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The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

I. THE ORDER OF ROSICRUCIANS AND THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP

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If we are so far developed that we are able to leave our dense physical body and take a soul flight into interplanetary space we shall find that the ultimate physical atom is spherical in shape like our earth; it is a ball. When we take a number of balls of even size and group them around one, it will take just twelve balls to hide a thirteenth within. Thus the twelve visible and the one hidden are numbers revealing a cosmic relationship and as all Mystery Orders are based upon cosmic lines, they are composed of twelve members gathered around a thirteenth who is the invisible _head_. There are seven colors in the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. But between the violet and the red there are still other five colors which are invisible to the physical eye but reveal themselves to the spiritual sight. In every Mystery Order there are also seven brothers who at times go out into the world and there perform whatever work may be necessary to advance the people among whom they serve, but five are never seen outside the temple. They work with and teach those alone who have passed through certain stages of spiritual unfoldment and are able to visit the temple in their spiritual bodies; a feat taught in the first initiation which usually takes place outside the temple as it is not convenient for all to visit that place physically.

Let not the reader imagine that this initiation makes the pupil a Rosicrucian, it does not, any more than admission to a High School makes a boy a member of the faculty. Nor does he become a Rosicrucian even after having passed through all the nine degrees of this or any other Mystery School. The Rosicrucians are Hierophants of the lesser Mysteries, and beyond them there are still schools wherein Greater Mysteries are taught. Those who have advanced through the lesser Mysteries and have become pupils of the Greater Mysteries are called Adepts, but even they have not reached the exalted standpoint of the twelve Brothers of the Rosicrucian Order or the Hierophants of any other lesser Mystery School any more than the freshman at college has attained to the knowledge and position of a teacher in the High school from which he has just graduated.

A later work will deal with initiation, but we may say here that the door of a genuine Mystery School is not unlocked by a golden key, but is only opened as a reward for meritorious service to humanity and any one who advertises himself as a Rosicrucian or makes a charge for tuition, by either of those acts shows himself to be a charlatan. The true pupil of any Mystery School is far too modest to advertise the fact, he will scorn all titles or honors from men, he will have no regard for riches save the riches of love given to him by those whom it becomes his privilege to help and teach.

In the centuries that have gone by since the Rosicrucian Order was first formed they have worked quietly and secretly, aiming to mould the thought of Western Europe through the works of Paracelsus, Boehme, Bacon, Shakespeare, Fludd and others. Each night at midnight when the physical activities of the day are at their lowest ebb, and the spiritual impulse at its highest flood tide, they have sent out from their temple soul-stirring vibrations to counteract materialism and to further the development of soul powers. To their activities we owe the gradual spiritualization of our once so materialistic science.

With the commencement of the twentieth century a further step was taken. It was realized that something must be done to make religion scientific as well as to make science religious, in order that they may ultimately blend; for at the present time heart and intellect are divorced. The heart instinctively feels the truth of religious teachings concerning such wonderful mysteries as the Immaculate Conception (the Mystic Birth), the Crucifixion (the Mystic Death), the cleansing blood, the atonement, and other doctrines of the Church, which the intellect refuses to believe, as they are incapable of demonstration, and seemingly at war with natural law. Material advancement may be furthered when intellect is dominant and the longings of the heart unsatisfied, but soul growth will be retarded until the heart also receives satisfaction.