Chapter V

THE SIMPLE PERIODS OF HUMAN LIFE
NE of the most simple and very apparent cycles of human life is one which the ancients observed and quickly learned to use as a basis for many of their math©' matical and geometrical plans of life activities. Even in the modern science of medicine, and in many of the newer statistical forms of analysis of human economics, this ancient form of human life is utihzied as a fundamental scheme.
According to this primary cycle, human life is divided into a progression of periods, each period lasting approximately seven complete sun years or seven years of approximately three hundred and sixtyfive days each.
Merely as an illustration of how this simple cycle manifests itself, and not to use this cycle as a part of the system to be explained later on, I will call your attention to the fact that we can
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easily divide our lives into periods of seven years, and notice how each period has brought its definite results or produced effects upon our growth, de' velopment, and mastership.
Consider the first period of seven years. This is the time during which our babyhood and early youth occurs, and when the fundamentals of our education and cultural development are laid. It is really a period of self discovery, so far as the objective material world and our relation to it is concerned. We learn to walk and talk, control our bodies, and relate ourselves properly to our physical and material environments.
In the second period of seven years, from the seventh to the fourteenth birthday, certain physi' cal changes take place in our development, and the mental side of our nature takes a secondary place in the changes going on. It is just before the fulfillment of the second period that the important physical changes in both the male and female occur, that prepare the child for the third stage. If these changes do not occur before the end of the second period, the child is psychologi' cally and physiologically subnormal, and both
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physiology and psychology have unconsciously recognizied this second period in the cycle of life.
In the third period of seven years, from the fourteenth to the twentyfirst birthday, the phy sical changes drop back into the secondary place together with the mental, and the psychic side of human nature is developed primarily. This brings about the sense of responsibility, giving dignity, poise, and character to the individual. It is during this process that the individual attains that degree of psychic or psychological, as well as mental and physiological development, that estabhshes the individual as a capable entity, qualified to assume legal responsibilities. The per' son who does not attain this degree by the twenty" first year is backward in the progress that should have been made, and is classified as incompetent and is subnormal.
In the fourth period of seven years, from the twentyfirst to the twentyeighth year, there is a development strongly centered in the emotional nature carrying on the unfoldment of the emo" tional spark that was awakened in the preceding period. During these seven years, the individual
SELF MASTERY AND FATE
acquires stability, a further sense of responsibility, a softening of the nature, and a gradual activity in those higher, dormant faculties known as intuition, mental telepathy, unconscious psychometry, and similar psychic faculties, together with an awaken^ ing interest in music, art, language, and what may be termed the rehgious and higher things in life. An absence of any manifestation of the develop' ment of these faculties during this period would indicate to the psychologist or psychiatrist a sub' normal development.
In the next period of seven years, from the twentyeighth to the thirtyfifth year, we find the creative processes of the mind most active, and the ability to visualise, imagine, and mentally create greatly developed, with a developing attunement with the Cosmic Consciousness and the ethical standards of life. It is during this period that the greatest inventors have made most success, and the business man has become energetic and successful. It is also noteworthy that it is during this period that many of the world's greatest philosophers, avatars, and mystics found the sudden Cosmic illumination which is called complete attunement
THE CrCLES OF LIFE
with the Cosmic Consciousness. The greatest of these have begun their world-wide missions and written their greatest works during this period. In the next period from the thirty-fifth to the forty-second year, man enters a stage of develop- ment that induces the desire to explore, investigate, and reveal great knowledge and the hidden facts of life. A restlessness comes into his nature which makes him dissatisfied with the monotony of selfish and personal attainment, and quickens in his being the himianitarian and brotherly emotion which makes him want to share what he has with the world, or if he has little else than time and knowl- edge to share, he wants to explore or discover and bring these revealed things to the masses for their benefit. It is during this period that men start dis- posing of great wealth that they have accumulated or inherited, by building libraries, or contributing to the arts, the sciences, schools, colleges, universi- ties, or explorative and inventive expeditions and speculations. It is truly the culminating period of all the years that have preceded in the life of the average human being, and starts the system of com- pensation in the average individual's life whereby
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the individual feels the need of returning to the Cosmic and to mankind some of the benefits he has enjoyed.
In the next period, from the fortysecond to the fortyninth year, the desire to rest, meditate, and philosophically speculate builds up in the human being a new character, which unfolds strongly and uniquely in each case until the individual becomes a new person with new hopes, new desires, a new viewpoint in life, and a new goal and ideal toward which to labor. The mind is turned more strongly toward reUgion and philosophy than to business, and to those humanitarian activities that bring consolation and peace, by giving help, health, and happiness to the downtrodden, disconsolate, or despondent. So surely does this period work out in the average person's Hfe, to some degree, one may easily judge of the approximate age of any eminent character by noting the tendencies of his habits and the trend of his thoughts, even when such persons are in very moderate circum' stances and can do nothing more than wish they were able to do the things that they have in their minds and hearts.
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In the next period of seven years, from the fortyninth to the fiftysixth year, we find a ten' dency toward further retirement from personal or selfish ambition, accompanied with a gradual les- sening of the vitahty and physical prowess, but compensated for by a highly attuned psychic and mental nature. Here the pendulum is beginning to swing from the building up of a physical being to the building up of a spiritual being, and for this reason the physical body begins to lose its power to combat disease, and to surmount the strains of accidents and undue drains upon the vitality. Vital statistics prepared by insurance companies and gov emment bureaus plainly show the great changes in the physical body which take place during this period and the preceding one as the pendulum begins to swing from the physical to the spiritual.
In the period of the next seven years, from the fiftysixth to the sixtythird birthday, there is a continuation of the conditions in the preceding period, but accompanied now by a mellowing of the mental faculties together with the weakening of the physical prowess, leaving the individual more and more a psychic and spiritual being, in
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harmony with the entire purpose of the cycle of progression. As man is born to become a living soul, and not merely a soul'animated physical body, so he evolves, period by period, from birth to his seventythird year, from the physical being to a spiritual being, thereby approaching more closely the inevitable purpose of his existence.
The other periods of seven years each contribute to the spiritual development and the gradual breaking down of the physical body. The end of the cycle is approximately at the one hundred and fortyfourth year, in order that the cycle of life may harmonise with other cycles and other periods which will be dealt with later.
Thus we can see in this very simple cycle of seven-year periods a rhythm of life that is univer- sal for all, and in accordance with a mathematical or geometrical plan that is incomprehensible unless we study all of the Cosmic laws and know, as the Rosicrucians do in their higher teachings, the universal scheme of Cosmic rhythm.
One question may be asked here: "If this is a universal cycle with all beings, will it manifest the same effects in the lives of those who live in
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primitive sections of the world as it does with those who live in the more modern and enlightened sections?" In answer to this we can only say that observation has shown that the cycle manifests its effects in every human being in accordance with the individual's progress through the larger cycles of universal life. In other words, the manifesta" tions in each individual's life are in accordance with his or her stage of evolutionary development. Whether one believes in the doctrine of reincarna- tion or not, one cannot deny the effects of heredi' tary evolution, or the evolutionary effects of pro- gressive generations. Each generation of human beings of a normal type is brought to a higher degree of susceptibility to the influence of these cycles of life. To the primitive, savage man of some parts of this world, the various periods out- lined above would bring only such manifestations and changes in his nature as would be in keeping with his stage of evolution. Or, in other words, in keeping with his degree of progress along the higher cycles of universal life. In a lesser degree, there is considerable variation in these manifesta- tions, among those who are of one nation and one
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race in even the most enlightened part of the world. For instance, here in America there are those who more definitely and more clearly mani- fest the effects of these periods of the cycle in their lives than others, and even a casual investigation of the lives of these persons will show that one is more highly evolved along the universal lines of cultural development than the other.
We may compare these seven-year periods of the cycle to the individual notes of the octave on the piano. Each octave has its notes, separated into definite periods or rates of vibrations, and the periods in one octave are identical with the periods in another octave. We may say, then, that the savage or the primitive man is living through a cycle of hfe that is comparable to one of the lower octaves on the piano keyboard, and although he passes through the periodic notes of that cycle, they do not manifest through him the same attune' ment or tone with harmonic vibrations that an- other person in this country would manifest who might be passing through one of the higher octaves. According to the doctrine of reincarnation and according to the doctrine of the evolution of
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character and personality, each human being passes through successive cycles like progressing through the various octaves of the keyboard from the lowest to the highest. We have no consciousness of what is the lowest octave, and we can have no consciousness of what may be the highest oc" tave, or the last, if any, of the cycles of life. For life itself is continuous, and immortal, and, therefore, can have neither any beginning nor any ending. Again I must call your attention to the fact that to attempt to think even of the beginning or the ending of the cycles of life, or of these cycles as having an endurance in time, is to attempt to reduce our comprehension to a time conscious^ ness, which is purely a relative thing to the finite and not of the infinite. This is explained in the preceding chapter of this book.
V V V
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