by Max Heindel (1909)
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The Western world is undoubtedly the vanguard of the human race, and, for reasons given in the following pages, it is held by the Rosicrucian that neither Judaism nor "popular Christianity," but true Esoteric Christianity is to be its world-religion.
Buddha, great, grand and sublime, may be the "light of Asia," but Christ will yet be acknowledged the "Light of the World." As the sun outshines the brightest star in the heavens, dispels every vestige of darkness and gives life and light to all beings, so, in a not too distant future, will the true religion of Christ supersede and obliterate all other religions, to the eternal benefit of mankind.
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The feelings of animals and the lowest human races are almost entirely concerned with the gratification of the lowest desires and passions which find their expression in the matter of the lower Regions of the Desire World.
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All members of the same animal tribe are alike. That is the point. A lion, or its father, or its son, all look alike; there is no difference in the way they will act under like conditions. All have the same likes and dislikes; one is the same as another....
The animal has the dense body, the vital body and the desire body, but the group-spirit which directs it is outside. The vital body and the desire body of an animal are not entirely within the dense body, especially where the head is concerned. For instance, the etheric head of a horse projects far beyond and above the dense physical head. When, as in rare cases it happens, the etheric head of a horse draws into the head of the dense body, that horse can learn to read, count, and work examples in elementary arithmetic.
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God, the Great Spirit, in Whom we actually and in fact "live and move and have our being," is the Power that permeates and sustains the whole Universe with Its Life; but while that Life flows into and is immanent in every atom of the six lower Worlds and all contained therein, in the Seventh -- the highest -- the Triune God alone is.
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By the power of will we project an idea through the mind, where it takes concrete shape as a thought-form by drawing mind-stuff around itself from the Region of Concrete Thought. The mind ... projects the image in one of three directions, according to the will of the thinker, which ensouls the thought-form. It may be projected against the desire body in an endeavor to arouse feeling which will lead to immediate action. If the thought awakens Interest, one of the twin forces, Attraction or Repulsion, will be stirred up.
If Attraction, the centripetal force, is aroused, it seizes the thought, whirls it into the desire body, endows the image with added life and clothes it with desire-stuff. Then the thought is able to act on the etheric brain, and propel the vital force through the appropriate brain centers and nerves to the voluntary muscles which perform the necessary action. Thus the force in the thought is expended and the image remains in the ether of the vital body as memory of the act and the feeling that caused it.
Repulsion is the centrifugal force and if that is aroused by the thought there will be a struggle between the spiritual force (the will of the man) within the thought-form, and the desire body. This is the battle between conscience and desire, the higher and the lower nature. The spiritual force, in spite of resistance will seek to clothe the thought-form in the desire-stuff needed to manipulate the brain and muscles. The force of Repulsion will endeavor to scatter the appropriated material and oust the thought. If the spiritual energy is strong, it may force its way through to the brain centers and hold its clothing of desire-stuff while manipulating the vital force, thus compelling action, and will then leave upon the memory a vivid impression of the struggle and the victory. If the spiritual energy is exhausted before action has resulted, it will be overcome by the force of Repulsion, and will be stored in the memory, as are all other thought-forms when they have expended their energy....
Where no immediate action is called for by the mental images of impacts from without, these may be projected directly upon the reflecting ether, together with the thoughts occasioned by them, to be used at some future time. The spirit, working through the mind, has instant access to the storehouse of conscious memory, and may at any time resurrect any of the pictures found there, endue them with new spiritual force, and project them upon the desire body to compel action. Each time such a picture is thus used it will gain in vividness, strength and efficiency, and will compel action along its particular line grooves, and produces the phenomenon of thought, "gaining" or "growing" upon us by repetition.
A third way of using a thought-form is when the thinker projects it toward another mind to act as a suggestion, to carry information, etc., as in thought-transference, or it may be directed against the desire body of another person to compel action, as in the case of a hypnotist influencing a victim at a distance. It will then act in precisely the same manner as if it were the victim's own thought.
When the work designed for such a projected thought-form has been accomplished, or its energy expended in vain attempts to achieve its object, it gravitates back to its creator, bearing with it the indelible record of the journey. It success or failure is imprinted on the negative atoms of the reflecting ether of its creator's vital body, where it forms that part of the record of the thinker's life and action which is sometimes called the sub-conscious mind.
This record is much more important than the memory to which we have conscious access, for the latter is made up from imperfect and illusive sense-perceptions and is the voluntary memory or conscious mind.
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The occult scientist sees in everything that happens a cause of a spiritual nature manifesting itself, not omitting the prevalence and alarmingly increasing frequency of seismic disturbances, which it traces to the materialistic thought of modern science.
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Were the vital body to have continual and unrestrained sway in the human kingdom, as it has in the plant, man would grow to an enormous size. There was a time in the far distant past when man was constituted like a plant, having only a dense body and a vital body. The traditions of mythology and folk-lore all over the world concerning giants in olden times are absolutely true, because then men grew as tall trees, and for the same reason.
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One of the greatest objections to the orthodox theological doctrine, as it is expounded, is its entire and confessed inadequacy. Of the myriads of souls which have been created and have inhabited this Globe since the beginning of existence, even if that beginning dates back no further than six thousand years, the insignificant number of only "one hundred and forty and four thousand" are to be saved! The rest are to be tortured forever and ever! The devil gets the best of it all the time. One cannot help saying with Buddha, "If God permits such misery to exist He cannot be good, and if He is powerless to prevent it, He cannot be God." ... It is represented that God desires ALL should be saved and is averse to the destruction of any, having for their salvation "given His only Son," and yet this "glorious plan of salvation" fails to save! ... We may safely reject this theory also, as being untrue, because unreasonable. If God were all-wise, He would have evolved a more efficacious plan.... Is it not more logical to think that we may have misinterpreted the Bible than to impute to God such a monstrous plan and method of procedure?
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Everywhere the spiral -- Onward, Upward, Forever!
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[T]he twin laws of Rebirth and Consequence solve, in a rational manner, all the problems incident to human life as man steadily advances toward the next stage in evolution -- the Superman.
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[E]very Ego is born twice during the time the Sun is passing through one sign of the Zodiac; and, as the soul itself is necessarily double-sexed, in order to obtain all experiences, it is reborn alternately in a male and a female body.
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The law of Consequence also works in harmony with the stars, so that a man is born at the time when the positions of the bodies in the solar system will give the conditions necessary to his experience and advancement in the school of life. That is why Astrology is an absolutely true science.
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In the teaching of occult science the stages of development on the earth are divided into periods called "Epochs." There have been four of these Epochs, which are designated as follows, respectively: The Polarian, the Hyperborean, the Lemurian, the Atlantean. The present Epoch is called the Aryan Epoch.
In the First or Polarian Epoch, what is now humanity had only a dense body, as the minerals have now, hence he was mineral-like. In the Second or Hyperborean Epoch, a vital body was added and man-in-the-making possesses a body constituted as are those of plants. He was not a plant, but was plantlike. In the Third or Lemurian Epoch, he obtained his desire body and became constituted like the animal -- an animal-man. In the Fourth or Atlantean Epoch, mind was unfolded and now, so far as his principles are concerned, he steps upon the stage of physical life as man. In the present, the Fifth or Aryan Epoch, man will in some degree unfold the third or lowest aspect of his threefold spirit -- the Ego.
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[A]s Christianity is the religion of the most advanced Race, it must be the most advanced Religion, and because of the elimination of this doctrine [rebirth and the law of consequence] from its public teachings, the conquest of the world of matter is being made by the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic races, in which this phase has been carried furthest. As some new addition to or change in the food of man has been made in every Epoch to meet its conditions and accomplish its purposes, we now find added to the food of the previous Epochs a new article -- wine. It was needed on account of its benumbing effect upon the spiritual principle in man, because no religion, in and of itself, could have made man forget his nature as a spirit and have caused him to think of himself as "a worm of the dust"... [A]fter the submergence of Atlantis -- a continent which once existed between Europe and America, where the Atlantic Ocean now lies -- those who escaped destruction began to cultivate the vine and make wine, as we find narrated in the Bible story of Noah. Noah symbolizes the remnant of the Atlantean Epoch, which became the nucleus of the Fifth Race -- therefore our progenitors. The active principle of alcohol is a "spirit" and as the humanity of the earlier Epochs used the articles of food best suited to their vehicles, so this spirit was, in the Fifth Epoch, added to the foods previously used by evolving humanity. It acts upon the spirit of the Fifth Epoch man, temporarily paralyzing it, that it may know, esteem and conquer the physical world and value it at its proper worth.... Water only had been used in the Temples, but now this is altered. "Bacchus," a god of wine, appears and under his sway the most advanced nations forget that there is a higher life. None who offer tribute to the counterfeit spirit of wine or any alcoholic liquor (the product of fermentation and decay) can ever know anything of the higher Self -- the true Spirit which is the very source of life. All this was preparatory to the coming of Christ, and it is of the highest significance that His first act was to change "water into wine." (John ii:11.) In private He taught Rebirth to His disciples. He not only taught them in words, but He took them "into the mountain." This is a mystic term meaning a place of Initiation....This was to be, for thousands of years, an esoteric teaching, to be known only among the few pioneers who fitted themselves for the knowledge, pushing ahead to the stage of development when these truths will again be known to man.
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It is not stretching a point to call a man a God. Paul says, "know ye not that ye are Gods? and he refers to the human body as the "temple of God," the indwelling spirit.
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The Sun is the nearest approach we have to a visible symbol of God, yet it is but a veil for That which is behind. What That is cannot be uttered publicly....From the Root of Existence -- The Absolute -- proceeds the Supreme Being, at the dawn of manifestation. This is The One. In the first chapter of John this Great Being is called God. From this Supreme Being emanates The Word, the Creative Fiat "without whom was not anything made," and this Word is the alone-begotten Son, born of His father (the Supreme Being) before all worlds -- but positively not Christ. Grand and glorious as is Christ, towering high above mere human nature, He is not this Exalted Being. Truly "the Word was made flesh," but not in the limited sense of the flesh of one body, but the flesh of all that is, in this and millions of other solar Systems.
The first Aspect of the Supreme Being may be characterized as power. From this proceeds the Second Aspect, the Word; and from both of these proceeds the Third, Aspect, motion. From this threefold Supreme Being proceed the seven Great Logoi.... In the Highest World of the seventh Cosmic Plane dwell the Gods of our Solar Systems in the Universe. These great Beings are also threefold in manifestation, like The Supreme Being. Their three aspects are Will, Wisdom and Activity.
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In the beginning of a Day of Manifestation it is taught that a certain Great Being (designated in the Western World by the name of God, but by other names in other parts of the earth) limits Himself to a certain portion of space, in which He elects to create a Solar System for the evolution of added self-consciousness. He includes in His own Being hosts of glorious Hierarchies of, to us, immeasurable spiritual power and splendor. They are the fruitage of past manifestations of this same Being and also other Intelligences, in descending degrees of development down to such as have not reached a stage of consciousness as high as our present humanity, and therefore these latter will not be able to finish their evolution in this System. In God -- this great collective Being -- there are contained lesser beings of every grade of intelligence and stage of consciousness, from omniscience to an unconsciousness deeper than that of the deepest trance condition.
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The period of time devoted to the attainment of self-consciousness and to the building of the vehicles through which the spirit in man manifests, is called "Involution." The subsequent period of existence, during which the individual human being develops self-consciousness into divine omniscience, is called "Evolution." The Force within the evolving being which makes evolution what it is, and not a mere unfoldment of latent germinal possibilities; which makes the evolution of each individual differ from that of every other; which provides the element of originality and gives scope to the creative ability which the evolving being is to cultivate that he may become a God -- that Force is called "Genius," and as previously explained, its manifestation is "Epigenesis."
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When God desires to create, He seeks out an appropriate place in space, which He fills with His aura, permeating every atom of the cosmic root-substance of that particular portion of space with His Life, thus awakening the activity latent within every inseparate atom. This Cosmic Root-substance is an expression of the negative pole of the Universal Spirit, while the great Creative Being we call God (of whom we, as spirits, are part) is an expression of the positive energy of the same Universal Absolute Spirit. From the work of one upon the other, all that we see about us in the Physical World has resulted. The oceans, the Earth everything we see manifesting as mineral, plant animal and human forms -- all are crystallized space, emanated from this negative Spirit-substance, which alone existed at the dawn of Being.
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A thorough comprehension of the scheme of planetary evolution which has been outlined in the preceding pages is of immense value to the student.... It trains the mind in abstract thought and elevates it above the sordid things of concrete existence, helping the imagination to soar beyond the hampering toils of self-interest....[I]f our minds are occupied with such subjects as mathematics or study of the planetary phases of evolution, we are in the Region of purely Abstract Thought, beyond the influence of Feeling, and the mind is directed upward towards the spiritual realism and liberation. When we are extracting cube root, or multiplying figures, or thinking of Periods, Revolutions, etc., we have no Feeling about it. We do not quarrel about twice two being four. If our feelings were involved, we should perhaps try to make it five and quarrel with the one who, for personal reasons, said it was but three, but in mathematics Truth is most clearly apparent and Feeling is eliminated....Pythagoras taught his pupils to live in the World of Eternal Spirit, and he demanded that those who desired instruction from him should first study mathematics....The more we accustom ourselves to think in terms of the Spiritual Worlds, the better we shall be able to rise above the illusions which surround us in this concrete existence, where the twin feelings, Interest and Indifference, obscure the Truth and bias us, as the reflection of the light rays through the Earth's atmosphere gives us incorrect ideas of the position of the luminary emitting them.
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In school there are, every year, those who fail to reach the standard required for promotion into a higher grade. Similarly, in every Period of Evolution, there are those who fall behind because they have not attained the standard necessary to pass onward to the next higher stage....
The hardened unresponsive condition of some of the Saturn beings prevented the awakening of the divine spirit within them, therefore they remained simply mineral...
These stragglers and the newly arrived life wave formed dark spots in the otherwise glowing gas sphere which was the densest Globe of the Sun Period, and our present Sunspots are an atavistic remainder of that condition. In the sixth Revolution of the Sun Period the life spirit was awakened by the Cherubim, and again it was found that some who had safely passed the critical point in the Saturn Period, had fallen behind in the Sun Period and were unfit to have the second aspect of the spirit vivified. Thus there were another class of stragglers, who had lagged behind the crest wave of evolution. In the seventh Revolution of the Sun Period the Lords of the Flame reappeared to awaken the divine spirit in those who failed to qualify for it at the end of the Saturn Period, but had attained to the point where they could receive the spiritual impulse in the Sun Period. The Lords of the Flame also awakened the germ of divine spirit in as many of the new life wave entities as were ready, but here also there were stragglers....
Those who cannot pass [the critical point which will come in the next Revolution of the Earth Period] will be held over until some future evolution reaches a stage where they can drop in and proceed with their development in a new human period. They will be debarred from going forward with our humanity because it will be advanced so far beyond their status that it would prove a serious clog to our progress to drag them along. They will not be destroyed, but simply held in waiting for another period of evolution. Progression with our present wave of evolution is what is meant when "salvation" is spoken of in the Christian religion, and it is something to be earnestly sought, for though the "eternal damnation" of those who are not "saved" does not mean destruction nor endless torture, it is nevertheless a very serious matter to be held in a state of inertia for inconceivable milliards of years, before a new evolution shall have progressed to such a stage that those who fail here can have an opportunity to proceed....
It is said, however, that of the total number of virgin spirits which started evolution in the Saturn Period, only about three-fifths will pass that critical point in the next Revolution and go on to the end....
The instrument is graded to suit the life that is to dwell in it. Those of class 2, in whose vehicles the above mentioned division could be made were raised to the human kingdom, but were given the indwelling spirit at a point in time later than class 1. Hence, they are not now so far evolved as class 1, and are therefore the lower races of mankind....
Those whose desire bodies were incapable of division were put into the same division as classes 3a and 3b. They are our present anthropoids. They may yet overtake our evolution if they reach a sufficient degree of advancement before the critical point already mentioned, which will come in the middle of the fifth Revolution. If they do not overtake us by that time, they will have lost touch with our evolution....
Where the desire body separated, the higher part became somewhat master over the lower part and over the dense and vital bodies. It formed a sort of animal-soul with which the spirit could unite by means of the link of mind. Where there was no division of the desire body, the vehicle was given over to desires and passions without any check, and could therefore not be used as a vehicle within which the spirit could dwell. So it was put under the control of a group-spirit which ruled if from without. It became an animal body, and that kind has now degenerated into the body of the anthropoid...
Mention has been made of the stragglers of various Periods who in later Periods were enabled to take a step upward in evolution. There were some, however, who did not take this step. They did not evolve, and were therefore left further and further behind, until they became a drag and a hindrance to the progressive ones. It became necessary to get them out of the way, that the evolution of the others might not be retarded.
In the beginning of the Lemurian Epoch, these "failures" (note that they were failures, not merely stragglers) had crystallized that part of the Earth occupied by them to such a degree that it become as a huge cinder or clinker, in the otherwise soft and fiery Earth. They were a hindrance and an obstruction, so they, with the part of the Earth they had crystallized, were thrown out into space beyond recall. That is the genesis of the Moon....
[In the Lemurian Epoch] the Lords of Form vivified the Human spirit in as many of the stragglers of the Moon Period as had made the necessary progress in the three and one half Revolutions which had elapsed since the commencement of the Earth Period, but at that time the Lords of Mind could not give them the germ of Mind. Thus a great part of nascent humanity was left without this link between the threefold spirit and the threefold body....
Races did not exist in the Periods which have preceded the Earth Period, and they will not exist in those Periods which follow it. It is only here, at the very nadir of material existence, that the difference is so great between man and man as to warrant the separation into Races....
What has been said about the enlightenment [by the Lucifer Spirits, the "light-givers"] of the Lemurians applies to only a minor portion of those who lived in the latter part of that Epoch, and who became the Seed for the Seven Atlantean Races. The greater part of the Lemurians were animal-like and the forms inhabited by them have degenerated into the savages and anthropoids of the present day. The student is requested to note carefully that it was the forms which degenerated. There is a very important distinction to be kept in mind between the bodies (or forms) of a race, and the Egos (or life) which is reborn in those race-bodies.
When a race is born, the forms are ensouled by a certain group of spirits and have inherent capability of evolving to a certain stage of completion and no further. There can be no standing still in nature, therefore when the limit of attainment has been reached, the bodies or forms of that race begin to degenerate, sinking lower and lower until at last the race dies out.
The reason is not far to seek. New race bodies are particularly flexible and plastic, affording great scope for the Egos who are reborn in them to improve these vehicles and progress thereby. The most advanced Egos are brought to birth in such bodies and improve them to the best of their ability. These Egos, however, are only apprentices as yet, and they cause the bodies to gradually crystallize and harden until the limit of improvement of that particular kind of body has been reached. Then forms for another new race are created, to afford the advancing Egos further scope for more extended experience and greater development. They discard the old race bodies for the new, their discarded bodies becoming the habitations for less advanced Egos who, in their turn, use them as stepping-stones on the path of progress. Thus the old race bodies are used by Egos of increasing inferiority, gradually degenerating until at last there are no Egos low enough to profit by rebirth in such bodies. The women then become sterile and the race-forms die.
We may easily trace this process by certain examples. The Teutonic-Anglo-Saxon race (particularly the American branch of it) has a softer, more flexible body and a more high-strung nervous system than any other race on earth at the present time. The Indian and Negro have much harder bodies and, because of the duller nervous system, are much less sensitive to lacerations. An Indian will continue to fight after receiving wounds the shock of which would prostrate or kill a white man, whereas the Indian will quickly recover. The Australian aborigines or Bushmen furnish an example of a race dying out on account of sterility, notwithstanding all that the British government is doing to perpetuate them. It has been said by white men against the white race, that wherever it goes the other races dies out. The whites have been guilty of fearful oppression against those other races, having in many cases massacred multitudes of the defenseless and unsuspecting natives -- as witness the conduct of the Spaniards towards the ancient Peruvians and Mexicans, to specify but one of many instances. The obligations resulting from such betrayal of confidence and abuse of superior intellect will be paid -- yea, the last, least iota! -- by those incurring them. It is equally true, however, that even had the whites not massacred, starved, enslaved, expatriated and otherwise maltreated those older races, the latter would nevertheless have died out just as surely, though more slowly, because such is the Law of Evolution -- the Order of Nature. At some future time the white race-bodies when they become inhabited by the Egos who are now embodied in red, black, yellow or brown skins, will have degenerated so far that they also will disappear, to give place to other and better vehicles.
Science speaks only of evolution. It fails to consider the lines of degeneration which are slowly but surely destroying such bodies as have crystallized beyond possibility of improvement....
As the heavy fogs of Atlantis condensed more and more, the increased quantity of water gradually inundated that continent, destroying the greater part of the population and the evidences of their civilization. Great numbers were driven from the doomed continent by the floods, and wandered across Europe. The Mongolian races are the descendants of those Atlantean refugees. The Negroes and the savage races with curly hair, are the last remnants of the Lemurians....
The sixteen Races are called the "Sixteen paths to destruction" because there is always, in each Race, a danger that the soul may become too much attached to the Race; that it may become so enmeshed in Race characteristics it cannot rise above the Race idea, and will therefore fail to advance; that it may, so to speak, crystallize into that Race and consequently be confined to the Race bodies when they start to degenerate, as happened to the Jews.
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The greatest apprehension of occult scientists is materialism, which if carried too far, not only prevents progress but will destroy all the seven vehicles of the virgin spirit, leaving it naked. Such an one will then have to commence at the very beginning of the new evolution. All the work it has done since the dawn of the Saturn Period will have been utterly wasted. For this reason, the present period is to our humanity, the most critical of all. Therefore occult scientists speak of the Sixteen Races, of which the Germano-Anglo-Saxon is one, as "the sixteen possibilities for destruction." May the reader safely pass them all, for their grip is worse than the retardation in the next Revolution.
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We have a word which was originally coined to convey the idea of the state of things between manifestations. This word, however, has been used in a material sense to such an extent that it has lost its primal significance. That word is Gas. It may be thought that this is a very old word, which has nearly always existed as a synonym for a state of matter lighter than liquids, but such is not the case. The word was first used in "Physica," a work which appeared in 1633, the author of it being Helmont, a Rosicrucian. Helmont did not call himself a Rosicrucian; no true Brother does so publicly. Only the Rosicrucian knows the brother Rosicrucian. Not even the most intimate friends or relatives know of a man's connection with the order. Those only who are Initiates themselves know the writers of the past who were Rosicrucians, because ever through their works shine the unmistakable words, phrases and signs indicative of the deep meaning that remains hidden from the non-Initiate. The Rosicrucian Fellowship is composed of students of the teachings of the Order, which are now given publicly, because the world's intelligence is growing to the necessary point of comprehension. This work is one of the first few fragments of the Rosicrucian knowledge being publicly given out. All that has been printed as such, previous to the last few years, has been the work of either charlatans or traitors.
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When the beings upon a planet have evolved to a sufficient degree, the planet becomes a Sun -- the fixed center of a Solar System. When the beings upon it have evolved to a still greater degree, and consequently it has reached its maximum brilliancy, it breaks up into Zodiac, becoming, so to speak, the womb for a new Solar System. Thus the great hosts of Divine Beings who, until then, were confined within that Sun, gain freedom of action upon a great number of stars, whence they can affect in different ways the system which grows up within their sphere of influence. The planets, or man-bearing worlds, within the Zodiac are constantly being worked upon by these forces, but in various ways, according to the stage they have reached in evolution.
Our Sun could not become a Sun until it had sent out from itself all the beings who were not sufficiently evolved to endure the high rate of vibration and the great luminosity of the beings who were qualified for that evolution. All the beings upon the different planets would have been consumed had they remained in the Sun. This visible Sun, however, though it is the place of evolution for Beings vastly above man, is not by many means the Father of the other planets, as material science supposes. On the contrary, it is itself an emanation from the Central Sun, which is the invisible source of all that is in our Solar System. Our visible Sun is but the mirror in which are reflected the rays of energy from the Spiritual Sun. The real Sun is as invisible as the real Man....
When a planet has Moons, it indicates that there are some beings in the life wave evolving on that planet who are too backward to share in the evolution of the main life wave, and they have therefore been sent out from the planet to prevent them from hindering the progress of the pioneers. Such is the case with the beings inhabiting our Moon. In the case of Jupiter it is thought probable that the inhabitants of three of its moons will eventually be able to rejoin the life on the parent planet, but it is thought that at least one of the others is an eighth sphere, like our own Moon, where retrogression and disintegration of the already acquired vehicle will result from too close adherence to material existence upon the part of the evolving beings who have brought themselves to that deplorable end.... When laggards inhabiting a Moon have retrieved their position and returned to the parent planet; or, when continued retrogression has caused complete disintegration of their vehicles, the abandoned Moon also commences to dissolve....The expulsion of these cinder-like dead worlds is analogous to the manner in which hard and foreign bodies imbedded in the human system make their way through the flesh to the skin.
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Man's first dense body did not even remotely resemble his present splendidly organized vehicle. That has been evolved only in the course of myriads of years. The first dense body was a large, baggy object with an opening at the top, from which an organ projected....This organ has now degenerated into what is called the pineal gland. Sometimes it is called "the third eye," but that is a misnomer, because it never was an eye, but rather the localized organ for the sensing of heat and cold, which faculty is now distributed over the entire dense body.
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Everything in connection with the propagation of the race and the bringing to birth was done by direction of the Angels under the leadership of Jehovah, the Regent of the Moon.
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The Lemurian methods of education seem shocking to our more refined sensibilities. In order to spare the reader's feelings, only the least cruel of them will be touched upon. Strenuous in the extreme as they may seem, it must be remembered that the Lemurian body was not nearly so high-strung as are the human bodies of the present day; also that it was only by the very harshest measures that the exceedingly dim consciousness could be touched at all. As time went on and the consciousness became more and more awakened, such extreme measures as those used then became unnecessary and have passed away, but at that time they were indispensable to arouse the slumbering forces of the spirit to a consciousness of the outside world. The education of the boys was designed especially to develop the quality of Will. They were made to fight one another, and these fights were extremely brutal. They were impaled upon spits, with full power to release themselves, but by exercising the will power they were to remain there in spite of the pain. They learned to make their muscles tense, and to carry immense burdens by the exercise of the Will. The education of the girls was intended to promote the development of the imaginative facility. They also were subjected to strenuous and severe treatment. They were put out in the great forests, to let the sound of the wind in the tree tops speak to them and to listen to the furious outbursts of flood and tempest. They thus learned to have no fear of those paroxysms of nature and to perceive only the grandeur of the warring elements. The frequent volcanic outbursts were greatly valued as a means of education, being particularly conducive to the awakening of the faculty of memory. Such educational methods would be entirely out of the question at the present day, but they did not make the Lemurian morbid, because he had no memory. No matter what painful or terrifying experience he endured, everything was forgotten as soon as past. The above mentioned strenuous experiences were for the purpose of developing memory, to imprint these violent and constantly repeated impacts from without upon the brain, because memory is necessary that the experiences of the past may be used as guides to Action.
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The Original Semites were the fifth and most important of the seven Atlantean Races, because in them we find the first germ of the corrective quality of Thought. Therefore the Original Semitic Race become the "seed race" for the seven races of the present Aryan Epoch....
The Original Semites regulated their desires to some extent by the mind, and instead of mere desires, came cunning and craftiness -- the means by which those people sought to attain their selfish ends. Though they were a very turbulent people, they learned to curb their passions to a great extent and accomplish their purposes by the use of cunning, as being more subtle and potent than mere brute strength. They were the first to discover that "brain" is superior to "brawn."...
Under the guidance of a great Entity, the Original Semitic Race was led eastward from the continent of Atlantis, over Europe, to the great waste in Central Asia which is known as the Gobi Desert. There it prepared them to be the seed of the seven Races of the Aryan Epoch, imbuing them potentially with the qualities to be evolved by their descendants....now his thoughts were to be turned from the visible Leaders, the Lords from Venus, whom he worshiped as messengers from the gods -- to the idea of the true God, the invisible Creator of the System. Man was to learn to worship and obey the commands of a God he could not see....
Fourfold also are the steps by which man climbs upward to God. First, through fear, he worships the God whom he begins to sense, sacrificing to propitiate Him, as do the fetish-worshipers. Next, he learns to look to God as the giver of all things, and hopes to receive from Him material benefits here and now. He sacrifices through avarice, expecting that the Lord will repay a hundredfold, or to escape swift punishment by plague, war, etc. Next, he is taught to worship God by prayer and the living of a good life; and that he must cultivate faith in a Heaven where he will be rewarded in the future; and to abstain from evil that he may escape a future punishment in Hell. At last he comes to a point where he can do right without any thought of reward, bribe, or punishment, but simply because "it is right to do right." He loves right for its own sake and seeks to govern his conduct thereby, regardless of present benefit or injury, or of painful results at some future time.
The Original Semites had reached the second of these steps. They were taught to worship an invisible God and to expect to be rewarded by material benefits, or punished by painful afflictions. Popular Christianity is at the third step. Esoteric Christians, and the pupils of all occult schools are trying to reach the highest step, which will be generally achieved in the Sixth Epoch, the new Galilee, when the unifying Christian religion will open the hearts of men, as their understanding is being opened now....
To transmute Cunning into Reason proved no easy task. The earlier changes in man's nature had been easily brought about. He could then be led without difficulty because he had no conscious desire, nor mind to guide him, but by the time of the Original Semites he had become cunning enough to resent limitations of his liberty and to circumvent repeatedly the measures taken to hold him in line. The task of guiding him was all the more difficult because it was necessary he should have some liberty of choice, that he might in time learn self-government. Therefore a law was enacted which decreed immediate rewards for obedience and instant punishment for disregard of its provisions. Thus was man taught, coaxed and coerced into reasoning in a limited manner that "the way of the transgressor is hard," and that he must "fear God," or the Leader who guided him.
Out of all who were chosen as "seed" for the new Race, few remained faithful. Most of them were rebellious and, so far as they were concerned, entirely frustrated the purpose of the Leader by intermarrying with the other Atlantean Races, thus bringing inferior blood into their descendants. That is what is meant in the Bible where the fact is recorded that the sons of God married the daughters of men. For that act of disobedience were they abandoned and "lost." Even the faithful died, according to the body, in the Desert of Gobi (the "Wilderness") in Central Asia, the cradle of our present Race. They reincarnated, as their own descendants of course, and thus inherited the "Promised Land," the Earth as it is now. They are the Aryan Races, in whom Reason is being evolved to perfection.
The rebellious ones who were abandoned are the Jews, of whom the great majority are still governed more by the Atlantean faculty of Cunning than by Reason. In them the race-feeling is so strong that they distinguish only two classes of people: Jews and Gentiles. They despise the other nations and are in turn despised by them for their cunning, selfishness and avarice....
Races are but an evanescent feature of evolution. Before the end of the Lemurian Epoch there was a "chosen people," different from the ordinary humanity of that time, who became the ancestors of the Atlantean Races. From the fifth race of those, another "chosen people" was drawn, from which the Aryan Races descended, of which there have been five and will be two more. Before a new Epoch is ushered in, however, there must be "a new Heaven and a new earth"; the physical features of the Earth will be changed and its density decreased. There will be one Race at the beginning of the next Epoch, but after that every thought and feeling of Race will disappear....
[E]xtra care must be taken that as few of the spirits as possible become enmeshed in the fetters of Race. This is exactly what happened to the spirits reborn in the Jewish Race-bodies. They attached themselves so firmly to the Race that they are drawn back into it in successive births. "Once a Jew, always a Jew" is their slogan. They have entirely forgotten their spiritual nature and glory in the material fact of being "Abraham's seed." Therefore they are neither "fish nor flesh." They have no part in the advancing Aryan Race and yet they are beyond those remnants of the Lemurian and Atlantean peoples which are still with us. They have become a people without a country, an anomaly among mankind.
Because of their bondage to the Race-idea, their one-time Leader was forced to abandon them, and they became "lost." That they might cease to regard themselves as separate from other peoples, other nations were stirred up against them at various times by the Leaders of humanity, and they were led captive from the country where they had settled, but in vain. They stubbornly refused to amalgamate with others. Again and again they returned in a body to their arid land. Prophets of their own Race were raised up who mercilessly rebuked them and predicted dire disaster, but without avail.
As a final effort to persuade them to cast off the fetters of Race, we have the seeming anomaly that the Leader of the coming Race, the Great Teacher Christ, appeared among the Jews. This still further shows the compassion and Wisdom of the great Beings who guide evolution. Among all the Races of the Earth, none other was "lost" in the same sense as the Jews; none other so sorely needed help. To send them a stranger, not one of their own Race, would have been manifestly useless. It was a foregone conclusion that they would have rejected him. As the great spirit known as Booker T. Washington incarnated among the Negroes, to be received by them as one of themselves, and thus enabled to enlighten them as no white man could, so the great Leaders hoped that the appearance of Christ among the Jews as one of their own might bring them to accept Him and His teachings and thus draw them out of the meshes of the Race-bodies. But sad it is to see how human prejudice can prevail. "He came unto His own and" they chose Barabbas.
The rejection of Christ by the Jews was the supreme proof of their thralldom to Race. Thenceforth all efforts to save them as a whole by giving them special prophets and teachers, were abandoned and, as the futility of exiling them in a body had been proven, they were, as a last expedient, scattered among all the nations of the earth. Despite all, however, the extreme tenacity of this people has prevailed even to the present day, the majority being yet orthodox. In America, however, there is now a slight falling away. The younger generation is commencing to marry outside the Race. In time, an increasing number of bodies, with fewer and fewer of the Race characteristics, will thus be provided for the incarnating spirits of the Jews of the past. In this manner will they be saved in spite of themselves. They become "lost" by marrying into inferior Races; they will be saved by amalgamating with those more advanced.
As the present Aryan Races are reasoning human beings, capable of profiting by past experience, the logical means of helping them is by telling them of past stages of growth and the fate that overtook the disobedient Jews. Those rebels had a written record of how their Leaders had dealt with them. It set forth how they had been chosen and rebelled; were punished; but were yet hopeful of ultimate redemption. That record may be profitably used by us, that we may learn how not to act....
The Original Semites were set apart and forbidden to marry into other tribes or peoples, but they were a stiff-necked and hard people, being yet led almost exclusively by desire and cunning, therefore they disobeyed the command. Their Bible records that the sons of God married the daughters of man -- the lower grades of their Atlantean compatriots. They thus frustrated the designs of Jehovah and were cast off, the fruit of such cross-breeding being useless as seed for the coming Race.
These cross-breeds were the progenitors of the present Jews, who now speak of "lost tribes." They know that some of the original number left them and went another way, but they do not know that those were the few who remained true. The story of the ten tribes being lost is a fable. Most of them perished, but the faithful ones survived, and from that faithful remnant have descended the present Aryan Races.
***
The most advanced among humanity at the beginning of the Aryan Epoch were given the higher Initiations, that they might take the place of the messengers of God, i.e. the Lords of Venus. Such human Initiates were from this time forth the only mediators between God and man. Even they did not appear publicly nor show any signs of wonders that they were Leaders and Teachers. Man was left entirely free to seek them or not, as he desired. At the end of our present Epoch the highest Initiates will appear publicly, when a sufficient number of ordinary humanity desire, and will voluntarily subject themselves to such a Leader. They will thus form the nucleus for the last Race, which will appear at the beginning of the Sixth Epoch. After that time races and nations will cease to exist. Humanity will form one spiritual Fellowship as before the end of the Lemurian Epoch.
***
The lower monkeys, instead of being the progenitors of the higher species, are stragglers occupying the most degenerated specimens of what was once the human form. Instead of man having ascended from the anthropoids, the reverse is true -- the anthropoids have degenerated from man.
***
It is an occult maxim that the oftener we die the better we are able to live, for every birth gives us a new chance.
***
In the Christian creed occurs this sentence: "Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God." This is generally understood to mean that a certain person Who appeared in Palestine about 2,000 years ago, Who is spoken of as Jesus Christ -- one separate individual -- was the only begotten Son of God. This is a great mistake.
***
The occult scientist, however, as he watches the harvesting of the ripe grain and the gathering of fruit from the trees in the autumn, or the plucking of flowers, knows the pleasure experienced by the Earth itself. It is similar to the pleasure felt by the cow when its bursting udders are being relieved by the sucking calf. The Earth feels the delight of having yielded nourishment for its progeny of Forms, this delight reaching its culmination in the harvest time.
On the other hand, when plants are torn out by the roots, it is patent to the occult scientist that the Earth senses a sting of pain. For that reason he does not eat the plant-foods which grow under the Earth. In the first place they are full of the Earth force and deficient in Sun force, and are additionally poisoned by being pulled up by the roots. The only exception to this rule is that he may partake sparingly of the potato, which originally grew on the surface of the earth, and has only in comparatively recent times grown beneath the soil. Occultists endeavor to nourish their bodies on fruits which grow toward the Sun, because they contain more of the higher Sun force, and have not caused the Earth pain.
It might be supposed that mining operations would be very painful to the Earth, but the reverse is the case. Every disintegration of the hard crust causes a sensation of relief and every solidification is a source of pain. Where a mountain torrent washes away the soil and carries it toward the plains, the earth feels freer.
***
There are, in occult science what are known as "The Seven Unspeakable Secrets." For those who are not acquainted with these secrets, or have not at least an inkling of their import, the properties of this stratum must seem particularly absurd and grotesque. In it all the forces which are known to us as the "Laws of Nature" exist as moral, or rather immoral forces. In the beginning of the conscious career of man they were much worse than at present. But it appears that as humanity progresses in morals, these forces improve correspondingly; also that any lapse in morals has a tendency to unleash these Nature forces and causes them to create havoc upon the Earth; while the striving for higher ideals makes them less inimical to man.
The forces in this stratum are thus, at any time, an exact reflection of the existing moral status of mankind. From the occult point of view, the "hand of God" which smites a Sodom or a Gomorrah is not a foolish superstition, for as surely as there is individual responsibility to the law of Consequence which brings to each person the just results of his deeds whether for good or evil, so is there also community and national responsibility, which brings upon groups of men corresponding results for their collective acts. Nature forces are the general agents of such retributive justice, causing floods, or earthquakes, or the beneficent formation of oil or coal for various groups, according to their deserts....
As might be gathered from the fact that it is the reflected immorality and anti-spiritual tendencies of mankind which arouse the Nature-forces in the seventh stratum to destructive activity, it is generally profligate and degenerate peoples who succumb to these catastrophes. They, together with others whose destiny, self-generated under the law of consequence, for various reasons, involves a violent death, are gathered from many lands by the superhuman forces, to the point where the eruption is to occur. To the thoughtful, the volcanic outbursts of Vesuvius, for instance, will afford corroboration of this statement.
A list of these outbursts during the last 2,000 years shows that their frequency has been increasing with the growth of materialism. In the last sixty years, especially, in the ratio that materialistic science has grown arrogant in its absolute and sweeping denial of everything spiritual, have the eruptions increased in frequency. While there were but six eruptions in the first 1,000 years after Christ, the last five have taken place within 51 years, as will be shown.
The Cleansing Blood
When the Savior Christ Jesus was crucified, His body was pierced in five places; in the five centers where the currents of the vital body flow; and the pressure of the crown of thorns caused a flow from the sixth also. (This is a hint to those who already know these currents. A full elucidation of this matter cannot be publicly given out at this time.)
When the blood flowed from these centers, the great Sun-spirit Christ was liberated from the physical vehicle of Jesus and found Himself in the Earth, with individual vehicles. The already existing planetary vehicles He permeated with His own vehicles and, in the twinkling of an eye, diffused His own desire body over the planet, which has enabled Him thenceforth to work upon the Earth and its humanity from within.
At that moment a tremendous wave of spiritual sunlight flooded the Earth. It rent the veil which the Race-spirit had hung before the Temple to keep out all but the chosen few, and it made the Path of Initiation free thenceforth to whomsoever will. So far as concerned the Spiritual Worlds, this wave transformed the conditions of the Earth like a flash of lightning, but the dense, concrete conditions are, of course, much more slowly affected.
Like all rapid and high vibrations of light, this great wave blinded the people by its dazzling brilliance, therefore it was said that "the Sun was darkened." The very opposite was what actually occurred. The Sun was not darkened, but shone out in glorious splendor. It was the excess of light that blinded the people, and only as the entire Earth absorbed the desire body of the bright Sun-spirit did the vibration return to a more normal rate.
The expression, "the cleansing blood of Christ Jesus," means that as the blood flowed on Calvary, it bore with it the great Sun-spirit Christ, Who by that means secured admission to the earth itself and since that moment has been its Regent. He diffused His own desire body throughout the planet, thereby cleansing it from all the vile influences which had grown up under the regime of the Race-spirit.
-- The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, by Max Heindel
Table of Contents:
• Figures and Diagrams
• Part 1: Man's Present Constitution and Method of Development
o A Word to the Wise
o The Four Kingdoms, Diagram
o Introduction
o Chapter 1: The Visible and Invisible Worlds
Chemical Region of the Physical World
Etheric Region of the Physical World
The Desire World
The World of Thought
o Chapter 2: The Four Kingdoms
o Chapter 3: Man and the Method of Evolution
Activities of Life; Memory and Soul-growth
The Constitution of the Seven-fold Man
Death and Purgatory
The Borderland
The First Heaven
The Second Heaven
The Third Heaven
Preparations for Rebirth
Birth of the Dense Body
Birth of the Vital Body and Growth
Birth of the Desire Body and Puberty
Birth of the Mind and Majority
The Blood; the Vehicle of the Ego
o Chapter 4: Rebirth and the Law of Consequence
Wine as a Factor in Evolution
A Remarkable Story
• Part 2: Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis
o Chapter 5: The Relation of Man to God
o Chapter 6: The Scheme of Evolution
The Beginning
The Seven Worlds
The Seven Periods
o Chapter 7: The Path of Evolution
Revolutions and Cosmic Nights
o Chapter 8: The Work of Evolution
Ariadne's Thread
The Saturn Period
Recapitulation
The Sun Period
The Moon Period
o Chapter 9: Stragglers and Newcomers
Classes of Beings at the Beginning of the Moon Period
o Chapter 10: The Earth Period
Saturn Revolution of the Earth Period
Sun Revolution of the Earth Period
Moon Revolution of the Earth Period
Rest Periods Between Revolutions
The Fourth Revolution of the Earth Period
o Chapter 11: Genesis and Evolution of Our Solar System
Chaos
The Birth of the Planets
o Chapter 12: Evolution on the Earth
The Polarian Epoch
The Hyperborean Epoch
The Moon; the Eighth Sphere
The Lemurian Epoch
Birth of the Individual
Separation of the Sexes
Influence of Mars
The Races and Their Leaders
Influence of Mercury
The Lemurian Race
The Fall of Man
The Lucifer Spirits
The Atlantean Epoch
The Aryan Epoch
The Sixteen Paths to Destruction
o Chapter 13: Back to the Bible
o Chapter 14: Occult Analysis of Genesis
Limitations of the Bible
In the Beginning
The Nebular Theory
The Creative Hierarchies
The Saturn Period
The Sun Period
The Moon Period
The Earth Period
Jehovah and His Mission
Involution, Evolution and Epigenesis
A Living Soul?
Adam's Rib
Guardian Angels
Mixing Blood in Marriage
The Fall of Man
• Part 3: Man's Future Development and Initiation
o Chapter 15: Christ and His Mission
The Evolution of Religion
Jesus and Christ-Jesus
Not Peace but a Sword
The Star of Bethlehem
The Heart as an Anomaly
The Mystery of Golgotha
The Cleansing Blood
o Chapter 16: Future Development and Initiation
The Seven Days of Creation
Radiates, Mollusks, Articulates and Vertebrates
Spirals within Spirals
Alchemy and Soul Growth
The Creative Word
o Chapter 17: The Method of Acquiring First-Hand Knowledge
The First Steps
Western Methods for Western People
The Science of Nutrition
The Law of Assimilation
Live and Let Live
The Lord's Prayer
The Vow of Celibacy
The Pituitary Body and the Pineal Gland
Esoteric Training
How the Inner Vehicle is Built
Concentration
Meditation
Observation
