Transcript
Page 1: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

December, 194225? per copy

Page 2: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

STUDENT SUPPLIES

C H R IS T M A S SE A LS( I n Colors)

C| These Rosicrucian Seals are about th e size of a twenty-five- c e n t p i e c e , a n d beautifully p rin ted in red an d embossed in gold. Each Seal is gum m ed and therefore easily attached to pack­ages or letters. T h e symbol and nam e of th e O rd er are artis­tically presented. T hey are eco­nomically priced at

O n ly 50^For Package of 100

- - - A n d B y This Sign Sh all T h ey Be Known

\ Y / E T H I N K in terms o f pictures. O u r id eas a re not co m p o sed W o f mere a n g les , stra igh t lines, or cu b e s , but a re the com plete

m enta l forms o f th in gs w e h a v e heard , seen, tasted , felt, or sm elled. A thi n g need not a l w a y s be seen in its entirety to su gg e st its c o m ­plete n a tu re to us. O n e sn o w fla k e c a n c o n v e y the id e a o f a storm, a f lag c a n s ig n i fy the n at io n it represents , a n d the a p p e a ra n c e of one u n ifo rm ed police officer d enotes the forces o f l a w a n d order. O n e little s ig n o r sy m b o l , s im ple , e ve n in c o n sp ic u o u s , c a n b y asso c ia t io n b r in g to the fore o f h u m a n c o n sc io u sn ess a v a s t a n d d e ta i led m enta l p icture o f that w h ic h it represents . A hand so m e, yet sm all , C h r i s t m a s S e a l o ften c a n aro u se more c u r io s ity b y the im a g in a t iv e p icture it c re a tes in the m in d t h a n a lo n g letter or p e rsu a s iv e a rg u m e n t .

P r o v o k e th o u g h t ab o ut , a n d interest in, the R o s ic r u c ia n O rd e r b y a f f ix in g to y o u r C h r i s t m a s p a c k a g e s a n d e n v e lo p es co n ta in in g y o u r G r e e t in g C a r d s , o n e or more o f the a ttra c tiv e R o s ic ru c ia n S e a ls . N e a t a n d co lor fu l , th ey d r a w the eye a n d focus the attention on the n a m e a n d sy m b o l o f the O rd e r , a n d they m a y result in a d irect in q u iry a b o u t A M O R C . E n h a n c e the a p p e a ra n c e of you r C h r i s t m a s m ail w ith these sea ls , a n d at the s a m e tim e further the n a m e a n d p urpose o f A M O R C . W r i t e for a p a c k a g e tod ay . S e n d y o u r ord er a n d rem ittance to:

ROSICRUCIAN SUPPLY BUREAUS A N JO SE , C A L IF O R N IA , U . S. A.

THE I N S T I T U T I O N B E H I N D THIS A N N O U N C E M E N T

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U J k a i W o u l d f e e

J l i A P l e a ^ a d a i f ?

B efo re the graven rem inders o f today’s hosts o f w ar dead, what words would a Christ utter to a stricken hum anity? Tw o thou­sand years ago, He symbolized by His birth, life, and death that, of mortal ambitions and final ends, one ideal must transcend them all— peace on earth and good will toward men. W as His philosophy incom plete? Did His message lack efficacy? Or, in­stead, are the miseries o f the hour bitter proof that there truly is no other way of life than the one that He and the prophets before Him proclaim ed?

At all events, m ankind has failed. How far have we come? W hat progressive changes have occurred, not in the world, but in the hearts of men in the passing of twenty centuries? By w hat right shall we rejoice this Christm as? Let words of reflection and serious resolution this year be our

C f j n s t m a s G r e e t i n g *T H E A M O R C S T A F F

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The Mysterious Influence In The A ir You Breathe!

T h e SOUL OF THE U N IVERSE is in the air you breathe. Deposited in your blood with each in­halation you take— is the intelligence that directs the course o f the planets through the misty reaches o f space, and the strange phenom enon o f life itself.

W h at is it that causes your heart to beat, your lungs to expand and contract? W hat mind directs the cells o f your being, each in their purpose some to create bone, others tissu e and hair? W hat con­sciousness pervades these vibratory globules of life and gives them awareness o f th eir C osm ic function?

A re you one o f the m illions who have looked beyond yourself for some external D ivine Pow er or agency? H ave you searched in vain for som e outer sign or word o f D ivine assurance when in doubt or in need? N o w learn o f the unsuspected power that exists in every sim ple breath—and that becomes part o f you. The ancient Egyptians believed that the essence o f life was borne on the wings o f the air. The B ible proclaims that with the first breath man

becomes not just an animated b e in g - but a "living soul.” Try this experiment, and prove a Vital Life Force exists in the air. W hen you are in pain or despon­dent take a deep breath. H old it as long as com ­fortable— then notice the momentary relief.

This Am azing Free BookW ould you seriously like to know how to draw upon this Intelligence o f the Cosmic,with which the air is permeated? You tan use it to awaken the creative powers o f your mind, and for making life an experience o f achievement. Use the coupon below for a free copy o f the book, "The Mastery oi Life." It tc-Us how in the privacy of your home you may learn to use these simple, useful, natural laws.r ---------U S E T H I S G I F T C O U P O N ---------- ■i i i Scribe S. P. C. The Rosicrucians (A M O R C ) I1 Rosicrucian Park, San Jose, California

I I am sincerely interested in learning how to use the myste- l i rious influences o f the universe in the betterment o f my life. I 1 Please send me a free copy o f the book,"The Mastery o f Life." 1

I I1 N A M E _______________________________________________________ 'i i[ A D D R E SS--------------------------- ------ ------ - !

i Rosicrucians arc NOT a religious organization I

THE ROSICRUCIANS (A M O R C ) SA N JO SE, C A L IFO R N IA , U .S . A.

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ROSICRUCIAN DIGESTC O V E R S T H E W O R L D

T HE O F F I C I A L I N T E R N A T I O N A L R O S I C R U C I A N M A G A ­Z I N E O F T H E W O R L D - W I D E R O S I C R U C I A N O R D E R

D E C E M B E R , 1942

Christm as G reetings (Frontispiece)Thought o f the M onth: W h a t o f Tom orrow? Soul DoctorIt Is N o t The O u te r M an ..................................Journeys In The Esoteric: Part IIBehind The M irro r ..............................................W h a t Do Y O U Think?C osm ic PoliticsC athed ra l C on tacts : The S ta r In The East.... The M ora l A rgum ent of Kant A Philosophical V iew o f A lchem y Religion and the M ystic The Vision of PerfectionSanctum Musings: Peace .........The Parab le of the ExodusO u r N ew C u ra to r (Illustration) ___

Subscription to the Rosicrucian Digest, Three Dollars per year. Single copies twenty-five cents.

Entered as Second Class M atter at the Post O ffice at San Jose. C a li­fornia, under Section I 103 of the U .S . Postal A c t o f O c t. 3, 1917.

Changes o f address must reach us by the tenth o f the month preceding date o f issue.

Statements made in this publication are not the official expressions of the organization or its officers unless stated to be official communications.

Published Monthly by the Supreme Council ofT H E R O S IC R U C IA N O R D E R — A M O R C

ROSICRUCIAN PARK SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

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T h eRosicrucianD igestD ecem ber1942

T H E

THOUGHT OF THE MONTHWHAT OF TOMORROW?

By T H E IM P E R A T O R

T h e fo llo w in g is th e la s t in s ta l lm e n t in a s e r ie s o f a r t ic le s by R a lp h M. L ew is . F . R . C.. oil th e c h a n g e s to d a y 's in te rn a tio n a l in v o lv em en t w ill p ro d u c e in th e w o rld in th e n e a r fu tu re . H e h a s p ro je c te d a n o u tlin e o f th e e ffec ts c u r r e n t e v e n ts w ill have on n a tio n s a n d on th e m in d s , liv es, a n d c u s to m s o f th e p e o p le w h o live in th e m . In p re s a g in g th e s e e v e n ts , he h a s u sed n o th in g m o re m y s te r io u s a s an a id th a n a p en c il, a w o r ld m ap . th e im m a n en t fa c u l­t ie s o f o b se rv a tio n a n d a b s tr a c t io n , an d an a n a ly s is o f w h a t h e p e rce iv e s to b e th e p re se n t t r e n d s . — E D IT O R .

A N actual benefits be d e r iv e d from war? Yes. H istory is replete with nu­m e ro u s a l le g e d examples. It is re­lated that the ex­tensive use of iron by th e a n c ie n t Assyrians in their i m p l e m e n t s of war, after discov­ering it among the H i t t i t e s w h o m

they invaded, caused that metal to be more generally used by Asiatic powers for peaceful pursuits. T he raids of the Kassite hordes on the Babylonians in 2100 B. C. introduced the horse to that civilization. Likewise, th e barbarian Hyksos. a m y s te r io u s people, who swept down on and conquered Egypt about 1700 B. C. brought horses with them and taught the Egyptians to do­mesticate them. T he M oors who fought their way from N orth Africa into Spain, again brought to Europe the ancient culture of the E ast and of Greece, which had been stamped out by the de­cadent Romans.

It must be conceded that a tremen­dous price in human blood, suffering, and misery was paid for such benefits. In almost all instances the benefits re­sulting from war were unexpected, and often most remote from the initial pur­

poses of the conflict. It will perhaps be contended that the numerous purported advantages derived from a major war would in all probability have emerged anyway, in the progress of civilization. T he principal advantage accruing from a war, not considering its tremendous mental, physical, and material costs, is the great acceleration given develop­ment in technical and other fields of human enterprise. A five-year war, for example, may advance certain sciences and arts, both in their refinement and e n la r g e m e n t , from fifty years to a century.

Such results are sometimes indirect consequences of the stimulation of war. A t the end of a w ar many newly cre­ated and expanded technological pro­cesses can, with comparative ease, be converted into the manufacture of civi­lian products and become of service to society.

W h a t then will be some of the ad­vantages spawned directly by this war? T here are certain ones which are so ob­vious that they must be apparent to all alert persons. Aviation is such an ex­ample. Necessity, concerted effort, and unlimited funds have revolutionized cer­tain aeronautical theories literally over night, in contrast to a normal peacetime development. T he mourners of today’s w ar dead will inherit this advantage with their grief. T here are, however, certain advantages, now in an inchoate

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stage, which will emerge, and of which many persons are not aware. Some of these we will consider.

For the last tw o and one-half decades in the United States, for example, the congestion o f p o p u la t io n in certain areas, the now large cities, has been an increasingly a la rm in g problem. For three fundam ental reasons, the concern has been the effect of such congestion upon the areas where it occurred:

A. H ealth—inadequate housing, the crowding out of light and air, in­creasing noise level, with its ef­fects upon the nervous systems, social contamination, and inef­fectual control of disease.

B. Transportation—the snarling of transportation facilities, lack of easy ingress and egress from the cities, with ever increasing toll of life due to consequent accidents.

C. Supplies—the problem of supply­ing such areas with essential sup­plies in abundance, such as food­stuffs and fuel, the turnover for such production being almost con­stant. It w as related by an au­thority, but a few years ago, that the warehouse capacity for food in New York C ity was sufficient for but a forty-eight hour de­mand, if all replenishments ceased.

Remedial measures have been perfunc­tory and n e g a t iv e . T his is not so strange, even though the situation ap­peared acute. Congestion of population raised land values and rents. T h e aver­age large property owner is neither a philanthropist, nor is he given to the solution of sociological problems. T here­fore, his assistance is not forthcoming, and his influence politically is prodi­gious. Obviously, Federal intervention is not encouraged, and w hat is done is often but a spectacular political gesture, to mitigate any criticism which might exist.

However, the w ar has brought the need for decentralization to the fore. A nation no longer will w ant to pride itself upon cities with buildings towering into the heavens, creating canyons of steel into which thousands upon thousands of persons are disgorged a t certain hours, jeopardizing each o ther’s lives, especially in times of emergencies. T he fantastic and im aginary draw ings of

artists, depicting future cities with many street levels, one above the other, and edifices dwarfing our present skyscrap­ers will never come to pass as a general practice. T he difficulty of evacuating such areas in any emergency must be all too apparent now to everyone. T he massacre that comes from a concen­trated attack upon such areas, and their absolute dependence upon a remote w ater supply easily destroyed are events of history. Heretofore such cities have grown around a concentration of indus­tries, such as steel, railroad centers, textile mills, machinery manufacturers, or seaports. T h e destruction of an area of this kind in w ar, or as the result of a natural catastrophe, seriously cripples a nation.

Tom orrow will see an exodus from such areas under government sponsor­ship and impetus. T here will be a mass transportation of families — those who desire to leave — under supervision of the state and by its expense to new re­gions within the nations. T he state will select such regions as are sources of supply, raw materials, in fact. It will encourage m anufacturers to locate their plants in such regions, thereby relieving transportation of the raw materials. For an example, shipbuilding will be under­taken a t numerous smaller seaports, as during the times of actual war. T his will distribute this vital industry geo­graphically.

W h a t will be the afterm ath of such development? H ow will it affect the in­dividual? It will be highly salutary. It will destroy the rem nants of the spirit of sectionalism which still prevails in various sections of every country. T he citizenry will become far more cosmo­politan. T h e urban d w e lle r will be brought into closer contact with the rural family. T hey will know each other’s problems. M ore important, they will learn to share each o ther’s ways of living. T h e distrust tha t the farm er has for the industrialist, and the la tter’s fre­quent ignorance of the farm er’s contri­bution to the welfare of the state, will gradually disappear — when they are neighbors. Patently, all of this will make for greater political unity in the congresses and parliaments of the world.

O ne of the major good effects en­gendered by this decentralization of

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TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

population will be the stoppage of the exodus of manpower from the farms. T he backbone of the average farm er’s labor has been his immediate family; his sons, daughters, and sons-in-law are as a rule his most dependable workers. T h e small farm is mostly a family enter­prise. Its members become co-operators or partners. Once these farm boys were not only isolated from the attractions of the city by distance, but likewise by a thorough lack of knowledge of urban life. T he advent of the motion picture an d of the automobile ended this. T h e former glamorized and publicized urban life to the farm youth. T he automobile made it possible to traverse the many miles between the farm and the large city within a reasonable time, and to acquire the occasional experience of living within the city. But it w as just too occasional. T h e result, therefore, has been a virtual hegira of youth from the farms to the cities during the past two decades.

T h e fu ture decentralization of the mammoth cities, and the springing up of numerous medium-sized metropolises in regions now mainly having naught but towns and villages, will put urban attractions adjacent to the farm youth. T hese young men and women will not need to glut metropolitan labor markets, as unskilled hands. T hey are, in fact, skilled agriculturists, but to the mills and the urban trades, they become but common labor. T hese youths, therefore, will not need to remain on relief as they have, walking city streets, and crowded into dingy, d irty quarters, just so they may remain in the city to enjoy the questionable advantages w h ic h th e y seek in it. In the future, they can and will remain on the farms and become efficient in scientific farming methods. T h e farm will become a w orthy busi­ness enterprise for them.

T hey will do this, however, only because they will be close enough to cities which can provide urban pleasures for their indulgence, as well as cultural advantages. T hey will have the eco­nomic security of their farms, a t least being engaged in a work in which they are thoroughly trained, with a whole­some living environment, plus the easy access to the enjoyments of the metro­polis. T he farm labor situation will thus

be salvaged by the development of a result of the present war.

T h e more complex a government be­comes, the more numerous are its func­tions, its ramifications, such as its bu­reaus and departm ents. T h e further, therefore, the individual citizen comes to feel himself on its outer edge. Regard­less of the fact tha t such a nation has perhaps millions of government em­ployes, the plebian citizen becomes con­scious of an estrangem ent between him­self and the heart of his government. T h e many departm ents and agencies of the nation seem to push him further and further aw ay from that intimate association with the nucleus of the rul­ing power which perhaps he once en­joyed—or his fathers did.

O ften , even in a democracy, the citizen believes that his voice in his government has become but a quantita­tive factor, tha t is, he but constitutes a numerical advantage, and that his true sentiments are not understood or ap­preciated. T h is condition develops that attitude of mind of “the people and the s ta te ,” instead of “we the state.” Con­sequently, the average citizen comes to think th a t w hat rightly is his political or civil duty is but a concession which he grants his government. In other words, he believes that in effect he is doing the state (which seems to him a more or less separate entity from him­self) a favor. Therefore, adversities, economic slumps, hard times, conditions which he may not have the vision to see that he, as an individual, is responsible for, he attributes solely to the state as apart from himself.

In the U nited States of America, such an unfortunate condition reached its peak during the depression years of the 30’s. T he citizen, through the press and over the radio and on the street, w as execrating his government for his plight, all of his ill affairs. T he govern­ment reacted to this sentiment by be­ginning a public appeasement cam­paign. T he state became, not the people, but instead an overindulgent parent of spoiled children. T he people not only demanded work, but support. A vast difference exists between these two. It is the difference between independence and dependence. In effect, the attitude of the average citizen was that this

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mammoth thing, the government, must provide for all th ings—many of which the individual should have provided for himself directly. In fact, if he was un­able to provide o ther than the essen­tials, he should not have expected them until he could.

Initiative was a t a low ebb in early 1939. T he costs for maintaining what the government provided the individual, and which he thought it was his right to demand, were being met mainly by large c o r p o r a t io n s . T he individual’s payments w ere quite indirect, that is, hidden in slightly increasing prices of commodities. In other words, he was conscious principally of the aid flowing from his government to him, and little from him flowing back to it. T h e pres­ent w ar has, by necessity, saddled its costs upon every individual. By the end of 1943, the individual will once again be fully aware that he is the state, at least, insofar as finances are concerned. Therefore, another beneficial result of the present conflict will be the psycho­logical effect of its heavy taxation upon the individual. T he people will awaken to the fact that they are truly the gov­ernment's pocketbook.

W h a t will this mean for the future? Principally, the elimination of the in­troduction and extension of so many crackpot economic schemes, such as were common in the 30's. T hese were plans which offered the individual eco­nomic salvation a t a minimum of his own effort, and a t a tremendous cost to the government which he looked upon

as a thing apart from himself. In the future such plans cannot receive the same support they had in the last de­cade. T h e average citizen will say about such proposals, “C an we the people afford it?” W hereas, in the past, he was inclined to insist, “T h e state should pay us, etc., etc.”

T he w ar will end for some time the era of extravagance, tha t extravagance which the people dem anded of their governments. Individual initiative will return. O nce again a man will make his own w ay in life. He will cease living unconcernedly, and expecting that ulti­mately the day will arrive when the state must provide for him, solely, be­cause he has not prepared for such an eventuality himself. T h is one factor alone will make the tomorrow tha t is coming a truly progressive period. T he United States of America, for example, w as built upon self-reliance and self- sufficiency. It is only upon these qual­ities that it can continue as a progres­sive nation.

W hereas democracy is but a catch word to many persons today, in the to­morrow, the average man will begin to really understand its philosophical con­tent. H e will come to realize that a democratic nation is one where indiv­iduals create a political instrum ent to preserve the just exercise of their sep­arate powers. T he future success of a democracy depends upon the mass con­sciousness of justice had by its people, for in that lies the forebearance neces­sary to assure an equality for all.

HIERARCHY M EDITATION PERIODT h e Im perator requests all of the F ratres and Sorores of the Esoteric H ierarchy to

unite in the special traditional m editation period on T h u rsd ay . D ecem ber 17th, a t an hour in their location equivalent to 8.-00 P . M . Pacific W a r Time. Investigate and find w hat hour it is in your location w hen it is 8:00 P. M . Pacific W a r T im e in San Jose, California.

T h e purpose and nature of this period is known to those of the H ierarchy. E ach H ier­archy member w ho partic ipates is to make his o r her custom ary report thereafter, direct to the Im perator. T o avoid forgetting or om itting the period, m ark th e date now on your calendar, or pu t a rem inder in a conspicuous place.

LOOK TOWARD YOUR FUTUREH ave you been contem plating a change in y our employment? A re you looking for not

just a tem porary position, but one that has a degree of perm anency? D o a pleasing en­vironm ent and an outlet for y our abilities, a s well as fair p lay , constitute an inducement to you? If you are either a trained and experienced secre tary , typist, stenographer, clerk, office m anager, bookkeeper, o r one thoroughly fam iliar w ith office system s and routines, apply b y letter for a fu tu re consideration to the: Rosicrucian Personnel Director, Rosicru­cian Park , San Jose, California. G ive details of your experience and education.

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TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

Soul DoctorBy H a r v e y M i l e s , Grand Secretary

H O ever heard of s u c h a t h i n g ? Doctors are medi­cine men; they are professional peo­ple who adminis­ter drugs to sick bodies. D o c to r s a r e a ls o p e o p le who make ad just­ments o f b o n e s , s t i m u l a t e t h e nerves, m a s s a g e the m u sc le s , and rub the skin.

A doctor also confines you to bed when things appear seriously wrong, when you need rest and quiet and no excitement which disturbs the nervous system, no intoxicants or heavy meals— just a simple diet to be prescribed by one who understands all the functions of the anatomy. H e also leaves some pills after giving you inoculations of serum, which is supposed to intercept the work of the microbe inside the body. If the first treatm ent fails, a sec­ond is administered, then a third and so on until out of his hundreds of medi­cines he finds the one th a t makes you well again. T he doctor then says, “You can get up now for a few minutes a day, then an hour, and then ultimately to work and business again.”

T h e above conception of the doctor was almost true a few years ago, but today, on the horizon of the new civili­zation, we find the doctor is more than an injector of serums and prescriber of

pills or a m anipulator of vertebrae and other bones. H e has advanced from the "be-w hiskered” dignity of 1850. O ur family doctor of today has left the Smith Brothers category to smother in the ashes of the old w orn-out and de­moded practices.

Yes, he has advanced to the sphere of mystical art, and instead of trying to cure the body of ills, pains, diseases, etc., he begins the study of the human soul, and after discovering the general attitude of the mind, the doctor begins the treatm ent of his patient by helping him to eliminate the cause of his trouble from its seat. N ot all physicians have risen to this category, but many have, and before another twenty-five years pass all physicians will recognize the truth and value of treating the mind first and then letting the body adjust it­self to mental rhythm. One must first pick the fruit from the tree before it can be dried for packing and consumption, so the new doctor of today must w ith­draw the cause from the mind before the body can experience relief from pain. Removing the ailment from the body w ithout clearing the mind only forestalls for the present, physical com­plications that are certain to manifest later.

T o support these contentions, aside from our own Rosicrucian doctrines, we read in current literature that Drs. Bela M ittlem ann and H arold G. WolfF have conducted experiments to prove sub­stantially that peptic ulcers are created by the mind. T hey claim that there is

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a spectacular connection between the state of mind and the gastric juices, and that anger, fear, rages, mental ir­ritations, anxieties, etc., affect the di- gestive processes in such a w ay as to increase the volume of gastric secretions and cause excessive acidity. In other words, our worries, aggravations, and other inharmonious mental gymnastics disturb the balance of alkalinity and acids of the stomach.

In so doing an unnatural condition is established which provides a breeding place for foreign bacteria, or creates unguarded spaces or areas within the mucosa, which when irritated by pre­digested food causes injury, and peptic ulcers begin. I quote from an article from Fortune: "M edical and surgical treatm ent is generally only incidental to the mental therapy more and more widely applied today. Until the under­lying psychic causes of the trouble are remedied there can be little hope in the chronic cases of doing much more than easing the discomfort temporarily.” Dr. W alte r C. Alvarez, of the M ayo Clinic says, "If the patient is worrisome and temperamental, operation is probably useless.” Statem ents like this from physicians of modern nationally-known institutions are extremely encouraging, for it bears out postulations made by mystical students of the past.

How well I recall Dr. H . Spencer Lewis, founder and late Im perator of A M O R C , proclaiming back in 1921 that the m ajority of physical illnesses were intimately associated with our minds, and if we would realize that fact and change our mental outlook, develop a more constructive attitude, and con­centrate our mental energy on our ills with the will and determination to re­move all inharmonious vibrations from our anatomy, we would all be experi­encing a life of physical perfection. Based upon the principle th a t a well body harbors a balanced mind and that a sick body harbors a w arped mind, the object of Dr. Lewis w as to have all the students and members of the Rosicru­cian O rder maintain a healthy physical vehicle by using mental power gener­ated by soul. By so doing, Dr. Lewis contended they would eliminate the financial burden of medicines, ad just­ments, hospitalization, as well as the

loss of time spent from business or posi­tion. H ealthy beings are happy beings, and a harmonious state of mind pro­vides individuals with the proper con­ditions for the investigation and study of the higher psychic and spiritual phases of life.

M ental therapy has been a part of the Rosicrucian teachings for ages, and those who have practiced it have prov­en, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the ef­ficacy of mental adjustm ent. T h e inter­esting thing is that we do not have to confine mental effects to the stomach for the healing of ulcers. T h e mind does not only affect tha t organ or gland of the body, but a t your will it affects all or any o ther part of the anatomy. All you need do to prove this is to center your mind for a few moments on any part of the body and you will soon dis­cover unfamiliar reactions which are soothing, comforting, and stimulating. Since we know how the mind can affect the stomach and other organs and dis­turb their normal function, it is not dif­ficult to understand how fears, worries, and anxieties will bring upon us dis­eases, low or high blood pressure, nerv­ous ailments, and other physical in­harmony.

Is it hard for you to sense the feasi­bility of /e a r causing nervous disorders, anxieties causing an upset stomach, bringing on indigestion, constipation, or other maladies of the intestinal region? Is it impossible for you to believe that long unfulfilled desires could cause a disturbance of the finer and more sensi­tive glands and organs of the body, based upon the truth that we have al­ways taught and which our modern physicians have now conceded? I be­lieve we can go a step further and say that our individual lives here on the earth are so affected by our mental a t­titudes that the mind is responsible for the happiness, sorrow, or the state of physical and spiritual equilibrium we experience. I do not mean to imply by these statem ents th a t a person cannot become ill w ithout first having a nega­tive mental attitude; on the contrary, we know that everyone is subject to contagious diseases. Should the health­iest man or woman inhale or take into the lungs contaminated air or absorb into the system through normal pro-

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cesses food or w ater th a t is not free from destructive bacteria, he will ex­perience illness. But the im portant thing is that he hold the proper mental atti­tude about it and use his mental power in helping to offset the destructive work of the germs causing the illness.

T here is another interesting phase of healing that has come to my attention recently—the new treatm ent work of M rs. Elizabeth Kenney in poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis. I t is revolution­ary in a sense—a reversal of the ortho­dox methods which were to keep a pa­tient quiet, sometimes in casts, and ad­minister various medicines. T h e Ken­ney treatm ent consists of wrapping the patient in a wool blanket saturated with hot w ater until the pain subsides, fol­lowed by the patient concentrating his mind on the muscles to try and flex them. M rs. Kenney's object is to get the muscles to function normally by us­ing the power of the mind to stimulate them. She knows that if she can get responsive action between mind and muscle that the patient is potentially cured.

Recently I saw a photograph of M rs. Kenney holding one o f her three-year- old patients. T h e child w as standing on a table facing M rs. Kenney. She held the youngster with one of her arms around the child’s back while rubbing or massaging his legs with the other. No student of mysticism could ever look a t the photograph w ithout know­ing w hat was passing from the mind and body of M rs. Kenney to the child. H er facial expression radiates the per­sonification of Divine Love, and through the direction of this great psychic force she is stimulating the aura and the whole physical body of her patient.

She is establishing a psychic communi­cation between the two psychic systems —that is, the psychic system of the child or patient and herself. Although she m ay be unaw are of it, M rs. Kenney is using a power far greater than the w ater-soaked blankets or exercise, it is love. This is the Soul Doctor.

A nd w hat the world needs today is more Soul Doctors. T hey would be a tremendous help in healing the wounds inflicted upon all peoples of the globe, and if they w ere really adept in the di­rection of their psychic force, they could take out by the roots the psychic or mental cancers tha t have w arped the minds of some of the w orld’s leaders and directors of State affairs.

Divine Love is a manifestation of the mind; everyone can develop it and if he chooses he can use it to keep himself well, improve his material station in life, help his friends and close kin. T he world needs it today, I believe, more than anything else. W ith sufficient of it in the world the w ar would stop to­morrow, peace would be declared at once; and the flower of happiness would bloom again among all people upon the face o f the earth . O ur song would then be, “ Praise ye the F a ther” instead of, “M ore ships to crush the enemy.” T here would be no enemies for there would be spiritual union among all mankind.

M ay our prayer ever be that the Great Light will soon come with the power to prevent for all time the useless pain, suffering, and misery that people of the world are experiencing today; and in place of it there will be smiles, contentment, real joy and a brotherhood o f man th a t in the past was only a vague dream.

TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

T H E L A W O F T H E ORDERW h a t are y our rights and privileges a s a member of the A M O RC ? H ow is the O rder

governed? W h o are its adm inistrative officers? W h a t divisions are there in its operations and functions? W h a t disposition can be m ade of its funds— are there safeguards estab­lished for the preservation of them and the properties? Is there a central w orld pow er of the O rder— o r a re there sep ara te jurisdictions?

O b ta in the most from your mem bership by becoming fam iliar w ith the C onstitution and S ta tu tes of the G rand Lodge of A M O R C . It is y our du ty to know all of its provisions, and to exercise y our pow ers. O btain a copy a t cost, on ly 15c. W e p ay mailing charges. Send your order to the Rosicrucian Supply Bureau, Rosicrucian Park , San Jose, California.

Page 13: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

It Is Not The Outer ManB y F r a t e r J. W . P a u l s o n

E R H A P S o u r views a re n e v e r wholly wrong nor entirely right; our m o t i v e s n e v e r pure but usually a little mixed. N ev­ertheless, most of the time we try to do our best. But one thing is cer­tain: the error will decrease e x a c t ly in p ro p o r t io n to

our knowledge of and reliance upon the intuition.

T he still, small ovice within, that in­ner urge—the intuition—is a part of the infinite Divine M ind. As such it knows all things. It is always right; it knows what is best. But man fails to heed that urge. W hy? Because man is willful, man is stubborn. A nd man is not wise. H is deliberations are based on ordinary objective considerations. Both his emo­tions and rationalizing are often mis­taken for thinking. H e thinks he can do and accomplish w hatever he wills to do without consulting the subjective mind and intuition, or the W ill of God.

Some highly evolved men do rely on the urge tugging within. A t times that little segment or spark of the divine mind is in charge, in full command of their actions. Such men come to feel their identity with the universal divine purpose, lose many selfish and personal desires, and feel themselves as instru­ments of the divine Force. Beethoven and Bach were examples of this evolved

type. T heir lives were demonstrations of Cosmic illumination and Cosmic Con­sciousness. Bach’s wife, Adele, wor­shiped her husband for the beautiful music he created and rendered. But Bach would not tolerate her praise, ex­claiming: “Ach, I am only the channel for G od's music.” Beethoven was even more completely surrendered, not to his a rt or music, but to G od’s W ill.

A university p r o f e s s o r states th a t "man has an apparently incurable de­termination to attem pt solutions of prob­lems w ithout knowledge.” Yes, the de­gree of knowledge makes a difference. It makes a difference not only in solving problems but in the kind of life one leads. As the speaker on the Tem ple Square broadcast put it one Sunday: "T he man who is to travel one thousand miles makes a different sort of p repara­tion for his journey than the man who is to travel only one mile.”

An example of such a being is a sin­cere student, a frater who is building for a long and better journey. He tells me that in this cycle of life, this jour­ney, the ordinary materialistic aims and considerations do not seem to suffice. Because of a very conscious awareness of a purpose, a destiny, his life seems to be a sort of conflict and compromise between necessary daily routine and the things which must be done in order to fulfill that destiny, he declares. T he higher goal, although definitely known to him, must be kept more or less as a secret while he pursues his daily work in business. O utw ardly and by ordinary

(Concluded on Page 415)

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Page 14: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

Journeys In The EsotericBy R a l p h M . L e w is , I mperator

TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

PART II

O N T R A R Y to p o p u la r miscon­ception, t r u e oc­cultism d o e s not s e e k t o h i d e k n o w l e d g e , to make it secretive o r s t r a n g e o r mysterious. R ath­er, occultism con­cerns itself with seeking to reveal the unknown and to unveil the mys­

terious, and if it is associated with se­cretive things it does so only to bring them to light. Occultism is also not necessarily a part of religion, nor is it an element of mystical thought. Occult­ism m ay become a part of religion, but it is not religion. M any oriental religions have included occultism, have lifted it into their systems, but nevertheless that does not make occultism a religious doctrine, for no religion includes occult­ism unless in its creed or system it con­cerns itself with an investigation of the psychical phenomena of m an’s nature and the acquisition of self-knowledge.

Sikhism is an example of one of the oriental religions which incorporated occultism. Sikhism strives to harmonize two great oriental religions which are hostile to each other, namely, M oham ­medanism and Hinduism. M ohamme­danism is monotheism; it recognizes a single God. T h a t G od is known as

Allah. Hinduism, on the other hand, is a pantheistic mysticism; that is, it affirms that there is a God as a force and a mind which does not exist in a being, but permeates all things and is a part of everything, working in and through it. W e see that these two re­ligions are a t opposite extremes.

N anak, the founder of Sikhism, was born 1469 A. D. As a young boy, he argued with M oham medan teachers which he had, disputing some of the principles which they were teaching. As a young man, instead of entering into the commercial life of his time, it is said that he preferred meditation and spent much time walking in the forest. It is related that on one occasion he had a great vision in which God came to him, and he was advised by the Deity to repeat G od’s name frequently, and he left, avowed to devote his life to a high purpose, but was nevertheless per­plexed by the experience. Some time thereafter, when meditating upon this vision, there came to him as an ecstatic experience a message from God which is now one of the fundamental precepts of Sikhism. It was that there is no M o­hammedan, there is no Hindu, there is but one true God.

In the G ranath, the Sikh Bible, w rit­ten mostly in Sanskrit, God is alleged to be a power, a force which permeates all things. In this sense, it inclines to­w ard Hinduism. But it is also stated that the Deity shall be referred to as

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Sat Nam, the true God, and H e shall be nameless. H e shall not be called Brahma or Allah, but just true God. M an should not presume to know Him by name. It is also declared that the world as we perceive it objectively is an illusion, that we cannot truly know the nature of the world, and therefore, worldly knowledge is evanescent, un­reliable. T h e only true knowledge con­sists in knowing God, in being absorbed into the Consciousness of God, which we might say am ounts to attaining a state of Cosmic Consciousness. Now here is where Sikhism “borrow ed” oc­cultism, for it affirms that there are cer­tain psychic practices to which the in­dividual, the devotee, must resort be­fore he can attain that absorption into the God Consciousness, and that these psychic practices are occult laws not generally known or realized, and the devotee must learn these things. T hey are taught by Sikh teachers known as Gurus.

Occultism is frequently confused, as we have said, with magic, and to better orient ourselves it is advisable that we clearly distinguish it from magic. Magic affirms and requires a belief in inde­pendent agents, entities existing in the universe. T hese entities are invisible in­telligences, according to magic, which are able to exert efficacies. Some of them are beneficent influences, it is de­clared, others malevolent, and they are said to reside in animate and inanimate things alike, namely, living things, and stone and grains of sand have these magical properties or qualities.

T here is no unity of purpose between these magical intelligences. Each one exercises its theurgical powers arbi­trarily, according to the whims and fancies attributed to that magical ele­ment. Consequently, it is held that hu­mans are a t the mercy of these magical powers, and the unfortunate believer in them is constantly obliged to invoke one magical process against another to miti­gate the forces he imagines they have, so that he can enjoy peace of mind. B ut what o f occultism? Occultism af­firms that there is but one system of laws existing throughout the universe, one great governing intelligence, and all functioning constructively and cre­atively. M an is not a t the mercy of

these laws unless he turns his back upon them, refuses to recognize them.

T here is also w hat is known as hermetic philosophy or Hermeticism, as it is called. W e should know something about it to orient ourselves better in our studies. Hermeticism is often confused with methods and practices intended to aw aken the latent talents or powers which man has, which of course is oc­cultism. A nd so, to many minds, oc­cultism and Hermeticism are identical, which is not true. Hermeticism gener­ally means that wisdom, that gnosis, a ttributed to a character known as H ermes Trismegistus. But Hermetic philosophy today is now eclectic. It has borrowed and incorporated into it­self ancient doctrines, Neoplatonism, Stoicism, Gnosticism, and elements of Christianity, several of which never had any place in original Hermeticism.

T here are some who say that there never was such a character as Hermes Trism egistus. T here are others who proclaim that he lived before Plato, be­fore the Seven Sages of whom Thales was one — even before Moses. H ow ­ever, Hermes is the name which the Greeks ascribed to the Egyptian god or legendary character known as Thoth. T he title “Trism egistus” is the Greek for “Thrice G reat,” or the G reat G reat G reat. Inscribed on the Rosetta Stone, in demotic writing, is the name of T hoth whom the Greeks called Hermes, and the statem ent that he w as the G reat G reat Great. T he Egyptians charac­terized him as a human figure with the head of an ibis, that is, the head of an Egyptian bird that used to wade in the marshes along the Nile.

T h e Greeks in their ancient writings said that T hoth, whom they called Hermes, was the principal source of all wisdom, a sort of fountain of knowl­edge. T hey called him the fa ther o f philosophy. T he Egyptians in their an­cient writings referred to T hoth as the lord of books and said he w as the in­ventor of the science of numbers, name­ly, mathematics, and that he taught men to speak, and moreover, he taught them the demotic writing. T he earliest Egyptian writing was the hieroglyph, or picture writing, and it is said that T hoth taught the demotic writing or script in the manner which we now

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write so that man would have many signs for many things. T oday , a mag­nitude of literature is credited to H er- meticism. T here are quotations which say th a t he, Hermes, or T hoth, w as the author of thousands of works, while reliable sources say that he wrote forty- two books, and these had six sections, one on astronomy, one on the science of writing, one on religion, etc.

M anetho, great Egyptian historian of the 3rd C entury B. C., and for some time in the past thought to be a legen­dary character whose works have since been translated, was known significant­ly as the T ru th of Thoth, and as the F irst Priest of T hoth, which would mean that he was a teacher of the wis­dom of this great character. In the writings of M anetho, we learn that he w as commanded by Ptolemy Philadel- phus, who presided over the great school of learning and library of an ­cient A lexandria, to collect the great learning of the ancient Egyptians for that library, and that M anetho pre­sented to Philadelphus the sacred books of T hoth, one of which is known as “T he Shepherd of M an ,” and it is in­teresting to note that a phrase in that book anticipates a statem ent in the Book of Genesis, namely, that God be­gat man equal to Himself.

In the records in stone inscribed on the monuments of Egypt, the tombs and temples, we find much reference to Hermes, or to T hoth as they called him, and it is said that the principal seat of the school of T hoth where his wisdom was taught was a t Khemennu, which the Greeks later named Hermopolis, or literally translated, the city of Hermes. It is said that this school was a “place on high ground” and it was where Ra, the sun, first rested when it rose in the East. N ow of course this is allegorical, because these records further relate that the school was a place of initiation for the m ystery school candidates. During such initiation, the candidates ascended the mountain of their inner nature, their inner consciousness, and when they

The reached the top, the spiritual sun restedRosicrucian uPon fl\em- w° rds’ when theyattained w ithin themselves a state oftges Cosmic Consciousness, then they wereDecember bathed in illumination or spiritual un-1942 derstanding.

Profane or general history, in all of its investigations, can disclose no reason for T hoth and for Hermes being called the Thrice Illustrious or Thrice Great. Rosicrucian records as we have them here, which are a continuation and a perpetuation of that knowledge trans­mitted to the O rder from the Old W orld , tell us that there actually was such a character as Hermes or Thoth. H e was not a god but a great sage, and he was born in Thebes, ancient capital of Egypt, in 1399 B. C., and he attain­ed a great age. H e received the appel­lation “Thrice Illustrious” because he participated in the organization of the great m ystery school, had the experi­ence of seeing the illustrious Amen- hotep IV initiated as a G reat G rand M aster, and further, had the experience of seeing the w ork perpetuated by he himself assisting in the initiation of the successor to Amenhotep IV.

M etaphysics is wrongly used by m any persons as a generic term to be all-inclusive, to cover a number of sub­jects which either should be under occultism, esoterism, Hermeticism, or some other branch of learning. It is well that we orient ourselves on. what is metaphysics. T he term was original­ly coined or invented by Aristotle. This great encyclopedic mind realized that it was necessary to classify the branch­es of human knowledge so that they could be perused more easily, and this he set about to do, for which humanity should be eternally grateful to him. He assigned various names to these differ­ent branches, many of which we per­petuate and still use today, such as psychology, and the word physics, which a t tha t time included all material science. H e even invented a method of reasoning to assist in understanding. T h is he called logic, a term we still use for such a method. T o metaphysics Aristotle gave the meaning: literally that which is beyond the physical, be­yond the material, in contradistinction to his classification of knowledge, which he called physics.

In antiquity and today, however, meta­physics is concerned with first causes, the prim ary beginnings of things. Now the causes with which metaphysics is concerned are not pragmatic. T hey are not material causes or mechanical causes

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such as science investigates in examin­ing a physical phenomenon. Rather, they are rational causes, causes which the mind conceives by processes of reasoning. M etaphysics is A Priori knowledge. It is a knowledge which begins with the general, and by it seeks to explain the particular. It is a knowl­edge which starts in the mind, rather than outside of it, a product o f pure reasoning.

Perhaps we can better understand just w hat metaphysics may be by enum­erating some of the topics with which it is concerned. M etaphysics has a great interest in the prim ary substance of the universe. W h a t is it from which all things come? W h a t is the under­lying cause beneath all phenomena? W h a t is the relationship between all things? M etaphysics embraces the topic of ontology, the nature of being, w hat is pure being? If everything is reduced to its fundam ental state, can there be any such thing as non-being or an ab­sence of it?

Science, for example, recognizes evo­lution and teaches it, and we, as Rosi- crucians, recognize aspects of the doc­trine as well which are concerned with natural laws. Science studies the man­ner in which evolution functions. M eta­physics, on the other hand, questions into w hy should there be evolution, w hat is the moving principle behind it, w hy should things develop successively and relatedly from a simple to a so-

called higher state. Science says, here is how something functions. M eta­physics seeks to know: w hy does it function as it does?

W h at, then, is Rosicrucianism, of which we are members and students? It is not any one of these—occultism, Hermeticism, metaphysics, or mysti­cism. I t is all o f them. Rosicrucians are not specialists. T hey will not confine or limit themselves to one branch of knowledge. Rosicrucians are true phi­losophers in the sense that they are seeking a unity of all knowledge. All tha t which is known to exist must have a place, and it is trying to find the inter-relationship between things and ourselves, which is the end of Rosicrucianism.

In Rosicrucianism we seek to reunite man with the divine purpose. If we pursue just one aspect, we are going off a t a tangent. W e must be draw n back into the whole. So as Rosicrucians, avoid having any affection, any partic­ular love for a special by-path, or else you will get sidetracked on your climb upward. Investigate all paths. T h a t is w hy Rosicrucianism seeks to include all tried and tested branches of knowledge. But be certain that you cause your in­quiry, w hatever the direction in which you move in your thinking, to converge back again on the main trunk eventual­ly; otherwise you will be opposing our philosophical purpose—the unity of all knowledge.

V V V

IT IS N O T THE OUTER MAN(Continued from Page 411)

standards of judgm ent his progress seems very slow, sometimes discourag- ingly slow. Even his mother frankly confessed recently how strange it seem­ed to her tha t the one child in her fam­ily w ho seemed most keen, wide-awake, and apt a t learning should make such slow progress in the business world, and in his personal affairs.

But fortunately, it is not the outer man but the man within that matters. And w hat that inner development is no one can fully know except the one con­cerned. However, there comes a day

when there is a sudden demonstration of inner growth, an outw ard manifesta­tion of success and power. A s God wills, so be it. Light, Life and Love, these we must have more abundantly. O ur light ought not be hidden. Let the Soul express itself and manifest the voice of the inner man. Only thus can there be supreme happiness. As our Sovereign G rand M aster K iim a le h to stated in a recent article: “T here is no nobler work than the fashioning of Souls. T here is no finer gift than a beautiful Soul.”

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TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

Behind The MirrorB y S o r o r E lo i s e L a v r i s c h e f f

E have all laughed a t the description of the kitten as he sees himself in the mirror for the first tim e . H e s id le s up w a r i ly , b a c k a r c h e d a n d fu r bristling. C lo s e r a n d c l o s e r h e comes until, sur­prised, instead of a n o th e r ca t—he touches o n ly th e

glass. T hen cautiously he peers around the edge of the frame. A nd w hat does he find? Nothing! T here is no other cat!

Yes, we have laughed a t the antics of the kitten and its amazement a t find­ing no other cat behind the mirror. But w hat if we should stop to think that we are in T ru th in exactly the same posi­tion. W e, here on this E arth Plane, are actually standing before the mirror of our minds, and through the ages have fallen into the error of thinking the images we see reflected are real.

But it is true that the world we see about us is only a reflection. As we stand before a mirror, we see the image we call “ourselves” against the back­ground of the room where we happen to be. W e accept the fact tha t there is really no other person in the mirror, no other room in the glass. But we do not accept the fact, or even stop to think, tha t in the mirror of our minds w hat we see as our outer body, the objects

around us, really do not exist as such: for forms do not exist in N ature.

W e know, and Science admits, that all m atter is composed of but one Sub­stance, energy which is vibrating. The different rates of vibration reflect to our different senses and in the mirror of our minds we see the reflection and say, “T his is a rock”; “T h a t is w ater” ; or “T here is a cloud in the sky." But in reality all tha t exists before us is Spirit Energy, G od's own energy, vibrating a t different speeds. Because this energy forms a vibratory pattern in accordance with the idea, the archtype, in the Mind of the C reator, our Inner Soul Self, which is itself the M ind and Conscious­ness of God, recognizes in the reflection the archetype. So it is that we build up in our minds the picture which is the world as it exists to us.

Yes, we have laughed at the reaction of the cat to its reflection, but we have not understood that we ourselves are reacting in exactly the same manner to our “earth ly” reflection. T o the kitten the image in the mirror was another cat, a creature with all the potentialities of friend or enemy. Hence the bristling fur, the arched back. W e , in the mirror of our objective minds, view the reflec­tion we call our body. W e allow it to exist to us as something separate and apart, a distinct entity, capable of suf­fering all kinds of ills and evil fate. But when the cat has left the front of the mirror, has the mirror changed? Has the cat changed? No, only the reflec­tion is missing. So, when we leave this

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earth, what is changed? C annot we meditate upon this and its great signifi­cance to us a t this time?

O ur Inner Self, Soul (the M ind and Consciousness of G od) together with Spirit (the vibrating energy of which the Universe is composed) produces the mirror of our mind which we know as consciousness. It is the m irror in which the C reator planned to reflect to us here the perfection of the W orld Above: A S A B O V E S O B E L O W . But we have become so absorbed in the reflec­tion, imperfect though it may be, that we have forgotten the T ru th —that it is only a reflection, and as such is de­pendent upon the medium which re­flects—our minds. W e see the apparent evil about us and forget that in T ru th — the One, the Absolute Good—there can be no evil. For T ru th cannot be less than perfect. In Reality there is only the O ne M ind, the One Substance, the One Perfect Kingdom, which we should learn to see in the mirror of our mind.

But if the mirror is imperfect, how can we see a perfect reflection? If the cat stands before a m irror which dis­torts the light, it will see instead of an ­other cat a hideous monster standing before it. But when the wiser cat comes back from behind the mirror, he knows there is no monster there—there is only himself.

W e go into the Fun House and laugh ourselves into hysterics a t the grotesque figures in the Hall of M irrors. Before one we are fat. Before another we are thin. T h is one bows our legs. T h a t one twists our body. A nd we en­joy the images because we know they are not teal! Stop!! Think! For this, then, is the key to happiness and har­mony in our earthly lives. All the forces of Spirit which form the Universe about us were created for us to enjoy. All Laws were set in action to create pat­terns which would reflect the beauty of the W orld Above. But, because they are Laws, they are inexorable. T hey must continue to operate, although M an in his ignorance does not cooperate, causes actions and reactions in the U ni­verse which create that which he inter­prets as evil. A nd the more he looks at the evil picture, the more the mirror of his mind becomes w arped and con­tracted.

So we have allowed ourselves to gaze into imperfect mirrors and see the One Perfect Substance, which is in T ruth reacting perfectly according to Divine Law, producing a p p a r e n t ly hideous forms, crippled bodies, evil circum­stances all around. A nd not realizing that they are but reflections, we sit in despair before the mirror and bemoan our fate.

Arise! C lear the mirror! Know that in T ru th there is only perfection. In T ru th there is only the perfect You. N o m atter w hat the mirror of your out­er mind may show, look behind the mirror. T h e Idea of You in the Mind of the C reator cannot be less than perfect. Know this; dwell upon this thought. T he Idea of the perfect heart o r lung o r other organs of your body can never be less than perfect, no m atter w hat the reflection may be. T h e Idea of the Perfect Body can never be less than perfect, no m atter w hat the image in the outer world may be. Know this and you clear the mirror of your mind and the perfect reflection must come through. It is because it is only a re­flection that it is so easy for the figure, the form of the outer, to change. Be­cause our bodies are composed of this same vibrating energy which composes the Universe, because they are anim ated with the O ne V ital Life Force which in­fuses all Life, it is just as easy for us to reflect the Perfect Idea in the M ind of the C reator as the imperfect image our objective mind has made. But it cannot reflect two images a t the same time—one perfect and one imperfect. W e m ust then synchronize our ideas with those of the C reator and watch for the reflection to change. For by the Law, change it must.

O ur mind has truly created the world as it exists to us. T houghts lower than those of the H ighest have created the reflection which we call the "w orld today.” M ankind, before the warped, contracted m irror of his mind, stands in fear, in anger, in agony, in despair. But we must open our eyes. W e must look with our inner eye beyond the ap­pearance to the Reality. W e must know in T ru th that M an is G od’s perfect Creation, truly living in a perfect world now. All we must ao for it to manifest

( Concluded on Page 419)

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TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

What Do Y O U Think?By F r a t e r C h a r l e s W o o d

V E R Y student of mysticism k n o w s “As a man thinks so is h e .” M a r y P i c k f o r d o n c e s a id , “ N o th in g can hurt you un­less you think a- bout it,” and we, as R o s ic ru c ia n s , know that the life we are living to­day is the result o f our past think­

ing, and that our thinking today is building our future life.

I wonder how many of us ever realize the importance of the above statements? H ere is an illustration I like to use to dem onstrate that it is the thought and not the act that affects us:

T w o men are riding in a car on a dark night and they run over a dark ob­ject in the road. O ne goes back to see w hat they hit and finds tha t they have killed a man and tells the driver so. N ow a similar case. T w o men hit an object in the road and one goes back and finds that w hat they hit w as only a sack of grain, but he tells the driver he has killed a man. N ow I am sure you will all agree that the effect on both drivers will be the same, yet one has killed a man and the other has not but he th inks he has. T ake a third case. T w o men driving at n ight run over an object in the road. O ne goes back and discovers that they have killed a man but he tells the driver it was only a sack of grain. N ow here the driver has killed

a man but, as far as that case is con­cerned, he will live conscience-free the rest of his life because he doesn’t know it, and therefore does not th ink about it. T hus, w e cause our own suffering or contentment by our thinking.

Strange effects sometimes hampering, often disastrous, are caused by mistaken beliefs, such as the belief that might is right, that our economic systems and our religions th a t were handed down to us by our forefathers must be right. A little stra igh t thinking will open up some real surprises. O ne may even contract a so-called contagious disease by the thought that he has been exposed to it when as a m atter of fact he was not in any w ay exposed; and think of the suf­fering endured as the result of fear of something that never otherwise affected the person and, in many cases, never even existed.

T hought, belief and faith are quite closely related. T o think you can do something is to believe you can do it, and belief is faith. Now, without refer­ence to religious faith, I w ant to point out right here that w ithout faith you could not even lift your hand off the table. You have absolute faith that you can do that, therefore you do it with little or no effort. But if you can be made to believe th a t you can’t do it~- through the use of hypnotism or any other similar m ethod—you will find it impossible to lift tha t hand off the table. In contradistinction, men have been known to lift many times their normal capacity to save the life of a loved one pinned under a car or truck. Due to the

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state of e m o tio n the predominating thought w as to lift that car. N o t a wish or a hope but a conviction on the part of the man tha t he m ust lift the car. A nd he lifted this extra weight because for the moment he forgot his weakness, forgot that he couldn’t lift such weights. His only thought was that he could and m ust lift that car!

A lecturer recently used another good example of the connection b e tw e e n faith and reality. H e said, “Suppose you were told that someone had died and left you a million dollars and all you had to do to get this money would be to write out the checks. If you had faith in the one who told you this you would, by writing out the check, accept the money; but the chances are you would not believe the story and would not write the checks and therefore fore­go all that prosperity which only aw ait­ed your acceptance.

T h a t statem ent of M ary Pickford’s — that nothing can hurt you unless you think about it—may seem a rather broad statement; but let us analyze it. A ny­one who has made any study of psy­chology knows that you cannot think of more than one thing a t a time. You may believe you do when you attem pt to carry on a conversation while suffering with a toothache, but it is an intermit- ent process of thinking of more than one thing a t a time. Your thoughts are jumping from one thing to another at very brief intervals. It stands to reason then that you don’t feel pain while thinking of something else. But here is the question tha t often comes up. If one is struck suddenly we may say that he certainly felt th a t w ithout thinking. But that is ju st another case of misbelief. T h e truth of the m atter is tha t the blow w as not felt for a short interval of time while the nerve carried the impulse to the brain w here it was interpreted as pain and the pain became a thought. Now, if a t the time the person was struck, he had been dead or rendered

unconscious by the blow, or was under the effect of an anesthetic, or if his mind could have been completely occu­pied by other thoughts he would not have felt the pain because he would not have thought of it.

N ow we can go a step farther than this. I know from my own experience -—any any number of others will testi­fy the same— that the physical cause or seat of the pain is changed by our thinking, that the intensity or duration of the pain is increased by our thinking about it and eased or stopped by not thinking about it. In many cases no other cure is necessary. Just eliminate the thought of pain and nature will ef­fect the cure. Just recently I was able to dem onstrate this to myself in a way I will never forget. I was suffering with a severe sore th roat and headache, and although for me it is a very difficult task to concentrate my mind on some­thing pleasant while in pain, I was able to do this for a few minutes two differ­ent times. Now, as stated before, we cannot feel pain if not thinking about it, but in this case I was much surprised to find upon again becoming conscious of myself tha t the pain did not return a t once but only after about a half minute of conscious thinking. Think, too, of the number of cases of headaches and other minor ills that have been cured, not through any effort on the part of the patient but by a sudden change in thinking, by meeting some cheerful friends or attending an inter­esting movie.

Thought, then, is pow er for either good or evil. Every physical act is pre­ceded by thought. Everything that man has built was preceded by thought. O ur thoughts not only affect our own lives, now and in the future, bu t through the spoken word and the subtle radiation of our thoughts we are affecting the lives of others. So, let us guard our thinking at all times.

V V V

BEHIND THE MIRROR(Continued from Page 417)

to us, is to change our mirror tha t it festation. Lo, the Kingdom of Heaven may be reflected. Behold G od’s perfect is at H and: Behind the mirror o f our ideas, then watch for the perfect mani- m inds.

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TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

Cosmic PoliticsBy D r. H. S p e n c e r L e w is , F. R. C., Ph. D.

(September, 1936, Rosicrucian Digest)

M an y o f th e a r t ic le s w r i t te n b y o u r la t e Im p e r a to r , D r . H . S p e n c e r L ew is , a r e a sd e a th le s s a s t im e . T h a t is , th e y a r e c o n c e rn e d w i th th o se la w s a n d p r in c ip le s o f l ife a n d l iv in g w h ic h a r e e te rn a l , a n d th u s n e v e r lo se t h e i r e fficacy o r t h e i r im p o r t , a n d a r e a s h e lp fu l a n d a s in s p i r in g w h e n r e a d to d a y a s th e y w e re w h e n th e y w e re w r i t te n five, ten , f if te en , tw e n ty o r m o re y e a r s a g o , a n d lik e w ise w ill c o n tin u e to b e a s h e lp fu l a n d as in s t ru c t iv e in th e fu tu re . F o r t h i s re a s o n , a n d fo r th e re a s o n t h a t th o u s a n d s o f r e a d e r s o f th e “ R o s ic ru c ia n D ig e s t" h av e n o t re a d m a n y o f th e e a r l ie r a r t ic le s o f o u r la te Im p e ra to r , w e a r e g o in g to a d o p t th e e d ito r ia l p o lic y o f p u b l is h in g in th e “ R o s ic ru c ia n D ig e s t” each m o n th o n e o f h is o u ts ta n d in g a r t ic le s so t h a t h is t h o u g h ts w ill c o n tin u e to re s id e w ith in th e p a g e s o f th i s p u b lic a tio n .

T IS generally un­derstood by all of our members and f r i e n d s that our organization does not deal in politi­cal m atters to the extent of advising o u r m e m b e rs to s u p p o r t any one political party or any one candidate for any office. So far as political al­

liances are concerned, our organization remains absolutely neutral and the only thought that any of us give to these matters is to try to determine which of the various candidates for the many, many offices to be filled a t each election are best qualified from a universal point of view. W e may from time to time ex­press in this departm ent of ‘ T he Rosi­crucian D igest” o r in ‘‘T h e Rosicrucian Forum ” some of our own personal views regarding candidates and politi­cal principles, but we have never ex­

pected all of our members to adopt our opinions as a m atter of course, or as an incident to their membership in the organization.

T h e mystic and the student of n a t­ural philosophy may be inclined to say that politics constitutes a field of activ­ity and study that is entirely outside of his realm, but he forgets that the Cos­mic is very greatly interested in politics and w ithout a political scheme of some kind the Cosmic could not carry out its universal principles. In the course of m any years I have noted with much satisfaction that in any complicated sit­uations the Cosmic intervenes and se­lects o r elects a person to a position who is best fitted to meet the crisis. In fact, in the intervention of the Cosmic, as in instances where God intervenes to settle a much mooted point, we have a distinct revelation of the political acu­men, the political understanding and superior comprehension of things poli­tical here on earth.

T h e cyclic birth of a great avatar in each nation, the periodical rise of a

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great leader to guide the thoughts of men, and the powerful influence of a savior of m an’s best interests through­out the ages clearly points to a su­preme, divine, omnipotent comprehen­sion of our needs, and a dependable in­tervention on the p a rt of God and the Cosmic forces when we are in need of superior guidance.

T his does not mean, however, tha t each one of us should fail to study the situations that have arisen from our own w orldly affairs. W ith the human error that is inevitable, we make mis­takes from time to time, and these mis­takes must be corrected; and this lies in our own hands to a great extent. In­asmuch as man has taken unto himself the prerogative of creating laws for governing himself and his fellow be­ings, and inasmuch as man has also as­sumed a superior position in interpreting G o d ’s universal laws and applying them in a specific way, man has assumed a responsibility that he cannot cast aside or pass on to God and the Cosmic when he himself must work out the problem. For this reason, if no other, each in­dividual should give serious thought to the selection of candidates for such of­fices as control the adm inistration of man-made laws and the interpretation of them.

M an can do his best in this regard by keeping in mind the political attitude which must be th a t of the Cosmic. Cer­tainly the Cosmic does not take into consideration the religious, racial, or color distinctions which man has mag­nified to such artificial importance. In the sight of G od all of the children on earth are of one human family, and re­gardless of race or color or religious faith, our world problems are much alike and can be solved only by a com­mon understanding and a common ap­plication of sensible interpretations of fundam ental principles.

W e should, therefore, analyze each political situation from its international and universal point of view rather than from its distinctly local point of view, and each candidate for office should not be analyzed from any limited, narrow, or local situation. A mayor of a small city is not just a ruler or adm inistrator of the interests within the confines of the city, but he becomes a member of a

more or less universal hierarchy of worldly rulers, and his actions, his de­crees, his rulings, decisions, interpreta­tions and evolving ideas cannot be sep­arated from our universal interests. A t any hour of the day during his term of administration he m ay become an im­portant national figure or even an inter­national influence. C ertainly his influ­ence upon the people within his own city can become of nation-wide impor­tance. A President of the United States is not only an adm inistrator of the in­terests of these United States alone, but he becomes a part of the international scheme of administration and we must consider his qualifications to meet and act with the international problems that will rise along with the local ones.

A nd in analyzing the individual we m ust not be guided by party ties and affiliations nor by his promises, no m at­ter how sincerely and honestly they may be made before election. W e must consider w hat his tendencies may be in future situations that are not anticipated or expected a t the present time. W e must judge him not by w hat he wants to do or desires to do in the future but w hat he may be capable of doing under stress o r in circumstances now un­known. I t is probably true that the av­erage political candidate is anxious to give a better adm inistration than his predecessor and tries to make his ad ­ministration a monument to his integri­ty, goodness, honesty and creative pow­ers. But this desire, this honest intent, is not the most im portant thing that we must consider. W e must analyze his character, his abilities, his methods of thinking and his fundam ental apprecia­tion of Cosmic and Universal laws.

T hroughout the United States and in many parts of N orth America and elsewhere in the world the next few months will see the wildest possible ac­tivities in political circles. W e shall hear and read of contentions, argu­ments, disparaging remarks regarding one or the o ther of each classification of candidates, and bombastic promises for the future. T here are millions of voters who will blindly vote for one or the other of the many candidates either with the belief tha t all are good or all are bad, and any attem pt to select one as better than the other is a waste of

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time; o r that it makes little difference who is elected inasmuch as political in­fluences, conniving and underhanded scheming will control the candidate’s actions regardless of his claims. This is a wrong w ay to look a t the m atter, a wrong w ay to vote inasmuch as it fos­ters the very situation that is so seri­ously criticized. T here have been can­didates in the past who have been elected to office on the basis of their promises, and they have sacrificed their future success and fame in remaining steadfast to the promises made, and in fulfilling their obligations regardless of all pressure from the outside and all temptations.

W e can encourage men of fine char­acter and fine mind to take an interest in political m atters by showing in our manner of voting that w e are using discrimination, tha t we are approaching the subject prayerfully, analytically and Cosmically.

T here is no greater power on earth of a mundane nature than that of pub­lic opinion. It is a complementary and secondary power to Cosmic law. If all human beings would unite at this time in a demand for universal peace by thinking only of peace and of brotherly love and of universal prosperity and happiness, not only would the thought of w ar be eliminated from the minds of those who make w ars possible, but even the reflection of this power of opinion would affect the Cosmic laws, and uni­versal peace would become an immedi­ate and unchangeable condition. W hen public opinion in any locality or any nation centers itself upon certain de­

mands that are righteous, reasonable, or fair — or especially of general good to all—political powers, political par­ties, political leaders are set at naught and can accomplish nothing in the face of this decision on the part of the mind of man.

A man w ho is elected to office by the universal opinion of the vast majority of persons who believe and demand that he is to do the things that are right, is suddenly given from the Cosmic a power to fulfill the demands of the public and is made fearful of any varia­tion of those demands. In such a case the public, who has established such an opinion and w ho has elected the man to office, must assume all responsibility of its judgment. T his man is in a posi­tion to exert powerful influence and to be m aster of his own fate in all political senses just as he is master of his per­sonal life and must therefore assume the responsibility of his own acts.

Therefore, it is right and proper that the members of our organization a t­tempting to work in harm ony with uni­versal Cosmic laws should analyze the political situation of today and select their candidates and vote for such per­sons as they honestly believe will con­form to Cosmic rules and give the pub­lic the very best service possible. Part of our duty lies in attem pting to make worldly conditions proper in a national or community sense, as well as in a private, social sense; for, after all, we are our brother’s keeper in a wide inter­pretation and a nation’s Karma can become a part of our own Karma.

TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

AN AID TO YOUR MEMBERSHIPU ntil further notice, w e a re instituting a new policy w hich will be welcomed by m any

mem bers w ho have previously requested a sim ilar arrangem ent. A ll m em bers w ho con­tribute one y ea r's dues m ay, a t the tim e th ey forw ard one y ea r's dues to the G rand Lodge, receive a one y ea r subscription to "T h e Rosicrucian Forum ." "T h e Rosicrucian Forum ” is a private, confidential bim onthly m agazine exclusively for active A M O R C members. I t is a valuable supplem ent to the Rosicrucian m onographs and contains the Im perator’s answ ers to questions subm itted to him by m any members. A ll "Rosicrucian Forum " subscribers rely upon this m agazine to answ er m any questions w hich m ay arise in their minds in regard to the interpretation of various phases of the teachings, as well as to how the principles can be practically applied to their daily lives.

N ow is y our opportun ity to arrange to have "T h e Rosicrucian Forum ” reach you for the next y ea r by contributing your entire y ea r's dues a t one time and asking for this special privilege w hich w e can gran t to you due to the saving m ade possible by your dues being received in one unit. If you have never exam ined a copy of "T he Rosicrucian Forum ," a sam ple copy will be forw arded to you for the small sum of tw enty cents post­paid. (F o r mem bers only.)

Page 25: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

r/<>Yi "■rPjfcA'iivifcS'i ? iYi ryj>xifyifcS'i )Vii>~\'i r/ vi iyyti r >vi . r?i vi r^Si ■~~?ia>\''. r ?y\'i r r >Yi ryy~

T h e "C athedral of the Soul” is a Cosmic meeting place for all minds of the most highly developed and spiritually advanced m embers and w orkers of the Rosicrucian Fraternity . It is a focal point of Cosmic radiations and thought w aves from which rad iate v ibrations of health, peace, happiness, and inner aw akening. V arious periods of the d ay are set aside w hen m any thousands of minds are attuned w ith the C athedral of the Soul, and o thers attuning with the C athedral a t the time will receive the benefit of the vibrations. T hose who are not members of the organization m ay share in the unusual benefits as well as those w ho are members. T h e book called "L iber 777" describes the periods for various contacts w ith the C athedral. Copies will be sent to persons who are not members if they address their requests for this book to F ria r S. P. C., care of A M O R C Tem ple, San Jose, California, enclosing three cents in postage stam ps. (Please state w hether member or not— this is im portant.)

THE STAR IN THE EAST

E G A R D L E S S of w h a t m a y b e o n e ’s interpreta­tio n o f th e reli­gious significance of C h r is tm a s or the scientific inter­p r e t a t io n of the S t a r o f B e th le ­hem, we still can lo o k u p o n th is symbol as an in­dicator of a way of life. W e look

back upon M an ’s history as best we know it and see that we have, since the original Christm as, advanced only about half as far in terms of years as did the era of civilization which existed prior to the birth of Christ. O ur con­

ception of this slow progress will help us to realize that M an is faced by many adjustm ents, and that the series of ad­justments now taking place are not as futile as they might appear on the sur­face. Reasonably a c c u r a te historical records reach back over four thousand years before the Christian era. No doubt a t the half-w ay mark in that era of slightly less than two thousand years when conflicts existed between nations, and between men, there were those who believed tha t the civilization would per­ish. W e can reasonably believe that a far greater future exists ahead of us than existed ahead of them in those early times.

T he S tar in the E ast has been a sym­bol ever since the first Christm as of all of M an ’s highest aspirations and de-

Oirum -rj

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sires. T o say that the ideals laid down as Christian have failed is only to acknowledge M an’s weakness in being unable to reach his ultimate aim or point of advancement. T h e system has not failed and, regardless o f religious doc­trine, the ideals which are represented in the spirit of Christm as will be those to which intelligent and progressive men and women will continue to hold as an ultim ate achievement. Therefore, the S tar in the E ast still shines—shines as a guide to direct those who m ay be tempted to retain here within the physi­cal limitations of this earth all their treasures. Life as a physical existence can be dull, can be constantly beset with troubles and hostility, but life which is lived for a higher purpose will find a broader basis of understanding and interpretation.

Christm as will be different this year in many homes. T here cannot help but hang over the usual festivities the actu­alities of the present. Some homes, in fact, many homes, will be touched by the absence of one or more w ho have been a part of this annual observance.

Restrictions upon various commodities will limit the usual exchange of gifts. Perhaps it is all for the good—perhaps this Christm as men and women will turn more to the spirit of giving and to the ideals as represented by H e whose birthday we observe. By the restric­tions placed upon them by physical limitations they will come to a better understanding of Christm as and the symbology of the S tar of the E ast than they have ever had before. Enter, there­fore, into the spirit and the ideal of the occasion. Direct your thoughts of peace and harm ony to those near or far away. A ttune yourself with the ideals repre­sented by the season rather than limit­ing yourself to the actualities immedi­ately a t hand. M any are already fa­miliar with the C athedral of the Soul. T hose who are and those who wish to become familiar will find great satisfac­tion in entering its portals to direct their constructive thinking unitedly toward the creation of a world in which the Christm as spirit in its highest idealistic form will be the governing power on this planet.

B U Y U N IT E D ST A T ES S A V IN G S S T A M P S A N D B O N D S

TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

THOUGHTS OF AN EVERYDAY MYSTIC“From m y lookout tow er I w atch the sun come up most every m orning. Glorious!

I salute the sun w ith R a and a few of the vow el sounds and w ords I have learned. I a l­w ay s get an answ er back, and often the effect, th e vibrations, the personality , o r call it w h at you m ay, will stay w ith me all day . A s m y lookout duties concern all points of the com pass, I usually m ake three rounds around it, and sing a triad of notes. T h is exercise surely has an exuberant effect upon m y being.

"A t times, w hen 'chasing smoke’ and out of all comm unication, I often p ick a blossom from a ra re high-altitude flower, p lace it under m y h at band, and breathe a thought to my wife, and v ery often she picks up the thought and I know th a t every th ing is well. I do no t know if the v ibrations of a flower help to ca rry a thought; I suspect that they do.

" It is a lot of fun to look up in to the sky and w atch a cloud dissipate before your eyes— . A lso, there is much consolation w hen isoleted to be able to get a message from a m elody." — G L E N W . BA IRD.

(E d ito r's N ote: F ra te r Baird is a fire ranger in a la rge national p ark in the W estern U nited States. H is duties place him in close proxim ity to the beauties and w ondrous m anifestations of natu re w here every th ing v irtually breathes th e m ajesty of Cosmic law.)

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The Moral Argument of KantB y R o g e r O . B a c o n , M . A ., F . R . C .

N w r i t in g on the m o ra l a rg u m e n t of Kant, it would be well to define th e te rm “argu­m ent” as employ­ed herein. It must not have the con­n o ta t io n of con­troversy, nor will it be used as an exposition of the f a b le in an ep ic p o em . I t m ea n s

herein “criteria” and my paper will, therefore, be an exposition of the moral criteria or essentials of Kant.

If one likes to see a m an’s life reflect­ed in his writings, he is bound to be dis­concerted som ewhat on studying the w orldly existence of the author of the Critique of Pure Reason. Paradox is the most frequently recurring thought as one attem pts to reconcile the man and his work, or attem pts to replace his own criteria of moral judgm ent with those of Kant.

T h e moral criteria of Kant perhaps had their source in the simple faith of his ancestors who were driven from Scotland to Germ any in the 17th Cen­tury because of religious persecution. T h e criteria may represent in part the essentials of the heritage so dearly pre­served. W hich brings us to the third paradox — in as m any paragraphs — that of giving the world these standards in the glittering age of Frederick the Great.

T h e criteria of Kant may best be understood by Rosicrucians as summed up in the symbol of the superimposed triangles. “T h e greatest good for the greatest num ber” is comprehended in the universal philosophy of Kant.

“N othing in the whole world, or even outside of the w'orld, can possibly be regarded as good without limitation ex­cept a good will.” T h e intellectual gifts of intelligence, sagacity and judgment, and the qualities of courage, resolution and perseverance may be pernicious if the will that directs them is not good. Power, wealth, honor, good health and contentm ent give rise to pride when the will is not good. “A good will would, therefore, seem to be the indispensable condition without which no one is even w orthy to be happy.”

A good will is not merely well-wish­ing, but it consists in the resolute em­ployment o f all the means within one’s reach, and its intrinsic value is in no w ay increased by success or lessened by failure.

Reason falls short in securing enjoy­ment and happiness for the intelligent man. Rather he may come to have a hatred of reason and to envy the less intelligent person w ho relies mainly on his natural impulses to tell him w hat to do and w hat to leave undone. One may even deny reason to have any value in the attainm ent of happiness. Kant states that life has a nobler end than happi­ness and that the true vocation of rea­son is to attain that end.

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TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

Reason should produce a will which is good in itself and not merely good as a means to something else. T his will is the highest good. Happiness is the sec­ond and conditioned object.

T o understand a will which is good in itself, it is necessary to examine duty, which involves the idea of a good will as manifested under certain subjective limitations and hindrances.

An action that is done from duty gets its moral value, not from the object it is intended to secure, but from the maxim by which it is determined. I t is all one w hether the end is attained or not. U n­conditioned and moral value can lie only in the principle of the will, no mat­ter w hether the object sought can be attained by the action or not. N o action which is done from duty can be deter­mined by a material principle, it can be determined only by the formal principle of all volition.

D uty is the obligation to act from reverence for law, even a t the sacrifice of all my natural inclinations.

T he supreme good which we call moral can, therefore, be but the idea of the law in itself in so far as this idea which determines the will and not any consequences which are expected follow.

O nly a rational being can have such an idea, and hence a man who acts from the idea of the law is always morally good no m atter w hether the conse­quences which he expects from his ac­tion follow or not.

N ow w hat must be the nature of a law, the idea of which is to determine the will even apart from the effects ex­pected to follow and which is, there­fore, also entitled to be called good ab­solutely and without qualification? T he only principle of the will which remains is tha t of the conformity of actions to universal law. In all cases he must act in such a w ay that he can a t the same time will that his maxim should become a universal law.

M ay one, for instance, under the pressure of circumstances, make a prom­ise which he has no intention of keep­ing? O ne has only to ask himself w hether it would satisfy that maxim to extricate himself from embarrassment by giving a false promise— if such an action should have the force of a uni­versal law, applying to others as well

as to himself. A nd it would be seen at once that, while one could certainly will a lie, he would not will tha t lying should become a universal law. If lying were universal there would, properly speak­ing, be no promises whatever. His prac­tice a t once proves itself to be self- destructive.

Duty, then, consists in the obligation to act from pure reverence for moral law. T o this motive all others must give way, for it is a condition of the will which is good in itself, and which has a value with which nothing else is comparable.

T he conception of duty is not derived from experience. Reason issues its com­mands on its own authority without caring in the least w hether the actions of men have, as a m atter of fact, been done purely from the idea of duty. Per­fect disinterestedness in friendship for itself is dem anded of every man, al­though there may never have been a sincere friend; for perfect friendship is bound up in the idea of duty as duty, and belongs to the very idea of a rea­son which determines the evil on a priori grounds, prior to all experience. N o experience w hatever led us to sup­pose that laws of this apodictic charac­ter are even possible.

Such a metaphysic of morality must be entirely free from all adm ixture of empirical psychology, theology, physics and hyper-physics, as well as all occult qualities.

Everything in nature acts in conform­ity with law. O nly a rational being has the faculty of acting in conformity with the idea of law, or from principle; only a rational being, in other words, has a will. If the will of a rational being is not absolutely good, we conceive of it as capable of being determined by ob­jective laws of reason, but not as by its very nature necessarily obeying them.

T h e idea that a certain principle is objective and binding upon the will is a command of reason, and the statem ent of the command as a formula is an im­perative. All imperatives are expressed by the word “ought." In reference to the divine will o r any other holy will, imperatives have no meaning, for here the will is by its very nature necessar­ily in harm ony with the law and, there­fore, “ought" has no application to it.(Concluded on Page 430)

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A Philosophical View of AlchemyBy T i io r K i im a l e h t o , Sovereign Grand Master

H R O U G H O U T the 15th and 16th centuries, a waveo f i n t e r e s t in Alchemy b ec a m e v e ry p ro m in e n t among the learn­ed men and pre­lates of the day. If we realize that scientific k n o w l­e d g e o f n a tu re and natural phe­n o m e n a w e r e

largely in infancy, and that superstition engendered by the materialistic religious beliefs enveloped or controlled the rea­soning faculties of the m ajority of hu­man beings, it is not surprising, when the rumor became current that gold could be made through artificial means, a great many learned men became in­terested and even tried to find out everything about the mysterious process.

Science knows today that gold can be m ade—at great cost which is prohibi­tive. T h e alchemists, however, claimed that they had a secret process for its manufacture.

Accepting these things as facts, and realizing the im portant repercussions such knowledge would have upon the multitude which the state and church tried to hold in bondage, w e can read­ily understand that they bent all their energies in an effort to discourage such practice. Printing had flourished for a long time, and it was used as a medium of destruction. Nonsensical pamphlets

appeared, purporting to have been w rit­ten by alchemists, but whose real au­thors were the clergy. Educated men and thinking men who read this con­glomeration of nonsense naturally be­came disgusted, and so have our scien­tists of today who have read some of these pamphlets. T he system in vogue by the Jesuits to discredit men who pos­sibly would become a menace to the church’s teachings w as a common prac­tice a t that time. On the other hand, there are some who discover in the al­chemists only secret expounders of truth, who, under terms of chemistry, hid their teachings from all but their own kind, and not only never made a grain of gold, but never attem pted it, nor were chemists a t all. M any alchem­ists were advanced sages, who, not car­ing to be detected in working unauthor­ized miracles in times when burning a t the stake was still in vogue, pretended to be smelting and distilling in the se­clusion of their laboratories, while, in fact, they were only meditating and contemplating for the purpose of ac­quiring occult powers. T heir writings, which disclose nothing save an intent to hide or confuse the casual reader, are of small value without the secret key, which could not be understood without a thorough knowledge of astro­logy and the nature of the planets, and mystic phraseology.

N o m atter w hat our opinion may be about the alchemists of the Renaissance, the indebtedness to alchemy is greater than we realize. In the first place,

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alchemy contributed many necessary words to the vocabulary of science, such as crucible, distillation, quintes­sence, and affinity. In the second place, they stumbled upon many discoveries that they did not seek. Science is thus indebted to Gebir for the first sugges­tion of corrosive sublimate, the red oxide of mercury, nitric acid, and nitrate of silver: to Roger Bacon for the tele­scope, the magic lantern and gunpow­der-, to V a n H elm ont for the properties of gas; to Paracelsus for laudanum. T o him, medicine owes the idea of the clinic.

As in chemistry so in other sciences, the most im portant discoveries were made by men who had marked taste for alchemic theories. Kepler was guided in his investigations by cabalistic con­siderations. T h e search for gold and youth was only one phase of alchemy. Long before such things as animal m ag­netism, hypnotism, telepathy, ventrilo­quism, and auto-suggestion had a name, the alchemists had discovered them. Such terms as the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of youth, the transm utation of metals into gold had a symbolic and spiritual significance. T h is knowledge w as carefully concealed because knowl­edge is a dangerous thing in the hands of selfish men. W e , of the twentieth century, ought to realize fully the truth of this statem ent when we see every sublime law of nature used for the de­struction of mankind. Let me quote from M agre’s book “Alchemists and A depts.” (Pages 199-200):

“ H istory records m any men who have been able to make gold. But this w as only the first stage of the secret. T h e second gave the means of healing physical illnesses through the same agent which produced transmutation. T o reach this state, a higher intelligence and a more complete disinterestedness w ere necessary. T h e third state was accessible only to very few. Just as the molecules of metals are transform ed under great increase of tem perature, so the emotional elements in human nature undergo an increased intensity of vi­brations which transform them and make them spiritual. In this third stage, the secret of the philosopher’s stone en­abled a man’s soul to attain unity with the divine spirit. T h e laws of nature are alike for that which is above and

for that which is below. N atu re changes according to an ideal. Gold is the per­fection of terrestrial substances, and it is to produce gold that minerals evolve. T he hum an body is the model of the animal kingdom, and living forms orient themselves in the direction of their ideal type. T h e emotional substance of the soul strives, through the filter of the senses, to transform itself into spirit and return to unity w ith the divine. T h e movements of N atu re are governed by a single law, which is diverse in its manifestations but uniform in its es­sence. It was the discovery of this law that the alchemists sought. If there were many of them who discovered the mineral agent, fewer were able to find its application to the human body, and only a very few adepts knew of the essential agent, the sublime heat of the soul, which fuses the emotions, con­sumes the prison of form and allows entry into the higher w orld.”

T h e most overwhelming proof of the truth of the mystic philosophy is that it links up every departm ent of life and knowledge. A knowledge of funda­mental principles compels us to study nature, and science is thus born. These principles m ust be lived, and so we have religion, ethics, and morality. E very phase of life and literature re­veals the same message. In the light of mysticism, philosophy, science, religion, music, architecture, literature, and art, all tell of the soul’s high destiny. Each tells it through a different medium. Each tells it equally well.

T o the mystic, his philosophy is his guide; his map, his compass. It is to be­come part of his soul make-up. It is a light to guide his feet. It is to be lived until no o ther w ay of life is possible. H is philosophy is not an intellectual exercise or an abstraction. It is food for his heart, his soul, his mind. T h e vari­ous arts are channels from his soul to the oversoul. T h e medium is but an­other design in the universal pattern on his trestle board. His philosophy, there­fore, is equally cogently expressed in the pattern of verbal beauty of a poem, in the study of the conflict of personal­ity and environment in the drama, in the analysis of the souls in the novels, and in the straight-forw ard discourse of a philosophical treatise. It is One

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Life, O ne Divine Power, O ne Destiny, O ne Path. W e can find the Divine message in the vision of Isaiah, in the law codes of Moses, in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, in P lato’s Dialogues, in Shelley’s Prom etheus Unbound, in the poems of W ordsw orth , in Browning and Tennyson. W e can study the les­sons of our O rder. But the result should be that we learn to see the truth every­where, in poetry, dram a, art, and phi­losophy. A nd finally, the highest de­gree of development of all, we should learn to find the truth within ourselves. O ur great goal is to be a channel of G od’s W isdom and Love and Activity in a medium heightened to the degree of genius. W e will need no guide, no book, no instruction because we will have attained the ability to be instructed by Divinity Itself.

Spiritual principles remain the foun­dation of the world no matter how blind people may be. It is a great blessing that the doubts of materialism and athe­ism do not assail our hearts. It is a great blessing that in this incarnation we have contacted the Rosicrucian O rder and the teachings of the Alchemists and Philosophers. It is a great blessing and privilege that w e can share, no matter how small, in helping the constructive forces in the world.

Such were the thoughts and aims of the medieval alchemists. O f such con­sistency was the gold of human values after having passed through the crucible of fire of human suffering and trials. Such were the tru ths of the human al­chemy that they endeavored to leave to the generations to follow. T o speak out in those times of persecution was to willfully become a m artyr, and there­fore, they left unto the printed and w ritten words the truths they had found in their solitude.

I will quote a few alchemical aphor­isms, picked up here and there in my reading. I am sorry that I cannot give the names of the authors. Some are my own translation or selection of words. You can judge for yourself their value to you:

“T h e greatest of all facts is the fact of consciousness. A part from conscious­ness there is chaos. It is a general term for cognition of experience. Experience becomes clearer in relation to how we

reason about it and classify it. W e do not notice all tha t we do and are. No creature is completely conscious.”

“Mind-consciousness is men's great­est power for good or evil. A lowly creature may employ an expedient not recognized in civilized human life w ith­out any evil motive. Evil is of the mind. Having mind we do not need to depend upon the instincts for choosing, bu t we can choose according to a temporary standard or civilized expedient set up by the mind.”

“Do not inquire if there is a God, or about a life beyond the grave. O f the beginning and the end no one knows anything, but this we know of the Now: that if we be patient in the study of things present, we shall in time know things eternal. If you ask about C rea­tion, the answ er is Now, for a t this moment the world comes into being; and if you ask about the Last Day, it is N ow , for at this moment the world passes away. As the sun rises in one land, it sets in another."

“Life is change, for C hange is this: that the present moment is both begin­ning and end, and that the world is ever becoming new, just as it is ever grow­ing old. For were there not D eath in Birth, there could be no death, and were there not Birth in Death, there could be no Birth. T h a t which is not now can never come to pass in the fu­ture, for past and future are but an ex­pansion of the present, while the pres­ent is the moving image of the E ternal.”

“T he w onder of Life is this: that in every moment is the whole of Tim e and a perpetual recreation of the world. Recreation or Play. T his is no mere chance of words, for in play the act of making is more than the thing made. So, also, Life is more than the things which it forms. If the forms of Life were more than Life itself, this would be D eath, for in each created thing its work would come to an end. If the flower did not die, the seeds would not be scattered; if man were immortal, he would need no children to preserve his kind. T ruly , if forms were immortal, Life would die, for Life is an everlast­ing recreation. This, then, is the glory of Life: that it is forever going forward, nothing holding it, for all that is made

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must pass away. In this is its freedom and its undying w onder.”

“ From this we see that if we go for­w ard, holding fast to nothing, nothing shall then hold us back from atta in­ment. A nd if we ever recreate w hat we have made, nothing shall weary us, ex­cept it be ourselves.”

‘‘Consciousness is a becoming.’ T h at of which we are conscious evolves only in so far as it is valuated, according as w e value it or perceive its factual na­ture. T he wise man realizes that apart from mind there is no valuation, there is chaos. T he mind builds out of ac­cumulated experiences and the fancies derive therefrom."

‘‘Our present existence is of the greatest importance. If we could re­member a previous incarnation, it would be of a different person in different circumstances.”

‘‘If there is a ‘universal mind,’ it is only w hat doctors sometimes refer to as the unconscious, an impersonal concep­tion. It is not a God but an alteration in the forces of ‘N atu re’.”

‘‘Suffering is neither a curse nor a blessing, save as a particular organism reacts to it. Asceticism and sensuality are extreme reactions thereto. Flux is a fact, and the wise man realizes it. He therefore, keeps an open mind as to values.’ Valuation is an arbitrary act

of the social mind.”“Since all is a state of flux, ‘self’ is

not a permanent, separative, entity. A part from the community it would have no value. But the community is a totality which shall endure longer than the person. In so far as it is great, so shall it longer endure and find an im­portant place in the history of human endeavor.”

“H e who would seek the greatest of all earthly benedictions, the knowledge of all created good, and of the effectual virtue which G od has liberally implant­ed in stones, herbs, roots, seeds, ani­mals, plants, minerals, metals, and all things, m ust fling aw ay every earthly thought, hope only for freedom of heart, and pray to God with the G reatest hu­mility. T hus, the aspiration after free­dom will soon be realized.”

V V VT H E M O R A L A R G U M E N T O F K A N T (Continued from Page 426)

All imperatives command either hypo­thetically or categorically. A hypotheti­cal imperative commands a certain thing to be done, if something else which is willed is to be attained. A categorical imperative is an act which in itself is objectively necessary, w ithout any ref­erence to another end.

An action is essentially good if the motive of the act is good, let the conse­quences be w hat they may. T his im­perative may be called the imperative of morality. How is this imperative pos­sible? O ne should act in conformity with the maxim which he can will at the same time to be a universal law. T he imperative of duty demands that one act as if the maxim from which he acts were to become through his will a uni­versal law of nature.

T his is necessary for rational beings, for will is the faculty of determining to act in accordance with the idea of cer­tain laws. Such a faculty can belong only to a rational being.

M an in all his actions must also be

regarded as an end. T h e imperative in this connection m ust be: A ct so to use hum anity—w hether in your own person or the person of another—’as an end, never merely as a means.

A free will is the same thing as a will that conforms to natural laws. Reason must, therefore, regard itself as the author of its principles of action and as independent of all external influences. Hence his practical reason is the will of a rational being and it must be regard­ed by itself also as free. T h e will of a rational being, in other words, can be his own will only if he acts under the idea of freedom, and, therefore, this idea must in the practical sphere be ascribed all rational beings.W ith ou t presupposing freedom, we cannot conceive of ourselves as rational beings who are conscious of causality in respect to that action, tha t is, as en- lowed with will. All beings endowed with reason and will must determine themselves to act under the idea of their freedom.

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Religion and the MysticB y H a z e l J. F o w l e r , F . R . C .

^NY criticisms of th e c h u rc h a n d religion are being expressed to d a y : some to the effect t h a t g o i n g to c h u rc h is out of date; others to the e f f e c t t h a t th e church p ro v id e s b u t a n e m p t y c e re m o n y which touches n o v i ta l spot in the liv e s

of its attendants; many to the effect that the church has u tterly failed in its obligation to humanity else the present world brutality could not be.

W hile I am not an ardent church­goer, neither do I blame the church for a responsibility of conduct which lies entirely within the in d iv id u a l . T he church undeniably serves the symbolic need of many. O n the other hand, bas­ing the Ideal on the words and actions of the M aster himself, religion is not a m atter of church attendance, rather of individual exemplification of the beati­tude of the Living Spirit.

W hen a person speaks outw ardly of religion his true spiritual interpretation is apt to be quickly isolated in favor of the belief of his ancestral forbears. T he Catholic interprets religion through the understanding of his priest; the Jew, through the understanding of his rabbi; the Protestant, through the understand­ing of his minister; and the primitive through his obeisence to the gods of

nature as dem onstrated by the chief of the tribe.

In these variations we find the Su­preme Excellence personalized as a far distant Being of great dignity and bene­volence w ho may or may not grant our earthly petitions.

W ith the same breath in which we praise Him and petition Him to mani­fest H is powers in our favor, we blame Him for fire and flood, famine and greed, sickness and sorrow, w ar and politics, most of which are entirely man- made. If by chance we escape these and other afflictions and degradations of human existence we assume to be al­ready in His favor and proceed to for­get Him. T he world is all right for us. W hy should we think beyond the mo­m entary harmony?

Such has been the roll of individual religion in an evolving world until the present w orld-wide cycle of chaos and brutality has forced us into our mental and spiritual strongholds. W e are now turning within ourselves for the answer to the present confusion. W e are ask­ing of the inner mentor w hat part we should have played in the great scheme of things. N ow we are swung back from levity and luxury to sobriety and fundament. O ur own little world has col­lapsed in the midst of a conflict which follows neither order nor principle.

T h e W orld C atastrophe is surcharg­ed with a terrific leveling element, but as W hitm an suggested of elevation — we but level that lift to pass and con­tinue beyond. It were pitiful indeed if

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this were not so, if we learned no les­sons from the limiting circumstances in­cidental to our present estate. But this leveling and continuing beyond is a pro­cess of evolution despite its attendant and tem porary reverses. It is the way of the m a c ro c o sm reflected in the microcosm.

A new meaning of religion gradually unfolding through the higher elements is gaining a quickening and gratifying response. No longer can mind force a mountain range, a river, a desert, or even the great expanses of ocean to isolate the Brotherhood of M an. By great and tragic suffering we have learned that the cries of human souls sacrificed on far and bloody altars of greed and lust can be heard though our ears be padded a g a in s t the sound. Something in the anguish of human souls pierces the invisible channel and our own hearts contract to a horror we neither hear nor see through the physi­cal senses.

Something profound and innate dis­avows our acceptance of cruelty prac­ticed upon the defenseless. It is no long­er "sm art” to pick on or show up those less equipped for the venture of life. Rather in true C hrist Spirit, though it be our Cross it is also our privilege to effect the kindlier w ay of building life into an experience of beauty and friend­ship. T h is is the first initiation for the Brotherhood of M an. It is also the first step in respecting religion as in­dividual; for true worship is an innate attribute of the Soul which is responsi­ble to but one dictator — the Divine Consciousness.

M uch time will pass before wide and final acceptance of Religion as the Su­preme Excellence, the Essence of the Christ Consciousness accelerating all human beings to individual and uni­versal ascension. O ne cannot cut up the divine leaven and pass out pieces of it. It is an all-pervading energy. W e do not need to fight over shares; each has his portion and the w ay we use th a t original allotment is the difference between our Light and our Darkness. T h e first essential lies in our way of accepting this divinity; the second in our method of adding to its capacity for manifestation by proper understanding

of the expression of its substance and the preservation of its sacred heritage.

T h e process effective to the develop­ment of the C hrist Consciousness is the proper balance of the objective man plus the timely unfolding of the subjec­tive man. It involves first the five physi­cal faculties which must be quickened to a more alert objective receptivity. T hen must follow sustained activity of the subjective faculities which facilitates attunem ent with the source of our divin­ity. W h en these two sets of apparatus function in harmony w e are ready for the reception of something higher in the scale. T rue religion is embodied in the something higher.

T hrough science man has discovered that the invisible around him is full of force and rhythm . H e knows this be­cause by a system of mechanics he has been able to box some of the manifes­tations of the unseen. H is device is super-excellent but this mechanical ac­quisition, the product of m an's inven­tive genius, m ay also be the medium of his destruction. F o r radio, to cite one instrument, m ay save a thousand lives and a t the same moment send another thousand to their doom. W hether we draw from the visible or from the in­visible world, we are dealing with pro­found magnetisms and these become retro-radiant by virtue of the intention which sponsors them.

It is not too early to foresee how man can, by application of his two sets of faculties, build his body into a Temple —a Royal C itadel— for the reception of the most refined progressions. T rue re­ligion is the Exalted W a y of the Soul, and therefore free of denominational in­tervention. T o some the Divine A tti­tude is expressed through forms of Beauty; to others through forms of Sacrifice; to many through forms of Love, Research, Philanthropy, and so on. T h e same forces which enervate and consume contain likewise in their magnitudes significant and beneficent talismans to the infinite vistas. T he re­sults of our use of these magnetisms depend upon our ability to absorb and prescribe the substance of our divine inheritance. By w hatever w ay express­ed, Religion is the affirmation of the Profound Process by which man tunes in and directs the Living Spirit.

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The Vision of PerfectionBy F r a t e r E . R . C o p e l a n d , J r .

V E R Y m o m e n t th a t le a v e s y ou d issa tisfied w ith y o u r s e l f sh o u ld b e ch e r i s h e d . W h y ? B e c a u se your very dissat­isfaction s p r in g s from the fountain and source of all progress, I m a g i­nation. You have dream ed a waking dream. You have

identified with yourself the vision of a higher ideal, a loftier purpose. Having sighted the higher plane, you would take wings and soar to it.

T ake those wings, and soar!It is possible to improve your condi­

tion. Perfection is comfortingly near at hand. It is even a t this moment in the state of becoming, as your highest dreams approach realization. Your lot in life is to become as you conceived it. You were dissatisfied? You have dared to dream? Begin, then, to realize your dream.

W h e t your imagination to a chisel edge, and carefully fashion a mental sculpture of yourself. Bring into clear focus a very vivid mental image of yourself, yourself as having already a t­tained your goal, yourself in the state or condition you desire. M ake a mental working model of yourself as you will inevitably become on the evolutionary plane to which you now aspire. Adorn this image as you would be adorned, bestow upon it your w ished-for gifts

and graces. Consider th a t no high re­solve, trait or quality exists which is too good for this mental “you." C ap­ture every progressive thought, mood and attribute; try each day to enrich the image. M ake this new vision a working tool of your objective consciousness.

Be literal with your image. Give it your body, your posture, your facial characteristics. Recognize yourself when you contemplate it. Recognize, bu t do not limit. Let this new body rival in mold and form the classic lines of a Grecian god; let it assume great but perfect proportions and keep it geo­graphically above and beyond so that to regard it you will have to look up and ahead. Let your new countenance shine with the beauty of sincerity, ten­derness and love. Restore to it a child's innocence. Let it mirror courage, de­termination and nobility of purpose. Give to your image all the attributes you would like to have been born with. Let the body, form and attitude of the vision bear witness to your high aspiration.

Now, endow your image with life. W h en you walk lift your mind's eye upw ard to your new other self. You have created a being which is your own potential self. N ote the great joy of your new being. See the vital energy that electrifies your new body with every movement. Swim, and see the long, true, rhythmic strokes that he takes. Play, and observe that he is tire­less and all his movements are full of grace. N ote the perfect back-hand he

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wields on the tennis court . . . A nd here, a t last, is one who dances divinely.

For business, this image of yourself will be graced with all the finer aspects of your calling. Let it embody in your chosen field the traditional attributes of persons of great destiny, leaders in the present and the past. Let your image be inspired to do always outstanding work, and aspire ever to go forward. By everyone this "you” is to be loved and respected.

H e is always p e r f e c t ly groomed, never to be em barrassed by superficiali­ties. H e is socially alert. H e aspires to be faithful and useful to community and country. H e knows how to conduct himself in crises, small and great. H e is quick to see the affliction of his neighbors, happiest when he serves. H e is great, noble, true and kind, diligent and observant. H e is slow to w rath, fair in his appraisals, just in his judg­ments. For you will fashion him thus.

You will fashion him with the back­ground and character you must have in order to bring about the desired im­provement in yourself. N ext, get down to the details. Exactly w hat was the occasion for your original dissatisfaction with yourself? Did someone criticize you? D id someone say of you, ‘‘Yes, Jones is a fine fellow, but he has a nasty temper”? T hen your image must be notably blessed with an even temper, and this especial trait must be viewed from all angles, cultivated, emphasized, valued as the image takes on maturity. Does someone say of you, “He is emo­tionally unstable”? T hen let your image become the epitome of perfect control,

under all circumstances, day in and day out. A re you timid? Do you lack self- confidence? Do you shrink in the pres­ence of the rich, powerful, the worldly great? M eet them in your mind-self; no person is greater than he. Is ill- health your problem? T hen invest that other ‘‘you” with robust health and strength in abundance.

N ow you have created the image. Hold it. Aspire to it. It has become your ideal, your o b je c t iv e . Become w orthy of it. W o rk by it! It is your bogey, play by it. It is your guide, live by it. Let it take possession.

F or this image is not a shadow, but subtle substance. T h is new presence was there from the beginning, awaiting your approach. W hile your mind was awakening, the mind of this being was fathomless, eternal. Dressed and adorn­ed before, its memory goes back thou­sands of years. Someday in a quiet moment, if you regard your image in­tently . . . it may speak to you. You will be told of the things yet undone that widen the gulf between its station and yours. A nd as each of these things is accomplished, you will surely find that the beautiful vision has lifted you a little nearer to his high place. Step by step, you will surely attain. For you have fulfilled the law. You have har­nessed the source of all strength, ambi­tion, aspiration and desire, you have endowed it with new vitality, a higher object, a grander reach, and you have succeeded in one of the most important achievements tow ard the life of perfec­tion on earth.

TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

F O R Y O U R R E A D IN G P L E A S U R EYou m ay have the opportun ity to enjoy and benefit by reading on interesting subjects

w hich a re contained in form er issues of the "Rosicrucian D igest" and the m agazines that preceded it entided "T h e M ystic T rian g le ,” and “T h e A m erican R osae C rucis.” In these m agazines will be found articles on the h istory of Rosicrucianism — articles about famous Rosicrucian personalities, as well a s the discussion of such interesting subjects as reincar­nation, levitation, diet and health, and m any others. F ive copies of these magazines dating prior to 1937 will be sent postpaid for the economical price of O ne D ollar. T h e supply is limited— order now.

T E M P L E IN IT IA T I O N SM any L odges and C hapters present the full temple initiations of various degrees, in

w hich members m ay partic ipate . Refer to the directory of Lodges and C hapters in the back of this m agazine. E ach Lodge and C hapter th a t is listed w ith an asterisk (* ) after its name holds these initiations regularly . Com m unicate w ith the nearest C hapter of Lodge giving these initiations for full particulars.

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PEACE B y C o r a B e r g , F. R. C.

G

H E candles flicker-

T ed a n d th e f ire burned low. T he old priest drowsed in the comfort and peace of his sur­r o u n d in g s . T his w a s h i s s m a l l world, his beauti­ful world, around and about him; it was his world in which to dream.

H e d r e a m e d that the flickering points of the candle beams were jewels which were given to light the paths of clamoring Souls who were searching for the Portal of the Single Path, the Spiral tha t leads to Heaven. T h e candle seemed to be a Torch of Divine Light that was held by the Angel of Peace who stands at the Portal of the Spiral.

Farther into the depths of thought the old priest drowsed, until he could see the Angel in all her purity of Per­fection; and Grace and Contentm ent were her handm aidens. H e gazed en­raptured and the tranquillity of her soothed him. H e prepared to approach her that he might touch the hem of her garment when suddenly flames of fire licked a t her feet and a haze of smoke arose to cover the beauty of her Per­fection.

From the ranks of the seeking Souls came armies of men marching into the ruddy inferno that enveloped the Angel. T h e boom of the cannon w as a clarion sounding the death toll of many. T hose who lived cried out in agony, beseeching the Deity for release from a living hell. Strife and dissension were ram pant and Chaos reigned.

T he fire burned on and the radiance of the Angel was dimmed by the heavy cloak of burning brilliance. A black figure appeared, looming larger and larger, striving to absorb her into the depths of his murkiness. T he Prince of Darkness was loosed from oblivion! T he old priest shuddered at the sight before his eyes. Surely not this! T here must be a W ay .

He thought of the T hree W ise M en who, so many years ago, journeyed dreary miles to the birthplace of the C hrist—the Prince of Peace, the people called Him. W h en they came to the cave, they approached the Holy Child and their faces were covered by their hands lest the gaze of their eyes startle the Little One. Slowly they dropped their hands to their breasts with arms crossed and looked a t the Babe in awe and reverence. A Babe now but a teacher of men!

T hen the old priest prayed. H e prayed that the destroying fire of that inferno be quenched, and his prayer rose as the smoke of burning incense. T h e Angel

[43 n

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TheRosicrucianDigestDecember1942

of Peace once more appeared and again was cloaked in the cleansing Rays from the Torch of the Divine Light. A t her feet there stood magnificent edifices of learning, and Tem ples of State were builded where men and women of all races worked together for the better­ment of mankind and for the unity of the W hole. N ever again should Chaos

rule the land nor the Prince of D ark­ness impose Force upon the people.

H e knew, then, that out of the cruci­ble of that inferno a New O rder would come, crystalizing into reality the age- old T ru th that man is the Microcosm of the Macrocosm and together they com­pose the W hole.

V V V

The Parable of the ExodusB y F e l i c e A . B u r t o n , F . R. C.

F T E R w e h a v e learned the prin­ciples of our be- l o v e d b r o th e r ­h o o d , or of any o rg a n iz a tio n de­voted to the evo­l u t i o n of ma n , t h e r e c o m e s a t i m e w h e n w e must depart from the material plane to seek the spir­itual, to listen to

the voice of God. T hose of us who have travelled on the path midway up the mountain, look back and see our brothers enslaved in m any ways, and we can help. But first we m ust find the great revelation of the will of God for us in the silence of our hearts, and realize th a t our past life and our present situation peculiarly fit us for some defi­nite work in behalf of our fellowmen. W e can not work by opposition; we can gain much by kindness and consid­eration. In reverence and holiness we must seek God alone and listen to His voice, and then with w hat we are and w hat we have serve Him. By serving Him we liberate the soul of God.

T h e mind of the highly trained ma­terial man will say, as once Pharaoh said, "W h y should I ‘let you go’? I do not know your God. W h y should I re­lease your brothers?” A nd the burden of the material world will seem to grow greater, and the possibility of escape seem to grow less. O ut of the resistance of the material world to our advance­ment come the plagues of indeci­sion, fear, ridicule, insecurity, lack of

faith, dread of change, importunities of friends who wish us to go their way, and the ever pressing cares of daily life. W e will not let go and listen to the spiritual, w e will not obey the voice within, until we have attained a spir­itual heighth that will trust God even in the face of the death of our material selves.

I t is written ‘‘T h e first man Adam is of the earth , earthy, the second man is the Lord from heaven.” By and by the old life is swallowed up in the waters of the past and we journey on in the spiritual and find a joy there the ma­terial man can never know. W hen we w ander aw ay we find bitterness and sorrow, for there is no standing still; there must be loyalty or retrogression. W e walk by faith and obedience, with some trials and battles with our lesser selves, and there are those ahead who will give us of their experience and learning, all under the same M aster, all travelling the same road.

A s we journey we build a picture of the temple of our God. In it we put our treasures: the gold of our love, the jewels of our kindliness, our helpful­ness, our hope, the material of our everyday lives in helpfulness to others, the incense of meditation and prayer, our good thoughts, our reverence, the purifying of our lives materially and spiritually, our very souls. T hrough our vision we fulfill our mission and look to others farther on the path for help and guidance as we seek ‘‘Holiness unto the Lord.” A nd so in our lives become established the life and heart of the spiritual, which is for evermore the Promised Land.

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O U R N E W C U R A T O R

Jay R. M cCullough has assum ed the responsible position of C urator of the Rosicrucian E gyptian . O riental M useum, succeeding the late Kendal I. Brower. A bove he is shown standing before the replica of the famed Ishtar G ate of Babylon, exam ining the cuneiform inscriptions on one of a number of Babylonian antiquities just acquired. T h e Rosicrucian M useum now contains the largest collection of E gyptian antiquities W est of Chicago. F ra te r M cCullough is a g raduate of the U niversity of A rizona, w ith a D egree of M. A . in Phi­losophy, and a background study of A rchaeology, thus being well qualified to assume his new duties.

(C ourtesy o f the Rosicrucian Dic/est.)

Page 40: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

Rainy Day Reading

FALL and WINTER 0 nside $njjO'imatienQ COLD driving rain, wet streets and slip-

pery h ighw ays have one merit - they are conducive to the full enjoyment of good reading— in comfortable home surroundings. M ake your inside hours during the long fall and winter evenings provide you with inside

THE MYSTERY OF MIRACLES

W hal slrange powers did the ancients possess? Are miracles divine or natural phenomena? This tremendous, interesting problem is discussed from both the scientific and mystical point of view. (32 discourses.)

NUMEROLOGY

W hat lies behind the veil? W hat w ill the morrow bring forth? Can numerology provide the answer, or is it a pseudo science? A very enlightening course of reading. (16 discourses.)

WE ARE HERE—WHY?

Have you ever given serious thought to the above question? Are you just chaff to be blown about? This course is a rational, common sense presentation of facts you can not deny. (39 discourses.)

SUPERNATURAL

Do you wonder if there is another world and whether it influences our lives here? Have you had strange psychic experiences? If these topics interest you, read this enlightening course. (16 discourses.)

Subcribe to an y one of the courses above that you wish, b y its title. Two large dis­courses will be sent to you monthly, post­paid, for the total nominal sum of Fifty Cents per month. Discontinue w henever you please. You are privileged to transfer to another course at an y time. There are no other obligations or requirements. Convert

information—interesting facts about subjects you h ave long been wanting to find time to investigate. The following are some of the simply expressed, fascinating topics of the courses issued b y the Reader's Research Academ y.

SOME MYSTICAL ADVENTURES

Do you at times feel there is something beyond the everyday life which casts an influence over you? Would you like to adventure into the realm of psychic experi­ences and phenomena? Gratify your wishes with this course. (35 discourses.)

ARCANE COSM OLOGY

Is the earth after all a cell with life on its surface, when all other cells have life in their centers? Is the earth a great ball, inside of which man lives? Here are startling facts about our earth not generally known. (15 discourses.)

LIFE EVERLASTING

Can we prove by logic that life continues after death? Or is the concept but a foible of mankind? Learn in simple language what one of America's greatest his­torians ana philosophers had to say on this subject. (4 discourses.)

LIFE'S MYSTERIES

Do you realize that each hour of your life you stand upon the brink of a chasm— the chasm of eternity? Are vou satisiied to endure years oi life in ignorance of its purpose? If you are a seeker, this series of discourses w ill be most satisfying to you. (18 discourses.)

idle evening hours into adventures into the mental world.

Two Discourses Monthly

only 50c Month

(~(Dhe Reader’s Research AcademyROSICRUCIAN PARK, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

Page 41: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

M em b er of " F U D O S I”

(F e d e ra t io n U n i- v e rse lle d e s

O rd re s et Societ.es

In i t ia t iq u e s )

T H E P U R P O S E S O FTHE R O S I C R U C I A N ORDER

T h e R o s ic ru c ia n O rd e r , e x is t in g in a ll c iv ilized lan d s , is a n o n -s e c ta r ia n f r a t e r n a l b o d y o f m en a n d w o m en d e v o te d to th e in v e s tig a tio n , s tu d y an d p ra c t ic a l a p p lic a t io n o f n a tu ra l a n d s p i r i tu a l law s. T h e p u rp o s e o f th e o r­g a n iz a tio n is to e n a b le a ll to live in h a rm o n y w ith th e c re a tiv e , c o n s tru c tiv e C osm ic fo rc e s fo r th e a t ta in m e n t o f h e a lth , h a p p in e s s a n d peace. T h e O rd e r is in te r n a t io n a l ly k n o w n a s "A M O R C " (an a b b re v ia t io n ) , a n d th e AM ORC in A m e ric a a n d a ll o th e r la n d s c o n s t i tu te s th e o n ly fo rm o f R o s ic ru c ia n a c t iv it ie s u n ite d in one b o d y fo r a re p re s e n ta t io n in th e in te rn a tio n a l fe d ­e ra t io n . T h e A M O R C d o e s n o t se ll i t s te a c h in g s . I t g iv es th e m fre e ly to a ff i l ia te d m em b e rs , to g e th e r w i th m a n y o th e r b e n efits . F o r co m p le te in ­fo rm a tio n a b o u t th e b e n e fits a n d a d v a n ta g e s o f R o s ic ru c ia n a sso c ia tio n , w r i te a l e t t e r to th e a d d re s s be low , a n d a s k fo r th e free bo o k " T h e M aste ry o f L if e ." A d d re ss S c rib e S. P . C., in c a re o fAMORC T E M PL E

K osirrurian P ark , San Jose, C aliforn ia , 1'. S. A.(C able A d d ress: "AMORCO” )

.Supreme E xecu tive for th e N orth and South A m erican Ju r isd ic tio n R A L PH M. L E W IS , F . R. C. — Im perator

D I R E C T O R YP R IN C IP A L AM ERICAN B R A N C H E S O F T H E A. M. O. It. C.

T h e fo llo w in g a r e th e p r in c ip a l c h a r te r e d R o s ic ru c ia n L o d g es a n d C h a p te rs in th e U n ited S ta te s . Its te r r i to r i e s a n d p o ssess io n s . T h e n a m e s an d a d d re s s e s o f o th e r A m erican B ra n c h e s w ill b e g iv en u p o n w r i t ­te n re q u e s t.C A L IFO R N IA

L os A n geles:H e rm e s L o d g e , A M O RC T em p le . M r. G ilb e r t N, H o llo w ay . S r ., M a s te r . R e a d in g room a n d in ­q u i ry o ffice o p en d a ily e x ce p t S u n d a y s : 11 a . m. to 5 p . m . a n d 6 to 8 p . m . ; S a tu rd a y s , 12 noon to 4 p . m ., 148 N o. G ra m e rc y P la ce .O ak lan d :O a k lan d M in o r L o d g e .* P ac ific B u ild in g , 16th a n d Je f fe rs o n S t r e e t s : M r. A lfred W . G ro esb eck . M a s te r : M rs. B e rn a rd D . S ilsb y , S e c re ta ry . C on­v o c a tio n s 1st a n d 3 rd S u n d a y s . 3 p. m . in W ig ­w am H a l l : L ib r a r y , R o o m 406, o p e n a f te rn o o n s , 1 to 3:30, e x ce p t S a tu r d a y s ; T u e s d a y a n d T h u r s ­d a y e v en in g s , 7 :30 to 9 :30 p . m . P h o n e H ig a te 5996. S acram en to :C lem en t B. L e B ru n C hapter.® M r. W illia m P o p ­p e r, M a s te r . M e e tin g s 1st a n d 3 rd F r id a y s a t 8 p . m .. F r ie n d s h ip H a ll. O dd F e l lo w 's B u ild in g . 9 tn a n d K S tre e ts .L on g B each :L o n g B each C h a p te r . M r. W m . J . F lu r y , S ec re ­ta r y , 2750 C h e r ry A ven u e . M e e tin g s e v e ry T u e s ­d a y a t 8 p. m ., C o lo n ia l H a ll, 951 L o cu s t A venue . San D ieg o :S an D iego C h a p te r . M rs . J . C. S h u lts . S e c re ta ry , 1261 L aw S tre e t , P ac ific B each . M e e tin g s 1 st and 3 rd S u n d a y s a t 4 p . m .( H a rd o f H e a r in g L e a g u e 's H a ll, 3843 H e r b e r t S tre e t.

COLORADOD enver:C h a p te r M a s te r , M r. A . T . S t r e a te r ; S e c re ta ry , M rs. L o u is F . B ra n c h , 12 E . B a y a u d . M ee tin g s e v e ry T h u r s d a y . 8 p. m .. F r a te r n a l B u ild in g . 14th a n d G le n a rm S tre e ts .

M ASSACH USETTSB o sto n :J o h a n n e s K e lp iu s L o d g e . W illia m A. C o rey , S ec ­r e ta r y . T e m p le a n d r e a d in g room , S u ite 237. 739 B o y ls to n S tre e t . C o n v o ca tio n s fo r m em b e rs T h u r s d a y e v e n in g a n d S u n d a y a f te rn o o n . S pec ia l C o n v o ca tio n s fo r a ll m e m b e rs a n d fo r a ll d e g re e s th e seco n d M o n d ay o f e a c h m o n th a t 8 p . m . fro m S e p te m b e r to J u n e . S pec ia l s e s s io n s fo r th e p u b ­lic S u n d a y e v e n in g s a t 7:45 p. m.

IL L IN O IS C h ica g o :T h e N e fe r t i t i M in o r L o d g e .* M r. S. L . L eve ll, M a s te r : M rs . V e ro n ic a N ich o ls , S e c re ta ry . R e a d ­in g ro o m o p e n d a ily . 12 to 5 p . m ., a n d 7:30 to 10 p . m . ; S u n d a y s 2 to 5:30 p . m . o n ly . L ak ev iew B ld g ., 116 So. M ic h ig a n A ven u e . R o o m s 408-9-10. L e c tu re s e s s io n s f o r A L L m e m b e rs e v e ry T u e s ­d a y n ig h t , 8 p . m .C h icag o (C o lo red ) C h a p te r , N o . 10. M r. R o g e r T h o m a s , M a s te r , 2920 E ll is A venue . M e e tin g s 1st a n d 3 rd F r id a y s a t 8 p . m ., 12 W . G arfie ld B lvd ., H a ll B.

D IST R IC T O F COLUM BIAT h o m a s Je f fe rs o n C h a p te r . M rs . M. E lo ise L av- risch eff. S e c re ta ry , 1318 11th S t.. N . W . M e e tin g s C o n fe d e ra te M em o ria l H a ll, 1322 V e rm o n t A ve.. N . W ., e v e ry F r id a y e v en in g . 8 p. m .

M ARY LAND B a ltim o re :D r. E a r l K . M y ers , M a s te r , 1917 E d m o n d so n A v e .: G eo rg e M. F ra n k o , J r . , S e c re ta ry . 1536 M cK ean A ven u e . M e e tin g s 1st a n d 3 rd S u n d a y s o f each m o n th a t 8 p . m .. S t. P a u l G a rd e n H a ll B u ild in g . 806-8 S t. P a u l S tre e t .

F L O R ID AM iam i:M r. C h a r le s F . M e rrick . M a s te r , 411 S u n s e t D r.. P . O. B ox 164, So. M iam i, T e l. 4-5816; M rs. R . E . T h o rn to n , S e c re ta ry , P . O. B o x 724, So. M iam i. M e e tin g s e v ery S u n d a y , 3 :30 p . m . a t B e ro i H o te l, B isc ay n e B lvd . a n d N. E , 2nd S tre e t .

M ISSO URI S t. L o u is :C h a p te r M a ste r. M r. L . J . S m a r t. 1731 N . 48th S t.. E . S t. L o u is . I l lin o is . T e le p h o n e B r id g e 4336: M rs. J . B. R e ic h e rt , S e c re ta ry . 3551 V ic to r S tre e t (3 rd fl. w .) , S t. L o u is . M isso u ri. R e g u la r convo­c a tio n s eac h T u e s d a y . 8 p. m . a t 3008 So. G ra n d . In q u i ry office o p en to p u b lic d a ily 2 to 5 p. in .. M o n d ay a n d T h u r s d a y n ig h ts , 7:30 to 9:30 p. m .

N EW YORK B uffalo:C h a p te r S e c re ta ry . M rs. S y lv ia R o m an . 36 S y c a ­m o re S tre e t . M e e tin g s 1st a n d 3 rd S u n d a y s , 7:30 p . m .. L a fa y e t te H o te l.N ew Y ork C ity:N ew Y o rk C h a p te r .* 250 W . 57 th S t. M r. W a lte rG . K lin g n e r . M a s te r : M iss B e a tr ic e C ass . S e c re ­ta ry . M y stica l c o n v o c a tio n s e ach W e d n e sd a y e v e ­n in g a t 8 p . m ., a n d S u n d a y a t 3 p . m ., fo r a ll g ra d e s . In q u i r y a n d r e a d in g ro o m s open w eek d a y s a n d S u n d a y s , 1 to 8 p. m .B o o k er T . W a s h in g to n C h a p te r . M r. P h i l ip D. N e lso n , S e c re ta ry , 20 S p e n c e r P la c e , B ro o k ly n . M e e tin g s e v e ry S u n d a y a t 8:00 p . m .. Y. M. C. A. C h ap e l. 180 W . 135th S t.

W A SH IN G TO N S e a t t le :C h a p te r M a s te r . M r. T h o m a s W . L e e : S e c re ta ry . M r. W . F . L a r im o re . M e e tin g s e v e ry M onday , 8 p. m ., a t 1322 E . P in e S t.T acom a:C h a p te r M a s te r . M r. M ilto n A. R e in e r ts o n . 431 B ro a d w a y . C h a p te r m e e tin g s 1st a n d 3rd T u e s ­d a y s . 7:45 p. m . in A fifi R oom . M aso n ic T em p le . 47 S t. H e le n s A venue .

(D ire c to ry C o n tin u e d on N e x t P a g e )

Page 42: Rosicrucian Digest, December 1942

MICHIGAND e tr o it :T h e b e s C h a p te r N o. 336. M r. W illia m H . H itc h - m an , M a s te r , 16133 C ru ae A venue , T e l. V E rm o n t 5-0956; M rs . D o ro th y C. M u ttk o w sk i, S e c re ta ry , T e l. U N iv e rs i ty 1-3372. M e e tin g s a t th e D e tro it F e d e ra t io n o f W o m e n 's C lu b s B ld g .. 4811 2nd A ve., e v e ry T u e s d a y . 8 p . m.

M IN N ESO TAS t. P a u l-M in n ea p o lis:E sse n e C h a p te r . M r. S. M . P e n n im a n , M a s te r ; M iss A nn B . F is h e r , S e c re ta ry , 977 G o o d ric h Ave.. S t. P a u l , M in n e so ta .

N E W JE R S E Y N ew ark :H . S p e n c e r L e w is C h a p te r . M r. E d w a rd D u d d e n , M a ste r. M e e tin g s e v e ry M o n d ay . 8:30 p . m ., 37 W a s h in g to n S tre e t .

PE N N SY L V A N IA P h ila d e lp h ia :B e n ja m in F r a n k l in C h a p te r . M r. C am p E ze ll. M a s te r , 5722 W a ln u t S t . ; M rs . V ie n n a G. K a sk e y . S e c re ta ry , 4736 B a lt im o re A ve., T e l. B A R in g 6912. M e e tin g s fo r a ll m e m b e rs e v e ry S u n d a y . 7:30 p . m . a t 219 So. B ro a d S tre e t.P itts b u r g h :F i r s t P e n n . L o d g e . M r. D an ie l H o lecy . M aste r. 227 H e n d e rs o n S t., N . S.

OREGON P ortlan d :P o r t la n d R o se C h a p te r . M rs. F lo re n c e B u tso n . M a s te r , T e l . O sw ego 22711: M r. H . T . H e r r in g ­to n , S e c re ta ry , T e l. TR -0428.. M e e tin g s . 714 S. W . 11th A ve., e v e ry T h u r s d a y . 8 p . m.

U TA HSalt L ake C ity:M r. H e rm a n R . B a n g e r te r , M a s te r . 3288 S. 2nd W es t S tre e t . M e e tin g s in th e Iv o ry R o o m . N ew - h o u se H o te l, 1st W e d n e s d a y o f e ac h M o n th at 8:15 p . m.

OKLAHOM AO klahom a C ity:C h a p te r M a s te r . M rs . N ew m an E. J o h n s to n e : M iss M a rg a re t E . H il l . S e c re ta ry . M e e tin g s ev ery S u n d a y , 7:30 p . m ., R oom 318, Y. W . C. A. B ldg.

OHIOC lev e la n d :M r. H a r r y A . D o h e r ty , M a s te r . 4864 E. 90 th S t.. G a rfie ld H e ig h ts ; M iss A n n e R o se n ja c k . S e c re ­ta r y , 12504 R e x fo rd A v en u e . C lev e lan d . M ee tin g s e v e ry F r id a y a t 8 p. m ., H o te l S ta tle r .C in c in n a ti:M rs. C a rl A. H a r ts o c k . M a s te r , T e l. W o o d b u rn 8749; M rs. E m m a L . R a n s ick , S e c re ta ry , Tel. J e f fe rs o n 1726. M e e tin g s e v e ry W e d n e sd a y a t 7:30 p. m ., G ilb e r t H a ll, 2524 G ilb e r t A ve.. W a l­n u t H ills .D ayton :D r. J . H . G ib so n , M a s te r ; M rs. G . C. H y n e s . S e c re ta ry , P h o n e M a. 3933. M e e tin g s every W ed n e sd a y . 7:30 p. m .. 56 E . 4 th S t., R a u h H a ll.

T E X A SF ort W orth:C h a p te r M a s te r , M r3. R u th P a g e . 1420 W a s h in g ­to n A ve., T e le p h o n e 9-2702. M e e tin g s e v e ry F r i ­d a y , 7:30 p . m ., a t E lk s C lub , P a r lo r B . 512 W . 4 th S tre e t .

W ISC O N SINM ilw au kee:C h a p te r M a s te r . M rs . F re d C. B o n d ; M rs . E d w in A. F a lk o w sk i. S e c re ta ry . M e e tin g s e v e ry M onday a t 8 p. m .. 3431 W . L is b o n A venue.

IN D IA N ASou th B en d :C h a p te r M a s te r , M r. W ilb u r L . K lin e . 1156 F o x S t.. S. E . M e e tin g s e v e ry S u n d a y . 7:30 p . m .. 207 S. M ain S tre e t.

Principal Canadian Branches and Foreign JurisdictionsT h e a d d re s s e s o f o th e r fo re ig n G ra n d L o d g es , o r b e g iv en u p o n re q u e s t.

A U STR A LIAS y d n e y , N . S. W .:S y d n e y C h a p te r . M rs . D o ra E n g lish . S e c re ta ry . 650 P ac ific H ig h w a y , C h a tsw o o d .

CANADAT oronto , O ntario:M r. C. M. F la t t e n , M a s te r . S e ss io n s 1st a n d 3rd S u n d a y s , 7:30 p .m . . 10 L a n s d o w n e A venue.V ancouver, B r itish C olum bia:C a n ad ia n G ra n d L o d g e , A M O RC. M r. C h a r le s A. C a rr ic o . M a s te r , 1057 W . 7 th A v e .; M rs. D . L . B o lso v er, S e c re ta ry , 876 13 th A v en u e , W ., P h o n e F a irm o n t 1440-Y. A M O R C T em p le , 878 H o rn b y S tre e t.V ictoria , B r itish C olum bia:V ic to ria L o d g e . M r. E r n e s t M acG in n is , M a s te r ; S e c re ta ry , M rs . V. B u rro w s , P h o n e E-7716. I n ­q u i r y o ffice a n d r e a d in g ro o m . 725 C o u r tn e y S t.W in n ip eg , M a n ito b a :C h a r le s D a n a D ean C h a p te r . 122a P h o e n ix B lock. M r. W m , M onro G la n v ill , M a s te r , 575 D u ffe rin A venue . S e ss io n s fo r a ll m e m b e rs on W ed n e sd a y . 7:45 p. m . th ro u g h o u t th e y e a r .

DEN M A RKC openhagen:T h e A M O R C G ra n d L o d g e o f D e n m a rk . M r. A r u th u r S u n d s t ru p , G ra n d M a s te r ; C a r li A n d e r ­sen , S. R . C., G ra n d S e c re ta ry . M a n o g ad e 13th S tra n d .

th e n a m e s a n d a d d re s s e s o f th e i r re p re s e n ta t iv e s , w ill

EN G LA N DT h e A M O R C G ra n d L o d g e o f G re a t B r i ta in . M r. R a y m u n d A n d re a , F . R . C., G ra n d M a s te r . 34 B a y s w a te r A ve ., W e s tb u r y P a r k . B r is to l 6.

EG YPT C airo :C a iro In fo rm a t io n B u re a u d e la R o se C ro ix . J . S a p p o r ta , S e c re ta ry , 27 R u e S a lim o n P a c h a . H elio p o lis :T h e G ra n d O r ie n t o f A M O R C , H o u s e o f th e T e m ­p le , M. A. R a m a y v e lim , F . R . C.. G ra n d S ec re ­t a r y , % M r. L e v y , 50 R u e S te fan o .

MEXICOQ u e tza lc o a tl L o d g e , D o n ce le s 92, D esp . 12, M ex­ico, D . F . S ra . M a r ia L o p ez d e G uzm an , M a s te r : S r . M a u ric io L e o n , S e c re ta ry .PO L A N D

P o lis h G ra n d L o d g e o f A M O RC. W ars aw , P o la n d . SW E D E N

G ra n d L o d g e ' 'R o s e n k o r s e t .” A n to n S v an lu n d , F . R . C., G ra n d M a ste r , V a s te rg a ta n 55, M alm o: In e z A k esso n , G ra n d L o d g e S e c re ta ry , S lo tts g a ta n 18, M alm o.

SW IT Z E R L A N DA M O R C G ra n d L o d g e , 21 Ave. D a p p les , L a u ­s a n n e : D r. E d . B e r th o le t. F . R . C., G ra n d M a ste r. 6 B lv d . C h a m b la n d e s , P u l ly -L a u s a n n e ; P ie r re G e n illa rd , G ra n d S e c re ta ry . S u rla c B , M ont C h o isi, L a u s a n n e .

D U TC H A N D EA ST IN D IE SD r. W . T h . v a n S to k k u m , G ra n d M a s te r ; W . J . V isse r, S e c re ta ry -G e n e ra l . G o m b el 33. S em aran g .

Spanish-American DivisionArm ando F o n t D e L a J a ra , F . R . C ., D ep u ty G rand M aster

D ire c t in q u ir ie s r e g a r d in g th is d iv is io n to th e S p a n ish -A m e ric a n D iv is io n . R o s ic ru c ia n P a rk . S an Jo se . C a lifo rn ia . U . S. A.JU N IO R O R D E R O F TORCH B E A R E R S

A c h i ld r e n 's o rg a n iz a t io n s p o n s o re d b y th e A M O RC.F o r c o m p le te in fo rm a t io n a s to i ts a im s a n d b e n e fits , a d d re s s S e c re ta ry G e n e ra l, J u n io r O rd e r , R o s ic ru ­c ian P a rk . S an J o s e , C a lifo rn ia .

THE R O S IC R U C IA N PRESS. LTD. PRINTED IN U. S. A

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WHAT HAPPENED BEYOND THIS

PORTAL ?

7<4e A+uU e*it M ifiteS uf, 9+uticU ia+viE N w e re born a g a in . M e n w ith h e a d s b o w e d

in gr ief, men b u rd e n e d w ith p erso na l p ro b ­lems. c y n ic a l , an d b itter—c a n d id a t e s a ll . th ey h u m b ly crossed the th resh old s o f the an c ie n t m ystic temples. W h a t w a s transm itted to each w h ic h c a u se d him to return to the o u te r w o r ld in s p ir e d , c o n f id e n t , self- reliant?

From such in it iates c a m e h u m a n it y s most start l ing doctrines—the b e l ie f in im m o rta l ity , g reat m oral codes of right a n d w r o n g , theories o f m a th e m a t ics a n d astronomy, a n d a m a z in g m eth od s for treat ing d i s ­eases. E a c h in it ia te carr ied w ith in his m in d a torch of k n o w le d g e w h ic h i l lu m in a te d th o u s a n d s , a n d c o n ­tributed to o u r great h eritage o f an c ie n t w is d o m .

W h a t secret m ethod or process for a t ta in in g this se l f -k n o w le d g e w a s d iv u l g e d to these can d id a te s under so lem n o a t h ? P la t o sa id . T o be in it ia ted is to he born a g a in . ' D o w e possess w'ithin us the p o s­sibility o f an u n su sp e c te d greater l ife here on earth than the one w e n o w l i v e ? D i d the in it iat ion s o f the ancient O s i r ia n s o f E g y p t , the E l e u s i n ia n s o f G r e e c e , the E ssen e s , a n d the M i t h r a in s of S y r i a d isc lose a way b y w h ic h a ll m en c a n a t ta in these th in g s /

A r c h a e o lo g ic a l research a n d the p a s s in g o f time have b ro u g h t to l ight m a n y o f the cerem on ies a n d e n ligh ten in g te a c h in g s o f these m ystery sch o o ls once

s h r o u d e d in sec re cy . T h e re is n o m o re th r i l l in g p o r ­t r a y a l o f r o m a n c e a n d a d v e n tu r e a n d s a c re d a n d i n ­s p ir in g r i tu a l is m th a n th e s e f ra g m e n ts o f w is d o m p ie c e d to g e th e r . E x a m in e th e s e ro o ts o f th e g re a t se c re t , f r a te rn a l o rd e rs o f to d a y .

Am azing Free Manuscript

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R O S IC R U C IA N D IG E S T

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to the R os ic ruc ian D ig e s t. A ls o send to me co m p lim e n ta r ily ,

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THE ROSICRUCIAN DIGEST - - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U .S.A

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R o s i c r u c i a n L i b r a r y

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