The Rosicrucian Digest - August 1935.pdf

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r For the StudentAt Home...THIS MONTH’S SUGGESTION

A Meeting of the MindsWhen you write, you have one party in mind. That party

may be one individual or a group of them, but your thoughts

are alone for them. You do not wish your thoughts to reach

a mind or minds for whom they were not intended. Furth er-

more, you do not wish others to interpret your ideas for you.

However, this is only possible when you take the proper

precautions to see that your communications are brought

directly to the personal attention of your correspondent.

The Rosicrucian student who fails to properly address his

or her communications, or give all needed information for

their proper delivery, causes his or her letter or report to

be read, interpreted, and handled by many persons before

reaching its proper destination.

To avoid such conditions and to facilitate a prompt reply

to communications, we have prepared a special large Cor-

respondence Tablet for students, at an economical price. The

k t i d k n t ' s cover of the tablet is also especially useful. Besides being a

C O R R E S P O N D E N C E blotter, there is printed upon it all essential instructions asrr a d i r / r

TO WHOM, WHERE, and WHE N TO WRITE. A t the top

^.in,tht>1v< n./nch* business of each shee t there is printed inform ation for the propers ize sheet s . The blot ter cover direction of your letter. The stationery consists of a light,with its printed inform ation . , , . . . . ,a bout t h e va r ious d e pa r t me n t s strong, and good quality bond paper.

I s a use ful add it ion to each This is a most serviceable article and one that no studenttable t . , *. __ should be without. You owe it to you rself to make this

40c each; 3 for $ .00 ,, J 1 T reason able purchase.

R O S I C R U C I A N S U P P L Y B U R E A U

S A N J O S E . C A L I F O R N I A , U .S .A .



T H O M A S K UH N . K. R .C .

Inspector General, Grand Councilor, and District Commissioner, Frater Kuhnis one of the most active and ardent wo rkers of the Ord er. He not only has anexcellent comprehension of Rosicrucian doctrines, but has the ability to ad-minister and apply them. Although personally active in the business world, hehas always zealously applied himself to Rosicrucian tasks, whether large or small.

(Courtesy o[ The Rosicrucian Digest.)



What Strange PowersDid the Ancient s Posse s s ?

C V E R Y important discovery relating to mindpower, sound thinking and cause and effect,

as applied to selfadvancement, was known cen-turies ago, before the masses could read and write.

Much has been written about the wise men of old. A popular fallacy has it that their secrets of

personal power and successful living were lostto the world. Know ledge of nature’s laws, ac-cumulated through the ages, is never lost. Attimes the great truths possessed by the sageswere hidden from unscrupulous men in highplaces, but never destroyed.

W hy We re Their Secrets Closely Gu ard ed ?

Only recently, as time is measured; not morethan twenty generations ago, less than 1/100thof 1% of the earth’s people were thought cap-able of receiving basic knowledge about the lawsof life, for it is an elementary truism that knowl-edge is power and that power cannot be en-trusted to the ignorant and the unworthy.

Wisdom is not readily attainable by the gen-

eral public; nor recognized when right withinreach. The average person absorbs a multitudeof details about things, but goes through lifewithout ever knowing where and how to acquiremastery of the fundamentals of the inner mind—that mysterious silent something which “whis-pers” to you from within.

thoughts and actions are governed by funda-mental laws. Example: The law of compensationis as fundamental as the laws of breathing,eating and sleeping. All fixed laws of natureare as fascinating to study as they are vitalto understand for success in life.

You can learn to find and follow every basiclaw of life. You can begin at any time to dis-cover a whole new world of interesting truths.You can start at once to awaken your inner powers of selfunderstanding and selfadvancement. You can learn from one of the world’soldest institutions, first known in America in1694. En joyi ng the high regar d of hundreds of leaders, thinkers and teachers, the order isknown as the Rosicr ucian Brotherhood. Its com-plete name is the "Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis," abbreviated by the initials"A M O RC .” The teachings of the Order are notsold, for it is not a commercial organisation,nor is it a religiou s sect. It is a nonprofitfraternity, a brotherhood in the true sense.

Not For General Distribution

Sincere men and women, in search of thetruth—those who wish to fit in with the ways of the world—are invited to write for complimen-

tary copy of the sealed booklet,“Th e Secret Heritage." It

tells how to contact thelibrarian of the archives

of AM OR C for thisrare knowledge. This

booklet is not in-tended for generaldistribution; nor isit sent without re-quest. It is there-

fore suggested that

you write for your copy to the Scribewhose a d d r e s s is

W given in the coupon.The initial step is for

you to take.

Scribc S. P. C „ Rosicrucian Brotherhood, San Jose, California.Please send copy of sealed booklet. "The Sec-ret Her itage ," which 1 shall read a s directed.

(Rosicrucian Members have had this unusual booklet.)



ARISTOTLE S T , M A R T I N

C O V E R S T HE W O R L D

THE OFFICIAL, INTERNATIONAL ROSICRUCIAN MAGA-

ZINE O F T H E W O RLD W I DE RO SI CRUCIAN O RDER

Vol. X III A U G U S T , 1935 No. 7

Subscr ipt ion to The Rosicrucian Diges t , Three Dol lars per

year. Single copies twenty-five cents each.Entered as Second Class M at ter a t the Pos t Off ice a t San

Jose, California, under Act of August 24th, 1912.

Changes of address must reachmonth preceding date of i ssue .

us by the tenth of the

Published Monthly by the Supreme Council of

T HE R O S IC R U C I A N O R D E R — A M O R C

ROSICRUCIAN PARK SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

C O N T E N T S Page

Thomas Kuhn, K. R, C . (Frontispiece)................... 241

The Thought of the Month: Disturbing the Peace- 244

The Secrets of Symbols ...... 246

Cathedral Contacts .......... 252

The Three -fold Path of Plato 254

Pag es from the Past 258

The Lighter Side of Life's Myste ries 263

Ancient Symbolism 268

Corne rstones of Civilization 269

Sanctum Musings: Evolution of the Soul Concept 272

Egypt ian Rock Tomb of A M O R C Museum

(Illustration) ........ 277



TheRosicrucian

Digest

August

1935

T H I N K , s o m e times, that themonth of Augustrepresents one of

the most outstand-ing monuments tothe spirit of dis-turbing the peacethat one may findanywhere in his-tory. There are somany in the worldwho get much en- joyment out of

disturbing the peace and tranquillityand the orderly progress of affairs thatI should like to dedicate the month of August to them as a memorial.

Until the Emperor Augustus decidedto make himself famous through meddl-ing with the worldwide affairs and up-setting the system and order of peace-ful living, the seventh month in theJulian Roman year had been known asQuintilis or “ July in honor of JuliusCaesar. Not to be outdone by Caesar or anyone else, Augustus created a newmonth and officially ordained that itshould be known as August. W e donot know precisely how greatly thisvery serious change in the calendar dis-

turbed the peace of the business andsocial world at the time, but we do knowthat it upset the calendar and has causedan endless amount of disturbance andinconvenience in the minds of researchworkers who have to deal with events

just preceding and fol lowing this crea-tion of an artificial and fictitious month.

Of course, a great many persons inthe past have changed our calendar inregard to months and others havechanged it in the numbering of the

years, and even today there are advo-cates of another great change wherebythe year will have thirteen months in-stead of twelve. Whate ver benefits may

be derived from such changes are cer-tainly more than offset by the very seri-ous disturbances that are created andeverlastingly maintained by such meddl-ing with universally accepted institu-tions as the calendar.

Looking through the month in retro-spection, we find a number of interest-ing facts that give us food for thoughtduring this warm period of the year.

By an act of Congress in 1789 theUnited States War Department wascreated on August 17. W e may look

upon the War Department and its mili-tary activities as meddlesome or as con-structive, according to our spirit andlight, but in general, the W a r Depar t-ment has proved to be a protection anda protective system for all reliable andhonest citizens and even for those of foreign lands who are visiting with us.

A few years later, however, in 1807,on the 11th of August, Fulton’s firststeamboat made its first voyage. Amidmuch ridicule and with many sarcasticremarks directed at him. Fulton proudlydisplayed the result of his work anddemonstrated a constructive applicationof some of nature’s laws. He was notthe first to devise or invent a method of utilizing steam for propelling, nor eventhe first to make a mode of a boat tomove in water by means of steam, buthe did create a very practical and use-ful applicat ion of the idea. Which of the two great inventions falling in themonth of Au gust— the creation of aWar Department and the demonstra-tion of a steamboat— contributed most



to the good and welfare of humanityand added to the glory of the nation, issomething for each individual to decide.

W e note also that the next day, Au g-ust 12, is celebrated and famous for Mr.Edison's invention of the phonograph,

58 year s ago. Certainly, this wa s an in-vention that has contributed not only tothe practical and scientific affairs of life,but to the happiness of mankind sogreatly that it makes the month of Aug-ust important in the calendar.

On the 19th day of August an emi-nent Rosicrucian, famous for his mysti-cal investigations and writing as well asnovels, pas sed to the Grea t Beyond. Itwas the day of the transition of Honorede Balzac in 1850.

Those who are interested in geneal-ogy and in personal history may be glad

to know that in the year 1857 on the18th day of August, the first child of English parents was born in America.

On the 24th of August, 1572, St.Bartholomew Massacre occurred andthis marked a transition point in the his-tory of nations and peoples that is oftenoverlooked in its real significance.

Twentynine years ago on the 28thday of August the first Esperanto con-gress was opened in Europe. Esperanto,too, is an artificial creation on the partof man and an attempt to modify man’s

habits. But it was not a vaingloriousthing like the naming of a month after one's self and the upsetting of a calen-dar. It was an attempt to further theidea of international and worldwidebrotherhood through the creation andmaintenance of an international lan-guage—a tongue which all peoples of all nations could write and speak andunderstand. The big idea back of Es -peranto was that its universal adoptionand use would be the first step towardthe breaking down of the distinct differ-ences of customs, habits, speech, and

thought which were responsible for thecontinued warfare between peoples andnations. Whil e Esperanto is a verywidely used and useful auxiliary lan-guage, and while it may have failed tobecome in every sense an internationallanguage, it did bring to the conscious-ness of man the need for a languagethat could be understood by those liv-ing in every clime. Th e result of theagitation on the part of Esperanto mayor may not be responsible for the fact

that French became an internationallanguage for many years, and now Eng-lish appears to have taken the lead, for no properly regulated store or commer-cial institution in any part of Europefails to have one or more English

speaking clerks or associates ready totransact the company’s business withEnglishspeaking persons, while hotels,railroads, and other places of wide con-tact have their English interpreters con-stantly busy.

From this great idea, born in themind of the Russian who created Es-peranto, we derive a good thought for this month. No t only is it true thatwhen peoples of different nations canget together and talk freely in an un-derstandable manner with one another will many of the differences that lead to

disputes and quarrels disappear, butwhen certain universal literature in onelanguage can be disseminated among allnations and when all of us can read andunderstand the problems, ideals, anddesires, and wishes of those in other lands, we will begin to think alike andto have a more sympathetic apprecia-tion of the human characteristics in allraces of people, and this will lead to thefirst essential step in the unifying of nations and the doing away with war throuqh misunderstandings.

When men and women throughoutthe world begin to think alike they willcomprehend alike and act alike. Therewill be unity in thought and unity inaction and this will lead to cooperation.It has been said by philosophic mindsthat we dislike or hate persons only be-cause we do notunderstand them, or that we disagree with the ideas of others simply because we cannot gettheir viewpoint. Certa inly that whichinterferes most definitely today with thecooperative action on the part of thosethat should form a universal brother-

hood will be done away with when wecan begin to think alike and act alike.Esperanto has been useful and its utilityhas tempted others to create varioussubstitutes for it as an artificial lan-guage, and today there are many modi-fications of this linguistic idea, but thefundamental idea back of it all is grow-ing stronger and greater all the time.This is truly a link in uniting the chil-dren of the world into one great humanfamily.



The

Rosicrucian

Digest

August

1935

The Secrets of Symbols

By F r a t e r S. J . M a r x , K. R. C.

<An address intended to be given at the 1935 Rosicrucian Convention

by Frater Marx, who passed through transition as a result of an

automobile accident while en route to Rosicrucian Park, San Jose.

V V V

nal and incomplete form. The bulky, re-fractory nature of Western tongues,combined with the rigidity of our alpha-betical system of representing not ideas,but sounds, prevent utterly the essenceof thought forcing its way through themere series of words which constitutewhat is called a grammatically con-structed sentence.

This the ancient Mystics of the Ori-ental nations understood perfectly well,and therefore gave to their speech abroader reach; not only have their words a literal and strict signification,but also, and mainly in a figurativesense. Th ey richly imaged their lan-guage and spoke in apologues, fables,and parables, thus guiding the medita-tions of their hearers to an inexhaustible

source of esoteric and scientific applica-tions. Further writing as well as speechwas imaged and the Egyptian Mastersgave three principle interpretations totheir graphic characters. Besides their phonetic value, these possessed also asymbolic or hieroglyphic, and a sacredor hieratic meaning.

One single word of the sacredtongue, Hebrew, contains within itself an inexhaustible subject of meditationswhich could not find place in volumes

T IS impossible for direct language tof u l ly a nd c o m -p le t e ly e x p r e s sidealisms. If directlanguage answersto the immediateneeds o f man,nevertheless, it isinsufficient to pre-sent in one greatensemble an ideawith its develop-ments, its corolla-

ries, and its analogie s. A s sentimentsand passions are best described by whatmay be termed a language of its own,which appeals to the inner qualities of mankind, such as music, painting, and

sculpture, so are metaphysical idealsbetter developed and more completelyunderstood through allegories, and ma-terial figures known as symbols. Inevery idea expressed either by speechor by writing, it is necessary to consider the form, and the prime motive, the let-ter and spirit, the material envelop andthe spiritual essence, or what may bebetter termed the exoteric and esotericsides. Direct and precise language canexpose a thought, but in its most exter



written in our direct, mathematicalgraphic characters, meaningless signsstrangled in the vise of a barbarous or-thography and a tyrannical syntax. T ounderstand the teachings of the Mastersand to perpetuate ancient wisdom, re-course to their secret symbolism isnecessary. It was, besides, the primitivelanguage of mankind.

Let me illustrate by quoting you thefirst three verses of the Bible: “ In thebeginning God created the Heavens andthe Earth, and the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was uponthe face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the watersand God said let there be light, andthere was light." Here is a statementthat contains within itself all the forms

of creations or studies of cosmologies.A volume could not do justice to thesecret symbolism contained in these firstthree verses of the Bible. T o thosefamiliar with the teachings of the M as -ters. and who can read the idealismscontained in the words used, a beautifulesoteric construction is obtained. Theword God itself in its symbolic form ismade uo of three mystic initials of words that are from an ancient languaqe: “ G ” stands for gomer or beauty;" O ' stands for Oz or strenoth; “ D ”stands for Dabar or wisdom. Beau ty is

the soul: strength the body: wisdom thepersonality—the triune composition of the Deity and its component symbolismsin man.

If we use the Hebrew name for theCreator, which is Jodhevauhe. or Jehovah, and analyze the symbolismcontained in this name, we find, accord-ing to mystical numerology, that itequals the number 8, for Jod is 10, he is5. vau is 6 and he is 5 which total 26,26 reduced to one number equals 8. and8 is made up of a cryptic form of two

circles, one placed on top of the other.The macrocosm and the microcosm.

Here in symbolic language we find anattempt to give an idealistic conceptionof the Creator, as Beauty, Wisdom andStrength. M or al Pow er , M at er ialPower, Spiritual Power. You will notealways the combination of triune con-ceptions, for without the use of theTriangle there can be no presentation of an abstract idealism into an understand-able concrete form.

The next verse: “The earth was with-out form and void, and darkness was onthe face of the deep,” expresses a sym-bolism that is interpreted likewise in anidealistic manner. There had as yetbeen no separation of the microcosmfrom the macrocosm, for God had notas yet begun creating, hence thereexisted no necessity for a separation of the earth plane from the Cosmic. It isto be noted that the verse in Genesisspecifically states "the Earth was with-out form and void", no reference ismade to the Heavens being chaotic.This, therefore, answers that questionso often propounded by students of metaphysics, "If there was chaos at thebeginning, when was the real begin-ning?" W e, a s human beings, are not

concerned with a manmade beginning,for that would be trying to measure in-finity, and as infinity has neither time,beginning, nor end, it is an abstractthing, for which no language has yetbeen formulated to express such anidealism. Th e Earth, however, is finite,and can be expressed in a concretemanner.

The next verse reads: "And darknesswas on the face of the deep, and thespirit of God moved on the face of thewaters, and God said ‘let there be light'and there was light.' " Here is another

secret symbolism that reads to the ini-tiated the fact that until darkness hadbeen expelled by the word of the Crea-tor, the representative of the allsoul(liqht), the earth was a useless creation.W e must remember that this light is notto be considered a luminary, for in thefourteenth to eighteenth verses a con-crete definition is given of luminaries.Light, as shown in the third verse of Genesis, is that idealistic, mystical, ab-stract thing which man has named thesoul the representative of the Creator, without which nothing exists.

Thus in triune revelation the firstthree verses of Genesis stated in secretsymbolisms when interpreted correctlyis not only religious and scientific, butinterferes with no fundamental belief ever postulated by thinking mankind.

A great secret symbolism is likewisecontained in verses 26 and 27 of Gene-sis, "Let us make man in our ownimage, after our likeness, etc." "G odcreated man in his own image, in the



The

RosicrucianDigest

August

1935

image of God created he him; male andfemale created he them.” There is avast idealism in these two verses thathas to do with many of the postula-tions of the Rosicrucians. Let us an a-lyze what is meant by these symbolisms

same and likeness.I mentioned that the word God is

composed of an idealism of beauty, strength and wisdom. Beauty is thesoul, for without this nothing can mani-fest. Th is is only loaned to us, and byits manifestation we are living beings,we can neither improve or impair it, it isthe divinity that resides within us; it isthe basis of Rosicrucian ontology.Strength is our physical bodies, for without such a vehicle we would haveno means of revealing ourselves to

others in the present stage of evolution.This body is given to us by our parentsin a mystical manner. It is proper lycalled by the Rosicrucians the templeand as such we are to nourish it andcare for it to make it a proper place for the divinity to reside within. It is bothnegative and positive; the negative ele-ments coming from food and water, andthe positive elements from breathingand thinking. Wisdom is an idealismwhich has to do with the third part of the triangle which forms man, our per-sonality. Th is is our sole purpose to de-

velop so that we may truly claim we arean image or a likeness of the Deity. Allthe teachings and efforts of our Order has been to help man create and perfectthis personality, so that it may become atrue factor in the triangle of soulbody and mind. Man in concrete languagecalls this abstract thing personality, character building. Th us we must accu-mulate wisdom by our own desires andfreewill; and the greater our idealismsurge us to perfect this personality tobecome like unto the Creator, the

greater our strides to the acme of thehuman race—mastership.

W e could continue indefinitely on thesecret symbolisms in the Bible, but thereis likewise another viewpoint to take onthis subject of secrets of symbolisms.Let us now turn to the Middle Ages.

It is by no means an easy task to sumup in any brief form the general opin-ions, philosophical and scientific, of ascholar of the Middle Ages. While it istrue that scholarly opinion was indeed,

on the whole, at any one time more uni-form than it is now, because of the all-controlling influence of the Church, yetin those times many men had manyminds. There is, moreover, another dif-ficulty; we do not always know what

men thought. Our own clear and accu-rate technical vocabularies within thefields of philosophy and still more of science, are the products of a slow evo-lution, and on the whole modern. Th eAncient world and the Middle Agesdid not, in general, think clearly becauseboth lacked words to think with. Whosoin his day broke through the limitationsof his thinking, had no way in which toexplain to himself or to his own genera-tion or posterity. W e would be entirelyin ignorance of what were the real opin-ions of many great thinkers of former times, if it were not for the greatthoughts expressed in symbols. Thesesymbols were used due to the lack of words in the expression of originalideas, and here lies the great secret of symbols. For students in their writings,unless they were initiates of the sameMystery Schools, came to quite oppo-site conclusions in their views. Even inthose rare instances when great figuresof the past saw their idealisms in thesame form in which the questions cometo us, their answers do not fit into our

mental background; they could not statetheir results in our forms of words.

Thus in Egyptian symbology theMasters expressed the soul as the BA;the personality as the KA, the KHU asthe spiritual intelligence; the SEKEMas the vital power, the KHAT as hisphysical body, and the AB as his heart. Mankind even today, unless he knowsthe interpretation of these cryptic repre-sentations of idealisms, confuses thispicture writing with something entirelydifferent from the intention of the M as-

ters. Yet in these secret symbols arecontained as profound an understandingof the structure of man as has ever beenpostulated in modern times. In fact,most of the researches and Cosmic rev-elations that come to us from Ancienttimes would have been lost and con-fused if it had not been for this secretsymbolism. Not only wa s this secrecymaintained in the written language for those who proved themselves worthy,but there was, as stated before, no suit-



able words coined to translate these ab-stract idealisms, so they had to be ex-pressed in symbols, either written or spoken.

Let me quote an example: No student

of our ancient churches can fail to havenoticed how frequently animals andother representatives of natural historyare painted or carved therein. The ques-tion naturally occurs, are these sculp-tures or paintings mere grotesque crea-tions of an artist’s fancy, or have theysome meaning which patient investiga-tion will discover for us? It has onlybeen lately that a satisfactory answer tothese questions has been discovered tothe artistic and scientific world; thoughour Order always knew that these carv-ings were not merely freaks of fancy.

It was quite by accident that this linkof natural history of the Middle Ageswas discovered, and which is con-tained in books called bestiaries, whichcan be found in any great library andcan be studied by those who have thepatience and requisite knowledge. Letus first understand what a typical bes-tiary is like.

A bestiary may treat of about thirtyor forty animals and birds, real or mythical. It may be adorned with illu-minated miniatures of each animal

treated, and will give a description of its supposed habits and appearance.Again the writer may have some tale totell about the animal. But last, and notleast, for this is the prominent feature of the bestiaries, are given the religiousand moral lessons which the animal’sbehavior can teach.

Few books have entered more thanthe bestiaries into the common life of nations. Hence we can understa nd thatthe sculptor who is beautifying a churchwas not slow to use such familiar mate-

rial. In thus laying the bestiaries under contribution, the builders of a churchwould be able to carry out an import-ant object— the instruction of all futureworshipers. Th e priest was there to in-struct through the ears of the congre-gation, while the sculptures, would in-struct still more effectively through theeyes. No less an authority than Horacespoke of the eye as a medium of instruc-tion, and what is still more important,all modern teachers agree with him.

The original bestiary, generally calledthe physiologus, was produced in a far less scientific age than ours. No oneknows who wrote the Physiologus, andthere is no clue to be traced from thetitle, which simply means “The Nat-uralist ’’. But owing to its doctrinal andlinguistic peculiarities, it has been as-signed to an Alexandrine source. A u-thorities have shown that the majorityof the animals mentioned in the beastiaries are to be found in Egypt, or maybe seen there occasionally. Alexandrinephilosophy, scholarship, and theologyhad many peculiarities. Some there werewho tried to combine and reconcile theteachings of the Greek philosopherswith the teachings of the Christ. Othersagain interpreted the Bible, and even

the natural history of the Bible, in amore mystical and symbolic way. Theresult was that the plain literal meaningwas discredited. Wh en current meth-ods of natural history came in contactwith the current methods of biblical in-terpretation, the latter were misunder-stood. The Physiologus was producedby these two tendencies combined. Thetranslations of the Physiologus enteredinto all popular literature of Europe,and so it came about that animals fromthe East were represented in thechurches of the West, for the purpose

of instructing medieval congregations.W e can thus safely say that the

secrets of symbols are in fact nothingmore than ideas of expression, due tothe intellectual limitations in words. Sowe must be very careful when we readthe works of the Ancients and thescholars of medieval times. W e shouldnot altogether think they believed in allthose strange animals such as dragonsand centaurs, and gave to not only thesebut to common animals like the lion, thelamb, etc., attributes which we know

they do not possess. Th ey were onlyexpressing ideas in a symbolic form.Thus when we read in Job XII:7, “Askthe beasts that they shall teach thee,and the fowls of the air, that they shalltell thee.” it is not to be taken literally,but in the symbolic form intended by thegreat Mystic who was author of thatBook of the Bible. W e are simply try-ing to be wiser than the Masters, if wedo not learn from the fowls of the air,and the lilies of the field.



The expressions of thought not alonein symbolical form but also in pictureform, have given more lasting impres-sions than could have been accom-plished by hundreds of books. Onewonders as he reads the Bible, both Old

and New Testaments, at the many ref-erences of animals therein. Possibly theass is mentioned at least fifty times inthe Old Testament, yet if you will studythe majority of the references, you willsee that it is always intended to bring toyour realization the idea of endurance.Buddhist sages counselled their disciplesto take pattern by the humility andpatience of the Ass . Wh en reference ismade in literature and art to the bear,more especially in discussing with evi-dent relish the contents of a hive of honey, an interpretation was meant thatmany a man has been lured to destruc-tion by bodily and sensual delights. W ehave a reference in Psalm LXXX:13,where it is said the vine brought up outof Egypt, that “the wild boar out of thewood doth root it up, and the wildbeas ts of the field devour it” . Th is issimply an expression symbolically madethat the power of evil is trying to up-root and destroy the power of the Crea-tor. Th e fox is presumed to ensnare theunwary fowls by pretending to be dead,here is a symbolism of the unwary per-

sons who love corrupt things, and whowill, if not careful, lose their own souls.

W e frequently read of the horns of the antelope, which are so powerful thathe can saw trees asunder with them.The horns of the antelope represent theOld and New Testaments, which man isto use as teachings to resist adversaries.The lion is represented in a good andevil aspect in symbolism. Th e lion wassupposed to sleep with his eyes open.This is the symbol of the awakedness of the Spirit of good, whilst the human

body is wrapt in the sleep of death.Psalm CXXL:4, can be quoted in thisconnection: “Behold He that keepethIsrael shall neither slumber nor sleep.”This, of course, is a representation of the good aspect of the lion. Th e evil

T h e aspect is intended when the lion isRnsirruristn shown as being subdued by some hero•1Y.C/3/CT t t L l l f i l i p t n . | mi

p.. such as Samson or David. 1 he sym&es bolism here intended is the subduing of

August the passions. W e even to this day use1935 the expression “ from the lion's mouth” .

This is expressive of the symbolism of David in 1 Sam. XVII:35. There issaid of David that when a lion took alamb out of the flock, “ I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it outof his mouth; and when he rose against

me, I caught him by the beard andsmote and slew him.” Th e lions inwhich the story of Daniel is so sym-bolically pictured in their den, has bothan evil and then a good aspect.

And so one could continue indefi-nitely with the symbolisms in the Bibleas to animals. Th e Bible is most cer-tainly the greatest book both mysticallyand symbolically that has ever beengiven to man. If we read it literally, wewill lose all of its symbolisms, but whenwe take it verse by verse and see the

Secrets of Symbols contained therein,we marvel at the pristine knowledgethat was conveyed to us by this ancienttale of mankind. W e must, therefore,ever search for the idealisms containednot only in the Bible but in all ancientexpressions. W e do not get very far with understanding any history or sci-ence unless we can trace the symbolismof the ideals contained in them.

Likewise we must be always carefulthat there is a great difference in themodern book and the ancient writings.Our present books, for instance, are first

written out in full and then carefullycorrected by an author. Ne xt it pas sesthrough the hands of the publisher’s“copy man”, and is again carefullyedited. It is then set in “ gal leys” and aproofreader goes over it for mistakes of the printer and author alike. In pag eproof it gets another revision, and whenit is presumably about as right as it canbe made, it is cast into plates from whichit is to be printed. After that, to change acomma or a semicolon is a costly per-formance. In addition, there is a copy -

right law to prevent undue borrowing,while anybody who uses so much as asingle sentence of its text puts the bor-rowing in quotation marks.

Not so before the invention of print-ing. All books were written out byhand anyway, and it was always just aseasy to make changes as to recopy theold text. No bo dy ever quoted. If anauthor wanted to use old material, hesimply copied off what he liked, left outwhatever he did not like, and altered



that which he preferred some other way.Each new book was made by stringingtogether parts of as many old ones asthe author cared to use, with addition towhatever the writer had picked up him-

self, variegated with all the misinter-pretations and most of the clerical errorsof all the authors and copyists that hadgone before. Nobo dy had any consci-ence about borrowing: nobody had anyconscience about making alterations,omissions and interpretations of bor-rowed material, and then passing it off as original. W e commonly dwell on thecopy ists ’ errors in old manuscripts. W etoo often ignore how much of the oldmanuscript is what we would now call adeliberate forgery.

All really ancient works, therefore,

are essentially secretions. Th ey startwith a nucleus and grow slowly by addi-tions, as one scribe after another recopies and reedits the first. Commonlythe accretion around one nucleus fuseslater with the accretion around another;these in their turn fuse with a third,fourth and fifth, until it becomes mostdifficult for the expert to disentangle theseveral elements. But disentangled theymust be, else they cannot in moderntimes be used for scientific data or history.

This will account, in the main, for thetwo versions of Genesi s. The re is theElohistic version and the Priestly ver-sion, and it is only when we separatethe symbolism contained in both ver-sions that we can reconcile the two nar-ratives, and the truths that are revealed.If we take a literal translation of thesetwo narratives, we become confused, butwhen we see with a clear vision, our eyes are indeed opened to the mysticaltale told in Genesis.

The mystic has ever put his thoughtsinto secret symbols, which we call pic-ture writing, and how much better itwould be for the student if this pro-cedure were more common even today.

A picture that represented an idealism could never be misunderstood for any-thing else, for when a Rosicrucianstudent sees the triangle with the basein a certain position, he immediatelyknows whether it is a material or aCosmic manifestation. He searches for the symbolism of the Trinity thatthe triangle represents, for he knowsat once that it represents a com-pleted, perfected idealism. When hesees the astrofigures of the planets suchas Venus, the circle above the cross, heknows at once that an idealism of love

or beauty is intended; of Mercury, thecircle above the cross and the half moonabove the circle, he realizes that intelli-gence is being announced. Or if he seesa picture of Mars, a cross above thecircle, he knows that the mystic waswriting about an unfinished state of evo-lution, for until the cross, the idealismsof man’s burdens, are placed beneaththe mastership of the microcosm, theone circle, the work of the student hasnot been completed.

One could continue indefinitely with

picturewriting and of its secret symbol-ism. But the time I have is limited andif I have accomplished but one purposein this brief talk, that of presenting toyou the importance of reading symbolswhether it is in speech or in writing. Iwill have rendered the service of direct-ing your studies into a pleasant path of

learning, one that will be productive of

unfolding much of the Secrets of

Symbols.

SOUVENIR CONVENTION PROGRAM

An unusually attractive 1935 Convention program was prepared and given to everyperson who recently registered for the large 1935 Convention in the Fancis Bacon Audi-torium in Rosicrucian Park. San Jose. This program sets forth in detail the variousactivities and functions of each Convention day. as well as the titles of the addressesby the different officers and members, and it is something which you will enjoy reading,even though you may not have attended the Convention. It will help you to better visualize this congregation of hundreds of members at San Jose who came from variousparts of the world, meeting on the common ground of Rosicrucianism. These veryattractive and interesting programs may be had for only 15c with postage paid. Writeand order one today from the Rosicrucian Supply Bureau, San Jose, California.

+-------------------------

Two Hundred Fiftyone



T he

Rosicrucian

DigestAugust

1935

The “Cathedral of the Soul" is a Cosmic meeting place for all minds of themost advanced and highly developed spiritual members and workers of theRosicrucian Fraternity. It is a focal point of Cosmic radiations and thoughtwaves from which radiate vibrations of health, peace, happiness, and inner awake ning. Va riou s periods of the day are set aside when many thousandsof minds are attuned with the Cathedral of the Soul, and others attuning withthe Cath edr al at this time will receive the benefit of the vibrations. Th ose whoare not members of the organization may share in the unusual benefit as wellas those who are members. Th e book called "Libe r 777” descri bes the periodsfor various contacts with the Cathedral. Copies will be sent to persons whoare not members by addressing their request for this book to Friar S. P. C., careof AM O R C Tem ple, San Jose, California, enclosing three cents in postage

stamps. (Please state whether member or not—this is important.)

T HE SAN C T UM AT T HE C ROSSROAD S

H E N o n e t r a v e l sthrough variousparts of Europeby automobile or

wanders by footin to the va l leysand up the hill-sides of the rollingcountry lying be-tween the larger cities, one is im-pressed from timeto time with thec r u d e s a n c t u m s

that are represented by a sheltered cru-cifix on a post at cross roads or near

cemeteries. In places where no greatchurch or cathedral has been built andwhere the simple people of the openlands have no ready facilities for con-

gregating in worship and prayer, thepost with its holy significance and itshandmade parts is indeed appealingand affords an excellent opportunity for the sincere to express themselves religi-ously and find devotional attunement.

Many a prayer has been directed toGod pleading in behalf of some sickone, some injured or elderly person atthese outdoor shrines. Th e groundaround them is sanctified by the tearsthat have been shed and by the throb



beats of those who linger there in wor-ship. Coming within the shadow of oneof these, each tourist feels that he hassuddenly confronted a holy place andthat a protection and a call to divineworship and a realization of the spirit-

ual qualities of life appears to be di-vinely ordained. Perha ps more real de-votion and more sincere attunementwith God has been felt and expressed atthese outdoor shrines than in any cathe-dral or temple of the world.

But through the Cathedral of theSoul each one of us has the same oppor-tunity but with even greater conveni-ence to lift ourselves up in attunementwith God and the Higher Forces andseek for peace and happiness and all thebetter things of life.

Make the Cathedral of the Soul your sanctum, your Holy of Holies and your place of worship, as well as the placewhere you seek peace and health andhappiness and the blessed privilege of attuning yourself with all of mankind inan uplift of consciousness toward thesource of all things.

If you are not a member or are un-familiar with the Cathedral of the Souland what it has done for others and cando for you, be sure to secure a copy of Liber 777 which is free for the asking,and read it carefully.

It matters not whether you are of onereligious creed and denomination or an-other, or of what your doctrines mayconsist, or how you may look upon hu-manity and its relationship to the Godof the universe. You are welcome toparticipate in the services of the Cathe-dral of the Soul in the quiet of your own home, or on the hill top, or in thevalley, or on the busy streets, or in your office, or wherever you may be. Thereis no attempt to convert you from onereligion to another or to change in your

consciousness the faith that you have inany creed or doctrine. Hold fast to thatwhich has proven good to you but whenyou worship let your soul rise up inglorious attunement with the Cosmicabove you and do not allow it to bestifled or restricted by any of the manmade ideas.

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

V V V

A N E W L O S A N G E L E S T EM P L E

Hermes Lodge N o. 41 of the AM O RC in Lo s Angeles is planning to purchase,

lease, or build a new temple with suitable auditorium where visiting officers and digni-

taries may address and meet with members, and with a complete library, and social rooms

for gatherings of various nature, in addition to a large Egyptian lodge room.

Many members of the Order traveling around the United States pass through Los

Angeles from one end of the year to the other, and Hermes Lodge desires to make the

new temple a convenient place for these visiting members to rest and enjoy a few days'

contact with the thousands of members in the Southern California district.W e are glad to indorse the plan of Hermes L odge No. 41 a s we have indorsed the

plans of other lodges of AM O RC which have carried out the same aspirations in the

past. Ou r members in Southern C alifornia, therefore, are advised that this plan h as our

approval, but we warn every member to be sure that any persons who may approach

them with solicitations of any kind in connection with this plan are properly authorized

and are known as real representatives of our Order and of Hermes Lodge No. 41. Be-

ware of pretenders and imposters! V erify ev ery claim that may be made to you by any

representative of the Order. The chairman of the Hermes Lodge building plan is Dr.

J. C. Guidero of 679 South Central Avenue, Los Angeles, California.



TheRosicrucian

DigestAugust

1935

The Threefold Path of Plato

AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE TRIANGLE

By F r a t e r H a r v e y M i l e s , F . R. C.

V V V

E H A V E c h o s e nPlato as our themefor discussion to-night, because heexempli f ies thetrue Ros icrucianMystic in the way

he uses the tr i-ang le to expla inhuman behavior.

P l a to h a s d i -vided human be-havior into threecategories — DE-

SIRE , E M O T I O N , and K N O W L -E D G E . He says that desire has itsseat in the loins and the sex. He hassubdivided histriangle of human be-havior and he explains that those in thecategory of desire are swayed by AP-P E T I T E , I M P U L S E , a n d IN -ST IN C T . These powers and qualitiesare in all men, but in divers degrees.Some men are the very embodiment of desire. The y are restless and acquisi-tive souls who are absorbed in materialquests and quarrels, who burn with lustof luxuries and show, and who ratetheir gains always as naught comparedwith their everreceding goals. Theseare the men who dominate and manipu-late industry.

Now in order to find oneself andknow how to apply the Rosicrucianteachings to every phase of life and toone’s personal problems, regardless of the category of life that one finds him-self in, he must first of all be truthfulwith himself. If he finds himself in a

particular realm of evolution, he mustaccept that as the state where Godplaced him in order to work out his ownKarma and evolve on a higher plane of understanding. And so, if he finds him-self closely associated with the categoryof desire whereby he is swayed by in-stinct, impulse, and appetite, first of allhe must admit that this is his naturalhome or his natural environment, andthat the only way in which he can riseout of this category is to apply theseteachings to his particular problem andhis particular condition while he is pass-ing through his phase of evolution.

These people who find themselves inthis triangle, which Plato has illustratedto us, are generally very excitable, im-petuous types. The y are at times boist-erous and turbulent; they are impatientand often intolerant; they are irritableand restless. Th ey are easily agitatedand are covetous. Tho se who are thevery embodiment of desire will go to ut-most extremes in order to attain their



ends. Th ey are lustful and they have atremendous passion for possession andacquisition. Th ey do not seem to app re-ciate the rights of other individuals, nor do they ever use reason to determinewhether others have any rights or privi-leges. In many cases they are blind tofairness and justice. They see only thatwhich is profitable for them and whichwill make them powerful in the way of possession of earthly, material things.These individuals carry a tremendousmaterial burden, for everything thatthey have in life, everything that theyseem to have a realization of, is a ma-terial, concrete thing. Mo st of themhave no appreciation of art and litera-ture; they cannot understand how onecould enjoy a beautiful symphony or

the opera. Th ey usually appreciate onlythat which comes to them through ap-petite and instinct and impulse— thatwhich has its cause in the loins.

These are the people who so oftenmanipulate our factories , munitionplants, cotton mills, shoe factories,clothing industries, the food markets,railroads, etc. Other pursuits of the de-sire group are: Liquor industry, variousgambling institutions, and underworldactivities.

Now, emotion has its seat in the

heart, in the flow and the force of theblood. It is the organic resonance of experience and desire. Th ose who re-spond to this triangle of emotion, whichis exemplified by SPIRIT, AMBI-TION, and COURAGE, are reallytemples of feeling and courage. Th eycare not so much for what they fight, asfor victory in and for itself. Th ey arepugnacious, rather than acquisitive;their pride is in power rather than inpossession; their joy is on the battle-field rather than in the mart. Th ese arethe men who make up the armies and

navies of the world. Th ey are the menwho make the flyers, or the air corps,the police departments, the fire depart-ments, the pugilistic athletes, and other sports of conquest.

If you find yourself responsive to thistriangle of emotion and you are reallyhonest with yourself, you will recognizeimmediately that the best position for you in life is in some endeavor thatgives you an opportunity to expressyour courage, your inner spirit. You

must find a channel to show valor, for-titude, and firmness. Yo u must find aplace in life that gives you an oppor-tunity to demonstrate chivalry, persev-erance, and heroism. Th is you will find

in some of the branches of the armyand navy service. You must have aposition in life where you are a protect-ing force, or a protecting influence, be-cause that is your natural aptitude. It isyour inner feeling that you wish to ex-press as a protector— a fighter. As wehave stated previously, you would notfight for something which you wouldwish to keep and have in your posses-sion, but simply for the desire of fight-ing in order to win.

These people who are swayed byemotion and who came under this categorv are those who constitute the braveof the country. Th ey are intrepid, darinq, defiant. In their consc iousness theword danger does not exist. The y areselfreliant and confident. Th ev havepluck and are game. They have astrong heart. If you find yoursel f inthis particular stage of evolution andyou know that you must pass throughthis nhase of life and you want to applythe Rosicrucian teachings, do so in oneof the fields just mentioned, and makeyourself a better protector of humanity,

for that is what these people really are.These emotional types are always in thefront line of fire, protectinq those whoare producing food, clothes, and thenecessities of life for the people who arethe guiding lights of the universe—thosewho come under the triangle of knowl-edge.

Plato’s trianqle of knowledae. whichi s T H O U G H T , I N T E L L E C T , a n dREASON, consists of the few whosedelight is in meditation and understand-ing, who yearn not for goods nor for

victory, but for knowledae; who leaveboth market and battlefield to lose them-selves in the quiet clarity of secludedthought: whose will is a light, rather than a fire: whose haven is not power but truth. These are the men of wisdom

who stand aside unused by the world.

Plato explains this clearly when he

says: “ Unguided by knowledge the

people are a multitude without order,

like desires in disarray . Th e people



TheRosicrucian

DigestAugust

1935

need the guidance of philosophers asdesires need the enlightenment of knowledge. Ruin comes when thetrader, whose heart is lifted up byW E A L T H , B E C O M E S R U L E R , o r when the general uses his army to es-

tablish a military dictatorship. The pro-ducer is at his best in the economic field;the warrior is at his best in battle; theyare both at their W O R S T in publicoffices, and in their crude hands politicssubmerges statesmanship, for states-manship is a science and an art. Onemust have lived for it and been longprepared. Only a philosopherking isfit to guide a nation. Unti l philosophersare kings, or the kings and the princesof this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and politicalleadership meet in the same man. cities

will never cease from ill. nor will thehuman race attain the perfect state.

“ In the perfect st ate the industrialforces which are led by desire, wouldproduce but they would not rule. Th emilitary forces which are led by emo-tion, would protect but they would notrule. The forces of knowledge and sci-ence and philosophy would be nour-ished and protected and they wouldrule.’’

As Rosicrucian students you should

find yourself swayed principally by thistriangle of knowledge, which consists of thought, reason, and intellect. Youshould have the spirit of meditation andunderstanding. Your inner facultiesshould be keen to appreciate the valueof mystical law and the application of mystical law to your everyday affairsand your everyd ay problems. Youshould know the value of reason and in-tellect and use these as tools to attainwisdom and the mastership of these eso-teric laws that are being given to you inyour weekly monographs. If you find

yourself in this triangle, you will not beone of the members who frequently needwrite to Headquarters for help on your personal problems; you will not consultthe Imperator on problems of divorce;nor will you be questioning the staff asto how to obtain some form of employ-

ment. Yo u will use that quality that is

inherent in your character and soul,called reason; you will analyze your

problem by using your intellect and you

will apply the power of thought. Youwill place this burden upon your ownshoulders, and use the power of thoughtto change your own condition andcreate harmony where there has beendiscord.

The biggest problem the membershave in acquiring ability to apply mys-tical laws to their own problems is inthe wa y they approach the studies . It isalmost appalling at times when we re-ceive returned monographs from thestudents who have become inactive for aperiod of time and look them over andsee how little they have been used, howlittle they have been fingered from thelack of study and use. W e receivemonographs that have hardly been outof the envelopes and hundreds of them

that have never been opened. And yetthese members are the ones who writeto us and tell us that they do not under-stand how to apply the teachings, thelaws do not have any effect in their be-half, and they feel that they have beencheated, so to speak. In other words,they have simply received these lessons,have read them over once, put themback into the envelopes and placed themin a drawer or on the bookshelf, await-ing the next monograph the week later.They have never given them seriousthought. Th ey have read them over

once with the idea that they were simpleand there was nothing in them of realvalue, and the possibility was that theyhad read the same thing before in somebook they had obtained from a publiclibrary or something that they had pur-chased from the various traveling psy-chologists and lecturers.

These are the people who write to usand say that the Rosicrucian studies arenot what we claim them to be. Th eywant to attain mastership of Cosmiclaw; they want to know themselves,

their inner selves, their psychic selves;they want to know what their relation-ship is to the universe; they want toknow why we are here and what thepurpose of life is. But they will notapply their own mind and a little of their own time to study. The y are thepeople who are in the category of de-

sire and are trying to find their way into

the category of knowledge. The yhaven’t the courage of those who have



attained the triangle of emotion; theyhaven’t the strength, the patience; theyhaven’t the will to apply their mind tostudy; they are materially lazy. Theywill not try to apply their thoughts, be-cause in reality it takes strength toreally think out a problem intelligently.They are so swayed by desire, instinct,impulse, and appetite that they relysolely on these involuntary actions or impulses to bring them happiness andsuccess. They have not attained theperiod in evolution where they could at-tune their higher faculties to the Cosmicand be inspired to seek for knowledgeand understanding. The se are thepeople who remain always in the publie halls, listening to an orator propoundintricate philosophies, using terms that

are incomprehensible to them and whenthey leave in the evening, they simplysay, “Isn’t he or she (whichever theorator may be) wonderfu l?” He iswonderful because they did not under-stand him; but if someone would givethem the truth in words that they canunderstand, that individual becomesnaught in their consciousness, becausehe has come down to their status andhas tried to commune with their mindand convey to them the truths that theyare so desirous of having, but reject be-cause of their overdeveloped ego and

their blindness to truth.On the other hand, we have thou-

sands of letters coming to us from mem-bers acclaiming the wonders that theRosicrucian teachings have done for them. They state that the instructionhas lifted them out of an environmentthat was almost impossible for a humanbeing to live in. These people havereached a higher cycle in evolution andhave learned to have a little faith inthose individuals who have advancedahead of them, and have tried to apply

the teachings that the instructors areconveying to them. Th ey explain themany wonderful revelations that havecome to them through the applicationof the law of love. W e do not mean bythis mere affection or infatuation, butwe mean the law of compassion for allmankind. W e mean the absolute nega-tion of the opposite of love, which ishate. W e mean the constructive, posi-

tive force that is radiating from thehuman mind and heart and that createsa harmonious condition wherever thispersonality radiating this thought of love exists. These members also reportthe wonderful laws that are workableand applicable in the way of healingphysical illnesses and conditions. Butthey are persons who are ambitious andwho have a sympathetic feeling for mankind. They have courage to delveinto the more profound philosophies andsciences. Th ey have the strength tohold the truth once it is given to them.They are people who have passedthrough the realm of desire and havelearned the lessons of that category, andthey are the future masters and leadersof the Rosicrucian teachings.

Occasionally, one of these membersfinds it necessary to return these mono-graphs to us, because of an accumula-tion of monographs and studies tooponderous to carry around with him,and many times because of transition,for the members always have the mono-graphs and other Rosicrucian work ad-dressed so that in case of transition theywill be returned to Headquarters. Aswe look through some of these mono-graphs we see them fingermarked andworn and torn from constant handling.W e see them written in and under-scored; we notice them indexed. Th esemonographs have been in the hands of areal seeker for truth and light, and theindividual who has returned these mono-graphs to us has left this earth plane tobe reincarnated in a much more ad-vanced civilization, and in the vibrationof a higher organization than the phy-sical body that he left at transition. Hehas really applied himself to the workand has applied the teachings that hehas received to humanity, for as he re-ceived and understood the Rosicrucian

teachings, he gave freely to those withwhom he was closely associated and tothose who had come to him asking ad-vice and knowledge.

These are the true Rosicrucians, thetrue seekers for wisdom, the true mys-tics of the future. These are the peoplewho are coming through the triangle of knowledge, as Plato has so beautifullyexplained.

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



The

Rosicrucian

DigestAugust

1935

PAGESfrom the

MRS. HENRY POTTEach month there wi l l appear excerpts f rom the wr i t ings of famous thinkers and teach

ers of the pas t . This wi l l g ive our read ers an oppo r tuni ty of know ing thei r lives throu ghthe presenta t ion of the w r i t ings which typi fy thei r though ts . Occas ionally such w r i t ingsw i l l be p r e sen t ed t h r ough t he t r ans l a t i ons o r i n t e r p r e t a t i ons o f o t he r emi nen t au t hor s o f the pas t .

Our author of th i s month i s Mrs . Henry Pot t , of comparat ively recent t imes , who i sknown as an author i ty on the l i fe and wr i t ings of Si r Francis Bacon.

Francis Bacon has had many biographers , and they are genera l ly of two def ini tec lasses. One c lass refers to him as an imposter , a f raud, a char la tan, though a t the samet ime recogniz ing hi s br i l l i ancy, hi s in te l lec t , but s ta t ing that he used a l l of these as ameans to sa t i s fy hi s pol i t i ca l aspi ra t ions . The other c lass eulogizes Francis Bacon so highlyas to not only c lear him of a l l charges and declare that he was the target of pol i t i ca l int r igue , and a vic tim of par t ies w ho des i red to ruin hi s cha racter for the i r own end, butthat he was infa l l ib le and could not have poss ibly made the mis takes a t t r ibuted to him.Mrs . Pot t has the happy facul ty of t aking the middle course , reveal ing that Bacon in hi sintense des i re to accompl i sh cer ta in things unfor tunate ly placed himsel f many t imes in a

po si ti on w here his s ta te m e n ts an d w r it in g s could be so d is to rt e d by h is to ri a n s a s to m ak eh i m appea r gu i l t y o f t he many cha r ges made aga i ns t h i m t h r ough t he yea r s .

Of par t icular in teres t to our readers i s the exhaus t ive research made by Mrs . Pot t

which reveals his connect ions wi th the Rosicrucian organizat ion. Incidenta l ly MRS. POTTIS NOT A MEM BER of the R osicrucian Order of th i s jur i sdic t ion o r abroad, but i s gener a l ly qui te fa i r in her references to the Order , and pays them high t r ibute in her outs tanding work ent i t l ed “ Fran cis Bacon and H is Secre t Socie ty .” I t i s imposs ible to give you a l lof her many references to Bacon and the Rosicrucians in the fol lowing ar t i c le , but wegive you below in excerp t many of the m ore imp or tant ones .

We sugges t tha t you careful ly preserve thi3 par t icular i ssue so that you may refer tothi s ar t i c le in the future to es tabl i sh the re la t ion of Francis Bacon to the Rosicrucians .

succor, of impenetrable secrecy, and of humility, to labor for the preservation of human life by the exercise of the heal-ing art. But no date is assigned for thefirst appearance of this society in anyform, or under any name. And the titleRosicrucian was, we know, never givenor adopted until after the publication of the Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz, in 1616. The writer in thecyclopaedia seems to acknowledge thatthe truth about the origin of the Rosi-crucian Fraternity is known, thoughknown only to a few, and we havestrong reasons for believing that, inGermany at least, a certain select num

N T H E R o y a l M ason ic Cyc lo-paedia there is ana r t i c l e o n t h eR o s i c r u c i a n s

which seems in noway to run count-er to these opin-ions. The articlebeg ins wi th thestatement that int i m e s l o n g a g othere existed menof various races,

religions, and climes, who bound them-selves by solemn obligations of mutual



ber of the learned members of the“Catholic” (not the Papal) Church arefully aware of how, when, and wherethis society was formed, which, after awhile, assumed the name of Rosicrucian, but which the initiates in Germanycall by its true name— “ Baconian. ” It isvery difficult, in all Masonic writings,for the uninitiated to sift the true fromthe false; or, rather, [act from disguised history, prosaic statements from figura-tive language, genuine information fromgarbled statements framed expressly tomislead. Yet, in spite of these things,which must never be lost sight of, thearticle in question gives such a goodsummary of some of the chief facts andtheories about the Rosy Cross brethren,that, for the benefit of those who can-

not easily procure the cyclopaedia, wetranscribe some portions:

“Men of the most opposite worldlycreeds, of diverse habits, and even of apparently remote ideas, have ever join-ed together, consciously or unconscious-ly, to glorify the good, and despise, al-though with pity, the evil that might be reconciled to the good. But in the cen-turies of unrest which accompanied theevolution of any kind of civilization,either ancient or modern, how was thislaudable principle to be maintained?

This was done by a body of the learned,existing in all ages under peculiar re-strictions, and at one time known as theRosicrucian Fraternity. The Fraternityof the Rosy Cross, unlike the lower orders of Freemasons, seldom had gath-erings together. The brethren were iso-lated from each other, although awareof their mutual existence, and cor-responding by secret and mysteriouswritings, and books, after the introduc-tion of printing. They courted solitudeand obscurity, and sought, in the con-templation of the divine qualities of the

Creator, that beatitude which the rudeoutside world despised or feared. Inthis manner, however, they also becamethe discoverers and conservators of im-portant physical secrets, which, by slowdegrees, they gradually communicatedto the world, with which, in another sense, they had so little to do. It is not,at the same time, to be supposed thatthese occult philosophers either despisedthe pleasures or discouraged the pur-suits of their active contemporaries;

but, as we ever find some innermostsanctuary in each noble and sacredfane, so they retired to constitute abody apart, and more peculiarly de-voted to those mystical studies for which the great mass of mankind wereunfitted by taste or character. Mildne ssand beneficence marked such courteousintercourse as their studious habits per-mitted them to have with their fellowmen; and in times of danger, in cen-turies of great physical suffering, theyemerged from their retreats with thebenevolent object of vanquishing andalleviating the calamities of mankind. Ina rude period of turmoil, of battle, andof political change, they placidly pur-sued their way, the custodians of humanlearning, and thus acquired the respect,

and even the reverence, of their lesscultivated contemporaries.............. Thevery fact of their limited number led totheir further elevation in the publicesteem, and there grew up around themsomewhat of ‘the divinity that dothhedge a king. ' ..............

“ It is easy at the present day to seethat which is held up before every onein the broad light of a tolerant century;but it was not so in the days of the Rosicrucians and other fraternities. Ther ewas a dread, amongst the masses of

society in bygone days, of the unseen—•a dread, as recent events and pheno-mena show very clearly, not yet over-come in its entirety. Hence, students of nature and mind were forced into anobscurity not altogether unwelcome or irksome, but in this obscurity they pavedthe way for a vast revolution in mentalscience....................The patient labours of Trittenheim produced the modern sys-tem of diplomatic cipherwriting. Eventhe apparently aimless wanderings of the monks and friars were associatedwith practical life, and the numerous

missals and books of prayer, carriedfrom camp to camp, conveyed, to theinitiated, secret messages and intelli-gence dangerous to be communicated inother ways. The sphere of human in-telligence was thus enlarged, and thefreedom of mankind from a pitilesspriesthood, or perhaps, rather, a systemof tyranny under which that priesthoodequally suffered, was ensured.

“ It was a fact not even disputed byRoman Catholic writers of the most



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Papal ideas, that the evils of society,ecclesiastical and lay, were materiallyincreased by the growing worldliness of each successive pontiff. Hence we maysee why the origin of Rosicrucianismwas veiled by symbols, and even its

founder, Andrea, was not the onlyphilosophical romancer— Plato, Apuleius, Heliodorus, Lucian, and others hadpreceded him in this path.

"It is worthy of remark that one par-ticular century, and that in which theRosicrucians first showed themselves,is distinguished in history as the era inwhich most of these efforts at throwingoff the trammels of the past occurred.Hence the opposition of the losingparty, and their virulence against any-thing mysterious or unknown. They

freely organised pseudo Rosicrucianand Masonic societies in return, andthese societies were instructed to ir-regularly entrap the weaker brethren of the True and Invisible Order, and thentriumphantly b e t r a y anything theymight be so inconsiderate as to com-municate to the superiors of these tran-sitory and unmeaning associa tions .” . . . .

A great light has been shed upon our subject by the publication in 1887 of Mr. W ai te ’s remarkable little book,which has, for the first time, laid beforethe public several tracts and manuscriptswhose existence, if known to previousinvestigators, had certainly been ig-nored, including different copies andaccounts of the "Universal Reformation of the Whole Wide World" (the titleof one of the chief Rosicrucian docu-ments), as well as original editions of the "Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosy C ro ss /’ which are not in the Library Catalogue. It is true, as Mr.Waite says, that he is thus enabled tooffer for the first time in the literatureof the subject the Rosicrucians repre-

sented by themselves.This invaluable book should be read

in connection with another importantvolume which has since been published,and which follows the subject into re-cesses whither it is impossible now toattempt to penetrate. Mr. Wigsto nenters boldly and learnedly upon theconnection perceivable between Bacon'sphilosophy and Rosicrucianism, and thewhole book goes to prove, on very sub-stantial grounds, that Bacon was prob-

ably the founder and certainly themainstay of the society.

For those who have not the time or opportunity for much reading, it maybe well again, briefly, to summarize theaims of the Rosicrucians, as shown by

their professed publications, and therules and system of work by which theyhoped to secure those aims. W e gather from the evidence collected that the ob-

jects of the fraternity were threefold:

1. To purify religion and to stimulatereform in the church.

2. To promote and advance learningand science.

3. To mitigate the miseries of human-ity, and to restore man to theoriginal state of purity and happi-ness from which, by sin, he has

fallen.On comparing the utterances of thesupposed authors of the Rosicrucianmanifestoes w i t h Bacon’s reiteratedstatements as to his own views and as-pirations, we find them to be identicalin thought and sentiment, sometimesidentical in expression. It is only neces-sary to refer to the eloquent and beauti-ful chapter with which Speding openshis Letters and Life of Bacon, and fromwhich some portions have been alreadyquoted, in order to perceive how strik-ing is the general resemblance in aim,how early the aspirations of Baconformed themselves into a project, andwith what rapidity the project becamea great fact .................

Wonderful as it is, improbable as itwould appear, did we not know it to bethe case, the fact remains, that at theage of fifteen Francis Bacon had runthrough the whole round of the artsand sciences at Cambridge, had out-stripped his tutors, and had left Cam-bridge in disappointment and disgust,finding nothing more to learn there. He

did not wait to pass a degree, but,practically, it was acknowledged that hehad more than deserved it, for the de-gree of Master of Arts was conferredupon him some time afterward.

How he spent the next year is notrecorded by his biographer, but another R. C. document, the Fam a Fraternitatis, throws a sidelight upon the matter. Inthis paper, full as all these Rosicrucianmanifestoes are of Bacon's ideas andpeculiarities of expression, we read that



"the high and noble spirit of one of thefraternity was stirred up to enter intothe scheme for a general reformation,and to travel away to the wise men of Arabia.” This we interpret to meanthat, at this time, the young philosopher was entering his studies of Rhazis.Avenzoar, Averroes, Avicenna, andother Arabic physicians and “ Hermetic'’writers, from whom we find him quotingin his acknowledged, as well as in hisunacknowledged, writings.

At this time, the Farna informs us,this young member was sixteen years old, and for one year he had pursued his course alone.

What is this likely to mean but that,having left college, he was pursuing hisadvanced studies by himself? It seemsalmost a certainty that at this period hewas endeavouring, as so many other ar-dent minds have done, to get at aknowledge of the first causes of things.How could he better attempt to achievethis than by going back to the mostancient philosophies in order to tracethe history of learning and thoughtfrom the earliest recorded period to hisown times?

W e shall presently have occasion toshow the immense influence which thestudy of the occult philosophies of

India, Persia, Arabia, and Egypt hadupon the mind and writings of FrancisBacon, and how he drew from them themost elementary and universal symbolsand emblems which are the foundationsof Freemason language and hierogly-phics. But there is another particular which especially links Bacon with thewhole system of Rosicrucianism. andthis is that very matter of making col-lections or dictionaries which we spokeof in the last chapter. Now, this wasnot only one of the ostensible objects of the fraternity, but also the ostensibleobject of Francis Bacon. He claims theidea as his own, and declares thatn e i t h e r Aristotle nor Theophrastus,Dioscorides or Pliny, and much less anyof the modern writers, h a v e hithertoproposed such a thing to themselves.Spedding says Bacon would have foundthat such a dictionary or index of natureas he contemplated in the Novum Or qanum must be nearly as voluminous asnature herself, and he gives the impres-sion that such a dictionary was not at-

tempted by Bacon. Here, as will beseen, we differ from this admirablebiographer, and believe that Bacon didorganize, and himself commence, sucha system of notetaking, alphabetising,collating, “transporting,” etc., as by thehelp of “his twenty young gentlemen,”his able pens, devoted friends in everycorner of the civilized world, a n despecially from the Illuminati. RosyCross brethren, and skilled Freemasons,to produce, within a few years, thattruly cyclopedian mass of books of reference, which later w r i t e r s havemerely digested or added to.

Bacon claims as his own the method by which this great deficiency is to be supplied.

Behold, then, the author of the Fama Fraternitatis making a precisely similar claim:

“After this manner began the Frater-nity of the Rosie Cro ss— first by four persons only, and by them was madethe Magical Lannage and Writing with a large Dictionary."

May not the sentence just quotedhelp somewhat to account for the extra-ordinary likeness, not only in ideas, butin words, of books, scientific and his-torical, which appeared before the pub-lication of the great collections? Is it

possible that copies or transcripts mayhave been made from Bacon’s greatmanuscript dictionaries by those whowould, with his everready help, pro-ceed to “make” or “produce” a book?Were such budding authors (Rosicru-cians) allowed to come under his roof to write their books, and use his libraryand his brains? — questions at presentunanswerable, but to be answered. V i-s ions of Ben Jonson w r i t i n g his“Apology for Bartholomew Fair at thehouse of my Lord St. Albans": of Baconvisiting Raleigh in prison: of the youngHobbes pacing the alleys at Gorhambury with the Sage of Verulam—theseand many other suggestive images riseand dissolve before the eyes of one whohas tried to live in imagination the lifeof Francis Bacon, and to realize the wayin which his faithful followers en-deavoured to fulfill his wishes ..............

It is clear that the wits and pens of the "young scholars” (who, we learnfrom the Rosicrucian documents, wereto be sixtythree in number) were



chartered and secured under the seal of secrecy. The last of the manifestoes inMr. Waite's book contains this passage,in which few who have read much of Bacon will fail to recognize his senti-ments, his intentions — nay, his very

words:

“I was twenty when this book was finished; but methinks I have outlivedmyself; I begin to be weary of thesun................ I have shaken hands withdelight, and know all is vanity, and Ithink no man can live well once but hethat could live twice. For my part Iwould not live over my hours past, or begin again the minutes of my days;not because I have lived well, but for fear that I should live them worse. At

my death I mean to make a total adieuof the world, not caring for the burthenof a tombstone and epitaph, but in theuniversal Register of God I fix my con-templations on Heaven . 1 writ the Ro si-crucian Infallible Axiomata in f o u r

books, and study, not for my own sakeonly, but for theirs that study not for themselves. In the law I began to be aperfect clerk; I writ the Idea of the Law, etc., for the benefit of my friends, andpractice in King 's Bench. I envy noman that knows more than myself, butpity them that know less. . . . Now, inthe midst of all my endeavours there isbut one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with mu self, nor can be legacied amongst my dearlybeloved and honoured friends.”

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

V V V

1935 AND SURPRISE

How many of the predictions which were made early in 1935 and the latter partof 1934, and contained in the little booklet, "1935 and Surprise" have been fulfilled?How many of the predictions which may have seemed exaggerated or impossible havebecome a fa ct within the last few months? If you reread this booklet, you will find,as thou sands have, that the predictions have m anifested into realities. It is because of

this that the booklet has become a forceful means of propaganda for the Order.Although half of the year is over, these little booklets can still do a great work.Req uest 100, 50, or 75 today, wh atever quantity you wish. Gi ve them to friends andacqu aintan ces or place them where they will be picked up and read. Point out, wherev er you can, how the predictions have been fulfilled and this will draw attention to thebooklet, because of the predictions yet to be realized. This booklet has been one of themost effective means in interesting the general public in the organization, and we dependon you for its distribution. A penny postcard, addressed to the Rosicrucian ExtensionDepartment, San Jose, California, will bring you the desired quantity. Write today—all charges will be prepaid on the booklets by the department.

OFFICIAL ROSICRUCIAN CONVENTION PHOTOGRAPH

T h e

Rosicrucian

Digest

August

1935

Obtain for your sanctum, one of the official photographs of the members anddelegates attending the seventh international Rosicrucian Convention in San Jose. Thissplendid photograph of several hundred persons, all Rosicrucians, is 45 inches in lengthand 7 inches wide. Study their faces and note the pleasure and contentment which theyradiate. W e ad vise ev ery member to obtain one, whether he or she attended the Con -vention or not. It will make an excellent addition to your sanctum. It will aid you inrealizing the unity of the organization and the fact that you are associated with thousandsof intelligent men and women throughout the world in the noble enterprise of acquiringfurther knowledge of life and life's principles. This unusual photograph may be obtainedfrom the Rosicrucian Supply Bureau, San Jose, for the small sum of $1.35, postpaid.Remember, it is an extra large photograph.



T he Lighter Side of Life’s Mysteries

A N INTIMATE LITTLE TALK A T A BUSY MEETING

By T h e Im p e r a t o r

V V V

W O U LD like totalk to all of our members at thepresent time be-cause while I willhave an opportu-nity to speak to

many hundreds of members and dele-gates at the Con-vention that willbe held during the

_______ month of July, Iknow t h a t there

are many, many thousands of our mem-bers in every large city and town of every state and province of this NorthAmerican continent, and in many for-eign cities, who will not be able to at-tend this or some of our other Con-ventions. I would like to project to themmy personal contact at this time anddeal with some of the pleasant thingsof our great work.

As I sit here at my desk and read thecorrespondence that comes to me fromthe hands of the secretaries who sortthe large amount of mail that is de-livered by our truck from the Post Officeeach morning, 1 know that a majority of the letters will contain many pleasantremarks accompanied with some im-portant request that requires the atten-

tion of the specialized features of myactivities as the chief officer of the or-ganization. 1 am always grateful, of course, for every one of the constructivecomments that is made and for the con-tinuous flow of appreciation that is re-vealed in these letters and in a large

majority of them that go to every oneof the other departments as well. AndI am just as deeply touched by thegreat problems that face our membersindividually and collectively. 1 try tomake it my business to see that eachand every important problem is dealtwith in a personal, intimate manner that will assure the greatest amount of helpfulness and the greatest degree of practical aid.

These are not the things that consti-tute the lighter side of the mysteries of life; they are the serious things thatstand between our members and com-plete contentment, happiness, and peace.W e are happ y in the fact that only asmall portion of our welfare appealscenter around the need for the materialthings of life and especially money. Byfar the larger portion of the requeststhat come to us for advice or aid in anyform center around the human affairsthat are just across the line from ma-terialism in any form. Even those mem-bers who could not be classified as un-

O pJ~LrU~T-Tj



The

Rosicrucian

Digest

August

1935

usually welltodo or even of extremelycomfortable circumstances, have come torealize that there are other things inlife that constitute the real joys and thethings worthwhile. These they seek tounderstand, or they seek to develop and

enlarge until they can share them withothers.

I know that I am quite correct in say-ing that the average member in our or-ganization is more happy and contentedin his membership in our Order than inany other fraternal, social, or spiritualassociation he may enjoy. The averagemember does not allow the A M O R C tosupplant his religion, nor the A M O R Cstudies to supplant his interest in theo-logical and Biblical studies, nor does heallow his devotion to the A M O R C

ideals and the AM O R C activities todetract from his devotion to his church.But he does find in A M O R C and inits secret and private activities, and inits mystical teachings and suggestions,the opportunity to improve his life andto aid others and to spread the themeand song of joyous living into the livesof many others.

The quick response which is manifestto every suggestion that we offer our members for helping others indicates theconstantly active desire on the part of

our members to prove the spirit of humanitarianism and to practice the prin-ciples that we teach.

There is hardly a day that we do nothear from members who occupy highand important positions in the govern-ment or in leading institutions or organi-zations dealing with the public. Thesepersons tell us frankly and at greatlength how they are utilizing the oppor-tunities which their positions afford toput into practice the Rosicrucian prin-ciples. Letters from governors of Statesor their associates, from mayors of cities,from city and county councilmen, from

judg es in the courts , prominent at tor-neys, active physicians, professors inschools and colleges, librarians, prisonwardens, musicians, artists, authors,writers, newspapermen, and scores of others who have an opportunity to speakof our principles when addressing audi-ences, or to apply our principles in help-ing others in courts of law, hospitals,or institutions of learning, tell us how

happy they are to be a part of thegreat work. To them the AMORC isone of the most glorious things in their lives as it is with each one of us. Andthese persons voluntarily state that aslong as they live they desire to be living

examples of that loyalty and that de-votion, that practice of our principles,that constitutes genuine fidelity.

The expressions heard through thereading of resolutions and motions,through addresses from the platform or floor of our auditorium, through com-mittee reports, through votes upon var-ious motions, through discussions onthe campus and the grounds here atRosicrucian Park during our Conven-tion reveal the general attitude of our members throughout North and South

America in over seven hundred towns,cities, and communities. But in themidst of all of this encouraging and in-spiring evidence of cooperation, devo-tion, and love, we find some of thelighter things that amuse us and bringmomentary relaxation from our strenu-ous efforts in trying to keep apace witha heavy mail and with the arduous rou-tine activities and many interviews.

These lighter things we find in anoccasional letter reporting some amusingincident, or we find in a newspaper or

magazine article dealing with some subject all ied to our work and treated in aridiculous or absurd manner: or in theliterature of some selfappointed teacher of a newly discovered system of humanthought, filled with inconsistencies andvainqlorious attempts to lift himself upby the bootstraps and be acclaimed theking of kings.

Sometimes I am reminded of the Chi-nese emperor who believed he was agreat philosopher and wanted all of China in his time and in the future yearsto come to recognize him as China’sgreatest philosopher. In order to makesure that his writings or his more or lessmediocre statements might constitutethe real philosophic literature of China,he ordered all books and writings of all

other philosophers to be destroyed. Hisidea was to tear down everything else

that the human mind had created and to

be left standing alone in the ages as the

greatest of them all.



W e have today in America a descen-dant of this great Chinese emperor.He has no tangible empire of his own,yet he has a kingdom of manmadesize in which he proclaims himself theking of all that he surveys, and hewould have the rest of the world ac-knowledge him as the greatest of thinkers and philosophers.

In fact, this man’s kingdom is prac-tically a fair sized bit of impoverishedfarm land where the principal subjectsunder his rule are the few creaturesthat provide him with milk and eggs andperhaps a little bacon. But throughcircumstances, which he keeps very con-fidential, he has come into possessionof a small amount of printing equipment

and with that strange love to write andset into type and print upon paper one’sthoughts over one’s own name or pennames, he divides his time between theincompetent direction of his farm activi-ties and the operation of his printingequipment. And, for reasons which noserious student of Rosicrucian historycan ever understand, this man hasamused a small portion of the citizensof this country by claiming that he isthe Grand Master of the Rosicrucians“ for all the world and the islands of thesea,” much to the astonishment and

ridicule of his neighbors. Being neither equipped with the ability to speak theEnglish language without a foreign ac-cent nor the ability to interpret anyRosicrucian doctrine with proper under-standing, he avoids public debates, or public addresses and lecture tours, andkeeps himself well secluded in the oldfashioned parlor in the little whitefarmhouse in Pennsylvania.

For years we have heard of this manthrough fifteen or more pamphlets thathe has cheaply printed in the name of his Rosicrucian organization, but fromwhich we have never been able to gather any facts except that the A M O R C of North America worries him very greatlyand that if he could destroy it and wipeit out of existence some way or other,he could then prove to the world thathis Rosicrucian sanctum in the parlor of his home was “the only real Rosicru-cian headquar ters of the world .” Suchthings are pitiful when they are nothumorous. The man is not in need of

our pity or sympathy, however, for heis not suffering under any delusion, butmerely trying to foster and force uponthe American public a scheme of hisown creation, and he wilfully and de-liberately carries on his ridiculousclaims thoroughly conscious of what heis doing and of the wrong impressionshe is creating.

W e learned some time ago in a mag-azine published by the American Medi-cal Association of December 15, 1923,that this man at one time was connectedwith socalled schools of medicine whichwere claimed to be genuine colleges of medicine or therapeutics, and he issueddiplomas to others until legal inter-ference stopped the system. In fact, themedical magazine alleges that he issueda diploma to himself from one of hisown medical schools before he had es-tablished it. Whether his ideas wereright or wrong does not concern usinasmuch as the American Medical As-sociation saw fit to condemn him as anotorious fraud in The Journal for De-cember 15, 1923.

This man has written some new booksabout A M O R C and they have givenus many hearty laughs and smiles in thelast few days. In fact, we have passedsome of these copies around among our members and university students hereand will pass a set of them aroundamong all of the delegates and membersat the Convention; for of all the uniqueand unusual literature in the name of theRosicrucians that has been published inthe past five hundred years, these pam-phlets issued by this high authority inPennsylvania constitute the gem of allfrom the humorous point of view, aswell as from the absurd point of view.What he says about AMORC and itsactivities would certainly make any one

of our members wonder whether all our members had been half asleep duringthe past ten or twelve years or wereunable to understand the English lan-guage.

This man says, for instance, that theImperator of AM O R C has as his “se-cret chief” one international and in-famous character known as Crowley,and that through this deplorable char-acter known as Crowley the Imperator of AMORC works his “black magic.”



TheRosicrucian

DigestAugust

1935

Now every member who has passed be-yond the second or third degree or whohas ever inquired of us regarding thecharacter known as Crowley, knowsthat we have very strongly and verydefinitely condemned all of the sex

teachings and other socalled philo-sophic ideas proclaimed by Mr. Crow-ley as being unfit to be a part of anyreal system of mysticism and really unfitto be a part of the literature to be foundin any home, or to be read by any per-son of a clean mind. Mr. Crowley hasbeen exposed many, many times inEurope and according to newspaper ac-counts it is alleged he was even re-quired to leave certain countries andnever enter them again, including theUnited States. Mr. Crowley has never had any contact with our organization

or a single officer of it, and we wouldimmediately expel from AMORC anymember that was associated with Mr.Crowley and his work. The farmer inPennsylvania knows this only too well,and he knows how bitterly we havecondemned some of his philosophicwritings and preachings upon the sex question, and, therefore, he seeks toconfuse the issue by wanting his fewfollowers to keep away from any con-tact with A M O R C b e c a u s e o f A M O R C ’S “black Magic.” Could any-thing be more absurd in the field of mystical literature?

Then, again, he publishes in another pamphlet a number of ridiculous chargesagainst AMORC, all of which he haspublished in pamphlets many years agoand which have been considered and in-vestigated by various committees of our members in every State and at each of our national Conventions and found tobe absolute ly untrue and absurd. If any member comes in contact with anyof these pamphlets devoted wholly toan attack upon AMORC, he should nothide them or try to burn them in aspirit of protection, for such literaturecannot harm A M O R C nor any of its

officers. In fact, we have announced to

all of our members in recent months

that they should watch for these book-

lets and read them carefully and distri-

bute them among the members for dis-

cussion. Pa ge after page reeks with the

most ridiculous allusions to A M O R C

that the human mind could conceiveand the inconsistencies of the state-ments made really cause one to smileinstead of being displeased. But thissort of thing represents the manner inwhich some persons seek to promote

their own business interests and to liftthemselves from plebian insignificanceto a more prominent position in life.They feel that if they can destroysomething or tear something down thatstands in their way, or which they thinkstands in their way, they will widen thepathway that leads to success and hap-piness.

Only evil is worthy of considerationin this regard and even in such a case,and in all cases, the obstacles in our path are not to be destroyed but to be

transmuted. Whenever we are temptedto look upon an individual, an institu-tion, a scheme, a plan, an incident inlife as an obstacle to our own growthand development, we should remember that it can be transmuted through loveand through the use of the higher lawsinto a stepping stone that will aid usproperly to rise and to advance. To at-tempt to tear down or destroy some-thing in the false belief that throughits destruction and through its possibleabsence the way will be easier to suc-cess and happiness is a delusion that

sooner or later ensnares us in its weband entangles us in such a manner as to bring misfortune and unhappi-ness. This man in Pennsylvania, likethousands of others in other walks of life, is simply singing his “swan song”by each and every attempt that hemakes to destroy that which he hatesor which he finds in his way. He be-lieves, for instance, that if he couldcause thousands of people in the UnitedStates or in any part of it to have doubtand suspicion about the integrity, thehonesty, the authority, the goodness of A M O R C or its officers, thousands of persons in their bitter disappointmentwould turn immediately to him as their

leader and become a member of his so-

ciety. W e all know the fallacy of suchan argument. Every successful business

man knows that he never gained any

real customers or ever improved his

trade by attacking another very suc-

cessful person or institution. If this



printer of little pamphlets could succeedin convincing twenty people that all of the claims and statements of AMORCwere false and that its leaders werehypocrites, he would simply make of these persons '‘doubting Thomases” for the rest of their lives and they wouldneither turn to him nor any other or-ganization of like nature for any further help or leadership.

W e were amused recently also at theattempt on the part of an individual tocommercialize an incident in our bookabout Lemuria. He went through Cali-fornia claiming that he had found thesecret temple of the mystics that areclaimed to be living in or around Mt.Shasta, as referred to in our book, andhe finally succeeded in getting a party

of twenty or thirty men and women togo and live with him in a camp at thefoot of Mt. Shasta and receive fromhim preparation in such mystical lawsas would enable them to be acceptedinto the great secret temple. W e adv isedthose who wrote to us to look upon thething as the most laughable and inanemystical proposition that this poor coun-try has had to face in the last fifty years—and we all know that America hasbeen the happy hunting ground of everyform of fraudulent mystical appeal and

psychology scheme that the human mindcan invent. But now we find that after spending twenty or more days, at greatexpense for instruction and food andpersonal advice and preparation, theyhave seen nothing and heard nothingthat would indicate that they were onefoot nearer to the mystic temple thanthey were when they were in their ownhome towns and that they are leavingthe place in bitter disappointment.

W e need not feel pity or sympathyfor these persons. They are simply

foolish and must have a peculiar streakin their nature that will allow them tobe taken away from their homes withsuch pretenses. They remind us of theman who, twentyfive years ago, wentinto New York seeking supermen andsuperwomen to study under him in prep-aration for a return trip to his mysticcity which he said was down under-

neath a volcano in the hidden parts of

Mexico. After receiving large sums of

money for many months from over

ambitious men and women, and after giving them bits of psychology and phil-osophy that might be found in any tencent magazine, he suddenly departed for parts unknown and even the policecould not trace him.

W ha t is this quest after all? Is itfor sane, rational comprehension of themysteries of life and a practical commonsense understanding of the ways tolive? Or is it the quest for some illusion,some mystical thing that is so indefiniteand so vague that it may be namedanything and cost any price and beworth any sacrifice? Even in our cor-respondence from persons seeking tomake application for membership in our Order we find the peculiar notions ex-pressed that reveal the weaknesses of human nature in this regard and we re-fuse their applications and return their fees and keep their letters in our filesto show to committees and investigatorsthe peculiar tendencies of some personsin trying to fathom the real laws andprinciples of life.

There are still those who believe inlove potions or love powders, in amu-lets and charms, some of which thisman in Pennsylvania offered some timeago to the gullible public as mysticalcharms that would afford a protective

or beneficial influence. They do notwant anything that can be tested inthe light of science, but that which isintangible and the more mysterious andridiculous, the more appealing it seemsto be.

All such literature is truly amusing.It represents the lighter side of the re-searches in the field of mysticism; andif you secure any of this literature,analyze it, read it carefully; let otherswho are apt to be led astray read it.In every such case the AM O R C has

benefited by the analysis made, andthis applies especially to the literature that is mailed out of Pennsylvania, asgems of Rosicrucian literature. You willrecognize it instantly, for from cover tocover and from the top of each pageto the bottom, it says nothing but thatwhich is uncomplimentary and laugh-able about A M O R C , a s thoughA M O R C were the only topic in theworld worth writing a pamphlet about.If the author of these books would say



The

Rosicrucian

Digest

August1935

in one of them a little something abouthis own organization and where itstarted and why the man who startedit committed suicide and why he him-self has been so rigidly investigated somany times, he would tell a more in-

teresting story than he has told in thepast fifteen years in all the pamphletshe has issued.

Human nature is strange, but it is sointeresting that it constitutes one of thefinest studies in life.

si| 2 2 2 g 2 2 mVY 7 W? ?7 ?9 9 9 WWWWW9 W7 7 W7 W7 7 TO WW?9 WO TW?W7 9 W9 W7 WA?7 9 9 9 WW|

ANCIENT SYMBOLISM

vMan, when conscious of an e ternal t ruth , has ever symbol ized i t so that the

hum an consciousness could forever have rea l iza t ion of it . Nat ions , l anguages andcus toms have changed, but these ancient des igns cont inue to i l luminate mankindwi th the i r myst ic l ight . Fo r those who are seeking l ight , each month we wi ll

reproduce a symbol or symbols , wi th thei r ancient meaning.

T H E S W O R D , S H I EL D , H E LM E T

A N D B R E A S T P L A T E

The early armor of man has often

been used symbolically and allegorically

in classical, philosophical and ecclesi

astical literature. The following are alle

gorical Biblical r e f e r e n c e s to the a r m o r

of a warrior.

"Wherefore take unto you the whole

armour of God, that ye may be able to

withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.

"Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having

on the breastplate of righteousness;

"A n d your feet shod with the preparation of the gos pel of peace;

"A b o ve all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to

quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

"A n d take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which

is the word of God."

Ephesians vi: 13 -17

It is quite infrequent that allegories of the Christian Bible may be

interpreted in the same sense mystically, but in this

instance they may be without any loss of value and

without suffering a limitation of meaning.

Th is series of articles dealing with symbolism will be published later on in a small pamph let or

book. Mem bers need not mutilate their mag azines, therefore, by cutting these articles out and pre-

serving them in a scrapbook.



Cornerstones of Civilization

AS FOUNDED UPON THE PRINCIPLES OF TRUTH

By E. J . B o w r i n

V V V

OR a few minutesle t us v i sua l izeourse lves on ano r t h e r n c o a s tline, high on anoverlooking preci-pice. Th e day is

fair and our visionc a r r i e s o u r thoughts out over the waves to al a r g e i c e b e r g ,floating aimlesslyhither and yon.

The iceberg is a symbol and a realitywhich all of us should consider in our moments of repose; especially in thesedays of apparent confusion. “W hy theiceberg, ’’ one might ask? It is simplyused to convey a warning to those whomay have lost Faith and Hope in them-

selves, the world, and everything in it.Those in such a dilemma let their

minds become virgin soil for the im-planting of seeds of Atheistic origin,they become agnostic, doubting Job’sand Thomases.

An eighteenth century man of intel-lect, Herbert Spencer, said, as his tran-sition approached, “My intellect forbidsme hope for anything but annihilation.’’This is the kernel of an atheistic mind.W hy ? Because he had neither faith in

man nor hope of the future. The pre s-ence of omnipotent power is all aroundan atheist, but he refuses to admit afirst cause. He, like the iceberg, drif ts,cold, dull and cheerless in the waters of selfdestruction, having no genuine fol-lowers; because centuries of faith in

God and that GOD IS, proves his mis-sion one of conceit, who arrogates tohimself more knowledge than all thoseavatars and sages who preceded him.Thus, an atheist is the most dismal of all human beings, alone in an enlight-ened world, having no faith in theS A C R E D institution of man, govern-ment, and social activities. Atheism likethe iceberg, drifts to eternity companionless, no faith in a Supreme Causeand no hope of future existence. Thosein charge of government in this periodof world history should guard to the

utmost against any tinge of Atheism inthe new “social order’’ that is bound byreason of the CYCLES of life to comein the present cycle. No one can see or describe the mighty powers of the Uni-verse, one can only conceive and believeand the greater one’s perception, hisfaith and trust in the workings of theUniverse become manifest and opera-tive. “ Eternal Justice never fails, andthe Cosmic Law alway s fulfills.’’ T obelieve that “annihilation” is the end of



hope and opportunity is no part of ever-lasting justice, or of Divine kindnesswhich blesseth the rich and poor sincethe world began. Millions the worldover possess no intellect compared toHerbert Spencer’s, but are very happy.

Why?

Because their FAITH gives themHOPE of happiness hereafter and con-solation for the sorrow of this world.Faith makes them believers in God andHis justice and mercy which are ever-lasting.

It is sad to relate that there are somein charge of political power who haveseized upon the idea to eradicate all be-lief in God, all interest in Church or itsactivities, all hope, aspiration, and faith,unless it conforms to the political doc-trine of those who have seized the po-litical powers. Either group might be justified if they were crusading in thename of truth, but do they know thereal T R U T H ? They forget that upontrue religion is based respect for law.There should be no experimenting inthis regard. As long as such a setupexists no permanent peace will ever beaccomplished. Religion and politicalfreedom are an integral part of life, andthere is no religion higher than that of T R U T H . As long as there exists writ-

ten Constitutions, books of law and in-ternational agreements for peace, faith,hope and justice must enter into them.Atheism is therefore a cold, stupid crea-ture, absolute NE G A T IO N alone inthe dark without illumination or vitalknowledge. How can men and womenbecome such creatures? Cannot theylift their eyes heavenward and see inevery direction simple and ample proofsof creative forces, justice and humankindness? G od ’s earth has for centuriestraveled safely around the center of thesolar system, the sun. and keeps itself in

one corner of the Universe. W e livewith fire beneath our feet and above us "absolute zero” . The season s return atstated periods, bringing us fruitfulness.Other proofs are at hand of a "plan” of a power that protects and preserves.Chance is a word void of sense, the

Rosicrucian Universe was created according to im~D ige st mutable and mathematical laws.

August & cold, blind conceit is no proof that1935 everything happened by accident and

The

that there is no power above us. andthat there is "nothing to hope for butannihilation” when 1935 or a few moreyears have passed.

The fact that man cannot conceiveGod IS as He IS, is no proof that Hedoes not exist. Only a fool could havesuch a perverted "kingdom within” . Abird in the air cannot conceive of anaviator at the controls directing the air-plane. But the aviator IS, the inventivegenius that created it exists, and per-sons ride through space to their destina-tions with a plan and purpose. Godlikewise carries us as passengers of Earth, all subject to his immutable lawswhich we cannot see, but somehowwhen our souls become illumined, wecannot deny their existence. How could

any human, possessing a body, soul,and spirit, conceive or imagine enoughto suggest that the infinitely arrangedmechanism of the Universe could byany remote chance be the result of acci-dent, as an atheist advocates ; or ruledby any power except Universal Laws.

Any teaching by any school of thought claiming ancient origin whichteaches man to injure himself, make hislife barren, and render the imaginationsterile is nothing more than Atheismunder disguise and therefore "blackmagic”, and should be indexed by the

informed as a public menace. Absenceof faith is anarchv in which progressbecomes a void. Faith is the most es-sential asset in the present cycle, whenmany are in want, and those in power are uncertain and bewildered. W e knowthings have gone wrong in the past andcame right again. W e need the faithand hope that everything will come outall right this time. W e must hold our faith in the councils of man, our Order,and in each other.

AMORC has since the days of Amenhotep the IV proved that progress

and opportunity among mankind de-pends upon faith in a SuDreme Cause.Hope in the Hereaf ter. Human beingsneed faith— faith in business, govern-ment, friends, between husbands andwives, faith in relations, between na-tions; in fact, faith in everything thatpertains to life on Earth, whether manor nature. Th e under current of theworld is set on one goal, the revelation of the supreme truths of existence.



Look for and contact that ray of light which shines from “our Father’s houseof many mansions". You will be com-forted, have a feeling of safety and real-ize that God IS one Supreme Justiceand power ruling the UNIVERSE. Theblind have no sight, yet they are able tohear with faith. “ I am the resurrectionand the life; he that believeth in Me,tho’ he were dead, yet shall he live. " Los enot the light of thy soul, the faith thatsees beyond death—IMMORTALITY.To do so you take away all that isworth while, and fast become one of those who would render this earth afloating “iceberg’’, adrift in Eternity; nohope, and without God in the World.

Let us cling to the Cross in our homes, anchored by Faith and Hope,

for they are one. Faith in Go d, hope of reward in a future life are requisites of human happiness. Hop e is the eternalfountain and will not die. It is thepower behind all human effort andachievement—and Faith and Hope areone. And as one the symphony of L IF Enever ends, what we were and are re-mains as chords in the staff of time, in-terposed with phases, movement, andprogression.

Everything that exists upon the Earthhas its ethereal counterpart above, andthere is nothing, however insignificant itmay appear in the world, which is notdepending on something higher; so that

if the lower acts, its presiding higher

part reacts upon it.

V V V

THE ROSICRUCIAN CONSTITUTION

If you are a member of the Rosicrucian Order, A M O RC , you should be able to

answer such questions as the following:

How many members constitute the Grand Council? Wh ich is the incorporated

body of the organization, the Grand L odge or the Supreme Grand Lodge? How many

members are required for the organization of a Chapter—of a Lodge?

If you cannot answer these questions, and others like them, you do not knowyour Rosicrucian Grand Lodge C onstitution and Statutes. If you have no copy, you

may obtain one for the sum of 10c from the Rosicrucian Su pp ly Bu reau. It is the duty

of every Rosicrucian to have a copy of the Constitution and Statutes of the Order in

his possession and to be conversant with it.

4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ATTEND THE ROSECROIX UNIVERSITY

W ould you enjoy personal lectures on variou s philosophical topics? W ould you

like to participate in demonstrations in chemistry and physics laboratories, witness ex-

periments with light and various ra ys? W ould you like open forum discussions andspecial discourses by qualified teachers and instructors in the various sciences and arts?

If so, then why not attend the RoseCroix University?

T he next term of this new Un ivers ity begin s Januar y 20, 1936. If you are not

familiar with the courses the colleges of this University afford, write today for the free

book entitled, "The Story of Learning,” which contains the complete curriculum and

prospectus of the RoseCroix University. You owe it to yourself to share in the privileges

which this institution, the RoseCroix LIniversity, offers all students at a most economical

tuition. Prepare tod ay for the next term.

RoseCroix University, Rosicrucian Park, San Jose, California.



TheRosicrucian

Digest

August

1935

I

SANCTUM MUSINGS

EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL CONCEPT

An address given by the Supreme Secretary at the Rosicrucian Convention

V V V

N T R A C I N Gfrom its probablebeginning the ideaor concept of soul,

we are also trac-ing the rise andfall of man’s spir-itual life inasmucha s th ey p a r a l l e leach other.

G en era l ly it isbelieved that theidea of soul fol-lowed a certain

degree of spiritual development; in other words, that after man's spiritual life hadfairly well advanced, he then began todescribe his spiritual nature which he

called “so ul” , or its equivalent. Such isnot so, however. Ma n conceived of soulfor centuries — how long it is impos-sible to state before he had any realiza-tion of a spiritual nature and of theneed for a spiritual life.

It may surprise many to learn thatman’s first concept of soul was anythingbut spiritual. He merely considered it adifferent phase or function of his being,and most often feared it and attributed

to it many horrible, fantastic, andrepulsive acts. It was not until man ’sintellect had developed, till his mentalitygrew, and until his environment be-

came more refined, that his idea of soultook on the attributes and characteris-tics of spirituality.

The idea of soul, therefore, influencedthe spiritual life of man. Wh en he con-sidered its subtle influences, its strangeeffect upon him as his better nature, hisspiritual life changed accordingly, andhe tried to live in harmony with thefeelings of the soul, with his compre-hension of what he thought soul was.

How far back we may trace the ideaof soul it is impossible to say. It shouldsuffice to say that modern archaeology

today has traced this concept back for thousands of years. W e find the souldescribed in Egyptian hieroglyphic andin cuneiform writing, on obelisks, in theNile Valley and along the Euphrates,on stone tablets high in the mountains,and on ruins of ancient buildings in thewild jungles of the tropics and on majes-tic totem poles in the frozen North.

How man came to first realize or be-come conscious of soul is another mys-



tery which may never be solved. Onetheory offers us a very plausible explan-ation. and it is one that has endured for several decades. This psychologicaltheory for the origin of the concept of soul is that it arose in the consciousnessof man’s mind when there came about adisparity between the conation “ I” andthe external “ I", which means when adifference arose between the inner “I”of the ego— the “ I” of the inner sell:—and the external or objective “ I” , the"I” that represents the physical or outer man.

Most lower organisms, other animalslower in the scale than man, react invol-untarily to their environment; in other words, they are stimulated by their en-

vironment and act accordingly, withoutreasoning about their actions, without judging their act ions, without contem-plating on the probable cause or the re-sult. Thu s, for example, when they arethirsty they are motivated to seek water.They could not explain nor do theyknow why they desire water, nor evenwhy they seek water where they do.When they are in danger or attacked,they instinctively defend themselveswithout a realization of why. Man.however, because of his highly devel-oped organ of brain, has the ability to

analyze his environment, to interpret theconditions with which he is surrounded,and to appreciate the reason for most of his acts, their cause and effect.

Primitive man. perhaps the paleolithicman, must have been somewhat like thelower animals, merely reacting to his en-vironment without a realization of why.But a time came when he had the desire,the will, to do something, to performsome act. to accomplish something, andwas unable to do so, and there dawnedupon him the fact that, on the one

hand, within him there was the urge,the impulse to accomplish something,and, on the other hand, the physical,outer self was unable to follow the urgeor to sati sfy and gratif y the desire. W ecan imagine primitive man desiring tohalt the fall of a mountain stream, de-siring to move a larger boulder whichobstructed his passage and struggling

with it, or commanding the waterfall to

cease, and being amazed that he lacked

the power and means to enforce his

commands. There for the first time wasthe clash between the wilful “ I” , thevolition, and the external “ I” , the phy-sical being. There arose in man's mindat that time the dominant thought thatthe self, the desire self, the inner “ I”was the antithesis of the body. Heimagined the one, the will, the desire,the impulse, as the energy of man, thesoul; and the body which was subordi-nate to it, the form.

This concept in the due course of time developed into one of the mostprimitive and earliest religions which isextant among primitive people today,the aborigines of South America, SouthAfrica, and Australia; this religion isanimism. Animism is the belief that allthings are animated with life, fromwhich the word animism derives itsname. The re is no distinction of life be-tween a rock and a leaf, between thesands of a beach and the jackal of theforest.

Not only were all things believed tobe animated, but all things were con-ceived to have souls. Th e functions andcharacteristics of a thing were consid-ered the soul of the thing, and its per-ceptual image its body. Th at is, what athing appeared to be insofar as its form

was concerned, to man's senses, thatwas its body; and what its purpose or functions seemed to be was the soul of the thing. Thu s, for example, the ma g-nitude, volume of water and heighth of a waterfall constituted the body of thewaterfall. But with the belief that thewaterfall was animate, the animist imag-ined the soul of the waterfall, its obvi-ous characteristics, its roar, its force,and that which it was able to accom-plish. In a large boulder, for example, itssoul was thought to be its characteristicof hardness and ability to resist all

things. Its body was its perceptualimage, its shape, its mass.

There is an admirable characteristicabout this, which is the distinction be-tween the form of a thing and its pur-pose. T o primitive man the form of athing was subordinate to its real attri-bute, the thing which it could accom-plish or do, or its purpose.

Animism branched out or developed,if we wish to use that term, into thedual concept of soul. Some primitive



TheRosicrucianDigestAugust

1935

peoples came to believe the soul waseither embodied permanently in formuntil separated by death, or'it was discarnate, could leave the body freelyeven before death and return again tothe body.

Those who believed in embodiedsouls considered the soul the life of thebody. Ther e was no distinction, withthem, between life and the soul. Soul,to them, was the very life force of anyform which they considered alive.Therefore, natural ly , the soul wasthought to be constantly embodied inthe thing which was alive, because if the soul departed, and if the soul wasthe life of the thing, the thing wouldthen cease to be alive. Thi s thought be-came so dominant that it resulted in

many atrocious practices. Cannibalismwas a common practice among believersin embodied souls. It was customaryand still is among primitive people whohold to this belief, to try to preserve thesoul or the life which exists in the bodyof a relative or friend by devouring thebody at death, believing that the soul of the deceased would then be absorbedinto the body of the living.

Embodied soul believers gave variousdescriptions of the form of the soul.Some conceived it as breath, because

breath was always associated with theliving, and was absent with the dead.To preserve this soul breath force, whenone was dying, they would lean over and try to inhale the last breath of thedying, thinking that they had preservedit in themselves. Others conceived thesoul as a small being within man. andthey pointed to the heart as proof of that fact. Th ey would listen to the beatof the heart and if the heart beatstrongly they believed the soul wasstrong and the person healthy, andwould live for a long time. If the heart

beat faintly, they imagined that the soulsoon would depart, or that the soulforce was gradually ebbing out of theindividual. Others conceived the soul asthe warmth of the body , becausewarmth is always associated with livingthings and the corpse is cold. Everyattempt was made, even after death, tocapture the remaining warmth of thebody by embracing the deceased, hop-ing to draw into their own selves the

departing warmth of the dying or dead.From this there arose a superstition of fire. Among primitive people flames andsparks were considered souls withoutbodies, that after death the warmth of the body representing the soul had es-

caped and continued to exist independ-ent of form or body.

The discarnate soul believers hadequally as strange concepts and weirdpractices. To them the soul also residedin the body, but it was independent of the body. It could leave the body atwill, and had no relation to life. It wasthought that though soul could leave,the body could continue to live andfunction normally. Th e soul for the firsttime was considered an independentself, independent of the living body.

Shamans, or medicine men, were con-sidered to have the ability to send their souls forth on journeys to distant placesor lands to communicate with membersof the tribe there; to run messages for them, in other words. Further , it wasbelieved that one could leave his soul athome when he was to depart on a dan-gerous journey and thus would not needto risk endangering his soul, and uponthe return the soul would again be em-bodied.

This concept eventually resulted inthe idea of dual souls; that is, that manwas possessed with two souls, but theywere somewhat different in nature. Atdeath it was believed that one soulwould go to the underworld, a subter-ranean chamber, and there dwell indefi-nitely; but the other would remainearthbound and would inhabit the placewhere the corpse had been buried. It isinteresting to note the description givenof this earthbound soul. In it we findthe origin of the superstition of ghosts.Primitive people described this earthbound soul, one of the two souls, as

being a sort of ethereal, vaporous, trans-parent substance, rather elongated,without any definite shape . Th e de-scriptions were even so detailed as torefer to the voice of this soul as beingbirdlike, or similar to whistling. Itsounds like the description of the smallboy’s “ ghost” , which he imagined hesaw passing the local church cemetery.

Another characteristic of these dis-carnate souls was that they were con



stantly slipping away from the body.They were rather disobedient to thewill, and one had to be constantly alertor else his soul would have departed for a time. Th ese primitive believers in discarnate souls attributed to soul the func-

tions of a communicator; that is, itsmain duty was to communicate withothers, those who were alive at distantpoints or with the souls of those whohad gone on after death. In this sense,it parallels to some respect the modernconcept of the spiritualist.

W e have been considering the con-cepts of some of the primitive peopleswithout reference to any time or periodin history. W e now begin with definiteperiods. W e start with the Semiticperiod, the Babylonian and Assyrianera.

The Babylonians were very vague intheir description of soul. W hat we havebeen able to discern from decipheringsof their ancient writings is that theyconceived of man as a dual being, pos-sessed of a physical, mortal body, andalso an impalpable self. Thi s impalpableself was not exactly an ethereal being,or an energy, or merely an influence; itwas an actual substance, just like thephysical body, except that it was finer composition, ground finer, if we may usethat term. At death, the soul was se p-arated from the body, and the soul de-parted to the underworld, to dwell therewith other souls. It seems that the soul,according to the Babylonian concept,was constantly desirous of returningaqain to the normal state, because theliving state was considered by theBabylonians as man’s nroper and nor-mal state. And the Babylonia ns con-stantly feared the congregation of thesedeparted souls conspirina against theliving, and eventually, if the living were

not cautious and did not take the proper precautions, being dominated by them.But the departed souls were partiallyappeased if they were fed and givenwater, so we find the Babylonian cus-tom described not only in their writing,but in scenes found upon the walls of their temples and tombs, of sprinklingwater upon the graves of the departedand placing there also choice foods.

The form of the soul was never verydefinitely described by the Babylonians

and the Assy rians . It is believed thatthey imagined it to be something likewhirling dust particles.

Next we come to the Egyptian era.The concept of soul had by the Egyp-

tians, the masses, the peasants, and theslaves of the Pyramid Age — that periodof about 4000 to 3500 B. C.—was very,very crude. These primitive, very an-cient Egyptians, imagined the soul as avery definite concrete entity, just asdefinite as the physical body. It wasnothing ethereal or vaporous: it was tothem a body within a body. They re-ferred to the soul as “ B A ” , but theEgyptians, these early Egyptians of thePyramid Age, distinguished distinctlybetween soul and life. Th ey did notconfuse the two, as some of the earlier primitive minds did, for life to theEgyptians was known by another name.It was called the “ Ank h". In fact, theEgyptian symbol of the cross of lifewhich we refer to as the crux ansatawas called by the Egyptians the“ Ankh” , and we find the word Ankhincomorated in the names of many of the Egyptian kings and pharaohs, for instance, King Tutankhamen.

These early Egyptians did not con-cern themselves much with the nature

and substance of the soul, but weregreatly concerned with its future life.At scattered places, we find, however,some pictures inscribed on temple wallsand obelisks and referred to as the soul.The form consisted of either the heron,or another large bird, with the face or head of a human.

After a lapse of about two thousandyears, we find a tremendous step for-ward in the concept of soul and of Godand of the future life of soul. Duringthe Feudal Age and the Empire Age of

Egypt, from about 1500 to 1300 B. C.,we find the Egyptians definitely recog-nizing and believing in immortality aswell as the belief that the soul returnsagain to the body. W e find the ancientEgyptians hewing and chiseling intosolid rock cliffs, passageways, and en-larging those passageways into cham-bers comprising a tomb. W e find themcarving and making elaborate sarcopha-guses, mummy cases or coffins in whichthe body of the deceased was carefullylaid and preserved. The art of embalm-





E G Y P T I A N R O C K T O M B O F A M O R C M U S E U M

Above is an illustration of an actual size reproduction of a rock tomb of the Feudal Ageof E gyp t of about 2000 B. C. T his tomb was recently constructed in the Rosicrucian Museumin Rosicrucian Park, San Jose, California, from maps, photographs and diagrams provided byan Egy ptian Exp loration Socie ty. It is complete to the most minute detail, being illuminatedby torches designed after those used during the nineteenth dy nas ty of E gy pt . It is the onlyEgyptian rock tomb to be found anywhere outside of Egypt.

The statue in the foreground is of the Nile God, and the one in the rear is a reproductionof the famous stone figure of King S eti Merneptah II, both being provided AM O RC by theBritish M useum. Th e tomb is a source of considerable interest to the hundreds of visitors tcthe museum monthly.

(Courtesy of Rosicrucian Digest.)



B a l k e dBy a W ord'

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SocietesIn i t ia t iques)

Officials of the T^orth and South American Jurisdictions( Inc luding the Uni ted Sta tes , Dominion of Canada , Alaska , Mexico , Guatemala . Honduras, Nicaragua ,

Costa Rica , El Sa lvador , Repu bl ic of Panam a, the W est Ind ies , Low er Cal i forn ia , and a l l landunder the pro tec t ion of the Uni ted Sta tes of America .

H . SPEN CER LEWIS , F . R . C . . Ph . D ................... I m p e r a t o r RA LPH M. LEWIS , F . R . C ................. Supreme Secre ta ryCLEMEN T B. LE BRU N , F . R . C ..................................................................................................................... G ra n d Ma s t e r H A RV EY MILES, F . R . C .................. G ra n d Tre a su re r E T H E L B . W A R D , F . R . C .................................................. ..................... — .............................Secre ta ry to Grand M aste r H A RRY L . SH IBLEY , F . R . C ............................................... - ..................................................... Direc tor of Publ ica t ions

Jnnior Order of Torch Bearers (sponsored by AMORC). Fo r comple te informat ion as to i t s a im»and benef i t s address Genera l Secre ta ry , Grand Chapte r , Rosic ruc ian Park , San Jose , Ca l i forn ia .

The following principal branches are District Headquarters of A M O R CAtlanta, Georgia:

Atlanta Chapter No. 650. Dr. James C. Oakshette, Master; Nassau Hotel. Meetings 7:30

every Thursday night.San Francisco, California:

Francis Baron Lodge. Mr. David Mackenzie,Master, 1655 Polk Street.

New York City, New York:

New York Chapter, Rooms 3536, 711 8thAve ., cor. 8th Av e. and 45th Street. Lou isRiccardi, Master; M argaret Sharpe, Secretary.Inquiry and reading rooms open week days,1 t o 8 p .m .

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:

Delta Lodge No. 1, AM OR C. S. E. Corner ■40th and Brown Sts., 2nd Floor, Mr. AlbertCourtney, Master.

Benjamin Franklin Chapter of AMORC;Warren C. Aitken, Master, Martha Aitken,Secretary, 2203 N. 15th Street. Meetings for all members every Sunday, 7:30 p.m. 1706Rittenhouse Square.

Boston, Massachusetts:

The Marie Clemens Lodge, Fortunatus J.Bagocius, Master. Temple and ReadingRooms, 739 Boylston St., Telephone Kenmore 9398.

Detroit, Michigan:

Thebes Ch apter No. 336. Mr. William H.Hitchman, Master; Mrs. Pearl Anna Tifft,Secretary. Meetings at the Sew ard Hotel,Seward Ave., nr. Wood ward Ave. In-quirers call dial phone No. 1870.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:

Penn. First Lodge, Dr. Charles D. Green,M aster; 3787 Ea st S t. N. S., Pittsburgh, Pa.

Reading, Pennsylvania:

Reading Chapter, Mr. Harrison N. Mucher,Ma ster, 144 Clymer St.; Mr. Geo rge R. O s-man, Secretary. Meeting everv Friday , 8:00p. m., Washington Hall. 904 Washington St.

Los Angeles, California:Hermes Lodge, AM O RC Tem ple. Mr. OllinW . Marden, Master. Reading Room and In-quir y office open d aily, 9 a. m. to 9 p. m.,except Sundays. Gran ada Court, 672 SouthLafayette Park Place.

Hartford, Connecticut:

Isis Lodge AMORC, Mrs. Mary Andross,Master, So. Windsor, Conn.

Baltimore, Maryland:

Baltimore Chapter, Mr. William Roland,Master; Miss E. Pauline Trax, Secretary,1116 St. Paul Street.

Chicago, Illinois:Chicago Chapter No. 9, Joseph S. Older,Master; Mabel L. Schmidt, Secretary. Tele-phone Superior 6881. Reading Room openafternoons and evenings. Sun day s 2 to 5only. 100 E. Ohio St., Room 403404. Lecturesessions for ALL members every Tuesdaynight, 8:00 p. m.

Chicago AfraAmerican Chapter No. 10.Robert S. Breckenridge, Master; AureliaCarter, Secretary. Meeting every W ednes-day night at 8 o’clock, Y. M. C. A., 3763 So.Wabash Avenue.

(Direc tory Cont inued on Next Page)



Portland, Oregon:

Portland Chapter. Paul E. Hartson, Master;Telephone East 1245. Meetings every Thurs-day, 8:00 p.m . at 714 S. W . 11th Avenue.

Washington, D. C.:Thom as Jefferson Chapter. William V.Whittington, Master. Confederate MemorialHall, 1322 Vermont Ave. N. W . Meetings

every Friday, 8:00 p. m.

Seattle, Washington:

AM O RC Chapter 586. W alter G. Simpson,M aster; Mrs. Beatrice Stuberg, Secretary.31114 Lowman Bldg., between 1st and 2ndAv es. on Cherry St. Reading Room openweek da ys 11 a. m. to 4:30 p. m. Visito rswelcome. Ch apter meetings each Friday,8:00 p. m.

Other Chartered Chapters and Lod ges of the Rosicrucian Order (A M O R C) will be found inmost large cities and towns of North America. Addr ess of local repre sentative s given on request.

P R I N C I P A L C A N A D I A N B R A N C H E SVancouver, British Columbia:

Canadian Grand Lodge, AM OR C, Mr. H. B.Kidd, Master, AM O R C temple, 878 Horn-by Street.

Victoria, British Columbia:

Victoria Lodge, Mr. A. A. Calderwood,Ma ster. Inquiry Office and Reading Room,101 Union Bank Bldg. Open week days 10a. m. to 6 p. m.

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada:Mr. Ely Law, Master, 120 Spence St. (Ph.33341.) Session for all members every Sun-day, 2:45 p.m., 212 "A ” Enderton Bldg.,Portage Av. and Hargrave St.

Montreal, Quebec, Canada:

Montreal Chapter — Alexandre Chevalier,F. R. C., M aster, 210 W est S t. James Street.Inquiry office open 10:00 a.m . to 5 p.m.daily; Saturdays 10:00 to 1:00 p. m.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

Mr. Benjamin F. Wakelin, Master. Sessions1st and 3rd Sundays of the month, 7:00p.m., No. 10 Lansdowne Ave.

Edmonton, Alberta:Mr. Alfred H. Holmes, Master, 9533 Jasper Avenue E.

S P A N I S H A M E R I C A N S E C T I O NTh is jurisdiction includes all the Spanishspe aking Coun tries of the New W orld. Its Supreme

Council and Administrative Office are located at San Juan, Puerto Rico, having local Represen-tatives in all the principal cities of these stated Countries.

The name and address of the Officers and Representatives in the jurisdiction will be furnishedon application.

All correspondence should be addressed as follows:Secretary General of the SpanishAm erican Jurisdiction of AM O R C, P. O. Box 36, San Juan,

Puerto Rico.

A F E W O F T H E F O R E I G N J U R IS D IC T I O N S

Scandinavian Countries:The A M O RC Grand Lodge of Denmark,Mr. Arthur Sundstrup. Grand Master; CarliAnderson. S. R. C.. G rand Se cretary. Manogade 13th Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Sweden:

Grand Lodge “Rosenkorset.” Anton Svanlund, F. R. C., Grand Ma ster. Jerusalemsgatan, 6, Malmo.

Holland:De Rozekruisers Orde; GrootLod ge der Nederlanden. J. Coop s, Gr. Sect., Hunzestraat 141, Amsterdam.

France:

Dr. H. Gruter, F. R. C., Grand Master, Nice.

Mile. Jeanne Guesdon, S.R.C., CorrespondingSecretary for the Grand Lodge (AMORC)of France, 56 Rue Gambetta, VilleneuveSaint Georges, (Seine 5 O ise).

Switzerland:AM O RC G rand Lodge. Auaust Reichel,F. R. C., Gr. Sect., RiantPort V eveyP lan.

Austria:

Mr. M any Cihlar, K . R. C., Grossekretar der AMORC, Laxenburgerstr, 75/9, Vienna, X.

China and Russia:

The United Grand Lodge of China and Rus-sia, 8/18 Kavkazskaya St., Harbin, Man-churia.

Australia:

The Grand Council of Australia, S. L. S.Kowron, F.R.C., Grand Master, “Sandhurst,”Quirk St ., Dee W hy, Sydney, N . S . W .

New Zealand:Auckland Chapter, Attention Mr. C . D. Mill,Wakefield College, Palmerston Bldg., QueenSt., Auckland.

England:The AMORC Grand Lodge of Great Britain,Mr. Raymund Andrea. K.R.C., Grand Master,34 Baywater Ave., Westbury Park, Bristol 6.

Dutrh and Ea«rt Indies:Dr. W . Th. van Stokkum, Grand M aster.W . J. Visser, SecretaryGeneral. Karang tempel 10, Semarang, Java.

Egypt:The Grand Orient of AM O RC . Houce of theTemple, M. A. Ram ayvelim. F. R. C., GrandSecretary, 26, Avenue Ismalia, Heliopolis.

Africa:

The Grand Lodge of the Gold Coast,AMORC. Mr. Will iam Okai . Grand Master ,P. O. Box 424 Accra, Gold Coast, WestAfrica.

India:

The Supreme Council, AM O RC , Calcutta,India.

The addresses of other foreign Grand Lodges and secretaries will be furnished on application.

R O S I C RU C I A N P R E S S ,L T D .

P RI NT f iD I N U . S . * .



m

H E R A L D I N G .

A Messagefrom a

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By a combination of strange circumstances, a white

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But $1.50 will bring you this magasine for 5 months, and in additionwithout price, this book, acknowledgedto be one of the finest, oldest andauthentic sacred writings. This is anoffer very seldom made. Avail your'self of it now — today. Send sub-scription and request for gift book to:

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This authentic Tibetan writing is absolutely FREE to you. It is not a pamphlet but a bound

SAN JOS E, CA LIFO RN IA, V. S. A. b°okot { „ \ ° ab°y‘

The Rosicrucian Digest



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The Rosicrucian Digest - August 1935.pdf