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The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

III. THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLD

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In this world we are compelled to investigate and to study a thing before we know about it, and although the facilities for gaining information are in some respects much greater in the Desire World, a certain amount of investigation is necessary nevertheless to acquire knowledge. In the World of Thought, on the contrary, it is different. When we wish to know about any certain thing there, and we turn our attention thereto, then that thing speaks to us, as it were. The sound it emits at once gives us a most luminous comprehension of every phase of its nature. We attain to a realization of its past history; the whole story of its unfoldment is laid bare and we seem to have lived through all of those experiences together with the thing we are investigating.

Were it not for one enormous difficulty, the story thus obtained would be exceedingly valuable. But all this information, this life-picture, flows in upon us with an enormous rapidity in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, so that it has neither beginning nor end, for, as said, in the World of Thought, all is one great NOW, Time does not exist.

Therefore, when we want to use the archetypal information in the Physical World, we must disentangle and arrange it in chronological order with beginning and ending before it becomes intelligible to beings living in a realm where Time is a prime factor. That rearrangement is a most difficult task as all words are coined with relation to the three dimensions of space and the evanescent unit of time, the fleeting moment, hence much of that information remains unavailable.

Among the denizens of this Region of concrete Thought we may note particularly two classes. One is called the powers of darkness by Paul and the mystic investigator of the Western World knows them as Lords of Mind. They were human at the time when the earth was in a condition of darkness such as worlds in the making go through before they become luminous and reach the firemist-stage. At that time we were in our mineral evolution. That is to say: The Human Spirit which has now awakened was encrusted in the ball of mindstuff, which was then the earth. At that time the present Human Spirits were as much asleep as is the life which ensouls our minerals of today, and as we are working with the mineral chemical constituents of the earth, molding them into houses, railways, steam-boats, chairs, etc, etc., so those beings, who are now Lords of Mind, worked with us when we were mineral-like. They have since advanced three steps, through stages similar to that of the Angels and Archangels, before they attained their present position and became creative intelligences. They are expert builders of mind stuff, as we are builders of the present mineral substances and therefore they have given us necessary help to acquire a mind which is the highest development of the human being.

According to the foregoing explanation it seems to be an anomaly when Paul speaks of them as evil and exhorts us to withstand them. The difficulty disappears, however, when we understand that good and evil are but relative qualities. An illustration will make the point clear:—Let us suppose that an expert organ builder has constructed a wonderful organ, a masterpiece. Then he has followed his vocation in the proper manner, and is therefore to be commended for the good which he has done. But if he is not satisfied to leave well enough alone, if he refuses to give up his product to the musician who understands how to play upon the instrument; if he intrudes his presence into the concert hall, he is out of place and to be censured as evil. Similarly the Lords of Mind did the greatest possible service to humanity when they helped us to acquire our mind, but many subtle thought influences come from them, and are to be resisted, as Paul very properly emphasizes.

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