CHAPTER VII.

THE QUARTERN ARY MIND.

Having already defined the mind as light, it re-
mains for us to define the different kinds of mind or
light.

There are four kinds of light : viz. — Rational,
Irrational, Natural and Divine.

Mind, being the light or torch of the Ego, man, is
the means whereby he overcomes, subdues and appro-
priates to himself, the wonderful things that are
hidden in darkness. The first manifestation of the
soul is heat. It emanates from the Ego within the
soul and is therefore the beginning of sense, which
consists of both emotion and intelligence. The whole
temple of man springs from this source. This is the
Divine mind, the first emanation of Love, the sen-
sorium or aroma of the soul. The first effect of heat
is to produce, in the surrounding darkness, an agita-
tion or vibration corresponding to the twilight or child-
hood of being, — the dawn of mind — nature —
instinct.

Heat produces motion, which is nature. The Divine
mind is heat out of which springs a flame, — the
natural mind.

THE QUARTERNARY MIND. 83

Imagine, if you can, a globe or hollow sphere, the
centre of which is black, but which gradually becomes
lighter outwardly till it becomes a glowing ball of red
light which flashes tongues of flame inwardly as well
as outwardly. This inward light is the rational mind,
while the outward light is the irrational mind.

As light radiates outward so does the natural mind
grope for satisfaction in the surrounding mysteries.
But the rational is an inward action of this mind
toward the Divine mind, a union of intense thought
— the heat of mind — with the heat or pulsations of
sympathy.

Rationality consists of intellect and love united,
or reason and intellect united to justice, mercy and
devotion.

Spiritual mind or light is the inward far-flashing,
flame-tip — the tongue of the serpent — which leaps
up and destroys the darkness and ignorance that is
within ourselves.

Light is the combustion of darkness, whereby
darkness, ignorance and mysteries are compelled to
yield up heat and the inconceivable things hidden
therein.

The soul grows by feeding upon its discoveries, —
and mind is that which discovers things.

The natural mind is the common mind. It receives
its impressions through the five senses ; or, in other
words, wholly from external nature. To it belong
observation, memory and reflection. All things of
this mundane sphere reflect themselves upon the

84 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

mind as in a mirror. This mind grows and expands
by the collection of facts, but the conclusions of it
are material as the facts themselves. For this reason
the natural mind cannot conceive of a spiritual or
future state of existence ; its utmost powers enable
it only to reach the plane of knowledge, or the ma-
nipulation of matter. The knowledge gained by it is
the sciences and philosophy of material things ; it
adapts man to this " bread-and-butter M life. Its
analysis is destructive ; hence to it belong doubt,
skepticism, unbelief, and the impossible ; pride, lust,
hate, fear, avarice, deceit and invention are its con-
trolling powers. The interior of this mind being
closed up, there is no reflection from any other way
than from without. The soul is denied, because it
cannot be seen or handled ; its presence is unfelt, by
reason of the hardness and opacity of this mind. It
cannot feel from within, but is constantly drawn
outward by sight, sound and contact. It is the
" wide-awake " mind. Its highest faculty is the in-
vention of machinery, building of railways, cities, etc.
— all of a material character. But it is progressive,
inasmuch as it expands by its stretch after the new,
and its effort to perfect that which it conceives.

Conception is always superior to the production.
The true artist fails to come up to his ideal, because
the colors in his mind are pure, while the colors of his
picture, being a compound of matter, are dead. It is
a mere material thing, void of soul. If he could, by
looking at the canvas, project from his mind the

THE QUARTERNARY MIND.

picture he sees in his mind, project the colors from
himself — without brush, paints or pencils — on the
canvas, it would come up to his ideal. This power
does not belong to the natural nor to the rational,
but to the Divine Mind.

The Divine mind does not exist to the natural
mind, because it cannot come in contact therewith.
The natural develops into the rational, which expands
to the Divine. The natural, by expansion, opens the
interiors, through which impressions come from the
unknown. If these impressions are not rejected
the mind becomes luminous. This illumination is
rationality. Impressions from within awaken the
mind as with a new life, and it gradually turns
within — thus reversing itself. This is the begin-
ning of magnetization, which is a turning inward of
the eyes and the sight — the beginning of the glory.

The natural may be compared to the flint, and
objects to the steel. The fire struck out is a mere
spark, which vanishes away and is lost ; but the
rational is a steady flame, flowing from the Divine,
making malleable and luminous the entire man.
Seeds deposited in the earth first soften, then enlarge,
before the germ can come forth. The natural mind
is the seed planted in the soil of the body, but the
rational is the tree ; the fruitage is the Divine ; which,
indeed, grows not out of the ground, but descends, as
the Spirit, to bless all who partake thereof. This is
the bread that comes down from Heaven, of which if
a man eat he shall not die.

86 .THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

To the rational belongs the innocency of childhood,
with its simplicity and credulity. Instead of sagacity
there is intuition ; instead of deduction there are
visions and revelations. One might naturally think
that rationality came with age ; and so it would, if
there was no retrogression. Our daily lives cloud the
surface of the mind with a film, through which the
flint scarce penetrates ; hence there is no fire evolved
by the friction incident to this life.

We become insulated during the mad rush for
wealth, and the magnetism that gives growth and
expansion passes by us. The real age and life of a
man date from his conscious progress in the good
and pure. The real death dates from the time one
becomes conscious of being bad, and does not forsake
his evil ways. There are some children who are
older in soul-growth than some old men or women.
There are some persons who retrograde from earliest
childhood ; others progress for some years, then turn
downwards ; others, again, are bad in early life, then
suddenly, or slowly, turn to progress upward. We
may pity the old person who is hard. Progress
softens the mind, and thus the whole man expands.

The Divine mind is first ; next is the rational ; the
last and outermost is the natural. The natural cor-
responds to matter, the rational to spirit, the Divine
to soul. The Divine mind is the sensorium of the
soul, which surrounds it as a translucent film, which
expands and contracts. Attraction expands it ; re-
pulsion contracts it. It is the sengorium that is the

THE QUARTERNARY MIND. 87

seat of consciousness ; the events of life are all pho-
tographed upon it. All the emotions that are ex-
perienced give color to it. The various strains of
music and discord leave their impression on it. The
voiceless universe affects it also. What we have
been in previous states of existence is brought forward
by the sensorium into this life ; and the sound of the
voice, the build of the body, the facial expression, the
laugh, the color of the eyes — all these, and more,
tell what we have been doing, and what we have
been in the long eternities of the past.

Ideas are mental images of things of the soul,
which are hidden in darkness, and are attracted from
their hiding places by man's need of them. They
are drawn forth by want, hunger, thirst, pain, desire,
persistent thought or earnest questioning. They
emerge slowly and stealthily from the secret recesses
of the soul into the twilight of the mind and are there
sensed rather than seen. Afterwards they may be
seen imperfectly ; or, as Paul says, " through a glass
darkly.' ' Because of the dull light of our minds,
ideas become distorted in our reflections. We are in
the/<?£* of past actions, and things appear reversed, as
in a mirage. For this reason we get no absolute
truth. Ideas are reversed and distorted from having
been impregnated by the spirit of what has been.

In the same manner spirit is changed into matter,
and becomes part and parcel of these bodies. For
instance, you have a wound ; the pain is a telegram
to the sensorium of the soul ; the idea to restore,

88 THE TEMPLE OF 7 HE ROSY CROSS.

though unconscious to you, is immediately projected
by the Ego into the sensorium, or Divine mind, where
it is impregnated, and, descending, deposits life in the
form of new matter in the wound. Thus are the
injured tissues fed, like a child in embryo, till the parts
are restored. But there is a decay of the injured
parts before and during restoration.

How tenderly and carefully we nurse and dress an
ulcer, thus causing it to give way to new and healthy
flesh. Matter is but spirit reversed. Substance is
substantial ; it does not change, but spirit and matter
do change places or condition in becoming reversed.
The decayed matter of an ulcer is the return to spirit,
and matter in formation is spirit condensing : which
is effected by that third and incomprehensible thing

— the soul.

These material bodies are but an ulcer, so to speak,
upon a Divine and substantial body, which the soul
is striving to free therefrom. But in most of us this
Divine part is destroyed, swallowed up, eaten through
and through as by ulceration. The substance of the
Divine body is an idea of it. Matter, without an
idea, falls or lies dormant ; but with an idea it rises
up and walks erect as man. Aye ! and with an idea
of it he rises up to be a god.

Ideas revolve in cycles of time as worlds . revolve
in space. Hence, " there is nothing new under the
sun." We get a glimpse of the Divine in childhood
and in first love. But the fog soon — alas ! too soon

— rises and obscures the sun. In the reversal of

THE QUARTERNARY MIND. 89

ideas the external, or the last, appears to be first*
Causation appears on the surface of things, and life
and mind seem as the effect of matter.

Religious ideas are of the soul; its symbols —
being projections thereof — are reversed images which
the world worships. The esoteric is lost in the rub-
bish of the exoteric, as the soul is lost in matter.
But it flows on in cycles, vast in extent, and grad-
ually works out of the rubbish, and asserts itself as
miracle. The age of miracle is near at hand ! The
cycle of the soul is nearly completed ! Already we
can see the first dim twilight of the rising sun !

From the worship of the Divine — the one, the
first mathematical number — we have gone down to
the number nine in the absurdity of addition, and
now in that constellation we worship many gods —
our forefathers. But the absurd nine will pass
away, and the next cycle will be the union of the
Immortal 1 — symbol of creation and the beginning
— with o (10) symbol of the soul. Thus we revolve
in a numerical circle from one back to one again.

The natural mind becomes the rational by a
reversal of its light, that is to say, by an effort of
the will, its light is turned inward instead of rushing
outward ; and, instead of being absorbed in business
or material pursuits, it engages itself in deep and
persistent thought upon subjects difficult of compre-
hension, such as pertain to progress, ethics, the re-
lationship of things, self culture or spiritual matters.
This concentration of thought increases the light of

90 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

the inner mind> whose tendency is toward the soul,
where it comes in contact with the fire or spirit
which emanates from the soul to make by its motion
the flame or mind. Spirit is not light, but is that
which makes light ; even as fire is neither combustion
nor flame but that which produces both. The natural
mind has to do only with matter and we are so fa-
miliar with it that we think we know all about it ;
yet, it is a fathomless mystery and an intangible
abyss of which darkness is the mother.

Who can feel darkness or grasp it with the hand ;
yet it is as real as light which is said to create vegeta-
tion.

Creation is carried on upon sexual principles every-
where. Darkness is feminine Spirit while light is
masculine Spirit ; and both are formless and intan-
gible. Light is forever impinging upon darkness and
begetting itself therein as in a womb, to be there
conceived, gestated and formed into material things
both animate and inanimate. What is matter but
darkness and mystery ? What truer synonym of
ignorance have we than "dull dead matter "? Does
not mind beget intelligence in ignorance ?

It is a waste of words to argue that intelligence
and ignorance are not beings, and therefore cannot
beget and conceive as do animate, organized beings.
The principle is the same in formless spirit as in
forms : for, in spirit, essentials exist before forms
appear, and spirit is both masculine and feminine, — -
the Father and the Mother.

THE QUARTERNARY MIND. 91
7

The motherhood of all creation is in the Night.
She coquets with the day, alluring him with her half
concealed voluptuousness, and coyly recedes as he
becomes too familiar in his amorous advances ; when
as she yields herself only partially to the glad sunrise,
of the ugly, contrary thing, behold what beauties are
born. .

Things bathed in the night become receptive to
the caresses of the king of light, and, under his
influence, become pregnant and bear fruit.

Every atom of matter glows with spirit, which
emanates from itself as an aura, light or mind ; for
all things are intelligent and speak to and influence
other things. Birds and flowers have a language of
their own. The clouds find voice and the solid
rocks cry out against violence.-^ All things have,
sleeping within, an intelligence which bursts into
flame under violent motion. This flame is mind and
every quivering atom of flesh has a flame of its own.
As the air envelops the earth, so does mind cover
the form :, to guard, protect and nourish it.

Spirit is one and without form, color, sound or
qualities of any kind; and, when divided, becomes
positive and negative, active and passive, masculine
and feminine or Light and Darkness, while the flame,
mind, or fecundating principle bursts forth at the
point of conjunction of the two.

This fecundating principle is thought, — spiritual
semen. Now bear in mind that the material con-
junction of the sexes is merely a symbol or reflex of

92 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

the same spiritual conjunction whjch takes place in
every one who loves and thinks. 7 Thought projected
from the mind begets that which is desired, — if the
thought reaches far enough. Such is the power of
the natural mind that it leads the sight outward ; at
least, we apparently think so in searching mentally
for hidden things.

It is hard to understand that distance and space
are inward as well as outward, that the vital princi-
ples of food and air are as much, or even more, in
thought as in matter and that the digestion of food
is simply a sexual embrace between force and matter,
in which life is begotten by the former, conceived by
the latter and born as are children, of the nature of
both, — material and spiritual. The soul is sustained
in the same manner as is the body ; that is, it
breathes spirit outward while we think, for creation is
material outwardly but spiritual inwardly.

The out going breath of the Ego is spirit, and
bears thought, which, returning circularly, begets in
the soul that which is thought of or imagined. That
which is begotten becomes part and parcel of the
man himself both physically and spiritually ; while that
which is conceived does not at once become conscious
and may never reach that stage, as embryonic life is
liable to miscarriage.

On this planet life is begotten but is scarcely con-
ceived ; and, as yet, is not at all gestated.

The wondrous powers of the spirit have scarcely
entered into the imagination of man.

THE QUARTERNARY MIND, 93

Spirit being mind, the creator, must contain within
itself the essentials of all forms, prior to creation ;
therefore every atom of matter is, in itself, latent
light or fire, and, as everything has spirit within, the
stamp of intelligence is upon it.

Man creates by the power of his mind and by con-
juring things from his own soul.

The quarternary mind forms the universe, with its
axis and the four points of the compass ; and with
the blue dome of heaven surrounding, as its mirror,
in which are reflected the things of spirit which
are in the soul.

The suns and worlds of space are but reflections
of the spiritual things of the over-soul, of which the
over-arching vault of heaven is a miniature. Do they
not suggest eternal duration ? Is not reflected there
also eternal organic life, a life, lying dormant in the
soul of man, but ready to be conjured into flesh by
him who- can truly project his thought persistently
and far enough.

Wherein lies the power of the hypnotist to cause
his subject to see or feel that which is not ; and by
what power was the staff of Moses transformed into
a serpent before which Moses fled in terror.

Thought is the projecting, controlling, creative
power of spirit. By persistent, concentrative effort
in the right direction, the mind becomes Divine in
its creative power ; and man can be whatever he
desires to be. It is all within him, waiting but the
baptism of his thought.

94 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

We speak of the mind as a thing, having an organ,
the brain, and a location therein, but we know of no
such thing. The mind may, and probably does,
come to a focus in the brain as a great centre of
perception ; but I have good grounds to maintain
that it occupies every atom of the body — even to
the toe-nails and hair ; and that it surrounds the soul,
separating the spirit from it, and that it is the great
laboratory of the Infinite, in which spirit is trans-
formed, and matter receives its quickening power,
and is transfigured, transposed, or rendered up to the
Infinite as an incorruptible substance.

Jesus was in possession of the Divine mind. It
was not possible for Him to be sick, to suffer pain,
or to die, save as He willed it. He did not die, only
in appearance ; neither did His body ascend, only in
appearance, but was transposed. This transposition
is a vanishing away out of sight. Read of the trans-
position of Philip, in Acts viii. 39-40.

Andrew Potts, of Harrisburg, Pa., told me — and
the same was corroborated by several truthful men
who witnessed it — that he vanished out of the sight
of his friends at the depot, when they were about to
take the cars for a town six miles down the road, and
that when the cars arrived at that station he was
already there, talking with a friend who was waiting
for the train to escort the friends to his house.

Jesus' life and death was to show mankind that he
was the same as they, and to show them the possi-
bilities of human nature. A teacher, to be accepta-

THE QUARTERNARY MIND. 95

ble, must not be too far removed from his pupils.
Had Jesus manifested the powers of a God, vanished
from the cross, etc., He would have converted the
Jewish nation in a day, and they would have wor-
shipped Him as God. But what good would that
have done ? Lo ! the world has been worshipping
Gods for countless ages, and some portion has been
worshipping Jesus ever since His crucifixion, but
what good has it done ?

The Doctrines of Jesus are sublime in their truth
and simplicity — but very much, of the most value,
has never been penned. It has been urged against
him that he taught that which, if practiced, would
subvert civilization. On the contrary, it would
redeem mankind from barbarism and idolatry, and
make men civilized in place of semi-savage. "Greater
works than these shall ye do, because I go to the
Father.'* "By their fruits shall ye know them."
"These signs shall follow those that believed Who
believes ?

g6 THE TEMPLE OE THE ROSY CROSS.