The Rosicrucian Mysteries 1

	The Rosicrucian Mysteries 1

The  Rosicrucian Mysteries An Elementary Exposition of  Their Secret Teachings                                     By                                Max Heindel Author of: The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception, The Rosicrucian Philosophy in   Questions and Answers, The Rosicrucian Interpretation of Christianity,                       Rays from the Rose Cross, etc.                               Third Edition                           Rosicrucian Fellowship                           Oceanside, California                                   London                      L. N. Fowler, 7 Imperial Arcade                           Ludgate Circus. E. C. CONTENTS Chapter I. The Order of Rosicrucians and the Rosicrucian Fellowship Chapter II. The Problem of Life and Its Solution Chapter III. The Visible and the Invisible World Chapter IV. The Constitution of Man Chapter V. Life and Death Mt. Ecclesia Index CHAPTER I. THE ORDER OF ROSICRUCIANS AND THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP Our Message And Mission _A Sane Mind_ _A Soft Heart_ _A Sound Body_ Before entering upon an explanation of the teachings of the Rosicrucians, it may be well to say a word about them and about the place they hold in the evolution of humanity. For reasons to be given later these teachings advocate the dualistic view; they hold that man is a spirit enfolding all the powers of God as the seed enfolds the plant, and that these powers are being slowly unfolded by a series of existences in a gradually improving earthy body; also that this process of development has been performed under the guidance of exalted beings who are yet ordering our steps, though in a decreasing measure, as we gradually acquire intellect and will. These exalted Beings, though unseen to the physical eyes, are nevertheless potent factors in all affairs of life, and give to the various groups of humanity lessons which will most efficiently promote the growth of their spiritual powers. In fact, the earth may be likened to a vast training school in which there are pupils of varying age and ability as we find it in one of our own schools. There are the savages, living and worshipping under most primitive conditions, seeing in stick or stone a God. Then, as man progresses onwards and upwards in the scale of civilization, we find a higher and higher conception of Deity, which has flowered here in our Western World in the beautiful Christian religion that now furnishes our spiritual inspiration and incentive to improve. These various religions have been given to each group of humanity by the exalted beings whom we know in the Christian religion as the Recording Angels, whose wonderful prevision enable them to view the trend of even so unstable a quantity as the human mind, and thus they are enabled to determine what steps are necessary to lead our enfoldment along the lines congruous to the highest universal good. When we study the history of the ancient nations we shall find that at about six hundred years B. C. a great spiritual wave had its inception on the Eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean where the great Confucian Religion accelerated the progress of the Chinese nation, then also the Religion of the Buddha commenced to win its millions of adherents in India, and still further West we have the lofty philosophy of Pythagoras. Each system was suited to the needs of the particular people to whom it was sent. Then came the period of the Sceptics, in Greece, and later, traveling westward the same spiritual wave is manifested as the Christian religion of the so-called “Dark Ages” when the dogma of a dominant church compelled belief from the whole of Western Europe. It is a law in the universe that a wave of spiritual awakening is always followed by a period of doubting materialism, each phase is necessary in order that the spirit may receive equal development of heart and intellect without being carried too far in either direction. The Great Beings aforementioned, Who care for our progress, always take steps to safeguard humanity against that danger, and when they foresaw the wave of materialism which commenced in the sixteenth century with the birth of our modern Science, they took steps to protect the West as they had formerly safeguarded the East against the Sceptics who were held in check by the Mystery schools. In the thirteenth century there appeared in central Europe a great spiritual teacher whose symbolical name was Christian Rosenkreuz. or Christian Rose Cross. who founded the mysterious Order of the Rosy Cross, concerning which so many speculations have been made and so little has become known to the world at large, for it is the Mystery school of the West and is only open to those who have attained the stage of spiritual unfoldment necessary to be initiated in its secrets concerning the Science of Life and Being. If we are so far developed that we are able to leave our dense physical body and take a soul flight into interplanetary space we shall find that the ultimate physical atom is spherical in shape like our earth; it is a ball. When we take a number of balls of even size and group them around one, it will take just twelve balls to hide a thirteenth within. Thus the twelve visible and the one hidden are numbers revealing a cosmic relationship and as all Mystery Orders are based upon cosmic lines, they are composed of twelve members gathered around a thirteenth who is the invisible _head_. There are seven colors in the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. But between the violet and the red there are still other five colors which are invisible to the physical eye but reveal themselves to the spiritual sight. In every Mystery Order there are also seven brothers who at times go out into the world and there perform whatever work may be necessary to advance the people among whom they serve, but five are never seen outside the temple. They work with and teach those alone who have passed through certain stages of spiritual unfoldment and are able to visit the temple in their spiritual bodies; a feat taught in the first initiation which usually takes place outside the temple as it is not convenient for all to visit that place physically. Let not the reader imagine that this initiation makes the pupil a Rosicrucian, it does not, any more than admission to a High School makes a boy a member of the faculty. Nor does he become a Rosicrucian even after having passed through all the nine degrees of this or any other Mystery School. The Rosicrucians are Hierophants of the lesser Mysteries, and beyond them there are still schools wherein Greater Mysteries are taught. Those who have advanced through the lesser Mysteries and have become pupils of the Greater Mysteries are called Adepts, but even they have not reached the exalted standpoint of the twelve Brothers of the Rosicrucian Order or the Hierophants of any other lesser Mystery School any more than the freshman at college has attained to the knowledge and position of a teacher in the High school from which he has just graduated. A later work will deal with initiation, but we may say here that the door of a genuine Mystery School is not unlocked by a golden key, but is only opened as a reward for meritorious service to humanity and any one who advertises himself as a Rosicrucian or makes a charge for tuition, by either of those acts shows himself to be a charlatan. The true pupil of any Mystery School is far too modest to advertise the fact, he will scorn all titles or honors from men, he will have no regard for riches save the riches of love given to him by those whom it becomes his privilege to help and teach. In the centuries that have gone by since the Rosicrucian Order was first formed they have worked quietly and secretly, aiming to mould the thought of Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon, Shakespeare, Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical activities of the day are at their lowest ebb, and the spiritual impulse at its highest flood tide, they have sent out from their temple soul-stirring vibrations to counteract materialism and to further the development of soul powers. To their activities we owe the gradual spiritualization of our once so materialistic science. With the commencement of the twentieth century a further step was taken. It was realized that something must be done to make religion scientific as well as to make science religious, in order that they may ultimately blend; for at the present time heart and intellect are divorced. The heart instinctively feels the truth of religious teachings concerning such wonderful mysteries as the Immaculate Conception (the Mystic Birth), the Crucifixion (the Mystic Death), the cleansing blood, the atonement, and other doctrines of the Church, which the intellect refuses to believe, as they are incapable of demonstration, and seemingly at war with natural law. Material advancement may be furthered when intellect is dominant and the longings of the heart unsatisfied, but soul growth will be retarded until the heart also receives satisfaction. In order to give the world a teaching so blended that it will satisfy both the mind and heart, a messenger must be found and instructed. Certain unusual qualifications were necessary, and the first one chosen failed to pass a certain test after several years had been spent to prepare him for the work to be done. It is well said that there is a time to sow, and a time to reap, and that there are certain times for all the works of life, and in accordance with this law of periodicity each impulse in spiritual uplift must also be undertaken at an appropriate time to be successful. The first and sixth decades of each century are particularly propitious to commence the promulgation of new spiritual teachings. Therefore the Rosicrucians were much concerned at this failure, for only five years were left of the first decade of the twentieth century. Their second choice of a messenger fell upon the present writer, though he knew it not at the time, and by shaping circumstances about him they made it possible for him to begin a period of preparation for the work they desired him to do. Three years later, when he had gone to Germany, also because of circumstances shaped by the invisible Brotherhood, and was on the verge of despair at the discovery that the light which was the object of his quest, was only a jack-o-lantern, the Brothers of the Rosicrucian Order applied the test to see whether he would be a faithful messenger and give the teachings they desired to entrust to him, to the world. And when he had passed the trial they gave him the monumental solution of the problem of existence first published in “_The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception_” in November, 1909, more than a year before the expiration of the first decade of the twentieth century. This book marked a new era in so-called “occult” literature, and the many editions which have since been published, as well as the thousands of letters which continue to come to the author, are speaking testimonies to the fact that people are finding in this teaching a satisfaction they have long sought elsewhere in vain. The Rosicrucians teach that all great religions have been given to the people among whom they are found, by Divine Intelligences who designed each system of worship to suit the needs of the race or nation to whom it was given. A primitive people cannot respond to a lofty and sublime religion, and _vice versa_. What helps one race would hinder another, and in pursuance of the same policy there has been devised a system of soul-unfoldment suited specially to the Western people, who are racially and temperamentally unfit to undergo the discipline of the Eastern school, which was designed for the more backward Hindoos. THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP For the purpose of promulgating the Rosicrucian teachings in the Western World, the Rosicrucian Fellowship was founded in 1909. It is the herald of the Aquarian Age, when the Sun by its precessional passage through the constellation Aquarius will bring out all the intellectual and spiritual potencies in man which are symbolized by that sign. As heat from a fire warms all objects within the sphere of its radiations, so also the Aquarian ray will raise the earth’s vibrations to a pitch we are as yet unable to comprehend, though we have demonstrations of the _material_ workings of this force in the inventions which have revolutionized life within the memory of the present generation. We have wondered at the X-ray, which sees through the human body, but each one has a sense latent which when evolved will enable him to see through any number of bodies or to any distance. We marvel at the telephone conversations across the continent of America, but each has within a latent sense of speech and hearing that is far more acute; we are surprised at the exploits of ships under sea and in the sky, but we are all capable of passage under water or through the sky; nay, more, we may pass unscathed through the solid rock and the raging fire, if we know how, and lightning itself is slow compared to the speed with which we may travel. This sounds like a fairy tale today, as did Jules Verne’s stories a generation ago, but the Aquarian Age will witness the realization of these dreams, and ever so much more that we still do not even dream of. Such faculties will then be the possessions of large numbers of people who will have gradually evolved them as previously the ability to walk, speak, hear, and see, were developed. Therein lies a great danger, for, obviously, anyone endowed with such faculties may use them to the greatest detriment of the world at large, unless restrained by a spirit of unselfishness and an all-embracing altruism. Therefore religion is needed today as never before, to foster love and fellow-feeling among humanity so that it may be prepared to use the great gifts in store for it wisely and well. This need of religion is specially felt in a certain class where the ether is more loosely knit to the physical atoms than in the majority, and on that account they are now beginning to sense the Aquarian vibrations. This class is again divided in two groups. In one the intellect is dominant, and the people in that class therefore seek to grasp the spiritual mysteries out of curiosity from the viewpoint of cold reason. They pursue the path of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, considering that an end in itself. The idea that knowledge is of value only when put to practical constructive use does not seem to have presented itself to them. This class we may call _occultists_. The other group does not care for knowledge, but feels an inner urge God-ward, and pursues the path of devotion to the high ideal set before them in Christ, doing the deeds that He did as far their flesh will permit, and this in time results in an interior illumination which brings with it all the knowledge obtained by the other class, and much more. This class we may describe as _mystics_. Certain dangers confront each of the two groups. If the occultist obtains illumination and evolves within himself the latent spiritual faculties, he may use them for the furtherance of his personal objects, to the great detriment of his fellow-men. That is black magic, and the punishment which it _automatically_ calls down upon the head of the perpetrator is so awful that it is best to draw the veil over it. The mystic may also err because of ignorance, and fall into the meshes of nature’s law, but being actuated by love, his mistakes will never be very serious, and as he grows in grace the soundless voice within his heart will speak more distinctly to teach him the way. The Rosicrucian Fellowship endeavors to prepare the world in general, and the sensitives of the two groups in particular, for the awakening of the latent powers in man, so that all may be guided safely through the danger-zone and be as well fitted as possible to use these new faculties. Effort is made to blend the love without which Paul declared a knowledge of all mysteries worthless, with a mystic knowledge rooted and grounded in love, so that the pupils of this school may become _living_ exponents of this blended soul-science of the Western Wisdom School, and gradually educate humanity at large in the virtues necessary to make the possession of higher powers safe. _Note_:— _Pages 19 to 26 inclusive, describing Mt. Ecclesia, have been transferred to the back of the book._ (Transcriber’s Note: They are pages 191 through 200.) CHAPTER II. THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND ITS SOLUTION THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. Among all the vicissitudes of life, which vary in each individual’s experience, there is one event which sooner or later comes to everyone—Death! No matter what our station in life, whether the life lived has been a laudable one or the reverse, whether great achievements have marked our path among men, whether health or sickness have been our lot, whether we have been famous and surrounded by a host of admiring friends or have wandered unknown through the years of our life, at some time there comes a moment when we stand alone before the portal of death and are forced to take the leap into the dark. The thought of this leap and of what lies beyond must inevitably force itself upon every thinking person. In the years of youth and health, when the bark of our life sails upon seas of prosperity, when all appears beautiful and bright, we may put the thought behind us, but there will surely come a time in the life of every thinking person when the problem of life and death forces itself upon his consciousness and refuses to be set aside. Neither will it help him to accept the ready made solution of anyone else without thought and in blind belief, for this is a basic problem which every one must solve for himself or herself in order to obtain satisfaction. Upon the Eastern edge of the Desert of Sahara there stands the world-famous Sphinx with its inscrutable face turned toward the East, ever greeting the sun as its rising rays herald the newborn day. It was said in the Greek myth that it was the wont of this monster to ask a riddle of each traveler. She devoured those who could not answer, but when Oedipus solved the riddle she destroyed herself. The riddle which she asked of men was the riddle of life and death, a query which is as relevant today as ever, and which each one must answer or be devoured in the jaws of death. But when once a person has found the solution to the problem, it will appear that in reality there is no death, that what appears so, is but a change from one state of _existence_ to another. Thus, for the man who finds the true solution to the riddle of life, the sphinx of death has ceased to exist, and he can lift his voice in the triumphant cry “Oh death where is thy sting, oh grave where is thy victory.” Various theories of life have been advocated to solve this problem of life. We may divide them into two classes, namely _the monistic theory_, which holds that all the facts of life can be explained by reference to this visible world wherein we live, and _the dualistic theory_, which refers part of the phenomenon of life to another world which is now invisible to us. Raphael in his famous painting “the School of Athens” has most aptly pictured to us the attitude of these two schools of thought. We see upon that marvelous painting a Greek Court such as those wherein philosophers were once wont to congregate. Upon the various steps which lead into the building a large number of men are engaged in deep conversation, but in the center at the top of the steps stand two figures, supposedly of Plato and Aristotle, one pointing upwards, the other towards the earth, each looking the other in the face, mutely, but with deeply concentrated will. Each seeking to convince the other that his attitude is right for each bears the conviction in his heart. One holds that he is of the earth earthy, that he has come from the dust and that thereto he will return, the other firmly advocates the position that there is a higher something which has always existed and will continue regardless of whether the body wherein it now dwells holds together or not. The question who is right is still an open one with the majority of mankind. Millions of tons of paper and printer’s ink have been used in futile attempts to settle it by argument, but it will always remain open to all who have not solved the riddle themselves, for it is a basic problem, a part of the life experience of every human being to settle that question, and therefore no one can give us the solution ready made for our acceptance. All that can be done by those who have really solved the problem, is to show to others the line along which they have found the solution, and thus direct the inquirer how he also may arrive at a conclusion. That is the aim of this little book; not to offer a solution to the problem of life to be taken blindly, on faith in the author’s ability of investigation. The teachings herein set forth are those handed down by the Great Western Mystery School of the Rosicrucian Order and are the result of the concurrent testimony of a long line of trained Seers given to the author and supplemented by his own independent investigation of the realms traversed by the spirit in its cyclic path from the invisible world to this plane of existence and back again. Nevertheless, the student is warned that the writer may have misunderstood some of the teachings and that despite the greatest care he may have taken a wrong view of that which he believes to have seen in the invisible world where the possibilities of making a mistake are legion. Here in the world which we view about us the forms are stable and do not easily change, but in the world around us which is perceptible only by the spiritual sight, we may say that there is in reality no form, but that all is life. At least the forms are so changeable that the metamorphosis recounted in fairy stories is discounted there to an amazing degree, and therefore we have the surprising revelations of mediums and other untrained clairvoyants who, though they may be perfectly honest, are deceived by illusions of _form_ which is evanescent, because they are incapable of viewing the _life_ that is the permanent basis of that form. We must learn to see in this world. The new-born babe has no conception of distance and will reach for things far, far beyond its grasp until it has learned to gauge its capacity. A blind man who acquires the faculty of sight, or has it restored by an operation, will at first be inclined to close his eyes when moving from place to place, and declare that it is easier to walk by feeling than by sight; that is because he has not learned to use his newly acquired faculty. Similarly the man whose spiritual vision has been newly opened requires to be trained, in fact he is in much greater need thereof than the babe and the blind man already mentioned. Denied that training he would be like a new-born babe placed in a nursery where the walls are lined with mirrors of different convex and concave curvatures, which would distort its own shape and the forms of its attendants. If allowed to grow up in such surroundings and unable to see the real shapes of itself and its nurses it would naturally believe that it saw many different and distorted shapes where in reality the mirrors were responsible for the illusion. Were the persons concerned in such an experiment and the child taken out of the illusory surroundings, it would be incapable of recognizing them until the matter had been properly explained. There are similar dangers of illusion to those who have developed spiritual sight, until they have been trained to discount the refraction and to view the _life_ which is permanent and stable, disregarding the _form_ which is evanescent and changeable. The danger of getting things out of focus always remains however and is so subtle that the writer feels an imperative duty to warn his readers to take all statements concerning the unseen world with the proverbial grain of salt, for he has no intention to deceive. He is therefore inclined rather to magnify than to minimize his limitations and would advise the student to accept nothing from the author’s pen without reasoning it out for himself. Thus, if he is deceived, he will be self-deceived and the author is blameless. _Three Theories of Life._ Only three noteworthy theories have been offered as solutions to the riddle of existence and in order that the reader may be able to make the important choice between them, we will state briefly what they are and give some of the arguments which lead us to advocate the doctrine of Rebirth as the method which favors soul-growth and the ultimate attainment of perfection, thus offering the best solution to the problem of life. 1) THE MATERIALISTIC THEORY _teaches that life is but a short journey from the cradle to the grave, that there is no higher intelligence in the universe than man; that his mind is produced by certain correlations of matter and that therefore death, and dissolution of the body terminate existence._ There was a day when the arguments of Materialistic philosophers seemed convincing, but as science advances it discovers more and more that there is a spiritual side to the universe. That life and consciousness may exist without being able to give us a sign, has been amply proven in the cases where a person who was entranced and thought dead for days has suddenly awakened and told all that had taken place around the body. Such eminent scientists as Sir Oliver Lodge, Camille Flammarion, Lombroso and other men of highest intelligence and scientific training, have unequivocally stated as the result of their investigations, that the intelligence which we call man survives death of the body and lives on in our midst as independently of whether we see them or not as light and color exist all about the blind man regardless of the fact that he does not perceive them. These scientists have reached their conclusion after years of careful investigation. They have found that the so-called dead can, and under certain circumstances do, communicate with us in such a manner that mistake is out of the question. We maintain that their testimony is worth more than the argument of materialism to the contrary, for it is based upon years of careful investigation, it is in harmony with such well established laws as _the law of conservation of matter_ and _the law of conservation of energy_. Mind is a form of energy, and immune from destruction as claimed by the materialist. Therefore we disbar the materialistic theory as unsound, because out of harmony with the laws of nature and with well established facts. 2) THE THEORY OF THEOLOGY _claims that just prior to each birth a soul is created by God and enters into the world where it lives for a time varying from a few minutes to a few score of years; that at the end of this short span of life it returns through the portal of death to the invisible beyond, where it remains forever in a condition of happiness or misery according to the deeds done in the body during the few years it lived here_. Plato insisted upon the necessity of a clear definition of terms as a basis of argument and we contend that that is as necessary in discussing the problem of life from the Bible point of view as in arguments from the platonic standpoint. According to the Bible man is a composite being consisting of body, soul and spirit. The two latter are usually taken to be synonymous, but we insist that they are not interchangeable and present the following to support our dictum. All things are in a state of vibration. Vibrations from objects in our surroundings are constantly impinging upon us and carry to our senses a cognition of the external world. The vibrations in the ether act upon our eyes so that we see, and vibrations in the air transmit sounds to the ear. We also breathe the ether which is charged with pictures of our surroundings and the sounds in our environment, so that by means of the breath we receive at each moment of our life, _internally_ an accurate picture of our external surroundings. That is a scientific proposition. Science does not explain what becomes of these vibrations however, but according to the Rosicrucian Mystery teaching they are transmitted to the blood, and then etched upon a little atom in the heart as automatically as a moving picture is imprinted upon the sensitized film, and a record of sounds is engraven upon the phonographic disc. This breath-record starts with the first breath of the newborn babe and ends only with the last gasp of the dying man, and “soul” is a product of the breath. Genesis also shows the connection between breath and soul in the words: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (The same word: _nephesh_, is translated breath and soul in the above quotation.) In the post mortem existence the breath-record is disposed of. The good acts of life produce feelings of pleasure and the intensity of attraction incorporates them into the spirit as soul-power. _Thus the breath-records of our good acts are the soul which is saved_, for by the union with the spirit they become immortal. As they accumulate life after life, we become more soulful and they are thus also the basis of soulgrowth. The record of our evil acts is also derived from our breath in the moments when they were committed. The pain and suffering they bring cause the spirit to expel the breath-record from its being in Purgatory. As that cannot exist independently of the life-giving spirit, the breath-record of our sins disintegrates upon expurgation, and thus we see that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” The memory of the suffering incidental to expurgation however, remains with the spirit as _conscience_, to deter from repetition of the same evil in later lives. Thus both our good and evil acts are recorded through the agency of the breath, which is therefore the basis of the soul, but while the breath-record of good acts amalgamates with the spirit and lives on forever as an immortal soul, the breath-record of evil deeds is disintegrated; it is the soul that sinneth and dies. While the Bible teaches that immortality of the soul is conditional upon well-doing, it makes no distinction in respect of the spirit. The statement is clear and emphatic that when ... “The silver cord be loosed ... then shall the dust return to the earth as it was and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.” Thus the Bible teaches that the body is made of dust and returns thereto, that a part of the soul generated in the breath is perishable, but that the spirit survives bodily death and persists forever. Therefore a “lost soul” in the common acceptance of that term is not a Bible teaching, for the spirit is uncreate and eternal as God Himself, and therefore the orthodox theory cannot be true. 3) THE THEORY OF REBIRTHS _which teaches that each spirit is an integral part of God, that it enfolds all divine possibilities as the acorn enfolds the oak; that by means of many existences in an earthy body of gradually __ improving texture its latent powers are being slowly unfolded and become available as dynamic energy; that none can be lost but that all will ultimately attain to perfection and reunion with God, each bringing with it the accumulated experience which is the fruitage of its pilgrimage through matter._ Or, as we may poetically express it: WE ARE ETERNAL.     On whistling stormcloud; on Zephyrus wing,     The Spirit-choir loud the World-anthems sing     Hark! Lis’t to their voice “we have passed through death’s door     There’s no Death; rejoice! life lives evermore.”     We are, have always been, will ever be.     We are a portion of Eternity     Older than Creation, a part of One Great Whole,     Is each Individual and immortal Soul.     On Time’s whirring loom our garments we’ve wrought     Eternally weave we on network of Thought,     Our kin and our country, by Mind brought to birth,     Were patterned in heaven ere molded on earth.     We have shone in the Jewel and danced on the Wave,     We have sparkled in Fire defying the grave;     Through shapes everchanging, in size, kind and name     Our individual essence still is the same.     And when we have reached to the highest of all,     The gradations of growth our minds shall recall     So that link by link we may join them together     And trace step by step the way we reached thither.     Thus in time we shall know, if only we do     What lifts, ennobles, is right and true.     With kindness to all; with malice to none,     That in and through us God’s will may be done. We venture to make the assertion that there is but one sin: _Ignorance_ and but one salvation: _Applied Knowledge_. Even the wisest among us know but little of what may be learned, however, and no one has attained to perfection, or can attain in one single short life, but we note that everywhere in nature slow persistent unfoldment makes for higher and higher development of every thing and we call this process evolution. One of the chief characteristics of evolution lies in the fact that it manifests in alternating periods of activity and rest. The busy summer, when all things upon earth are exerting themselves to bring forth, is followed by the rest and inactivity of winter. The busy day alternates with the quiet of night. The ebb of the ocean is succeeded by the flood-tide. Thus, as all other things move in cycles, the life that expresses itself here upon earth for a few years is not to be thought of as ended when death has been reached, but as surely as the sun rises in the morning after having set at night, will the life that was ended by the death of one body be taken up again in a new vehicle and in a different environment. This earth may in fact be likened to a school to which we return life after life to learn new lessons, as our children go to school day after day to increase their knowledge. The child sleeps through the night which intervenes between two days at school and the spirit also has its rest from active life between death and a new birth. There are also different classes in this world-school which correspond to the various grades from kindergarten to college. In the lower classes we find spirits who have gone to the school of life but a few times, they are savages now, but in time they will become wiser and better than we are, and we ourselves shall progress in future lives to spiritual heights of which we cannot even conceive at the present. If we apply ourselves to learn the lessons of life, we shall of course advance much faster in the school of life than if we dilly-dally and idle our time away. This, on the same principle which governs in one of our own institutions of learning. We are not here then, by the caprice of God. He has not placed one in clover and another in a desert nor has He given one a healthy body so that he may live at ease from pain and sickness, while He placed another in poor circumstances with never a rest from pain. But what we are, we are, on account of our own diligence or negligence, and what we shall be in the future depends upon what we will to be and not upon Divine caprice or upon inexorable fate. No matter what the circumstances, it lies with us to master them, or to be mastered, as we will. Sir Edwin Arnold puts the teaching most beautifully in his “Light of Asia.”     “The Books say well, my Brothers! each man’s life     The outcome of his former living is;     The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes     The bygone right breeds bliss.     Each has such lordship as the loftiest ones     Nay for with powers around, above, below     As with all flesh and whatsoever lives     _Act_ maketh joy or woe.     Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince     For gentle worthiness and merit won;     Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags     For things done or undone.” Or, as an unknown poet says:     “One ship sails East and another sails West     With the self same winds that blow.     ’Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale,     Which determines the way they go.     As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate     As we voyage along through life.     ’Tis the act of the soul, which determines the goal     And not the calm or the strife.” When we wish to engage someone to undertake a certain mission we choose some one whom we think particularly fitted to fulfill the requirements and we must suppose that a Divine Being would use at least as much common sense, and not choose anyone to go his errand who was not fitted therefor. So when we read in the Bible that Samson was foreordained to be the slayer of the Philistines and that Jeremiah was predestined to be a prophet, it is but logical to suppose that they must have been particularly suited to such occupation. John the Baptist also, was born to be a herald of the coming Savior and to preach the kingdom of God which is to take the place of the kingdom of men. Had these people had no previous training, how could they have developed such a fitness to fulfill their various missions, and if they had been fitted, how else could they have received their training if not in earlier lives? The Jews believed in the Doctrine of Rebirth or they would not have asked John the Baptist if he were Elijah, as recorded in the first chapter of John. The Apostles of Christ also held the belief as we may see from the incident recorded in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew where the Christ asked them the question: “Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?” The Apostles replied: “Some say that Thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others Jeremias or one of the Prophets.” Upon this occasion the Christ tacitly assented to the teaching of Rebirth because He did not correct the disciples as would have been His plain duty in His capacity as teacher, when the pupils entertained a mistaken idea. But to Nicodemus He said unequivocally: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” and in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, the fourteenth verse, He said, speaking of John the Baptist: “_this __ is Elijah_,” in the seventeenth chapter of Matthew, the twelfth verse, He said: “Elijah has come already and they knew him not, but have done to him whatsoever they listed, ... then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist.” Thus we maintain that the Doctrine of Rebirth offers the only solution to the problem of life which is in harmony with the laws of nature, which answers the ethical requirements of the case and permits us to love God without blinding our reason to the inequalities of life and the varying circumstances which give to a few the ease and comfort, the health and wealth, which are denied to the many. The theory of Heredity advanced by Materialists applies only to the _form_, for as a carpenter uses material from a certain pile of lumber to build a house in which he afterwards lives, so does the spirit take the substance wherewith to build its house from the parents. The carpenter cannot build a house of hard wood from spruce lumber and the spirit also must build a body which is like those from which the material was taken, but the theory of Heredity does not apply upon the moral plane, for it is a notorious fact, that in the rogues galleries of America and Europe there is no case where both father and son are represented. Thus the sons of criminals, though they have the tendencies to crime, keep out of the clutches of the law. Neither will Heredity hold good upon the plane of the intellect, for many cases may be cited where a genius and an idiot spring from the same stock. The great Cuvier, whose brain was of about the same weight, as Daniel Webster’s, and whose intellect was as great, had five children who all died of paresis, the brother of Alexander the Great was an idiot, and thus we hold that another solution must be found to account for the facts of life. The law of Rebirth coupled with its companion law, the law of Causation does that. When we die after one life, we return to earth later, under circumstances determined by the manner in which we lived before. The gambler is drawn to pool parlors and race tracks to associate with others of like taste, the musician is attracted to the concert halls and music studios, by congenial spirits, and the returning Ego also carries with it its likes and dislikes which cause it to seek parents among the class to which it belongs. But then someone will point to cases where we find people of entirely opposite tastes living lives of torture, because grouped in the same family, and forced by circumstances to stay there contrary to their wills. But that does not vitiate the law in the slightest, in each life we contract certain obligations which cannot then be fulfilled. Perhaps we have run away from a duty such as the care of an invalid relative and have met death without coming to a realization of our mistake. That relative upon the other hand may have suffered severely from our neglect, and have stored up a bitterness against us before death terminates the suffering. Death and the subsequent removal to another environment does not pay our debts in this life, any more than the removal from the city where we now live to another place will pay the debts we have contracted prior to our removal. It is therefore quite possible that the two who have injured each other as described, may find themselves members of the same family. Then, whether they remember the past grudge or not, the old enmity will assert itself and cause them to hate anew until the consequent discomfort forces them to tolerate each other, and perhaps later they may learn to love where they hated. The question also arises in the mind of inquirers: If we have been here before why do we not remember? And the answer is, that while most people are not aware of how their previous existences were spent, there are others who have a very distinct recollection of previous lives. A friend of the writer’s for instance, when living in France, one day started to read to her son about a certain city where they were then going upon a bicycle tour, and the boy exclaimed: you do not need to tell me about that mother. I know that city, I lived there and was killed! He then commenced to describe the city and also a certain bridge. Later he took his mother to that bridge and showed her the spot where he had met death centuries before. Another friend travelling in Ireland saw a scene which she recognized and she also described to the party the scene around the bend of the road which she had never seen in this life, so it must have been a memory from a previous life. Numerous other instances could be given where such minor flashes of memory reveal to us glimpses from a past life. The verified case in which a little three year old girl in Santa Barbara described her life and death has been given in the Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception. It is perhaps the most conclusive evidence as it hinges on the veracity of a child too young to have learned deception.