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The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

I. THE ORDER OF ROSICRUCIANS AND THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP

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In order to give the world a teaching so blended that it will satisfy both the mind and heart, a messenger must be found and instructed. Certain unusual qualifications were necessary, and the first one chosen failed to pass a certain test after several years had been spent to prepare him for the work to be done.

It is well said that there is a time to sow, and a time to reap, and that there are certain times for all the works of life, and in accordance with this law of periodicity each impulse in spiritual uplift must also be undertaken at an appropriate time to be successful. The first and sixth decades of each century are particularly propitious to commence the promulgation of new spiritual teachings. Therefore the Rosicrucians were much concerned at this failure, for only five years were left of the first decade of the twentieth century.

Their second choice of a messenger fell upon the present writer, though he knew it not at the time, and by shaping circumstances about him they made it possible for him to begin a period of preparation for the work they desired him to do. Three years later, when he had gone to Germany, also because of circumstances shaped by the invisible Brotherhood, and was on the verge of despair at the discovery that the light which was the object of his quest, was only a jack-o-lantern, the Brothers of the Rosicrucian Order applied the test to see whether he would be a faithful messenger and give the teachings they desired to entrust to him, to the world. And when he had passed the trial they gave him the monumental solution of the problem of existence first published in “_The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception_” in November, 1909, more than a year before the expiration of the first decade of the twentieth century. This book marked a new era in so-called “occult” literature, and the many editions which have since been published, as well as the thousands of letters which continue to come to the author, are speaking testimonies to the fact that people are finding in this teaching a satisfaction they have long sought elsewhere in vain.

The Rosicrucians teach that all great religions have been given to the people among whom they are found, by Divine Intelligences who designed each system of worship to suit the needs of the race or nation to whom it was given. A primitive people cannot respond to a lofty and sublime religion, and _vice versa_. What helps one race would hinder another, and in pursuance of the same policy there has been devised a system of soul-unfoldment suited specially to the Western people, who are racially and temperamentally unfit to undergo the discipline of the Eastern school, which was designed for the more backward Hindoos.

THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP

For the purpose of promulgating the Rosicrucian teachings in the Western World, the Rosicrucian Fellowship was founded in 1909. It is the herald of the Aquarian Age, when the Sun by its precessional passage through the constellation Aquarius will bring out all the intellectual and spiritual potencies in man which are symbolized by that sign. As heat from a fire warms all objects within the sphere of its radiations, so also the Aquarian ray will raise the earth’s vibrations to a pitch we are as yet unable to comprehend, though we have demonstrations of the _material_ workings of this force in the inventions which have revolutionized life within the memory of the present generation. We have wondered at the X-ray, which sees through the human body, but each one has a sense latent which when evolved will enable him to see through any number of bodies or to any distance. We marvel at the telephone conversations across the continent of America, but each has within a latent sense of speech and hearing that is far more acute; we are surprised at the exploits of ships under sea and in the sky, but we are all capable of passage under water or through the sky; nay, more, we may pass unscathed through the solid rock and the raging fire, if we know how, and lightning itself is slow compared to the speed with which we may travel. This sounds like a fairy tale today, as did Jules Verne’s stories a generation ago, but the Aquarian Age will witness the realization of these dreams, and ever so much more that we still do not even dream of. Such faculties will then be the possessions of large numbers of people who will have gradually evolved them as previously the ability to walk, speak, hear, and see, were developed.

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