing actively with man. Thus, they demonstrate tous the cosmic principle of service, as enunciatedby the Christ when He said, "He that would be thegreatest among you, let him be your servant"(Matthew 23:11). In the Bible, the Lords ofWisdom are called Dominions(Col 1:16).

To analyze the part played by service in theDivine Plan would be to lay bare the hidden threadsthat bind all orders of evolving beings together.

Service in the cosmic sense is at first uncon-scious, as in the case of the mineral kingdom,which gives of its substances to build the physicalvehicles of plant, animal, and man; and the plant,which gives its dense and vital bodies to sustainthe lower vehicles of animal and man.

The animal also serves by giving up its body tofeed others of its own life wave, as well as by giv-ing food and raiment to human beings—but onlyunder compulsion: when overcome by the superiorstrength or agility of other animals ,or by the inge-nuity of man.

Man himself has passed the stage when he needs

to give his vehicles in this way to sustain the lowervehicles of those above him on the ladder of being,but he is incurring a debt to the life waves beneath him,which he will some day recognize and gladly pay.

The service which man renders to his fellowmentoday is also given largely under compulsion ofone kind or another; but one by one we laggingchildren of Earth shall respond to the love call ofHim who is the "Servant of all" and will learn intime what is the "breadth and length and depth andheight" of service as God knows it.

Each of the three so-called "Mother" signs—Taurus, Cancer, and Virgo— is bound up with theChrist Mystery, with the involvement of life inform and the sustaining of the form. The varyingaspects of Nature under the three signs give us aclue to the part which each plays in the CosmicDrama: under Taurus, the joyful growth of spring-time; under Cancer, the rich flowering of summer;under Virgo, the fruitage, the harvest. Thus it is

RAYS 03 47

God’s Message Through the

Astrological Sign Virgo

ASTROLOGY

Courtesy Monsignor Rauch, Ostkirchliches Institut, Regensburg

Mother EarthThe celestial Virgin (Virgo) in her cosmic aspect as Motherofthe Earth’s bounty, resulting from the action of the life ether,is the basis for the plant kingdom and all life processes.

under the Virgo Ray that Nature gathers in thefruits of her labors and stores them away to serveas the nucleus for a new cycle of experience.

In the physical body of man the Virgo Rayworks through the intestines to perform the func-tion of assimilation, which is a process of selectionand absorption.

Do we not find in all of this a clear indication ofthe work to which God calls us during this solarmonth, while the radiations of the Lords ofWisdom are being focused upon us? The assimila-tion of experience! Mercury, the planet of Mind, asmessenger of Virgo, lends his ray to help us checkup on the use we have made of the Christ Impulsesent forth at the Vernal Equinox, and helps us todevelop the discrimination needed to analyzeand classify our findings in accordance with theprinciples of Truth.

It is through the use of discrimination in thispractice of retrospection, analysis, and classifica-tion, that the fruit of experience is assimilated andabsorbed. This work affects strongly and directlythe vital body, the germ of which was projected tous by the Lords of Virgo from their own being.

The vital body, with its constitution and correla-tions, offers to the neophyte a field of spiritualresearch which can hardly be equaled in richnessand importance, for this instrument, through themedium of the four ethers of which it is composed,is used by the Ego as a sort of clearing housefor all its activities. Its correlation to the work ofthe Virgo Ray will be obvious to the person whoanalyzes that work.

As the instrument of the Life Spirit, the ChristPrinciple in man, it also gives us a clue to thediversified character of the work done by theChrist Principle, both in man, the microcosm, andin nature, the macrocosm. It is a work that binds alldepartments of our being together, as it binds allthe departments of Nature together, by establishinglines of intercommunication which reveal theirinterrelationship.

In Virgo we find the mental ray of Mercuryblended with the love-ray of the Christ to accom-plish the work of assimilation. This tells us that themagic touch of the Eternal Feminine, the Love-Wisdom Principle, is as necessary to the building

of the Intellectual Soul as it is to the building of thephysical form we occupy. Therefore, in the retro-spection and analysis of our experiences, the men-tal quality of discrimination must be backed up bya strong devotion to the ideals of Purity and Truth,if the desired results are to be attained.

It is through persistence in such intelligent anddevoted work as this that the mind graduallybecomes invested with the creative power of theChrist Principle, and we grow toward the ideal setbefore us by Virgo, the Virgin mother, the "Womanclothed with the Sun [Spirit] and the Moon [Form]under her feet," as mentioned in Revelation 12:1.

And now, a few keywords. A first keyword canbe discrimination.

The twelve great Hierarchies of the NaturalZodiac serve in God's Plan with every bit of powerthey have. All of them have served us, God's Earthchildren, and still are helping us in our climbonward and upward on the Ladder of Life. Why doyou suppose Virgo is set apart as the sign of service?

It is because the Lords of Wisdom, who workthrough the sign Virgo, help us to learn what service

48 RAYS 03

Alkmini Karavis, 1997, icon owned by the artist, Patmos, Greece

“A Great Wonder in Heaven”The World Mother or Cosmic Feminine Principle, the heartor Love-Wisdom aspect of God, haloed by the twelve zodia-cal constellations, clothed in the sun of Spirit, and mistressof the forces of form (Moon under her feet), protects child-like humanity (she is with child) from the forces of desire onthe macrocosmic level until the Christ power is formed incollective mankind. The Chi Rho mudra gives benediction.

means in our own lives, also the part it plays in theworking out of God's Plan. Through their messen-ger, Mercury, they help as to find our particularwork in the world, help us to understand the valueof our physical body as the instrument throughwhich that work must be accomplished, and urgeus to take care of it as any good workman wouldtake care of a valuable tool. We know that the suc-cess and comfort of our lives depend upon the suc-cess and skill of every worker in his particular fieldin performing the very simplest or the most diffi -cult task. So it is with the universe, only in a muchmore wonderful way.

The Virgin Spirits in each life-wave progress inknowledge and power by serving one another; thenevery life-wave serves and is served by the life-waves above and below it. They cannot get alongwithout one another, because each one plays animportant part in the life of the other.

The plant builds its body from the mineral sub-stance of the earth. Man and animal use the plantsas food and build this mineral substance into theirbodies. The vibrations of the mineral life-wave arebeing raised by this important service to the threelife-waves above it, and the Virgin Spirits of the min-eralsare being helped toward their first awakening.

Man is working with the mineral, plant, and ani-mal life waves. Some of this work is constructiveand some destructive, but it all carries its resultsinto the future to be balanced. What do you thinkare some of the ways in which man has workedand is working with these three life-waves?

In earlier Periods the three life-waves above usworked with us in ways that helped them to gainknowledge and experience while helping us toawaken. So we can see how closely all God's chil-dren, who are developing in the same evolutionaryplan, are bound together by service.

All life-waves above man serve wholeheartedlyand joyously because they see the wonder andbeauty of the light that lives in every form, andcannot help but love it. We stand at the pointbetween the unconscious service of the lower life-waves and the willing, loving service of thoseabove us. Before we can enter this higher class, wemust learn to love that Divine Spark of God hiddenin every living thing, and love it enough to serve it

eagerly and joyfully under any and all circumstances.We call this devotion, which is the heart keywordof Virgo.

There is a right and a wrong way to serve, andthat is why Mercury, as messenger from Virgo,calls upon us continuously to keep a wide-awakemind and to discriminate between the true and thefalse service. So discrimination, which is the mentalkeyword of Virgo, is our best guide to the trueservice that we want to give our fellow-travelerson the road of evolution.

A second keyword is devotion. Devotion is acomplex trait. It involves steadfastness, compas-sion, unselfish idealism, and intensity. It can beturned to good or ill, for it is bound up with emo-tions. Prayerful devotion can lift a person to greatheights—to the very throne of God. Devotion to alofty ideal can, in time, bring about the successfulachievement and expression of that ideal.

Devotion must be sought and cultivated. Manypeople are not yet capable of devotion; or, theyhave simply not tried to nurture this splendid char-acteristic. Some day, however, all mankind willunderstand the significance of devotion. Everyonewill understand how all our traits merge into One,which is the expression of All in all. They willknow that the perfection of each worthy traitrequires the perfection of all others. Completeunselfishness, for example, assumes perfect love,and perfect love requires constancy. It alsorequires courage, cooperation, sympathy, andunderstanding. Out of this comes devotion to thehigh ideal of unselfishness, or self-less-ness.

When we come to that point in our evolutionaryjourney where we are ready to devote our entirelives to the service of God in man, we will feelkeenly the need to employ all of the uplifting traits,and to express each one as much as possible in ourdaily lives. Then our worries and cares will ceaseto be worries and cares; the sources of our former"troubles" will become as interesting projects uponwhich to work.

If altruistic love is the aristocrat of our traits,devotion is her handmaiden—steady, strong devo-tion, in which gentle, feminine love is combinedwith virile, masculine strength. ❐

—Rosicrucian Fellowship Staff Members

RAYS 03 49

Imagine the human genome as music. UnravelDNA's double helix, picture its componentslined up like piano keys, and assign a note toeach. Run your finger along the keys. So beginsa report by Associated Press writer, Daniel

Woolls, in a January 18, 2003 news release fromMadrid, Spain. Woolls continues: Spanish scientistsdid that just for fun and recorded what they call anaudio version of the blueprint for life.

The team at Madrid's Ramon y Cajal Hospital wasintrigued by music's lure—how it can make toddlersdance and adults cry—and looked for hints in thegenetic material that makes us what we are. They alsohad some microbial genes wax melodic.

The end product is "Genoma Music," a 10-tune CDreleased in February. "It's a way to bring science andmusic closer together," said Dr. Aurora Sanchez Sousa,a piano-playing microbiologist who specializes infungi.

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is composed of longstrings of molecules called nucleotides, which are dis-tinguished by the sequence of the four nitrogen-con-taining bases they contain: adenine, guanine, thymineor cytosine, represented as A, G, T and C. Thesebecame the musical notes.

French-born composer Richard Krull turned DNAsequences—a snippet of a gene might look like AGCG-TATACGAGT—into sheet music. He arbitrarilyassigned tones of the eight-note, do-re-mi scale to eachletter. Thymine became re, for instance. Guanine is so,adenine la and cytosine do.

Played solo on percussion, classical guitar, or theother instruments used on the CD, the sequences wouldsound cute but rudimentary, the musical equivalent ofPacMan in an era of Microsoft Xbox.

So the alphabet soup of bases served as just that,

base lines to accompany melodies composed by Krulland his scientific colleague.

They say the melodies were influenced, even dictat-ed, by the mood and rhythm of the underlying geneticcode.

In general, the genome music is an easy-listeningsound that is vaguely New Age. One of the prettiestsongs is based on Connexin 26, a human gene thatcauses deafness when it mutates. The DNAskeleton isexpressed with tinkling bells and a flute melody doesthe rest.

Another song draws on a yeast gene known as SLT2.Sanchez Sousa, the main author of the project, is fondof the sequence because it features a stretch in whichone triplet of nitrogen bases appears several times inrapid succession—a repetitive phenomenon that has amusical equivalent called ostinato.

"This is a very sad part, but a beautiful one,"Sanchez Sousa said, wearing a white lab coat and wav-ing her arms like a musical conductor as she played thesegment for a visitor.

Seeking music in nature goes way back. In the 6thcentury B.C., the Greek philosopher and mathemati-cian Pythagoras argued that celestial bodies in rotationgave off pitched sounds that blended into a beautifulharmony he called "the music of the spheres."

The idea is that matter and its behavior—wheatfields shimmering and tongues of fire dancing—mayhold something intrinsic that can be transformed intomusic, said Dr. Fernando Baquero, head of microbiol-ogy at Ramon y Cajal Hospital.

Maybe that's why people like music: It's alreadyinside them anyway, so hearing it touches a piece ofthem, Baquero said. "When we like something, it isbecause we recognize it," he said. "It's funny, but to likeis to recognize."

50 RAYS 03

Microcosmic Music

NEWS

It should come as no surprise that all creation isa vast amalgam of sounds which are emitted by thekeynotes of each form issuing from its creativearchetype. For instance, as stated in theRosicrucian literature, there is in the skull at thebase of the brain a flame. It burns continually inthe medulla oblongata at the head of the spinalcord, and like the fire on the altar of the tabernacle,is of divine origin. This fire emits a singing soundlike the buzz of a bee, which is the keynote of thephysical body, and is sounded by the archetype. Itbuilds in and cements together that mass of cellsknown as "our body."

The composite of the human physical body hasits keynote, but it in turn is the synthesis of organsand tissues which also have their own organizingand identifying keynotes. We may assume thateven individual cells have their own sonic signa-tures or vibratory keys. This assumption has beenconfirmed by the regrettably unduplicated work ofRoyal Rife in the early twentieth century (seeNovember/December 1996 Rays). Rife was able tocure a host of pathogen-caused diseases by identi-fying their initiating virus or bacteria, finding itsvibratory keynote, and directing that same fre-quency upon the microorganism at an amplitudestrong enough to cause it to burst or self-destruct.Rife could immediately confirm the effect of pro-jecting this “mortal oscillatory rate,” the microbe’sachilles heel, by an in vivo viewing through hisquartz microscope, which magnified up to 60,000diameters. Rife determined the mortal oscillatoryrate (M.O.R.) for the cancer virus (which he calledthe BX virus), as he did for many other virulentmicroorganisms, including syphilis, polio, tuber-culosis, leprosy, pneumonia, typhus, and typhoid.The results he achieved from this technology werephenomenal. Tragically, his findings and accomplish-ments were buried by pride, greed, and ignorance.

Each material structure, at least in principle, is aJericho whose walls, whether cellular or cin-derblock, can be broken, given its signature vibra-tion. Which is to say that not only sound, but all seg-ments of the electromagnetic spectrum (sound beingthat segment which is experienced by the humanauditory structures) can both build and disintegrate.

From the building side of vibration, The Book of

the Hopi, subtitled “The first revelation of the Hopi'shistorical and religious world-view of life," (Viking1963) contains a beautiful story of creation. In thisGenesis account, the Song of the Creator is theessential Force that brings to life the first humans,and the Earth itself is described as a musical instru-ment. To quote: "All the vibratory centers alongthe Earth's axis from pole to pole resounded HisCall; the Earth trembled; the universe quivered intune. Thus He made the whole world an instrumentof sound, and an instrument for carrying messages,resounding praise to the Creator of all."

Frank Waters, the book’s author, says that it isour duty, our sacred purpose as human beings, toecho this song of creation back to the Creator againby "making a joyful sound throughout the land."

While the device of assigning the four genomicamino acids a musical note and composing scoresbased on a particular gene’s sequence of these fourcomplex molecules is arbitrary, it is not amiss tosuppose that they do emit their own vibratory ID.However, one would have to be clairaudient todetect it. What is insightful is Dr. FernandoBaquero’s suggestion that people like musicbecause “it's already inside them” and “it touchesa piece of them." Spiritual sound is the language,one might say the very substance, of the World ofThought. All things sing, for those who have earsto hear. Etheric structures and their material coun-terparts are maintained by their creative spiritualarchetypes, which we might also call archetones.

On the macrocosmic level, we may describe allearthly forms as patterns in a global quilt whosewoof and warp are woven of stellar and planetarythreads into continuously changing shapes and tex-tures. As explained by Max Heindel, the Seventones in the octave “are the replica of the SevenPlanetary Spirits. Just as they can be brought intodifferent connections and make different chords,so also these different tones of the worlds that aremoving through space make up the harmony of thespheres, and according to the change in thesevibrations humanity is evolving. There is a differ-ent vibration every single moment of time, and asa new being comes into existence, these varyingvibrations act upon him and make him differentfrom all others. Therefore he has a certain fate.” ❐

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FOR A CULTURE where the subject ofangels is nearly as familiar and fashion-able as global warming, DNA, and fiberoptics, it may be difficult for the 21stcentury westerner to appreciate what

Emmanuel Swedenborg was up against a quartermillennium ago when he stated that he was in almostcontinuous contact with angels. Now “channeling,”Elder Brothers, discarnate Masters, ESP, and otherterms describing aspects of the superphysical havebeen assimilated into our consciousness and experi-ence. In the mid-eighteenth century angels wereconfined to the Bible and the margins of Catholicdoctrine. It would be one thing if Swedenborg weresimply imbalanced, a crank. But he was one of themost learned men of his age. Before he began todelve into the invisible worlds, Swedenborg pub-lished over one hundred works summarizing theknowledge in all the known sciences. His attain-ments were such that Emerson was moved todescribe him (in Representative Men) as “Acolossalsoul [who] lies vast abroad on his times, uncompre-hended by them, and requires a long focal distanceto be seen....One of the... mastodons of literature, heis not to be measured by whole colleges of ordinaryscholars.”

As a young man, Swedenborg’s thirst for knowl-edge was unquenchable, or, as he expressed it, hehad an “immoderate desire” for all subjects, espe-cially astronomy and mechanics. He became fluentin nine languages, while most of his writing was inLatin, the scholarly language of his day. He learnedbookbinding, cabinet making, instrument making,engraving, marble inlay, lens grinding, and mechan-ics. He was a hands-on person, a true Son of Cain.

He made his own telescope and microscope. Hedesigned and engraved the complex forms requiredto make a world globe. He put forth interesting ideasfor a submarine, a flying machine, and a rapid firingair gun. A working version of his airplane was builtand flown in the late nineteenth century. He devel-oped the world’s largest drydock, an experimentaltank for ships, stoves, an ear trumpet, methods forpumping, a fire extinguisher, a musical machine,house heating, and a steel rolling mill. He directed afourteen mile portage of small ships over mountainsand valleys to help his king win a battle. Does thissound like the activity of an impractical mystic? Akook? Nor were these all his accomplishments. Theking of Sweden appointed Swedenborg to be head ofthe country’s mines. He traveled to other countries tolearn of the latest developments in mining and onhorseback toured mines and mine shafts in his ownland. His interest in the earth, mineralogy (he found-ed the science of crystallography), and his fine con-centration and clear orderly methodology is suggest-ed by his natal Jupiter posited in the cardinal earthsign Capricorn, which trines the conjunction ofMoon and the ruler of his sun sign (Aquarius, co-ruled by Saturn) in the fixed earth sign of Taurus, aswell as a trine of his Aquarian Sun and a square of

52 RAYS 03

Emanuel Swedenborg—Seeker, Scientist, Seer

BOOK REVIEWSH

oroscope from C

ircle Book of C

harts, Julian Calendar

his Aquarian Mercury to form-giving Saturn, exalt-ed in Libra. A partial list of the titles of his publishedworks include, Fossils, Stereometry, Echo, Algebra(he was Sweden’s leading mathematician), Earth’sRevolution, The Magnet, Hydrostatics, BlastFurnaces, Principles of Natural Things, On Sulfurand Pyrites, Empirical Psychology, The Human Body,The Mechanism of Body and Soul, CorpuscularPhilosophy, Muscles in General, Red Blood, The FiveSenses, Rational Psychology, The Generative Organs,Declination of the Needle, Characteristics andMathematical Philosophy of Universals, Dreams.

Swedenborg was interested in processes thatenabled men to do better things. He was involved inanatomical dissections and regarded as one of theforemost masters of his day. Based on these studieshe was able to make extensive observations and con-clusions (in a four volume work) regarding the struc-ture and operation of the brain. Of special note was hisrecognition of the pituitary gland as the “arch gland”in the body economy—this finding two centuriesbefore the advent of endocrinology. He was also thefirst to discover the function of the cerebellum.

In fact, unbeknownst to him at the time,Swedenborg was looking for the soul of man in hisanatomical studies. He had to exhaust the physicalbasis for human experience before going on to theinvisible. At fifty-six, Swedenborg had mastered allknown science. Then he embarked on what was tobe his boldest and greatest discoveries, for which hisprior work was just a preparation and grounding. Hebegan to explore the nature of the soul, first readingall he could and then doing self-analysis. He soughtto catch the soul at work, to observe the mind andfeelings in action, a study now called phenomenolo-gy. Over a short transitional time, the superlativelygrounded scientist of the extended physical worldbecame a mystic whose subject matter was theboundless Within. He systematically recorded hisdreams and inner experiences, first in his Journal ofDreams, then in his five-volume Spiritual Diary. Itis at this point that Wilson Van Dusen begins hisbook The Presence of Other Worlds, thePsychological/Spiritual Findings of EmmanuelSwedenborg (Chrysalis Books, Westchester, PA,1973). As the entire known world had been theobject of Swedenborg’s omnivorous and relentlesslyfocused investigation, now the investigator himself

became the object of his inquiry. Himself a psychotherapist, Van Dusen, after read-

ing all the principal writers in psychoanalysis andpsychotherapy, concluded that “only Carl Jung evenapproached the stature of Swedenborg. Swedenborgknew personally, at first hand, that Self which Jung knewonly by speculation on its symbolic manifestations.”

He began this journey into the noumenal worldthe same way he had approached the phenomenalworld—head first, boldly, nothing off limits, and yetmethodically and impersonally. He assumed a con-dition of “passive potency,” clearing his mind of thethrong of evanescent notions and natural desires sothat consciousness is in the realm of pure intellectwhere it “enjoys inmost repose and inmost delight.”Here the whole mind is drawn together, the sphere ofthought is illuminated, and, “by a certain consen-sus...inmostly dictates that a thing is true or good, orthat it is false or evil. In this way our intellect is per-fected in judgment which grows mature.” Does notthis inward referencing resonate with the directiongiven by Max Heindel to appeal to the inner forumto determine the truth of any matter? ForSwedenborg, this confirmation of truth was a kind ofmental photism whereby a thought meets inwardapproval in the form of a lighting up of the mind.

Swedenborg explored the sleep (hypnagogic) stateas a prelude to waking-conscious entry into theinvisible worlds, somewhat in the manner of EdgarCayce. According to Van Dusen, Swedenborg“explored the hypnagogic state more than anyoneelse has before or since.” He entered into an intensestate where his bodily awareness was either reducedor completely eliminated. Like the intrepid MosesMaimonides, who tested poisons on himself,Swedenborg induced trance-like conditions toexplore the desire and thought worlds. However, hisEgo awareness was sufficiently developed that hecould think in this state and retain a memory of hisexperiences. His only difficulty was in finding asuitable way to explain these occurrences becauseearthly language is keyed to the world of the senses.The hypnagogic state seems to have relatedSwedenborg to the Desire World, whereas the trancestate put him in the World of Thought.

Recall that Max Heindel indicates the best time topractice concentration with a view toward enteringthe world of dreams (Desire World) is just upon

RAYS 03 53

waking from sleep. Likewise does Swedenborg writethat the time when man “has not yet shaken off sleepfrom his eyes....is the sweetest of all, for heaven thenoperates into his rational mind in the utmost tran-quility.”

Because Swedenborg was storming heaven, hewas especially subject to negative exposure fromadversarial spirit influences, whose entry into hisconsciousness he described as infestation: “While Iwas in the first infestation, I cried to Jesus for help,and it went away.” Like PadrePio, the Cure D’Ars, andother Christian saints whosespiritual progress was fiercelyopposed by demonic beings,Swedenborg was besieged bynoxious spirits, often purport-ing to be angels of light andtruth. He soon learned thatgreat caution and alertnesswere essential to avoid decep-tion: “When spirits begin tospeak with man, he mustbeware lest he believe them inanything; for they say almostanything; things are fabricat-ed by them, and they lie; for ifthey were permitted to relatewhat heaven is, and howmanythings are in the heavens, they would tell so manylies, and indeed with a solemnaffirmation, that manwould be astonished.”

Swedenborg contended that “Man does not pro-duce anything false and evil from himself, but it isthe evil spirits with him who produce it, and at thesame time make the man believe that he does it ofhimself. Such is their malignity. And what is more,at the moment when they are infusing and com-pelling this belief, they accuse and condemn him, asI can confirm from many experiences.”

While possession was a well-known occurrence inBiblical times, today people have largely deniedspirit influence, applying psychological terms toexplain mental aberration. This is all the more dan-gerous in that malevolent beings can work undetect-ed. Swedenborg writes that the prophets experiencedan influx from the world of spirits, manifesting indreams, visions, and inspired speech: “I desired to

know in what manner these men were actuated byspirits. I was shown by means of a living experience.To this end I was for a whole night possessed byspirits, who took such possession of my body that Ihad only a very obscure sensation that it was myown body.” For more than fifteen years Swedenborgwas in daily converse and interaction with angels: “Ihave spoken with them; and then I understood all.”

Swedenborg could control and direct his spiritualinvestigations. Nor did he attempt to exploit his

powers for personal gain or toimpress others. Though ableto perform so-called miracles,he declined to do so becausethey have a coercive effect onbelief and destroy free will inspiritual matters. Only choic-es made in freedom reallyaffect the individual’s eternalnature and destiny. Impressive,miraculous displays tend toaffect the externals of belief.Even Swedenborg’s volumi-nous writings were anonymousuntil near the end of his life.

Nevertheless, he did uponoccasion accede to requests todemonstrate to others thatsuch powers were possible,

when he thought it would benefit their approach tolife. Queen Louisa Ulrica of Sweden had heard ofSwedenborg and personally inquired if he couldreally converse with deceased persons. He assuredher he could, whereupon she, apparently with con-siderable skepticism, asked him to convey a mes-sage to her recently deceased brother.

When they next met, Swedenborg imparted a mes-sage from her brother which so shocked the queenthat she had to retire. She said later that he hadreported what no other living person knew.Commenting on the sensation this incident created,Swedenborg dismissed it as a trifle, adding that hismain objective was to lead people to the real natureof the spiritual and to open up for them the hiddenmeanings of the Bible.

Still, human nature being what it is, the anecdotesof Swedenborg’s extranormal human abilities arebetter known than: his prodigious contribution to the

54 RAYS 03

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Taller than the others, this man

Walked among them, at a distance,

Now and then calling the angels

By their secret names. He would see

That which earthly eyes do not see:

The fierce geometry, the crystal

Labyrinth of God and the sordid

Milling of infernal delights.

He knew that Glory and Hell too

Are in your soul, with all their myths;

He knew, like the Greek, that the days

Of time are Eternity’s mirrors.

In dry Latin he went on listing

The unconditional Last Things.

—Jorge Luis Borges

occult understanding of Scripture (as set forth in hismasterwork, the twelve-volume Arcana Coelestia,the six-volume Apocalypse Explained, and the two-volume Apocalypse Revealed); his first-handdescription of the spiritual worlds (as detailed inHeaven and Helland the aforementioned five-vol-ume Spiritual Diary); and his empirical study of thehuman mind (set forth in the previously cited works,as well as in The Divine Love and the DivineWisdom, and Heavenly Doctrine).

Some of the accounts of Swedenborg using hisextrasensory powers are not without their humor. Acertain Archbishop, whose greatest pleasure consist-ed in playing a card game called Tresett, and whohad lately lost one of his gambling friends, ErlandBroman, met Swedenborg in a large company ashort time after Broman’s death, where he wished toamuse himself and the rest of the company atSwedenborg’s expense. He asked him therefore in ajocular tone, “Bye the bye, assessor [of the King’smines], tell us something about the spirit world.How does my friend Broman spend his time there?”Swedenborg answered instantly, “I saw him but afew hours ago shuffling his cards in the company ofthe evil one, and he was only waiting for your wor-ship to make up a game of Tresett.” We see which ofthe two interlocutors became the subject of the com-pany’s mirth.

Some forms of extrasensory perception do notrequire an ability to enter the spirit worlds.Swedenborg’s ability to know what was happeningin other parts of the world at the time of their occur-rence served as the basis for two of his most famousdisclosures. In one instance, while attending a partyin Amsterdam, in the middle of a conversation heseemed to change radically. When asked the reason,and after much coaxing, he described in a somberand convincing manner the death of Peter III ofRussia, who was ignominiously strangled in prison.The partygoers were able later to confirm by news-paper accounts the manner and exact time of theemperor’s death, as foretold.

On another occasion, when in Gothenberg in thecompany of fifteen guests, Swedenborg suddenlybecame pale, and upon being asked the cause saidthat a fire was burning in Stockholm, three hundredmiles away. He described in detail the fire’s originand what was being destroyed. Two days later every

facet of his description was confirmed.To put him to the test, a skeptical merchant asked

Swedenborg to inquire after a friend who had justdied of consumption. The merchant wanted to knowthe topic of their last conversation just prior to theman’s death. Swedenborg asked the man’s name andagreed that the merchant should call on him in eightdays for an answer. When they remet, the seer statedthat the subject of their last talk was the restitution ofall things. He then proceeded to relate with thegreatest of precision the content of the full exchange.“How fares my friend,” asked the merchant, “Is hein a state of blessedness?” “No,” Swedenborganswered, “he is not yet in heaven; he is still inHades, and torments himself continually with theidea of the restitution of all things.” The merchantwas astonished. “My God! What, in the otherworld.” Swedenborg replied, “Certainly; a mantakes with him his favorite inclinations and opin-ions; and it is very difficult to be divested of them.We ought, therefore, to lay them aside here.”

Swedenborg shunned publicity. While he wantedpeople to become aware of the living reality of thespirit worlds, he realized that most people wereinveterate scoffers and were only interested in spec-tacular displays of “freak” abilities: “I am wellaware that many will say that no one can possiblyspeak with spirits and angels so long as he lives inthe body; and many will say that it is all a phantasy,others that I relate such things in order to gain cre-dence....But by all this I am not deterred, for I haveseen, I have heard, I have felt.” Elsewhere he writes,it “has been permitted me to associate with angels,and to talk with them as with man; and also to seewhat is in the heavens, and what is in the hells, andthis for thirteen years; and to describe them fromthings seen and heard in the hope that ignorance maybe enlightened, and unbelief dispelled.”

Swedenborg did not explore or explain the law ofrebirth. This truth, apparently, was not open to him.But for his time, when persons were burned or asy-lumed for such pronouncements, his achievementsand insights were singular and remarkable: “I cannotbut open up those things of the Word that are calledmystical, that is, its interior things, which are thespiritual and celestial things of the Lord’sKingdom.” ❐

—C.W.

RAYS 03 55

THERE IS WITHIN man a power, alight, a fire, a cosmic link between him-self and his Creator which, whenallowed, will heal any manner of dis-ease with which he may be afflicted:

even a so-called incurable disease. This light is sopowerful, so divinely radiant, so pure and perfect,that disease melts before its penetrating rays.

This incomparable cosmic fire is within eachman. There are no exceptions. It is the Christ with-in, our part of God. It is that part of us that is so pureit knows nothing less perfect than itself. It is ourprotection, our guidance, our abundance, ourhealth—our all; our sonship with the Creator—God.

I still had this to learn when a doctor told me Ihad but a short time to live. I had cancer of thestomach and bowels. The few remaining months, atmost, of my life would be painful misery. I knew hewould say it was hopeless. Others had said thesame. The symptoms were unmistakable. I lookedat him for a long time—blank-like. In reply, hehanded me a book, The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, by Max Heindel.

When I arrived home, I glanced through itspages, but I was too sick of mind and body to readit understandingly. But grasping it in my hand, Idefied the doctor’s verdict. I decided to get well.

How I was going to go about this seeminglyinsurmountable task I did not at the moment know.Defiantly I held the book as if it were the savingrock to which I was obliged to cling. I tried to readit but my mind as well as body was weak and incon-stant.

Cosmo—I wondered what that meant. I looked inthe dictionary and found cosmos, the same root

word: the universe as a manifestation of law andorder, opposite of chaos. That is exactly what Iwanted. I wanted my body and mind to act in har-mony. I had had enough of chaos.

It seemed as if my different organs were func-tioning as distinct individuals with no considerationas to their relationship to the body as a whole. Andeach atom of each organ was flying at a differentrate of speed, indifferent to organic harmony.Everything was out of tune.

But I had decided to get well. Instinctively Iknew I would have to do everything I possiblycould to co-operate with bringing forth this healthwhich I so longingly coveted.

I had been in constant pain for five years. If Idrank water or refrained from drinking water, I wasin pain. If I ate food or did not eat food, the paincontinued unceasingly. I often wondered how itwould seem to be relieved of this gnawing, burningagony. I tried to imagine myself free from it.

In my strong moments when a passionate willseemed to have taken hold of me, I decided that inorder to get well I must, as it were, take myself ver-itably in the grip of my hand, rule my everythought, word, and act with a will of tempered steel.

I wanted passionately to be like that cosmos—everything in my body world working smoothly,evenly, easily.

I always felt cold, chilly, lifeless. As I livedwhere sunshine abounded, I decided to soak myselfin it. I found it helped me relax; even a strong ten-sion always gave way under its influence. At firstfive minutes of exposure to the sun with my headshaded. This was increased to a half-hour.

I had been on a milk diet but decided to becomea vegetarian. I ate fruits and vegetables and whole

56 RAYS 03

Cosmic IlluminationA Story of Healing

NUTRITION AND HEALTH

grain cereals. When I found with what ease rice isdigested, I ate it with pleasure, knowing I was tax-ing my digestive apparatus but lightly.

For breakfast whole wheat wafers and raisins orwhole wheat cereal and prunes.

For lunch a baked potato and a small portion ofcarrots and also summer squash. Instead of thebaked potato, I would have rice boiled in a doubleboiler with perhaps spinach and string beans. It was asimple matter to vary the vegetables from day to day.

For dinner a plate of fruit. A peach perhaps and abunch of luscious purple grapes or a red apple andthree walnuts.

It is not my desire to lay down rules of diet. I amsimply reciting what I did in a successful effort tocure a so-called incurable disease. Each individual,of course, has to work out his own program accord-ing to his particular temperament and condition.

I asked repeatedly for divine guidance, not onlyin the matter of food but in all that I did. God is everready to give us wisdom in proportion as we giveup the self.

I read the Cosmo-Conception. I would take astatement which appealed to me and abide with itfor a week. Then another for the next week or per-haps just a word—God or perfection. I used it as apattern or mold and poured my thought, my life,and my love into it.

Five minutes out of each waking hour I sat in acomfortable position and consciously quieted mymind with “Peace...Peace...Peace,” “Be still, andknow I am God,” or a similar formula.

Sometimes I was too ill to get out of bed and myfood and sun and thought regime was suspendeduntil I was able to be up again.

I pledged myself to God, and regardless of theappearances I clung to Him with all my resolve. Iknew His was the only path by which I couldescape death.

With fear and trembling I pursued my plan. Attimes my will was weak and it seemed futile to tryto stand against the foe—disease. Then, with anonrush of power, my faith would return and I knewI would fight a good fight.

For three years I wrestled. Thinking health,believing in health, bound the while by diseasedflesh. I continued to read the Cosmo-Conception. Iattended lectures on the occult. I saw to it that all

my reading material was of an inspirational nature.As I became stronger, I walked. Only a block at

first, then two or three, until finally I would walk amile without discomfort.

But in the five years, plus these three years of myself-imposed regime, I was never free from pain. Itpossessed me and harassed me.

In the last three years I had gained more than Ithen realized. I was stronger both in body and mind.Fear did not besiege me with such possessivenessas formerly.

One day I was seized with an indefinable weak-ness. I went to bed. I could scarcely move. My hus-band called a trained nurse, one of my friends, toattend me. He insisted I have a doctor, but when Iassured him I was only exhausted and wanted torest, he did not press the point further. The nursewas an occult student and intuitively she knew whatwas taking place. She did not urge a doctor.

I slipped into a strange state where I could notopen my mouth. I could not talk or eat.Occasionally the nurse poured a teaspoon of warmmilk in my mouth. Neither could I open my eyes.

Then things started to happen. The three years’apprenticeship to God had set up a new vibration.The old was dying that the new might be born andthrive.

I moved out of my body and traveled about look-ing back amusedly at my physical temple whichappeared to be in utter darkness. When I returned tomy body, I felt a glow, a wonderful illuminatingwarmth which was beyond the power of words toexpress. All my senses functioned as higher senses:the saliva ran sweet as honey in my mouth; my eyessaw no forms, no objects, only a brilliant gorgeouswhite light; my ears were tuned to music more per-fect than earthly symphonies. I could smell a deli-cate perfume, a perfume sweeter than any mundaneessence, however costly. And I could touch...I couldfeel only waves of light, for all my being waswhirling in a sea of light as big and great as thewhole universe.

I lay in spiritual ecstasy. A voice—an unseenvoice—a voice as of a surgeon said to me, “Lie verystill this morning, my child. There is much work tobe accomplished in the repairing of your stomachand bowels. The cancer must be routed out.You arenow being made anew. Have patience.”

RAYS 03 57

I lay very still. I closed my eyes. It seemed forhours the etheric knife was busy with its work uponme.

A great shaft of light pierced my abdomen, inter-penetrating my stomach and bowels. Knives also oflight were busily at work, hacking away, breakingaway, tearing away the diseased tissue; making wayfor reparation, regeneration, revivification of mywhole being.

My back, which had been torn by pain, waspierced by rays of light. I saw them with my innerconsciousness, my eyes being closed the while.This continued for a week while I lay physicallyquiet. No disease could endure the radiance inwhich I was immersed. I knew I was healed. I couldsee my organs. Each individual organ in my bodywas outlined and illuminated like a neon sign. Icould see the circulation of blood in my body.

I lay in bed on Easter morning. In the stillness ofmy room, I glimpsed the significance of theResurrection. I realized the role that theResurrection had played in my individual experi-ence. I reminisced the multitudes of times I had inthe past eight years read, reviewed, and meditatedupon the Resurrection of Jesus.

I was grateful I had learned to let the light of Godflow through me. I was thankful too that on thisEaster day I had caught the true import of Easter—Resurrection.

My husband brought to my room an Easter lily—perfect, waxen, pure white. A friend sent me aJapanese lily, a brownish orange with darker spots.

Easter afternoon I got up and dressed and walkedfrom room to room. My home was beautiful, moreglorious than ever. I looked out of all the windowsfrom the different rooms to view the flower garden.The lawn of Coos Bay bent-grass which had beenplanted during my stay in bed was coming up tolight with sprouts of healthy green. Everywhere Ilooked new growth and flowers were bursting forthto show their joy of existence. Even the garden hadcaught the consciousness of the Resurrection.

I saw the oneness of the universe. I caught the joyof the cosmic consciousness flowing blithelythrough everything. I saw God shining through.

When my friend, the nurse, left she said, “Dear,you will never know what this month has meant tome.” Our hands met. She understood.

Now I could travel through walls, enter sick bod-ies and make them well. When I looked at a person,I could see his organs as if my consciousness werean X-ray and if there was a faulty place, it was dark,shadowy, murky.

When one of my neighbors came in to see me,she said her husband was in bed with a serious caseof pneumonia. His mother was sitting with him. Outfrom my consciousness darted a streak of light. Itpenetrated the chest of the sick man.

The next morning she came again to say with sur-prise, “My husband is up, working in the gardenthis morning. Isn’t it amazing?” I was not surprised.

A card came stating my mother had been hit byan automobile. That she was bruised and jarredquite badly was the extent of the account. As I readthis card out darted with terrific speed light withoutlimit from my consciousness. It pierced the con-sciousness of my mother and warmed, soothed, andhealed her.

The next day she came to see me. Her body wasblack and blue but she told me that suddenly itseemed as if a cloud had lifted from her and theshock, the pain, and soreness had left.

I had learned that Light is the healer, the emanci-pator, the liberator. I realized that anything opposedto Light is to be eschewed. A universal concept ofthings possessed me. My mind had expanded andbounds and boundaries had given way.

As I was sitting in the sunroom, a voice clear andbell-like said to me, “You have stood the test. Youhave learned to rely on God. You have graduatedfrom former ignorance and darkness. You realizethe One Power in the Universe—God only.

“You are now initiated into the Order of Light,which has no mysteries, no secrets, no seclusionsfrom public view. There is no limitation as to mem-bership. As many may belong as will stand the test.Rely upon God only.

“You are on a firm foundation of knowing God.It is now your work to show others the path of light,the path of harmony, the pathway of freedom. Willyou do this?”

“I will,” I answered.No more pain; no more sickness. Vibrant health

manifest where disease had dwelt. Former thingshad passed away; all things had been made new. ❐

—Edna Tradewell

58 RAYS 03

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidoteCleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?

—Macbeth in Macbeth

IN THE ABOVE masterfully worded quota-tion, Shakespeare presents the psychologi-cal problem of clearing the mind frompainful memory and other wrong thoughthabits.

Man ordinarily lives, mentally and emotionally,in that upon which he focuses his attention. Inother words, man identifies himself with thethoughts he thinks and the feelings he feels. Forexample, he can live through the most fantasticexperiences by watching pictures projected on ascreen and entering into the events portrayed andthe moods evoked. By concentrating on the simu-lation, be it novel, play, or movie, he becomes partof the illusion and he lives it as reality.

The same holds true for practically all otherexperiences of life, which are but a play of para-bles, though perhaps more personalized, for all theworld’s a stage. The more powerful the experience,the deeper the impression on the memory. By con-centrating on a disagreeable aspect or occurrencein life, or the memory of it, one immediately entersthat sphere and lives through all the troublesrecorded in the brain and soul, again and again.Thus this state of mind, this rehearsal of negativi-ty, can become a habit and a self-created hell, mostperilous to one’s well-being.

It must be clearly understood that in all matterswe have the privilege and duty of making choices.

We can mentally choose to walk away from onesituation and to elect a happier one. To be effectivethis choice must be definite, simple, and direct.

That is what Christ Jesus meant when He said:“Ask and ye shall receive.” Asking means choos-ing by thought and deed the thing desired. As sure-ly as night follows day will what is chosen in con-sciousness come to pass as circumstance.

The “sweet oblivious antidote” for mental ills istherefore to put the slumbering God power withinus to work in a constructive manner. By will themind may be focussed on the healthful, soul-flow-ering realities of spirit, cleansing “the stuff ’dbosom of that perilous stuff.” ❐

Visible Helpers are just as necessary as InvisibleHelpers, and our friends and patients may share ina high privilege, as well as add much to the powerof liberated healing force, by joining us in prayerfor the sick. Our Healing Service is held everyevening in the Healing Temple at 6:30 (7:30 whenDaylight time is in effect) and in the Pro-Ecclesiaat 4:15 P.M. when the Moon is in a cardinal sign onthe following dates:

September.............................5—12—19—26October...........................2—9—17—24—30

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

RAYS 03 59

“That Perilous Stuff”

HEALING

ITTLE Harriett Watkins of Cloquet,Minnesota, is, at least to the editor, themost interesting visitor Mt. Ecclesia hashad for years. She is seven years of age andshe sees the fairies; so when told by her

mother that Mr. Heindel is also a friend of the “lit-tle folks,” she was very anxious to make hisacquaintance. Unfortunately her little body is farfrom well, and the parents thought that a visit toMt. Ecclesia would help her. She is with us now,expecting to stay for some time.

The editor was, of course, “delighted” to see her,and at once began to tell her a story about the littlefairies on Mt. Ecclesia, who go around with theircolors and brushes and paint all the beautiful flowerswhich we have here. He also told her how the fairiesgo and milk the cows, each one takes her little flowerto drink from, and the milk which they get is so richand yellow with cream that after they have used it todrink from it retains its golden color; then, when theyput it back on the plant from which they originallytook it, we call them, buttercups. The editor alsomade arrangements with Harriett for a real joy ridethat night with the fairies on Mt. Ecclesia. As soon asher body had gone to sleep and she stepped out indreamland, she found a wonderful carriage waiting.It was made from what was originally a large cab-bage leaf, which the fairies had ornamented withflowers and upholstered, so that is was just the finest,softest and most fragrant little couch imaginable.

A Spider which lives on the porch of Harriett’scottage volunteered to make a canopy to keep thedew off Harriett while she took her ride. It alsomade the harness for a dozen butterflies which thefairies had painted with special beautiful designs.These were then attached to the carriage, then the

dewdrops fell, and for each dewdrop that settledupon the canopy of Harriett’s carriage a fairy flewup into the sky and caught a moonbeam which itput into the dewdrops, so that in a few momentsHarriett’s carriage was brilliantly illuminated witha thousand shining little lights.

When all was in readiness, the butterflies flew inon the porch to wait for Harriett, and the momentshe stepped out of her body, Mr. Heindel intro-duced her to the fairy queen and all the other fairieson Mt. Ecclesia, and last but not least to a funny lit-tle fairy clown by the name of Hop-Skip-and-Jump.Then Harriett was put into her carriage and thewhole party flew through the air all over Mt.Ecclesia and down to the ocean, where the undinessat on the seal rocks and patted the little seals thatjumped in and out of the water. After that we start-ed to have some games, and Harriett ran a race withHop-Skip-and-Jump; and she won. After that weplayed hide-and-go-seek, and Harriett was so cun-ning, she wrapped a moonbeam around and aroundand around her, so that nobody could see her; theythought she was a beam of light. Then, before werealized it, the sun began peeping up over the hillsand said “Good Morning,” so the fairies scamperedoff, and both Harriett and Mr. Heindel had to hurryaway to their beds, so as to be in time to wake up,and have breakfast. But not until they had made anengagement with the fairies to meet in the eveningafter bed-time and continue the game. ❐

60 RAYS 03

Fairies

FOR CHILDREN

Written by Max Heindel for the November 1916 Rays.

Illustration by H.J. F

ord, Dover P

ublications, Inc.