Rosicrucian Digest, July 1941

8/12/2019 Rosicrucian Digest, July 1941

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Ju ly , 1941

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HE fundamental law ofsuccess is order. Systematic arrangement of yourthoughts, your plans and your acts, assures you againstlost time. The greatest genius is at a disadvantage if lieis compelled to search for his implements, pen, or brushwhen inspired. The student is equally striving againstodds if his monographs or lessons are haphazardly filed,requiring a shuffling of pages, a sorting of manuscripts,each time a point, principle, law. or fact is sought. Thereis no greater torment than the tantalizing thought thatyou possess the needed information, but just cannotlocate it. There is no wisdom so useless as that justbeyond recall. W hy not begin today to tile your mono-graphs methodically? W e have prepared a speciallymade, serviceable and attractive lesson binder for this purpose. This special binder will accommodate a year smonographs. It is very attractive, and stamped in goldwith the symbol and name of the Order. It containsan index form for indexing the subjects ol your mono-

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R O S I C R U C I A N S U P P L Y B U R E A USAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA, U. S. A.

THE IN STITUTION B EH IN D TH IS A N N O U N C E M EN T


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A M A G N IFICE N T T R IB U T E

The above is a photographic reproduction of a large realistic oil painting portrait of the late Imperatorof AM ORC, Dr. H. Spencer Lewis. The painting, executed by Frater J. Phillip Schmand, prominent NewYork artist, was recently presented by him to AMORC, as a tribute to the humanitarian accomplishmentsof Dr. Lewis. Th e amazing realism, in all details, is the marvel of all who view it. As an indication ofthe talent possessed by Frater Schmand, it must be related that he never personally met the late Impera-tor. The painting, ideally framed and illuminated, occupies a prominent place in the Rosicrucian Re-search Libraryan edifice that is the outgrowth of one of Dr. Lewis ideals.

(Courtesy of the Rosicrucian Digest.)


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Pxi lamic) Plopl t ecies (ytal t l e the Wel l e)!J l IER F w ill be a complete rehabilitat ion of the nations ol

the world in 1947. Th ese are not the words of a mod-

ern statesman, hut the prophetic words of wisdom of a mystic

people caned on the Great Pyramid nearly filly centuries ago.

So amazingly accurate are the predictions of the Great Pyramid

that modern science has sent its greatest savants to study tin

veile d symbolism it contains, with the hope of bein g able to

look across unborn centuries into an unknown future. I lie

eminent Dr. A. E. Strnlch Gord on. Scotch scientist, upon his

return from Egypt, in a surprising newspaper interview, de-

clared that nearly all ol the Pyramid prophecies were fulfilled.

Science is intrigued, not with a seership. not by tales ofsupernatural vision, but by legends that the sages possessed a

strange mathematical formula by which human, economic, and

political tendencies were mysteriously reduced to a methodical

system of cyclical forecast, just as modern science forecasts the

wea ther. W ith these strange cyc les the ancien t Pyramid Bui ld -

ers presaged the fall ol the Roman Empire, the coming of

Christ, the discovery of America, and the W od d W ar . Ollier

pr ed ic ti on s, tbe fu ll import o l which are not yet real ized, are

bein g seriou sly studied .

A G R I P P IN G F r e e B O O K

W here did these peo ple acqui re their wisdo m? W h a t sources

of knowledge w ere open to them and do they remain?

I lie same knowledge hy which the ancients could see far

ahead into the tomorrow, likewise made them masters o f t h e

p re se n t. Surgery , the useful arts, the doctrine of immortality

all ol these were bom in Egyp t. More important was a secret

wisdom wh ich blossomed forth. Men we re tauglil a strange

p ow er by wbicli iheir (acuities were keenly developed. Imaginn

lion became a useful implement instead ol just passing laniy.

I he control of the emotions. the power of thought, w ere keys

by wh ich men each day coul d convert minutes into goldenopportunities and bring about dreamed of accom pl i shm en t s .

This esoteric and cherished wisdom lias survived the ravages

ol time. From the archives of the Rosic rucian s (an ageold

fraternity) many of these ancient Cosmic truths are imparted to

those who wou ld better tlieir station in life. Ch all en ge this

statement! W rite today for the fr e e book. "The Secret I leri

tage. It tells bow you may share these Rosic rucian teachings.

Learn lor yoursel f that the wisd om o f the sages st il l endures.

Ad dress Scr ibe S. P. C.

T HE R O S I C R U C I A N S . . [ A M O R C ]S A N J O S E , C A L I F O R N I A . U . S . A .R O S I C R U C I A N P A R K


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ROSICRUCIAN DIGESTCOVERS THE WORLD

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

Vol. X IX JU LY , 1941

A Magnificent Tribute (Frontispiece)....

Thought of the Month: The Lost Word

A Message from the Grand Master of Great Britain

The Mystical Voyage of Dante ..............

Cathedral Contacts: Unfulfilled Desires.

Lessons W e Learned From Ancient Egypt

Education ............................................As Science Sees It ........ _.................Creating a New C a re e r ........ .... .....

Rosicrucians and the New Age

The Over-soul ........-...................Music Appreciation

Sanctum Musings: Religion A Part of Evolution"I Am That I Am" (Illustration)....

Subscription to the Rosicrucian Digest. Three Dollars per year. Single

copies twenty-five cents.

Entered as Second Class Matter at the Post Office at San Jose, California, under Section I 103 of the U. S. Postal Act of Oct. 3, 1917.

Changes of address must reach us by the tenth of the month precedingdate of issue.

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

Published Monthly by the Supreme Council of

THE ROSICRUC IAN ORDER AM OR C

RO SICR UC IAN PARK SAN JOSE, CAL IFORN IA


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T S ^ S t i x > t T * 0 ^ J u O: rr:-x -> jr> > > jj:--X ",-i ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ n

T H E

THOUGHT OF THE MONTHTHE LOST WORD

HE doctrine of theLost Word existsas an arcanum in

the liturgies ofmany of our reli-gions of tod ay ,and in the rites ofa number of secretand philosophicalsocieties which arestill extant. Eachhas its respectivetheological or phi-losophical explan-

ation of this persistent idea. On theother hand, they are all related to a

fundamen ta l conception rooted deeplyin the earliest beliefs of man.A majority of these explanations of

the Lost Word are based upon theBiblical phrase: In the beginning wasthe Word, and the Word was withGod. and the Word was God." (Johnl : l 3 ). Cosmologically, this means thatthe creation of the universe was accom-plished by a vocative idea a thoughtexpressed as a word. In this manner,God and the Wor d are made synony-mous. God, or Mind, as a creative rea-son. are made to manifest only with the

issuance of a Word. Consequently, thecreative power of God is given forceonly when it is spoken. The force ofGod is made his voice, or an intonation.It is not sufficient, according to this con-ception, that God only exist for the uni-verse and things to come forth from his

T h e nature, but it is also necessary that thed active cause of His being, the law or

decision or His mind be manifest as anutterance.

Ju ly it is a matter of observation among1941 men that all natural things have a law

unto themselves. That is. there is someparticular cause upon which they de-pend, and such things and laws are

myriad. Therefore, it is the presumptionamong men that the Wor d which wasfirst uttered must have been the syn-thesis of all Cosmic and natural laws.The word in this sense did not fashionout of other substances, the elements ofthe universe. It was not a Divine agentor force which acted upon an indeter-minate substance, as, for example, asculptor's hands fashion a form fromclay, but rather all things from planetsto specks of sand were inchoate elementsof the Word. The Wor d is thus con-ceived as a vibratory, undulating energyin which the basic essence of all thingsexists. For analogy, we may compare itto a single sound which could includeall octaves and pitches simultaneously.Consequently, each individual soundwhich the ear might discern would de-pend for its existence upon the originalcause, the single united sound. As allcolor is a component part of white light,so all creation is of the composite lamembraced by the Word. Consequently,such a Word is endowed with the im-portance of being the kei) of the uni-

verse. He who could know and intoneit would have mastery of all creation.

In line with such reasoning is the con-notation that the law of creation or Logosonce made vocative as the W or d neverceased to exist, never died out or dimin-ished. Upon its continuous tremors orvibratory nature, all things have theircausal dependence. Just as the light ofan electric lamp is, in effect, dependentupon its constant cause, the flow of elec-tricity to the heated filament within thelamp, so all manifestations are said to

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owe their existence to the continuousreverberations of the W ord throughoutthe universe. The vibratory nature ofeach thing thus fits into a gigantic scaleor keyboard. Each reality has some re-lationship to a note or a combination ofthem, which is an integral part of theword. Thus, certain vowels could con-tain, within their combination, the crea-tive complete scale of Cosmic energy,according to this conception.

It is expounded by most of the phi-losophical and religious organizationswhich preserve the tradition of theW ord, that at one time man possessed,as a Divine and rightful heritage, knowl-edge of it, which gave him a true mas-tery of his domain, the earth. How manbecame dispossessed of such a greattreasure or lost the W ord is a tradition

for which different groups offer variousand divergent explanations. Each, like-wise, in its own way, believes man mayredeem himself and recover the LostW ord, or at least certain efficacioussyllables of it. This, it is generally con-ceded, can be accomplished through asynthesis of exoteric esoteric knowl-edge, namely, through the study of thebasic natural sciences and the worshipof God, or communion with the Abso-lute. In fact, there are perpetuated to-day, in rites and sacred ceremonies, cer-tain syllables or vowels, which are said

to be of the Lost W ord, and when in-toned do produce amazing creative andbeneficial powers and manifestations.Other mystics declare that the completeLost W ord is ineffable by man; that hewould never be able to utter it, even ifhe came to know its content, but that hecan pronounce certain of its syllables,from which he may acquire tremendouspersonal power.

W e have said that this belief had itsprovenance in the early thought of man.It will contribute to our understanding

of this mystery, which has become a re-spected doctrine, to review its history.According to ancient liturgical text theSumerian vocable for word is Inim,pronounced enem. From this word,the Sumerian developed the sense in-cantation. To the Sumerians, incanta-tion was the formal words of the magi-cian or priest. In fact, the Sumerian forincantation is iniminimma, whichis a duplication of Inim. T o the Su-

merian, Inim or word meant to utter adecision. Th e ancient Semites regard-ed a fo rm al ly spoken word containingthe force of a command or a promise asa very definite or real thing, that is, anentity the same as a substance of somekind. Therefore, from the words of adeity, priest, or human under formal cir-cumstances there issued a magical andterrible power. The formally spokenwords of the great gods were apotheo-sized by the Sumerians; that is, theywere regarded as a Divine entity equiv-alent to the God.

Because of its conformity to this con-ception, let us recall our previous Bibli-cal quotation in part, . . . and theWord was with God, and the Wordwas God. Before 2900 B. C., we findthe inscription, En em M a N iZ id ,

literally translated, His word is true.Likewise, in preSargonic times, about2800 B. C., and on a Temple record ofLugalanda is the phrase EnemDugDugGaNi AnDub, or:The word which he spoke shakes the

heavens.The word which beneath causes the

earth to tremble.Here we see the first conception of thedynamic powerof the Divine W ord, ex-pressed nearly 5000 years ago.

A further development of the Sumer-ians was the identifying of the Word of

the God Enlil, with his spirit. The wordof the god was made as an attribute ofhis allembracing nature, moving forthfrom him into the chaotic world. Forexample, another Sumerian liturgy reads:The utterance of thy mouth is a bene-ficent wind, the breath of life of thelands. Again, by this, we are remindedof the Old Testament, for in the bookof Genesis 1:3, we find, And the spiritof God moved upon the face of thewaters. Following this we are told thatGod spoke, Let there be Light. T othe Sumerians, the breath of God was awarm flood of light. The influence ofthe religions of the Sumerians andBabylonians upon their Hebrew cap-tives is quite apparent in the books ofthe Old Testament.

The Sumerians and Babylonians in-variably regarded water as the first

pr inciple, the primordial substance fromwhich all things came. W ater to themwas not a creative force, but rather thefirst element out of which other sub

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stances developed or evolved. Since,therefore, all things came from water, itwas deduced that reason or wisdomdwelt within it. The word which theSumerians conferred upon this creative

principle of water was "mummu." Th eGreek historian, Damascius said thisword meant creative reason'the wis-dom which created all things. In thebook of Genesis we find another parallelto this. That is, that water was the firstsubstance over which . . . . the spiritof God moved . . . This doctrine ofwater as the first substance found itsway into an early school of philosophyof ancient Greece. Thales of Miletusapparently borrowed it from the Baby-lonians. Anaximander and Anaximeneswere apparently influenced by their con-tact with the Hebrew scholars and their

traditions and so they resorted to syn-cretism as well. Th ey declared that theCosmic substance was itself reason,wisdom, harmony, or Nous. This, wesee, corresponds to the BabylonianLogos, or Mum mu, the creative reasonwhich is immanent in water. Heraclitus,of 500 B. C., who expounded a doctrineof evolution and relativity, that of allmatter becoming, through a processof development from fire to air and re-turn, held that the only reality was thelaw of becoming, a Cosmic law theWord.

A transition gradually occurred, inwhich the Word, as a Divine utterancewas to be replaced by the Logos (law).This Logos was the will of God, ex-pressed as an immutable and active lawin the universe. The ancient Stoics heldthat the Divine principal or first causewas pn euma, a breath of God whichpermeated all things. This breath mani-fested as a series of creative laws in

matter. It became the physical lawswhich science knows and studies. Inman, this breath or Logos became alesser spirit, and moved him as a soul.

Philo, a Jewish Eclectic philosopher,at the beginning of the Christian era,developed the Logos concept into amost important central doctrine of aphilosophy which found its way intothe theological dogmas of some of ourpresent prominent religions. To Philo,the Logos was on the one hand theDivine Wisdom, the producing rational

p ow er of the Supreme Being. In otherwords, the Logos was the M in d o f God.On the other hand, the Logos was notthe absolute nature of Godit was notthe substance of the deity. It was ratheran attribute of his nature. It was reasoncoming forth from him as an emanation.

It was held to be the uttered reason."Thus from this we find that again theLogos takes on the significance of theWord, namely, the expressed will orutterance of God. The Logos orW or d was held by Philo to dwell with-in the world. God was not immanent inthe world. He transcended it, but theLogos, his W ord descended into thesentient world as a mediator betweenGod and man.

For a summation of this topic, wemay say that most men have believedthat a desire or wish has no efficacy un-less it is made vocative. The y conceivethat a thought in itself is not sufficientunless it is accompanied by some activeagent like the spoken word. Therefore,to the natural Cosmic forces, the physi-cal laws of the universe, he attributes aonce uttered W or d as their source,which continues to reverberate through-out the universe and which he can nolonger, at least in its entirety, apprehend.

T h e

R o s i c r u c i a n

D igest

J u l y

1941

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A M essage fr om the Grand M ast er

of Great Bri t a in

Note: The following Is a letter sent by Fra ter Raymund Andrea, Grand Master of GreatBrita in, to all Rosicrucian members in affiliation with his jurisdict ion. Faced with tre-mendous obstacles in his nation, he expends great energy of mind and body in furthering,not alone the esoteric ideals of the Rosicrucian Order, but its physica l aspects as well. Heis a ceaseless worker, and as practical in his activities as he is idealistic in his thinking.

Year after year , by accomplishment, he has proven his faithfulness to his sacred trust. Hedid not intend that his letter be published in the "Rosicrucian Digest, but the determina-tion which it virtually radiates, as well as its appeal to the members to stand firm upon theRosicrucian principles in their ordeal, is worthy, in our opinion, of being read by Rosicrucians In every land. The exhortations contained In Frater Andrea s letter are not empty orprettysounding phrases. They have been exemplified by his modest and retiring life and

what he has actua lly brought forth during the yea rs of his service. Let Rosicrucians eve ry-where take new encouragement from his words. IMPERA TOR.

Dear Fellow Member

of the Rose Cross:

I do not often send a circular letter tomembers, such as the present one. Ihave two reasons for not doing so moreoften. One is, that members are in closecontact with the work and influence ofthe Order through the regular weeklyMonograph which reaches them, andthat is in itself a personal message andassurance of being a part of that workand influence. Moreover, a personalletter from the Lodge sometimes ac-companies a Monograph and is a med-ium of special help and inspiration. The

second reason is, that members areunder my personal supervision andthere is a constant stream of corre-spondence between them and myselfthroughout the year, much of whichdeals with intimate personal problemsand has first claim upon my time andinterest. Time very often forbids thewriting of lengthy letters; nevertheless,those problems have first claim upon mytime, interest and energy, and if dealtwith concisely, it is to the best of myability.

But today is one of deep gravity andconcern to us all. Suffering and anxiety,disappointment and loss, have come toall in one form or another. And al-though we are facing this dark night ofthe soul with courage and steadfastfaith in the truth we know, and believein the relatively important part we areplaying, each in his or her own sphere,in assisting to build the new worldwhich is even now shaping itself behindthe world chaos, we are grieved and

perplexed because of the voice of suffer-ing and despair which reaches us on

every hand. For our thought cannot re-main at home, intent upon ourselves. Itleaps out across the frontiers and triesto bless and shield those who are be-reaved, broken, maimed and hopelessin the mournful wastes of the worldsGethsemane.

A letter recently received from a ladymember, moved me to send this messageto you at this moment of greatest crisis.The letter is the voice of deepest suffer-ing and appeal, and I quote from it.W e millions of mothers are not able

to carry on alone. My beloved son ismissing. By Gods loving mercy I re-ceived a message while asleep, and seehim wounded, lying enclosed in a build-ing. I have asked If it pleases theMasters, it is done,' holding this in theCosmic Mind. He has a pure soul andbody, 23 years of giving and gatheringlove, and blessed with a gift of musicand a fine mind. I ask that you take hima message of love and comfort."

That letter, written in anguish ofsoul, is but one of many, many similarones. But that fact does not diminishthe individual suffering; it probably in-creases it. Yet this understanding andsharing of the suffering of others is amost potent help. It strengthens thekinship of souls and fits us for more ex-tended service in the world.

This is the message I wish to sendyou at this hour. W e hear much on theradio of sharing the common perils oftoday and of facing them bravely andwith undiminished faith in the ultimate

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triumph of good. And that is well. Butwe in the Order, with a firm faith in theknowledge in our hands and in theMasters of life, must more than everseek to be a living example of what webelieve, and do our utmost in simple and

common waysfor that is the highwayof great serviceto bring our influenceto bear upon others wherever we are.W e must do our utmost to break downthe glamour of fear which so insidiouslyendeavours to undermine our hope inthe new age for which we have so longstriven. W e must refuse to doubt thatthere is a deep, if unrevealed, purposebehind the veil of events. Just as in thearena of warfare of every kind thewatchword is, to doggedly hold out, somust it be with ourselves who are on apath from which there can be no retreat.

I have written elsewhere that themystic must be militant. It applies to-day as never before. He must fight,often silently and unknown, againstodds without and within. Only thusdoes he prove his strength and provethat his faith has an immortal founda-tion. No matter what his mistakes maybe, or what the fogs of doubt may sug-gest, no matter how tired in body oranxious in mind, his one clearcut duty

and privilege is, to hold out. That att i-tude is of incalculable effect for goodupon others. His thought cannot behidden. It strikes upon the world at-mosphere and encourages and inspiresin ways he will never know, and at-

tracts to himself the unseen agencies ofgood which wait upon his petition.

The pathetic letter from which I havequoted should emphasize in a deeplypersonal way our responsibility as mem-bers of our Order. W e should sharethis suffering in thought, and take ourpart in alleviating it by cultivating agreater compassion of heart and a dedi-cated force of mind. W e know the lawand should use it to the full, accordingto our ability. It cannot fail. It willwork in miraculous ways and bringpeace, comfort and fortitude to thosewho have nearly surrendered all indespair. It will restore faith which hasall but vanished. And our reward willbe larger vision, clearer insight, and apower of service which we looked notfor.

With my kindest regards and allgood wishes for Peace Profound.

Yours sincerely and fraternally,

R. ANDREA

V V V

R E A D T H E R O S I C R U C I A N F O R U M

T h e


D i gest

J u l y

1941

W IT H P R O F O U N D A P P R E C IA T IO N

I am taking this means of expressing my thanks for your beautifully worded letterswhich have been pouring in from all parts of the world, expressing confidence in me andloyalty to A. M. O. R. C., in response to the malicious charges to which I have recentlybeen subjected. I hope each Rosicrucian member and friend of the A. M. O. R. C. whoreads this will kindly accept this acknowledgment in the same personal sense as if it were

a typewitten communication. At first I attempted to answer every letter individually andpersonally. This became an impossibility, and rather than delay acknowledgment, and

thus infer any lack of gratitude on my part, I take this means of replying to your in-spiring letters.

Most of you are perhaps acquainted with the recent press story, in which it was pub-lished that on Friday, June 20th, the young woman plaintiff, in the office of her attorneywhere her deposition was being taken, and in the presence of the Press, her attorneys, and

AMORCS attorney, dramatically declared, pointing to me: "Th at is not the man. That is not the Ralph Lewis whom I knew." Thus the wheels of the Cosmic and justice grind

slowly, but exceedingly fine. Each of you will eventually be apprised of the outcome ofthis incident, which I am proud to say has further solidified Rosicrucian membership, and

actually has won respect for AMORC in many public circles.

RALPH M. LEWIS, Imperator.

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The M yst i cal Voy age of D ant e

ByFrater J. A. Calcano

A N T E S most mar-velous book, TheDivine Comedy isso d e n s e 1y filledwith poetic beau-ties, terrific sights,hea r t b r ea k i ngsufferings, heav-enly bliss, sacredvisions, m ys tica lrevelations, histor-ical data, sin, phil-osophy, pain, vir-

tue, misery, sanc-tity and divine Light, that we could sayit is a reflection of the whole Universe.Besides this, the exceptionally highgenius of Dante, his perfectly finishedexpression and his mastership of theartistical and poetical technique get sucha hold on the reader that he passes onfrom beauty to beauty, from episode toepisode, so filled with interest and withthe higher emotions, that very often thereader overlooks the scheme of thewhole book, the plot if we may socall it. But it so happens that this plot

or scheme represents an important reve-lation that well merits our attention atthis time.

In the first chapter of the book (Can-to I of the Inferno) we find most of thescheme. It is as follows: At a certainmoment in his life, the Poet wanderedaway from the right path. As he wasfull of sleep at the time, he cannottell exactly how it happened. Th isphrase full of sleep undoubtedlymeans that his reason was not awake,

his mind not on the alert, and perhapspoints to the sleep of ignorance (ig-norance in ultimate analysis is nothingelse but want of experience). W ell, togo on with our story, the Poet wanderedaway from the right path, and when hebecame conscious of having lost hisway, he was already in the midst of adark and wild forest so bitterhesaysthat death is hardly more bit-ter. W e may realize more clearly hisvoyage if we draw a diagram of it:

Thus we have the line AB whichstands for the right path. Th e point Cis where the Poet lost his way, and Fis the dark forest where he found him-self. So, surprised, worried, and full ofanguish, he still walked on, and triedto find the way back to the right path,but several wild beasts (all of whichare important symbols) came out infront of him and didnt allow him togo on, and even threatened to destroy

him. In his anxiety he felt everythingwas lost and loudly asked for help andguidance. His mystical cry of anguishwas heard, as it always is, and a figureappeared before him. Th is figure wasVirgil, the celebrated poet. He toldDante that he (Virgil) was sent byBeatriceDantes deceased fiancee, whodwelt in heavenin answer to his cryfor help, to guide him out of the awfulplace where he was. Both characters,Virgil and Beatrice, are in this case

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very important symbols, but we are notdealing now with this interesting matter.

The words Virgil then said to Danteare of the utmost significance. W e mustmark them well. He said that to reachagain the right path Dante could not

turn back , but must go on toward dark-ness and suffering, on and on; andthrough the gate of Hell he must go toall the infernal regions, and after cross-ing all this ominous place, he must goon through Purgatory, the place of puri-fication and redemption, and finally toheavenly Paradise with all of its divinelove and wisdom. Th is astonishing de-tour was necessary in order to reachagain the right path!

W e can see this course in the ac-companying diagram, where Hell or In-

ferno is marked with the letter I, Pur-gatory with P and Paradise or heavenwith H. The Divine Comedy is nothingelse but the narrative of this mysticalvoyage.

In the large scale, and due to the"Fall of Man, human beings passthrough this scheme of things in theirway to final unfoldment. It takes cen-turiesages, maybeto go through allof it. Some stay longer in one place,some go faster through certain stages,according to special needs and circum-

stances, but all in the end arrive at theineffable Rose of Light and Music ofhigher Paradise.

If we only consider our present lives,or some part of them, perhaps we cannot perceive this order of events, andperhaps we can not say in just whichpart of the trip we are at the presenttime, because we would then give at-tention to a very small fraction of timein comparison with the duration of thewhole process. It would be the same ifwe looked too closely at a large muralpainting. W e would see only a small

detaila leaf of grass or a horse hoofbut we could not realize the magnifi-cent landscape which opens its wideworld of colors, air and light beforeeyes incapable of grasping its living im-mensity.

T h e But if we consider this plan or processR o s i c r u c i a n *n a sma^cr scale and apply it to events

or episodes, we may see how it worksalso on that scale. Very often it isplainly visible in the history of someof our weaknesses.

Digest

July

1941

When the weakness started, wayback in the past, we were "asleep asfar as that particular weakness is con-cerned. W e did not realizeperhapsthat it was a weakness, and maybe wethought it only a harmless pastime or

amusement. W e had, thus, no experi-ence, no knowledge about that kind ofmistake. But as we went on indulgingin that weakness, we began to lose ourformer attunement. Our minds and ourphysical conditions became restless, un-easy, unstable. Then we were consciousof the dark forest, of our want of at-tunement, and we were sad at heart fora lost paradise.

But we could not tell why or howwe arrived at that condition. Our ig-norance, our "sleep concealed the causeof it. And this original ignorance is oneof the reasonsonly one of themwhywe cannot turn back. W e don't know atthat time what is wrong. But if fromthe depth of our distress we earnestlyask for help and light, something withinourselves (Virgil?) begins to guide uson until we begin to guess the realorigin of our misfortune. But this guessis not enough; we must be sure and wemust realize the full extent of the harmthat comes from that weakness, and sowe must suffer its effects. That stageis the trip through the inferno which

corresponds to that particular mistake.After we have experienced and realizedall the evil coming therefrom, the fightbegins for getting free from that fault;we must redeem and purify ourselvesduring this stage of purgatory beforewe can enter the heavenly realm wherewisdom and harmony are registered bythe troubled soul.

The intensity of the experiences, how-ever, is not always the same. Let ushave an illustration of this: W e can, athome, turn down the volume control

knob of our radio and hear a piece ofmusic very, very soft, scarcely audible.Or else we can open the volume andhear the same music as loud as possible.The music is always the same, but theintensity of the sound is different. In thesame way, the scheme of events inDantes voyage assumes a stronger orweaker intensity of experiences, accord-ing to the importance of our mistakeand to our specific stage of evolution.

(Concluded on Page 216)

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The "Cathedral of the Soul is a Cosmic meeting place for all minds of themost highly developed and spiritually advanced members and workers of theRosicrucian Fraternity. It is a focal point of Cosmic radiations and thoughtwaves from which radiate vibrations of health, peace, happiness, and innerawakening. Various periods of the day are set aside when many thousandsof minds are attuned with the Cathedral of the Soul, and others attuning withthe Cathedral at the time will receive the benefit of the vibrations. Those whoare not members of the organization may share in the unusual benefits as wellas those who are members. The book called "Liber 777" describes the periodsfor various contacts with the Cathedral. Copies will be sent to persons whoare not members if they address their requests for this book to Friar S. P. C.,care of AMORC Temple, San Jose, California, enclosing three cents in postagestamps. (Please state whether member or notthis is important.)

J L-VPtyj

UNFULFILLED DESIRES

O ONE who hasever l ived hasfailed to have un-fulfilled de si re s.W h o h a s n o twished for thingswhich he did notattain? While cer-tain orthodox be-liefs might findvirtue in unattain-ment, it is never-theless an accept-ed fact that the

failure to attainor rather, the lack ofattainment is one step toward prog-ress. If we had fulfilled every desirethat had come into our minds, thentheoretically we would be content. Con-tentment which is staticthat is, a con-

tentment with a perfected conditionwhere nothing more is to be desired orgained would be completely nonpro-ductive. There would be no challengeto go ahead. There would be no fron-tiers to explorenothing but a sup-posed satisfaction of having achieve-ment behind.

If such a state exists anywhere, sure-ly the individual with any spark of am-bition and desire to use his abilitieswould not be encouraged at the thoughtof reaching that state. Therefore, wemight say that part of life is ever to beseekingseeking to push back our hori20ns, to reach out into new worlds,whether they be physical or mental.W e do know that mans potential abili-ties in a lifetime are only partially used.Therefore, we know that achievement

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lies ahead, because of the energy thathas been stored up to bring about thatachievement.

Most unfulfilled desires on the partof the average human being have onlyto do with physical things. Man enjoys

the possession of that which he feelswill bring into his environment some-thing that will lend satisfaction to hislife. But our standards of judging thesethings which will bring about such sat-isfaction change, even from hour tohour. Everyone can remember in child-hood the regret and disappointment feltat the failure to attain something whichwas wanted, perhaps a toy, or someother article to which we would assignno value whatsoever today, but whichseemed to be as important as life itselfthen. W e further know that many un-fulfilled desires which we had yester-day, last year, or five years ago are likesome of these unfulfilled desires ofchildhood, that our sense of values haschanged and we have directed our at-tention elsewhere, and what we wanttoday is different from what we wantedthen.

It is reasonable and just that manshould aspire to the possession of ma-terial things, but underlying the attemptto possess there should be consideredthe motive for possession. Those whoseek to possess in order to contribute tothe common good are rendering serviceand at the same time reaching nearer astate of contentment which is not static,but closely allied with the rendering ofservice itself. The man who aspires tothe possession of land and makes a partof the productivity of that land benefitothers, either by contributing from it tothose less fortunate, or by contributinga share of it for recreational facilitiesfor those who have no place to go, isdefinitely adding to his desire for the

acquisition of land an immaterial qual-ity, a quality known as service. In serv-ice he finds the satisfaction he wants.This is easily proven by the fact thateach of us, if we honestly analyze ourpast, knows we have gained much by

T h e many of the things of which we haveRosicrucian been deprived. Often being deprived of

something upon which we have set ourhearts gives us a broader, more tolerantoutlook toward those who have evenless than we. It also makes us realize

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that the part we are to play in life can-not always be determined by our ownreasoning. True it is that man has un-usual powers of reasoning and adjust-ment to his environment, but equallytrue is the fact that man has alreadycreated for himself, through past acts,the need for certain experiences, and tobe deprived of something which he likesat the moment may be the means ofrendering that experience.

In one of a very popular series of mo-tion pictures portraying family life,which has been playing for the last fewyears, the plot concerns itself with theinheritance of a large fortune by thehead of the family. Later this turns outto be a mistake, for which all of thefamily is truly thankful, thankful forbeing deprived of what they had prev-

iously thought would be the greatestpossession on earth. This may seemonly fiction, and something that couldnot happen in real life, but we cannotsay what we would or would not enjoywithout experience. Experience bringsto us the facts in their full meaning, be-cause no longer do supposition andtheory direct our lives, but rather theactual meaning of the conditions thatexist about us.

Some people become martyrs to them-selves and try to become martyrs to the

world because of their unfulfilled de-sires. I have heard men and women,even on the public platform, who de-voted their comments to the sacrificesthey have made in order that this or thatmight happen. It is true that anyworthy cause is worthy of sacrifice, butcontinuing this line of thought, anyworthy sacrifice is worthy of the cause.That is, if a sacrifice is made by de-priving ourselves of something, if wehave to lament that sacrifice all ourlives then the cause was not worth the

price, and we are admitting that ourown estimate of the cause was not true.I mean by this that to lament the sacri-fices we have made in furthering a causeis equivalent to stating that our judg-ment was faulty and the cause was notworthy of our sacrifice.

Do not become a martyr in your owneyes or in the eyes of the world, even ifmartyrdom is warranted. Giving upsomething we have to assist someone

(Concluded on Page 216)

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Lessons W e L earned From Anci ent Egypt

FROM FETISHES TO GODS IN EGYPT

By G e o r g S t e i n d o r f f

Dr. Georg Steindorff is one of the foremost Egyptologists of the world and former teacherof the late James Henr y Breasted, famous American archeologist. Dr. Steindorff, until com-paratively recently, held the Chair of Egypt ology at Leipzig University. He is the authorof many textbooks on Egyptology, including works on the ancient religions and a grammarof the Coptic language. For yea rs he edited the popular Baedekers Guide to EgyptianAntiquities, and the translation of their hierogly phics. Fo r the last two yea rs, Dr. Stein-dorff has been consultant for the Rosicrucian Museum staff.

E THINK our civ-ilization near itsmeridian, but weare yet at the

cockcrowing andthe morning star.In our barbaroussociety the influ-ence of characteris in its infancy.

This true wordwhich Emersonhurled 100 yearsago at the world

in which he lived, still hits and fits civ-ilization of our day that puts brawnabove brain and might above right.

It is of worth, in times like ours, tolook and look again into a past whichalready held a conception of humanityso proudly claimed by us, when an oldsage said the words: "Established is theman whose standard is righteousness,who walketh according to its way.

The wise man who thus spoke, wasan Egyptian, one who lived about 5,000years before us, 2,000 years before theten commandments were given, 2700years before Christianity was born.

To be sure, such a high standard ofmorals did not fall to the Egyptians asa sudden revelation from the heavensabove. Slowly, through thousands of

years the ascent was made on a roadeven longer than the one which led thenomad shepherd from his restless lifeon the steppes to the settled conditionsof the peasant.

To follow the trail from coarse fetish-ism to the belief in moral forces, indeities of a spiritual nature, is a tempt-ing task.

I take the reader first into the dark-ness of a prehistoric age when Egypt,as we know her, did not yet exist. Irefer to that primeval era beyond thereach of the historian, the domain of thegeologist, the duration of which is notto be figured in centuries, but millenially.The Valley of the Nile was still a wideriver bed and swamps; the DeltaLower Egyptwas still to be createdby the soil deposits and had not yetrisen from the ocean. The people livedon either side of the Valley in themountains of the East and in the plainsof the W est the Sahara of today.Lion and giraffe, gazelle and antelope

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were hunted and then cut up with rathercrudely made tools of stone.

If we want to visualize the religionof this preEgyptian, African people weare dependent upon the few relics whichhistoric times have preserved, and uponparallels in the religious beliefs of peo-

ple now living on a primitive standardof civilizationas for instance the negrotribes in Central Africa. To use a term,familiar to the student of religious his-tory, we are faced with a typical Fetish-ism as it once existed evervwhere onthis earth.

The word fetish is derived fromthe Portuguese fetico, the factitiusof the medieval Latin, meaning as anadjective, imitated, artificial, phoneyas a noun sorcery or magic.

Owing to the fact, that there exist

besides the artificially made or manu-factured fetishes just as many naturalones: besides the lifeless, living ones;the term fetish denotes in the history ofreligion an object or a being endowedwith supernatural or mysterious power,in accordance with the belief of its pos-sessor. Th is power, thought of also assoul or spirit, is apt to influenceman to his advantage or disadvantage.

Stones of any kind, rough or finished,play an outstanding part as fetishes.There existed however, a great diversityof manmade fetishes: Objects like staff

and sceptre, weapons like shield, bowand arrows. On the other hand, partsof the human body, as for instance theskull or bones, were fetishized.

The fetish represents in a tangibleobject the superhuman power which theprimitive mind divines. Yet, this objectis never considered to be the deity itself,consequently, it is not worshipped normade subject of a cult. Th e fetish is amagic tool, and fetishism is originallyand essentially magic and not religion.

Only after a certain grade of culturehas been attained, there develops thebelief that deities or demons have takentheir seat within the dead and lifelessfetishes, whence they dispense theirmagic forces.

T h e More frequently, however, than inR o s i c r u c i a n '^ e ess fetishes, the supernatural was

divined in living beings who were aweinspiring. The beasts of the steppe andthe jungles, lion and leopard, jackal andwolf, vulture and falcon, antelope and

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gazelle are the kind of creatures inwhich deities become visible. As foesthey call for defense, as friends theirassistance must be procured.

Above all, it was bull and cow, ramand sheep whose virility or fertility ap-peared to primitive man as a great

miracle. Nothing but magic power,nothing but a demon dwelling in theanimal could produce so miraculous afeat. Consequently, the wondrous crea-ture is revered and worshipped lest itwithdraw its service. It receives a cult.Thus the fetish is made a deity, andmagic becomes religion.

All these fetishes belonged to theearth and were active on earth. Howabout the supernatural beings uponwhom the earthly dweller could notexert the slightest influence by any

magic? Th ere was the Sun rising inwondrous glory from the Eastern skiesand dipping its glowing disk into theW est. There were the stars shimmer-ing through the night, hosts of celestialbodies and amongst them singular onesor groups like Orion excelling othersin luminary beauty. Th ere was theMoon, waxing or waning day by day,and vanishing at certain intervals com-pletely in darkness. W as there not inall of these forces of nature a super-natural power to be feared by mankindand to be revered? So one bows inprayer to the cosmic forces, althoughwithout yet giving them a definite placeof worship or a cult on earth.

Let us beware of the mistake of see-ing in fetishism or primitive religiona logically ordered religious system.Man creates a god of the heavens or theuniverse, according to his human imag-ination of humankind. Sun and Moonare but eyes that shine over the earth.Preferably one imagines the sun as afalcon flying with widespread wingsover the skieshis eyes aglow. Under

his wings is the perisphere of heaven,and in his shadow rests the wide earth.And for thousands of years, the Egyp-tian religion faithfully preserved thispicture of the God of the Universe.

* * *

W e cannot measure in terms of his-torical chronology the length of timeduring which Northern Africa under-went a thorough geological transforma-tion. The land that used to be a region

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of plentiful rains and rich vegetation,the once ideal hunting ground, and thefertile plateau was tranformed into thevast desert of the Sahara. Other geo-logical forces had been at work for along time in preparing a new and much

more favorable home for the Stone Agehunters in the Northeast corner of theAfrican continent. One day the Valleyof the Nile was created, essentially asit is today. It appeared a fertile andsheltered stretch of land teeming withluxuriant plant and animal life. Drivenfrom the plateau by the growing scarci-ty of food, animals took refuge in thisnew Eden, and the hunters followed thegame.

During this period happened the mostimportant event in the history of Egypt:The advent or invention of agriculture.Whence it came, whoever invented theplow, where was the homeland of thedifferent kinds of grain now beingplanted and by what road they werebrought into the land of the Nile, allthose are still moot questions. W hatinterests us here is solely the religiousaspect of the new era. Without anydoubt fetishism was still in full blossomwhen the Valley of the Nile was beingsettled.

A people who tills the soil and breedscattle, a people living at a river which

inundates the fields each year at a cer-tain time and makes the harvest grow inits muddy earth, such a people asks fora different help from their gods than thenomadic tribes who go ahunting withbow and arrow and drive their herdsfrom pasture to pasture. Agriculturalcults naturally attain prevalence. Be-liefs and mockbeliefs are bound tochange.

The greatest influence upon the de-velopment of the Egyptian pantheonwas exerted by the change in the polit-

ical condition of the country. To showthis development in detail, to explainhow many fetishes became patrongodsof towns and countries and how twogodsthe falcon Horus and SunGodReoccupied more and more the veryforeground and were worshipped in allparts of the country, would go far be-yond the framework of this essay. I canonly give as an example the doctrine ofthe SunGod Re, who is the great cre-ator, the preserver and ruler of the

world. He is like a king in the country,the guarantor of justice. Th e Goddessof Truth and Justice is his daughter.

Especially after the Fifth Dynastywhose Kings were born, according to amyth, as children of Re, the veneration

of the SunGod increased more andmore. In the capital Memphis, not farfrom the modern village of Abusir,temples of a rather unique type werebuilt and devoted to his service. Theyconsisted of an open court surroundedby all kinds of buildings. Upon a sub-structure in the center of the court rosea huge obelisk crowned by the disk ofthe sun.

About the year 2,500 B. C. the proudedifice of the Egyptian State of the Py-ramid period collapses in a great revo-

lution. The people revolt against theofficials, the royal bureaucracy. Officesare stormed, records are seized and themasters are replaced by their formerserfs. The laws of the courts are throwninto the street and trampled upon. Th emob rules and rages. The nobility is fullof complaints. There is no city thatwould keep them within her walls. Pes-tilence stalks through the land. Every-where is blood. Th e dead lie buried inthe waters of the river. The women whoused to be slaves, do the talking, whiletheir ladies are forced to walk around in

rags and must go begging through thecountry.

Only very slowly order is reestab-lished and only by degrees a new unitedkingdom is created, the Middle King-dom as we call it.

The tidal wave of the revolution,however, that destroyed the establishedorder and overturned the old conditionsof life, upset also the soul of the Egyp-tian. It made him conscious of the factthat the ageold standards and tradi-tional values of rank, property and vir-

tue were not of eternal duration. A newmorality, a new and profounder concep-tion of ethics, of religion, of the Divine,begins to bud and springs into blossom.

At the same time, into the pantheonof Egypt, a new deity made his trium-phant entry. It was Amun, originallythe Invisible Breath of the Kosmos" ashe was called. Th e city of his cult be-came the capital Thebes, and throughher political hegemony, he, in turn,emerged as the King of the Gods in all

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Egypt, whose power and authority out-grew the old national deities. His tem-ple in Thebes was to be the greatest andmost magnificent.

It is well known how this King of theGods was dethroned by the religious

reformation or revolution o f Amenophis IV . Ekhnaton (1375 B. C .),

however, he returned after a few dec-ades to a power greater than ever be-fore. His final victory concluded thereligious development of the Egyptian,the way from the belief in the magicforces of a primitive fetish to the truly

religious belief in Gods and in ethicalpower.

V V V

C A T H E D R A L C O N T A C T S

(Continued from Page 212)

else is of value to that person and to usonly if we can do it spontaneously.After all, we might say that the wholequestion concerning sacrifice and our

fulfilled and unfulfilled desires dependsupon our sense of values. If value to usis restricted in measurement to dollarsand cents, or to comparison with oureconomic system, we will continue togain and lose, to be thankful for ourgains, or at least to acknowledge them,and to regret or even blame fate for ourlosses. But if in this process of livingwe see those intangible factors which

accompany value, but which fail to

make themselves evident in the physicalworld, we will find that within them lie

the satisfaction and true happiness weseek.

Any human being, whether he admitsit or not, enjoys the giving of somethinghe possesses when that gift is truly anexpression of his innermost thoughts

and the recipient is truly benefited byhis gift. A motto of one of the serviceclubs of this country is, He who seeksto serve another best serves himself.When this is practiced, and not onlypracticed but truly believed, our unful-filled desires will seem insignificant incomparison with the benefits which wereceive in sharing what we have.

All persons who realize the truth ofthese comments are invited to join withthe Cathedral of the Soul. Th e pur-poses, activities and work of this Cathe-dral are explained in the booklet en-

titled Liber 777," which will be sent toyou upon request.

V V V

T H E M Y S T IC A L V O Y A G E O F D A N T E

(Continued from Page 210)

For a mild mistake there is a mild in-ferno and a correspondingly mild para-dise.

W e must, then, in our lives exercise

our reason and our will when tempta-tions assail us, because if we fail wemay be unable to turn back and we mayhave to go on along the way of dark-ness and suffering farther perhaps thanwe ever thought.

T h e But on the other hand, temptationsRosicrucian are never stronger than our means of

resistance. Th at is why, as we growstronger temptations become more pow-erful. God is so merciful to us, that themost dreadful inferno, the worst tribu

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lations corresponding to the worst sinswe may have from all our past, evenfrom previous lives, never come to usif we are so weak that we may be

smashed by the force, but remain pend-ing until we have in ourselves the meansto conquer, if we really set ourselves toit. After that victory we will meet againBeatrice, our heavenly fiancee, and thetime will be ripe for the mystical or al-chemical marriage, the glorious event sooften mentioned in the writings of theMystics.

It is, then, through a path of tearsthat we enter the ethereal Kingdom ofLight. A d Rosam per Crucem.

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Educat ion

By T h o r K i im a l e h t o , Sovereign Grand Master

NE of the fields ofk n o w l e d g e i n

w h i c h d r a s t i cchanges must oc-cur is that of edu-ca t ion. Sc iencea n d i n v e n t i o nhave revolution-ized modern lifeto the point whereit is imperativethat every mem-ber of our societypossesses much

information and many skills in order tofit easily into our civilization. Educa-

tion, like every other art, has developedin response to demand. For many cen-turies education was the privilege of thefew. Th e Puritans introduced the ideaof public education into this countrybecause of their conviction that everyperson should be able to read theprayerbook and the Bible for himself.Religion has been one of the strongestfactors in fostering education. In China,in India, and among the Jews an elab-orate educational system was developedbecause of the duty of every boy to

study the religious classics.In this country, for a long time a

higher education was only for thosewho intended entering the learned pro-fessions, such as medicine, law, theministry, and teaching. Later, advancedscientific training became necessary forthe chemists and engineers. A systemof free, compulsory education has madeour country one of the most literate inthe world. Our tremendously expand-ing knowledge in every branch of sci-

ence is rapidly making our educationalsystems obsolete.

Our educational system, as consti-tuted at present, is based on the pre-mise that childhood and youth are theproper times for learning. What are theconsequences of this erroneous assump-tion? Despite the compulsory educa-tional laws, despite the most expensiveeducational equipment in the world, de-spite well trained teachers and ad-vanced methods of instruction, ourpopulation, on the whole, is not reallyeducated. Those who attain the com-prehensive background and develop-ment of mind and will, to be expected

of an educated person, are very few in-deed. Educators and people interestedin the welfare of our country have beendeeply concerned about this serioussituation.

Our system of government demandsfor its smooth functioning and perma-nency an intelligent and wellinformedcitizenry. Our citizens must have theknowledge, the desire and the will toelect the proper kind of men as publicofficials. Political charlatans are alwaysready to take advantage of uninformed

voters. Our citizens must have wideinformation to understand the eco-nomic and political problems of the day.Wireless, radio, and aviation have madetime and space negligible factors inmodern life. W hat happens in any partof the world is known almost instan-taneously everywhere else and exertsan immediate effect. Th e daily news-papers have become a universal meansof keeping people informed. Th e radio,too, has become an important means of

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gaining access to the public. Since it isso easy for men of wealth and power touse the newspapers and the radio as in-struments of propaganda, the averagecitizen must be able to differentiate be-tween truth and falsehood; he mustnot permit himself to be a victim of

rumor, propaganda, and downright mis-representation and falsehood. He mustread his newspapers with intelligenceand discrimination. To quote Henry A.Wallace, In the democracy of the to-morrow, people will have to be so in-telligently free from prejudice thatneither the wealthy, interested in privatecontrol of government for personal ends,nor demagogues, interested in their jobs,will be able to create deception andillusion.

To be an intelligent citizen demands

knowledge and experience, an informedmind and a trained will. Yet the vastmajority of our men and women gettheir only education in the years whendesire for knowledge is feeble and the

judgment is immature. Years are con-sumed in giving children only the funda-mentals of an education. The varioussubjects taught in high school must beoversimplified to reach the averageadolescent intelligence. Many of thesubjects and problems are too remotefor the interests and comprehensions of

high school pupils.A bright child with a capable instruc-tor, working alone or in a selectedgroup, can readily make the eight yearsof elementary school in half the time.An ambitious adult attending a privatepreparatory school can complete thehigh school curriculum in two years. Incontent, too, our educational system isunsatisfactory. Each year informationbecomes superseded by wider informa-tion, and methods and techniques be-come obsolete so rapidly that even acollege graduate finds in the space of adecade that he is not in step with thetimes. Our vast system of extensioncourses, correspondence courses, nightschools and lecture systems have parti-ally helped to correct this deficiency.

77j e But the fact still remains that most of

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and a life devoted to the discovery andservice of truth.

It was the commonly accepted opinionthat young people learn more easilythan older people. An old saying runs:If one learns as a child, what is it like?

Like ink written on clean paper. If onelearns as an old man, what is it like?Like ink written on blotted paper.Both scientific investigation and experi-ence have proved the falsity of thisstatement for most branches of learn-ing. Whenever reason, intelligence, andexperience are necessary, the adultlearns more readily.

Our Rosicrucian system of education,planned for the adult, has always ac-cepted the idea that the adult is capableof being educated. Our system is emi-

nently practical in that we aim to trainevery aspect of the personalitymind,emotions, and will. Through our ex-periments we aim to cultivate the scien-tific, inquiring mind. Through ourstudy of the emotions, both positive andnegative, we aim to help the individualto gain emotional stability. The effortnecessary to translate these instructionsinto terms of daily living must developthe will.

W e expect our students to developinto the highest type of citizens. Be -cause of their developed social uncon-

sciousness and inquiring minds, we ex-pect them to be immune to mob hys-teria, incapable of prejudice and intoler-ance, skeptical of propaganda, and opento new ideas affecting every branch oflearning. W e expect them to be amongthe pioneers of any worthwhile move-ment, and we expect them to be amongthe experimenters in every field of study.

The knowledge in possession of theRosicrucian Order is the result of thepatient accumulation of the work ofcountless students in many ages. Each

advanced student has made his contri-bution. He has added his quota notmerely from a sense of duty but in thescholars joy of discovery and verifica-tion. W e expect our members through-out the world, as they achieve a certaindegree of development, to take theirplaces in our ranks as productive work-ers. As Dr. Martin says: To share inthe possession of this knowledge and towork for its improvement and increaseis to men and women of a certain type

simply to attain to their true humanestate.

Our advanced members work in thelaboratory, in the study, and in theworld. They increase the sum total ofknowledge and of good in the world.

The two strongest impulses of the soulare to know and to love. A real Rosi-crucian student expresses the firstthrough continued study and the sec-ond through public service.

A typical Rosicrucian was BenjaminFranklin, one of the founders of ourRepublic. As a young man he becamethe outstanding printer and journalistof the colonies. Later he became activein the affairs of Philadelphia. He spon-sored the organization of police, fire,and militia companies, the first publiclibrary, and an academy, now the Uni-

versity of Pennsylvania. He was ac-tive in scientific research. According tothe well known story he identifiedlightning with electricity; this and otherresearches won him membership in everyimportant learned society in Europe.

He began his diplomatic career at theage of fiftyone and spent most of hisremaining thirtythree years in thatwork. He served in London for a num-ber of years, then served for a shorttime in the Continental Congress, andthen undertook his historic mission to

France on which he secured vital mili-tary and financial aid for the AmericanRevolution. Upon his return he wastwice elected President of PennsylvaniaUniversity and served as a member ofthe Constitutional Convention.

This manysided and fruitful life isthe result of deliberately cultivatingevery aspect of your personality. Todevelop the mind and strengthen thelove of knowledge, find z/our field of in-terest and work in it. To do your dutyin service to the world, find the work

that appeals to you and give it yourwholehearted support. As a beginneryou may have to proceed slowly, youmay have to be content with routinetasks. But remember in wooing knowl-edge and wedding yourself to service,you have entered the most rewardingaspects of life. You have become oneof a group of selfdirective and inde-pendent personalities. You have chosenthe only road that leads to the content-ment of a full and useful life.

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Science has never discovered new laws. However, each hour its ardent workersbring forth new demonstrations of the eternal Cosmic principles. Many of thesedaily scientific discoveries are but confirmations of secret doctrines expounded forcenturies by the Rosicrucians and other mystery schools at a time when popularacceptance of them was impossible. Some of these latest and startling con-currences with the Rosicrucian teachings by modern science will appear in this department monthly.

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1941

iN,the unknown.This is a phrasethat has been usedmany times bygreat thinkers ,scientific investi-gators , and inmore recent yearseven by the lay-

m a n . A g r e a tbook written byan even greaterscientist has beengiven this title,

Man, The Unknown. However, rapidstrides in the last few years incline usto believe that man as a species will notalways be such a mysterious creature.For many centuries, in fact, we mightsay from the beginning of selfcon-sciousness, man has been interested inknowing something definite about him-

self. There have been those who havebeen interested in the spiritual aspectsof man and others in the physical as-pects, seeking to answer such questionsas W hat is life? How and wheredoes it begin? W hen a human bodybecomes lifeless, what has changed?W hat brought about the lifeless state?One cannot very well become interestedin these questions without also studyingman in relationship to the remainder ofthe universe.

As an advanced school of thinkersand investigators, the Rosicrucians havefor a great many centuries sought todiscover the natural laws and principlesback o f thecreation o f all life, includingman. In seeking to know this complexorganism, the Rosicrucians have goneback to the very beginning to discoverthat one of the most important of all

laws related to the creation of matteris the Law of Attraction and Repulsion.This law states, as one can find by turn-ing to any physics test that deals withgeneral science, that bodies of likepolarities will repel each other, those ofunlike polarities attract. Positive andnegative bodies are always seeking tounite with their opposites. This lawholds throughout all natural phenomenafrom the most minute particle to themost complex manifestation of matter.Even when the atom is split by the

cyclotron, the machine discussed in lastmonths issue of this magazine, oppositecharges of electrical forces are dis-covered.

These facts are not new to studentmembers of the Rosicrucian Order, forthey are set forth in detail in our teach-ings. In order to know the physicalaspects of man as a complete manifesta-tion of life, the Rosicrucians of the past,and even the present, studied the ac-

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tions and reactions of the single cell. Afact that has been a part of our dis-cussions for so long that its origin isalmost lost in antiquity is that the live,vibrating cell of life is electrical in itsnature and qualities. It displays definite

indications that it is held together bythe Law of Attraction and Repulsion.The center or nucleus of the cell is of

a positive polarity in contradistinctionto its outer wall, which being oppositeto the nucleus is negative. Th is positivecenter and negative cytoplasm consti-tute the cell, the completed thing. Th enucleus by itself is not the cell any morethan the negative fluid without the nuc-leus would be the cell. Th e hen egg isa perfect analogy of the single cell evenas to shape. The yoke would, of course,constitute the positive nucleus and theegg white the negative cytoplasm.

In the study of cell life material sci-ence has also recognized the fact thatthe cell is electrical in nature, or, inother words, that it seems to radiate amagnetic energy. Just why this is so,and the source of this magnetic radia-tion, has long remained a mystery andhas puzzled the scientists no end. Th eRosicrucian teachings explain the sourceof this electrical energy and the reasonfor its existence in the cell in a dear,concise manner. Nevertheless, we are

always interested in the discoveries ofothers and their explanations of thephenomena of life. Our members whohave completed certain definite degreesof study will recognize the new dis-coveries of the eminent researcher, Dr.George Crile, that concur with the factsset forth in many of the Rosicrucianmonographs.

H U M A N EN ER GY S OU R C ET R A C E D

Crile Says Electricity Is DrivingForce

Cleveland. M ay 27 (A. P .) .Th esecret of human energy as conceived ina half century of medical research byDr. George Crile, noted Cleveland sur-geon, was presented graphically todayin the Sarah Tod McBride Museum at

Cleveland Clinic.Devoted to mans intelligence, pow-er and personality and the organs con-trolling these, the museum was openedformally after fifteen years of prepara-tion.

A series of exhibits demonstrate Dr.Crile's conclusions that mans drivingforce is provided by electricity and thatenergy organs define his degree ofcivilization.

He conceived that the cells of ani-mal and man have a positive electrical

charge in the nucleus and a negative inthe cytoplasm, the fluid surrounding thenucleus.

These electrical charges provide theanimals driving power, even in thesinglecelled amoeba. Dr. Crile contends.

I had been wondering for yearshow the different charges of the organsof the body could be brought about,'he commented.

It bothered me so much it kept meawake at night. And on a sleeplessnight last week it all came to me. It was

all very simple.His explanation: T he positive charge

of the nucleus results from the electri-cal process of oxidation, whereby ener-gy is transferred, and this charge iscarried to all parts of the body by nervefibers.

The source of the powerful nega-tive electricity in all living things is theuniversal static present in the air, onthe land and in the sea, he added. Itis the negative electricity that is seen inthunder and lightning in tornadoes.'

T H E F O R M A T I V E Y E A R S

The challenge of the future will be met by those who are prepared. Adults are in aposition to reason and judge what that preparation should be and have only themselvesto blame if it is not accomplished. Children must be guided, and this guidance is offered

through the Junior Order of Torch Bearers and Child Culture Institute, but to make iteffective it must be used. Give some time for the benefit of adding to the stability of thefuture. Invest a few moments by becoming familiar with the purposes and activities of theJunior Order of Torch Bearers and Child Culture Institute. Write for full details to theJunior Order of Torch Bearers, Rosicrucian Park, San Jose, California.

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Creat i ng a New Ca reer

A Discourse Given in the Francis Bacon Auditorium,Rosicrucian Park

ByH. S p e n c e r L e w i s , Ph. D., F. R. C.

(Rosicrucian Digest, March 1932)

HE topic chosenfor tonights dis-course is that ofcreat ing a newcareer. It is verylikely that at thepresent time with the new yearjust before us andan old year thathas just passed

many are thinkingof starting a newcareer. I imagine

that throughout the nation today thereare thousands of men and women sittingaround the family roundtable lookingat the pile of debts before them whether those debts are physical inform, in the way of notations on paper,or mentaland are also looking at thesmall purse and feeling rather depressedand blue, that they are asking eachother, the man and wife, whether it isnot possible to start a new career.

I know that in my own personal mailthere are many requests each monthfrom persons who seek to get somespecial advice here from the chief ex-ecutives, hoping that they will learn of

T h e something or hear of something unusual.Rosicrucian ^h e ^uestion they ask is, D o you think

that at my age, do you think in my busi-ness or Held, and with my limitationsand obligations, and responsibilities, itis possible to start a new career? So

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1941

many also want to move, thinking thatis the solution of the problem. W e evenreceive telegrams stating, I am mov-ing, change my mail address. I amleaving Chicago to go to Baltimore.The next one says, I am leaving Balti-more to go to Chicago. Th e next oneis, I am going from Jacksonville, Flor-ida, to St. Louis ; and so it goes, eachone feeling, as the old proverb says,that the grass is just a little greener

on the other side of the fence. Theyfeel that merely a change in locationmay bring them opportunities, or theremay be opportunities of which they cantake advantage, but the general cry anddesire seems to be to change to a newcareer.

So many feel that they have exhaust-ed the possibilities in their occupations.So many feel that, because of age, theyhave reached that stage where the em-ployer or foreman or those executiveswho have charge of the employment,will some day say, John or Jim, youhave reached the point where you aretoo old for us; we must have newblood. According to what we learnedin the last few years, this age limit hasbeen gradually lowering. It is not awholesome, encouraging thing for themarried man to think of, nor the mar-ried woman either. There was a time,if you recall, some of you, when it wassaid that at forty a man should chloro-form himself, but it seems now that they

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have decided to let him live, but let himstarve. It would seem that even a manof thirtyfive must begin to think ofsome sort of exercise or some form ofrejuvenation for fear of old age creep-ing upon him some night. He is so close

to the borderline. It is no wonder menand women are beginning to wonderwhether they had better look for someother field.

There are some lines of industries,some lines of occupation, that do not setan age limit. Personally, I agree withthose chief executives in all fields ofactivities who say that age is an asset,if that age has been accompanied by ex-perience. After all, the young trainedman with all of his technical trainingand all of his pep cannot always com-pete with the man of experience.

A few days ago I was visiting one ofmy friends here in town and, while sit-ting at his desk, I noticed that on a littlescratch pad there was a notation he hadwritten. I happened to read it. I amgoing to tell you the proverb that hewrote. The proverb, he probably wasgoing to use in his business, which isadvertising. He said that Pep withoutpurpose is piffle. It is easy to remem-ber that. The three ps that are allitera-tive help us to remember; and the truthis astounding.

They talk about the college youth be-ing pepped up with all sorts of exercisesand cereal foods, but the pep usuallyhas no purpose and is just piffle. It re-minds me of a story about a steamboaton the Mississippi. Th e captain of thatboat wanted to have a very impressivewhistle; so he put an enormous steamwhistle on it, all out of proportion. Theysay when it was coming down thestream, and he pulled the strap andblew that whistle, it let out so muchsteam the boat started going backwards;

and bec ause it had a 24inch whistleand only a 16inch boiler, every timeshe was ready to start and he blew thewhistle, it had no steam left so had towait for more steam in order to start.That is also pep without purpose, typi-fying the average man of today.

Usually the man from college rushesinto the city or town, into the offices ofthe various firms, into the employmentdepartment, throws down his hat andsays, I want a job. W ith all his pep

and vim and vigor, like the steamboat,it looks as though he were going to getsomewhere. He is, perhaps, no morefitted for the business world than achild, but he is full of mistaken ideasregarding that which too many business

people have figured out as an assetvim and pep. Then, the man with longyears of experience and judgment whocould not get out and do a tapdance inthe middle of the floor to a tune on aharmonica, and who could not run upand down stairs like the young ones, islet out because he did not have the pepand vim of the young men.

Some of the occupations and profes-sions are ov^rcrowded until there isnothing left in that profession or occu-pation. W hy, even the shoe peddler hascompetition and cannot make as much

money in fixing shoes or selling them,along with his little business, as hecould before; and so it is in almost alllines of business. Machinery has comein and relieved a great many, but evenbeyond this there is the desire in thehearts of men and women today, asthere never was in any age or period,for a change. That is due to two things:Modern psychology and modern sys-tems of selfanalysis. Modern methodsof psychoanalysis have, in the firstplace, enabled men and women to dis-

cover that they are in the wrong occu-pations, wrong professions, or in thewrong niche in life. It may be a socialniche; it may not be a business niche.In the second place, our highly efficientbusiness methods have created neweropportunities that are not overcrowdedand are lucrative and interesting.

There are thousands, perhaps mil-lions, of men and women tonight whocan look back over their past lives, thepast years of occupation, toil, and in-dustry, and all look forward a few yearsand see that unless a change is made

very soon, they will fail in life or theywill not have the success in life thatthey should have. You know, it used totake more years to find out that the manwho was preaching on Sunday wouldhave made a better plumber. Usuallyhe was the last to find it out. The con-gregation, or the people to whom heowed money, discovered it long before he did; and they usually found that theaverage plumber would make a betterpreacher. It happened sometimes that

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young men or women went into thebusiness world and were complete fail-ures before it dawned on them that per-haps the parents had not selected theright profession or occupation for them.Today, with our methods of analysis,with all of the specialized magazinesthat enable us to pick out quickly andeasily our real qualifications, personsneed not be misfits.

Many ask, Are there really new op-portunities?" Constantly, I hear of menand women who have set out and cre-ated for themselves a new careeranew profession they have gone intoa new, trained occupation. Many thingsin our highly specialized lives todayoffer opportunities for new lines of oc-cupation. W e are in the electrical age,let us say, and that field, alone, is still

so young and so small compared towhat it will be, that it is hardly morethan in the infant stage. W e have noidea nor can we have any conceptiontoday of what the electrical possibilitiesof the future and even of the presentwill afford in the way of new trades,new occupations, new specialized ef-forts, affording men and women of alltypes an opportunity to make a goodliving. Th e same is true of many otherthings. If we are in the electrical agenow, we are just entering it, and on top

of it is coming the air age, so to speak.The air age is going to open up in all itspossibilities. But, aside from that, weare coming into many other forms ofliving that open up new and greater op-portunities for the persons who arecareful and analytical and discoverthem, for most of them must be discov-ered and created.

Early in my first contact with theRosicrucian teachings, as a young man,I was impressed with the fact that theonly openings that are really worthwhile in life are the ones that the in-dividual creates for himself. I rememberbeing impressed with that idea andwrote an article for the Success" maga-zine, as it was called at that time, abouttwentyeight years ago, and headed the

T h e article, Creating Your Own OpporRosicrucian tunities."The proverb then was very

popular, as it is still with many people,Hark and listen for opportunity whenit knocks, for it knocks only once. ButI want to tell you that you may be

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1941

asleep when that knock comes, and yetyou cannot stay awake, waiting for it,and I have not much sympathy for onewho does. One person might say to an-other, You stay at home and watch,and if a fellow comes to the door andleaves a card with Opportunity" on it,

you let me know, and I am going downtown and look for him." Between thetwo of them, the opportunity is apt tobe found.

I have noticed that the one who fol-lows our suggestions, the one who goesout and creates the opportunities, is theone who makes what the other peoplewill call afterwardsa soft berthfor himself. He puts himself into sucha niche, one that he, himself, has cre-ated, and fits welllike a missing piecethat is out of a crazy cut puzzle, so that

only one piece will fit. And if he fitshis physical and mental abilities hewill find he is the only one who cansqueeze into it, and it takes some diffi-culty to squeeze him out. Others mightsay, It is pretty soft for you." But it isthese things, created in this manner,that constitute a successful career in life.

Now, I am not going to quote JohnD. Rockefeller foolishly, and then saythat perhaps the first time he saw an oilcan he said to himself, I am going tomake myself look like an oil can; so Iwill make a niche and fit into it." John

D. Rockefeller and the whole familycreated a niche, and for years havefilled that niche. The time has gonewhen they were the richest. Th at neverwas their real niche or they would neverhave moved out. At the present timeHenry Ford is in that niche. It is nothis real niche, either. It is only a tem-porary one that goes along with his realplace. There are some people who aresuccessful who have no worldly title,but who are going along just the same,filling the same position safely and with

sureness for the rest of their lives, aslong as they are capable, physically andmentally.

Now what will you do to begin thiscreating of a career? The first thing youshould do is to say to yourself whatyour good wife would say to you:John, what else can you do?" Th at isa logical question. You cannot begin tocreate something without having someidea in mind first. You want to knowbefore you start whether or not what

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you have chosen will suit you. Find outwhat else you can do other than whatyou are doing now. First, find out whyyour present position is not paying youwell, or why you are out of a position,and how you liked it when you had it.

Now, it is foolish for any man to saythat he can plug along through life andmake a success in any line that he doesnot like. He may get his salary, and hemay, in exchange for the salary, givewhat he is forced to give, but that isneither productive for the man nor forthe firm. Th at man is sure to be one ofthe first to be laid off. Unless that manor woman is in an occupation that ismost interesting, and the work so niceor so to the liking of the individual thathe could even work at it for a few min-utes or hours overtime without thinking

of the overtime pay, or is constantlythinking how to improve it or take onmore work without thinking of askingfor an increase, he is not doing his best.If you have a position that goes againstyour grain from morning to night, youare not in the right position, and that isone good reason for making a changeand a good reason for changing to somedifferent occupation.

On the other hand, if you are of thetype where all work is boresome andthe mere fact that your alarm clock gets

you out of bed and makes you go towork is annoyingif you are of thattype, then this analysis will not helpyou. Th ere are some like that. Th eywish every day was Sunday so theycould sleep a little longer in the morn-ing. They go to work with that attitude.They do not say the job is distasteful;it is passable; they have not given itmuch thought.

The minute the man who is seekingto improve his position begins to lookupon himself as being a victim of uni-

versal circumstances, he is like the manwho got out of step in the parade andsaid all of the rest of the parade waswrong and he was right. W e may laterfind this man, a highly expressive andversatile speaker, standing on a soapbox, in the park, talking on a new soci-ology, merely because he cannot adjusthimself to conditions. He wants to ad-just conditions before he improves him-self. He is apt to think that he does notneed any changing, but conditionsaround him do.

On the other hand, the man who feelsthat the business he is in is one that isnot just for him, tries to adjust himself.He will let the business stand as it is,looking upon the system, the line he isin, as an established thing that would

change only by the evolution of thecomponent parts in it. Only after all theemployees, only after all the consumers,the capitalists, and everybody andeverything connected with it graduallyevolve, will it change. The averageperson who is just dissatisfied becausethe line he is in is distasteful, but knowshe can do better and can do somethingmore productive, something more fittingto the ultimate consumeris the personwho can be helped. Th ere is nothingwrong with the business or the employ-ers, nothing wrong with the opportuni-

ties of that business, and nothing wrongwith the system back of it. The onlything that is wrong is the man himselfand his relation to it.

It may be a piano factory. Th is man,who is restless, tones or tunes pianos allday long. He never does any of thewood carving, or strings any of the wir-ing, or assembles any of the parts; hedoes not even hear the piano playedwhen it is being demonstrated for abuyer. All he hears all day long is hisplaying of a few notes to see if the felt

pads need toning or tuning; and hetones one after another all day long. Henever had the satisfaction of buildingone of them, never had the satisfactionof selling one. Such a man may becometired. He may say, I am qualified forsomething better than this. But he willnot condemn the factory; he will onlycondemn his individual relationship withthe system, with the factory, with thework he is doing. He says, I amqualified for something better. W hatelse can he do? To o many men have

only one training, one profession. Ifthey are bookkeepers or accountantsthey know just that and nothing else;or the man that tones pianos may neverhave thought of taking up some otherbusiness.

Other fields of work, other than theone you are in, have a certain handicap,but not a definite, continuous handicap,not one that cannot be removed. Thereare hundreds of schools ready to helpyou take up a new course of study.Some of these courses of study at home

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are from such schools as the ColumbiaUniversity of New York or Universityof California. Th e Rosicrucian systemalso trains the mind, develops latenttalent and awakens interest in variousfields of endeavor th

Documents

Rosicrucian Digest, July 1941