Chapter 19
chapter is an attempt to show the fallacy of looking for
the Second Advent in a year or fifty or five hundred. The Elder Brothers decline to commit themselves further than to point out what must first be accom- plished.
At the time of Christ the sun was in about seven degrees of Aries. Five hundred years were required to bring the precession to the thirtieth degree of Pisces. During that time the new church lived through a stage of offensive and defensive violence well justify- ing the words of Christ : ' ' I came not to bring peace but a sword." Fourteen hundred years more have elapsed under the negative influence of Pisces, which has fostered the power of the church and bound the people by creed and dogma.
In the middle of the last century the sun came within orb of influence of the scientific sign Aquarius, and although it will, take about six hundred }rears be- fore the Aquarian Age commences, it is highly instruc- tive to note what changes the mere touch has wrought in the world. Our limited space precludes enumera- tion of the wonderful advances made since then; but it is not too much to say that science, invention, and resultant industry have completely changed the world, its social life, and economic conditions. The
6
82 GLEANINGS OF A MYSTIC
great strides made in means of communication have done much to break down barriers of race prejudice and prepare us for conditions of Universal Brother- hood. Engines of destruction have been made so fearfully efficient that the militant nations will be forced ere long to "beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks." The sword has had its reign during the Piscean Age, but science will rule in the Aquarian Age.
In the land of the setting sun we may expect to first see the ideal conditions of the Aquarian Age : A blend- ing of religion and science, forming a religious science and a scientific religion, which will promote the health, happiness and the enjoyment of life in abund- ant measure.
Sugar For Alcohol
In the chapter elucidating the Law of Assimilation in the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, we stated that minerals cannot be assimilated because they lack a vital body, which lack makes it impossible for man to raise their vibratory rate to his own pitch. Plants have a vital body and no self-consciousness, hence are most easily assimilated and remain with man longer than cells of animal flesh, which is permeated by a desire body. The vibratory rate of the latter is high, and much energy is required in assimilation; its cells also quickly escape and make it necessary for the flesh eater to forage often.
THE COMING AGE 83
We are aware that alcohol is a "foreign spirit" and a "spirit of decay," because it is generated by fermentation OUTSIDE the consumer's system. Being "spirit," it vibrates with such intense rapidity that the human spirit is incapable of tuning it down and controlling it as food must be, hence metabolism is out of the question. Nay, more, as we cannot reduce its vibratory rate to that of our bodies, this foreign spirit may accelerate their vibratory pitch and control us as happens in the state of intoxication. Thus alcohol is a great danger to mankind and one from which we must be emancipated ere we can realize our divine nature.
A stimulant spirit is necessary while we live on a diet of flesh or progress would stop, and a food has been provided for the pioneers of the West that an- swers all requirements ; its name is ' ' sugar. ' ' From sugar the ego itself generates alcohol INSIDE the sys- tem by the very processes of metabolism. This product is therefore both food and stimulant, perfectly keyed to the vibratory pitch of the body. It has all the good qualities of alcohol in enhanced measure and none of its drawbacks. To perceive properly the effect of this food, consider the peoples of eastern Europe where but little sugar is consumed. They are slavish; they speak of themselves in terms of depreciation ; the pro- noun "I" is always spelled with small letters but "you" with a capital. England consumes five times as much sugar per capita as Russia. In the former
84 GLEANINGS OF A MYSTIC
we meet a different spirit, the big "I" and the little "you." In America the candy store becomes a most dangerous rival of the saloon, for the man who eats sweets will not drink, and there is no surer cure for alcoholism than to induce the sufferer to eat freely of sweets. The drunkard abhors sugar, however, while his system is under the sway of the " foreign spirit." The temperance movement was begun in the land where most sugar is consumed, and has generated "the spirit of self-respect."
85
