Filename; RC1042.TXT
Source: "The Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures" by Max Heindel

[PAGE 1531]

                                LECTURE SEVEN:

                           BIRTH: A FOURFOLD EVENT

   When  we left the Ego in its pilgrimage through the invisible worlds,  we
had  reached the point where it entered the Third Heaven after  having  dis-
carded the dense body at death,  the vital body shortly afterwards,  the de-
sire  body upon leaving Purgatory and the First Heaven,  and finally  before
leaving the Second Heaven it also left the sheath of mind behind,  and  Then
entered the Third Heaven absolutely free of any encumbrance.   All the  dis-
carded vehicles decay,  only the Spirit persists,  laving for a while in the
great spiritual reservoir of force which we call the Third Heaven,  in order
to fortify itself for the next rebirth into Earth-life.

   Sir  Edwin Arnold has put this idea so poignantly and beautifully in  his
"Song Celestial," where he says:

         Never the Spirit was born
         The Spirit shall cease to be never;
         Never was time it was not,
         End and beginning are dreams;
         Birthless and deathless the spirit remaineth forever,
         Death has not touched it at all,
         Dead though the HOUSE of it seems.
         Nay but as one layeth
         His worn-out robe away,
         And taking another sayeth:
         This will I wear today,
         So putteth by the Spirit
         Lightly its garment of flesh;
         And passeth on to inherit
         A residence afresh.

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   The  Law  of Consequence determines our existence after death  in  accord
with the life we have lived here.   If in Earth-life we were mostly given to
low desires and passions our purgatorial existence is the most vivid part of
our post-mortem state; the existence in the various heavens will be insipid.
If  we lived in the higher emotions,  life in the First Heaven will  be  the
richest of the different stages.   Did we love to plan improvements and  was
our mind constructive in Earth-life?   Then we shall have great benefit from
our stay in the Second Heaven,  where concrete thought is the basis of  con-
crete  things on Earth,  but in order to have a conscious existence  in  the
Third  Heaven we must have given time and effort to abstract  thought  which
had no relation to time or space.

   Most  of  us are incapable of thinking abstractly and therefore  we  lack
consciousness in the Third Heaven.   If we think of "Love"  we associate  it
with some person.  We dislike mathematics because it is dry, unemotional and
abstract.   There is no feeling connected with the statement that twice  two
is four,  but it is this very fact which is of value, for WHEN WE RISE ABOVE
FEELING  WE LEAVE BIAS BEHIND AND TRUTH IS AT ONCE APPARENT.   No one  would
say that twice two is five, or quarrel over the proposition that the squares
of  the  hypothenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other sides  of  a
triangle.   That was the reason why Pythagoras and other occult teachers de-
manded  that applicants for tuition should first have a knowledge  of  math-
ematics.  A mind used to grappling with mathematics is trained in sequential
thought,  capable of testing truth apart from bias, and only such a mind can
safely be given occult training.

   The  great  majority  of  people  are  not  yet past the stage where they

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properly progress along what is called "practical lines,"  and for them  the
Third  Heaven  is simply a waiting place where they are unconscious,  as  in
sleep,  until the time is ripe for a new birth.  The man, for instance,  who
had lived a low life of sense-gratification,  who had been utterly  destruc-
tive,  would have a painful existence in Purgatory, as he had been very bad.
He would rapidly and unconsciously pass through the First Heaven because  he
had done no good.   His destructiveness would render his life in the  Second
Heaven  almost unconscious and he would have absolutely no existence in  the
Third Heaven, where advanced Egos evolve ORIGINAL IDEAS which later manifest
as GENIUS in Earth-life.   Hence such a backward Ego would remain asleep un-
til  the  time  for a new birth would awaken it to  another  day  in  Life's
School, another chance of improvement.

   We often hear people say,  upon first hearing this doctrine:  "Oh,  but I
don't want to come back."  That is the cry of the weary and tired body,  the
consequence of a hard life;  but as soon as the experience of that life  has
been  assimilated  in heaven,  the Law of Consequence and  desire  for  more
knowledge draws the Ego back to Earth,  as a magnet draws a needle,  and  it
begins to contemplate a re-embodiment.

   Here  again  the Law of Consequence is the determining  factor,  the  new
birth  is  conditioned by our past lives.   Having lived many  times  it  is
evident,  of course, that we have met many different persons and had varying
relations with them,  affecting them for good or ill,  or we have been  thus
acted  upon by them.   Causes were thus generated between them and  us,  and
many were left fallow,  as it were,  unable to produce their sequential  ef-
fect, for one reason or another.

[PAGE 1534]

   The  invariableness of Law requires that these causes should  find  their
consummation some time, and so the Recording Angels who are the Great Intel-
ligences in charge of the law of adjustment,  look up the past of each  man,
at the time he is ready for a new birth,  and find out who among the friends
or  foes are living at that time,  and where they are.   As we have made  an
enormous number of such relations in our past,  there are generally  several
groups of such people in Earth-life, and if there are no special reasons why
one  of them in particular should then be taken,  the Recording Angel  gives
the Ego its choice of the opportunities offered.   They select in each  case
the amount of ripe causation that the Ego is thus to work out,  and show  to
the  Ego in a series of pictures a panorama of what the coming life will  be
in each of the proposed lives, any of which the Ego may then choose.   These
panoramas  run from the cradle to the grave,  and give the great outline  of
the  life,  but  leave room for the Ego to fill in the  details  by  new  or
free-will action.

   Thus, the Ego has a certain latitude as to the place of birth, and it may
therefore be said that in the great majority of cases we are where we are by
our own choice; it matters not that we do not know it in our brain,  the Ego
is yet weak, and not able to freely penetrate the veil of flesh,  is largely
dependent even upon the lower personality to help it grow,  and the more  we
determine in our brain-mind to live for the higher self,  the sooner the day
will come when the Ego will shine through, and we shall know.

   When  the  Ego  has made its choice,  it is bound by that  choice  to  go
through with the adjustment of debts contracted in former lives and now ripe
for liquidation.  That then forms the destiny,  or  the hard and fast condi-

[PAGE 1535]

tions of life,  which cannot possibly be changed.  Any attempt to do so will
surely be frustrated, but LET NO ONE FALL INTO THE DELUSION THAT HIS DESTINY
COMPELS HIM TO DO WRONG AT ANY TIME.  The law works only for good, and as we
have seen,  the evil in any life is the first thing purged after death,  and
only the TENDENCY to do this particular wrong remains,  with the feeling  of
aversion,  generated by the suffering experienced in the process of expurga-
tion.   When  the temptation to commit a similar evil act comes in  a  later
life,  this feeling of past pain, which we call conscience, warns and repels
us  from yielding to the temptation.   If we fall in spite of  this  warning
voice,  the suffering we experience in Purgatory will add to and  strengthen
the previous feeling,  until our conscience develops the necessary stability
to resist the particular evil involved, and from that moment it ceases to be
a temptation to us.

   Thus  we see that no man is ever FATED to do wrong,  that at least  EVERY
EVIL  ACT IS AN ACT OF FREE-WILL,  committed even against the resistance  of
whatever  amount of conscience we have previously developed  regarding  that
particular phase of evil.

   The  question as to the coming rebirth having been decided,  the Ego  de-
scends first into the Region of Concrete Thought,  and begins to draw to it-
self the MATERIALS for a new mind.

   As  said previously,  the man withdraws from his different bodies in  the
course of his post-mortem career, these bodies go to decay,  but there is an
atom  saved from each,  one from the mind also,  and it is  those  so-called
"seed-atoms"  which are the nuclei of the new vestures in which  the  Spirit
will appear in its coming life.

[PAGE 1536]

   When now,  the Ego descends into the Region of Concrete Thought,  the la-
tent forces in the seed-atom  of the mind of its previous lives are  aroused
into activity, and it begins to draw to itself the materials for a new mind,
as a magnet draws iron filings around its poles.  If we hold a magnet over a
heap of shavings of brass, iron, gold, lead, silver,  wood,  etc.,  we shall
find  that it will only take the iron filings,  and also that it  will  take
only a certain quantity, according to its strength.  Its attractive power is
limited to a certain quantity of a particular kind.   So with the seed-atom,
it  can attract in each region only such materials as it has  affinity  for,
and only a certain definite quantity.  This material then forms itself  into
a great bell-shaped thing,  open at the bottom and with the seed-atom at the
top.

   This may be likened to a diving-bell, diving into a sea of gradually  in-
creasing  density.   The materials taken from each realm and woven into  the
bell add to its weight,  so as to make it sink farther and farther until  it
reaches the bottom.

   Thus  the returning Ego sinks through the Region of Concrete Thought  and
in the passage the seed-atom gathers the materials for the new mind.

   The descent continues.   The Ego,  clothed in its bell-shaped garment  of
mind-stuff,  sinks into the Desire World; the forces of the seed-atom  saved
from  its  former desire body are awakened, and placed inside a top  of  the
bell.   Thence  it draws to itself the kind and quantity  of  the  MATERIALS
needed  to furnish the returning Ego with a new desire body  appropriate  to
its  particular needs,  so that when the densest region of the Desire  World
has been reached there are two layers in the bell,  the sheath of mind-stuff
on the outside and the materials for the desire body inside.

[PAGE 1537]

   The next step downwards brings the spirit into the Etheric Region,  where
the materials for the new vital body are gathered,  and from a part of  that
material the agents of the Recording Angels fashion a mold or matrix,  which
is  placed in the womb of the mother,  to give appropriate form to  the  new
dense body, while the seed-atom is placed in the semen of the father.  With-
out  the presence of these two factors no union of the sexes will bring  re-
sults,  and when a marriage is barren,  though both partners are healthy and
desirous of children,  it means simply that no incoming Ego is attracted  to
them.

   As soon as the vital body has been placed the returning Ego,  clothed  in
its  bell-shaped covering,  hovers constantly near the future  mother.   She
alone  does  the  work  upon the new dense body in  the  first  eighteen  to
twenty-one days after fertilization,  Then the Ego enters the mother's body,
drawing  the bell-shaped covering down over the foetus,  the opening at  the
bottom closes,  and the Ego is once more incarcerated in the prison-house of
the dense body.

   The moment of entrance into the womb is one of great importance in  life,
for  when the incoming Ego first contacts the before-mentioned matrix  vital
body it sees there again the panorama of the coming life which has been  im-
pressed upon the matrix by the Recording Angels in order to give it the ten-
dencies required to work out the ripe causation due to be liquidated in  the
coming life.

   At  this  time the Ego is already so much blinded by the veil  of  matter
that it does not recognize the good end in view in the same unbiased  manner
as  when  making  its  choice  in the Region of Abstract Thought, and when a

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particularly hard life reveals itself to the vision of the returning Ego  at
the  moment of entering the womb,  it sometimes happens that the Ego  is  so
startled  and  frightened that it seeks to rush out again.   The  connection
cannot be severed,  however, but may be strained, so that instead of the vi-
tal  body being concentric with the dense body,  the head of the vital  body
maybe above the head of the dense body.  Then we have a congenital idiot.

   Under  the most favorable conditions it is a great strain for the Ego  to
go  through the womb,  and everything should be done by the parents  not  to
make it more aggravated than necessary; we never can tell where the breaking
point is;  inharmonious relationship between the parents at the critical pe-
riods  of gestation,  particularly the first,  may sometimes prove the  last
straw.

   Before  the event we term birth,  the coming man is enclosed  in  another
body  (the mother's),  and thus unable to directly contact the  sense-world.
This seclusion is necessary to bring the organism to the proper point of ma-
turity,  where  it is fit to receive these impressions  itself.   When  that
point is reached,  the protective covering of the womb opens and the new hu-
man being enters the arena of the world.

   As we have seen,  man is a great deal more than the mere dense body,  and
it must not be imagined that all his vehicles are equally mature when he  is
born into the Physical World.   As a matter of fact they are not;  the vital
body  grows and ripens inside its covering of ether until the seventh  year,
or the changing of the teeth.   The desire body requires protection from the
onslaughts of the Desire World until about the fourteenth year it is born at
the  time  we  call  puberty;  and  the  mind is not sufficiently ripe to be

[PAGE 1539]

released  from  its protective cover until the man reaches his  majority  at
about twenty-one.   These periods are only approximately correct,  for  each
person  differs from all others in regard to exact time periods,  but  those
given are near enough.

   The  reason for this slow unfoldment of the higher vehicles lies  in  the
fact that they are comparatively recent additions to the economy of the Ego,
while the dense body has had much the longest evolution,  and is by far  the
most perfect and valuable instrument we possess.  When people who have some-
times  but recently come to a knowledge of the existence of higher  vehicles
are  constantly talking and thinking of how nice it would be to fly  off  in
the desire body and leave the "low" and "vile" physical,  it shows that they
have not yet learned to appreciate the difference between "higher" and "per-
fect."   The  dense  body is a marvel of perfection,  with  its  strong  ar-
ticulated skeleton,  its delicate sense organs,  its co-ordinating mechanism
of  nerve and brain,  which makes it superior to any other mechanism in  the
world.   Looked at in detail, take for instance the large bone of the thigh,
the  femur,  and examine the thick ends.   If we split it open we shall  see
that only a thin outside shell is made of compact bone.   This is  stiffened
by beams and cross-beams of thin cancellated bone,  making it of  prodigious
strength,  coupled with a lightness as far beyond the skill of the  greatest
living structural engineer as differential calculus is beyond an ant.

   Therefore,  though  we realize that some day in the  distant  future  our
higher vehicles will attain a perfection far,  far beyond that of our  dense
body,  we must remember that at present they are more or  less  unorganized,
and  are  of  little value when detached from the perfect physical organism,

[PAGE 1540]

and we should in all things give thanks to the exalted Beings who helped  us
to  evolve  this splendid instrument whereby we are now functioning  in  the
world as self-conscious human beings and working out our destiny, life after
life, becoming each time a little more like our Father in Heaven.

   Thus we see that birth is a fourfold event,  and in order to do our  full
duty as educators,  it is absolutely necessary that we should know this  and
the facts that follow from it.  We cannot easily tear the unborn babe out of
the  womb and expose it to the impacts of the outside world--to do so  would
kill it.   It is equally dangerous to break through the wombs of the  unseen
bodies and expose the immature child to the impacts of the moral and  mental
world,  and though such a proceeding does not always kill the dense body  it
invariably  stunts its capacity,  for what hurts one body is detrimental  to
the other vehicles.   To educate the child properly,  it is therefore neces-
sary  to  have  a knowledge of the effect of  training  upon  the  different
vehicles, and the right methods to employ, bearing in mind constantly,  how-
ever, that general rules do not always apply in individual cases.

   We  saw that when the Ego had finished its day in the school of life  the
centrifugal  force of Repulsion caused it to throw off its dense vehicle  at
death,  Then the vital body, which is the next coarsest.   Next in purgatory
the coarsest desire stuff accumulated by the Ego as embodiment for its  low-
est desires was purged by this centrifugal force.  In the higher realms only
the  force of Attraction holds sway and keeps the goody by  centripetal  ac-
tion, which tends to draw everything from the periphery to the center.

   This centripetal  force of Attraction also governs when the Ego is coming

[PAGE 1541]

to rebirth.   We know that we can throw a stone farther than we can throw  a
feather.   Therefore the coarsest matter was thrown OUTWARDS after death  by
the  force  of  Repulsion,  and for the same reason  the  coarsest  material
wherein  the returning Ego embodies the tendency to evil is whirled  INWARDS
to the center by the centripetal force of Attraction,  with the result  that
WHEN  A  CHILD IS BORN ALL THAT IS BEST AND PUREST APPEARS ON  THE  OUTSIDE.
The  latent  evil does not usually manifest until after the desire  body  is
born at about the age of fourteen, and the currents in that vehicle commence
to well OUTWARDS from the LIVER.   At that time the Ego commences to  "LIVE"
its individual life and show what is within.

   The stars are the CLOCK OF DESTINY; they show the hidden tendencies,  and
while astrologers are fallible in prediction of events,  a good and  careful
astrologer will be able to reveal the character of a person accurately in 99
per cent of all cases.   Thus parents may obtain a guide to the hidden  side
of  a child's nature.   But it requires very little ability to cast a  horo-
scope,  and  it is always better for the parents to learn than to  employ  a
stranger.   They will then get a much deeper insight into the  character  of
their child.

   With the physical birth the dense body begins to feel the impacts of  the
outside world,  which act upon it as the forces of the mother's body  previ-
ously did.   What these did during ante-natal life,  the impacts of the  el-
ements  continue all through physical life.   Up to the time of the  seventh
year,  or change of teeth, there is one particular activity going on,  which
is  widely different from the activities of the succeeding epochs  of  life.
The  sense  organs take certain definite forms which give them  their  basic
structural tendencies  and  determine  their  line  of  development  in  one

[PAGE 1542]

direction  or another.   Later they grow, but all growth follows  the  lines
laid down in those first seven years, and the mistakes or neglect of  oppor-
tunities during this period can seldom be retrieved in after life.   If  the
limbs and organs have taken the proper forms, the whole after growth will be
harmonious;  but if malformation takes place then,  the little body will  be
more or less misshapen.   It is the duty of the educator to give the  proper
environment to the little child in this period, as nature does before birth,
for  only  that  can give the sensitive organism  the  right  direction  and
tendency of growth.

   There  are  two magic words which denote the manner in  which  the  child
comes into contact with the formative influences of its environment--EXAMPLE
and IMITATION.   There is under the whole heaven no creature so imitative as
a little child, and in this imitation we have the force which gives tendency
and direction to the little organism.   Everything in a child's  environment
leaves its impress for good or evil, and we should realize that our  slight-
est action may do incalculable harm or good in the life of our children, and
that  WE  OUGHT NEVER TO DO ANYTHING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE CHILD  WHICH  WE
WOULD NOT BE PERFECTLY WILLING TO HAVE IT IMITATE.

   It is no use to teach it to mind, or to moralize at this period;  EXAMPLE
is the only teacher the child needs or heeds.   It cannot help imitating any
more than water can help running down hill,  for that is its only method  of
growth in this epoch.   Teaching of morals and reason comes later;  to apply
them  now is like taking a child out of the womb prematurely;  all that  the
child  is to acquire of thoughts, ideas, and imagination must COME OF ITSELF

[PAGE 1543]

in the same way that the eyes and ears develop before the birth of the dense
body.

   The  child  should  be a given playthings on which it  may  exercise  its
imitative faculty--something with life,  or a doll, jointed,  so that it can
be put in different positions,  and let the child dress it herself;  in that
way  she exercises her formative force in the right manner.   Give the  boys
tools and patterns,  or molds and clay.   NEVER GIVE THEM ANYTHING FINISHED,
where  they  have nothing to do but look at it.   That leaves the  brain  no
chance for development, and it must ever be the care and aim of the educator
at this time to furnish the means of developing the physical organs harmoni-
ously.

   In regard to food, great care must be taken in this period, for a healthy
or  diseased appetite in after life will depend upon how it is  fostered  in
the first septenary epoch.  Here also example is the great teacher.   Highly
seasoned dishes spoil the organism;  the plainer the food and the more it is
conducive to thorough mastication,  the more it promotes a healthy  appetite
that  will  guide the man through life and give him the health of  body  and
ease of mind that is unknown to the gourmand.   Let us not have one dish for
ourselves,  however,  and another for our child.  In that way we may keep it
from eating it at home, but we generate a hankering that will seek satisfac-
tion when it gets old enough to have a will of its own.   The imitative fac-
ulty will then assert itself.

   In regard to clothing, let us always be sure that a child's apparel is of
full  size,  and is replaced before it becomes so small that  it  irritates.
Many an immoral nature that has spoilt a life was first wakened by the chaf-
ing of a too small garment, particularly in the case of boys.  Immorality is
one of the  worst  and  most tenacious plague-spots on our civilization.  To

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save our child,  let us attend to this point,  and seek in every way to keep
it unconscious of its sex-organ before the seventh year.   CORPOREAL PUNISH-
MENT  IS ALSO AN EXCEEDINGLY FRUITFUL FACTOR IN FORCING THE SEX-NATURE,  and
cannot be sufficiently deprecated.

   In regard to the education of the temperament it will be found that  col-
ors are of the greatest significance, although the matter involves not  only
a knowledge of the effect of colors,  but particularly of the  COMPLEMENTARY
COLORS,  for it is the latter that do the work in the organism of the child.
If we have to deal with a boisterous, hot-tempered nature, it is soothed and
softened  by an environment of red.  Rooms,  furniture and clothing  of  red
will produce in the child the cooling green effect and calm its nerves.  One
who  is  of a melancholy and lethargic nature will be roused to  action  and
life by an environment of blue or blue-green,  which creates in the  child's
organs the warm, rousing red or orange.

   Nursery-rhymes  are of the greatest importance in this period.   It  does
not matter so much about the sense they have,  as about the RHYTHM--that  is
of supreme importance and builds the organs in a harmony not realized by any
of the other aids; therefore, this, and a CHEERFUL ATMOSPHERE are the great-
est of all means of education,  and will even make up to a great extent  for
the lack of others.

   By the seventh year the vital body of the child has reached a  perfection
sufficient to allow it to receive impacts from the outside world.   It sheds
its protective covering of ether,  and commences its free life.   An now the
time begins in which the educator may work on the vital body and help it  in
the formation of MEMORY,  CONSCIENCE,  GOOD HABITS and a HARMONIOUS TEMPERA-

[PAGE 1545]

MENT.  AUTHORITY and DISCIPLESHIP are the watchwords of this epoch, when the
child is to learn the MEANING of things.   In the first epoch it learns that
things  are,  but must not be bothered about their meaning,  except what  it
picks up of its own accord,  but in the second epoch from seven to  fourteen
years, it is essential that the child should learn the meaning of them,  but
should  learn  to  take things on the authority  of  parents  and  teachers,
memorizing their explanations, rather than reasoning for itself,  for reason
belongs to a later development,  and though he may do so of his own  accord,
with profit, it is harmful at this period to force him to think.

   In order that the growing child should derive the proper benefit from the
instruction  of  parents and teachers,  it is of course  necessary  that  he
should have the greatest veneration for them,  and admiration for their wis-
dom,  and it behooves us to comport ourselves so that he may  always  retain
it,  for if he sees in us frivolity,  hears light talk and observes a gener-
ally  loose  conduct,  we deprive him of the greatest staff of  strength  in
life, FAITH AND TRUST IN OTHERS.  It is in this age that cynics and sceptics
are  made.   We are responsible to God for the lives committed to our  care,
and  will  have to answer to the Law of Consequence if we  neglect,  through
slothful  conduct,  the great opportunity for guiding the early steps  of  a
fellow-being in the right path, and example is always better than precept.

   There is little use of warnings.   Let us show the child living  examples
of  the  effects of virtue and vice,  paint before his youthful  phantasy  a
picture of the drunkard and thief, and others of the saint, that will affect
his vital body in such a way that there will be an abhorrence of the one and

[PAGE 1546]

an ardent purpose to emulate the other.

   In  this period the child should also be instructed in the origin of  his
being,  so that he may be well prepared for the storm time of passion  which
makes  adolescence so dangerous;  that information should also be  given  in
mental picture and examples from nature,  but in such a way as to thoroughly
impress the child with the sanctity of the function.  It is the bounden duty
of  the educator to properly enlighten the child.   Not to do this  is  like
putting him blindfolded among innumerable pitfalls,  with the admonition not
to stumble.   Tear the bandage away at least;  he will be handicapped suffi-
ciently without that.

   Let  the instructor take a flower,  which is the generative organ of  the
plant,  and  teach from that,  for one who understands the process  of  gen-
eration  in  the plant will understand it in animal and man  also.   Let  us
avoid  the mistake of giving the child many names to grapple with,  such  as
"stamen" and "anthers," or "pistillate" and "staminate" flowers.  That would
frustrate our object by making the children tired of the study.   They  like
fairy  tales,  and the skillful instructor can make the story of the  flower
more fascinating than any fairy tale known, and in addition may throw a halo
of  beauty  and sanctity over the generative act which will hover  over  the
child all through life to protect it in temptation and trial when the  fires
of passion surge around it.

   We know that the stamen and pollen are male, the pistil and ovule female,
also  that some flowers have only one kind,  others another kind  and  still
others have both stamen and pistil.   We also know that the bees have pollen
baskets  on  their  legs  and  carry pollen to the pistils of other flowers.

[PAGE 1547]

There the pollen works its way to the ovule which then is fertilized and ca-
pable of growing into a new plant and flowers.

   With these data and some flowers, let us gather the children, let us tell
them and show them how flowers are like families.   In some (the  staminate)
there are only boys,  in others (the pistillate), there are only girls,  and
in some there are both boys and girls.   The flower boys (pollen) are as ad-
venturesome  as  human boys,  they ride away into the wide world  on  winged
steeds  (bees) as the old-time knights did and search for the  princess  im-
mured  in  her  magic  castle  (the  ovule  in  the  pistil);   the   little
flower-boy-knight dismounts from his steed (the bee), and works his way into
the secret chamber where the princess (ovule) is.  Then they are married and
have lots of little flower boys and girls.

   This  narrative  may be varied and embellished to suit the fancy  of  the
educator,  and can later be supplemented with stories of birds and  animals.
It will awaken in the child an understanding of the genesis of its own  body
that will invest the love story of papa and mama with all the romance of the
flower  boys and girls and obviate the slightest thought of odium  connected
with birth in the mind of the child.

   The  desire-body  is born about the 14th year,  at the time  of  puberty.
That  is the time the feelings and passions are beginning to exercise  their
power  upon the young man or woman, as the womb of desire-stuff  which  for-
merly protected the nascent desire body is removed.  This is in most cases a
trying time, and it is well for the youth who has learned reverently to look
to  parents  or  teachers,  for  they  will  be to him an anchor of strength

[PAGE 1548]

strength against the inrush of the feelings.   If he has been accustomed  to
take  the statements of his elders on trust,  and they have given  him  wise
teaching, he will by now have developed an inherent sense of truth that will
be a sure guide, but just in the measure that he has failed to do so will he
be liable to go adrift.

   It  is  now the time that he should be taught to investigate  things  for
himself,  and thus to form individual opinions.   Let us always impress upon
him the necessity of careful investigation before he judges,  and also  that
THE MORE FLUIDIC HE CAN KEEP HIS OPINIONS, THE BETTER HE WILL BE ABLE TO EX-
AMINE  NEW FACTS AND ACQUIRE NEW KNOWLEDGE.  In this way he will  reach  his
majority at 21,  when the mind is also fully free,  and will be able to take
his  place in the world as a full-fledged citizen,  a credit to those  whose
loving care shielded him in his years of development,  a thoroughbred man or
woman.

[PAGE 1549]

                             LECTURE EIGHT:

           THE SCIENCE OF NUTRITION, HEALTH, AND PROTRACTED YOUTH

   In the previous lectures we have constantly tried to emphasize the  value
of the dense body; it is the most priceless of all our material possessions,
and strange to say, it is the one we neglect most of all.  To protect worth-
less  property we will risk life and limb,  throwing away the wheat to  save
the tares.  But it is not our worse crime that we do that upon occasion; the
greatest  trouble  arises from the neglect and disregard which  we  practice
daily, from before birth, to the moment of death.

   In the case of our cattle and horses we are very careful regarding breed-
ing; we see that the animals are in perfect health and seek out the mate for
them  which  our common sense and experience tell us will bring  forth  best
strain; we inquire carefully into the pedigree of a dog or a stallion before
we  allow it to become the sire of our stock,  but our prospective  children
get not a thought.  We marry for wealth, a home, social standing, etc.,  and
not to secure a partner mentally,  morally, and physically fit to be a  pro-
genitor of a more advanced generation, and worst of all,  marriage is gener-
ally regarded as a license to unlimited coition which is in many cases  car-
ried  on  uninterrupted  through the whole period of gestation.  What wonder

[PAGE 1550]

that passion rules the child from infancy!  Marriage and propagation are so-
cial duties for persons in good health and of sufficient means;  but  excess
is a crime,  a cancer which gnaws at the vitals of society as the vulture at
Prometheus' liver, and cannot be too strongly condemned.

   Thus  our forefathers have brought us into the world with many a  serious
handicap in life,  and we are hampering our children in the same way on  ac-
count  of  lack of thought and self-restraint,  yet wondering why  there  is
sickness and pain.  If we would take half the care in the selection of moth-
ers and fathers for our children that we do in the case of our animals there
would  be  a  great  improvement,  PARTICULARLY  IF  THE  MOTHER  WERE  LEFT
UNMOLESTED DURING THE PERIOD OF GESTATION.

   But it is not enough that we bring our children thus handicapped into the
world;  from earliest childhood we ignorantly implant habits in  them  which
are deleterious to health and well-being,  particularly by giving them wrong
food;  teaching them to live to eat, instead of eating to live; to look more
to  the things that please the eye than wholesomeness,  inculcating a  taste
for highly seasoned dishes which arouse the passional nature most  potently.
Suppose a builder should try to erect a house from old rags, tin cans, offal
and refuse of every kind,  and live in it.  Would we be surprised if it fell
down and hurt him?   No! we should be surprised if it did not,  and when the
catastrophe occurred,  we should say that he had himself to blame for flying
the fact of Nature.  So with ourselves, when we employ analogous methods and
build our body from any  kind  of materials without regard to their fitness,

[PAGE 1551]

we alone are to blame for the ills resulting.  Sickness,  decreptitude,  and
infirmity  are  all  effects from causes which may be  in  a  great  measure
avoided  by a tithe of the thought and care we give to the thousand and  one
things  of minor importance.   Let us try to outline the  underlying  causes
which produce disastrous effects.

   There  is  no "faith once for all delivered"  in any department of  know-
ledge; truth is many-sided, and new phases are constantly opening to the in-
vestigator.  Yet there are certain basic laws and facts which are ever true,
and it is with such facts that we will deal, because they apply to all with-
out exception,  and will be found  to be conducive to health in all,  though
health  is a strictly individual matter,  independent of looks  only  condi-
tioned  by whether the Ego feels "at ease"  in the body.   If the Ego  feels
DISEASED,  the body is ill,  no matter if it looks what we call "the picture
of health."

   When  the antenatal life of a human being commences as an embryo it is  a
small pulpy globule composed of albumen (white of egg).   Then a change  oc-
curs:   there  appear various particles of more solid substance  within  it,
which grow larger,  firmer, and finally touch each other.  At points of con-
tact they form "joints"  and gradually the skeleton is formed.   At the same
time  the  pulpy matter becomes more organized and we have the  "foetus,"  a
child in the womb.

   The  growth continues and birth reveals the child as a soft little  body,
yet immensely more dense and solid than the embryo.  Infancy, childhood, and
youth  bring  increased consolidation and in time the acme  of  solidity  is
reached in old age, and ended by death.

   In each of these epochs of human life the body is hardened beyond what it

[PAGE 1552]

was previously, the flesh and the bones, the tendons and the ligaments,  ev-
ery part alike becomes hard and inflexible.   The fluids also thicken.   The
joints no longer are oiled by the synovial fluid,  because it gets too thick
to flow,  and the joints become stiff and begin to creak, the blood which in
infancy  and  youth flowed unimpeded through the arteries,  veins,  and  the
minute capillaries,  which in early life are all as elastic as rubber tubes,
flows slowly and stagnates in the contracted, indurated,  and inflexible ar-
teries  of old age.   In consequence the body bends,  the flesh shrinks  for
want  of nutrition,  the hair falls out, and last the tired heart can  drive
the blood no longer,  so the body dies.   The whole course from the womb  to
the tomb is one uninterrupted process of consolidation, and infancy,  child-
hood, youth, maturity, and old age are but so many stages of the way.

    The  only difference between the body of youth and age is,  that one  is
soft and elastic, the other hard and rigid, and the vital question is:  What
is the cause of this ossification, an it be controlled or at least minimized
so as to prolong the halcyon days of youth?

   To the latter part of the question it may be answered without  qualifica-
tion, that it is possible by knowledge to minimize the consolidating process
and  to  live  our  appointed time to greater  advantage  than  if  we  live
unthinkingly as most people unfortunately do.

   In  regard to the cause of ossification which hardens the tissue  of  our
bodies, chemical analysis has proved that any part of tendon, flesh,  blood,
urine,  perspiration, saliva, and, in fact, any part of the body we examine,
contains  an  immense amount of calcareous or chalky matter not  present  in
childhood, so that while, for instance, the bones of a child are composed of
three parts of gelatine and one part of phosphate of lime or bone matter, in

[PAGE 1553]

old age the proportion is exactly reversed so that there is only one part of
gelatine to three parts of bone matter, which is the reason why an old man's
bones will not knit when broken.  A child's bones knit readily because there
is  plenty of the cementing material in its bones,  and very little  of  the
phosphate of lime or bony matter, sulphate of lime or plaster of paris,  and
carbonate of lime or common chalk, which are the choking substances  princi-
pally causing rigidity and old age.

    The  question now arises:   What is the source?   whence do we get  this
calcareous choking matter.   It seems to be beyond dispute that all the sol-
ids  of the body are built by the blood,  which nourishes every part of  the
system,  and  that all that the body contains must first have  been  in  the
blood.   The blood is renewed from the chyle,  the chyle from the chyme  and
ultimately from the food and drink.  Food and drink then,  which nourish our
bodies must therefore at the same time be the source of the earthy  deposits
which choke our bodies and produce old age and decrepitude.

   Chemical  analysis also bears out this inference,  for it has shown  that
the  arterial  blood  which comes fresh from the heart,  pure  and  red,  is
heavier with earthy matter than the venous blood which contains the  impuri-
ties  of the system.   Thus it is proven that the life-giving  stream  which
flows through every part of the body to renew and build, at the same time is
the bringer of death,  for in every cycle it leaves behind a fresh accumula-
tion of choking lime compounds to harden the tissues.

   This is the Waterloo upon which all "perpetual life"  theories meet their
doom, for it is necessary to eat to live, yet every morsel of food has in it

[PAGE 1554]

both life and death.

   While we,  therefore,  cannot escape taking death-dealing substances into
our system,  we may at least regulate our food so that we take as little  of
it as possible,  for there is a great difference in the amount contained  in
different foods;  powdered cocoa for instance is one of the most  nourishing
foods;  but at the same time a most potent clogging agent,  containing three
or four times as much ash as the worst of all other foods.  Chocolate on the
other hand is still more nourishing than cocoa and contains no earthy matter
at all.   Anyone knows that as long as we can supply fuel to a fire and keep
it  free  from ashes it will burn and heat:   so with our body  which  is  a
chemical  furnace,  as  long  as we give it proper  food  and  are  able  to
eliminate the refuse by way of the kidneys, skin, and rectum, we can keep it
in  health  and vigor.   By taking only such foods as contain  the  smallest
amount of earthy substance we may put off the evil day when rigidity and old
age take the place of the elasticity of youth.  It lies with ourselves to do
so,  and the tables of food-values sent out by the U.S.  Government give the
chemical constituents of the various foods.

   Speaking broadly, and from the chemical standpoint, there are two classes
of food (1) the carbonaceous, including the sugars and fats; and (2) the ni-
trogenous, including the proteins.

   The  carbonaceous foods are the fuel whence we derive heat  and  muscular
power;  they come from the starch and sugar in vegetables, also from butter,
cream, milk, olive oil, nuts, fruits, and the yolk of eggs.

   These foods contain very little earthy matter; many of them, particularly

[PAGE 1555]

green, fresh vegetables and fruits are entirely free from it.

   The proteins are the material we use to repair waste of the body incident
to work and use.   They may be obtained from lean meat,  such vegetables  as
beans, peas, etc., from nuts, milk, and white of egg.

   Most  people feel that a meal without meat is incomplete,  for from  time
immemorial it has been regarded as an axiom that meat is the most  strength-
ening food we have.   All other foodstuffs are looked upon as mere  accesso-
ries to the one or more kinds of flesh on the menu.   Nothing could be  more
erroneous; science has proved by experiments that invariably the nourishment
obtained from vegetables has a greater sustaining power,  and the reason  is
easy to see when we look into the matter from the occult side.

   The  Law of Assimilation is that "no particle of food may be  built  into
the body by the forces whose task that is (see Lecture No.  6) until it  has
been overcome by the indwelling Spirit," because he must be absolute and un-
disputed ruler in the body, governing the cell-lives as an autocrat, or they
would each go their own way as they do in decay when the Ego has fled.

   It is evident that the dimmer the consciousness of a cell is,  the easier
it is to overpower it, and the longer it will remain in subjection.  In Lec-
ture  No.  3 we saw that the different kingdoms had different  vehicles  and
consequently a different consciousness.  The mineral has only its dense body
and  a consciousness like the deepest trance state.   It would therefore  be
easiest  to  subject food taken directly from the mineral  kingdom,  mineral
food would remain with us the longest, obviating the necessity for eating so
often; but unfortunately we find that the human organism vibrates so rapidly

[PAGE 1556]

that it is incapable of assimilating the inert mineral directly.   Sale  and
the like substances are passed out of the system at once without having been
assimilated  at  all,  the air is full of nitrogen which we need  to  repair
waste,  we breathe it into our system, yet cannot assimilate it or any other
mineral  till it has first been transmuted in nature's laboratory and  built
into the plants.

   As  we saw in Lecture No.  3,  the plants have a dense and a vital  body,
which enables them to do this work; their consciousness we also saw,  was as
a deep,  dreamless sleep.  Thus it is easy for the Ego to overpower the veg-
etable  cells and keep them in subjection for a long time;  hence the  great
sustaining power of the vegetables.

   In animal food the cells have already become more individualized,  and as
the animal has a desire body giving it a passional nature,  it is easily un-
derstood  that when we eat meat it is harder to overcome these  cells  which
have  animal consciousness resembling the dream state,  and also  that  such
particles  will not stay long in subjection;  hence,  a meat  diet  requires
larger quantities and more frequent meals than the vegetable or fruit diet.

   If  we  should  go  one step farther and eat  the  flesh  of  carnivorous
animals,  we should find ourselves hungry all the time,  for there the cells
have become exceedingly individualized and will therefore seek their freedom
and gain it so much the quicker.  That this is so is well illustrated in the
case of the wolf,  the vulture,  and the cannibal which have become proverbs
for hunger; and as the human liver is too small to take care of even the or-
dinary meat diet, it is evident that if the cannibal lived solely upon human
flesh instead of using it as an occasional "tidbit"  he would soon  succumb,
for  while too much of the carbohydrates,  sugars,  starches,  and  fats  do
little  if any harm to the system, being exhaled through the lungs  as  car-
bonic  acid gas or passing as water by way of the kidneys and the  skin,  an
excess of meat is also burned up,  but leaves poisonous uric acid and it  is
being more and more recognized  that the less meat we eat the better for our

[PAGE 1557]

physical well-being.

   Looking at the matter of flesh-eating from the ethical side also it is is
against the higher conceptions to kill to eat.   In olden times man went out
to the chase as any beast of prey, rough and callous;  now he does his hunt-
ing  in  the  butcher  shop,  where none of the  nauseating  sights  of  the
slaughter-house will sicken him.   If each had to go into that bloody  place
where  all the horrors described in Upton Sinclair's books are  enacted  day
after  day  to be able to satisfy an abnormal injurious habit  which  causes
more  sickness and suffering than even the liquor craving;  if each  had  to
wield the bloody knife and plunge it into the quivering flesh of his victim,
how  much meat would we eat?   Very little.   In order to escape doing  this
nauseating work ourselves on occasion,  we force a fellow being to stand  in
that bloody pen day after day killing thousands of animals every day of  the
week;  we brutalize him to such an extent that the law will not allow him to
sit on a jury in a capital case because he has ceased to have any regard for
life.   When he gets into a fight as is often the case in the stockyard dis-
trict of Chicago,  and other slaughter cities,  he always uses the knife and
always unconsciously uses the peculiar twisting cut which makes his stab fa-
tal.

   It is no use to say he need not do it.   When hunger drives,  a man  will
refuse no means of livelihood; and we, society, who demand this food,  force
some  fellow  being  to  supply it and are  therefore  responsible  for  his
degradation.  We are our brother's keeper both individually and collectively
as society.

   The animals which we kill also cry aloud against this murder;  there is a
cloud of gloom and hatred over the great slaughter-cities.  The law protects

[PAGE 1558]

cats and dogs against cruelty.   We all rejoice to see the little  squirrels
in the city parks come and take food from our hands but as soon as there  is
money  in the flesh or fur of an animal,  man eases to have regard  for  its
right to live,  and becomes its most dangerous foe,  feeding and breeding it
for gain,  imposing suffering and hardships upon a fellow being for the sake
of gold.   We have a heavy debt to pay to the lower creatures whose  mentors
we should be;   whose murderers we are, and the good law which works ever to
correct  abuses  will  also in time relegate the habit  of  eating  murdered
animals to the scrapheap of obsolete practices as cannibalism is now.

   We are not advocating a vegetarian diet for everyone.   Long practice  of
flesh eating and particularly the temperamental peculiarities of many people
make it unsuitable for them to do without meat, yet others, like the writer,
find  it  no trouble to live and grow fat on two meals of  meatless  dishes.
Eggs,  fish,  and  other low forms are necessary to some,  others  can  live
months or years on fruit.  Diet, like health, is determined individually and
no general standard can be set up.   At the same time it may be safely  said
that the less meat we can along with, the better our general health will be.
But if we want to do without it altogether,  it is absolutely essential that
we should study a table of food values so that we get the necessary proteins
from  the vegetables we eat.   No man can go to the ordinary table  and  get
sufficient  nourishment if he eats only the vegetables provided as  accesso-
ries to the meat;  he must have beans, peas, nuts,  and the like foods which
are  rich  in protein to take the place of the discarded flesh  or  he  will
starve.  As  a  hint  to  brain  workers it may be said that carrots contain

[PAGE 1559]

about four times as much phosphoric acid as any other food.   The leaves can
be  used as salad and they have three times as much phosphoric acid  as  the
carrot itself.

   More dangerous to man than any food as a clogging and hardening agent  of
the system is WATER.  It does not matter how clear and pure it looks,  there
is  an  enormous amount of the lime compounds and magnesia in  the  best  we
have,  and neither filtration nor boiling will take it out.   The amount  of
mineral  in  the water is easily determined by the way our  teakettle  "furs
up," and it is a mistake to think that the deposit comes from the water that
we  pour out of the kettle to make tea or coffee with,  for it is the  solid
remains of the water that has evaporated as steam,  the water left is harder
if anything.  The only thing that enables us to live beyond childhood is the
enormous eliminative power of the kidneys; were it not for them we should be
old  in infancy,  and if we want to preserve health and youth in old age  we
must cease drinking and cooking with this death-dealing fluid, using for all
internal purposes only distilled water which is absolutely free from the in-
jurious lime-compounds.

   The  only  solvents of a permanent beneficient nature which  the  writers
knows are buttermilk and the juice of grapes,  obtained preferably by eating
the  grape or the juice taken unfermented.   A systemic course of  treatment
with  grape  juice  or buttermilk will open up the  closed  capillaries  and
stimulate the blood,  so that even aged persons whose flesh has dried up and
shrunk will again fill out and take on the look of youth,  provided they are
not  of a too worrying pessimistic nature,  for nothing will  avail  against
such a temperament.  That, and  fear  and ignorance in the selection of food

[PAGE 1560]

are  in fact the most productive causes of sickness and the  most  obstinate
foes of the physician.

   There  are two great aids to health which enable us to get so  much  more
benefit from our food that all who desire to get health or to keep it, ought
to  employ them.   Their names are "thorough mastication"  and  "enjoyment."
They will do more for the welfare of the body than all the drugs or  doctors
in the world, and like all other habits, they can be cultivated.

   The "Quick Lunch Counter"  is one of the greatest sins of our nation.   A
man runs post haste from his office to the high uncomfortable chair found in
these places.   In five minutes he swallows as many courses,  rushes back to
his office, and then wonders why he feels uncomfortable and drowsy.  Perhaps
he feels forced to employ alcoholic stimulants in order to "brace up."

   All that can be avoided by taking time to eat in comfort.

   The question is not how much we eat, but HOW MUCH WE ASSIMILATE.  When we
swallow  a large quantity of food nearly whole we get less nourishment  than
if we take the time necessary to masticate and enjoy our food.   Not that we
should  make it a labored process,  but that we should regard eating as  the
welcoming of a friend into our house,  where we are gladly doing all in  our
power to make him comfortable.   Our bodies are in fact comparable to  large
hotels  where  we are the hosts and the cells in our food  are  the  guests.
They come and go,  staying a longer or a shorter time and are a profit or  a
loss  to the proprietor according to whether he makes them feel at  home  or
not.

   Imagine two hotels,  one run on the basis of cordiality and  helpfulness,
where  the  proprietor  meets each guest at the door with a cordial shake of

[PAGE 1561]

the  hand and where an ideal,  contented set of servants are anxious to  an-
ticipate the slightest wish of the guests.   Of course things will go  swim-
mingly in that hotel;  the guests will feel satisfied and stay long  because
they will be loath to leave so kind a host.  Similarly,  if we meet our food
with "the glad hand," we shall find that it will fit in easily.   If we mas-
ticate it in thorough enjoyment, we are making arrangements for its comfort,
as the hotel proprietor does for his guest by having a bath and other neces-
saries  in readiness.   Enjoying the food, our mental attitude is even  more
important than mastication.  The man who finds fault with his food is like a
hotel proprietor who would meet his guests at the door with a scowling  face
and ask:  "What do you want here?  I don't like you; I have to take in guest
such as you in order to keep my hotel running, but I want you to know that I
don't like it."

   What wonder if travelers who were forced to enter such a hotel should get
angry,  cause trouble, and try too get away as soon as possible; what wonder
that the man who sniffs and snorts at his food gets indigestion.   Whose the
fault for his condition but his own?   Faultfinding and hate drive the  good
of our food away from us just as much as they estrange us from friends;  en-
joyment  of  food and friend will knit the ties with both  closer.   As  the
amount of work we may do in the world, both spiritual and material,  depends
upon the condition of our bodies,  it is of the greatest importance that  we
cultivate health and prolong youth to the limit of our allotted stay here if
it  is possible.   By following the general directions here given,  it  will
soon be perceived that there is an improvement in the bodily condition which
will give fuller and freer scope to the mental faculties.

[PAGE 1562]

                                LECTURE NINE:

                  THE ASTRONOMICAL ALLEGORIES OF THE BIBLE

   In the previous lectures we have been considering man as a unit,  showing
how man,  a Spirit, has several bodies, or vehicles of consciousness besides
the  dense body,  and how he uses these bodies in gathering experience as  a
workman uses tools;  how experience is garnered in each life and assimilated
between death and the next birth, so that in each new Earth-life, we have as
faculty  the sum of all our experience in our former lives;  and how we  are
thus  progressing towards the glorious goal of perfection,  which  all  will
eventually attain before we cease returning to this Earth, were each life in
a  dense body is as a day at school to a child.   When we have  learned  all
that  is to be learned here,  there are other and higher evolutions that  we
may enter,  just as a child enters the grammar school after passing  through
kindergarten.   Endless progress is before the Ego, limitations are unthink-
able,  for the human Spirit is a spark from the Infinite, enfolding all pos-
sibilities.

   Man is not only a unit, a separate entity, however; at least,  he is that
only in a relative sense, for he is a member of a family, a community, a na-
tion, one of the inhabitants of the Earth, and through that related to other

[PAGE 1563]

worlds  with  their inhabitants,  for they are all inhabited,  as  some  as-
tronomers, arguing from analogy, have asserted.  Occult science also teaches
that  they are inhabited,  and this teaching is founded on firsthand  knowl-
edge, gained and verified by means of faculties possessed by some, though as
yet latent in the many.

   This  view of the Universe and our little Earth,  though strange to  most
people,  should not be nearly as hard to believe as the  seven-day  Creation
Story,  when  taken literally,  for if God created the Earth in  that  brief
space of time,  He must also have mixed in the fossil remains;  twisted  the
strata, made the glacier-marks and the mark of erosion by water--all for His
own glory,  and to the eternal mystification of man.   It is certainly  more
logical  to  hold  that the different heavenly bodies  are  inhabitants  for
evolving life and form,  than that they are merely lamps hung up in the fir-
mament to light our little mite of Earth

   This relation of the Sun,  Moon, and planets is shown in every one of the
different world religions,  the Christian religion included,  and the  olden
temples  are  monuments  to the faith now nearly forgotten  in  the  Western
World; yet as relevant today as in the days of old.

   The great Pyramid of Gizeh, which stands upon the edge of the vast desert
of Sahara, at the head of the Delta of the Nile, is one of the oldest struc-
tures on the Earth and one of the witnesses to the knowledge of the ancients
concerning  the  true  cosmic  relationship  for  they  built  these  cosmic
measurements into that monumental pile.

   Many  theories  have been advanced regarding the age and object  of  this
Pyramid.   Astronomers  have pointed out that in the year 2170  B.C.,  Alpha
Draconis, the pole-star then, pointed directly down the slanted entrance-way

[PAGE 1564]

on  the north side of the Pyramid.   Professor Proctor asserts that  it  was
also in the required position 3350 B.C.;  but Egyptologists say that this is
far  too late;  and as the latter figure takes into consideration the  rela-
tionship then existing between Alpha Draconis and Alcyone,  which can  occur
only once in a sidereal year (25,868 solar years), and as the Dendera Zodiac
shows  that the ancient Egyptians had records of three sidereal  years,  the
age of the pyramid may be 78,000 years or older.   This age has at least  as
much claim to scientific belief as Professor Proctor's date.

   The  occult investigations which are based upon the imperishable  records
found in the Memory of Nature fix the date of construction at about  250,000
B.C.  when it was used as a temple of initiation into the Mysteries, and was
the shrine in which a great talisman was kept.

   H.P. Blavatsky in "The Secret Doctrine" tells us that the construction of
the pyramids was based on the program of the Mysteries and of the series  of
Initiations...hence  the  Pyramids are the everlasting record  on  Earth  of
these Initiations "as the course of the stars are in heaven."   The cycle of
Initiation  was a reproduction in miniature of that great series  of  cosmic
changes to which astronomers have given the name of...sidereal year  (25,868
ordinary years).

   "Just as, at the close of the cycle of the sidereal year (measured by the
precession  of the equinoxes round the circle of the zodiac),  the  heavenly
bodies return to the same relative positions...so, at the close of the cycle
of Initiation,  the inner man has regained the pristine state of divine  pu-
rity and knowledge" from which he departed to perform the pilgrimage through

[PAGE 1565]

matter, but RICHER BY THE EXPERIENCES HE HAS GONE THROUGH.

   Being a symbol,  it must of course embody all,  or at least a part of the
most prominent features of the things symbolized; and thanks to the able, if
somewhat  narrow-minded works of Professors Piazzi Smith and  Proctor,  both
astronomers of repute,  but ranged on opposite sides in regard to the  ques-
tion  concerning the use of the Pyramid--we have an overwhelming  amount  of
proof  of  the relation of the measurements of the different  parts  of  the
Pyramid to terrestrial and cosmic cycles and distances.

   Professor Proctor's testimony is the most valuable,  because he is a dis-
senter  from  the theory that the Pyramid was constructed by  divine  archi-
tects; and would do, and does do anything he can, in honor, to refute such a
theory,  attributing the numerous measurements which he works out, and their
relation  to cosmic measures to "mere coincidence";  a method  which  caused
Mme.  Blavatsky  to  vent  her  rare sarcasm  upon  him,  as  "the  champion
coincidentalist."   He admits that "all the theories concerning  its  origin
leave unexplained the most striking features of the Great Pyramid,  save the
one   wild   (?)  theory  which  attributes  its  construction   to   divine
architects"...also  that "the theory that it was used for astrological  pur-
poses is supported by all known evidence, and strong though that support is,
it  derives  greater  strength  from the failure  of  all  other  admissible
theories  to sustain the weight against them."   In another place he  admits
that  the only difficulty with the astrological theory arises from "our  in-
ability  to understand how men ever had such fullness of faith in  astrology
as  to  devote many years of labor and enormous sums of money to the pursuit

[PAGE 1566]

of astrological researches, even for their own interests."

   Proclus  tells  us that according to tradition the pyramid ended  at  one
time  in a platform,  with the head of the grand gallery  projecting  upward
from  the center,  and Professor Proctor grows enthusiastic over the  possi-
bilities  of the Pyramid as an observatory when in that architecturally  un-
finished,  but  astronomically perfect state, closing his eulogy  by  saying
that  "given modern instruments"  it might have remained the most  important
astronomical  observatory  in the world.   He shows how the opening  of  the
grand gallery points to the zodiac,  so that as the Sun,  Moon,  and planets
pass around their course in the heavens, they would throw a shadow into  the
grand  gallery  at a different angle for each day of the year or  month  and
that thus their positions could be measured in a most efficient manner.

    The most important measurements embodied in the pyramid are:

   Each side measures 913.15 inches at the base; thus the sum of the 4 sides
is 36,526 inches.   Allowing 100 inches for each day in the year,  gives  us
365 1/4 days,  or exactly the number of days in a  year, even to the quarter
day which we save up for four years and use in the leap year.

   The length of one of the diagonals of the base is 12,934 inches,  so  the
sum of them both is 25,868 inches or 1 inch for every year in the great  si-
dereal or world-year.

   As  the base of the Pyramid measures the time it takes the Earth  to  re-
volve around the Sun in its yearly course, it would be a fair inference that
the  height  of  the Pyramid ought to measure the distance of the Earth from

[PAGE 1567]

the Sun and it does.

   The height of the pyramid is 5,819 inches.  That multiplied by a thousand
million  inches equals 91,840,000 miles, which Professor Proctor  admits  is
more likely the true distance of the Earth from the Sun, than any calculated
by the astronomers.  Therefore, "wild theory" or not, the evidence is all in
favor of the supposition that divine architects built the pyramid,  and that
ought to convince us of this theory.

   At  a later period in its history,  occult information tells us that  the
Pyramid was the temple of the mysteries which have now degenerated into "Ma-
sonry."   In one of the rites called "the gate of death,"  the candidate was
tied  to  a  wooden cross and carried into a subterranean  crypt,  where  he
remained entranced for three and one-half days.  During that time, while his
dense  body  lay inert,  the Ego,  clothed in its finer vehicles,  was  con-
sciously  roaming the Desire World in the hierophant's charge.   He was  put
through the "trials by fire, Earth, air, and water."  That is,  he was shown
that  when functioning in such a body none of the elements could  harm  him;
that he could then pass through a mountain as easily as through air; that he
could  live in a roaring furnace or on the bottom of the Great Deep in  per-
fect ease and comfort.   At first the neophyte is usually afraid of the  el-
ements, therefore the initiator is present to help and give assurance to the
neophyte.

   At  sunrise  on the fourth day,  he was carried to the  platform  of  the
Pyramid,  where the rays of the rising Sun woke him from his  sleep  (during
which he had been visiting Purgatory).

[PAGE 1568]

   When awakened, he was given "the Word," and was called "first-born."

   This rite lingers yet as the third degree in Masonry;  the death and res-
urrection  of  Hiram  Abiff,  the "Widow's  son,"  the  Grand  Architect  of
Solomon's temple and hero of the Masonic legend.  Dragon, the eminent French
Masonic authority, says that the legend of Hiram is an astronomical allegory
representing the Sun from the summer solstice downward.   "During the summer
the Sun calls forth songs of gratitude from all that breathes,  hence  Hiram
who represents it, can give the Word, that is to say LIFE to all.   Then the
Sun enters the southern signs at the fall equinox, nature becomes mute,  and
Hiram,  the Sun, can no longer give the sacred Word; he meets the three mur-
derers:   the zodiacal signs Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius,  which the Sun
goes through in October, November, and December.  The first strikes him with
a 24-inch rule emblematic of the 24 hours the Earth takes to revolve on  its
axis.  The second strikes him with an iron square, symbolizing the four sea-
sons, and at last the mortal blow is given by the third murderer with a mal-
let, which, being round, signifies that the Sun has completed its circle and
dies to give room for the Sun of another year."

   The  initiates of the temples in Egypt were called "phree  messen"  which
means "children of light"  because they had received the light of knowledge,
and it is this which has been changed into "Free Mason."

   In the religion of Judaism we hear of a God making certain promises to  a
man by the name of Abraham.   He promised that he would make Abraham's  seed
as  numerous as the sands upon the seashore;  and we are told how  he  dealt
with Abraham's  grandson,  Jacob, who was the husband of four wives, by whom

[PAGE 1569]

he  had 12 sons and one daughter.  These are looked upon as the  forefathers
of the Jewish nation.

   This  also is an astronomical allegory dealing with the migration of  the
heavenly bodies, as will be evident from a careful perusal of the 49th chap-
ter of Genesis and the 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy,  where the blessings  of
Jacob  upon his sons show how they are identified with the 12 signs  of  the
Zodiac;  Simon  and  Levi sharing the sign of Gemini,  the  twins,  and  the
feminine  sign  Virgo being allotted to Jacob's only daughter,  Dinah.   The
four wives are the four phases of the Moon and Jacob is the Sun.

   This is similar to the teaching we find among the Greeks, where Gaia, the
Earth,  is the wife of Apollo, the Sun; and among the Egyptians,  where heat
and  moisture,  the Sun and the moon,  were personified as Osiris and  Isis.
The  sacred rivers Jordan and Ganges are also connected etymologically  with
the river Eridanus, which is one of the constellations.  It means "source of
descent,"  and for agriculturists such as were these ancient  people,  these
rivers  were the source of the waters of life.   Josephus tells us that  the
Jews carried the 12 signs of the Zodiac on their banners,  and camped around
the  tabernacle which held the seven-branched candlestick  representing  the
Sun  and the heavenly bodies which move inside the circle formed by  the  12
signs of the Zodiac.

   The  Jews  located their temples so that the four corners  pointed  N.E.,
S.E.,  S.W., and N.W., and the sides directly North, East, South,  and West,
and  like all solar temples the main entrance was in the East,  so that  the
rising  Sun  might illumine its portal and herald each day  the  victory  of
light over the powers of darkness; this to bring to the nascent humanity the

[PAGE 1570]

the message that the contest of light and darkness on the material plane  is
but  the  counterpart of a similar contest in the moral  and  mental  worlds
where the human soul is groping its way towards the light, for the battle of
light  and darkness in the material world,  like all other phenomena,  is  a
suggestion of the realities in the invisible realms,  and these truths  were
given to man as myths by divine leaders who led him until his growing intel-
lect  gave birth to arrogance which caused his benefactors to withdraw,  and
let him learn by the hard knocks of experience.  Then he forgot them and has
come to regard the ancient stories of gods and demi-gods as imaginary.  Yet,
even  the early Christian church was imbued with this knowledge of the  sig-
nificance of the solar myth, for the Cathedral of St. Peter at Rome is built
facing East,  like all other solar temples,  telling humanity of the  "Great
Light of the World"  who is to come and dispel the spiritual darkness  which
as  yet envelops us;  the Light-bringer who shall bring peace on  Earth  and
good  will  among  men,  causing  the nations  to  beat  their  swords  into
plough-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks.

   The  Jews greeted the Sun with the morning-sacrifice;  and took leave  of
him  at sunset in a similar manner by an evening oblation,  offering  up  on
their  sabbath  and additional sacrifice to the lunar  "Race-god,"  Jehovah.
Him they also worshiped by sacrifice at the New Moon.

   One great feast was Easter,  when they celebrated the Passover;  the time
when the Sun "passes over"  his "easter(n) node;  leaving the southern hemi-
sphere where he winters and  commencing  his northern journey in his chariot

[PAGE 1571]

of fire,  hailed with joy by men as their savior from hunger and cold  which
would inevitably result if he stayed in south declination always.

   The last of the Jewish feasts and the most important is the feast of  the
Tabernacles, when the Sun crosses its western node in autumn, having yielded
to man the "bread of life" wherewith to sustain his material being until the
next return of the Sun to the northern heavens.

    For  the above reasons the six southern signs which the Sun occupies  in
winter  are always called "Egypt,"  the "land of the  Philistines,"  etc.--a
name  for  something that is bad for "God's people";  whereas  the  northern
signs in which the Sun is in the fruitful season are "heaven," "the promised
land," which "flows with milk and honey."

   We  see  this in such passages as the one where the  celebration  of  the
Passover is enjoined "to remember the coming out of Egypt."  This feast is a
rejoicing over the emergence of the Sun from the southern signs,  also  from
the recorded fact that Jacob was with Joseph in Egypt when he died.   At the
winter solstice when the Sun of the past year has completed its journey  and
reached  its lowest degree of south declination it is in the  zodiacal  sign
Sagittarius.   By reference to Genesis 49:24 where the dying Jacob speaks of
the "bow"  of Joseph,  it is easy to identify him with the sign  Sagittarius
which represents a centaur in the act of drawing his bow, and thus the story
of  Jacob dying in Egypt with Joseph, is re-enacted each year when  the  Sun
dies in the sign Sagittarius at the winter solstice.

   The  story  of  Samson is another phase of the solar myth.   As  long  as
Samson's  hair was allowed to grow, his strength would increase;  Samson  is
the Sun, and its rays represent Samson's  hair.  From the winter solstice in

[PAGE 1572]

December to the summer solstice in June the Sun's rays grow, and he gains in
strength with every day.  This frightens the "powers of darkness,"  the win-
ter months,  the Philistines,  for if this Light-bringer continues to  reign
their kingdom will come to an end;  and they counsel together against Samson
to  discover wherein his strength lies.  They secure the cooperation of  the
woman DELILAH,  which is the sign Virgo,  and when Samson,  the Sun,  passes
through  that  sign  in September he is said to have laid his  head  in  the
woman's lap,  and to have confided his secret to her.  She shears him of his
locks,  for at that time the rays of the Sun grow shorter,  and  lose  their
strength.   Then  the Philistines or winter months come and  carry  the  de-
bilitated  giant into their prison:  the southern signs where the Sun is  in
winter.  They put out his eyes or deprive him of his light and at last bring
him to their temple,  their stronghold, at the winter solstice;  there  they
subject  him  to infamous indignities, believing they  have  vanquished  the
light  completely,  but with his last remaining strength the fettered  solar
giant shatters their temple and although he dies in the effort, he overcomes
his  enemies and thus leaves the way clear for another Sun-child to be  born
to  save humanity from the cold and famine which would result if he had  re-
mained  bound in the toils of the powers of darkness,  the Philistines,  the
winter months.

   The lives of all the saviors of mankind are also founded upon the passage
of  the Sun around the circle of the zodiac,  which pictures the trials  and
triumphs of the initiate,  and the fact has given rise to the erroneous con-
clusion  that  these  saviors never existed,  that the  stories  are  merely
Sun-myths.  This is wrong.  All divine teachers sent to man are cosmic char-
acters, and the ordering of their lives is in accord with the marching orbs,

[PAGE 1573]

which contain,  as it were,  an anticipated biography of their lives.   Each
came with divine spiritual light and knowledge to help man to find God,  and
therefore the events in their lives were in accord with the events which the
physical  light-bearer,  the Sun,  encounters on his pilgrimage through  the
year.

   The Saviors are all born of an immaculate Virgin,  at the time when dark-
ness  is greatest among mankind,  as the Sun of the coming year is born,  or
begins his journey, on the longest night of the year, when the zodiacal sign
Virgo, the Virgin, stands on the eastern horizon in all latitudes between 10
and 12 P.M.  She remains as immaculate as ever, after she has given birth to
her Sun-child;  hence we see the Egyptian goddess isis sitting on the  cres-
cent  moonnursing her divine Babe Horus;  Astarte,  the immaculate  lady  of
Babylon, with her babe Tammuz and a crown of seven stars over her head;  the
lady Devaki in India with her infant Krishna, and our own Virgin Mary giving
birth to the Saviour of the Western World under the star of Bethlehem.   Ev-
erywhere  the same story:   the immaculate Mother--the divine Babe--and  the
Sun, Moon, or stars.

   As the material Sun is weak and has to flee from the powers of  darkness,
so  all thee divine light-bringers are searched for and forced to flee  from
the powers of the world; and like the Sun,  they always escape.   Jesus fled
before  King herod.   King Kansa and King Maya re his counterparts in  other
religions.   The baptism occurs at the time when the Sun passes through  the
sign Aquarius, the Waterman, and when he goes through the sign of the Fishes
in  March we have the fast of the Initiate,  for Pisces is the last  of  the
southern signs, and all the stores laid by  from  the bounteous gifts of the

[PAGE 1574]

Sun of the previous year and nearly exhausted, and man's food is scant.  The
fish-food  of Lent which occurs at this time is a further  corroboration  of
this solar origin of the fast.

   At the vernal equinox the sun "CROSSES the equator"  and at that time the
"CROSSification"  or crucifixion occurs,  for then the Sun-god commences  to
give his life as food for his worshipers,  ripening the corn and the  grape,
which is made into the "bread and wine."  To do that he must leave the equa-
tor  and  soar  heavenward.   Similarly it would  benefit  humanity  nothing
spiritually if their saviors stayed with them,  therefore they soar  heaven-
wards as "sons (or suns) of righteousness," ministering to the faithful from
above, as the Sun does for man when high in the heavens.

   The Sun attains its highest point of north declination at the summer sol-
stice; he then sits upon "the throne of his father," the Sun of the previous
year;  but he cannot remain there more than three days,  then he is  carried
downwards towards his western node.   Likewise the Saviors of mankind ascend
to the throne of the Father, to be re-born from time to time for the good of
mankind,  which  truth  is embodied in the sentence of  the  nicaean  creed:
"thence he shall return."

   The movement known as the "precession of the equinoxes,"  whereby the Sun
crosses the equator on the 21st of March at a different point each year, de-
termines  the symbol of the Savior.   At the time of the birth of Jesus  the
Sun  crossed  in about the 5th degree of the sign Aries,  the  Ram.   Conse-
quently Christ was "the lamb of God."  There was a dispute,  however.   Some
thought that owing to what is called the orb of influence,  power of the Sun
was  really  in  the  sign Pisces, the fishes, and that the symbol of Christ

[PAGE 1575]

should have been a fish.  As a relic of that dispute we see that to this day
the  Bishop's mitre is in the form of the head of a fish.   At the  time  of
Mithras, the persian Savior, the Sun crossed in the sign of the Bull,  hence
we find Mithras riding on a bull,  and this was also the foundation for  the
worship  of  the Bull Apis in Egypt.  At present the vernal  equinox  is  in
about 10 degrees of Pisces, the fishes, so that if a savior were born now he
would be a "Fish-man"  like Oannes of Nineveh,  corrupted into Jonah and the
whale by the Bible.

   The four letters said to have been on the cross of Christ and the  method
of fixing Easter in commemoration of the event,  also go to show the  cosmic
character of the occurrence; these letters, I.N.R.I.,  are commonly supposed
to have meant Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum,  but they are also the  initial
letters of the Hebrew names of the four elements:  Iam (water), Nour (fire),
Ruach (air or spirit), Iabeshah (Earth).  It would be foolish to fix the an-
niversary  of the death of an individual as Easter is fixed by the  Sun  and
Moon, but it is the proper thing in respect of a solar festival and a cosmic
character,  related to the sun as spiritual light-bringer to physical  lumi-
nary.

   When the Sun leaves his throne at the summer solstice, June 21, he passes
into the sign leo,  the Lion of Judah.   Then we have the Catholic feast  of
the "Assumption"  on August 15, in Leo.  Thence, onward to his western node,
he enters the sign of the Virgin about August 22.   Thus the Virgin is  born
from the Sun as it were.

   This brings to mind the astronomical solution to that passage in  Revela-
tion,  "I  saw  a  woman  clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet."

[PAGE 1576]

That phenomenon happens every September just after the new Moon;  for viewed
from our Earth, the Sun covers or clothes the sign Virgo all through Septem-
ber,  and as the Moon is leaving the conjunction of the Sun, that appears to
be beneath the Virgin's feet.   When John the Baptist is represented as say-
ing concerning Christ that "he must increase,  but I must decrease,"  he  is
symbolizing  the Sun at the summer solstice when it must decrease  in  light
for the coming half year, while Christ by his birthday at Christmas is iden-
tified with the new-born Sun which increases the length of the day until the
middle of summer.

   Thus we see that the contest of Light and Darkness in the physical  world
is  closely connected in the scriptures of the different religions with  the
contest of the powers of spiritual light and life against those of  darkness
and  ignorance;  that this truth is universally spread among all peoples  in
all ages.  The myths of the dragon-slayers embody the same truth,  where the
Greeks tell of the victory of Apollo over Python,  and of hercules over  the
dragon of the Hesperides, the norseman tells of the contest of Beowulf slay-
ing  the  fire-drake,  of Siegfried slaying the dragon Fafner,  and  of  St.
George  and the dragon.   In our materialistic age these truths  are  tempo-
rarily relegated to oblivion or regarded as fairy stories without any  basis
in  truth;  but the time will come and is not far distant when these  relics
will again be restored to honor as embodiments of great spiritual truths.

Continued with file "RC1043.TXT"

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