SECTION I

Questions dealing with
LIFE ON EARTH
QUESTION No. 1.
// we were pure spirit and a part- of an Alli-kno.wingi God, why was it necessary for us to take this long pil- grimage of sin and sorrow through matter?
Answer: fn the beginning of manifestation, God differ- entiated within Himself a multitude of potential spiritual intelligences,, as sparks are emitted by a fire. [These spir- itual intelligences were thus potential flames :or , to s, but they are not yet fires, for, though endowed with , the all- consciousness of God, they lacked se//-consciousness ; being1 potentially omnipotent as God, they lacked dynamic power available for use at any moment according to their will ; and in order that these qualities might: be evolved it was imperative that they should go through .matter.! ; Therefore, during involution each Divine Spark was encased in vari- ous vehicles of sufficient density to shut off the outer world from their consciousness. Then the spirit within, no longer able to contact the without, turns and finds itself. With wakening ^//-consciousness comes the spirit's struggle to free itself from its prison, and during evolu- tion the various vehicles which the spirit possesses will be spiritualized into soul, so that, at the end of manifesta- tion, the spirit will not only have gained se//-consciousness but also soul-power.
There is a tendency upon the part of most people to believe that all'that is is the result of something else, leav-
9
10 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
ing no place for any original new building. Those who study life usually speak only of involution and evolution; those who study the form, namely, the modern scientists, are concerned with evolution only, but the most advanced among them are now beginning to find another factor, which they have called epigenesis. Already, In 1757, Cas- par Wolff issued his Theorea Generationis, wherein he showed that in the development of the ovum, there are a series of new buildings not at all foreshown by what has gone before, and Haeckel, indorsing this work, says that nowadays we are no longer justified in calling epi- genesis a theory. For it is a fact which we may demon- strate, in the case of the lower forms where the changes are rapid, under a microscope. Since the mind was given to man, it is this original creative impulse, epigenesis, which has been the cause of all our development. Truly do we build upon that which has been already created, but there is also something new due to the activity of the spirit, and thus it is that we become creators, for if we only imitated that which had already been laid out for us by God or Angel, it wouM never be possible for us to become creative intelligences; we would simply be imitators. And even though we make mistakes, it may be said that we often learn much more by our mistakes than by our successes. The sin and the suffering which the inquirer speaks about are merely 'the result of the mistakes we make, and their impression upon our consciousness causes us to be active along other lines which are found to be good— -that is to say, 'in^harmony with nature. Thus this world is a training school and not a vale of tears wherein we have been placed by a capricious God. (See Ques- tion Xo. 9.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS H
QUESTION No. 2.
' 7/ "God made matt a little lower than the Angels" how is it possible that man is ultimately to become their supe- rior in the Spiritual World?
Answer: This question reveals a misapprehension upon the part- of the inquirer. It has never Been so stated in the Rosicrucian teachings, but something has been said which may have been so misconstrued. The fact of the- matter is that evolution moves in a spiral and there is never a repeti- tion of the same condition. Angels are an earlier stream of evolution who were human in a previous incarnation or the earth, called the Moon Period among Rosicrucians, The Archangels were the humanity of the Sun Period and the Lords of Mind, called by Paul the "Powers' of Darkness," were the humanity of the dark Saturn Period. We are the humanity of the fourth period of -the present scheme of manifestation, the Earth Period. As all beings in the universe are progressing, the humanity of the pre- vious periods have also progressed so that they; are now at a higher stage than they were when they were human — th^ey are superhuman. Therefore, it is perfectly true that God made man a little lower than the Angels. But as everything is in a state of spiral progression, it is also true that our present humanity is a higher and more evolved humanity than the Angels were; and that the Angels were a higher order of humanity than the Archan- gels were when they were human. In the next step we shall attain something like the stage of the Angels at the present time, but we shall be superior to what they are now
12 EOSICRUCIAN' PHILOSOPHY
QUESTION No 3.
Why should it be "necessary for us to come into this physical existence? Could we not have learned the same lessons without being imprisoned and limited by the dense conditions of the material world ?
Answer: The New Testament was written in Greek originally, and the word Logos means both word and the thought whieh precedes the word, so that when John tells us in th% first '"chapter- of his Gospel that "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God," we may also translate that verse: "In the beginning was the thought, and the word was with God, and God was the word." Everything exists by virtue of that fact (the word). In that is "life."
Everything that exists in the universe was first a thought, that thought then manifesting as a word, a sound, which built all forms and itself manifested as the life within those forms. Th&t is the process of creation, and man, who was made in the 'image of God, creates in the same way to a certain extent. He has the capability of thinking ; he may voice his thoughts and in that way, where he is not ca- pable of carrying out his ideas alone, he may secure the help of others to realize them. But a time is coming when he will create directly by the word of his mouth, and he is now learning to create by other means, so that when in time' lie becomes able to use his word to create directly lie will know how. l"hat training is absolutely necessary. At the present time he would make many mistakes. Be- sides, he is not yet good— he would bring into being demoniac creations.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 13
In the earliest dawn of man's endeavor, he used the solids; muscular force was his only means of performing work, and from bones and stones which he picked up from the ground, he shaped his first crude instruments to be wielded by his arm. Then came a time when in a rude dug-out he first trusted himself to the waters; a liquid and the water wheel was the first machinery. The liquid is already much stronger than the solid. A wave will raze the decks of a ship, tear out the masts and twist the stout- est iron bar as if it were a thin wire ; but water power is a stationary force and therefore limited to work in its imme- diate vicinity. When man learned to use the still more subtle force which we call air, it became possible for him to erect windmills in any place to do his work and sailing vessels brought the whole world into communication. Thus, man's next step in unfoldment was achieved by the use of a force still subtler than water and more universally applicable than that element. But wind was fickle and not to be depended upon ; therefore, the advancement in human civilization achieved by its use paled into insignificance when man discovered how to utilize the still more subtle gas which is called steam, for that can be made anywhere and everywhere, and the progress of the world has been enormous since its advent. There is, however, the draw- back to its utility that steam-power requires cumbersome transmission machinery. This drawback is practically elim- inated by using a still subtler force, more readily trans- missible; electricity, which is altogether invisible and intangible.
Thus, we see that the progress of man in the past has depended upon the utilization of forces of increasing subtlety, each force in the scale being more readily capable of transmission than the ones previously available, and we
14 EOSICRtJGIAN PHILOSOPHY
can readily realize that further progress depends upon the discovery of still finer forces transmissible with still greater •facility. We know that that which we call wireless teleg- raphy is accomplished 'without even the -use of wires, bttt even that system is not ideal, for it depends upon energy generated in a central plant, which is stationary. It in- volves the use of costly machinery and is, therefore, out of reach of the majority. The ideal force would be a power which man could generate from himself at any moment without machinery.
A few decades ago Jules Verne thrilled us with delight when he conjured up before our imagination the submarine boat, the trip around the earth in eighty days, etc. Today the things that he pictured have become facts surpassing even his imagination, and the day will come when we shall have available for use a power plant such as spoken of above. Bulwer Lytton, in his ''Coming Kace," has pic- tured to us a force called "Vril " which certain imaginary beings are possessed of and which they can use to propel themselves over land, through the air and in various other ways. Such a force is latent within every one of us, and we speak of it sometimes as emotion. We feel its far-reach- ing power at times as temper when it is unleashed, and we say "a man has lost control of himself." No amount of work can so tire the physical body and wreck it as when the enormous energy of the desire body is let loose in a fit of temper. Usually, at the present time, this enormous force sleeps, and it is well that it should be so until we have learned to use it by means of thought, which is a still more subtle force. This world is a school to teach us how to think and feel aright so that we may become qualified to use these two subtle forces — the power of thought and the power of emotion.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEKS 15
' An illustration will make clear how this world serves that •purpose. An inventor gets an idea. The idea is not yet & thought, it is but as it were a flash which has not ye1 >i ok en shape, but gradually he visualizes it in mind stun* He forms in his thought a machine, and before his mental •vision that machine appears with the wheels revolving thi« way and that, as necessary to accomplish the required work. Then he commences to draw the plans for the machine, and •even at that stage of concretion it will most certainly appear .that modifications are necessary. Thus we see that already the physical conditions show the inventor where Ms thought was not correct. When he builds the machine in appropriate material for the accomplishment of the work, there are usually more modifications necessary. Per- haps, he may be; obliged to throw the first machine away, entirely rearrange his conception and build a new machine. Thus the concrete physical conditions have enabled him to detect the flaw in his reasoning; they force him to make the necessary modifications in his original thought to bring out a machine that will do the work. Had there been only a World of Thought, he would not have known that he had made a mistake, but the concrete physical conditions show him where his thought was wrong.
The Physical World teaches the inventor to think aright, and his successful machines are the embodiments of right thought.
In mercantile, social or philanthropic endeavors, the same principle holds good. If our ideas concerning the various matters in life are wrong, they are corrected when brought into so-called practical uses and thus this world is an absolute necessity to teach us how to wield the power of thought and desire, these forces being held in leash to a great extent at the present time by our material conditions.
16 BOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
But as time goes on and we learn to think aright more and more, we shall at last obtain such a power of thought that we shall be able to think the right thought at once in every case without experimenting, and then we shall also be able to speak our thought into actual being, as a thing. There was a time, in the far, far past, when man was yet a spir- itual being and when the conditions of earth were more plastic. Then he was taught directly by the Gods to use the word as a means of creation and he worked thus forma- tively on the animals and the plants. We are told in the Bible that "God brought the animals to man and he named them." This naming was not simply calling a lion a lion, but it was a formative process that gave man a power over the thing he named, and it was only when selfishness, cruelty and unbridled anger unfitted him for the master- ship that the word of power spoken of by the masons was lost. When holiness shall have again taken the place of profanity, the word will be found again and will be the creative power of the divine man in a future age.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 17
QUESTION No. 4.
// this earth life is so important and really the basis of all our soul growth, the latter resulting from the experi- ences we gain here, why is our earth life so short in com- parison with the life in the Inner Worlds, approximating a thousand years between two earth lives?
Answer: All that is in this world which has been made by the hand of man is crystallized thought; the chairs upon which we sit, the houses in which we live, the various con- veniences, such as telephone, steamship, locomotive, etc. were once a thought in the mind of man. If it had not been for that thought, the thing would never have appeared. In similar manner, the trees, the flowers, the mountains and the seas are the crystallized thought forms of the nature forces. Man, when he leaves this body after death and enters the Second Heaven, becomes one with those nature forces ; he works under the direction of the creative hierarchies, making for himself the environment which is necessary for his next step in unfoldment. There he builds in "mind stuff," the archetypes of the land and the sea; he works upon the flora and the fauna; he creates every- thing in his environment as thought forms, and as he changes the conditions, so they appear when he is reborn.
But working things out in mind stuff is very different from working things out in the concrete. At the present time we are very poor thinkers, and therefore it takes an enormous period of time for us to shape the thoughv forms in the second heaven ; then, also, we must wait a con- siderable time before these thought forms have crystallized into the actual dense physical environment to which we
18 EOSICEUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
are to come back. Therefore, it is necessary that we should stay in the Heaven World for a much longer time than we remain in the earth life. When we have learned to think aright, we shall be able to create things here in the Physical World in a much shorter time than it now takes to labori- ously form them. Neither will it be necessary then to stay out of earth life as long as at the present time.
QUESTION No. 5.
How long will it be before we can do without these physi- cal bodies, and function altogether in the Spiritual Worlds again ?
Answer: This question reveals a state of mind which is all too common among people who have become acquainted with the fact that we possess spiritual bodies in which we may move through space with lightning rapidity, bodies which do not need the material raiment and, therefore, will require no care upon the part of their owners. These people long then for the time when they may grow such figurative wings and shed this "low and vile mortal coil" altogether.
Such a state of mind is extremely unfortunate. We
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 19
should be very thankful for the material instrument which we have, for that is the most valuable of all our vehicles. While it is perfectly true that our physical body is the low- est of all our vehicles, it is also a fact that this vehicle is the most finished of our instruments, and without that the other vehicles would be of little use to us at this time. For while this splendidly organized instrument enables us to meet the thousand and one conditions here, our higher vehicles are practically unorganized. The vital body is formed organ for organ as our dense physical body, but until it has been trained by esoteric exercises it is not a fit instrument to function in alone. The desire body has only a number of sense centres which are not even active in the great majority of people, and as for the mind, it is an unformed cloud with the great majority. We should aim today to spiritualize the physical instrument, and we should realize that we must train our higher vehicles before they can be of use. For the great mass of people that will- take a long, long time. Therefore, it is best to do the duty that is close to our hands, then we hasten the day when we shall be able to use the higher vehicles, for that day depends upon ourselves,
20 EOSICKUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
QUESTION No. 6.
Does the spirit enter the body at the time of conception or at the time of birth ?
Answer: It has been ascertained, J?y clairvoyant Livesti- gation that at the time of death the spirit takes with it the forces of one little atom located in the left ventricle of the heart, which is called the seed atom, for it is the nucleus or seed around which all the material in the body gathers, and every atom in the body must be capable of vibrating in unison with that seed atom. Therefore, that atom is deposited in the semen of the father some time previous to conception, and later placed in the womb of the mother. But conception is not at all identical with the time of sexual union of the parents. The impregnated spermatozoa is sometimes not imbedded in the ovum until fourteen days after the union of the parents. It is this impregnation of the ovum that may be called the time of conception, for from the moment when the impregnated ovum leaves the Falopian tube the period of gestation commences. During the first eighteen to twenty-one days, all the work is done by the mother, but at that time the reincarnating Ego, clothed in a bell-shaped cloud of desire-and-mind-stufT, enters the womb of the mother and the bell-shaped cloud closes at the bottom so that it is then ovoid, or egg-shaped Then the spirit is definitely enmeshed in the flesh and can- not escape any more, but must stay with the mother until liberated by birth. In the present stage of our unfold- ment, the spirit does very little conscious work upon its coming vehicle, but it is present all the time and helps unconsciously in the task of providing its instrument. This
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 21
is no more remarkable than that we are able to digest our food and work our respiratory organs without being con- scious of the process.
QUESTION No. 7. What was the purpose in the division of the sexes?
Answer: The division of the sexes was brought about at a very early stage of man's evolution, when he had as yet no brain or larynx. One-half of the creative force was then turned upward in order that these two organs might be built. The brain was made for the evolution of thought whereby man creates in the Physical World. Houses, cities, steamships, railways, everything made by the. hand is crys- ta.llized human thought. The larynx was also made by the creative sex-force in order that man might express his thoughts. The connection between those organs and the force expressed through the lower creative organ will be evident when we remember that the boy who possesses the positive creative force changes his voice at the time of puberty, when he is first able to procreate his kind; also that the man who abuses his sex-force becomes an idiot, while the profound thinker who uses nearly all his creative
22 EOSICKUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
force in thought will have little or no inclination for amorous practices.
Prior to this division man was, like some plants today, ft complete creative unit capable of perpetuating his kind without the help of another. The faculties of thought and speech have been bought at the loss of this creative power; but now that half of the creative force which is expressed through brain and larynx may be used to create things in the world — houses, ships, etc.
QUESTION No. 8.
Is the soul of a woman masculine and the soul of a man feminine?
Answer: Speaking generally, we might say "yes," the vital body which is eventually transformed, transmuted and spiritualized into soul is of the opposite sex. It is formed organ for organ exactly like the dense physical body with this one exception, and this elucidates mr.ny facts otherwise unexplainable. The faculties inherent in the vital body are growth, propagation, assimilation and memory. The woman having the positive vital body is matured earliei than the male, the parts which remain plant-like, such as,
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 23
for instance, the hair, grows longer and more luxuriant, and naturally a positive vital body will generate more blood than the negative vital body possessed by the masculine, hence we have in woman a greater blood pressure, which it is necessary to relieve by the periodical flow, and when that ceases at the climacteric period there is a second growth iri woman, particularly well expressed in the saying "fat and forty."
The impulses of the desire body drive the blood through the system at varying rates of speed, according to the strength of the emotions. Woman, having an excess of blood, works under much higher pressure than man, and while this pressure is relieved by the periodical flow, there are times when it is necessary to have an extra outlet; then the tears of woman, which are white bleeding, act as a safety valve to remove the excessive fluid. Men, although they may have as strong emotions as women, are not given to tears because they have no more blood than they can comfortably use.
Being positively polarized in the Etheric Region of the Physical World, the sphere of woman has been the home and the church where she is surrounded by love and peace, =#hil- man fights the battle of the strong for the survival 'of the fittest, without quarter in the dense Physical World, 'where he is positive.
24 ROSICPJJCIAN PHILOSOPHY
QUESTION No. 9.
Do we keep the same temperament through all our lives?
Answer: The Ego may be likened unto a precious stone, a diamond in the rough. When it is taken out of the earth the stone is far from beautiful ; a rough coating hides the splendor within, and before the rough diamond becomes a gem, it must be polished upon the hard grindstone. Each application to the stone removes a part of the rough coat arid grinds a facet through ^vhich the light enters and is refracted at a different angle from the light thrown back by the other facets.
So it is with the Ego. A diamond in the rough, it enters the school of experience, the pilgrimage through matter, and each life is as an application of the gem to the stone. Each life in the school of experience removes part of the roughness of the Ego and admits the light of intelligence at a new , angle, giv,ing a different experience, and thus as the angles of light vary in the many facets of the dia- mond, so the temperament of the Ego differs in each life. In each life we can show forth only a small part of our spiritual natures, we can realize only a small part of the splendor of our divine possibilities, but every life tends to make us more rounded and our temperaments become more even. In fact, it is the work upon the temperament that is the principal part of our lesson, for self-mastery is the goal. As Goethe says,
"From every power which all the world enchains, Man liberates himself when self-control he gains."
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEKS 25
QUESTION No. 10.
Is the desire body subject to sickness and does it need nutrition and replenishment? .
Answer: In a certain sense it is, during earth life; that is to say, sickne?s shows itself first in the desire body and in the vital body, which become thinner in texture and do not specialize the ^rital fluid in the same proportion as usual during health. Then the dense physical body becomes sick. When recovery takes place the higher vehicles show improvement before the manifestation of health is apparent in the Physical World.
But if the inquirer means to ask concerning conditions after death, the matter is different. Although a person may be sick here, perhaps bedridden for years and unable to move- about, when death has taken place, and he feels himself without the dense body, there is at once a sense of relief, a feeling of gladness and lightness which is unusual to him, and he suddenly wakes up to the fact that he has no pain attd is able^to move about. If he understands^ condi- tions, he will also know that it is unnecessary for him to take nourishment, for the desire vehicle needs no replen- ishment. Many people, however, are not aware of the fact and therefore we find in the lower regions of the Desire World that sometimes they will go through all the motions of ordinary house-keeping. Hence the stories of some spiritualistic investigators, who have found these con- ditions in the Invisible World; and this also accounts for a great deal of that which George Du Maurier has told of the life of Peter Ibbettson and the Countess of Towers, in his novel bearing the hero's name. This novel is recommended
26 KOSICEU€IAN PHILOSOPHY
to the reader as giving a fine illustration of the operation of the subconscious memory where the hero deals with his child-life, and of actual conditions in the lower regions of the Invisible World, where his experiences with the countess are concerned.
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QUESTION , .No. 11.
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flow is it that one atones for all sin in Purgatory, then at rebirth must again suffer through the Law of Cause and Effect for sins of a former life?
i. ' -
Answer: There are two distinct activities in Purgatory. First, there is the eradication of bad habits. For instance, the drunkard craves drink just as much as he does before death, but now he has no stomach and alimentary canal wherein to contain the liquor, so that, although he may go around to the various saloons, although he may even get inside the whiskey casks and steep himself in the liquor, he obtains no satisfaction, for there are no fumes as when chemical combustion takes place in a stomach. Thus he suffers all the tortures of Tantalus — "Water, water every- where, and not a drop to drink/'
But; as desire in this world burns out when we realize
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS £7
that it cannot be gratified, so in time the drunkard is cured of hia desire for drink, because he can obtain no liquor, and he is. born innocent of evil so far as that- particular vice is. concerned. However, he must overcome that vice con- sciously, and so at a certain time temptation will come in his way. When he has grown up a companion may ask him to "come and have a drink." Then it depends upon whether he yields or not. If he does, he sins anew and must be purged anew, till at iast the cumulative pains of repeated purgatorial existence will cause him to have a disgust for drink. Then he will have consciously over- come temptation and there will be no more suffering from that source.
As to the evil that we have done to others, for instance, where we have dealt cruelly with a child placed under our care, where we have beaten and starved it or otherwise maltreated it, the scenes where we have thus done wrong will have impressed themselves upon the atom in the heart ; later on, the etching will have been transferred to the desire body and the panorama of life, which unrolls backward, will again bring these scenes before our consciousness. We shall then ourselves feel as the child felt who was our vic- tim; we shall feel the stripes that we inflicted just as the child felt them; we shall feel the mental anguish and mortification; we shall suffer pang for pang, and then, when we are reborn, we shall meet our victim and have the opportunity to do good to that victim instead of doing evil. If we do so, well and good ; if our old enmity asserts itself as before, then further stripes in the next Purgatory will at last cause us to see that we ought to be merciful with those under our care. So we do not suffer anew for sins of a former life; we are born innocent through the blessed ministrations of Purgatory, and at least .every evil
28 EOSICKUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
act we commit is an act of free will. But temptations are placed before us in order to ascertain whether the purging has been sufficient to teach us the needed lessons, and it is our privilege either to yield or to stand strong and firm for the good.
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When the- spirit parses out of the body at death, the parroramarof its past life passes before it during the first three -and one-half days after its release from the body. These pictures are etched into the desire body and form the basis of life in Purgatory and the First Heaven, which are located in "the Desire World. ;i!ne past life is reproduced in pictures shifting backward so that the scenes which happened just previous to death are first gone over; then follows the life toward childhood and infancy. In Purgatory only the scenes where the soul did wrong are reenacted, and the soul sees itself as being the one whom it wronged and suffers as those suffered whom it wronged in earth life. The record of these sufferings is indelibly engraven upon the seed atom, which is the only
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 29
part of the dense body the soul takes with it and keeps permanently from life to life. This is, in a way, the "book" of the "Recording Angel," and as the suffering caused by a certain act has been engraven upon this seed atom in Purgatory, it is evident that when in a new life similar circumstances arise and the old temptations come before us, the suffering which" we experienced because of that wrong deed is present iri'the seed atom to warn us that such and such a course of aetibh was wrong. That is f*e "voice of conscience/' a#d i-f^he suffering entailed in Pur- gatory was sufficiently interise, we shall have the power to resist whatever temptation comes before us. If. on the other hand, from certain different causes, the suffering was not keen enough, we may yield permanently or temporarily in another life to the same^ternptations that cost suffer- ing in previous lives; we::m¥y VieldeVeh against the small murmurings of conscience. But when^lf'aWreleased from our bodies and p'apg into Purgatory ;'fh& "next time, we shall there 'have the adiMl suffering 'ca^ed ^by our yielding fe temptation, and'the cumulative effects* of this suffering will at last be sufficient to restrain us from the course which caused us pain.
When a temptation has come before us in an earth life and has been put aside consciously, we shall have learned the lesson and conscience has accomplished its purpose.
Replying definitely to the question, we may therefore say that conscience is the spirit's memory of past sufferings occasioned by the mistakes in previous lives.
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QUESTION No. 13.
. What is genius?
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Answer: From the ordinary standpoint, genius seems to hi;an accident. The theory of heredity will not account lor it, for sometimes the most commonplace people bring a child into the world which is a genius, and the most highly educated and intellectual people have idiots for their children. At other times we find both idiots and geniuses in. the same family. In fact, insanity and genius may be said to be the two extremes where the mental qualities of humanity meet.
.... If we try to account for genius by heredity, we cannot help asking ourselves why there is not a long line of mechanical ancestors before Thomas Edison, who might then be regarded as the flower of a family. But we find that in all cases the appearance of genius is not possible of deduction to any law when viewed from the mere material standpoint.
When we bring the law of causation and its companion law, the law of rebirth, to bear upon the problem, the mat- ter is very different. This theory asserts that earth life is a school of experience; that at each new birth we are born with the accumulated experiences of all our past lives as our stock in trade, our capital; that some of us have attended this school of experience during many lives, and have gathered much store. Perhaps we have developed one particular faculty more than others, so that we have become extremely expert in one special line of endeavor. That is genius.
In order to express some of our faculties, for instance,
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 31
music, it is necessary that we should have certain physical characteristics such as long and slender fingers, a delicate- nervous system, and, particularly, the ear should be spe- cially developed in order that we may express ourselves as musicians. Material required for that expression cannot be found anywhere, but the law of association would naturally draw a musician to other musicians, and there he will find ready to his hand the materials wherewith to build for him- self a body such as is required for the expression of his tal- ent. Therefore, it sometimes seems as if musicians -are born in families ; for instance, twenty-nine musicians were born in the Bach family in two hundred and fifty years.
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QUESTION No. 14.
Is a soul that is born as a woman always a woman in its after lives, and can it never become a man? And what is the time between incarnations?
Answer: No, the spirit is double-sexed and usually expresses itself in its successive lives alternately as man and woman. There are, however, sometimes cases where, according to the Law of Consequences, it is preferable that
32 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
a spirit should appear for several successive lives in a certain sex.
The law is this:
As the sun moves backward among the twelve constella- tions by the movement which we call the precession of the equinoxes, the climate of the earth, the flora and fauna are slowly changed, thus making a different environment for the human race in each successive age. It takes the sun about two thousand years to go through one of the signs by precession, and in that time the spirit is usually born twice, once as a man and once as a woman. The changes which take place in the thousand years between incarna- tions are not so great but that the spirit will be able to extract the experiences of that environment from the stand- point of both man and woman.
However, there may sometimes be cases where the time is also changed. Xone of these .laws are inflexible as the laws of the Medes and the Persians, but are administered by Great Intelligences for the benefit of mankind, so that conditions may be changed in order to fit the exigencies of individual cases. For instance, in the case of a musician. He cannot find the material wherewith to build his body everywhere. He needs particular help to build the three semi-circular canals of his ear in such a manner that they will point as nearly as possible in the three directions of space; he also needs special help to build the delicate fibres of Corti, for his ability to distinguish shades of tone depends upon these features.
In such a case, when a family of musicians with whom he has connection is in a position to give birth to a child, lie may be brought there, though his stay in the Heaven World should not ordinarily terminate for another hun- dred years, for perhaps another opportunity might not offer
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 33
for two or three hundred years after he should be born if the law were adhered to. Then, of course, such a man is ahead of his time, and not appreciated by the genera- tion among which he lives. He is misunderstood, but even that is better than if he had been born later than he should have been, for then he would have been behind the times.
Thus it is that we so often see geniuses unappreciated by their contemporaries, though highly valued by succeeding generations who can understand their viewpoint.
QUESTION No. 15.
When a man pays his debts, cares for his family and lives a moral life here, will he not be all right hereafter?
Answer: No, there is something more required, and there are many people of just that belief who have a rather unenviable time in the Desire World after death. They are, of course, to be looked up to from the standpoint of this life only, but at the present time we are required to at least cultivate some altruistic tendencies in order to progress beyond our present evolutionary status.
We find the people who have neglected the higher duties in the fourth region of the Desire World after death.
34 ROSICEUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
There is the business man who paid a hundred cents on the dollar, who dealt honestly by everyone; who worked for the material improvement of his city and country as a good citizen, paid his employes fair wages, treated his wife and family with consideration, gave them all possible advantages, etc. He may even through them have built a church, or at least given very liberally to it, or he may have built libraries or founded institutes, etc. But he did not give himself. He only took interest in the church for the sake of his family or for the sake of respectability; he had no heart in it, all his heart was in his business, in making money or attaining a worldly position.
When he enters the Desire World after death he is too good to go to Purgatory and not good enough to go to heaven. He has dealt justly with everyone and wronged nobody. Therefore, he has nothing to expiate. But neither has he done any good that could give him a life in the First Heaven where the good of his past life is assimilated. Therefore, he is in the fourth region — between Heaven and Hell, as it were. The fourth region is the centre of the Desire World and the feeling there is most intense; the man still feels a keen desire for business, but there he can neither buy nor sell, and so his life is a most dreadful monotony.
All that he gave to the churches, institutes, etc., counts as nothing because of his lack of heart. Only when we give for love will the gift avail to ~bring happiness here- after. It is not the amount that we give, but the spirit that accompanies the gift, which matters; therefore, it is within the power of everyone to give and thus benefit him- self and others. Indiscriminate money giving, however, often causes people to become thriftless and indigent, but by giving heartfelt sympathy; by helping people to believe
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 35
in themselves and start in life with fresh ardor when they have fallen by the wayside; by giving ourselves in services rendered humanity, we lay up treasure in heaven and give more than gold. Christ said: "The poor are with us always." We may not be able to bring them from poverty to riches and that may not be best for them, but we can encourage them to learn the lesson that is to be learned in poverty; we can help them to a better view of life, and unless the man who is in the position designated by the inquirer does that also, he will not be "all right" when he passes out; he will suffer that dreadful monotony in order to teach him that he must fill his life with something of real value, and thus in a succeeding life his conscience will spur him on to do something better than to grind out dollars, though he will not neglect his material duties, for that is as bad as to spurn spiritual endeavor.
QUESTION No. 16.
It is sometimes contended that we have a right to think what we will and are not responsible for our thoughts. Is that so from an occult point of view?
Answer: No, indeed; it is very much the reverse, and we do not need to go as far as what is usually called occultism; we find that idea expressed by Christ in the
36 BOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
sermon on the mount, where he tells us that "The man who has looked upon a woman with desire has, in fact, already committed adultery1' and when we realize that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, we shall have a much clearer conception of life if we only take into consideration the acts of men, for every act is the outcome of a previous thought lut these thoughts are not always our own.
When we strike a tuning fork, another tuning fork of the same pitch being near, not only the one which is struck will ring, but the other will also commence to sing in sympathy. Likewise, when we think a thought and another person in our environment has been thinking along the same line, our thoughts coalesce with his and strengthen him for good or evil according to the nature of the thought. It is no mere fancy when in the play called "The Witch- ing Hour/' the hero aims to help a scoundrel escape from the State of Kentucky, where the latter is about to be arrested for murder of the Governor. The hero, a man of considerable thought power feels that he may have prompted the criminal. He tells his sister that previous to the time of the murder he had thought that the murder could be committed just in the manner in which it was actually done. He is under the impression that his thought may have been caught by the brain of the murderer and have shown him the way to commit the murder.
When we go into a jury box and we see before ourselves the criminal, we behold only his act ; we have no cognizance of the thought which prompted him. If we have been in the habit of thinking evil, malicious thoughts against one person or another, these thoughts may have been attractive to that criminal, and on the principle that when we have before ourselves a saturated solution of salt it will only take a single crystal to make that salt solution
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 37
solidify, .cc also if a man lias saturated his brains with thoughts of murder, the thought that we sent out may be the last straw breaking the back of the camel, destroying the last barrier which would have held him from com- mitting the act. .
Therefore, our thoughts are of vastly more impoitance than our acts, for if we will only think right, we shall always act right. No man can think love to his fellow- men ; can scheme in his mind how to aid and help them, spiritually, mentally or physically, without also acting out these thoughts at some time in his life, and if we will only cultivate such thoughts, we shall soon find sunshine spreading around us; we shall find that people will meet us in that same spirit that we send out, and if we could realize that the desire body (which surrounds each of us and extends about sixteen to eighteen inches beyond the periphery of the physical body) contains all these feelings and emotions, then we would meet people differently, for we would understand that everything we see is viewed through the atmosphere which we have created around ourselves which colors all we behold in others.
If, then, we see meanness and smallness in the people whom we meet, it would be well to look within to ascertain if it is not the atmosphere we are looking through which colors them thus. Let us see if we have not within our- selves those undesirable qualities, and then begin to rem- edy the defect within ourselves. The man who is mean •and small himself radiates those qualities, and whoever he meets will appear mean to him for lie ivill call out from others the very qualities which he manifests, on the prin- ciple that the vibration of a tuning fork of a certain pitch, when struck, will cause another of identical pitch to vibrate. On the other hand, if we cultivate a serene attitude, an
38 KOSICEUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
attitude that is free from covetousness and is frankly honest and helpful, we shall call out the best in other people. Therefore let us realize that it is not until we have cultivated the better qualities in ourselves that we can expect to find them in others. We are thus in very truth responsible for our thoughts, we are indeed the keepers of our brothers, for as we think when we meet them, so do we appear to them, and they reflect our attitude. Apply- ing the foregoing principle, if we want to obtain help to cultivate those better qualities, let us seek the company of people who are already good, for their attitude of mind will be of immense help to us to call forth in us the finer qualities.
QUESTION No. 17.
// a person is constantly bothered ly evil thoughts which keep coming into his mind, although he is constantly fight- ing them, is there any way in which he can cleanse his mind so that he will think only pure and good thoughts?
Answer: Yes, there is, and a very easy way at that. The inquirer has himself suggested the chief difficulty in his question, when he says that he is constantly fighting
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 39
these thoughts. If we take an illustration we shall see the point.
Supposing we have a particular dislike for a certain person whom we meet every day upon the street, perhaps a number of times. If we stop each time we meet that per- son and herate him for walking upon the street, for not keeping out of our sight, we are each time adding fuel to the fire of our enmity, we are stirring him up, and for pure spite he may seek to waylay us so much the more. Both like and dislike have a tendency to attract a thought or an idea to us, and the added thought force which we send out to fight evil thoughts will keep them alive and bring them to our mind the oftener, in the same way that quar- reling will cause the person we dislike to waylay us for spite. But if, instead of fighting him, we adopt the tac- tics of indifference. If we turn our heads the other way when we meet him upon the street, he will soon grow tired of following us ; and, on the same principle, when thoughts of evil come into our minds. If we will but turn away with indifference and apply our minds to something that is good and ideal, we shall find in a short time that we are rid of their companionship and have only the good thoughts we desire to entertain.
40 KOS1CRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
QUESTION No. 18.
// woman is an emanation from man, as per the rib story, will she in the final return to unity be reabsorbed, losing her individuality in the masculine divinity?
Answer: The "rib story" is one of those instances of gross ignorance upon the part of the Bible translators — who possessed no occult knowledge — in dealing with the language of the Hebrews, which in writing was not divided into words and had no vowel points. By inserting vowels at different points and dividing words differently, various meanings to the same text may be obtained in many places. •This is one case where a word pointed in one way reads "tsad" and in another way "tsela." The Bible translators read the story that the God had taken something from Adam's side ("tsela"), and they were puzzled as to what it was and so, perhaps, they thought it would have done him the least harm to take a rib ("tsad"), hence the fool- ish story.
The fact was that man had first been like the Gods, "made in their image," male and female, a hermaphrodite, and later one side was taken away so that he became divided into two sexes. It may be further said that the first organ which was developed as it is now was the female organ, the feminine side having always existed in everything before the masculine, which came later, and, according to the law in evolution, that "the first shall be the last," the feminine will remain a distinct sex longer than the mascu- line, and, therefore, the inquirer is altogether wrong in the supposition. It is the masculine that will be absorbed in the feminine. Even now it is seen that the masculine
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 41
organ is gradually contracting at its base and will finally cease to be.
As for losing her individuality, such a thing is impos- sible; it is just the purpose of evolution that we should become individuals, self-conscious and separate during evo- lution, self-conscious and united during the interludes between manifestation.
QUESTION No. 19.
Why has woman been cursed by inequality, assumed in- feriority and injustice since the beginning of human ex- istence upon this plane?
Answer: In the first place, we must remember that the spirit is neither male nor female, but manifests in that way alternately, as a rule. We have all been men and we have all been women. Therefore there can be no question of inequality if we look at life from the larger point of view. Certain lessons must be learned by the spirit in each age which can only be learned from the standpoint of a woman, and there are other lessons only to be learned by incarnation in a male body. Therefore, of a necessity, there must be the change in sex. It sometimes happens,
42 KOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
of course, that for certain reasons a person must appear as a male for several incarnations and then, of course, when he takes upon himself the female garb, it may jar considerably. In that case we have a very masculine woman, perhaps a suffragette of a militant nature. On the other hand, a spirit may sometimes have been embodied for several incarnations in a female garb and then may appear as a man of a very effeminate nature, a regulai "sissy." But even upon the hypothesis of alternating in- carnations, many of us probably were incarnated in Rome in the opposite sex, and taking the law of causa- tion into consideration, the treatment of women by the men of that time was not such as to cause these Eoman women when incarnated now as men to give any great concessions to their former masters.
QUESTION No. 20.
Why was the suffering of Marguerite so extreme and out of proportion to that of Faust, even to imprisonment and the death penalty, while his life, liberty and pursuit of happiness was unmolested?
Answer: This question has reference to one of the myths which have come down through the ages, and con- trary to the popularly accepted opinion a myth is not a story made out of whole cloth, but is veiled truth, reveal- ing in symbol great spiritual principles. These myths were
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 43
given to infant humanity for the same reason that we give our children ethical teachings in nursery stories and picture books, which impress themselves upon the infant mind in a way intellectual teaching would be incapable of doing.
Goethe, who was an initiate, has treated this Faust myth in a way that is wonderfully illuminative, and the key to the problem is found in the prologue, which is laid in Heaven, much in the same way as we find in tho opening of the Book of Job. The Sons of God appear before the Throne and the Devil among them, for he is also one of the Sons of God. He is given permission to try to seduce Faust in order that the spiritual activities may be called forth and virtue developed. It is one of our great mistakes to regard innocence and virtue as syn- onymous; every one among us is born innocent, he comes here without any evil, that has all been purged away, but he has certain tendencies which may develop into vice and, therefore, he must be tried in every life to see whether he will yield to temptation and embrace vice, or whether he will stand firm and develop virtue. Faust is tempted, he falls, but afterwards he sincerely repents and trans- mutes the evil forces to good, so that at last he is saved. Repentance and reform before death has wrought his sal- vation, the impure passion he felt for Marguerite gave place to his pure love for Helen. Marguerite also, yields to the temptation, she repents and is saved by means of the forgiveness of sins. Thus in the case of one it is salva- tion ly acts. By his energy, which dominates the evil forces, he builds a new land, a land where a free people may live under better conditions; he is seeking to lift humanity to a higher plane, and by that act, by his un- selfish work for others, he is redeemed from the powers of
44 ROSICRUCiAN PHILOSOPHY
evil. In Marguerite's case, salvation results from prayer and repentance. Thus we have in that drama, as repre- sented by Goethe, a perfect symbol of the Western teaching that there is both the forgiveness of sins and the expia- tion of a wrong act by a corresponding right act. Death is something that comes to all and the suffering which was incident to the wrong act in each case is surely none the less in the case of Faust, where it was prolonged over a long period of years, than in the case of Marguerite, where the life is ended in a much shorter time. The only difference is that Faust has overcome consciously and will in future life be immune to temptation, while the case of Marguerite is problematical. In a future earth life she will yet have to meet temptation in order that it may be made manifest whether or not she has developed the strength of character requisite to withstand the wrong and adhere to the right.
QUESTION No. 21.
Is there any place, either in the Old or New Testament, wherein men were told to marry and then live as brother and sister at any time or under any condition? And if not in the Bible, why do you teach it?
Answer: The Original Semites were the fifth of the Atlantean races. They came out of the drowning Atlantis
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 45
as told variously in the stories of Xoah and Moses. They were to go into a Promised Land, not little insignificant Palestine, but the whole earth as it is now constituted. It was promised because the earth was undergoing the changes usual when a new race is to take possession. Floods had destroyed the Atlantean civilization and in the wilderness of Gobi, in Central Asia, wandered the nucleus for the present Aryan races.
At the time when such a nucleus was to become a world peopling race, naturally, the begetting of children was a prime consideration. Therefore, it was looked upon as the duty of everyone to beget numerous children and be ex- ceedingly fruitful. But we are not living in those times now; the world is well peopled and the re-incarnating Egos are taken care of without special endeavors at generation. We have never advocated general celibacy, or that people should marry and then live at all times as brother and sister ; but we have taught that married people, according to their circumstances, should help to perpetuate the race. That is to say, if both husband and wife are physically, morally and mentally able; when they are possessed of a home, wherein an incarnating Ego may obtain the chance of embodiment and experience, they should offer themselves as a living sacrifice upon the altar of human- ity and give of the substance of their bodies to furnish an Ego with a vehicle, inviting it into their home as they would invite a dear guest, thankful that they may be able to do for it what others have done for them. But when the act of impregnation has been accomplished, they should refrain from further intercourse, until again they feel sufficiently fitted to generate the body for another child. Such is the teaching of the Rosicrucians concern- ing the ideal relation between husband and wife. They
46 KOSICBUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
hold that ^he creative function should not be used for sensual purposes, but for the perpetuation of the race for which it has been, naturally, designed. This is an ideal condition and may be beyond most people at the present time, like the injunction to love our enemies ; but if we do not have high ideals we shall make no progress.
QUESTION Xo. 22.
Is there a soul-mate belonging to every soul through all eternity? If so. would it not be better to remain unmar- ried a thousand years than to marry the wrong mate ?
Answer: As the light is refracted into the seven colors of the spectrum when passing through our atmosphere, so also the spirits which are differentiated within God are refracted into seven great rays. Each class is under the direct guidance and domination of one of the Seven Spirits before the Throne, which are the planetary genii, the Star Angels. All the Virgin spirits in their successive incarnations are continually intermingling in order that they may gain the most varied experiences; nevertheless, those who have emanated from the same Star Angel are always sister or twin souls, and when they seek the higher
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 47
life, they must enter the path of initiation through a lodge composed of members of the same ray from which they originally came, thence to return to their primal source. Therefore, all occult schools are divisible into seven, one for each class of spirits. That was the reason Jesus said to his disciples "Your father and mine" — None could have come into as close touch with him as these disciples were, except those belonging to the same ray.
Like all other mysteries, this beautiful doctrine has been degraded to a physical or material idea such as embodied in the popular conception of twin souls or affinities; that one is male and the other female, and very often they are somebody else's wife or husband. In such cases the doctrine of twin souls is often made an excuse for elope- ment and adultery. This is an abominable perversion. Each spirit is complete in itself, it takes upon itself a male or a female body at different times in order to learn the lessons of life, and it is only during the present stage of its development that there is such a feature as sex at all. The Ego was before sex, and will persist after that phase of its manifestation has passed away.
48 KOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
QUESTION No. 23.
Is it wrong for first, second or third cousin-s to marry, and if so, why ?
Answer: The purpose of marriage is the perpetuation of the race, and according to the physical nature of the parents, plus their environment, will the child be. We find, for instance, that the emigrants who come to our shores are different from the children they beget, and that the children that they beget here in America are dif- ferent from the children begotten in Europe. For in- stance, the longheaded Sicilians beget children who have a more rounded head, and the round-headed Jews beget children who have a more oval shaped head, thus showing in all races a tendency to amalgamate and bring into birth a new American race.
These changes are not at all brought about by accident. The great leaders of humanity always aim to bring about certain conditions in order to produce certain types. For only in that way can the faculties be evolved that are necessary to the progress of the spirit and there was a time when it was necessary to the evolution of the Ego that they should marry in the family. At that time humanity was not so evolved and individualized as they are now. They were ruled by a family spirit which en- tered into the blood by means of the air they inspired to help the Ego control its instrument. Then humanity had what is known as second sight, and that second sight is yet found among people who have persisted largely in mar- rying inside the family, such, for instance, as the Scotch Highlanders and the Gypsies.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 49
But it was necessary that men should forget the Spirit- ual World for a time and remember no life but the pres- ent. In order to bring this change in consciousness about, the great leaders took certain steps, one of them being the prohibition of marriages in the family. When we read in the fifth chapter of Genesis that Adam lived for 900 years and all the patriarchs lived for centuries, it does not really mean that the persons named lived themselves during that length of time, but the blood which coursed in their veins was transmitted directly to their descendants and this blood contained the pictures of the family as it now contains the pictures of our individual lives, for the blood is the storehouse of all experiences. Thus the descendants of the patriarchal families saw themselves as Adam, Methusaleh, etc. Of course, during the centuries, these pictures gradually became faint and when the memory of Adam faded out from the blood of his direct descendants it was said that Adam ceased to live.
As man became more individualized, he was to learn to stand upon his own legs without the help of the family spirit. Then international marriages were permitted, or even commanded, and marrying inside the family was no longer allowed. That killed clairvoyance. Science has demonstrated that when the blood of one animal is inocu- lated into the veins of another animal, haemolysis, or the destruction of blood, takes place, so that the lower animal is killed. But the introduction of strange blood, in what- ever way accomplished, always kills something, if not the form at least a faculty, and the strange blood introduced by marriage killed the clairvoyance possessed by primitive man. That this statement is true about strange blood being destructive can be noted in the case of hybrids.
50 BOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
Where, for instance, a horse and a donkey are mated the progeny is a mule, but that mule is minus the propagative faculty, for it is neither under the group spirit of the horses nor under the dominion of the group spirit of the donkeys, and if it would propagate, the result would be a new race not under the dominion of any group spirit. The mule is not so far evolved, however, that it can guide its instrument without the assistance of a group spirit, and so the propagative faculty is denied the group spirit with- holding the fructifying seed atom. "With humanity it was different, however. When they had come to the stage where international marriages were commanded, they had arrived at the point in evolution of self-consciousness where they were able to steer their own bark and where they must cease to be God-guided automatons and become self-governing individuals. The greater the mixture of blood, the less the indwelling spirit can be influenced by any of the race or family spirits which influenced our an- cestors. Thus greater scope is afforded the incoming Egos when we marry strangers than when we seek a cousin for a mate.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEKS 51
QUESTION No. 24.
Would it be wise for two people of the same tempera- ment to marry if they were both born under the same sign of the zodiac?- In August, for instance?
Answer: It is said that a person is born every second of the day; thus there would be 3,600 born in an hour. 86.400 in a day of 24 hours, and about two millions and a half in a month. If they were supposed to have the same temperament and the same fate in life, we should only have twelve kinds of people, and yet we know that there are no two people exactly alike, so that it is foolish to say that people have the same temperament because they are born under the same sign of the zodiac, as determined by the month.
To cast a horoscope scientifically, it is necessary to take into consideration the day and the year when a person was born, for the planets do not arrive at the same rela- tive positions more than once in twenty-five thousand, eight hundred and sixty-eight years. We must further take into consideration the hour of the birth and if possible try to get the minute, on account of the swiftly changing position of the moon. If we also take into consideration the place, we can calculate the rising sign, which gives the form of the body. Then we have an absolutely individual horoscope, for the degree of the zodiac rising on the eastern horizon changes every four minutes, so that even in the case of twins there would be a difference.
In order, then, that the astrologer may say whether the marriage of two people will be harmonious or otherwise, it is necessary for him to cast the horoscope of the two
52 ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
persons arid endeavor to find out if they will be physically, morally and mentally congenial. The judges by compar- ing the ascendants, or rising signs, which show the physical affinity. The position of Mars and Venus will show whether they are morally of the same caliber, and the Sun and Moon show their mental characteristics. Thus he has an accurate gauge as to whether their natures will blend, but predictions based upon anything short of such a calcu- lation are worthless.
QUESTION No. 25.
Please give the views of the occultist regarding the white races intermarrying with the inferior mongolians and negroes; also in regard to their progeny?
Answer: The human spirit is neither colored nor white, but in different stages of its progress it has used black, yellow and white bodies, and it is the belief of the writer from certain indications that the next great race will be a beautiful blue. The races are only bodies, used for a time in the evolution of the spirit, and we at one time inhabited the black bodies. When we left them, other, and less advanced spirits took possession of the black race
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 53
bodies. We then occupied the yellow bodies. Later on we left also the yellow bodies, and at present are occupying the white ones. Under our tenancy these various bodies evolved and increased in efficiency, but naturally, when 'the other classes of spirits which are not as far advanced as we in the West, entered the bodies we left, those bodies gradually degenerated.
These lower classes of spirits, our weaker brothers, have to take our leavings; therefore, we naturally owe them a certain debt, and marriage with the lower races is neces- sary in order to create something higher. The negro bodies of the South, the bodies of mulattoes, mestizoes and octoroons are much superior to the black bodies of the negroes in Africa, and are, of course, inhabited by a much higher grade of Ego than the African negro body; and thus there is an unbroken ladder maintained all the time between the pioneers and the lowest races. For, as the flower would be an impossibility if there were not the min- eral soil wherein it can grow, so also is a white race with the sensitive bodies and high strung nerves such as we find in the West, an impossibility if it were not that we as spirits had had the experience gained in our advancement through the lower races. The debt we owe to those who have taken our leavings must be canceled, and that is most successfully accomplished by providing the intermediary links which bridge the gulf between race and race. In the case of the Southern negro there are other reasons — a na- tional destiny incurred by us on account of his compulsory importation and subsequent servitude.
54 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
.*
QUESTION No. 26.
Why is the negro commonly said to be marked with the curse of Cain? If he is the descendant of Ham, accord- ing to Biblical ethnology, how can that race be any older than the sons of Shem or Japhet? Is not the most in~ tellectual, successful and enduring race that history recordsf namely, the Jew, the one that has left itself most free from a mixture?
Answer: The Bible does not state anywhere that the negroes are the 'descendants of Ham; besides it is well known that the Biblical ethnology as commonly under- stood among orthodox people is an utter impossibility in view of the facts of geology and ethnological research. We are past the day when anyone will dare to make a state- ment such as, for instance, was made by a learned Dean of Cambridge University less than a century ago, namely, that the World was created on Friday, the 10th of Oc- tober, 4004 B. C., at nine o'clock in the morning. The Biblical ethnology also has the exact year of the flood and similar events fixed, but from the occult point of view, which is derived from a direct reading in the picture gal- lery of the past, which we call the memory of nature, the case is very different. We find there that there have been various epochs or great stages of unfoldment in the earth's history, and that the negro was the humanity of the third of these epochs, the Lemurian. The whole human race of that time was black skinned. Then came a time, called the Atlantean Epoch, when humanity was red, yellow, ex- cept one race which was white. These people were the Original Semites, the fifth of the Atlantean Races. These
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEES 55
Atlanteans are called Niebelungen, or children of the mist, in the old folk stories, for at that time the atmosphere of the earth was a very dense fog. In the latter half of the Atlantean Epoch this atmosphere condensed, floods re- sulted and gradually the sea covered the larger part of the globe. Then the atmosphere became clear above the earth. This point in evolution is described in the Bible where Noah, the leader of the Semites, came out from the drown^- ing Atlantis and first saw the rainbow, a phenomenon im- possible in the foggy atmosphere of early Atlantis. We also hear of that emigration in the story of Moses and the Israelites coming out from Egypt while the Egyptian king and his men drown in the waters of the Red Sea. These people had been chosen to become the progenitors of our present Aryan races, but not all of them were true to the commands of their leader. There were some of them who "went after strange flesh," and that is the greatest crime possible at such a time, for when a leader is aiming to instil new faculties into a new race, the admixture of strange blood has a tendency to frustrate his plans. There- fore, some of these chosen people were lost, that is to say, they were abandoned by their leaders and did not become the forbears of the new humanity.
Those who were thus lost or left behind are, strange to say, the present day Jews, who at one time married into the families of their Atlantean brethren, contrary to the commands of their divine leader, and yet today think themselves the "chosen people" of God. There is no doubt that the earliest Jews remember their sin in marrying out- side of their tribes. Thus they instilled into their de- scendants the strong dislike against mixing with other tribes, and so these rebels have since been faithful to the injunction not to marry among the Gentiles.
56 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
As for their being intellectual as a race, we say No ! In the Polarian Epoch man evolved a dense body, and the vitalizing principle in the Hyperboreon Epoch. In the Lemurian Epoch came the desire body to give in- centive to action, and the mind was added in the Atlantean Epoch, giving to man cunning. Thought, or reason, is the faculty to be evolved in this Aryan epoch, and a study of facts will reveal to us that the Jews still are strongly actuated by the Atlantean faculty — cunning.
The leaders of humanity have been endeavoring to get these people to mix with the other races in order that they might be lifted out of their present condition. Their Bible tells us how they have been exiled time and again, without avail; they have remained a people apart. The Christ was sent to them as one of their own, because it was thought that they would take the word of one from among their midst, but "they chose Barabbas." That was the last straw; it was seen that it was impossible to save them in a body. Since then they have been scattered over the whole world, a people without a country, to induce them to amal- gamate in that way, but such is the stiff-neckedness of this people that to this day they are still separate. Here in America, however, in "the Great Melting Pot," they are beginning to slowly amalgamate. They were lost by marry- ing outside their tribe into a lower race, but in time they will be saved by marrying into the more advanced races, here upon the American continent.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 57
QUESTION No. 27.
Has the Rosicrucian Philosophy any specific teaching concerning the training of children?
Answer: There is perhaps no subject of greater im- portance than that. In the first place, wise parents who are desirous of giving the child all advantages, commence before the birth of the child, even before the conception, to prayerfully turn their thoughts toward the task they are undertaking, and are careful to see that the union which is to bring about the germination takes place under the proper stellar influences, when the moon is passing through signs which are appropriate to the building of a strong and healthy body, having, of course, their own bodies in the best possible physical, moral and mental con- dition.
Then during the period of gestation they hold before their mind's eye constantly the ideal of a strong, useful life for the incoming entity, and as soon as possible after birth has taken place they cast the horoscope of the child, for the ideal parent is also an astrologer. If the parents have not the ability to cast the horoscope themselves they can at least study the stellar signs that will enable them to intelligently underftand what the astrologer tells them; but under no circumstances will they consult a professional astrologer to help them, one who prostitutes the science for gold, but will seek the aid of a spiritual astrologer, though they may have to seek some time. From the child's natal chart the strength and weaknesses of its character can be readily seen. The parents will then be in the best position possible to foster the good and take appropriate
58 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
means to repress the evil before the tendencies work them- selves out into actualities, and thus they may in a large measure help the incoming entity to overcome his faults.
Next, the parent must realize that that which we term birth is only the birth of the visible, physical body, which is born and comes to its present high stage of efficiency in a shorter time than the invisible vehicles of man, be- cause it has had the longest evolution. As the foetus is shielded from the impacts of the visible world by being encased in the protecting womb of the mother during the period of gestation, ?o are also the subtler vehicles en- cased in envelopes of ether and desire stuff which protects them until they have sufficiently matured, and are able to withstand the conditions of the outer world.
Thus the vital body is born at about the age of seven, or the time when the child cuts its second teeth, and the desire body is born at about fourteen, or the time of puberty. The mind comes to birth at about twenty-one, when we say a man has reached majority.
There are certain important matters which can be taken care of only during the appropriate period of growth, and the parent should know what these are. Though the organs have been formed by the time the child comes to birth, the lines of growth are determined during the first seven years, and if they are not properly outlined during that time, an otherwise healthy child may become a sickly man or woman.
In the first chapter of St. John, we read that "In the be- ginning was the word . . . And without it was not anything made that was made . . . and the word be- came flesh." The word is a rhythmic sound, and sound is the great cosmic builder, therefore during that first sep- tenary epoch of its life the child should be surrounded by music of the right kind, by musical language — the swing
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEES 59
and rhythm of nursery rhymes being particularly valuable. It does not matter about the sense at all; what matters is the rhythm; the more the child has of that, the healthier it will grow.
There are two great watchwords which apply to this period of a child's life. They are called imitation and example. There is no creature in the world so imitative as a little child; it follows our example to the smallest detail so far as it is able. Therefore, the parents who seek to bring up their child well will ever be careful when in the presence of the little one. It is no use to teach it not to mind ; the child has no mind, it has no reason, it can only imitate, and it cannot help imitating any more than water can help running down hill. If we have one kind of food for ourselves which is highly seasoned and cooked in French style, perhaps, and we give our child another dish, telling it that what we eat is not good for it, the child may not then be able to imitate us, but we implant the appetite for such food in the little one. When it grows up and can gratify its taste it will do so. Therefore, the careful par- ents 'hould abstain from the foods and liquors they do not wish their child to partake of.
Regarding the clothing, wre may say that at that time the child should be entirely unconscious of its sex organs, and therefore the clothing should be particularly loose at all times. This is specially necessary with little boys, for oftentimes a most seriously bad habit in later life may re- sult from the rubbing of too tight clothing.
There is also the question of punishment to be consid- ered; that too is an important factor at all times in awakening the sex nature and should be carefully avoided. There is no child so refractory that it will not respond to the method of reward for good deeds and the withholding of
60 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
privileges as retribution for disobedience. Besides, we recog- nize the fact that whipping breaks the spirit of a dog, and we oftentimes complain that certain people have cultivated a wishbone instead of a backbone — that they are lacking in will. Much of that is due to whippings, mercilessly ad- ministered in childhood. Let any parent look at this from the child's standpoint. How would any of us now like to live with someone from whose authority we could not es- cape, who was much bigger than we, and have to submit to whippings day by day? Leave the whipping alone and much of the social evil will be done away with in a genera- tion.
When the vital body has been brought to birth at the seventh year, the faculties of perception and memory are to be educated. The watchword for this period should be authority and disciphship. We should not, if we have a precocious child, seek to goad it into a course of study which requires an enormous expenditure of thought. Child prodigies have usually become men and women of less than ordinary mentality. The child should be allowed to follow his own inclination in that respect. His faculties of ob- servation should be cultivated, he should be shown living examples. Let him see the drunkard and what vice has led him to; show him also the good man, and set before him high ideals. Teach him to take everything you say upon authority and endeavor to be such that he may respect your authority as parents and teachers. At this time he should also be prepared to husband the force which is now being awakened in him, and which will enable him to generate his kind at the end of the second period of seven years. He should not be allowed to gather that knowledge from pol- luted sources, because the parents shirk the responsibility of telling him from a mistaken sense of modesty. A flower
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 61
may be taken as an object lesson, whence all the children, from the smallest to the biggest, may receive the most beautiful instruction in the form of a fairy tale. They may be taught how flowers are like families without bothering at all with botanical terms, so long as the parents have studied in the slightest degree a little elementary botany. Show the children some flowers. Tell them "Here is a flower family where there are all boys (a staminate flower), and here is another flower where there are only girls (a pistilate flower). Here is one where there are both boys and girls (a flower where there are both stamen and pistils). Show them the pollen in the anthers. Tell them that these little flower boys are just like the boys in the human families; that they are adventuresome and want to go out into the world to fight the battle of life, while the girls (the pistils) stay at home. Show them the bees with the pollen basket^ on their legs, and tell them how the little flower boys be- stride those winged steeds, like the knights of old, and go out into the world to seek the princess immured in the magic castle (the ovule hidden in the pistil) ; how the little pollen, the flower boy-knights, force their way through the pistil and enter the ovule; then tell them how that signi- fies that the knight and the princess are married, that they live happy ever afterward and become the parents of many little flower boys and girls. When they have fully grasped that, they will understand also the generation in the animal and human kingdom, for there is no difference ; one is just as pure and chaste and holy as the other. And the little children brought up in that way will always have a rever- ence for the creative function that can be instilled in no better way.
When a child has been thus equipped, it is well fortified for the birth of the desire body at the time of puberty.
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When the desires and the emotions are unleashed, it enters upon the most dangerous period of its life, the time of the hot youth from fourteen to twenty-one, for at that time the desire body is rampant and the mind has not yet come to birth to act as a brake. At this time it is well for the child that has been brought up as here outlined, for its par- ents will then be a strength and an anchor to it to tide it over that troublesome period until the time when it is full born — the age of twenty-one, when the mind is born.
QUESTION No. 28.
Why are children born in a family where they are not welcome?
Answer: It shows a sad state of society when a question such as this can be relevant, as, unfortunately, it is. The primal purpose of marriage is the perpetuation of the race and people who are not willing to become parents have no right to marry. It should be the right of every child to be well born, and welcome. But while we are careful to seek out the best strain in the animals which we use for breeding purposes, in order that we may get the hardiest and best stock, we usually do not think at all of the physical, moral
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 63
and mental fitness of the one we select to be the father or the mother of our children. In fact, it is usually consid- ered indelicate if not indecent to think of children at all, and when they come in spite of preventatives, the parents are often distracted with grief. But the law of cause and effect is not to be thwarted. The mills of the Gods grind slowly but they are sure to grind very small, and though the centuries may pass by, there will come a time when the one who is an unwilling parent must himself seek an em- bodiment anew, and perhaps he will then be reborn into a family where he is not welcome. Or perhaps the unwilling parent of one life becomes a childless one in the next. Cases are also known to the writer where such a couple has been blessed with numerous children whom they desired and passionately loved, but who died in childhood one after another to the great grief of the parents.
QUESTION No. 29.
Where children do not come to a man and wife who deeply long for them, is there not some way to induce some soul in the unseen world to accept their invitations to reincarnate? Where the conditions in the home are most favorable, it would seem that among the many souls await' ing incarnation one would find the conditions right.
Answer: This is undoubtedly one of the conditions where the would-be parents have some time in a previous
64 BOSICEUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
life neglected their opportunity, or, perhaps, have taken precautions to avoid begetting children. Or, if this is not the case, it may be that at a later day their hopes will be fulfilled. The writer has observed a case where a spirit seeking incarnation followed the mother about, and he was told by someone else who had known the mother that that Ego had been following her from before her marriage. The marriage proved barren, however, and only recently came the news of the divorce. It was plain that although this Ego evidently desired incarnation through the mother, it refused the father. We sometimes hear of marriages which are barren, and then when the marriage contract has been dissolved and the partners have each remarried, both have become parents, showing that they were perfectly able to become parents from the physical standpoint, and that it was the incarnating Ego that was lacking. For this should be noted, that unless there is an Ego seeking em- bodiment through a married couple, their efforts will be fruitless. From the ordinary standpoint that would not appear to be so, but it will be readily seen that as the1 chemical constituents of the semen and the ova are at all times the same, there would be no reason why a union of the sexes should be fruitful at one time and barren at an- other if they were the only factors. We know that if we mix hydrogen and oxygen in proper proportions we always get water; we know that water will always flow down hill; and thus all the laws of nature are invariable, so that unless there were another factor than the chemical mixture of semen and ova there would always be issue. And this un- known and unseen factor is the reincarnating Ego which goes only where it pleases and without which there can be no issue.
If the inquirer will pray earnestly to the angel Gabriel,
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 65
who is the ambassador of the Eegent of the Moon to the earth, and therefore a prime factor in the generation of bodies (vide the Bible), it may possibly avail to bring the desired result. The best time is Monday at sunrise, and from the new Moon to the full.
QUESTION No. 30.
How do you explain the fact that a child so often inherits the bad characteristics of the parents?
Answer: We explain by saying that it is not a fact. Un- fortunately, people seem to lay their bad traits to heredity, blaming their parents for their faults, while taking to them- selves all the credit for the good. The very fact that we differentiate between that which is inherited and that which is our own, shows that there are two sides to man's nature, the side of the form and the life side.
The man, the thinker, comes here equipped with a mental and a moral nature, which are entirely his own, taking from his parents only the material for the physical body. We are drawn to certain people by the law of causation, and the law of association. The same law which causes mu- sicians to seek the company of one another in concert halls,
66 KOS1CRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
gamblers to congregate at the race tracks or in pool rooms, people of a studious nature to flock to libraries, etc., also causes people of similar tendencies, characteristics, and tastes to be born in the same family. Thus, when we hear a person say, "Yes, I know I am thriftless, but then my people never were used to work, we always had servants/' it shows that similarity of tastes and nothing more is needed to explain it. When another person says, "Oh, yes, I know I am extravagant, but I just cannot help it, it runs in the family," it is again the law of association, and the sooner we recognize that instead of making the law of heredity an excuse for our evil habits, we should seek to conquer them and cultivate virtues instead, the better for us. We would not recognize it as a valid excuse if the drunkard should say, "No, I cannot help drinking, all my associates drink." We would tell him to get away from them as quickly as possible and assert his own individuality, and we would advise people to cease shielding themselves behind their ancestors as an excuse for bad habits.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 67
QUESTION No. 31.
Does not the cliild inherit its blood and nervous system from its parents? If so, will it not inherit disease and nervous disorders also?
Answer: In the foetus, in the lower part of the throat just above the sternum or breast bone, there is a gland called the thymus gland, which is largest during the period of gestation and which gradually atrophies as the child grows older and disappears entirely by or before the four- teenth year, very often when the bones have been properly formed. Science has been very much puzzled as to the use of this gland, and few theories have been advanced to ac- count for it. Among these theories one is that it supplies the material for the manufacture of the red blood corpuscles until the bones have been properly formed in the child so that it may manufacture its own blood corpuscles. That theory is correct.
During the earliest years the Ego which owns the child-body is not in full possession, and we recognize that the child is not responsible for its doings, at any rate not before the seventh year, and later we have extended it to the fourteenth year. During that time no legal liability for its action attaches to the child, and that is as it should be, for the Ego being in the blood can only function properly in blood of its own making, so that where, as in the child- body, the stock of the blood is furnished by the parents through the thymus gland, the child is not yet its own master or mistress. Thus it is that children do not speak of themselves so much as "I" in the earlier years, but iden- tify themselves with the family; they are Papa's girl and
68 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
Mama's boy. The young child will say "Mary wants" this or "Johnny wants that/' but as soon as they have attained the age of puberty and have begun to manufacture their own blood corpuscles, then we hear the boy or girl say, "I" will do this or "I" will do that. From that time they begin to assert their own identity, and to tear themselves loose from the family.
Seeing, then, that the blood throughout the years of childhood, as well as the body, is inherited from the par- ents, the tendencies to disease are also carried over, not the disease itself but the tendency. After the fourteenth year, when the indwelling Ego has commenced to manufacture its own blood corpuscles, it depends a great deal upon itself whether or not these tendencies shall become manifested actualities in its life.
QUESTION No. 32.
Can a person be influenced in natural sleep as he can in hypnotic sleep, or is there a difference?
Answer: Yes, there is a difference. In the natural sleep the Ego, clothed in the mind and desire body, draws out- side the physical body and usually hovers over the body, or
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 69
at any rate remains close to it, connected by the silver cord, while the vital body and the dense body are resting upon the bed.
It is then possible to influence the person by instilling into his brain the thoughts and ideas we wish to communi- cate. Nevertheless, we cannot then get him to do anything or to entertain any idea except that which is in line with his natural proclivities. It is impossible to command him to do anything and to enforce obedience, the same as it is when he has been driven out by the passes of the hypnotist, for it is the brain which moves the muscles, and during the natural sleep his brain is interpenetrated by his own vital body and he is in perfect control himself, while during the hypnotic sleep the passes of the hypnotist have driven the ether of which his vital body is composed out of the brain, down to the shoulders of the victim, where it lies around his neck and resembles the collar of a sweater. The dense brain is then open to the ether from the hypnotist's vital body, which displaces that of the proper owner. Thus in the hypnotic sleep the victim has no choice whatever as to the ideas he entertains or the movements he makes with his body, but in the ordinary sleep he is still a free agent. In tact, this method of suggestion during sleep is some- thing which mothers will find extremely beneficial in treat- ing refractory children, for if the mother will sit by the bed of the sleeping child, hold its hand, speak to it as she would speak when it is awake, instill into its brain ideas of such a nature as she would wish it to entertain, she will find that in the waking state many of these ideas will have taken root. Also in dealing with a person who is sick or is addicted to drink, if the mother, nurse or others use this method, they will find it possible to instill hope and heal- ing, materially furthering recovery or aiding self-mastery.
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.This method may of course be used for evil, but we cannot refrain from publishing it, as we believe that the good which can be done in this way will much more than offset) the few cases where some misguided person may use it for the wrong purpose.
QUESTION No. 33.
What are dreams? Have they all a significance, and how can we invite or induce dreams?
Answer: In the waking state, the different vehicles of the Ego, the mind, desire body, vital body and dense body are all concentric. They occupy the same space, and the Ego functions outwardly in the Physical World. But at night, during the dreamless sleep, the Ego, clothed in the desire body and the mind, withdraws, leaving the physical and the vital body upon the bed, there being no connection between the higher and the lower vehicles, save a thin, glistening thread, called the silver cord. It happens, how- ever, that at times the Ego has been working so inter- estedly in the Physical World and the desire body has be- come so stirred up that it refuses to leave the lower vehicles and is only half withdrawn. Then the connection between
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEKS 71
the sense centers of the desire body and the sense centers of the physical brain are partly ruptured. The Ego sees the sights and scenes of the Desire World which, in them- selves, are extremely fantastic and illusory, and they are transmitted to the brain centers without being connected by reason. From this condition come all the foolish and
fantastic dreams which we have.
h
It happens at times, however, that when the Ego is altogether outside the dense body, as in dreamless sleep, it sees an event concerning itself about to materialize, for coming events cast their shadows before, and ere anything happens in the material world it has already happened in the spiritual worlds. If, upon awaking from such an ex- perience, the Ego succeeds in impressing the brain with what it has seen, we have a prophetic dream, which in due1 time will come true, or which the Ego, if its Fate permits, may modify by a new action. For instance, if warned of an accident, it may take steps to counteract the impending calamity.
Eegarding the second part of the question, "How can we invite or induce dreams," we may say that, of course, it is of no advantage to invite or induce dreams of the confused and fantastic kind, and, as for the other kind, there comes a time in a man's life when he begins to live the higher life. Then, gradually, by certain exercises, he evolves the faculty of leaving his body consciously at night or at any other time. He is then perfectly conscious in the invisible worlds. He can go wherever he pleases to the ends of the earth in minutes of time and as he learns how to con- sciously work in those invisible worlds, he does not "dream'* any longer, but lives another life that is fuller or more real than the one he now lives.
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QUESTION No. 34. What is sleep and what causes the body to go to sleep?
Answer: During the daytime the vital body specializes the colorless solar fluid which is all about us, through the organ we call the spleen. This vitality permeates the whole body and is seen by the clairvoyant as a fluid of a pale rose color, having been transmuted upon entering the physical body. It flows along every nerve, and when it is sent out by the brain centers in particularly large quantities it moves the muscles to which the nerves lead.
The vital body may be said to be built of points which stick out in all directions, inward, outward, upward and downward, all through the body, and each little point goes through the center of one of the chemical atoms, causing it to vibrate at a higher rate than its natural speed. This vital body interpenetrates the dense body from birth to- death under all conditions except when, for instance, the blood circulation stops in a certain part, as when we rest a hand upon the edge of a table for some time and it "goes to sleep," as we say. Then, if clairvoyant, we may see the etheric hand of the vital body hanging down below the4 visible hand as a glove, and the chemical atoms of the hand relapse into their natural slow rate of vibration. When we slap the hand to cause it to "wake up," as we say, the peculiar prickling sensation we feel is caused by the points of the vital body which then reenter the sleeping atoms of the hand and start them into renewed vibration.
The vital body leaves the dense body in a similar man- ner when a person is dying. Drowning persons who have been resuscitated experience an intense agony caused by the
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 73
entrance of these points, which they feel as a prickling sensation. f
During the daytime, when the solar fluid is being ab- sorbed by the man in great quantities, these points of the vital body are blown out or distended, as it were, by the vital fluid, but as the day advances and poisons of decay clog the physical body more and more, the vital fluid flows less rapidly; in the evening there comes a time when the points in the vital body do not get a full supply of the life giving fluid; they shrivel up and the atoms of the body move more sluggishly in consequence. Thus the Ego feels the body to be heavy, dull and tired. At last there comes a time when, as it were, the vital body collapses and the vibrations of the dense atoms become so slow that the Ego can no longer move the body. It is forced to withdraw in order that its vehicle may recuperate. Then we say the body has gone to sleep.
Sleep is not an inactive state, however; if it were there would be no difference in feeling in the morning and no restorative power in sleep. The very word restoration im- plies activity.
When a building has become dilapidated from constant wear and tear and it is necessary to renovate and restore it, the tenants must move out to give the workmen full play. For similar reasons the Ego moves out of its tenement at night. As the workmen work upon the building, to make it fit for re-occupancy, so the Ego must work upon its build- ing before it will be fit to reenter. And such a work is done by us during the nighttime, although we are not conscious of it in our waking state. It is this activity which re- moves the poisons from the system, and as a result the body is fresh and vigorous in the morning when the Ego enters at the time of waking.
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QUESTION No. 35.
Do the Rosicrucians believe in materia medica, or do they follow Christ's method of healing?
Answer: It is generally acknowledged by the best prac- titioners that materia medica is an empirical science; that drugs do not act in the same way on all persons, and that,1 therefore, it is necessary for the physician to experiment with his patients. Hence materia medica is unsatisfactory. Drugs cannot be relied upon to do the work at all times.
Observation shows that while all oxen will thrive on grass; and all lions are content with a diet of flesh, we find in the human being that there is always an individuality which makes each different from all the rest of his kind; and this peculiarity of the human race arises from the fact that while each species of animals is the expression of one single group spirit which guides the separate animals from without, there is in each human being an individual in- dwelling spirit, an Ego, and therefore one man's meat is often another's poison.
It is only when materia medica takes this point into con- sideration that it can be of real service in all cases, and the way to find out the peculiarities of the spirit that dwells in the patient body is to cast his horoscope to see when the times are propitious for the administration of drugs, giving the appropriate herbs at the proper time. Paracelsus did that, and therefore he was always successful with his pa- tients ; he never made a mistake. There are some who use astrology for that purpose today; the writer, for instance, has thus used it in diagnosis in many cases. He has then always been able to see the crises in the patient's condition,
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 75
the past, present and the future; and has thus been able to afford much relief to persons suffering from various ill- nesses, it is to such uses that astrology should be put, and not degraded into fortune telling for the sake of gold, for, like all spiritual sciences, it ought to be used for the benefit of humanity, regardless of mercenary considerations. If physicians would study the science of astrology, they would thus with a very slight effort be able to diagnose their pa- tients' condition in a manner altogether impossible from the ordinary diagnostician's point of view. Some phy- sicians are waking up to that fact and have discovered by their experiences that the heavenly bodies have an in- fluence upon the human frame. For instance, when the writer was in Portland, Oregon, a physician mentioned as his observation that whenever it was possible for him to perform an operation while the moon was increasing in light, that is to say, going from the new to the full moon, the operation was always successful and no complications would set in. On the other hand, he had found that when circumstances compelled him to perform an operation when the moon was going from the full to the dark there was great danger of trouble, and that such operations were never as satisfactory as those performed while the light of the moon was increasing.
There is also a tendency among physicians more and more to cure by suggestion, giving to the patient a harmless pill and a good suggestion. Every mother, whether she knows the potency of suggestion or not, at times uncon- sciously applies it in the case of her child. If the little one falls, she may by her suggestion cause it to either cry or laugh. If she says to the little one, "Oh, you poor little baby, you've hurt yourself very bad, that poor little head of yours," the child will commence to cry; but if, on the
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other hand, she points to the floor and exclaims, "Oh, dear, how you hurt that poor floor, why that is too bad — kiss it !" the child will be very sorry it hurt the floor, thinking not at all of its own lesions.
In a similar manner the physician influences his patient, and it is criminal for a physician to enter the sickroom with a gloom}7 mien, asking the patient to make his will, telling him that he has not long to live. Those things act upon the patient in a manner far greater than realized, and many a physician has thus killed those whom he might have saved. On the other hand, if he is cheerful and comes into the sickroom with a smile and an encouraging word, if he gives a harmless cure and a good suggestion the patient is apt to recover where otherwise he might succumb to the dis- ease. Thus, suggestion is far beyond materia medica. The faith which the patient has in the physician will work wonders, either for good or for evil, and faith was the method which Christ used in his healing. If the inquirer will look up the instances where the Christ healed the sick in the Bible, he will find that there was always a question concerning the faith of the one seeking healing. To each applicant the Christ said, "According to thy faith, be it unto you."
That skepticism destroyed even His power is, perhaps, most evident from the passage where we are told that He journeyed to His native city and found that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country. This story is told in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, also by Mark, and it is significant that the last verse in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew says that He did not do many mighty works because of their unbelief. Mark tells us that be- cause of their skepticism He was only able to heal a very few people by laying His hands upon them.
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The open mind is an essential requisite to all investiga- tion and skepticism is absolutely fatal to the attainment of knowledge. As an illustration, we may mention that the writer was in Columbus a few years ago and there went to a lecture by Professor Hyslop, the Secretary of the Society for Psychological Research. The subject of the lecture was "New Evidence of a Future Life." The writer was astonished to find that Prof. Hyslop did not present in his lecture one single point which had not been brought out in the last twenty years in the reports of the Society to which he belongs. But the solution came after the lecture, when a question brought out the fact that Prof. Hyslop did not believe in anything that had been said in the Society's re- ports, lie did not believe in the results obtained by anyone but himself. This evidence which he had just presented had been collected by him; therefore it was new to him and he expected his audience to take his word, although he himself was unwilling to take the word of anyone else, and as an illustration of how skepticism acts, he uncon- sciously gave a very fine example, when he related that, go- ing to a medium on a certain day, Eichard Hodgson, de- ceased, spoke through the medium and Prof. Hyslop com- menced to ask questions which, though quite simple, Mr. Hodgson had great difficulty in answering. Prof. Hyslop at last impatiently said, "Why, what is the matter with you, Eichard; when you were alive you were quick enough; why can't you answer now?" "Then," said Prof. Hyslop, came the answer, quick as lightning, "Oh, every time I get into your wretched atmosphere I go all to pieces." Prof. Hyslop could not understand the reason why, but anyone who has seen a pupil before a Board of Examiners which has made up its mind that he is a dunce will know why, und understand that it was Prof. Hyslop's critical skeptical
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attitude of mind which caused Richard Hodgson's great difficulty in communicating. We may, therefore, say that we believe in materia medica when used in conjunction with astrology and also in Christ's method of healing, which is Faith Cure, and in the power of suggestion and the vari- ous other systems of healing. They all contain some truth, though unfortunately many are made into fads and carried to extremes. Then they lose their power for good and be- come menaces to those who might otherwise have been bene- fitted.
QUESTION Xo. 36.
Since suffering is the result of our own actions, do you think it wrong to take medicine to remove pain if one is not hopelessly ill or dying?
Answer: This question reveals an attitude of mind that is extremely deplorable; as well ask if it is right to try to save one's self if drowning, for falling in the water is also an effect of some self -generated cause. Certainly, it is our duty to take medicine administered by a properly qualified person, or attempt to cure the ills from which we suffer in any other way possible that appeals to us. We
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEES 79
should be doing decidedly wrong if we allowed our physical instrument to deteriorate for lack of proper care and at- tention. It is the most valuable tool we possess, and un- less we use it circumspectly and care for it, we are amenable to the law of cause and effect for that neglect.
A question such as this reveals an altogether erroneous idea of the law of cause and effect. It is our duty to ^ry to rise above conditions instead of allowing circumstances to guide our lives. There is a beautiful little poem which aptly enunciates this idea :
"One ship sails east and another sails west
With the self same winds that blow; ;Tis the set of the sail and not the gale Which determines the way they go.
"As the winds of the sea are the ways of Fate
As we voyage along through life, 'Tis the act of the soul which determines the goal And not the calm or the strife."
If we endeavor to turn the sails of our bark of life aright, we shall always be able to modify if not to alto- gether change conditions, and make our lives what we will instead of sitting supinely waiting for the clouds to pass by, because we have made those clouds ourselves. The very fact that we have made them ought to be an inspira- tion to give us the courage and energy to unmake them, or push them away as quickly as possible.
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QUESTION No. 37.
What form of healing do you advise, physicians or prac- titioners, as in the Christian Science belief?
Answer: That depends upon the nature of the sickness and the temperament of the patient. If it is a case of a broken leg, a surgeon is obviously the one to call. If there is an internal disorder and it is possible to get a broad minded physician, then in certain cases he is the one to get. If, on the other hand, a mental healer, Christian Science healer or anyone else who is spiritually minded can be brought in, they may help a person who is himself strong in faith, for, as a tuning fork which is of certain pitch will respond when another tuning fork of the same pitch is struck, so will the person filled with faith respond to the ministrations of these last named ones. But where faith in their methods is lacking in the patient, it is far better to send for a regular physician in whom the patient has confidence, for health or sickness depends almost alto- gether upon the state of the mind, and in the conditions of sickness where a person is enfeebled, he becomes hyper- sensitive and should not be thwarted in his preferences. Besides, whatever good there is in any system of healing, the effects upon a certain person will be beneficial or the reverse in exact proportion to his faith in its healing power.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEKS 81
QUESTION No. 38.
What is your opinion in regard to fasting as a means of curing disease?
Answer: We may readily conceive that there are more people in the West who die from over eating than from getting too little food. And under certain conditions fast- ing for a day or two is undoubtedly beneficial, but just as there are gourmands and gluttons, so there are also others who go to the opposite extreme and fast to excess. There lies a great danger. The better way is to eat in modera- tion and to eat the proper kinds of food; then it will not be necessary to fast at all.
If we study the chemistry of food we shall find that certain foods have properties of value to the system under certain conditions of disorder, and taken properly food is really medicine. All the citric fruits, for instance, are splendid antiseptics. They cleanse and purify the alimen- tary canal. Thus they prevent disease. All the cereals, particularly rice, are anti-toxins; they will kill disease and the germs of putrefaction. Thus, by knowing these medicinal properties of the different foods, we may very readily secure a supply of that which we need to cure our ordinary ailments b}r food instead of by fasting.
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QUESTION No. 39.
Do you consider it wrong to try to cure a bad habit, such as, for instance, drunkenness, by hypnotism ?
Answer: Most decidedly yes. Looked at from the standpoint of one life, such methods as for instance those employed by the healers of the Immamiel movement, are undoubtedly productive of an immense amount of good. The patient is seated in a chair, put into a sleep and there he is given certain so called "suggestions." He rises and is cured of his bad habit; from being a drunkard he be- comes a respectable citizen who cares for his wife and fam- ily, and upon the face of it the good seems to be un- deniable.
But looking at it from the deeper standpoint of the oc- cultist, who views this life as only one in many, and look- ing at it from the effect it has upon the invisible vehicles of man, the case is vastly different. When a man is put into a hypnotic sleep, the hypnotist makes passes over him which have the effect of expelling the ether from the head of his dense body and substituting the ether of the hyp- notist. The man is then under the perfect domination of another; he has no free will, and, therefore, the so called " suggestions" are in reality commands which the victim has no choice but to obey. Besides, when the hypnotist withdraws his ether and wakens the victim he is unable to remove all the ether he put into him. To use a simile, as a small part of the magnetism infused into an electric dynamo before it can be started for the first time is left behind and remains as residual magnetism to excite the fields of the dynamo every time it is started up, so also
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 83
there remains a small part of the ether of the hypnotist's vital body in the medulla oblongata of the victim, which is a club the hypnotist holds over him all his life, and it is due to. this fact that suggestions to be carried out at a period subsequent to the awakening of the victim are in- variably followed.
Thus the victim of a hypnotic healer does not overcome the bad habit by his own strength, but is as much chained in that respect as if he were in solitary confinement, and although in this life he may seem to be a better citizen, when he returns to earth he will have the same weakness and have to struggle until at last he overcomes it him- self.
QUESTION No. 40.
Are there any methods of eradicating the calcareous ter which comes into our bodies by wrong methods of diet ?
Answer: The question shows that the inquirer is awara that our bodies are gradually hardening from childhood to old age, on account of the chalky substances contained in most of the foods we usually nourish our bodies upon,
84 ROSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
This calcareous matter is primarily deposited in the walk of the arteries and veins, causing what is known to the medical profession as arterio-sclerosis or hardening of the arteries. The arteries of a little child are extremely soft and elastic, like a rubber tube, but gradually as we ad- vance through childhood, youth and on toward old age, the walls of the arteries become harder in consequence of the deposits of chalk left by the passing blood. Thus in time they may become as stiff and unelastic as a pipe stem. There is a condition which is called pipe-stem artery. The arteries then become brittle and may break, causing hemor- rhage and death. Therefore it is said truly that a man is as old as his arteries. If we can clear the arteries and capillaries of this earthy matter, we may greatly prolong life and the usefulness of our body.
From the occult standpoint, of course, it is no matter whether we live or die, as the saying is, for death to us does not mean annihilation but only the shifting of the consciousness to other spheres; nevertheless, when we have brought a vehicle through the useless years of childhood, past the hot years of youth, and have come to the time of discretion when we are really beginning to gain experience, then the longer we can prolong the time of experience the more we may gain. For that reason it is of a certain value to prolong the life of the body.
In order to accomplish that result, we must first select the foods that are least impregnated with the choking substances which cause the induration of arteries and capillaries. These may be briefly stated to be the green vegetables and all fruits. Next, it is of importance to seek to eradicate the choking matter which we have already absorbed, if that is possible, but science has not yet found any food or medicine that will with certainty pro-
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 85
duce that effect. Electric baths have been found to be ex- ceedingly beneficial but not entirely satisfactory. Butter- milk is the best agent for eradicating this earthy sub- stance, and next comes grape juice. If taken continually and in generous quantities, these substances will consid- erably ameliorate the hardened condition of the arteries.
QUESTION No. 41.
Is not nature guilty of frequent physical malformations •in the plant and animal world as well as in the human race, .and can there be a perfectly whole and sane intelligence with a forceful will in a diseased or malformed body?
Answer: We would ask, what do you mean by nature? Bacon says that nature and God differ only as the print and the seal. Nature is the visible symbol of God, and we are too apt to think of nature nowadays in a materialistic sense. Back of every manifestation in nature there are forces, not blind forces, but intelligences. Perhaps an illustration will enable us to realize our relation to them.
Supposing we have materials and tools; we are en- gaged in making a table and a dog is sitting looking at us.
86 KOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
Then the dog, a being of a lower kingdom, will gradually see us planing the wood and putting the top on the legs ; it will see the table coming into existence by degrees; it may watch the process, though it may not know the use of the table and may not understand what is in our minds while we are fashioning the table. It simply beholds a manifestation, it sees us working and views the results. Supposing further, for the sake of illustration, the dog could see the materials and how they were gradually being shaped into a table, but could not see us working and putting the various pieces together to form this table; then the dog would be in about the same relation to us as we are to the nature forces. What we speak of as electricity, as magnetism, as expansion in steam, etc., are intelligences which work unseen to us when certain condi- tions are brought about. Nature spirits build the plants, form the crystals of the rock, and with numerous other hierarchies are working around and about us unseen, but nevertheless busy in making that which we call nature.
These are all evolving beings, like ourselves, and the very fact that they are evolving shows that they are im- perfect and therefore apt to make mistakes which natur- ally result in malformations, so that it may be said in an- swer to the question that the invisible intelligences which make what we call nature are guilty of frequent mistakes as well as we.
As to the second part of the question, whether there can be a perfectly whole and sane intelligence with a force- ful will in a diseased or malformed body, we may say "yes, undoubtedly," but as the expression of that intelli- gence is dependent upon the efficiency of its instrument, it may, naturally, be hampered by the physical deformity, on the same principle that no matter how skilled the work-
QUESTIONS AND ANSWEES 87
man is, his efficiency depends in a great measure upon the condition of his tools.
QUESTION No. 42.
What is the effect of vaccination from the occult point of view?
Answer: Bacteriologists have discovered that many dis- eases are caused by microorganisms which invade our body, and also that when this invading army begins to create a disturbance the body commences to manufacture germs of an opposing nature or a substance which will poison the invaders. It is then a question of which are the strong- est, the invaders or the defenders. If the defending mi- crobes are more numerous than the invaders or if the poison which is noxious to the invaders is manufactured in sufficient quantities, the patient recovers. If the de- fenders are vanquished or the body is unable to manufac- ture a sufficient quantity of the serum necessary to poison the invaders, the patient succumbs to the disease. It was further discovered that when a certain person has once successfully recovered from a specific malady, he is im- mune from renewed attacks of that disease for the reason
88 ROSICKTJCIAN PHILOSOPHY
that he has in his body the serum which is death to the germs that cause the disease he has once weathered. From the above facts certain conclusions were drawn :
(1) If a healthy person is inoculated with a few of the germs of a certain disease he will contract that disease in a mild form. He will then be able to develop the saving serum and thus he will become immune to that disease in the future.
That is the philosophy of vaccination as a means of pre- venting disease.
(2) When a person has contracted a disease and is un- able to manufacture a sufficient quantity of the serum which will destroy the invading microorganisms, his life may be saved by inoculation with the serum obtained from another who has become immune.
As it is not easy to get such antitoxins or cultures from human beings, these germ-cultures and poisons have been obtained from animals, and much has been written both for and against the use of such methods of fighting disease. With these we are not here concerned; the inquirer asks for the occult viewpoint, which goes deeper than the ques- tions at issue, as seen from the material side of life. There are undoubtedly cases where disease has been prevented by vaccination and cases where death has been prevented by the use of antitoxin ; there are also cases where vaccination and antitoxin have caused the fatality they were designed to prevent, but that is beside the question. From the occult viewpoint vaccination and the use of antitoxin obtained by the processes in use in bacteriological institutes is to be deplored. These methods work a wrong on the helpless animals and poison the human body, making it difficult for the Ego to use its instrument.
If we study the chemistry of ' our food we shall find
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 89
that nature has provided all necessary medicine, and if we eat right we shall be immune from disease without vaccination.
When in normal health the body specializes a far greater quantity of the solar energy than it can use. The surplus is radiated from the whole surface of the body with great force and prevents the entrance of microorganisms which lack the strength to battle against this outwelling current, nay, more ! on the same principle that an exhaust fan will gather up particles of dust in a room and hurl them outward does this vital fluid cleanse the body of inimical matter, dangerous germs included. It must not surprise us that this force is intelligent and -capable of selecting the materials which should be eliminated, leaving the beneficial and useful. Scientists recognize this fact of selective osmosis. They know that while a sieve will allow any particle of matter to pass through which is smaller than the mesh of the sieve, the kidneys, for instance, will keep certain fluids of use to the body, while allowing waste products to pass. In a similar manner the vital fluid makes a distinction, it rids the body of the poisons and impurities generated inside and repels similar prod- ucts from without.
This emanation has been called N^-rays, or Odic fluid, by scientists who have discovered it by means of chemical reagents which render it luminous. During the process of digestion it is weakest, for then an extra quantity of the solar energy is required for use inside the body in the metabolism of the food; it is the cementing factor in assimilation. The heartier we have eaten, the greater is the quantity of vital fluid expended within the body and the weaker the eliminative and protective outrushing current. Consequently we are in the greatest danger from an inva-
90 KOSICRUC1AN PHILOSOPHY
sion by an army of inimical microorganisms when we have gorged ourselves.
On the other hand, if we eat sparingly and choose the foods which are most easily digestible, the diminution of the protective vital current will be correspondingly mini- mized and our immunity from disease will be much en- hanced without the necessity of poisoning our body with vaccine.
QUESTION Xo. 43.
If, as you state, the Ego dwells in the blood, is not then the practice of blood transfusion from a healthy to a dis- eased person dangerous? Does it affect or influence the Egos in any way, and if so, how ?
Answer: Among the latest discoveries of science is haemolysis — the fact that inoculation of blood from the veins of a higher animal into one of a lower species, destroys the blood of the lower animal and causes its death. Thus the blood of man injected into the veins of any animal is fatal. But from man to man it is found that transfusion may take place, althought at times there are deleterious effects.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 91
. In olden days people married in the family; it was then looked upon with horror if one should "seek after strange flesh." When the sons of God married the daughters of men, that is to say, when the subjects of one leader married out- side the tribe, there was great trouble, they were cast off by their leader and destroyed, for at that time certain qual- ities that we now possess were to be developed in humanity and were thus implanted in the common blood which ran pure in the family or small tribe. Later on when mar- was to be brought down into more material conditions, international marriages were commanded and, from that time on, it has been looked upon as equally horrible if persons within the same family united in marriage.
The old Vikings would not allow anyone to marry into their family unless they had first gone through the cere- mony of mixing blood to see if the transfusion of the blood of the stranger into their family was detrimental or otherwise. All this was because in earlier times human- ity was not as individualized as it is today. They were more under the domination of the race spirit or family spirit, which dwelt in their blood, as the group spirit of animals does in the blood of animals. Later the inter- national marriages were given to free humanity from that yoke and make every separate Ego sole master of its own body without outside interference.
Science has lately found that the blood of different people has different crystals, so that it is possible now to tell the blood of a negro from the blood of a white man; but there will come a day when they will know a still greater difference, for just as there is a difference in the crystals formed by the different races, so there is also a difference in the crystals formed by each individual man. The thumb-marks of no two people are alike, and it will be
92 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
found in time that the blood of each human being is dif- ferent from the blood of every other individual. This difference is already evident to the occult investigator, and it is only a question of time when science will make the discovery, for the-distinguishing features are becom- ing more marked as the human being grows less and less dependent, more and more self-sufficient.
This change in the blood is most important and in time, when it lias become more marked, it will be produc- tive of most far-reaching consequences. It is said that "nature geometrizes," and nature is but the visible sym- bol of the invisible God whose offspring and images we are. Being made in His likeness, we are also beginning to geometrizc, and naturally we are starting on the sub- stance where we, the human spirits, the Egos, have the greatest power, namely, in OUT blood.
When the blood courses through the arteries, which are deep in the body, it is a gas; but loss of heat nearer the surface of the body causes it to partially condense, and in that substance the Ego is learning to form mineral crys- tals. In the Jupiter Period we shall learn to invest them with a low form of vitality and set them out from ourselves as plant-like structures. In the Venus Period we shall be able to infuse desire into them and make them like animals. Finally, in the Vulcan Period, we shall give them a mind and rule over them as race spirits.
At the present time we are at the very beginning of this individualization of our blood. Therefore it is possible at present to transfuse blood from one human being to another, but the day is near at hand when that will be impossible. The blood of a white man will kill all who stand lower, and the blood of an advanced person will poi- son the less cultured. The child at present receives its sup-
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 93
ply of blood from the parents, stored in the thymus gland, for the years of childhood. But the time will come when the Ego will be too far individualized to function in. blood not generated by itself. Then the present mode of generation will have to be superseded by another whereby the Ego may create its own vehicle without the help of parents.
QUESTION No. 44.
What are the causes of insanity?
Answer: To answer that question would require vol- umes, but we may say that from the occultist's standpoint there are four classes of insanity.
Insanity is always caused by a break in the chain of vehicles between the Ego and the physical body. This break may occur between the brain centers and the vital body, or it may be between the vital and desire body, be- tween the desire body and the mind, or between the mind and the Ego. The rupture may be complete or only partial.
When the break is between the brain centers and the vital body, or between that and the desire body, we have the idiots. When the break is between the desire body and
94 EOSICRUCIAN PHILOSOPHY
the mind, the violent and impulsive desire body rules and we have the raving maniac. When the break is between the Ego and the mind, the mind is the ruler over the other vehicles and we have the cunning maniac, who may deceive his keeper into believing that he is perfectly harmless until he has hatched some diabolical, cunning scheme. Then he may suddenly show his deranged men- tality and cause a dreadful catastrophe.
There is one cause of insanity that it may be well to explain, as it is sometimes possible to avoid it. When the Ego is returning from the invisible world toward re- embodiment, it is shown the various incarnations available. It sees the coming life in its great and general events, much as a moving picture passing before its vision. Then it is given the choice, usually, of several lives. It sees at that time the lessons it has to learn, the fate it has generated for itself in past lives, and what part of that fate it will have to liquidate in each of the embodiments offered. Then it makes its choice and is guided by the agents of the Recording Angels to the country and family where it is to live its coming life.
This panoramic view is seen in the Third Heaven where the Ego is naked and feels spiritually above sordid material considerations. It is much wiser then than it appears here on earth, where it is blinded by the flesh to an inconceivable extent. Later, when conception has taken place and the Ego draws into the womb of its mother, on about the eighteenth day after that event, it comes in con- tact with the etheric mold of its new physical body which has been made by the Recording Angels to give the brain formation that will impress upon the Ego the tendencies necessary to work out its destiny.
There the Ego sees again the pictures of its coming life,
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 95
as the drowning man perceives the pictures of his past life — in a flash. At that time the Ego is already partially blind to its spiritual nature, so that if the coming life seems to be a hard one, it will oftentimes shrink from entering the womb and making the proper brain connec- tions. It may endeavor to draw itself out quickly and then, instead of being concentric as the vital and the dense bodies should be, the vital body formed of ether may be drawn partially above the head of the dense body. In that case the connection between the sense centers of the vital body and the dense body are disrupted and the result is congenital idiocy, epilepsy, St. Vitus dance, and similar nervous disorders.
The inharmonious relation between the parents which sometimes exists is often the last straw that makes an Ego feel that it cannot enter such an environment. There- fore, it cannot be too seriously impressed upon prospective parents that during the gestatory period it is of the utn. >st importance that every thing should be done to keep the mother in a condition of contentment and harmony. For it is a very hard task for the Ego to go through the womb ; it taxes all its sensibilities to the very utmost, and inhar- monious conditions in the home it is entering are, of course, an added source of discomfort, which may result in the above named dreadful state of affairs.
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QUESTION No. 45.
When an insane person dies, will lie still be insane in the Desire World?
Answer: That depends upon where the break is, for insanity is a rupture in the vehicles between the Ego and the physical body, and this derangement may occur between the Ego and the mind, between the mind and the desire body, or between the desire body and the vital body, and also between the latter and the dense body. If the break is between the dense and the vital body or between that and the desire body, the Ego will be perfectly sane in the Desire World immediately after death, because it has then discarded the two vehicles which were afflicted.
Where the break occurs between the desire body and the mind, the desire body is, as a matter of course, still rampant, and often causes the Ego much trouble during its existence in the Desire World; for the Ego, of course, is at no time insane. What appears as insanity arises from the fact that the Ego has no control over its vehicles ; the worst of all, obviously, is where the mind itself has become affected and the Ego is tied to the personality for a long time until these vehicles are worn away.