This Classic work is now copyright expired and therefore in the public domain.

The Rosicrucian Mysteries by Max Heindel

III. THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE WORLD

page 16 of 20 | page 1 | The Rosicrucian Mysteries - home

The other class of beings which must be mentioned are called Archetypal Forces by the Western School of occultism. They direct the energies of the creative Archetypes native to this realm. They are a composite class of beings of many different grades of intelligences, and there is one stage in the cyclic journey of the Human Spirit when that also labors in, and is part of, that great host of beings. For the Human Spirit is also destined to become a great creative intelligence at some future time, and if there were no school wherein it could gradually learn to create, it would not be able to advance, for nothing in nature is done suddenly. An acorn planted in the soil does not become a majestic oak over night, but many years of slow, persistent growth are required before it attains to the stature of a giant of the forest. A man does not become an Angel by the mere fact of dying and entering a new world any more than an animal advances to be a man by the same process. But in time all that lives, mounts the ladder of Being from the clod to the God. There is no limitation possible to the spirit, and so at various stages in its unfoldment the Human Spirit works with the other nature forces, according to the stage of intelligence which it has attained. It creates, changes and remodels the earth upon which it is to live. Thus, under the great law of cause and effect, which we observe in every realm of nature, it reaps upon earth what it has sown in heaven, and vice versa. It grows slowly but persistently and advances continually.

_The Region of Abstract Thought._

Various religious systems have been given to humanity at different times, each suited to meet the spiritual needs of the people among whom it was promulgated, and, coming from the same divine source:—God, all religions exhibit similar fundamentals or first principles.

All systems teach that there was a time when _darkness_ reigned supreme. Everything which we now perceive was then non-existent. Earth, sky and the heavenly bodies were uncreate, so were the multitudinous forms which live and move upon the various planets.—All, all, was yet in a fluidic condition and the Universal Spirit brooded _quiescent_ in limitless Space as the One Existence.

The Greeks called that condition of homogeneity _Chaos_, and the state of orderly segregation which we now see; the marching orbs which illumine the vaulted canopy of heaven, the stately procession of planets around a central light, the majestic sun; the unbroken sequence of the seasons and the unvarying alternation of tidal ebb and flow;—all this aggregate of systematic order, was called _Cosmos_, and was supposed to have proceeded from Chaos.

The Christian Mystic obtains a deeper comprehension when he opens his Bible and ponders the first five verses of that brightest gem of all spiritual lore: the Gospel of St. John.

As he reverently opens his aspiring heart to acquire understanding of those sublime mystical teachings he transcends the form-side of nature, comprising various realms of which we have been speaking, and finds himself “in the spirit,” as did the prophets in olden times. He is then in the Region of abstract Thought and sees the eternal verities which also Paul beheld in this, the third, heaven.

For those among us who are unable to obtain knowledge save by reasoning upon the matter, however, it will be necessary to examine the fundamental meaning of words used by St. John to clothe his wonderful teaching, which was originally given in the Greek language, a much simpler matter than is commonly supposed, for Greek words have been freely introduced into our modern languages, particularly in scientific terms, and we shall show how this ancient teaching is supported by the latest discoveries of modern science.