The Mystic Light - The Rosicrucian Fellowship Rays... · we burrow in the darkness of an ... That is the grand crisis, the turning ... reason, and as moths flock to the flame,

“But one thing is needful,” said Christto Martha. In those words we find oneof the great fundamental truths of life,and though the great majority would notconcede that there is but one thingneedful, many thinking people will

agree that while our wants are multitudi-nous, our needs are few indeed.

Notwithstanding this great fact, thecomplexity of our present civilized life,so called, is such that the greater portionof humanity is wearing itself out to pro-

The Mystic Light* * * * * *

The Moth and the Flame

DANGERS ON THE PATH

Volt. 4 Oceanside March 1916 California No 5

Subscription: $1.00 per year; single copies 10¢ in the U.S.; Canada $1.25 per year andEngland $1.50 per year post free.

Formerly “Echoes from Mt. Ecclesia,” and entered under that name as second class matterNov. 3rd, 1913 at the Post Office of Oceanside, California, under the

Act of August 24th, 1912.

vide so-called comforts and luxurieswhich are only for the body, while thesoul is starving. Nor do these so-calledcomforts and luxuries satisfy, whenactually in our possession. Wealthymen, when they have attained, will tellyou, if they can be interrogated when ina confidential mood, that their enjoy-ment of wealth was far more in the antic-ipation, in the quest of gaining it, than inthe actual possession and that money isreally a bitter pill in the mouth of its pos-sessor, if he is a thinker. Likewise withsocial prestige, the society woman whohas won her way to the head of thecharmed circle, so called, finds that oncewithin, it is all too commonplace, a bore,not worth the effort. Yet there arealways those who clamor for riches, forsocial distinction, who seek those thingsas eagerly and regardless of cost to thesoul, as moths seek the flame. But whilethere are many dangerous places in civiland social life to beguile the thoughtlessmoth, there are lures more fatal upon thepath of spiritual advancement.

The parable of the sower, like all otherparables of which the Christ made use,was apt and applicable to a degree; somegrains fell by the wayside, some uponrocky soil, among thorns and thistles,etc., and only a small part fell in goodsoil, where it bore abundance of fruit.People now-a-days run to and fro, allover the world, driven by that inner urge,that unrestful yearning for something,they know not what. But though theyseek, they are deaf and blind, they can-not see the light within, they do not hear

the silent inner call, the lust of the eyesand the pride of life in the outer worldare too strong attractions. Like moleswe burrow in the darkness of anorphaned existence, far from the light,far from the Father of Light, and yet Heis everywhere present; it is truth, literaltruth, poetically expressed when thePsalmist says:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy pres-

ence?If I ascend up into Heaven thou art

there;If I make my bed in the grave, behold

thou art there,If I take the wings of the morning,And dwell in the uttermost part of the

sea,Even there shall thy hand lead me,And thy right hand shall uphold me.

God is light, says the Apostle John,with mystic insight, and the light iseverywhere, only we do not see it in ourblindness of heart.

But sometime, in the course of ourlives, the latent light within each of usis awakened, the divine spark from ourinvisible Father Fire commences toglow, and slowly we awaken to the real-ization that we are sons of light.

That is the grand crisis, the turningpoint in the pilgrimage of the prodigal,when it realizes its condition, when itsees clearly that all the worldly wealth,the social standing, the power of posi-tion are only “husks,” that there is but

2 RAYS FROM THE ROSE CROSS

one thing needful, just one thing worthwhile in all the world, and that is to findagain the Father’s bosom.

At that moment of conversion the spir-it voices the intense yearning which per-meates every fibre of its being in thatsoul-searing cry: “I will arise and go tomy Father.” That is the password to“The Path”; at the other end stands theCross, where liberation awaits, and thesanctified spirit soars into the subtlerspheres with the soul-stirring shout oftriumph “Consummatum est,” it hasbeen accomplished! I am loosed fromthe fetter of flesh, a free spirit, at onewith my Father.

But let no one imagine that he is safewho enters the gate of aspiration, manya will-o’-the-wisp lurks by the way,seeking to detract the attention of theseeker from the true light and no snareis more seductive at this time and agethan that which plays upon the soul’sardent desire for speedy attainment.

Paul voices that great yearning in thefifth chapter of II Corinthians:

For we know that if our earthly houseof this tabernacle be dissolved, we havea building of God not made with hands,age-lasting in the Heavens.

For in this we groan, earnestly desir-ing to be clothed upon with our housewhich is from Heaven.

If so be, that being clothed, we shallnot be found naked.

For we that are in this tabernacle dogroan, being burdened, not that wewould be unclothed, but clothed upon,that mortality might be swallowed up oflife. . . .whilst we are at home in thebody, we are absent from the Lord. . . .We are . . . willing rather to be absentfrom the body to be present with theLord.

Wherefore we labor, that whether pre-sent or absent we may be accepted ofhim.

Let us note particularly, however, thatPaul recognizes the danger of beingfound naked, that he insists he has nodesire to be unclothed, but to be clothedupon, and that therefore he labors.

Driven by this insane desire for speedydevelopment, souls are constantlysnared by unscrupulous self-constitutedpseudo teachers who promise quickresults, usually exacting an initiation feefor their services; yet the foolish flockaround such pretenders as moths arounda flame.

Truly, they do sometimes obtainresults by being propelled into the invis-ible world. But having failed to “labor”in the vineyard, as Paul did, in order toearn the “wedding garment” or “housefrom heaven,” they lack the vital vehicleof consciousness necessary to functionintelligently in the higher spheres, andare also unable to find their way backinto the dense body which they have left,and it is usually reported that they diedof “heart failure.”

RAYS FROM THE ROSE CROSS 3

They are then “naked,” indeed anddoomed to suffer until they should havepassed out in the natural course ofevents, because they have, as a matter offact, committed suicide and the arche-type of the dense body remains intact,constantly endeavoring to draw to itselfphysical substance; but as the silver cordis severed, none can be obtained, and apain, described by suicides as like thegnawing pangs of hunger, or liketoothache in which the whole bodyaches, is experienced, sometimes formany years. “He that entereth not bythe door is a thief and a robber.” It ispossible to steal into the earthly house,and escape, but who seeks to outwit Godwill find that the way of the transgressoris hard when his wings are singed in theflame.

Is it not strange that men who under-stand the necessity of spending years tolearn a certain science, trade, or profes-sion, who will labor day after day, yearafter year, with unwearying patience andassiduous application in order to obtainthe mastery of whatever material sciencethey are studying, can at the same timebe so deluded to think that in a shorttime, a few days, a few weeks ormonths, at most a year or two, they canmaster the science of the soul, by simplythinking about it for ten minutes a day orless. They would laugh to scorn anyonewho would offer to initiate them into themysteries of surgery or watchmaking ina few days, but when it comes to the sci-ence of the soul, they drop all common-sense consideration, their desire for

occult powers is so strong that it cloudsreason, and as moths flock to the flame,so will they flock to a teacher whopromises them phenomena in a shorttime.

And, when one has been burned, dothe others take warning? Alas, no! Forevery moth that drops, some one else, orten more, are ready to take its place.Magic mirrors or magnetized crystalsfind a ready market, while the truth goesa-begging. Fraud and deception byunscrupulous persons, who prey uponthis intense soul-hunger of their fellowmen, are more numerous than one whois not familiar with the unvoiced longingof thousands can ever conceive.Generally, the dupes pocket their finan-cial losses, but occasionally proceedingsin the public courts show that otherwiseintelligent people have parted with con-siderable sums at the request of suchself-styled teachers and pseudo spirits,and occasionally the grave closes over atoo successful seeker, or the sanitariumhides him.

But if the human moth wereamenable to reason, if it heard the voiceof warning, and asked, “And how thenmay I know the true light from thefalse?”, we may confidently turn to theScriptures for our answer. There is nouncertainty whatever about it, the Christgave His disciples the powers necessaryto aid humanity and he said to them,freely give as you have freely received.Peter also, when he was accosted bySimon, the sorcerer, who desired to buyfor money the spiritual powers which


the apostle exercised, cursed him.Whenever they gave, they gave withoutmoney, without price. Likewise, thetrue teacher places no price on histeachings but lives as the apostleslived, by voluntary contributions fromthose whom they help. Neither is itnecessary for one who does not seek theworldly gold to lure others with promis-es of phenomenon or powers in recordtime. It is easy to build a house of anydesired size so long as you have thematerial. You may enlarge it by addingbrick to brick. But neither plant, animalor man, grow in that manner, theirgrowth is from within and each mustdo it for himself. We cannot eat anoth-er’s food and give him the strengthderived therefrom, neither can we gothrough the experiences of another,assimilate them and give to him thesoul-growth derived in that manner.

So, flee the flame of false teachers,compose yourself in patience. Work,Watch and Wait. In due time the Christlight will glow within your own soul,and you will never need to look else-where for it.

COSMIC THEOLOGY

PART III

By Geo. T. Weaver

Viewed exoterically, as all materialis-tic scientists look at things, the Sunseems only a vast ball of chemical sub-stance, and scientists of the above school

contend that it is this and nothing more.They deny emphatically that it is a liv-ing, organic being, contending that if itwere it would require breath, food andall else that such beings need. That it ischemical matter in its outward manifes-tation, will be readily admitted by all.That it is living stuff, is equally mani-fest, as all scientists of the present dayadmit that all chemical substance isalive. That it is organized is equally evi-dent, as it possesses definite form. Butthat it possesses conscious being, withall that this idea implies, remains to beproved.

Because it is chemical matter, exterior-ly, does not argue against its consciouspersonality, for the same is true of allliving, organic beings. Every particle ofman’s gross physical body is composedof chemical matter. So much for thenegative argument; but there are manypositive reasons which go to show thatthe Sun is consciously personal. Thebasic principle of personality is con-sciousness.

Potentially, consciousness exists in thegrossest inorganic matter. It is said to beasleep here, and in vegetable life todream, to be awake in animal life, and tobe self-conscious in man. The principleof Life in all organic forms, down to thesimplest, the mono-cell being, is theelectron. This is the primal fiery vitalsubstance, the quintessence of Deity, outof which all phenomena have come, bythe involution process. It is the nucleusof the atom, and the life principle of themolecule, the cell and the more complex


organisms. In its primal, undifferentiat-ed state it is all-consciousness, the syn-thesis of all planes of consciousness.Involved in matter, it is limited con-sciousness, on the various planes ofexpression, from mere potential con-sciousness to the plane of super-con-sciousness. On its lower plane this is theVital Body, the life principle in grossmatter.

There is, then, no inert matter, for life-lessness is unthinkable. And where lifeexists, the absolute absence of con-sciousness, is equally unthinkable.From this line of reasoning, it is evidentthat the Sun is a living, conscious being.This reasoning is in strict harmony withmodern science; and the reason whymaterialistic scientists deny this is eitherbecause they are governed by prejudice,or because they have not yet been able toadjust modern discoveries to so-calledinert matter.

The next point to determine is theplane, or planes of the Sun’s conscious-ness, and so the character of its person-ality. This cannot be demonstrated exo-terically, for this would depend upon thetestimony of the senses and of the induc-tive, or concrete mind, and it is uniform-ly admitted that such testimony is illu-sive. At best this process is but guess-work, and the conclusion reached willdepend upon the plane of consciousnessunfolded by the guesser.

The truly scientific method is the eso-teric, viewing the subject from the planeof the abstract mind, where verity aloneabides. There is a law of correspon-

dence manifest throughout nature, large-ly recognized by modern scientists, atleast on its lower plane, and known bymystics on the higher planes, duringmany ages past.

The Hermetic formula of this law is,“As above, so below; and as below, soabove.” In its relation to mankind, ourBible puts it thus: “And God said, let usmake man in our own likeness andimage”; and it is recorded that in his ownlikeness and image, God made man,both male and female.

If, therefore, we can fully analyzeman’s complex being, not simply as heis found today, but in his final outcomeas the image and likeness of Deity, wewill have defined God; and if, havingdefined God, it can be demonstrated thatthe Sun possesses all the attributes ofDeity, we will then have shown that theSun is the Deity of our solar system, andthat theology is cosmic.

Our first step, then, will be to answerthe question propounded by King Davidin the eighth Psalm, “What is man?”David’s reply to this question was, “Forthou hast made him a little less than thy-self.” The word translated “thyself,” inHebrew is Elohim, or the creative gods;and the phrase, “a little lower,” accord-ing to best Jewish translators, is for a lit-tle time.

Man, then, potentially is a creativeDeity, a Logos, or Christ. The Elohimare the seven leading planets of our solarsystem; each, like the Sun, a living,organic, conscious being; each possess-ing a creative spirit, or rather, is a cre-


ative spirit, referred to in Rev. 1:4 as“The seven spirits before the throne”;each the creator of its own body, and allof them synthetically constituting theLOGOS, or creative Word of God. John,in his first epistle and third chapter,referring to man in his ultimate unfold-ment, says, “we shall be like him, for weshall see him as he is.” And Jesus, theChrist, said of himself after his resurrec-tion, “All authority, in heaven and earthhas been given me.” This is man, theanalysis of whose being will demon-strate the Sun as our Deity.

In analyzing man’s being as a micro-cosm, we find him a septenary, com-posed of a seven-fold form, form withinform, not as so many boxes, one withinthe other, each separate and distinct fromthe other; but each permeating the other,the whole woven together as one entirebeing.

Of these bodies the outermost, thegrossest, the one manifest to the sentientnature, is the gross physical. As hasbeen said, this is composed of chemicalsubstance, the outcome of evolutionfrom the plane of mineral or crystalliza-tion. This had its origin during the firstcreative day, or Saturn period, when asthought form, it sprang from the mindand heart of Deity; and through the dou-ble process of involution and evolution,first descending into matter to the lowestplane, and then ascending from thisplane, through that marvelous transmut-ing process we call evolution, to whatwe find man today in his outermostexpression.

This gross physical body is essential,as the basis of awakened consciousness,and as an instrument through which theindwelling spirit, or divinity within,might manifest itself, and through whichit might acquire experience for furtherunfoldment.

Immediately within this is the VitalBody, sometimes called the “double” asit is the mold upon which the gross bodyis formed; also the “etheric body,” refer-ring to the substance of its composition;also the “ghost,” because, as seen byclairvoyants, it hovers over the grave ofthe dense body for a longer or shorterduration.

This etheric body is the life principleon the physical plane, because so long asit remains within the gross body, the lat-ter coheres and possesses consciousness,and on its departure, consciousness onthe physical plane departs, and the grossbody disintegrates.

The vital body is composed of fourethers, varying in tenuosity from eachother. The densest of these is chemicalether, and is the medium for the assimi-lation of the gross matter taken into thesystem for physical sustenance; it is alsothe medium for the excretion, or throw-ing off, of the waste matter from thebody.

The ether next in fineness to this is thelife ether, and is the medium of the prop-agation of offspring. The ether next intenuosity is the light ether, and is themedium of sense perception. The lastand finest of the ethers composing thevital body is the reflecting ether, and is


the medium of the memory of nature.The vital, or etheric body is essential, aswithout it we could neither manifest life,nor externalize the still higher, innerbodies. This body had its incipient stageduring the second creative day, or theSun period, in its archetypal stage.These two planes constitute the physicalbody in its entirety.

The next higher, and more refinedplane of our being is called the DesireBody. This is the seat of the emotions ofrepulsion, feeling, and attraction, whichrepresent three general divisions; buteach of these divisions is subdividedinto more minute planes. The lowest ofthese planes, that of repulsion, is subdi-vided into three sub-planes. The lowestof these is the seat of the passions andlow desires; the sub-plane next above isthe seat of the impressions; the highestof these sub-planes of the plane of repul-sion is the seat of the wishes.

The plane of feeling is sub-dividedinto two sub-planes. The lower of theseis the seat of indifference; the higher theseat of interest.

The third, and highest plane of theDesire Body is that of Attraction, whichis sub-divided into three sub-planes.The lowest of these sub-planes is that ofsoul life; the sub-plane next above is thatof soul-light; and the highest sub-planeof the plane of attraction, is that of soul-power.

The Desire Body, in its most generalsense, is the seat of the psychic forcesand had its initiative during the third cre-ative day, or the Moon period, but only

as a thought form.The two general planes referred to,

that of the physical and the desire, con-stitute the personality of man, the so-called fallen nature, and is that part ofman’s being that is mortal, and doomedto disintegrate.

Passing still deeper into man’s being,we next come to the Mind or Thought-body. This is sub-divided into two gen-eral divisions, that of concrete, and thatof abstract thought, called also the lowerand higher minds. The former of theseminds is the connecting link between thedivine and the human; the immortal andthe mortal, and is sub-divided into foursub-divisions. The lowest of these is theseat of archetypal forms, or of form con-ceptions. The next higher sub-divisionis the seat of archetypes of animal vital-ity, or the conception of the vital body.The next higher is the seat of the arche-types of the desire and emotion body.The highest sub-plane of the concretemind is the seat of the archetypal forces,and the human mind.

Synthetically, the concrete mind is theseat of the beginnings of the creativeprocess. It is the focusing point of thehigher, or creative mind, the point whereit mirrors itself in primal substance, onits start on the long journey through mat-ter.

The higher plane of mind is that ofabstract thought, and is the sphere of thehuman spirit, the lowest plane of theEgo, or the Christhood. This body isdivided into three sub-divisions, thelowest being the sub-division containing


germinal ideas of desire and emotion inboth animal and man. The sub-planewithin this is that containing the germi-nal idea of life in plant, animal, and man.The innermost of these sub-divisions ofthe abstract mind is that containing thegerminal idea of form in mineral, plant,animal and human.

The mind or intellect in man had itsorigin during the fourth creative day, orEarth period, the period we are now liv-ing in, for previous to this period organ-ic life was brainless and mindless.

Within the Ego, are two higher planesof being, that of the Life Spirit, and thatof the Divine Spirit. Each of these issub-divided into seven sub-divisions,the lower being the seat in man of thesecond, or higher aspect of the three-foldspirit in man; the higher septenary beingthe region, or seat of the highest spiritu-al power and influence in man.

Beyond the region of the three-foldspirit are two planes of being still high-er, each divided into seven sub-divi-sions. The lower of these septenaries isthe seat of the Virgin spirit in man; thehigher, the seat of God, in his primal,undifferentiated, unknown and unknow-able state.

For our present purpose we do not careto go beyond the plane of the three foldspirit, for though the higher planes arelatent in us, we will never awake to con-sciousness on these planes while resi-dents of the present solar system.

Man as we find him today, is the prod-uct of a double process, usually calledthe Involution process, or the involve-

ment of spirit in matter, from archetypalforms to dense mineral matter; and theEvolution of spirit, through matter backto Deity. In the latter process, as spiritadvances through the various planes ofmineral, vegetable, animal and human, itabsorbs the essence of these variousplanes, thus restoring matter to spirit,referred to by modern scientists as theconservation of substance and referredto in the Bible as the resurrection of thebody.

In this dual process there are sevenstages or periods of immense duration,referred to usually as the seven creativedays.

The work of the first day, as alreadyreferred to, culminating during the Earthperiod, or the fourth day, the period weare now living in.

The work of the second day, culminat-ing during the fifth period, called theJupiter period, when man, havingextracted the intellectual soul from thevital body, will become super man.

The work of the third creative day, cul-minating during the sixth day, called theVenus period, when super man, havingextracted the emotional soul from thedesire body, will have become ademigod.

The work of the fourth creative day,the period when mind was awakened,will culminate during the seventh longperiod, called the Vulcan period, theperiod of rest, of the culmination of allthings, when we as demigods, by amal-gamating the three-fold soul with themind, will have become God men, or


creative gods, LOGOI. The Earth period, in which we are at

present living, is divided into two sub-periods, the former half called the Marsperiod, the period of war and destruc-tion, when man was in his infantile state;the latter half, called the Mercury peri-od, the period of mind, of thought, ofconstruction.

It is in this latter half of the earth peri-od we now are, the period of creatorship,but on the plane of matter, as seen in themany useful inventions, great buildingsand cities, and all else that expressesconstructive phenomena.

This analysis of man, from start to fin-ish, is purely scientific, and accords withteachings of all sacred books, both of theOrient and Occident, including theChristian Bible, when read correctly, ormystically.

As a race, mankind has as yet attainedonly to the plane of the concrete mind,or inductive reason. These have devel-oped a consciousness according to theplane reached. Many have forged aheadand entered the plane of abstract, or intu-itive mind, having awakened the Ego orhigher self.

A very few have gone even beyondthis point, having awakened the Christconsciousness of the Life Spirit. Butnone living in the flesh have reached thefinal period, the state of rest, of essen-tial, unmixed Deity.

We are gods in the making, and theessential god consciousness is yet latentin us. John teaches, in the third chapterof his first epistle, that every one that has

this hope in him purifies himself, evenas he—God—is pure. By a process ofself purgation we advance from plane toplane until the work of spirit perfectionis completed.

(To be continued)

THE GARDENIA

He held the gardenia in his hand, andas he gazed, purity seemed to emanatefrom its waxen petals. He thought it themost beautiful thing he had seen in hislife, which to him was but “littleflower.”

“Hush,” said the gardenia, “art lies notso much in what’s said as in what’s leftunsaid.”

Just then a moonbeam rippled by andthe gardenia hastily joined it, signinghim to follow. They seated themselvesin a blue lotus and sailed up the river ofmoonbeams to the moon. The man hadparted with that lump of clay called thebody as soon as they had stepped intothe flower, and only his intellect,untrammeled by human sensesremained.

He was a tiny spark of absolute knowl-edge. He understood all laws, hiddenthings became plain to him, he knew allworlds, he was part of the ConsciousUniverse, part of the pale moon herself,he even soared higher until he found hissoul.

He experienced joys such as he hadnever before approached. He whisperedto the gods of Greece, and Helen laid her


gifts at his feet. “God!”“I told you not to speak,” said the gar-

denia.And the man stood alone in the dark-

ness.Again he held the gardenia in his hand;

this time he smelt it, softly touching thethick petals, and as the strange passion-awakening scent crept into his brain, theEast spread itself carpet-like before him.

He entered a room, round like a bub-ble, quivering with as many alluring col-ors. Crimson cushions, golden carpets,pillars of carved cedar wood upholdingthe flaming ceiling, and little tablesinlaid with opals, chalcedonies, andberyls.

In the center of the room a fountain ofsunstone tossed wine into the scentedair—that rare purple wine, some say,was pressed into life by the lotus eaters.The curtain, which might have beenwoven from crimson roses, exhaled afaint pungent odor of musk. He dranksome of the wine and flung himself upona divan.

Soon the music of zither tinkled out ofthe silence, and the atmosphere vibratedas the dancing girls glided in and out.Brown they were, like the sandal wood,and red poppies flowed in their hair.They danced till the air became warmwith their breath and time was not forhim who watched.

At length, one more beautiful than therest, one who floated like a dusky lilyamong the reeds, knelt before him, andthe music became fainter in the distance.

“I am sorry, little flower,” said the man

as he looked at the crushed brown thingin his hand. “Someone always pays,”said the gardenia flower, and then—itsbreath, in which there was no sweetness,was lost.

And the man stood alone in the dark-ness.—“Pamagela,” in South AfricanWomen in Council.

THE FASCINATION OF THE TEMPORAL

By W. A. R.

When we consider our lives, we findthat they consist of innumerable smallactions and events. All our great actionsdepend entirely upon a groundwork oftrivial acts, acts which, at the time oftheir performance, appear irrelevant andeven unnecessary.

We hear of a man achieving a greatsuccess and immediately we can mental-ly appreciate the years of hard struggles,the myriads of insignificant detailswhich have enabled him to succeed.

Such a man is an example of deter-mined exertion and definite purpose. Acertain aim was made the focus of hisabilities. By will-power he turned thetime which many people waste in trivi-alities, into a medium with which hecould strengthen his power for success.The existence of trivialities, whetheractions or habits of thought, is alwaystemporal.

Trivialities fascinate by reason of theirchangeability, in the same manner as a


child seeks pleasure in changing fromtoy to toy. Many people fritter awaytheir whole lives in a vain hurried searchfor new excitements. Fascinated by thetemporal, they are more or less unable toregulate their lives and characters so asto conform with their religious or otherideals.

When dealing with principles, one canmentally form an idea which, to be car-ried out, must govern everyday actions.There must be a thread of purpose anddefinite endeavor running through theeveryday thoughts and actions, stringingthem together and adding strength to theidea.

Mental and spiritual growth varies aswe learn to discriminate between thevalue and real importance of the smallactions and thoughts which constitutedaily life. A good habit of thought is apillar of strength. By its help we cancorrelate and sift the mass of actionswhich we are constantly causing, andfrom them draw knowledge and power.

It is soon made apparent what the realis and what the unreal. To a young soulit is a very difficult problem to solve.Amid the innumerable actions, thoughts,occurrences, suggestions, which sur-round him, how is he to decide what isof use to him and what is useless andharmful? To be fascinated by a mass oftrivialities, whether for a day or a life-time, is, from the soul’s point of view,waste of time.

A strict and willful adherence to prin-ciples, previously studied and accepted,as those of the Rosicrucian Fellowship,

ensures, as far as these things can beensured, a certain gentle peace and con-tent which seem to lie at the back of themind, acting as hope and belief, andwhich certainly are most essential to thefateful times in which we live today.

TRANSFERENCE OFCONSCIOUSNESS TO HIGHER

PLANES

Eva G. Taylor

The transference of consciousness tohigher planes marks an epoch in thesoul’s progress. The plane on which wecenter that consciousness makes all dif-ference in the character unfoldment.

If we center in the physical and identi-fy ourselves with the material manifesta-tions of principles and being, we do notprogress. We merely exist in an animalfashion.

When centered in the desire world oremotional plane, we get distorted viewsof religion or love. All the queer cults,all the abnormal manifestations, all thehysterical tendencies arise here—whenthe center of consciousness is fixed uponthis plane.

When transferred to the mentality, wegrow intellectually keen, but fail todevelop in poise and balance.

When the consciousness is focusedupon the mental plane we become ana-lytical, sharp, discriminating, but hardand cold. Any lop-sided development isimperfect, as we realize upon lower


planes.The spiritual should govern all. When

we center in that one divine life, thewhole nature is exalted and glorified.But the transference of our conscious-ness to the spiritual part of ourselves isnot a mere belief in the one manifestedlife—in the Christ-principle ruling thehuman heart, yet utterly fail to realizeunity. Therefore it marks an epoch whenwe at least cease to regard ourselves orlife from any plane but the highestknown to our humanity.

When, from that plane, we rule all ourbeing—the intellectual, emotional andphysical—we are really centering our-selves in the Infinite God. We then real-ize that we are but a ray, a spark from theinfinite light. The trivialities of life thenfall into their proper place.

Our focus is never true until we docenter in the divine life. Until theneverything is distorted and out of pro-portion. There are chromatic and spher-ical aberrations in all our lenses ofobservation and thought. In our emo-tional life it is especially so. What loversees with clear eyes? What religiouscult that deals with the emotions gains atrue insight into the spiritual life? Whatsect that merely strives to penetrate intothe very material plane surrounding thedense physical ever realizes the grandsublimities and truths of the higherworlds beyond the physical and emo-tional?

This focus and center of the conscious-ness marks one very real differencebetween the occultist and the true mys-

tic. The latter views all the phenomenaof manifested life from the higher andspiritual realms. Thus he is enabled tosee all in true perspective.

PICTURES FROM PAST LIVES

One finds them everywhere, withincreasing frequency in newspapers,magazines and books. Some think thempoetical fancies and fiction, but as timegoes on, a growing minority among thepeople of the Western World are serious-ly embracing the doctrine of pre-exis-tence. They see that the soul’s futureimmortality involves the logical necessi-ty of past existences, for only that whichis without beginning can be without end.

Nor does it detract from the worth ofthese narratives of bygone lives, that theauthor almost invariably makes hisheroes and heroines, kings, queens, orcourtiers, and that almost all who claimto have knowledge of their own pastlives also claim to have been in similar-ly exalted position. The true value ofthese tales lies in the instinctive innerassurance of past existences which itreveals.

It is the soul’s awakening from adream state, confused and confusing atpresent, but soon we shall cease to “seethrough a glass darkly.” The ethericvision is gradually developing in us, andwe shall then know facts “face to face.”In the meantime, let us be thankful forthe “poetical fancies.”


To a recent issue of The BritishReview Mr. Padraic Colum, a youngIrish poet now resident in the UnitedStates, contributes an admirable exam-ple of that sort of verse which wascalled, a few years ago, “neo-Celtic.”The title would suggest that his theme isWelsh, rather than Irish; it is Celtic, atany rate, and thoroughly Celtic is theslow, chant-like music of its rhythm,which is so melodious that the earscarcely detects the absence of rhyme.

FOR MORFYDD

By Padraic Colum

It would not be far for us to go back tothe age of bronze;

Then you were a king’s daughter; yourfather had curraghs a score;

A herd of horses; good tillage upon theface of four hills;

And clumps of cattle beyond them, theirherdsmen rough-browed kern.

And I was good at the bow, but had nomen and no herds,

And your father would have bestowedyou one day on some unrenowned

Ulysses, or on a strong king to whomthey afterward raised

Three stones as high as the elk’s (thiscromlech, maybe, where we sit.)

How fair you were when you walkedbeside the old forest trees!

So fair that I thought you would changeand fly away as a swan!

And then we were mates for play, and

then all eagle you grewTo drive me to range the tempest—

king’s child of the hero-age!I called three times as an owl; through

the gap where the herdsmen watchedYou ran and we climbed the height

where the brackens pushed at our knees;And we lay were the brackens drew the

earth-smell out of the earth,And we journeyed and baffled the

fighters of three ill-wishing kings.It would not be far for us two to go back

to the age of bronze!The fire left by the nomads is lone as a

burning ship!We eat them as we pass by, the green,

sweet ears of the corn!At last a king and I save a good clan

from a dragon’s spleen!Pieces of amber I brought you, big as a

bowman’s thumbs;Trumpets I left beside you, wrought

when the smiths had all art;A dancing bird that I caught you—they

are back in the age of bronze;I give what I made and found and

caught—a score of songs!

Would you like to have a biggerMagazine with more of this same goodreading?

The sooner you get out and boom for ALARGER SUBSCRIPTION LIST, the soonerwe can ENLARGE THE MAGAZINE.

It depends on You.

START NOW!


Question: You say in the Cosmo thatthe white blood corpuscles are not thepolicemen of the system. What then istheir origin and mission?

Answer: To make this clear to theaverage reader it is first necessary to saythat besides the dense body, which isvisible to all of us, there are finer vehi-cles which interpenetrate this organismand which are the springs to its activi-ties. One is the vital body, composed ofether and concerned in building thedense body by the food which we takeinto the system. It controls all the vitalfunctions, such as respiration, digestion,assimilation, etc., and works through thesympathetic nervous system.

Another, still finer vehicle, is calledthe desire body. This is the vehicle of ouremotions, feelings, and desires, whichexpends the energies stored in the densebody by the vital processes by control ofthe cerebrospinal or voluntary nervoussystem. In its activities this desire bodyis constantly destroying and breakingdown tissue built up by the vital body,and it is the war between these twovehicles which causes what we callconsciousness in the physical world.

The etheric forces in the vital body actin such a manner that they convert asmuch of the food as possible into blood

and this is the highest expression of thevital body.

In the lower animals, from the birdsand downward, which are entirely underthe guidance of an invisible guardiancalled the group spirit, the blood isnucleated, but in the higher mammals,which are upon the threshold of individ-ualization, and particularly in man, whohas become an individual indwellingspirit, there are no nuclei in the bloodcorpuscles.

Even in the fetus, which is formedunder the sole guidance of the motherduring the first three weeks, and there-fore has nucleated blood corpuscles inthat period, they cease to be formed assoon as the Ego which is to live in thebody, enters. This happens about twen-ty-one days after conception, and by thetime of the quickening the indwellingEgo in the fetus has destroyed all thenucleated corpuscles and from thence-forth none are formed, for the Ego mustbe master of its vehicle and that is notthe case where there is a nucleus or cen-ter in the blood corpuscles which affordsa foothold for another spirit.

It is easily demonstrated that the life isin the blood, for while we may some-times with impunity amputate an arm ora limb, we cannot deplete the body ofblood without also killing it.

Question Department* * * * * *

Thus the blood is the particular vehicleof the Ego, and as in the past aeons ofdevelopment we have crystallized mat-ter in order to form our dense body, soalso it is destined that now we must ethe-realize our vehicles in order that we maylift ourselves and the world out of therealm of materiality and into the spiritu-al. Naturally, therefore, the Ego aimsfirst to make the blood gaseous and tothe spiritual sight, this red unnucleatedblood is not a fluid, but a gas. It is noargument against this assertion that themoment we prick our skin the bloodcomes out as a liquid.

The moment we open up the try-cockof a steam boiler the gas also condensesinto a liquid, but if we make a modelsteam engine of glass and look at theway steam works there, we shall seeonly the piston move backward and for-ward, driven by an invisible agent, livesteam, and similarly, as the live steamdirect from the boiler is invisible, andgaseous, so also the live blood in thehuman body is a gas, and the higher thestate of development of any given Ego,the more ethereal is it able to make theblood.

When, by the vital processes food hasreached this highest alchemical state, theprocess of condensation begins and theblood-gas is formed into tissue in thevarious organs to replace what has beenwasted or destroyed by the activities ofthe body. The spleen is the gateway ofthe vital body; there the solar force,which abounds in the surroundingatmosphere, enters in a constant stream,

to aid us in the vital processes, and therealso the war between the desire bodyand the vital body is waged most fierce-ly.

Thoughts of worry, fear, and angerinterfere with the process of evaporationin the spleen, a speck of plasm is theresult, and this is at once seized upon bya thought elemental which forms anucleus and embodies itself therein.Then it commences to live a life ofdestruction, coalescing with other wasteproducts and decaying elements wherev-er formed, making the body a charnelhouse instead of the temple of anindwelling living spirit.

We may therefore say that every whitecorpuscle which has been taken by anoutside entity is to the Ego a lostopportunity. The more of these lostopportunities there are in the body, theless is the body under control of the Ego;therefore we find them present in largenumbers in all diseases than when theperson is in health.

It may also be said that the person of ajovial good nature or one who is devout-ly religious and has an absolute faith andtrust in divine providence and love, willregister many less lost opportunities orwhite blood corpuscles than those whoare always worrying and fretting.

Question: In the case of death by vio-lent means, is the next birth, when theperson dies as a child, in a body of thesame sex or the opposite; that is, will asoldier killed on the battlefield be reborn


as a boy or a girl, or does sex play littlepart when the life is a very short one?

Answer: So far as the writer has beenable to investigate, there does not seemto be any attention paid to this matter inthe intermediate life. The Ego takes theopportunity for rebirth wherever it canbe found; all that is necessary is that thematerial for the new vehicles should begathered so that the moral impressionmay be made on the desire body duringthe heaven life which follows death as achild.

This matter of sex seems upon thewhole to be very elastic, at least in thecases of those who have been livingwhat we now call “the higher life,”because that has the tendency to makethe vital body more permanently posi-tive, and the seed atom, located in thesolar plexus, therefore automaticallyattracts to itself an increasing quantity ofpositive polarized ether, so that whetherthe physical body is a male or female,the constituents of the vital body remainpositive. Therefore in the cases of so-called ‘advanced people’ the matter ofsex becomes a matter of less importance,being in many cases left to the choice ofthe Ego which is seeking rebirth.

Question: The Cosmo says that thedesire world is fluid, and composed ofever changing light and color. Is it notcorrect to picture the darkest colors atthe lowest regions gradually blendinginto the lighter colors and in the region

of soul power finding pure white light?

Answer: Yes, in one sense you areright. Color depends upon vibration, therapidity of the rate and wave length. Forinstance, in the colors of the spectrumred has a much longer wave length and aslower rate of vibration than violet,which is at the other end of the solarspectrum, but the colors in the desireworld are not at all the same colors thatwe see here, for here color is caused bythe reflection of the Suns rays in theatmosphere.

There light is a property of matter, onemight almost say that from the view-point of that world desire stuff is lightand light is desire stuff; that is not quitecorrect, but almost so. Furthermore, thecolors which we would call dark thereare brighter than the brightest sunlighthere; that is why we do not see them, oureyes cannot respond to that rate of vibra-tion.

You should not consider the desireworld being above and higher than thephysical world in the sense of spacebeing involved. The desire matter ishere, it interpenetrates every physicalatom, even the ether is pervaded by it,and the dark, to the spiritual sight almostblack, chemical ether, seems almostinseparable from the lowest grade ofdesire stuff; they are so dense that theyseem nearly gaseous, and it has oftenbeen a wonder to the writer that peoplecannot see them and the beings movingtherein.


OUR FATHER’S HOUSE

By Gamma Beta

Gamma Beta is a Fellow of the RoyalAstronomical Society, an Astronomer ofrepute who has added greatly to the sci-ence of solar photography.

“The heavens declare the glory ofGod; and the firmament shows Hishandiwork.”—Ps. 19:1. “In my Father’shouse are many mansions.”—John 14:2.The revised version admits the follow-ing reading: “In my Father’s house aremany abiding places.” Continuing thisverse, Christ says, “I go to prepare aplace for you.” The sense of the text isthat in God’s house—that is in God’suniverse—are the “mansions,” or “abid-ing places,” in which we are to dwell ifwe are found worthy of a dwelling placewith God.

This text may be considered an astro-nomical one; and like many others, thegreater our knowledge of the structure ofthe universe, the more clearly we willsee and comprehend its meaning. Whilethe astronomer himself only faintlycomprehends the overwhelming great-ness of our Father’s house, his concep-tion is vastly above that of the casualobserver.

While he would be indeed a boldastronomer who would not shrink fromthe task of explaining this and similartexts, yet he can with some degree ofintelligence direct the mind of theearnest seeker into paths that are ablazewith the glory of God.

Ask an astronomer, how large is ourFather’s house? And instantly he wouldsee in imagination unnumbered millionsof worlds, systems, constellations, clus-ters, and aggregations in our, or the visi-ble, universe; and he is reasonably cer-tain that beyond this, other universes,universe after universe, infinity afterinfinity, unspeakable in dimensions andduration, stretch away into unfath-omable, endless space, until his imagi-nation is stunned, his mind reels, and hisreason cries Halt!—for the finite mindhere meets the incomprehensible, andthe incomprehensible vastness of naturechallenges the astronomer.

We often hear from the pulpit the word“universe.” What is our preacher talkingabout? Evidently something pretty big,for it is usually the grand finishing point,when he wishes to impress us withsomething vast and unlimited. What isthe universe? Can we understand it?Let us look into this matter and see if wecan know anything of our Father’shouse; for surely it is right for us to use

The Astral Ray* * * * * *

the mind He has given us to add to ourknowledge of His glory. Nay, would itnot be sin if we did not use our bestendeavors to know all we can of thegreat Master Builder, and of His workswhich He has so invitingly spread beforeus?

A Celestial Journey

Come, reader, let us, in imagination,go on a journey of observation, and seefor ourselves somewhat of our Father’shouse, with its many “abiding places.”We have no time for details, but at onceselect a starting point. For this theastronomer would naturally turn to thesun as the great center, from which wereceive the light and heat that make thisworld of ours habitable.

The question of the speed with whichwe must travel is more difficult; butassuming that we have the choice in thismatter, we will soon settle this mostimportant point. Railroad speed of amile a minute is entirely out of the ques-tion, for our time is short and the journeylong; besides, we want to return in timeto tell our readers something of what wesee. There is a cannon-ball—that travelsabout twenty miles a minute! But that,also, is too slow. But there is light?—Yes, now we have it.

We will travel with the inconceivablespeed of light itself; for we must travelwith velocity to us infinite, for an infi-nite journey, and light travels one hun-dred and eighty-six thousand miles ina single second of time. This is equal to

over eleven million miles in a singleminute (186,000 times 60 equals11,160,000.)

Fearing that our unusual performancewill produce undue excitement in theworlds we are about to visit, we willsend before us a messenger to announceour coming. We will select for this pur-pose a cannon-ball, traveling at the rateof over forty thousand miles a day; andthat it may have plenty of time, we willgive it a start of a hundred years. Aswe want to be perfectly fair in all that wedo in this wonderful journey, and to“start fair,” we will not start from thesun, but from the center of that vastglobe.

While we are in such a good position,we will find out something about thesun’s enormous dimensions. He is overthirteen hundred thousand times aslarge as our earth. His diameter is sovast that, if he were a shell, the earthcould be placed in the center, and themoon could travel in her usual orbit, andthen be only about midway between theearth and the surface of our gigantic pri-mary, his diameter being eight hundredand sixty-six thousand miles.

Our Starting Station

From the sun’s center we will directour course toward the nearest fixed star,assuming that all the planets lie in thatdirection, and see what will be our expe-riences. Now, then, all ready, go!

At the prodigious rate of speed we aregoing, less than three beats of the clock


will find us entirely clear of the sun, andthousands of miles on our way to thenearest planet, Mercury, and in aboutthree minutes we will reach him.Mercury is about thirty-six million milesfrom the sun, and is about three thou-sand miles in diameter. His year is equalto eighty-eight of our days; therefore hisseasons are only twenty-two days long,if he has any seasons; for you mustremember that he receives a vast amountof heat and light from the sun, which tothe Mercurians appears two and one-halftimes as large as to the inhabitants of theearth. Our tremendous velocity carriesus by the “Messenger of the Gods” soquickly that we have no time to make aclose examination of him, and in lessthan three minutes we will cross theorbit of Venus.

Here we will find a world surprisinglylike our own in many particulars. Venusis only twenty-six million miles nearerthe sun than we; and as we are ninety-three million miles distant, this “man-sion,” with very moderate changes in thecondition of her atmosphere, may be ashabitable as the earth, to life with whichwe are acquainted.

Venus is only two hundred miles lessin diameter than the earth (all distancesand dimensions are given in round num-bers), and her year is equal to two hun-dred and twenty-five of our days; and sofar as astronomers know, life is just asprobable on Venus as on our planet. Butif we find out much about her, we mustbe sure to tell the astronomers about it;for they are very anxious to know more

than they do of the condition of all theplanets.

In an instant Venus is left far in therear; and looking behind us, we note thesun is growing smaller, while ahead wesee two brilliant stars—or what appearto be stars—one of which is wonderful-ly bright, and the other is close beside it.We draw toward them with lightningspeed, and they soon bid fair to rival thesun himself in brightness, for he is lessthan half the size we saw him fromMercury, and gives us less than one-fourth of the light and heat he pours outon that planet.

In a little over two minutes we reachour two stars, and find this marvelousobject to be earth, and the companionstar to be the moon. We must be carefulhere, for if we draw too near we may bedrawn upon its surface, like many a ven-turesome meteorite (popularly called“falling stars”) that has approached toonear. But our speed is our safety. Wemay approach almost to the surface, andgravitation will not be able to overcomesuch velocity as ours.

A Little Station of Interest

A feeling of reverential awe over-comes us as we draw near this tiny speckin God’s great universe that we callearth. Here is a little world, perhaps theonly one in all our Father’s house uponwhich sin ever obtained a foothold. Ibelieve it to be absolutely unique in thisrespect, in all the length and breadth ofHis dominion. To believe otherwise is


to doubt God’s wisdom and love. But itis here; it came sometime, somehow, butas a plant to be “rooted up,” “not plant-ed by the Father,” by the Great Sacrifice,that the earth might be replenished withbeings worthy to be called children ofthe great Creator, and that His Father’shouse might again become clean, andthe universe be restored as it was when itcame from the hand of the GreatArchitect. It is difficult for me tobelieve that the whole human race wasworthy of such sacrifice; but a clean uni-verse is.

We pass the earth reluctantly, for herewe have the history of the life and trialsof God’s Son while upon earth; we haveHis promise, His teaching, His example;we have everything that the heart of theChristian could wish. Here, too, is beingenacted the great drama of sin and right-eousness, of life and death. We see thestruggle of the saints, and wonder whyjudgment is delayed so long. But not allwe see is black and cheerless; for Godhas a people here on this little world.Saints are here; here are they that keepall the commandments of God.

The eight minutes in which we areallowed to come from the sun to theearth have passed, and we must hasteaway if we are to see the glorious dimen-sions of our Father’s house. A brightstar looms up ahead, and in less thanfour minutes we find ourselves at Mars.Our (apparent) star proves to be the littleplanet Mars, with two little moons onlyabout five and seven miles in diame-ter—baby mansions, truly.

We find a world four thousand miles indiameter, and the great telescopes thatwe have left behind can plainly showhigh seas and continents, his snowypoles, and his equatorial regions inwhich snow never appears—just like ourearth. The Martial day is a little longerthan our own, but his year is as long assix hundred and eighty-seven of ourdays. The sun appears considerablysmaller, and his light and heat are onlyabout half as great as the earth receives,according to the data of earth uponwhich we must base our conclusions.

After hastily noting the above facts,we pass the ruddy planet, and are soondarting through a great number of littleworlds called the asteroids. About sevenhundred have been discovered, all sincethe first day of the nineteenth century,and there may be thousands more thathave as yet escaped the sharp-eyedastronomers of earth. Their averagediameter is probably less than twenty-five miles—more baby mansions!

To keep track of these little worlds hasbecome a heavy task and a great nui-sance to astronomers, who are experi-encing the same troubles as the oldwoman who lived in a shoe. But thechildren must be cared for. We may besure these tiny planets are all part of thegreat plan, or they would not be there.

Our Great Near Neighbor

We have no time, however, to look forundiscovered asteroids, for we are nowabout to visit the “giant of the solar sys-


tem,” Jupiter. It will take us over a half-hour to reach him from Mars, or aboutforty-four minutes from the sun. Wewill have a little time to look out forcomets, as we may come across onealmost any time now, on its journey to orfrom the sun. However, comets don’tamount to very much, and we only men-tion them to show we haven’t forgottenthese erstwhile terrible visitors. ButJupiter is worthy of our greatest admira-tion.

Swinging around in a majestic orbit,requiring twelve of our years for one ofhis, he pursues his stately path, a realgiant. His mean diameter is abouteighty-seven thousand miles, and he isas large as thirteen hundred and nine(Young) of such worlds as ours puttogether. He has eight moons, three ofwhich are larger than ours; indeed, oneof them is larger than Mercury, andrivals Mars in size.

In passing we note that a great changehas come over our sun; he appears to beonly about one-fifth the diameter, or onetwenty-fifth the area, we saw him fromthe earth, and he gives only one twenty-fifth as much light and heat to theJovians (assuming that there areJovians) as we receive.

We could find much of interest here ifwe had time to stop, but our tremendousspeed carries us by Jupiter in a twin-kling, and before we realize it we arecrossing the enormous gulf of over fourhundred million miles that separates theorbits of Jupiter and his big brotherSaturn—our next station.

The Distant Members of Our Family

Saturn is the farthermost planet easilyvisible to the unaided eye. His dimen-sions rival those of Jupiter. His meandiameter is about seventy-four thousandmiles. While his day and night is onlyten hours in length, his period (year) istwenty-nine and one-half of our years,and his volume is over seven hundredtimes greater than the world upon whichwe live. He has nine moons to keep himcompany in his vast orbit, in addition tohis enormous ring system, the outer ringof which is about one hundred and sev-enty thousand miles in diameter. Thereis nothing like him in the systempresided over by that great autocrat thesun, or in the universe as far as we know,and he is at once the marvel and admira-tion of astronomers. The sun now seemsto be growing alarmingly small, whilehis light is only about one-eightieth ofthat received by the earth. We can nottarry, however interesting this “abidingplace” may be, but we will hasten on toUranus.

A distance of nearly nine hundred mil-lion miles separates these two planets,and it will require over an hour and aquarter to carry us on to Uranus, buriedin space as he is, nearly one billion eighthundred million miles from the sun,from which we have so recently partedcompany. We will just settle ourselvescomfortably for our flight across thismighty span, and—Whiz! What wasthat?—Why, it is our messenger, thecannon-ball, that left the sun a hundred


years ago, while it is less than one and ahalf hours since we left on the wings oflight. This is very astonishing—to nonemore so than to the astronomers. In asingle beat of the clock of our messengeris one hundred and eighty-six thousandmiles behind us, and we must henceforthgo unheralded. When we have crossedthis great abyss, we will find Uranus tobe thirty-two thousand miles in diame-ter, and as large as sixty-five worlds likeours. He has four moons, and it requireseighty-four of our years to see his ageincrease by a single one of his years. Wehave no time to study the wonderfullypeculiar axial rotation of this far-awayplanet—much to our regret and that ofthe astronomers on earth, who are sointerested in him, and who know so littleabout him.

Another mighty plunge and we willmeet the sentinel—the other guard, so tospeak—of our system—Neptune. Wewould rest here for a few minutes if wecould, for we are on the very frontier ofthe grand scheme of worlds that com-prise the majestic family of the sun.After we leave Neptune, we will havepassed the last of the planets, so far asnow known; and at most we can onlyhope to meet one of those celestialtramps, a comet, making his regular pil-grimage to or from the sun—for all peri-odic comets must visit him at statedtimes, to report, as it were, that they arestill faithful, and have not deserted himfor one of his mighty neighbors. Wewould find Neptune eighty-five times aslarge as the earth, upon which we dwell;

and it requires one hundred and sixty-four of our years to equal one of his. Hehas but one moon. His vast orbit is fivebillion five hundred and eighty-four mil-lion miles in diameter.

We do not wish to discourage ourfriend and messenger, the cannon-ball,but it would take him two hundred yearsto cross the tremendous distance fromthe sun to Neptune, and a railroad traingoing a mile a minute—no stops—would require ten thousand years tocross this mighty orbit. We get thor-oughly bewildered in dealing with thesevast dimensions, and they cease to havea meaning, and, lest we forget, in deal-ing with the gigantic magnitudes of theplanets, it is well to remember that thesun is over seven hundred times as largeas all of them put together. Our sun nowgives us much concern, for he no longershows us a disk, but is only a point oflight, and as a sun we do not recognizehim. Of course he is much brighter thanany star that we can see, but his light andheat are only one nine-hundredth partthat we receive on earth. At this rate wefear that we may lose him altogether.About four and a quarter hours haveelapsed since we left the sun, and we areso far away that we are getting lone-some, although only on our farthestknown planet.

Only a Glimpse Thus Far

Perhaps, reader, we have traveled toofast for you. Maybe you regret it, think-ing you have seen God’s house. What!


this God’s house! Will we call this wor-thy of Him?—Not so; for in our Father’shouse are “many” mansions;” and atthis point we are still standing upon ourown threshold.

Let us pause for a moment upon theoutermost member of our sun’s greatfamily before we take our flight acrossthe vast gulf that separates us from oursun’s nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri,a star that is only about half as far awayas our four next nearest neighbors.Looking back, the human mind is over-whelmed by the immense magnitude ofthe worlds we have passed; the enor-mous distances that lie between them areincomprehensible to the human mind,and we shrink from the eternity of spacebefore us. Vast as is the system com-prised within the orbit of Neptune, it is,as we shall soon see, only as a grain ofsand on the shore of this ocean of eterni-ty upon which we are now to launch our-selves.

Until now we have been counting thetime of our journey, flying with thespeed of light, as we are, by seconds,minutes, and hours. But now this willnot suffice us; we must deal with days,weeks, months, years, for our very nextstopping place will require over fouryears for us to reach, while the moreremote stars would require centuries andmillenniums.

(To be continued)

Be sure and read about theLIBRARIES on the inside back cover.

ARE YOU HELPING YOURSTARS?

One not infrequently hears students ofAstrology express their annoyance at theway the stars work. They complain thatthe evil directions are always on timeand marked in their effect, while veryoften the good directions seem to havelittle or no influence and they wonderwhy. Have you ever realized that youcannot possibly get something for noth-ing, any more than you can create some-thing out of nothing? This holds goodwhether you want a loaf of bread, a posi-tion, favors, or anything else.

If at any time you seem to get some-thing without paying for it, you willhave to settle later, and settle with inter-est, for it is nature’s law of Justice thatnothing is given for nothing. There mustbe an equivalent in one way or another;the scales may be tipped in one directionfor a long time, but as surely as the pen-dulum swings equally to each side of theneutral point, so surely will the scales ofjustice swing, and swing until the bal-ance is reached.

This holds good in Astrology; it is saidthat “God helps the man who helps him-self.” You may also say that the starshelp the man who helps himself, forthey are God’s ministers and it shouldalways be remembered that the starsshow tendencies, they mark timeswhen opportunities are ripe, but theynever under any circumstance compelany one to act in this, that or the othermanner. But neither are the directions


haphazard events, they are lessons andexperiences for us of which we mayavail ourselves, or not, as we choose,within certain limits. For instance, theMoon comes to a square of Mars, and itwill bring to us an opportunity to loseour temper, and get into trouble thereby;then when the trouble is over and we sitdown to reflect on the occurrence, wewill most likely say to ourselves, wellwhat fools we are to allow a little thinglike that to play havoc with our happi-ness. On the other hand, if theAstrological student uses his knowledgein the proper manner, then he shouldknow what the effect of the Moon squareMars will be, he should resolve to becalm beforehand and say: Here is anopportunity for me to rule my stars, I amgoing to keep my temper well undercontrol so that no matter what happens, Iam going to maintain my equilibrium.Then, when the opportunity comes alongto lose his temper, he may stand firm.Although he may feel the passions surg-ing within, he may stand outwardlyquiet, keep a cool head and when thedanger is past he will have gained a vic-tory and learned the lesson which it wasintended that he should learn.

Or suppose that it is a square of theMoon to Saturn; this will cause peopleto worry and look upon the dark side oflife, but the astrological student may sayto himself when such a configuration isapproaching: No, I am not going toworry, worry will not help matters, ithinders, because it takes from me all my

strength, wherewith otherwise I couldovercome conditions. I am going to lookat the bright side of the matter and seewhat I can do to remedy this trouble.

As a matter of fact, most of the thingswe worry about never come to pass, andif the student can learn under this plane-tary direction to keep his equilibrium, tostop worrying, then he has ruled his starsand learned an important lesson. Thus,if he helps his stars by learning thelessons which they are endeavoring toteach him, the evil directions will nothave the same power over him as if hesimply sits down and folds his handssaying: “Well I cannot help it, I amunder evil directions and naturallythings are bound to go wrong in everyparticular.”

There is in the horoscope a dominantfactor; namely, the Individual will. Bearin mind, that the horoscope shows onlytendencies and it has no power what-ever to compel you; compulsion isfrom within yourself. You, in the finalanalysis, are the dominant factor in thathoroscope, and can by an exercise ofsufficient will power rule your stars. Itis admitted that we are all weak, andtherefore not able to exercise the neces-sary will power at all times, but that isexactly what these evil directions aresent to us to cultivate—a stronger and afirmer will to do the right thing at theright time, and it depends upon our-selves whether we shall be compelled bycircumstances from without or by ourown will from within. Surely that is the


proper way, and Astrological students,above all other people, ought to be ableto guide their lives safely amid the rocksand shoals of existence, because theyhave proper warning, they know what iscoming, and they should prepare for it.

On the other hand it is asked: Why dothe good directions not bring a corre-sponding measure of benefit? And theanswer to that question is, for the verysame lack of co-operation; it is asabsolutely necessary to help our stars inone direction as to hinder them in theother. Are you out of a position withperhaps the family exchequer runninglow and no means in sight wherewith toreplenish it, but your hopes are centeredupon a strong favorable direction, suchas perhaps a trine of the progressedMoon to the ruler of the sixth house orthe Sun; under these conditions you feelsure, from an astrological standpoint,that you are going to obtain a good posi-tion which will put you on easy street?Very well, you may be sure that theopportunity will come, but do not expectit to be laid in your lap without a singleeffort upon your part.

If a thing is worth having it is worthgoing after, it is worth making the verybest efforts to get it. Do not neglect anydetail, dress yourself carefully, but notshowily when you go to see the personwho has it in his power to bestow thefavor; remember, first impressions areimportant. Have all your ammunitionready, in the shape of recommendationsand everything else that you would havewere you not depending upon an astro-

logical aspect to help you get the posi-tion. Use every proper means ofimpressing the prospective employerwith your ability and you may dependthat your effort will be successful, foryou have helped your stars, you havegrasped your opportunity.

Or, are you about to embark in a busi-ness venture with some one else and youfeel very confident because the Moon istrine to the Sun and Venus in the seventhhouse? Be careful that you do not layaside your caution on that account,thinking that under such a direction noone can come into your partnership whois not all right. If you do, you neglectyour part and you will have no reasonwhatever to blame the stars if later on itis shown that the person is not all youexpected him to be.

Nothing is needed in the world todayin the same degree that we need com-mon sense, and this applies to thedepartment of astrology, as well as toevery other department of life.Opportunity may be likened to a tobog-gan slide between ourselves and ourdesires: It is necessary for us to make anadequate initial effort in order to launchour sled upon this incline; but once wehave done our part, then everything willgo along swimmingly under favorabledirections, for then the stars are with usto impress others in our behalf, or tostrengthen our penetrative power so thatwe may know what is best of us.

If you want to know positively thepower of directions, even transits, as wecall the actual position of the stars in the


sky, take an ephemeris and note moonaspects given in the extreme right handcolumn for each month. This magazinewill reach you in March. On the 2nd and29th the Moon is in opposition to Mars,and you will then find in people a gener-al lack of energy and ambition; theywould rather tear down than build. Onthe 15th we have a conjunction of Marsand the Moon. Then people will beactive and energetic, but impulse, ratherthan common sense will govern; hence,they will accomplish little good, andmay do harm without intention. But onthe 6th and 24th, when the Moon andMars are trine, there will be a generaldesire among people to do something ofa constructive nature, and they will meetwith success in such efforts. And last,but not least, on the 8th and 22nd theMoon square Mars will make peopleirritable, quarrelsome, destructive, readyto fly at each other, unreasonable andunmanageable.

YOUR CHILD’S HOROSCOPE

Vincent F. Born Feb. 10, 1912, 0:12p.m. Lat. 85 W. Long. 38 N.

At Vincent’s birth we find Mars risingin the intellectual sign Gemini, andMercury, the ruler of the Asc., is in con-junction with Uranus in the ninth housein Aquarius, another mental sign, trine toMars on the ascendent. This in itselfshows an exceptionally active and effi-cient mentality. He has not only a splen-

did reason, because of the configurationof Mercury, but he has also a powerfulintuition given him by the blending of

the Uranian Ray, and this is particularlystrong because the Moon, the other sig-nificator of mind, is also sextile toUranus from an energetic martial signScorpio. He will be very quick to forman opinion and if any one disagrees withhim he will feel very much annoyed, andwill probably show the Scorpio side ofhis nature, a quick temper. Saturn andVenus are what we call in mutual recep-tion; that is to say, Saturn is in Taurus, asign ruled by Venus, and Venus is inCapricorn, a sign ruled by Saturn. Thismakes their aspect, which is trine,stronger than it would otherwise be.Taurus is the second sign, which has rulepartly over finance and Capricorn is thetenth that has to do with social standing.The powerful aspect formed by Saturnand Venus in these two signs show thatVincent will be very faithful in all of his


attachments, whether friendship or fam-ily ties, and will also be what people willcall very “lucky.” He will accumulateconsiderable money, but he will not be a“plunger” or “gambler” by any means;whatever gains come to him will comethrough business insight and safe invest-ment in land or kindred stable enterpris-es.

Mars in Gemini on the ascendent, par-ticularly when it is so well aspected toMercury and Uranus, as is here the case,indicates a person who will write orspeak and it is very probable that atsome time or another he will go into thepublishing business with much success,for the Mercurial sign Virgo is on thefifth house, which rules publishing, andthe Moon is sextile to Uranus. This indi-cates that however conservative Vincentmay be in business methods, followingthe conventional lines, it is certain thatin the matter of his publications therewill be a very distinct occult element.

Another thing that will help him great-ly to achieve success is the fact that hewill have efficient helpers and faithfulfriends because he will know how tochoose people, being able to read themlike an open book. Mercury conjunctionUranus in the ninth house, whichdenotes travel, and sextile to the wan-dering Moon, shows that there will beperiods of travel for research and inves-tigation and that this will be both pleas-ant and profitable.

Jupiter on the cusp of the seventhhouse shows also general good fortune,the Sun trine to the Asc. is very good for

the vitality. Mars also corroborates thisaugur by his presence there, but I am notso well pleased over the fact that thereare no aspects between Sun, Jupiter,Neptune and the other planets; neitherare there any squares or oppositions.Things will come too easy to Vincentand this is apt to make him autocraticand opinionated, short in his methodsand behavior to others. Be sure that youallow him to struggle for himself asmuch as possible, both in getting hislessons, taking care of his person, and allother things, and above all teach himconsideration for others.

Because he has so much, he must notlook down upon others who have only alittle. Teach him that popularityinvolves a responsibility which he isbound to respect, for if he does not, ret-ribution will be sure to come, though notfor him in this life. But though the“Mills of the Gods grind slowly, theygrind exceedingly fine” and sometime,somewhere, he will have to render anaccount for the way he has used theunusual talents which are his in the pre-sent embodiment.

With regard to health, there is oneplace in particular that is dangerous forVincent, namely, the throat. Saturn inTaurus always brings obstructions and aliability to cold in that part of the body.Therefore it will be very necessary forVincent to look out for himself, so that adisability of the throat will not interferewith him in his expression as a speaker,if at any time he takes up that as a voca-tion. The circulation is not very good


either because the Sun is unaspected, butproper exercises will easily compensatefor this tendency.

Aubrey B. Born March 9, 1906, 2:48p.m., Brooklyn, N. Y.

At the time of Aubrey’s birth the Moonwas in the Mercurial sign Virgo, sextileto Neptune, trine Uranus, opposition toSaturn, and square to Jupiter. Mercurywas in Aries, which governs the head,sextile to Jupiter, square to Neptune andUranus. This will give Aubrey a fertile,quick, receptive and inspirational mind.The trine of the Moon to Uranus giveshim intuition, but the opposition of theMoon to Saturn is bad for memory. Hewill always have an answer ready onevery occasion, but because of thesquare of Mercury to Uranus andNeptune he will often be sarcastic andvery critical.

Mars in Aries also makes him veryblunt so that that which he says willoften sound ten times worse than hereally means it. This will cause him agreat deal of trouble in life and it shouldtherefore be your endeavor to inculcatein him a charity for others and bringhome to him the fact that he ought to bediplomatic instead of outspoken in hiscriticism. It is not that he really meansto wound other people, because Mercurysextile to Jupiter will give the mind abenevolent and sympathetic turn, butMars makes him so blunt about what hesays that it will hurt and make enemies.

The Moon in the mercurial sign Virgoand in opposition to Saturn also gives alack of continuity and a desire for

change, which is bad for success in life,no matter what our undertakings; there-fore, above all things he should betaught to stay at whatever he undertakesuntil he has accomplished it.

There is in this configuration also adecided tendency to gloom; it bringsmany sorrows and disappointments inlife, but on the other hand, these trialsare sent to give him the lessons he needsto learn, and there is one blessing abouthim, he will not go about with a longdrawn face wearing his heart on hissleeve making himself and his surround-ings much more unhappy with pes-simism; he will keep his disappoint-ments to himself, and present a cheerfulfront to the world.

With regard to his work in life: Thereare two ways open for him. One goesthrough the world and if he follows that


he will attain most success in electricity,as Uranus is in the sixth house, whichdenotes the service he will render, andCapricorn, the tenth sign, is on the sixthcusp, making this position stronger. Butworking with electricity is not a verysafe thing, to say the least, and thesquare of Mercury to Uranus from thesign of the head makes him quite impul-sive; therefore he should be doubly care-ful in that work.

But the Moon in the sixth sign Virgoand trine to Uranus in the sixth house,also sextile to Neptune in the psychicsign Cancer, together with the sun in theoccult sign Pisces in the eighth house ofoccultism, shows another ability, namelyas a healer. Venus and Jupiter are inmutual reception and sextile, therefore itis certain that religion will play a con-siderable part in his life and the psychicabilities which are latent in him willundoubtedly come to the front at sometime, though probably not before thetwenty-eighth year has been passed.

Whatever line he takes up he is boundto meet with a certain amount of honorand recognition, and it is my judgmentthat Aubrey is going to be a leader inoccultism, provided he can be guardedfrom the danger which comes fromMercury square Neptune and Uranus.These two planets, being on the sixthand twelfth houses and Neptune in thepsychic sign Cancer, may cause disem-bodied spirits to try to take advantage ofhim and overawe his mind, so that hewould become a negative mediuminstead of a positive mystic, and you

should therefore be careful that he isnever brought into any place where neg-ative conditions exist, also that he is notallowed to associate with any personwho has mediumistic faculties or whopractices mediumship. Sun and Marsare unaspected, therefore he would nothave energy enough to withstand, partic-ularly in the earlier years.

With regard to health, we find that thediseases which threatens him particular-ly are of a nervous type, owing to thepresence of Mercury in Aries square toNeptune and Uranus on the cusps of thetwelfth and sixth houses. The Moon inopposition to Saturn in the sign Pisces,which governs the feet, is a warning tokeep those members warm, to avoidcatching colds.

Jupiter in Taurus in square to the Moonin Virgo is a warning against indulgenceof the appetite, for this will bring diges-tive disorders, particularly in the intesti-nal tract. By knowing these matters andacting accordingly, it is quite possible toovercome them all, and the key is cur-tailment of the tendency to worry, denot-ed by the Moon opposition Saturn.

We shall one day forget all about dutyand do everything from the love of theloveliness of it, the satisfaction of therightness of it.—George McDonald

You can help to spread knowledgeby introducing this Magazine amongyour friends and acquaintances.


THE EGO

By Harry Wilson

Divine, Life and Human Spirit(Continued)

In our last article we followed theprogress of the Ego to that point in itsdevelopment when it was enabled toenter the three-fold physical body. Wefound that this could be accomplishedonly by means of the blood. Also, thatred, heat-giving blood was necessary asa vehicle in which the Ego could func-tion.

On page 268 of the Cosmo we find thefollowing explanation of the influenceof Mars as regard the production of redblood. “In that part of the Earth periodpreceding the separation of the sexes—during the three-and-a-half revolutionswhich intervened between the timewhen Mars was differentiated and thebeginning of the Lemurian Epoch—Mars traveled in a different orbit to thepresent, and its aura (that part of the

finer vehicles which extend beyond thedense planet) permeated the body of thecentral planet and polarized the ironwithin it.

“As iron is essential in the productionof warm, red blood, all creatures werecold blooded, or rather, the fluid parts ofthe body were no warmer than the sur-rounding atmosphere.

“When the earth was set free from thecentral sun, that event changed the orbitsof the planets, and thus the influence ofMars over the iron of the earth was min-imized. The planetary spirit of Marsfinally withdrew the remainder of thatinfluence, and although the desire bodiesof the earth and Mars still penetrate, thedynamic power of Mars over the iron(which is a Mars metal) has ceased andiron has become available for use on ourplanet.

“Iron is in reality the basis of separateexistence. Without iron the red, heat-giving blood would be an impossibility,and the Ego could have no hold in thebody. When red blood developed, in thelatter part of the Lemurian Epoch, the

Studies in

The RosicrucianCosmo Conception

* * * * * * *

body became upright and the time hadcome when the Ego could begin to dwellwithin the body and control it.”

As already stated, the Ego did notimmediately enter, but the body wasnow ready. It was not until the last thirdof the Atlantean Epoch that the Ego wasenabled to enter fully and direct thefunctions of its physical body. (Cosmop. 294) On page 292 of the Cosmo willbe found a very interesting account ofthe physical phenomena co-incidentwith this important event.

On page 350 we find the following:“The Ego works directly through theblood. The Race-spirit guides the Racesby working in the blood, as the group-spirit of the animals directs its speciesthrough the blood. So also does the Egocontrol its vehicle but with a difference.

“The Ego operates by means of theheat of the blood, while the Race-(i.e.tribal or family) spirit works by meansof the air, as it is drawn into the lungs.That is why Jehovah, or HisMessengers, ‘breathed into man’s nos-trils,’ thereby securing admission for theRace-spirit, Community-spirits, etc.”On page 143 we also find under the cap-tion “The Blood the Vehicle of the Ego,”the following:

“In infancy, and up to the fourteenthyear, the red marrow bones do not makeall the blood corpuscles. Most of themare supplied by the thymus gland, whichis largest in the fetus and graduallydiminishes as the individual blood-mak-ing faculty develops in the growing

child. The thymus gland contains, as itwere, a supply of blood corpuscles givenby the parents, and consequently thechild who draws its blood from thatsource, does not realize its individuality.Not until the blood is made by the childdoes it think of itself as “I,” and whenthe thymus gland disappears at the ageof fourteen, the “I” feeling reaches itsfull expression, for then the blood ismade and dominated entirely by theEgo.

“The following will make clear theidea and its logic:

“It will be remembered that assimila-tion and growth depend upon the forcesworking along the positive pole of thevital body’s chemical ether. That is setfree at the seventh year, together withthe balance of the vital body. Only thechemical ether is fully ripe at that time;the other parts need more ripening.

“At the fourteenth year the life ether ofthe vital body, which has to do withpropagation, is fully ripe. In the periodfrom seven to fourteen years of age theexcessive assimilation has stored up anamount of force which goes to the sexorgans, and is ready at the time thedesire body is set free.

“This force of sex is stored in theblood during the third of the seven yearperiods and in that time the light ether,which is the avenue for the blood heat, isdeveloped and controls the heart, so thatthe body is neither too hot nor too cold.

“In early childhood the blood veryoften rises to an abnormal temperature.


During the period of excessive growth itis often the reverse, but in the hot-head-ed, unrestrained youth, passion and tem-per very often drive the Ego out by over-heating the blood. We very appropriate-ly call this ebullition, or boiling over oftemper, and describe the effect as caus-ing the person to ‘lose his head,’ i.e.,become incapable of thought. This isexactly what happens when passion,rage or temper overheats the blood, thusdrawing the Ego outside the bodies. Thedescription is accurate when, if a personis in such a state, we say, ‘he has lostcontrol of himself.’ The Ego is outsideof his vehicles and they are runningamuck, bereft of the guiding influence ofthought, part of the work of which is toprovide a brake on impulse.

“The great and terrible danger of suchoutbursts is that before the owner re-enters his body some disembodied enti-ty may take possession of it and keephim out. This is called ‘obsession.’Only the man who keeps cool and doesnot allow the excess of heat to drive himout can think properly.

“As proof of the assertion that the Egocannot work in the body when the bloodis too hot or too cold, we will call atten-tion to the fact that excessive heat makesus sleepy, and if carried beyond a certainpoint, it drives the Ego out, leaving thebody in a faint, that is, unconscious.Excessive cold has also a tendency tomake the body sleepy or inert. It is onlywhen the blood is at or near the normaltemperature that the Ego can use it as a

vehicle of consciousness.“To further show the connection of the

Ego with the blood we may mention theburning blush of shame, which is an evi-dence of the manner in which the bloodis driven to the head, thus overheatingthe brain and paralyzing thought.

“Fear is the state in which the Egowants to barricade itself against someoutside danger. It then drives the bloodto the center of the body and becomespale, because the blood has left theperiphery of the body and has lost heat,thus paralyzing thought. We then say:His blood ‘freezes,’ he shivers and histeeth chatter, as when the temperature islowered by atmospheric conditions. Infever the excess of heat causes delirium.

“The full-blooded person, when theblood is not too hot, is active in mindand body, while the anemic person issleepy. In one case the Ego has bettercontrol, in the other less. When the Egowants to think, it drives blood, at theproper heat, to the brain. When a heavymeal centers the blood on the digestivetracts, the man cannot think, he is sleepy.

“The old Norsemen and the Scots rec-ognized that the Ego is in the blood. Nostranger could become associated withthem as a relative until he ‘mixed blood’with them and thus became one of them.Goethe, who was an Initiate, alsoshowed this in his Faust. Faust is aboutto sign the contract with Mephistophelesand asks,

“Why not sign with ordinary ink? Whyuse blood?


“Mephisto answers, “Blood is a most peculiar essence. “He knows who has the blood has the

man; that without the warm blood, noEgo can find expression.

“The proper heat for the real expres-sion of the Ego is not present until themind is born from the macrocosmicConcrete Mind, when the individual isabout 21 years of age. Statutory lawalso recognizes this as the earliest agewhen the man is deemed fit to exercise afranchise.”

As it is our intention to consider in aseparate article the various steps inci-dent to the soul’s progress from birth tore-birth under the title of “A Life Cycle,”we will not at the present time dwellupon the conditions governing the Ego’sdescent into the Physical World.

It is sufficient to refer the student topage 129 of the Cosmo where we findthat after having assimilated all the fruitsof his past life, and having learned tobuild a suitable body to express himselfin the Physical World, the Ego, from itshome in the third heaven—the region ofAbstract Thought—becomes desirous ofnew experience.

On page 132 we read, “Man is also ina school, the school of experience. Hemust return many times before he canhope to master all the knowledge in theworld of sense. No one earth life, how-ever rich in experience, could furnish theknowledge, so nature decrees that hemust return to earth, after intervals ofrest, to take up his work where he left it

off, exactly as the child takes up its workeach day, after the intervening sleep ofnight.

“It is no argument to say that man doesnot remember his former lives. We can-not remember all the events of our pre-sent lives. We do not recollect ourlabors in learning to write, yet we haveacquired a knowledge of the art of writ-ing, which proves that we did learn. Allthe faculties that we possess are a proofthat we acquired them at sometime, andsomewhere.

“Again, if there were no return toearth, what is the use of living? Whystrive for anything? Why should a lifeof happiness in an eternal heaven be thereward for a good life? What benefitcould come from a good life in heavenwhere everyone is already happy?Surely in a place where everybody ishappy and contented there is no need forsympathy, self-sacrifice, or wise coun-sel! No one would need them there, buton earth there are many who need thesevery things, and such humanitarian andaltruistic qualities are of the greatest ser-vice to suffering humanity.

“Therefore the Great Law, whichworks for Good, brings man back againto work in the world for the benefit ofhimself and others, with his acquiredtreasures, instead of letting them go towaste in a heaven where no one needsthem.”

As has already been stated, the fruitsof the experience gained during each lifeare assimilated in the inner or higher


worlds by the Ego and used in the build-ing of new bodies. On page 128 weread, “It is a law of nature that no onecan inhabit a more efficient body than heis capable of building. He first learns tobuild a certain grade of body and then helearns to live in it. In that way he dis-covers its defects and is taught how toremedy them. All men work uncon-sciously at the building of their bodiesduring ante-natal life until they havereached the point where the quintes-sence of former bodies, which they havesaved, is to be built in. Then they workconsciously. It will therefore be seenthat the more a man advances, the morehe works on his vehicles, thus makingthem immortal, the more power he hasto build as he desires for a new life.”

The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conceptionalso lays special stress upon the impor-tance and necessity of each individual,or Ego, asserting its absolute indepen-dence. To the extent that our sympathiesare played upon and given expression inthe great “Crisis” of today, do weacknowledge and give evidence of ourbondage to the great Race Spirits, whoare in this manner forcing the Ego fromits castle and holding us back in ourdevelopment.

We have earned our freedom and mustexercise it. Being “free men” let us rec-ognize all combatants as our brothers indistress. Service to them and not to theRace Spirits is our work in the world.By rendering such service, impartiallyand unselfishly, we hasten the day of

Universal Brotherhood, which is the aimand watchword of the RosicrucianFellowship.

You are referred in this connection topage 351 of the Cosmo where we learnthat, “Previous to the advent of Jehovah,when the earth was as yet a part of theSun, there was one common GroupSpirit, composed of all the creativeHierarchies, which controlled the entirehuman family, but it was intended thateach body should be the temple and pli-able instrument of an indwelling spiritand that meant an infinite division ofrulership.

“Jehovah came with His Angels andArchangels and made the first great divi-sion into Races, giving to each group theguiding influence of a Race Spirit—anArchangel.

“For each Ego He appointed one of theAngels to act as guardian until the indi-vidual spirit had grown strong enough tobecome emancipated from all outsideinfluence.

“Christ came to prepare the way forthe emancipation of humanity from theguidance of the differentiating Race-and Family-spirit, and to unite the wholefamily in one Universal Brotherhood.

“He taught that Abraham’s seedreferred to the bodies only and calledtheir attention to the fact that beforeAbraham lived (the) ‘I’—the Ego—wasin existence. The three-fold individualspirit had its being before all tribes andraces and it will remain when they havepassed away and even the memory of


them is no more.“The three fold spirit in man, the Ego,

is the God within, whom the personal,bodily man must learn to follow.Therefore did Christ say that, to be hisdisciple, a man must forsake all that hehad. His teaching points to the emanci-pation of the God within.

“He calls upon man to exercise his pre-rogative as an individual and rise abovefamily, tribe and nation. He must fulfillall duties to them, but he is to cease toidentify himself with part, and must rec-ognize an equal kinship with all theworld. That is the ideal given to theworld by Christ.

on, and you will find it is fine.”Among the many wonderful things for

which California is justly famous is alsothe Ostrich Industry. A number ofOstrich farms are located in variousplaces and in the past birds have beenraised for their feathers alone, but now ithas been discovered that they are “goodto eat” and forthwith the murder hasbegun.

The new dish was first introduced atThanksgiving and Christmas time, 1914,when the “tid-bit” was served to theguests at some of the fashionable hotelsin Pasadena, the home of the originalOstrich farm. But the fad is spreading,as evidenced by the following newspa-per clipping. A new export product hasbeen discovered to add to the wealth ofCalfornia, for we learn that the WaldorfAstoria, eager to tickle the jaded palates


SIRLOIN OF HORSE ANDOSTRICH ROAST!

And why not? If it does soundstrange, it may be all in the point ofview. We have abolished the Mosaicrestrictions, differentiating betweenwhat is “clean” and “unclean,” so whyshould we stop at anything? And if weare carnivorous we might even findupon experiment that the African chiefwas right when he said to messengers ofStanley, who refused a piece of his wife,(he was just eating her when they called)“why shouldn’t I eat her in preference toa horse or a cow? They never wash,they wallow in the dirt, they eat anddrink things I would not touch. Shebathed every day and lived on the finestfood. You say it is horrible to eat her,but you just try a piece with a little salt

Nutrition and Health* * * * * *

of its guests has ordered five youngostriches which are to grace itsChristmas banquet.

FIVE OSTRICHES ORDEREDHERE FOR N. Y. DINNER

An order for five young ostriches,dressed for a Christmas banquet inthe Waldorf-Astoria, will be filledtoday by a local poultry firm. Thebirds, which weigh from 50 to 150pounds, are now on the ice growingtender. Upon arrival in New Yorkthey will be soaked in orange juiceuntil Christmas Day. They will thenbe roasted and served whole, fur-nishing a delicacy which, accordingto epicures, cannot be surpassed.

In another paper we read that thehorse, which has also hitherto been near-ly immune from slaughter as a source ofprovender, is now, when too old to work,to be fattened as food for the poor inNew York, instead of being ingloriouslyconsigned to the glue factory, as hithertodone.

HORSE FLESH FOR FOOD TOBE SOLD IN NEW YORK CITY

(By Associated Press)

New York, Dec. 21.—Sale of horsemeat for food will be permitted inNew York after January 1, the Board

of Health announced today.Commenting upon the revocation ofthe section of the sanitary codewhich prohibited the use of horseflesh, Commissioner Emerson saidthat while the Health Departmentdoes not exactly recommend it, noharm can be seen in its use. “Thehorse never has tuberculosis andalmost never communicates a malig-nant disease to human beings,” hesaid. “Hereafter, old horses, insteadof being sold for their bones, whichare worth little or nothing, will befattened and disposed of for meat.”Dr. Emerson announced that special

precautions would be taken to preventthe sale of horseflesh in the guise ofveal or beef.

We note in the news item regarding theostriches, that the corpses are on ice tomake them tender; it will probably notbe necessary to so treat the horse car-casses, as the daily beatings of their dri-vers administered without stint during anumber of years have probably madethem as tender as the poor have a right toexpect.

But, by the way, how are we to explainthe statement that the ostriches are onice to make them tender? If that willconvert the corpse of an ostrich to a ten-der tidbit to tickle the palate of an epi-cure, why do undertakers and healthofficers insist, as they do in some places,that a human corpse “rots” so quicklythat it is unsanitary to keep it for the


three and one-half days after deathrequired by the spirit to assimilate thepanorama of its past life? Is the corpseof a murdered animal immune from theprocess of decay? Is there one law ofnature which improves the carcass of ananimal and another that causes humanremains to rot? Or is it that “tender” and“rotting” are synonymous? So that the“tender” flesh of the epicurean tidbit isin the same condition of decay as the“rotting” flesh of the human corpsewhich we hurry from our homes toescape the nauseating stench? This is aquestion flesh eaters would do well toponder.

Notwithstanding the liberal use ofcondiments and even bathing thebutchered bird in orange juice, the factcannot be disguised that whoever eats itmakes his stomach a graveyard for thedecaying corpse of a murdered animal.Therefore, self respect, if not kindlyfeelings for the lower creatures, or evenconsideration of one’s own health, oughtto cause thinking people to abstain fromthe polluting practice of flesh-eating.

For it is polluting, poisonous, and alto-gether unnecessary for anyone who issufficiently interested in the higherthings to eat the flesh of animals. Thereare others who still need both meat andliquor, for they have served and stillserve an important purpose in theprocess of evolution, as explained in theRosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, but anincreasing number of people are abovethis stage.

As an instance of how a clean dietaffects the body, we may mention thewriter’s experience. When a child, hehad the misfortune to injure the leftankle, with the result that he was con-fined in his bed for sixteen months.During that time the surgeons took sev-eral splinters of the bone, bored throughthe ankle, and a number of tubes wereinserted in the flesh to drain the enor-mous amount of pus which formed with-in. Finally he was allowed to get up, andwalked on crutches for six months, thenfor years the leg was supported by a spe-cially made boot and a steel bandage, tillat last it grew sufficiently strong to dowithout support. But the wounds did notheal on one side of the leg, there was anopen sore about eight inches long andone inch wide, from which pus flowedcontinually for thirty years. During thattime it was necessary to bandage the legnight and morning, and more or less painwas experienced all the time. But aboutsix months after a strict vegetarian dietwas adopted, the pain ceased, the woundclosed and in the thirteen years whichhave since elapsed it has remainedwhole.

But the benefit of a clean diet was alsoevident in other ways, as the followingincident will show. One morning aboutthree years after adoption of this modeof living, the writer had the misfortuneto cut off a fingernail close to the root.Had this happened in his pre-vegetarian-days, it would have resulted in enormousloss of blood, for then his blood would


not coagulate, and the least scratch bledprofusely for a long time. But at thetime of this accident only a few drops ofblood appeared, coagulated, and only asmall rag was used; this was removed inthe afternoon to facilitate operation ofthe typewriter. Usually suppuration setsin when a nail has been torn off, but notthe slightest sign of that nature wasexperienced. The skin healed in a fewdays, and during the six months requiredto grow a new nail, we used the fingerwithout discomfort, except the first fewhours after the accident.

Reports from the scene of war alsoattest to this fact, for among the millionswho are engaged in this titanic struggle,there are many races who live on anentirely meatless diet and it is noticedthat these people recover much morequickly from their wounds and are ableto survive lacerations which wouldprove fatal in the cases of flesh eaters.

A newspaper correspondent says: TheTurkish soldiers are easily satisfied witha piece of dry bread and a little water;hence, they do not accumulate wasteproducts which poison the blood. Manyyears ago English physicians in Indiawere astounded at the recovery of troopsfrom wounds which would have beenfatal to white men, and we all know inthe war between Japan and RussiaJapanese troops show a similar record ofrapid recovery.

What is true in war is true in peace.The non-flesh eaters not only haveremarkable endurance, but recovermuch more rapidly from injuries. It may

also be said that he lives to a much moreripe age. Experiments with a large num-ber of subjects have shown that the heartof flesh eaters beat about seventy to sev-enty-two beats in a minute, while that ofthe vegetarian beats only about sixty;this is six hundred heart beats less perhour, or about fifteen thousand heartbeats less per day. Thus, the heart of thevegetarian is strained considerably lessthan that of the flesh eaters, and conse-quently he can endure longer in everyway.

There is, however, also another reasonfor the rapid recovery of lower races,such as the Hindus and Japanese; theirnervous system is not so highly orga-nized as that of the more advancedAnglo-Saxon race, hence they do notfeel the shock as keenly. It is for this rea-son that our own North AmericanIndians recover in spite of wounds of themost horrible nature without any med-ical attendance, and finally their vitalbodies are composed only of the chemi-cal and light ethers, or principally so,and this fact in itself accounts for theirgreater hardiness.

The vegetarian diet is not a panacea forall ills to which the flesh is heir, howev-er, and who thinks that mere abstinencefrom flesh, fowl or fish will bring himhealth, is apt to find just the reverse.Certain elements are needed for thenourishment of the body, these are sup-plied in the main by the common mixeddiet, and the starches found in potatoes,white bread, pastries and puddings lefton the ordinary table when meat has


been dispensed with are difficult todigest, also insufficient in nutriment;hence to attempt to live on them is tocourt disease.

The balanced vegetarian diet in whichpeas, beans and other legumes supplythe needed protein, which includeswhole wheat bread, possibly with theaddition of eggs and milk, to further sus-tain the body; may also include fruits,nuts and a variety of vegetables, whichare sources of important mineral salts,and such a diet will do more to producelasting human health and happiness thanall the horses and ostriches in the world,even if they were put on ice till so “ten-der” that they melt in the mouth, orsoaked in orange juice till the fragranceof the fruit were raised to the—nthpower.

MENU FROM MT. ECCLESIA

Breakfast 7:30 a. m.

Prunes French ToastPuffed Rice Maple Syrup

Coffee or Milk

Dinner 12 Noon

Stewed chestnutsRice and CurryCorn Chowder

Supper 5:30 p. m.

Endive SaladGerman Apfel Kuchen

Whole Wheat Bread and ButterTea or Milk

Stewed Prunes

Wash carefully, soak over night. In themorning, while preparing meal, set dishon back of stove and allow to get hot,but not to boil. Serve, allowing each tosweeten to taste. This method preservesall the natural flavor and sugar of thefruit.

French Toast

Beat three eggs in half a cup of milkand add a little salt. Slice stale breadthin, place in batter, allowing to soak fora few minutes. Then fry in hot griddlewith sufficient oil to cover bottom ofpan. Serve hot with maple syrup.

Corn Chowder

Cut potatoes into three cupfuls ofcubes and boil in four cupfuls of waterfor five minutes, add one small can ofcorn, and again let it come to a boil.Prepare a frying pan with two table-spoons of butter, one large onion sliced,fry until light brown. Add this to pota-toes and corn, boil five minutes, thenadd half cup of milk, some crackercrumbs, salt and pepper to taste.

Stewed Chestnuts

Boil one quart of chestnuts in water forten minutes, allow to cool sufficiently tohandle, then peel carefully. Put kernels


in steamer with two medium sized sourapples sliced on top, steam until chest-nuts are mealy. Serve hot.

Hints for the Housewife

Save lemon rinds and over-ripe toma-toes, they are valuable in bleaching

cooking utensils and agate ware that hasbecome discolored. Add water to fillvessel and allow to soak several days.

Salt will remove egg stains from sil-verware.

A little flour placed on a cut will stopbleeding immediately.

there are no two horoscopes alike, theycannot be, for every individual showssome dissimilarities to the rest, and so itis evident that resistance to any diseasewill never be the same in two cases.Two persons may be receiving identicaltreatment for practically similar symp-toms, yet their response to remedialagents may be very different, but it willbe in accord with the indications of thehoroscope.

The detection of disease has beensomewhat simplified by the worksissued by the Rosicrucian Fellowship,and briefly the theory is this. Each signhas an affinity for a certain part of thehuman anatomy and the organs con-tained therein, thus the first sign Arieshas jurisdiction over the head, the othersfollowing in rotation to the twelfth signPisces, which rules the feet.

The planets affect the various parts ofthe body when they are in the corre-


THE COMBINATION OFASTRAL AND SPINAL DIAGNOSIS

J. Casey, D. C.

The purpose of diagnosis is to deter-mine the causes of symptoms manifest-ing as disease, and upon its correctnessdepends the effectiveness of the treat-ment.

Several methods exist for the detectionof disease, but the two explained beloware probably least known, and conse-quently little recognized. Progress,however, demands that we investigate,and if found worthy, accept new ideas.

In Astrological diagnosis the datarequired is the time and place of birth,judgment being made from a map of theheavens. The movement of the celestialbodies is such that their relative posi-tions will not be duplicated for a periodof over twenty-five thousand years. Thus

Healing Department* * * * * *

sponding zodiacal sign, and the angle oftheir changing rays develops the differ-ent forms of morbid action to which thesystem is liable. By combining thesetwo factors, and bearing in mind thehouse in which they occur and theexcitement or retardation occasioned bytheir aspects to each other, an accurateand extremely penetrative system ofdiagnosis has been evolved.

To give an example. The keyword ofSaturn in every department of life is“obstruction,” and to find it posited inthe sign Gemini, which rules the lungs,at once advises care in regard to thoseparts. If, in addition, we find the planetJupiter placed in the same sign, withintwo or three degrees of Saturn, then asthe latter planet rules the arterial circula-tion, it becomes apparent that this willbe obstructed in some degree and as aresult the subject will be liable to coldsin the lungs, and the more serious mal-adies that may result from neglect of thesimpler symptoms.

In The Message of the Stars astrolog-ical delineation has been aptly said tobe superior to X-ray diagnosis, forwhereas the instrument may indicateweakness at any moment, the horo-scope applies precisely the same princi-ple to the system for the whole life,both prior and subsequent to the time ofexamination.

Nor is this the most valuable functionof this mode of diagnosis, for it alsopoints to the time at which inherentweaknesses will become functional ororganic disorders, and thus the reader

may become “forewarned and fore-armed” in two different ways.

Astrology has, however, one limitationand this restriction applies to every sci-ence of applied psychology. The natalfigure indicates the tendencies of thelife in every department. Choice andfree will belong to man and to man alonehowever; he has the prerogative of over-throwing predictions by an act of will,but is usually too weak to do so, andconsequently the horoscope remains anexceedingly accurate guide, especiallyas very few are even aware of the fact ofplanetary influence.

This brings us to the most importantpurpose of astrology. The perception ofinherent debility in any direction is astep in advance, but it merely leads us tothe threshold of a new system of dealingwith disease before it manifests.

“Prevention is better than cure” is aprofound truth, and therefore itbehooves each individual perceiving thepossibilities of this science, to find hisweak points and so order his life that hemay build up the best possible resistiveconstitution, and at the time of dangerattend to the local conditions.

Under the direction of this science wehave the best and most rational opportu-nity to apply the ounce of preventionwhich makes the pound of cure unneces-sary.

Spinal diagnosis, being a physicalprocess, is not so broad in scope as theformer method. It will show location,and to some extent severity, but nevertime of manifestation. Its accuracy


depends upon sensitiveness of the touchof the operator.

To comprehend the theory of spinaldiagnosis, it is necessary to understandthe principle of spinal formation. Thespine is composed of a number of smallbones called vertebrae, which are heldtogether by ligaments. Near the centerof each vertebrae is a round openingabout one inch in diameter, and when thevertebrae are in position, these severalopenings form a hollow tube throughwhich the spinal cord passes downwardfrom the brain.

On either side of each vertebrae thereare two small notches which, when thevertebrae are in position, form an open-ing for the nerves to pass out from thespinal chord. For example, the nervespassing from the second dorsal verte-brae, in the main, supply the heart withnerve force, while the kidneys obtaintheir energy from nerves proceedingfrom the tenth dorsal.

Thus if either of these vertebrae befound in any way displaced from thenormal position, that is, out of alignmentwith the general formation of the spine,trouble will be perceptible in the organsdependent upon them for nerve life, anda similar cause in any other region of thespine will produce like effects in the partof the body supplied with nerve forcetherefrom.

The use of these two methods of diag-nosis in conjunction gives material forinteresting comparative study. To givean example. If in the horoscope of a

patient an affliction is found in the signLeo, ruling the heart, then the corre-sponding vertebrae, the second dorsal,may be expected to show need of adjust-ment. From the writer’s investigation,the co-incidence of these two systemshas been abundantly evident and theirvalue in detecting and remedying mor-bid tendencies in the body before theybecome definite pathological disordersis inestimable.

It has taken the world centuries to rec-ognize, even dimly, the prime necessityof aiming at prevention, and when this isimpossible, to endeavor to attack theroot causes of disease, instead of white-washing the inharmonies that mayappear on the surface. Even today, ther-apeutic science, with few exceptions,simply aims at the suppression of symp-toms, by the correction of the chemicalfluids of the body.

Cure is announced when the apparentsymptoms have been overcome, and thisis often accomplished by directly treat-ing them. But while the patient may berid of these particular manifestations, theinternal poison may still remain tocause, at various periods in the future,other or similar indications in harmonywith the temperament of the person.

By the employment of astrology wemay receive previous warning ofunhealthy tendencies, thus enabling pre-ventative measures to be employed; andby the utilization of spinal adjustmentwe attack at least one fundamentalcause, and if no other advantages exist-


ed, these two points should give them ahigh recommendation.

THE ROSY CROSS HEALING CIRCLE

The Rosy Cross Healing Circle meetsin the Pro-Ecclesia at Headquartersevery time the Moon enters a Cardinalsign. Only a few are present in the body,but thousands from all over the globejoin us in spirit when we meditate uponthe symbol of the Invisible Helperplaced on the west wall.

The pure white cross shows us that hemust be without stain or sin, the sevenred roses tell their story of the cleansingblood, and the central white rose is a stillhigher symbol of purity of heart andmind. This lofty ideal we aspire to reachthat we may radiate the Christ-force ofHealing represented by the golden starbehind the Rose Cross.

If you are not already one of us, youmay join us in spirit between 6 and 7 onthe following nights:

March. . . . .5—12—19—26April. . . . . 1—8—16—22—29May . . . . . 6—13—19—26

We append a few letters from peoplewho have been helped.

London, W., Dec. 5, ’15

Dear Mr. Heindel:I am pleased to write and tell you that

I am now quite well, I shall never beable to thank you enough for your kindhelp. My adored music has been faithfulto me all through my illness and everytime I play I feel soul-inspired and myheart is always full of gratitude for whatyou have done for me, and I wish youevery happiness and success.

Please accept Xmas and New Yearsgreetings from,

yours ever gratefully,E. K. H.

Lacombe, Dec. 17, ’15Dear Friends:

Just a line today to let you know howwe are progressing. I have never felt sowell for over three years as I do now. Ifyou have never been sick you have noidea how good it feels to be graduallygrowing back to health and strength.Thanking you most sincerely.

Yours in Fellowship,C. B. S.

YOUR CHILD’S HOROSCOPE

Did you notice our offer to cast yourchild’s horoscope? Read it in the frontpart of the magazine, and if you want totake advantage of it, send us his or herName, birth-year, date, hour and place.There are five items, do not forget anyof them, or we cannot cast the horoscopeand your request will be thrown out.


AN EXPLANATION (?)

If you intend binding the magazine,you may feel annoyed that the paper isdifferent from the usual stock this month,but we trust that you will feel differentwhen you know the reason for thischange. It has been very hard to getpaper of any kind, for in JanuarySouthern California had the worst stormin many years, even mail connectionsbeing ruptured for weeks, bridges werewashed out and passengers marooned. Itwill probably be March before normalconditions are established. Realizingthis, and reading that one automobile hadgotten through to San Diego by a devi-ous, and very difficult road, the “Editor”and “Roy” our printer, determined to tryand bring in paper and type that way.

It was bad and dangerous going, but wegot through and by a mere chanceobtained this paper from a printer whowas over stocked, also our type, and hadthus about 900 lbs. of freight in the carfor the return trip. Then it commenced torain, and we dared not delay because wefeared the added water would wash outthe road entirely, so we started. We ford-ed rivers and climbed over mountains,ploughing through deep mud most of thetime. Once we were stuck in a river-bedand were preparing to dig out, when aman with a team came along and gave usa pull. After seven hours we arrived home.

The distance form Oceanside to SanDiego is 42 miles by the boulevard,which is as smooth as a floor when incondition, but we had to travel twice thatdistance, over almost impassable roads,in order not to miss an issue of the mag-azine, for that would have been the con-sequence of sitting down to wait for re-opening of the usual channels of commu-nication.

A PLEASANT SURPRISE FOR YOU

You remember that we told you whenthe magazine was started that it wouldtake one thousand subscribers before itpaid the cost of material and typesetting.The size of the magazine was the same asnow, sixty-four pages, but only thirty-sixpages were reading matter changed frommonth to month, the rest was a resume ofthe philosophy, something about theRosicrucian Fellowship Headquarters atOceanside, and advertisements of ourbooks. These matters must have spacebecause they are a necessary and impor-tant part of our work in spreading theteachings which we have espoused andfor which we are working. And we toldyou at that time, that when the subscrip-tion list reached 1500 we would enlargethe magazine. It has been a slow climband we are far from the goal as yet. Butby hard work in canvassing news dealers

Echoes from Mt. Ecclesia* * * * * *

offering inducements in the shape ofchild’s horoscopes, giving theRosicrucian Cosmo- Conception as aprize for a number of new names, andlast but not least, by the generosity of anumber of members who have sent insubscriptions for friends, the subscrip-tion list is well over the nine hundred andfifty mark, so that now we may say thatit is just about paying expenses formaterial and if any new subscribers areadded, which of course we know therewill be, that money would go towardpaying something for the labor of thosethat get it out.

But we could never be satisfied to holdback and wait till the thing pays for itself,it is in our nature to want to give, give,give, and give more always. Nor are weto be commended therefore, for we can-not help it any more than water can helprunning down hill. It is an unspeakablejoy to give. Months ago we condensedthe advertising matter of the books andincreased the number of pages of readingmatter which changes every month; fromthirty-six to forty-eight, and now we aregoing to do something more, in fact weare going to do a whole lot more whenwe start a new year of publication withthe May issue. We are going to addenough space so that the reading matterwill be equal to sixty-four pages of thepresent size of the magazine, for we areso cramped for space and there are somany good articles waiting for you, thatwe think it a shame to keep them backjust for the sake of a little money.

This is not all of the contemplatedchange either, by any means. We have

greater ambitions than merely to enlargethe number of pages of the magazine.We want to increase the size so that itwill be twice as large as the present vol-ume, which seems rather squatty; thatwill give us a larger page and a betterchance for display so that it will becomea much more artistic publication.

A new cover design is being made forthat purpose and on that space isreserved, so that the leading articles ofeach month may be given right on thecover. In this size magazine it will alsobe possible to make the Horoscopes larg-er so that the figures can be read moreplainly. Furthermore, we are going toprint the cover in two colors, red andblack, on an imported brown craft paper,which will give it a very artistic appear-ance; then, instead of the present bulkypaper which we are using for insidestock, we will substitute a more expen-sive, highly finished paper of a creamtint, which will have a much finerappearance and be easier on the eyes.

Thus you see that the appearance of themagazine will be very much improved,that it will also be increased in size andreading space, and we need not say thatthe quality of the articles will be kept upto the present standard and as much aslies in us that will also be improved. Inshort, we are going to make the RaysFrom the Rose Cross a banner publica-tion from whatever standpoint you takeit. It must compare in excellence withthe Rosicrucian Cosmo- Conception andall the other Rosicrucian publications,splendid without and splendid within.

And we are not going to increase the


price, we have established the reputationfor the books of the RosicrucianFellowship that they give more valueboth physically and spiritually for thesmall amount of money asked for themthan any other. In fact, if it were not thatit costs money to bring them out, even ifwe have our own printing plant, thatpaper houses want money for the goodsthey send us, and Uncle Sam wants to bepaid for carrying the mail, also that wemust have the wherewithal to keep souland body together so that we can do thiswork, if it were not for these facts, thewriter would like to give the books andeverything else away gratis, free fornothing, though he realizes there is theother side to the question: that peoplewho do not care sufficiently to pay some-thing for what they get do not care for itat all.

But we are intensely interested inspreading the Rosicrucian Teachings,and now we are going to ask our sub-scribers to help. It is ridiculous that amagazine of this nature and excellencehas only a thousand subscribers, whenthere are hundreds of thousands who arelooking for something wherewith to feedtheir hungry souls. We want to ask youto take this matter very thoroughly toheart and try to find some one who needsthis. If you can do no more, send tencents to headquarters for a sample copyto be sent to them. Probably many peo-ple think it is too deep for them, and werealize very well that if it were written“in a lighter vein” it would appeal to alarger amount of people. The writer can-not furnish such articles, but we know

there are among our subscribers manywho are qualified to do so. This newspace being added, will give us room fortheir articles, so please help out, and astime goes by and we get more sub-scribers we will not fail to enlarge themagazine still further, for as said wenever think of what we can get but howmuch we can give.

Finally, please do not forget to renewyour subscription so that you may notmiss any numbers of the new edition,for in May we are going to start a serialarticle on “The Symbolism of Ancientand Modern Initiation,” which will bea preface to another serial on“Freemasonry and Catholicism”which we have rewritten and enlarged.

MURDER WILL OUT

It is wonderful how the RosicrucianCosmo-Conception has spread all overthe world, to the remotest corners of civ-ilization, and among all classes of peo-ple, from the highest to the lowest, therichest to the poorest. And in one sensewe here at headquarters realize this betterthan other people, because we see thesacks of mail going out every day withsingle books ordered by individuals, inaddition to the larger boxes sent to job-bers and dealers in various parts of theworld; we also learn of the work it isdoing from the constant stream of letterscoming from hungry souls who havebeen filled and are desirous of expressingtheir gratitude and appreciation.Nevertheless, one does not realize it at


headquarters as fully as when one comesin personal touch with these people andhears how it is discussed in the strangestplaces and in the strangest ways.

Recently Mr. Heindel was calledbefore the Grand Jury to testify againstthe Trustees of the city of Oceanside whohave been held there by a band of our cit-izens for wrong-doing. It was provedthat they have allowed the electric lightcompany to take thousands of dollarsworth of water without one cent remu-neration to the city, because some of theCity Trustees are stockholders in thatcompany and benefit by it. They have alsolet contracts for the city’s works to mem-bers of their own board without allowingothers to compete, and done many kin-dred illegal felonies, and it is hoped thatthe Federal authorities will debar themfrom ever holding office in the state ofCalifornia, and thus rid Oceanside of aring of political bosses which has beenkeeping it back for many years.

But this is getting away from our story.When Mr. Heindel entered the jury roomthe question was asked, What is yourbusiness? to which we modestlyanswered. We are publishers. Then oneof the Grand Jurymen spoke up quickly:O, yes! but you are an author, have writ-ten the Cosmo! and Mr. Heindel had toplead guilty, of course. But note this, thegentleman in question did not say theRosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, he saidthe “Cosmo,” showing that he was veryfamiliar with the book, by giving it thename that we all give it after we havebecome well acquainted with it. And itwas noticeable that there was in the jury

room a very friendly feeling toward Mr.Heindel, which could not be accountedfor if he were an entire stranger. Thiswas explained. Mr. Heindel was the lastwitness for the day, and when he left thestenographer followed him out. O, Mr.Heindel! said she, I have also read yourCosmo, but I don’t pretend to under-stand it. I wish I could find out a wholelot more about it. When Mr. Heindelexpressed his surprise at finding anotherperson among the small number compos-ing the Grand Jury, she explained: O!before you came in a number of themtalked about it and said they had read theCosmo. That accounted for the friendli-ness and the familiarity which Mr.Heindel had not been able otherwise toexplain, and it added another proof to themany which we already have, of thewonderful influence of the RosicrucianCosmo-Conception upon a growingminority among the people. The goodwork is going on all the time. Every daynames are being added to the list of thosewho love our teachings. It is not a light-ning growth, nor is it like a mushroom,but when we compare it with the spreadof the exoteric teachings of Christianity,we have no reason whatever to complain.Tacitus, the Roman historian who wroteabout the year 80 of our Era, gives only abare mention of the Christians as a smallinsignificant sect living near the bordersof the empire. From such small begin-ning grew the present world religion, andthere is no doubt that during the presentcentury, not to speak of the Aquarian age,the Rosicrucian teachings will commanduniversal and world-wide attention.


The Rosicrucian Order was founded in the thirteenthcentury by Christian Rosenkreuz, a messenger of the

Divine Hierarchs who guide Humanity upon the path ofevolution.

Contents

The Mystic LightA Department devoted to articles on Occultism, Mystic Masonry, Esoteric Christianity, and similar subjects.

The Question DepartmentDesigned to give further light upon the various subjects dealt with in the different departments, where queries from students and other subscribers make this necessary.

The Astral RayAstrology from an original angle, Cosmic light on Life’sProblems.

Studies in the Rosicrucian Cosmo-ConceptionOur Origin, Evolution and ultimate Destiny is religiously,reasonably and scientifically explained in this department.

Nutrition and HealthOur body is ‘A Living Temple’, we build it without sound of hammer, by our food. In this Department articles on diet teach how to build wisely and well.

The Healing DepartmentThe Rose Cross Healing Circle, its meetings and their results.

Echoes from Mount EcclesiaNews and Notes from Headquarters

$1.00 a Year MARCH 1916 10 cents a copy

Its mission was to blend Esoteric Christianity,Mystic Masonry, and Spiritual Alchemy into one greatsystem of Religious Philosophy, adequate to meet theadvanced spiritual and intellectual needs of the WesternWorld, during the Aquarian Age of two thousand years,when the Sun, by precession of the Equinox, passesthrough the constellation Aquarius.

This Western Wisdom School, like all earlier EsotericOrders, is secret, but the Rosicrucian Fellowship is itsHerald of the Aquarian Age, now at hand, promulgat-ing this blended scientific soul science: The WesternWisdom Religion for the Western World.

Formerly, religious truths were intuitively perceivedor taken wholly on faith as dogmas of the church. Today,a growing class demands that immortality and kindredmatters be proved to the intellect, deductively or byobservation, as are other facts of life, like heredity andether. They desire religion as much as their fathers butwant the ancient truths in modern dress congruous totheir altered intellectual condition. To this class theRosicrucian Fellowship addresses itself with a definite,logical and sequential teaching, concerning the origin,evolution and future development of the world and man,which is strictly scientific as it is reverently religious; ateaching which makes no statements not supported byreason and logic, which satisfies the mind by clear expla-nations, which neither begs nor evades questions, butoffers a reasonable solution to all mysteries, so that theheart may be allowed to believe what the intellect hassanctioned, and the solace of religion may speak peace tothe troubled mind. The following is a brief resume ofFacts about Life here and hereafter. A list of the lec-tures referred to is found in the back of this magazine.

Sooner or later there comes a time when the con-sciousness is forced to recognize the fact that life, as wesee it, is but fleeting, and that amid all the uncertaintiesof our existence there is but one certainty—Death!

When the mind has thus become aroused by thought ofthe leap in the dark which must some time be taken byall, the question of questions—Whence have wecome?—Why are we here?—Whither are we going?—must inevitably present itself. This is a basic problemwith which all must sooner or later grapple, and it is ofthe greatest importance how we solve it, for the view wetake will color our whole life.

Only three theories of note have been brought forwardto solve this problem. To range ourselves in one of thethree groups of mankind, segregated in their adherenceto one theory or the other in an intelligent manner, it isnecessary to know the three theories, to calmly weigh

and compare them one with another with establishedfacts. Lecture No. 1 does just that, and whether we agreewith its conclusions or not, we shall surely have a morecomprehensive grasp of the various viewpoints and bebetter able to form an intelligent opinion when we haveread “The Riddle of Life and Death.”

If we have come to the conclusion that death does notend our existence, it is but a natural question to ask:Where are the dead? This momentous question is dealtwith in Lecture No. 2. The law of conservation of mat-ter and energy precludes annihilation, yet we see thatmatter is constantly changing from the visible state andback again, as, for instance, water is evaporated by thesun, partially condensed into a cloud and then falls toearth again as rain.

Consciousness may also exist without being able togive us any sign, as in cases where people have beenthought dead, but have awakened and told all that hadbeen said and done in their presence.

So there must be an invisible World of force and mat-ter, as independent of our cognition of it as light andcolor exist regardless of the fact they are not perceivedby the blind.

In that invisible World the so-called dead are now liv-ing in full possession of all the mental and emotional fac-ulties. They are living a life as real as existence here.

The invisible World is cognized by means of a sixthsense developed by some, but latent in most people. Itmay be developed in all, but different methods producevarying results.

This faculty compensates for distance in a manner farsuperior to the best telescopes and for the lack of size ina degree unreachable by the most powerful microscope.It penetrates where the X-ray cannot. A wall or a dozenwalls are no denser to the spiritual sight than crystal toordinary vision.

In Lecture No. 3 Spiritual Sight and the SpiritualWorlds, this faculty is described, and Lecture No. 11,Spiritual Sight and Insight, gives a safe method ofdevelopment.

The Invisible World is divided into different realms:The Etheric Region, the Desire World, the Region ofConcrete Thought and the Region of AbstractThought.

These divisions are not arbitrary, but are necessarybecause the substance of which they are composed obeysdifferent laws. For instance, physical matter is subject tothe law of gravity, in the Desire World forms levitate aseasily as they gravitate.

Man needs various vehicles to function in the different

A Brief Resume of The

Rosicrucian Philosophy

Worlds, as we need a carriage to ride on land, a boat atsea and an airship in the air.

We know that we must have a dense body to live inthe visible World. Man also has a vital body composedof ether, which enables him to sense things around him.He has a desire body formed of the materials of theDesire World, which gives him a passionate nature andincites him to action. The Mind is formed of the sub-stance of the Region of Concrete Thought and acts as abrake upon impulse. It gives purpose to action. The realman, the Thinker or Ego, functions in the Region ofAbstract Thought, acting upon and through its variousinstruments.

Lecture No. 4 deals with the normal and abnormalconditions of life such as Sleep, Dreams, Trance,Hypnotism, Mediumship and Insanity. The previous-ly mentioned finer vehicles are all concentric with thedense body in the waking state, when we are active inthought, word and deed, but the activities of the daycause the body to grow tired and sleepy.

When the wear and tear incident to use of a buildinghas made exhaustive repairs necessary, the tenants moveout that the workmen may have full scope for restoration.So when wear and tear of the day has exhausted the body,it is necessary to restore its tone and rhythm. During thenight the Ego hovers outside the dense body clothed indesire body and mind. Sometimes the Ego only with-draws partially, is half in the body and half out, then itsees both the Desire World and the Physical World, butconfused as in a dream.

Hypnotism is mental assault. The unsuspecting victimis driven out of his body and the hypnotist obtains con-trol.

The victims of the hypnotist are released at his death,however, but the medium is not so fortunate. Spirit-con-trols are really invisible hypnotists. Their invisibilitygives great scope for deception and after death they maytake possession of a medium’s desire body, use it forages, and keep their hapless victim from progressingalong the pathway of evolution. This latter phase ofMediumship is elucidated in Lecture No. 5, which dealswith Death and Life in Purgatory.

What we call death is in reality but a shifting of con-sciousness from one World to another. We have a sci-ence of birth with trained nurses, obstetricians, antisep-tics and every other means of caring for the incomingEgo, but are sorely in need of a science of death, forwhen a friend is passing out of our concrete existence,we stand helplessly about, ignorant of how to assist, orworse, we do things which make the passing infinitelyharder than if we merely stood idly by. Giving stimu-lants is one of our worst offenses against the dying, as itdraws the passing spirit into the dense body again with

the force of a catapult.After the heart has stopped on account of the partial

rupture of the silver cord, (which united the higher andlower vehicles of man during sleep and remains unsev-ered for a time varying from a few hours to three and ahalf days after death), there is still on that account a cer-tain feeling if the body is embalmed, opened for post-mortem examination, or cremated. The body shouldtherefore be left unmolested, for at that time the passingEgo is engaged in reviewing the pictures of its past life(which are seen in a flash by drowning persons.) Thesepictures are impressed daily and hourly upon the ether ofthe vital body as independently of our observation as adetailed picture is impressed upon the photographic plateby the ether regardless of whether the photographerobserved details or not. They form an absolutely truerecord of our past life, which we may call the subcon-scious memory (or mind), far superior to the view westore in our conscious memory (or mind.)

Under the immutable Law of Consequence, whichdecrees that what we sow we reap, the deeds of life arethe basis of our existence after death. The panorama ofa past life is the book of the Recording Angels, who areadjusters of the score we make under the Law ofConsequence.

Review of the life panorama just after death etches thepictures into the desire body, which is our normal vehi-cle in the Desire World, where Purgatory and the FirstHeaven are located.

The Panorama of life is the basis of purgation of evilin purgatory and assimilation of good deeds in the firstheaven. It is of the highest importance that this panora-ma be deeply etched into the desire body, for if thatimpress is deep and clear the Ego will suffer moresharply in purgatory and experience a keener joy in thefirst heaven. This feeling will remain as conscience infuture lives to impel good action and discourage evildeeds.

If the passing spirit is left in peace and quiet to con-centrate upon the life-panorama, the etching will be clearand sharp, but if the relatives distract his attention byloud hysterical lamentations during the first three andone half days when the silver cord is yet intact, a shallowor blurred impression will cause the spirit to lose muchof the lessons which should have been learned. To cor-rect this anomaly the Recording Angels are often forcedto terminate the next Earth-life in early childhood beforethe desire body has come to birth, as described in Birtha Four-fold Event (Lecture No. 7), for that which hasnot been quickened cannot die, and so the child goes intothe first heaven and learns the lessons it did not learnbefore, and is thus equipped to pass on in Life’s School.

As such Egos retain the desire body and mind they had

in life where they died as children, it often happens thatthey remember that life, for they only stay out of Earthlife from one to twenty years.

Suffering in Purgatory arises from two causes:Desires which cannot be gratified or the reaction to thepictures of the life panorama—the drunkard suffers tor-tures of Tantalus because he has no means of obtainingor retaining drink. The miser suffers because he lacksthe hand to restrain his heirs from squandering his cher-ished hoard. Thus the Law of Consequence purges evilhabits until desire has burned itself out.

If we have been cruel, the panorama of life radiatesback upon us the pictures of ourselves and our victims.Conditions are reversed in purgatory. We suffer as theysuffered. Thus, in time, we are purged of sin. The coarsedesire matter which forms the embodiment of evil hasbeen expelled by the centrifugal force of Repulsion inpurgatory and we retain but the pure and the good whichis embodied in subtler desire stuff dominated by the cen-tripetal force—attraction, which amalgamates good inthe first heaven when the life panorama depicts scenes inour past life where we helped others, or where we feltgrateful for favors, as described in Lecture No. 6, Life inHeaven, which also deals with our stay in the SecondHeaven, located in the Region of Concrete Thought.

That is also the realm of tone, as the Desire World isof color, and the Physical World of form. Tone, orsound, is the builder of all that is on Earth, as John says:“In the beginning was the Word” (sound)—and theWord was made flesh,” the flesh of all things, “without itwas not anything made that was made.” The mountain,the moss, the mouse and the man are all embodiments ofthis Great Creative Word, which came down from heav-en.

There the man becomes one with the nature forces.Angels and Archangels teach him to build such an envi-ronment as he has deserved under the Law ofConsequence. If he dallied his time away in metaphysi-cal speculation, as do the Hindus, he neglects to build agood material environment, and is reborn in an arid landwhere flood and famine teach him to turn his attention tomaterial things. When he focuses his mind on the PhysicalWorld, aspiring to wealth and material comforts, he willbuild in Heaven unexcelled material environment, awealthy land with facilities for ease and comfort, as theWestern World has done. But as we always long for whatwe lack, the possessions we have are satiating us beyondcomfort and we are beginning to aspire to the spirituallife as the Hindus, our younger brothers, are aspiringnow to the material prosperity we are leaving behind, asmore fully elucidated in Lecture No. 19, The ComingForce—Vril? which shows why Hindu Yoga practicesare detrimental to Westerners. They being behind us in

evolution.When the Ego has helped to build the creative arche-

type for the environment of its next earth-life in theSecond Heaven it ascends into the Third Heaven, locat-ed in the Region of Abstract Thought. But few peoplehave learned to think abstractly, as in mathematics; themajority of people are therefore unconscious, as in sleep,waiting for the Clock of Destiny—the stars, to indicatethe time when effects engendered by the action of pastlives can be worked out. When the heavenly time mak-ers, the Sun, Moon and planets, have reached a properposition, the Ego wakes and desires a new embodiment.

The Recording Angels look up the record of all ourpast lives, which is stamped upon the super consciousmind each time an Ego withdraws to the third Heaven,as outlined in Lecture No. 7, Birth a Fourfold Event.When there is no particular reason why a certain environ-ment should be taken, the Ego has a choice of variousembodiments. These are shown to it as a panorama giv-ing the great outline of each proposed life, but leavingscope for individual freewill in the detail.

Once a choice has been made, the Ego is bound to liq-uidate ripe causes selected by the Recording Angels andany attempt to evade that will be frustrated. It should becarefully noted that evil is eradicated in Purgatory. Onlytendencies remain, to tempt us till we have consciouslyovercome. Thus we are born innocent and at least everyevil act is an act of free will.

When the Ego descends toward rebirth it gathers thematerials for its new bodies, but they are not born at thesame time. Birth of the vital body inaugurates rapidgrowth from 7 to 14, ripening also the propagative facul-ty. Birth of the desire body at 14 gives rise to the impul-sive period from 14 to 21. At that age the birth of themind furnishes a brake on impulse and gives a founda-tion for serious life.

MOUNT ECCLESIA

In order to make our philosophy of life and health ofpractical value in the world, we have bought 40 acres ofland in the little town of Oceanside, 83 miles south ofLos Angeles. It is one of the sightliest spots in sunnySouthern California, situated upon the promontory of ahigh table land. From Mount Ecclesia, as we havenamed our headquarters, there is an unobstructed view ofthe beautiful blue Pacific Ocean. Directly west lies theisland of San Clemente, 75 miles out, and ships are oftensilhouetted upon the skyline as they sail by. Forty milesto the southward looms the promontory of La Jolla, asuburb of San Diego, the southernmost city in UncleSam’s spacious realm. Eighty miles north from mountEcclesia we see the lovely island of Catalina with its

crystal clear waters and its luxuriant submarine gardens,so strange and fantastic that they outstrip fancy and fairy-tale alike. Immediately below Mount Ecclesia lies thesmiling San Luis Rey valley with its fertile green fieldsand its historic old mission; a little further away are therounded foothills with their wonderful play of light andshade; then the mountains with their rugged contours;and farthest to the east we see the snowcapped peaks ofMount San Bernardino, Mount Greyback and Mount SanJacinto.

A HEALTH RESORT

The climate is as wonderful as the view, and incom-prehensible to all who have not lived here. One maywear a white shirtwaist outdoors on every day in winter,and we do not perspire on the warmest day in summer onaccount of the sea breeze which sweeps over MountEcclesia every day from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., coolingthe atmosphere and filling our lungs with invigoratingozone fresh from the heaving bosom of the great PacificOcean. It is a veritable elixir of life, and therefore thisplace offers such rare physical conditions for the attain-ment of health that it is probably without a peer.

We are prepared to take patients whose ailments donot prevent them from attending to their own needs. Therates of board are less than one-half what is usuallycharged in sanitariums, but we have no resident physi-cian and cannot take proper care of patients who neednursing and attention.

OUR BUILDINGS

Four years ago we started building our headquarterson this beautiful spot, we installed a pumping plant inthe valley, carrying the water 225 feet up to the summitof Mount Ecclesia and have thus an unlimited supply ofwater for irrigation and ample fire protection. We havebuilt a sanctuary devoted exclusively to the worship ofGod, an administration building wherein our generaloffices and printing plant are located, a commodiousdining hall to accommodate all workers, patients andpupils; we have also built a number of cottages for theaccommodation of visitors.

Mount Ecclesia has also its own electric lightingplant, and every night the wonderful electric emblem ofthe Fellowship may be seen flashing its message of lightacross the country for over twenty miles in either direc-tion. The exterior of the dining hall and Pro-Ecclesia, aswe call our Sanctuary, are also electrically lighted, andthus we let the physical light shine to attract those whoare seeking the spiritual, if by chance such may pass, andenquire through curiosity, which afterward turns to keen

interest.

THE CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL

In addition to the publications of the RosicrucianFellowship, regularly advertised and before the public,there are two correspondence courses which furnishinstruction to students all over the world, who aredesirous of investigating the Rosicrucian Mysteries, andthe Science of Astrology.

WHY YOU OUGHT TO STUDY ASTROLOGY

There is a side of the moon that we never see, but thathidden half is as potent a factor in creating the ebb andflow as the part of the moon which is visible. Similarly,there is an invisible part of man which exerts a powerfulinfluence in life, and as the tides are measured by themotion of sun and moon, so also the eventualities of exis-tence are measured by the circling stars, which maytherefore be called “the Clock of Destiny,” and knowl-edge of their import is an immense power, for to the com-petent Astrologer a horoscope reveals every secret oflife.

Thus, when you have given an astrologer the data ofyour birth, you have given him the key to your innermostsoul, and there is no secret that he may not ferret out.This knowledge may be used for good or ill, to help orhurt, according to the nature of the man. Only a triedfriend should be trusted with this key to your soul, and itshould never be given to anyone base enough to prosti-tute a spiritual science for material gain.

To the medical man Astrology is invaluable in diag-nosing diseases and prescribing a remedy, for it revealsthe hidden cause of all ailments.

If you are a parent, the horoscope will aid you to detectthe evil latent in your child and teach you how to applythe ounce of prevention. It will show you the goodpoints also, that you may make a better man or woman ofthe soul entrusted to your care. It will reveal systematicweakness and enable you to guard the health of yourchild; it will show what talents are there, and how the lifemay be lived to a maximum of usefulness. Therefore, themessage of the marching orbs is so important that youcannot afford to remain ignorant thereof.

In order to aid those who are willing to help them-selves, we maintain a correspondence Class in Astrology,but make no mistake, we do not teach fortune telling; ifthat is what you are looking for, we have nothing for you.

Our Lessons Are SermonsThey embody the highest moral and spiritual princi-

ples, together with the loftiest system of ethics, for

Astrology is, to us, a phase of religion; we never look ata horoscope without feeling that we are in a holy pres-ence, face to face with an immortal soul, and our attitudeis one of prayer for light to guide that soul aright.

We Do Not Cast HoroscopesDespite all we can say, many people write enclosing

money for horoscopes, forcing us to spend valuable timewriting letters of refusal and giving us the trouble ofreturning their money. Please do not thus annoy us; itwill avail you nothing.

THE COURSE IN CHRISTIAN MYSTICSM.

Christ taught the multitude in parables, but explainedthe THE COURSE IN CHRISTIAN MYSTICSM

Christ taught the multitude in parables, but explainedmysteries to His disciples.

Paul gave milk to the babes, but meat to the strong.Max Heindel, the founder and leader of the

Rosicrucian Fellowship, endeavors to follow in theirsteps and give to interested and devoted students a deep-er teaching than that promulgated in public.

For that purpose he conducts a correspondence coursein Christian Mysticism. The General Secretary mayadmit applicants to the preliminary course, but advance-ment in the deeper degrees depends upon merit. It is forthose alone who have been tried, and found true.

How to Apply for Admission.Anyone who is not engaged in fortune telling or simi-

lar methods of commercializing spiritual knowledge willupon request receive an application blank from theGeneral Secretary Rosicrucian Fellowship. When this blankis returned properly filled, he may admit the applicant toinstruction in either or both correspondence courses.

No. 1. “The Riddle of Life and Death.” Presenting a solution that is both scientific and religious.No. 2. “Where Are the Dead?”No. 3. “Spiritual Sight and the Spiritual Worlds.” Showing that we have a latent “sixth sense,” and what itopens up to us when cultivated.No. 4. “Sleep, Dreams, Trance, Hypnotism,Mediumship and Insanity.”No. 5. “Death and Life in Purgatory.” Describing themethod of death and purgation, also how immutable lawand not an avenging Deity transmutes the evil acts of lifeto everlasting good.No. 6. “Life and Activity in Heaven.” Showing howthe Human Spirit assimilates the Good of its past life andcreates its environments for a future rebirth, also how itprepares a new body.No. 7. “Birth a Fourfold Event.” Describing antenatal

preparations for birth, and the spiritual changes, whichinaugurate the period of excessive physical growth in the7th year; puberty at 14 and maturity at 21. This knowl-edge is absolutely essential to the right care of a child.No. 8. “The Science of Nutrition, health and Protractedyouth.” Showing the material cause of early death andthe obvious prophylactic.No. 9. “Astronomical Allegories of the Bible.” A mysticscroll.No. 10. “Astrology, Its Scope and Limitations.”Showing the spiritual side of astrology, how it enablesthose who study it to help themselves and others.No. 11. “Spiritual Sight and Insight.” Its culture, con-trol and legitimate use, giving a definite and safe methodof attainment. Second enlarged edition 10c.No. 12. “Parsifal.” Wagner’s famous Mystic MusicDrama, a mine of inspiration and devotion.No. 13. “The Angels as Factors in Evolution.”Showing just what part the Angels, Archangels,Cherubim, Seraphim, etc., play in the Drama of Life.No. 14. “Lucifer, Tempter or Benefactor?” Showingthe origin and the mission of pain and sorrow.No. 15. “The Mystery of Golgotha and the CleansingBlood.” A rational explanation that satisfies head andheart alike.No. 16. “The Star of Bethlehem; a Mystic Fact.”No. 17. “The Mystery of the Holy Grail.” The way toattainment.No. 18. “The Lord’s Prayer.” Showing the esotericside, and how it applies to the seven fold constitution ofman.No. 19. “The Coming Force—Vril! or what?”No. 20. “Fellowship and the Coming Race.” Showingwhy the Bible contains both the Jewish and the ChristianReligions, why both combined are peculiarly adapted tothe spiritual needs of the Western World and why Jesuswas born a Jew.

THE

RosicrucianCosmo

ConceptionFOURTH EDITION

Price $1.50 PostfreeThis remarkable book by Max Heindel marks an

entirely new departure in mystic literature. For the first time in history the Western Wisdom

Teaching concerning Life and Being, which theRosicrucians have guarded for centuries, is here given byan authorized messenger, for it is held that the world isnow ready to receive this advanced science of the soul.

The existing soul-hunger, and the satisfying nature ofthe Rosicrucian teachings, are equally well attested bythe phenomenal sale of this great book—necessitatingthe issue of three large editions in one year and eightmonths—and the many thousands of letters received bythe author from grateful students all over the world, whotestify that they have found in this book what they havelong sought elsewhere in vain.

It is one of the fundamental requirements of theRosicrucians that their teaching may not be promulgatedfor gain. The work itself amply demonstrates that theauthor carries this injunction out to the letter, for the edi-tion covers 608 pages, is printed in clear type on goodpaper; it is bound in cloth with reinforcements to with-stand the hard wear usually given to a text-book; has30 diagrams and illustrations, two of them in four col-ors, and an index of 80 pages, so thorough that it isalmost a syllabus of any subject in the book. The beauti-ful symbolical cover design is stamped in red, black, andgenuine gold; the three edges are also gold, making it anunusually handsome volume at the extremely low priceof $1.50, postfree.

The wide scope of the book is indicated by the note onthe title-page, in which it is stated to be “an elementarytreatise upon Man’s past evolution, present constitutionand future development.”

We give herewith some headings of chapters and sub-divisions as a slight indication of what is contained inthis mine of mystic light and knowledge.

PART IThe Visible and Invisible Worlds, with two dia-

grams. The Four Kingdoms, with two diagrams showing

their vehicles and consciousness. Man and the Method of Evolution. Spirit, Soul and

Body; Thought, Memory and Soul-growth. The con-scious, subconscious, and superconscious mind. The sci-ence of death, the beneficence of purgatory, life in heav-en; preparation for re-birth.

Rebirth and the Law of Consequence. Wine as afactor in evolution, an authentic story proving re-birth.

PART II The Relation of Man to God, with diagram. The Scheme of Evolution. A general outline, with

diagram of the Seven World Periods.

The Path of Evolution. Cosmic Days of active workand Cosmic Nights of passive contemplation.

The Work of Evolution. How the Cherubim,Seraphim, Archangels, and Angels helped.

Genesis and Evolution of Our Solar System. Chaosthe seedground of Cosmos, Birth of the Planets,Planetary Spirits.

Evolution on Earth. The Moon, the eighth sphereof retrogression, Birth of the Individual, Separation intoSexes, Lucifer Spirits and the Fall, Sixteen Paths toDestruction.

Back to the Bible. Who the “lost” tribes are, and whyJesus was born a Jew.

Occult Analysis of Genesis. The Nebular theory,Jehovah and his mission; a living soul; why hybrids aresterile.

PART III Christ and His Mission. “Peace on Earth” and “Not

Peace, but a Sword.” The Star of Bethlehem, the heart ananomaly, the Mystery of Golgotha and the cleansingblood.

Future Development and Initiation. The Symbolismof the Caduceus, Alchemy and Soul-growth.

The Method of Acquiring First-hand Knowledge.Western Methods for Western People, the science ofnutrition, the law of assimilation, the Lord’s Prayer,Esoteric Training, how the inner vehicle is built.

The Constitution of the Earth and VolcanicEruptions.

Christian Rosenkreuz and the Order ofRosicrucians. The Rosicrucian Initiation, theRosicrucian Fellowship, Symbolism of the Rose Cross,the Power of Healing.

Christ or Buddha?By Anett C. Rich,

Foreword by Max Heindel,30¢ post free

The idea that India is the main repository of occultknowledge is held by many who have forsaken theChristian Religion to embrace Hinduism. Christ orBuddha? shows most clearly that

THE WESTERN WISDOM TEACHING

throws a light upon the problems of life which is muchmore intense, far-reaching and soul-satisfying in everyrespect. A partial list of contents will indicate its scope:

Involution, Evolution and Epigenesis—Trance—Dreamless sleep—Dreams—The Waking State—The

Mystery of Blood—The Mystery of Sex—The Mysteryof Death—The Christ of the West is not the Christ of theEast—The Christ of the West—The Law of InfantMortality.

How Shall We Know

ChristWHEN HE COMES?

By Max Heindel30¢ post free

The title indicates sufficiently the scope of the book.It is direct and to the point like all the writings of thisauthor.

Foreign TranslationsA number of books have been translated into different

languages. The following may be obtained direct fromHeadquarters, post free.

THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO CONCEPTIONSpanish (3 vol).........................$3.00Dutch........................................ 2.50

ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHYSpanish (3 vol)..........................$3.00

ROSICRUCIAN CHRISTIANITY(20 lectures)

Spanish, each lecture...................10¢SIMPLIFIED SCIENTIFIC ASTROLOGY

French edition..............................50¢

THE

Rosicrucian Philosophy

In Questions and AnswersPrice $1.15 Postfree

A book of ready reference upon all mystic matters,which ought to be in the library of every occult student.It covers 432 pages; has a considerable number of illumi-nating diagrams, is printed on fine paper in clear type,reinforced binding of cloth with the beautifulRosicrucian symbols stamped upon the cover in red,

black, and genuine gold leaf; the three edges are alsogold.

The handsome style of this volume will make it amuch appreciated gift book, and the merely nominalprice is an inducement to liberality.

PARTIAL LIST OF SUBJECTS.Section I.—Life on Earth. Social Conditions,Marriage, Children, Sleep andDreams, Health and Disease.Section II.—Life after Death. Cremation, Purgatory,

The First Heaven, TheSecond Heaven, The Third Heaven,Guardian Angels.Section III.—Rebirth. The Law of Rebirth, The Lawof Causation, Transmigration.Section IV.—The Bible Teachings. The Creation, The

Fall, The Immaculate Conception,Sayings of Christ.Section V.—Spiritualistic Phenomena. Mediumship,

Obsession, Materialization.Section VI.—Clairvoyance. Dangers of Psychism,True Spiritual Unfoldment,Initiation. Section VII.—Astrology. True and False.Section VIII.—Animals. Their Life Here andHereafter.

The Messageof the Stars

50 Cents, Postfree

When Simplified Scientific Astrology was published,Mr. Heindel stated his intention of writing a book on theart of reading a horoscope. He promised particularly toelucidate his method of detecting incipient diseases, sothat application of the proverbial ounce of preventionmay preserve our health and make cure unnecessary.

The great book is now ready. Had Max Heindel writ-ten it alone, it would be

IN A CLASS BY ITSELF

but being the product of both Max Heindel and his equal-ly able Companion in the Work, Augusta Foss Heindel,

IT IS A MASTER-KEY

to the esoteric side of Astrology, with the key to itspractical

application in Life. Twenty-two horoscopes are used toillustrate diagnosis of disease; examples show how

SPIRITUAL SIGHT AND MEDIUMSHIP

are indicated in the horoscope, etc

SimplifiedScientific

AstrologySECOND EDITION40 Cents, Postfree

Competent Astrologers all over the world have com-plimented Mr. Heindel on his simplified method of cast-ing a horoscope in a thoroughly scientific manner. Theyhave marveled at the lucidity of his explanations and atthe information contained within the covers of this book,and the second edition will cause them to coin newsuperlatives of praise, for it is revised, partly rewritten,and though the number of pages is the same as in the firstedition, much new matter has been inserted by econo-mizing space.

Notwithstanding the increased value, the priceremains the same: 40c postfree. Thus students who havethe first edition can easily afford to get the second also.

THE

RosicrucianMysteries

200 pp. cloth. 75c postfree

This Is

THE BOOK FOR THE BUSY MAN

who is seeking a solution to the Great Mystery calledLife, but lacks leisure to wade through volumes of meta-physical speculation. The lucid and logical explanationscarry conviction. They bear

THE STAMP OF TRUTH

Nevertheless, the language is so simple, clear and devoidof technicalities that

A CHILD CAN UNDERSTAND

its message. It is therefore specially suited to beginners,but advanced students will find

The MysteryOf

Light, Color, and Consciousness

and similar subjects of vital interest.

Horoscope BlanksPrinted on good paper, letter size, 8 1/2 x 11 inches,

with or without index or aspects, as ordered—10¢ perdozen; 35¢ per 50, or 65¢ per 100.

Something for NothingThis is not strictly true, but here are various premium

offers and inducements to subscribers.

WE WILL REFUND ALL YOU PAID FOR THISMAGAZINE, OR MORE

Cut out the attached coupon, it is good for a 10¢ rebateon any 50¢ purchase of books. Thus, for one coupon and40¢ you may get The Message of the Stars. Twocoupons and 95¢ buy The Rosicrucian Philosophy.Three Coupons and $1.20 buy The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception; in short, you save 20 per cent by using thecoupons.

THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTIONGIVEN AWAY!

We are very desirous to carry the RosicrucianTeachings into new fields, and have therefore decidedthat we will give one copy of the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception to anyone who sends in five dollars ($5) forfive yearly subscriptions, or ten half-yearly subscriptionsto this magazine. Provided, however, that the said sub-scribers must be new, not now on our list as correspon-dents or subscribers.

If you cannot get them all at once, send one at a time,and when the number is complete we will send this valu-able book.

YOUR CHILD’S HOROSCOPEFREE!

We do not cast horoscopes for adults on any consider-

ation; but children are unsolved problems! They havecome to their parents for help and guidance, and it is ofinestimable benefit to know their latent tendencies, thattheir good traits may be fostered and evil tendencies sup-pressed. Therefore we will give each month a shortdelineation of character and tendencies of four chil-dren under 14 years in the Astral Ray department of thismagazine. Parents who wish to take advantage of thisopportunity must be YEARLY subscribers.

YOUR MAGAZINE FREE

Get three new subscribers, send us their names andthree dollars, and we will give you a year’s subscriptiongratis.

MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD & VOCATIONALADVICE GIVEN TO YOUNG MEN & WOMEN

We are giving short readings for children under four-teen years of age, to help parents suppress faults and fos-ter talents while the character is plastic. Life is still in themaking for the young man or woman between fourteenand twenty-five years. They may also benefit by know-ing what talents are latent, and what life work to select.We have therefore decided to give this advice so far asspace permits. Each must wait his turn.

To obtain a vocational reading the parents, guardiansor applicants must be yearly subscribers. Only onerequest from each subscriber will be entertained andunless it contains the following data it will be thrown out,for without this a horoscope cannot be cast.

(1) Birth-year, month, date and hour (as near as possi-ble.)

(2) Birth-place—city, state or country.

THE COWBOY’S PRAYER

O Lord, I’ve never lived where churches grow;I love creation better as it stood

That day you finished it so long ago And looked upon your work and called it good.

I know that others find you in the light That’s sifted down through tinted window panes,

And yet, I seem to feel you near tonight, In this dim starlight on the plains.

I thank you, Lord, that 1 am placed so well; That you have made my freedom so complete;

That I’m no slave of whistle, clock and bell, Or weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.

Just let me live my life as I’ve begun, And give me work that’s open to the sky;

Make me a partner of the wind and sun And I won’t ask a life that’s soft or high.

Let me be easy on the man that’s down And make me square and generous with all;

I’m careless sometimes, Lord, when I’m in town, But never let them say I’m mean or small.

Make me as big and open as the plains, As honest as the horse between my knees,

Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains, Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze.

Forgive me, Lord, when sometimes I forget; You understand the reasons that are hid,

You know about the things that gall and fret, You know me better than my mother did.

Just keep an eye on all that’s done and said, Just right me sometimes when I turn aside,

And guide me on the long, dim trail ahead That stretches upward toward the great Divide.

—Charles B. Clark, Jr.

Documents

The Mystic Light - The Rosicrucian Fellowship Rays... · we burrow in the darkness of an ... That is the grand crisis, the turning ... reason, and as moths flock to the flame,