CHAPTER VI.

THE SCHEME OF EVOLUTION.

•

The Beginning.

IN harmony with the Hermetic axiom "As above, so
below'' and vice versa, Solar Systems are born, die
and come to birth anew in cycles of activity and rest,
as does man.

There is a constant flaming out and dying down of
activity in every department of nature, corresponding to
the alternations of ebb and flow, day and night, summer
and winter, life and death.

In the beginning of a Day of Manifestation it is taught
that a certain Great Being (designated in the Western
World by the name of God, but by other names in other
parts of the earth) limits Himself to a certain portion
of space, in which He elects to create a Solar System
for the evolution of added self-consciousness. (See dia-
gram 6.)

He includes in His own Being hosts of glorious Hier-
archies of, to us, immeasurable spiritual power and splen-
dor. They are the fruitage of past manifestations of this
same Being and also other Intelligences, in descending
degrees of development down to such as have not reached
a stage of consciousness as high as our present humanity,
and therefore these latter will not be able to finish their
evolution in this System. In God — this great collective

183

184: HOSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Being — there are contained lesser beings of every grade of
intelligence and stage of consciousness, from omniscience
to an unconsciousness deeper than that of the deepest
trance condition.

During the period of manifestation with which we are
concerned, these various grades of beings are working to
acquire more experience than they possessed *at the begin-
ning of this period of existence. Those who, in previous
manifestations, have attained to the highest degree of
development work on those who have not yet evolved any
consciousness. They induce in them a stage of self-con-
sciousness from which they can take up further work
themselves. Those who had started their evolution in a
former Day of Manifestation, but had not progressed far
at the close, now take up their task again, just as we take
up our daily work in the morning where we left off the
previous night.

All the different Beings, however, do not take up their
evolution at the early stages of a new manifestation. Some
must wait until those who precede them have made the
conditions which are necessary for their further develop-
ment. There are no instantaneous processes in nature.
All is an exceedingly slow unfolding, a development which,
though so exceedingly slow, is yet absolutely certain to
attain ultimate perfection. Just as there are progressive
stages in the human life — childhood, youth, manhood or
womanhood, and old age — so in the macrocosm there are
different stages corresponding to these various periods of
the microcosmic life.

A child cannot take up the duties of fatherhood or
motherhood. Its undeveloped mental and physical con-
dition render it incapable of doing such work. The same
is true of the less evolved beings in the beginning of niaui-

THE SCHEME OF EVOLUTION 185

festation. They must wait until the higher evolved have
made the proper conditions for them. The lower the
grade of the intelligence of the evolving being, the more
it is dependent upon outside help.

At the Beginning, then, the highest Beings — those who
are the farthest evolved — work upon those who have the
greatest degree of unconsciousness. Later, they turn them
over to some of the less evolved entities, who are then
able to carry the work a little further. At last self-con-
sciousness is awakened. The evolving life has become
Man.

From the point where the self-conscious individual ego
has come into being he must go on and expand his con-
sciousness without outside help. Experience and thought
are then to take the place of outside teachers and the
glory, power and splendor he may attain are limitless.

The period of time devoted to the attainment of self-
consciousness and to the building of the vehicles through
which the spirit in man manifests, is called "Involution."

The subsequent period of existence, during which the
individual human being develops self-consciousness into
divine omniscience, is called "Evolution."

The Force within the evolving being which makes evolu-
tion what it is and not a mere unfoldment of latent ger-
minal possibilities; which makes the evolution of each indi-
vidual differ from that of, every other; which provides the
element of originality and gives scope to the creative
ability which the evolving being is to cultivate that he
may become a God — that Force is called "Genius," and, as
previously explained, its manifestation is "Epigenesis."

Many of the advanced philosophies of modern times
recognize involution and evolution. Science recognizes
only the latter, because it (Science) deals only with the

186 EOSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Form side of manifestation. Involution belongs to the
Life side; but the most advanced scientists regard Epi-
genesis as a demonstrable fact. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-
Conception combines all three as necessary to full under-
standing of the past, present and future development of
the System to which we belong.

THE WORLDS.

We might use a homely instance to illustrate the build-
ing of a Cosmos. Suppose a man wants to establish a
home in which to live. He first selects a suitable location
and then proceeds to buil a house, dividing it into various
rooms to serve certain j irposes. He makes a kitchen,
dining-room, bedrooms an.* bathroom, and furnishes them
all to suit the special purpose they are intended to serve.

When God desires to create, He seeks out an appropriate
place in space, which He fills with His aura, permeating
every atom of the Cosmic Root-substance of that particular
portion of space with His Life, thus awakening the activ-
ity latent within every tnseparate atom.

This Cosmic Root-substance is an expression of the
negative pole of the Universal Spirit, while the great
Creative Being we call God (of whom we, as spirits, are
part) is an expression of the positive energy of the same
Universal Absolute Spirit. From the work of one upon
the other, all that we see about us in the Physical World
has resulted. The oceans, the Earth, everything we see
manifesting as mineral, plant, animal and human forms
• — all are crystallized space, emanated from this negative
Spirit-substance, which alone existed at the dawn of Being.
As surely as the hard and flinty house of the snail is the
solidified juices of its soft body, so surely all forms are
cr3rstallizations around the negative pole of Spirit.

THE SCHEME OF EVOLUTION 187

God draws from the Cosmic Root-substance outside His
immediate sphere; thus the substance within the nascent
cosmos becomes denser than it is in Universal space, be-
tween Solar Systems.

When God has thus prepared the material for His
Habitation, He next sets it in order. Every part of the
system is pervaded by His consciousness, but .a different
modification of that consciousness in each part or divi-
sion. The Cosmic Root-substance is set in varying rates
of vibration and is therefore differently constituted in its
various divisions, or regions.

The above is the manner in which the Worlds come into
being and are fitted to serve different purposes in the evo-
lutionary scheme, the same as the various rooms in the
house are fitted to serve the purposes of everyday life in
the Physical World.

We have already seen that there are seven Worlds. These
Worlds have each a different "measure" and rate of vibra-
tion. In the densest World (the Physical) the measure of
vibration, though in the case of light-waves reaching a
rate of hundreds of millions per second, is nevertheless in-
finitesimal when compared to the rapidity of the vibration
in the Desire World, which is next to the Physical. To
get some conception of the meaning and rapidity of vibra-
tion, perhaps the easiest way is to watch the heat vibrations
rising from a very hot stove, or from a steam radiator
near a window.

It must be borne constantly in mind that these Worlds
are not separated by space or distance, as is the earth
from the other planets. They are states of matter, of vary-
ing density and vibration, as are the solids, liquids and
gases of our Physical World. These Worlds are not in-
stantaneously created at the beginning of a Day of Mani-

388 KOSICEUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPT IOX

festation, nor do they last until the end; but as a spider
spins its web thread by thread, so God differentiates one
after another of the Worlds within Himself, as the neces-
sity arises for new conditions in the scheme of evolution
in which He is engaged. Thus have all the seven Worlds
been gradually differentiated as they are at present.

The highest Worlds are created first, and as involution
is to slowly carry the life into denser and denser matter
for the building of forms, the finer Worlds gradually con-
dense and new Worlds are differentiated within God to
furnish the necessary links between Himself and the
Worlds which have consolidated. In due time the point
of greatest density, the nadir of materiality, is reached.
From that point the life begins to ascend into higher
Worlds, as evolution proceeds. That leaves the denser
Worlds depopulated, one by one. When the purpose has
been served for which a particular World was created, God
ends its existence, which has become superfluous, by ceas-
ing within Himself the particular activity which brought
into being and sustained that World.

The highest (finest, rarest, most ethereal) Worlds are
the first created and the last eliminated, while the three
densest Worlds, in which our present phase of evolution is
carried on, are but comparatively evanescent phenomena
incident to the spirit's dip into matter.

THE SEVEN PERIODS.

The evolutionary scheme is carried through these five
Worlds in seven great Periods of Manifestation, during
which the virgin spirit, or evolving life, becomes first,
man — then, a God.

At the beginning of Manifestation God differentiates
within (not from) Himself these virgin spirits, as sparks

THE SCHEME OF EVOLUTION 189

from a Flame, of the same nature, capable of being fanned
into Flames themselves. Evolution is the fanning process
which is to accomplish that end. In the virgin spirits are
enfolded all the possibilities of their Divine Father, in-
cluding the germ of independent. Will, which makes them
capable of originating new phases, not latent in it. The
latent possibilities are transformed into dynamic powers
and available faculties during evolution, while the inde-
pendent Will institutes new and original departures — or
Epigenesis.

Prior to the beginning of the pilgrimage through mat-
ter the virgin spirit is in the World of Virgin Spirits, the
next to the highest of the seven Worlds. It has Divine
Consciousness, but not Self -consciousness. That, Soul-
power, and the Creative Mind, are faculties or powers
attained to by evolution.

When the virgin spirit is immersed in the World of
Divine Spirit, it is blinded and rendered utterly uncon-
scious by that matter. It is as oblivious to outside condi-
tions as is man when in the deepest trance. This state
of unconsciousness prevails during the first period.

In the Second Period it rises to the dreamless sleep
state ; in the Third Period is reaches the dream stage, and
in the middle of the Fourth Period, at which we have now
arrived, the full waking consciousness of man is attained.
This is a consciousness pertaining to only the lowest one
of the seven Worlds. During the remaining half of this
Period, and then entire three remaining Periods, man
must expand his consciousness so as to include all of the
six Worlds above this Physical World.

When man passed through these Worlds in his descent
his energies were directed by higher Being?, who assisted
him to turn his unconscious energy inward for the building

100 BOSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

of proper vehicles. At last, when he was far enough ad-
vanced and equipped with the threefold body as a necessary
instrument, these higher Beings "opened his eyes" and
turned his gaze outward upon the Chemical Region of the
Physical World, that his energies might conquer it.

When he has fitted himself by his work in the Chemical
Region, his next step in progress will be towards an ex-
.pansion in consciousness that will include the Etheric
Region; then the Desire World, etc., etc.

In the Rosicrucian terminology, the names of the seven
Periods are as follows:

1. The Saturn Period.

2. The Sun Period.

3. The Moon Period.

4. The Earth Period.

5. The Jupiter Period.

6. The Venus Period.

7. The Vulcan Period.

These periods are suc-
cessive Rebirths of our
Earth.

It must not be thought that the above-mentioned Periods
have anything to do with the planets which move in their
orbits around the sun in company with the earth. In fact,
it cannot be too emphatically stated that there is no con-
nection whatever between these planets and the Periods.
The Periods are simply past, present or future incarnations
of our Earth, "conditions" through which it has passed,
is now passing, or will pass in the future.

The three first mentioned Periods (the Saturn, Sun and
Moon Periods) have been passed through. We are now in
the fourth, or Earth Period. When this Earth Period of
our Globe has been completed, we and it shall pass in
turn through the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan conditions
before the great septenary Day of Manifestation comes to

THE SCHEME OP EVOLUTION 191

an end, when all that now is will once more be merged in
the Absolute for a period of, rest and assimilation of the
fruits of our evolution, to re-emerge for further and higher
development at the dawn of another Great Day.

The three and one-half Periods already behind us have
been spent in gaining our present vehicles and conscious-
ness. The remaining three and one-half Periods will be
devoted to perfecting these different vehicles and expanding
our consciousness into something akin to omniscience.

The journey made by the virgin spirit from unconscious-
ness to omniscience, unfolding its latent possibilities into
a kinetic energy, is a process of marvelous complexity and
only the roughest outline will at first be given. As we
progress in our present study, however, more details will be
filled in, until the picture is as complete as the writer is
capable of making it. The attention of the student is
called to the definition of terms that are given as new
ideas are being presented. He is earnestly importuned to
familiarize himself with them, as the intention is to sim-
plify the matter by using only one familiar English name
for the same idea throughout the work. The name will be
as descriptive as possible of the idea to be conveyed, in
hope that thereby much of the confusion arising from a
multiplex terminology may be avoided. By paying strict
attention to definition of terms, it should not be too diffi-
cult for any person of average intelligence to acquire a
knowledge of at least the outlines of the scheme of
evolution.

That such a knowledge is of the utmost importance will,
we think, be conceded by every intelligent individual. We
live in this world, governed by the laws of nature. Under
these laws we must live and work, and we are powerless
to change them. If we know them and intelligently oo-

192 ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

operate with them, these nature-forces become most vain-
able servants, e. g., electricity and the expansive force of
steam. If, on the other hand, we do not understand them
and in our ignorance work contrary to them, they become
most dangerous enemies, capable of terrible destruction.

Therefore, the more we know of the working methods of
nature, which latter is but the visible symbol of the in-
visible God, the better able we shall be to take advantage
of the opportunities it offers for growth and power; for
emancipation from bondage and for elevation to mastery.