PRONUNZIAMENTOROSICRUCIAN ORDER

This pronunziamento is one of a series of advanced advices to members of the Rosicrucian Order, A M O R C , which contain the latest postulations in the sciences and arts, and which substantiate certain fundamental principles contained in the official monographs. The information herein is the result of a special compilation of useful and little known facts, prepared under the decree of the Imperator.

The contributors of these pronunziamentos are all Rosicrucians, members of the International Research Council of A M O R C . Each is an authority in his respective science or art. It is by the means of these pronunziamentos that Rosicrucian members will be kept abreast of the times. They constitute the acquisition of new knowledge, and with them Rosicrucians will be able to meet challenges of the accuracy and dependability of our transcendent teachinqs.

3-C (P2-2)

PROLEGOMENONThis Pronunziamento is a special monograph whose subject matter will be

of particular interest to Rosicrucian students. It is sent in addition to your regular monograph, and we suggest that you study it at your convenience.

The contents of this Pronunziamento are particularly related to the subject matter of the First Degree, the monographs of which you have recently received. However, as that Degree contained a considerable amount of material, including also another Pronunziamento, we are therefore including this one with this Degree.

This Pronunziamento-refers to the latest findings of science and its theories with regard to one of the greatest of modern mysteries. Also, as you will note, it will confirm several fundamental Rosicrucian principles.

The compiler of this Pronunziamento. as are the compilers of all the Pro- nunziamentos, is a member of our International Rosicrucian Research Council. This particular Frater is an eminent physicist and engineer, and he writes with authority on this subject. He has tried to reduce this fascinating but technical subject to as simple terms as possible.

We would like to add that the members of the Research Council perform their work gratuitously as a service to the Order. It is from such material as this that the work of the Order progresses not only in the realm of philosophy, metaphysics, and mysticism, but in the sciences and arts as well.

(I. R. C. No. 8)

(The Latin phrase Cagilo, ergo sum on the cover is from the famous statement by the French philosopher Descartes which means I think, therefore l am .)

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ANTI-MATTER

In recent years there has come to public attention the word anti-matter, that which is stated to be opposite to matter as we know it. Many technical abstracts have been written upon the subject by astronomers, physicists, and chemists. What do the Rosicrucians say of this important subject, and can it be related to our Rosicrucian teachings concerning the nature and structure of matter?

As we have related elsewhere, the Rosicrucian Order has an International Research Council consisting of members who are eminent in the various sciences. These members continue to add to our font of Rosicrucian teachings as did the learned masters and venerables of the past. An eminent Frater has prepared for us technically correct and simply presented facts explaining the subject of anti-matter with which every Rosicrucian should be acquainted. Also, you will see in the reading and studying of these facts how several of our basic concepts and laws regarding the nature of matter and its fundamental essence are substantiated by these latest findings.

In Princeton University they tell the following anecdote about Dr. Edward Teller, the brilliant but none-too-popular designer of the hydrogen bomb:

One day Dr. Teller was pondering on the capability of matter plus anti-matter to transform their entire mass into free energy, not just a small fraction like that set free by uranium fission or hydrogen fusion. What a wonderfully efficient and powerful nuclear bomb this would make, he thought ! Immersed in deep contemplation he dozed off and was aroused by a visitor who announced himself as Anti-Teller.

The intruder resembled Dr. Teller like an identical twin, or, rather, like his mirror image; that is, his hair was parted on the opposite, or right, side; his coat buttoned on the left, and he was left-handed.

The two men began a discussion, and being of the same fiery temperament but of diametrically opposite opinion on all subjects, they argued violently. At last, a secret and powerful mutual attraction overcame the disagreement and they approached each other to shake hands. There was a tremendous explosion, and both scientists vanished in a flash.

This playful story illustrates the problems related to antimatter. The underlying concept states that for every fundamental particle there exists another one of opposite polarity. It must be stated, however, what is meant, first by a "fundamental particle" and, second, by "polarity." The Rosicrucian teachings define atoms as the smallest units of matter, and electrons as the elementary units or particles entering into the composition of matter. These teachings distinguish between electrons with positive and negative vibration

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numbers, ''positive meaning even numbers, Modulo 9 that is, having an even residue after division by 9. Conversely, "negative means odd, Modulo 9. According to this definition, polarity of vibration number means even or odd excess over multiples of nine.

In Quantum physics, as taught outside of the Rosicrucian Order, a particle is regarded as a concentration of energy. The mass of the particle is a measure of its energy in accordance with Einstein's basic relativistic equation:

ENERGY EQUALS MASS MULTIPLIED BY THE SQUARED VELOCITY OF LIGHT.

An "elementary particle" is one that has been observed to reoccur frequently and identically. But what about the worldly scientific definition of polarity? First of all, what type of polarity are we referring to? There are very many polar opposites in nature: light is the opposite of darkness, lightness of heaviness; hot is the opposite of cold, small of big, acid of alkali, good of evil. One sees, however, that many of the opposites named above are scaled properties; that is, having only relative polarities. For instance, lukewarm water appears hot compared to ice but cold compared to boiling water.

The polarity most frequently referred to in physics is that of electric charge. When observed on a large scale, this, too, is a scaled or relative quality. For example, a 10-volt battery is positive relative to ground but negative compared to a 20-volt battery. But in elementary particles this is different. An electron has a very definite and constant charge, the amount of which has been measured many times with accuracy better than one-hundredth of one percent. Polarity, therefore, in this electrical sense means the presence of either one positive or one negative unit of charge.

This accounts for the majority of antibodies: the "normal" electron has one negative unit. Its antibody, or opposite, called a positron by science, has one positive unit of charge. Conversely, the much heavier nucleus of atoms is normally positively charged. In the case of the lightest element, hydrogen, the atom consists of one negative electron buzzing around the positive nucleus like a mosquito (with a known speed but with an indeterminate instantaneous position, so that it appears more like a cloud or ring). The nucleus consists of a single heavy particle, called by science a proton, whose positive charge is equal and opposite to that of the electron so that the atom appears to be electrically neutral. The anti-particle of this proton is the negative unit charge.

It may be noted that the "normal" protons and electrons correspond to our Rosicrucian doctrines regarding the center of a "cell" as positive and its wall as negative.

Anti-matter, or the opposite of electrically charged particles, is easily visualized. However, there also exist electrically neutral particles such as neutrons that have about the same mass as a proton,

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and neutral mesons with a weight intermediate between proton and electron. Then there are what science calls neutrinos which have exceedingly small mass. It is claimed by theory and confirmed by experiment that even these electrically neutral particles have their antiparticles. The polarity here involved is of a different nature. It is a "spin" that is, a right-handed or left-handed rotation. The direction of the rotation sense depends on the position from which the spinning axis is viewed; what seems right-handed from the front is left- handed from the rear, and vice versa. Alignment of axis is therefore involved. If the spin is related or combined with an electric charge, it produces magnetism just as a current-carrying wire wound around an iron core produces an electromagnet.

Hence the relation of spin to magnetic polarity is also reversed in anti-particles.

A third important polarity is that of mass. P.A.M. Dirac, who first postulated the existence of anti-particles, visualised electrons with negative mass. Since relativity equates mass with energy, this implies "negative energy" which in the absolute sense seems self-contradictory. One may, however, also regard energy as a scaled quality. In such an interpretation a state of negative energy would mean a relative lack, or reduced amount, of energy content. Consequently, Dirac assumed that there is a vast, unobservable, average level of energy in the universe and that we can only observe the positive and negative deviations from the mean, just as we can see the crests and troughs of ocean waves but not the depth of the ocean beneath the surface.

Why do we call one polarity the "normal" particle and the other an anti-particle? Anti-particles occur in nuclear explosions, in cosmic rays, and can be generated in the big cyclotrons or "atom smashers" of physical research institutes. Therefore, under normal circumstances they are exceedingly rare here on earth and we call them "antiparticles." The question, however, arises as to whether this is inherent in the nature of matter, or accidental.

As implied by the anecdote at the beginning of our discourse on this subject, each particle has a very great affinity for its anti-particle. When they meet they destroy each other by transformation into "photons" ; that is, units of radiant energy propagating with the speed of light.One may visualize this mutual destruction by a pair of flywheels of equal size rotating on the same shaft with equal, but opposite, tremendous speed of rotation. If they come in contact they smash each other into smithereens.

If one surmises an initial state in which both kinds of particles existed in nearly but not quite equal abundance, they would continue destroying each other, pair-wise, until only the slight excess of one type remained. New ones are created from photons, in pairs, and redestroy each other or equal substitutes, so that the unipolar residue remains approximately constant.

A M O R C-----------------------------The Rosicrucian Order

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The reader may ask: "Why is it, then, that negative electrons and positive protons do not destroy each other?" They are equal opposites only with regard to their electric charge but not with regard to their size, mass, spin, and other properties. Therefore, their mutual affinity is less strong and the electrical attraction is overcome, at close range, by forces of repulsion that keep them apart.

We do not know whether the preponderance of negative electrons and positive protons, etc., prevails in the entire cosmos or only in the small part of the universe accessible to us. Spectroscopic measurements of elements in space alone cannot decide this question because a world consisting of anti-matter would have the same atomic and chemical composition, the same vibration frequencies, the same type of mechanical motions and orbits as our own.

It has been conjectured that distant galaxies or clusters of galaxies may consist of anti-matter. We would only find out when two galaxies of opposite types interpenetrated each other. The cosmic explosions set off by such encounters would be stupendous ! This may account for the vast concentration of energy observed in the celestial objects astronomy calls quasars that shine brightly as concentrated points at the incredible distance of billions of light-years from our own little world.

A fragment such as a comet or meteor, straying from an anti-world into ours, would wreak tremendous havoc. There is some speculation that the meteor that laid waste to an area of 200 miles of forest land in Siberia about the beginning of this century may have been such a cosmic "anti-bomb." This remains a speculation that poses as many questions as it answers.

We know, however, that we can create a pair of particle and antiparticle by the impact of powerful radiation of high vibration number upon a heavy obstacle, and that the pair can be re-converted into radiating power of the same intensity by mutual annihilation of their masses. The experimental verification of such events confirms the Rosicrucian assertion that matter is nothing but the manifestation of energy in a form that Rosicrucians call Spirit Energy.

The properties and interactions of these quantized particles do not fit into our accustomed framework of time, space, and causality. If this, then, is true of even so-called "dead" matter, small wonder that the "living" world of mind, consciousness, or in our Rosicrucian parlance, Nous, is even less subject to the restrictions of materialistic categories.

P RINTED IN U . 8 . A.

The matter contained herein Is officially issued through the Supreme Council of the A . M .O . R. C . under the emblem above, which was registered in the United States Patent Office for the purpose of protecting all the "printed, engraved, typewritten, and photographic copies of officially prescribed and copyrighted monographs, dissertations, scientific postulations, philosophical discourses, academic studies, diagrams, illustrations, and charts" as authorized by the Imperator of A. M .O . R. C , (The above emblem and name of the Order are also registered in countries throughout the world.)

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