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Core Concepts

Here you will find an introduction to the underlying concepts of Esoteric Christianity.

Introductory Level:

The Rosicrucian Mysteries; Order of Rosicrucians »

The Problem of Life and Its Solution »

Three Theories of Life »

"Only three noteworthy theories have been offered as solutions to the riddle of existence and in order that we may be able to make the important choice between them, we will state briefly what they are and give some of the arguments which lead us to advocate the Doctrine of Rebirth as the method which favors soul-growth and the ultimate attainment of perfection, thus offering the best solution to the problem of life." ...more »

We Are Eternal (Poem) »

"On whistling storm cloud; on Zephyrus wing, The Spirit-choir loud the world-anthems sing;
Hark! List to their voice: "We have passed through death's door,
There's no Death; rejoice! life lives evermore."
We are, have always been, will ever be.
We are a portion of Eternity,
Older than Creation, a part of One Great Whole,
Is each Individual and immortal Soul.
On Time's whirring loom our garments we've wrought,
Eternally weave we on network of Thought,
Our kin and our country, by Mind brought to birth,
Were patterned in heaven before molded on earth.
We have shone in the jewel and danced on the wave,
We have sparkled in fire, defying the grave;
Through shapes everchanging, in size, kind and name
Our individual essence still is the same.
And when we have reached to the highest of all,
The gradations of growth our minds shall recall,
So that link by link we may join them together
And trace step by step the way we reached thither.
Thus in time we shall know, if only we do
What lifts, ennobles, is right and true.
With kindness to all, with malice to none,
That in and through us God's will may be done." ...more »

The Visible and The Invisible Worlds »

"If one who is capable of consciously using his spiritual body with the same facility that we now use our physical vehicles should glide away from the Earth into interplanetary space, the Earth and the various other planets of our solar system would appear to him or her to be composed of three kinds of matter, roughly speaking. The densest matter, which is our visible Earth, would appear to him as being the center of the ball as the yolk is in the center of an egg. Around that nucleus he or she would observe a finer grade of matter similarly disposed in relation to the central mass, as the white of the egg is disposed outside the yolk. Upon a little closer investigation he would also discover that this second kind of substance permeates the solid Earth to the very center, even as the blood percolates through the more solid parts of our flesh. Outside both of these mingling layers of matter he would observe a still finer, third layer corresponding to the shell of the egg, except that this third layer is the finest, most subtle of the three grades of matter, and that it interpenetrates both of the two inner layers.

As already said, the central mass, spiritually seen, is our visible world, composed of solids, liquids, and gases. They constitute the Earth, its atmosphere, and also the ether, of which physical science speaks hypothetically as permeating the atomic substance of all chemical elements. The second layer of matter is called the Desire World and the outermost layer is called the World of Thought.

A little reflection upon the subject will make clear that just such a constitution is necessary to account for facts of life as we see them. All forms in the world about us are built from chemical substances: solids, liquids, and gases, but insofar that they do move, these forms obey a separate and distinct impulse, and when this impelling energy leaves, the form becomes inert. The steam engine rotates under the impetus of an invisible gas called steam. Before steam filled its cylinder, the engine stood still, and when the impelling force is shut off its motion again ceases. The dynamo rotates under the still more subtle influence of an electric current which may also cause the click of a telegraph instrument or the ring of an electric bell, but the dynamo ceases its swift whirl and the persistent ring of the electric bell becomes mute when the invisible electricity is switched off. The forms of the bird, the animal, and the human being also cease their motion when the inner force which we call life has winged its invisible way.

All forms are impelled into motion by desire: the bird and the animal roam land and air in their desire to secure food and shelter, or for the purpose of breeding. Man is also moved by these desires, but has in addition other and higher incentives to spur him to effort; among them is desire for rapidity of motion which led him to construct the steam engine and other devices that move in obedience to his desire." ...more »

The Chemical Region »

"All forms in the world about us are built from chemical substances: solids, liquids, and gases, but insofar that they do move, these forms obey a separate and distinct impulse, and when this impelling energy leaves, the form becomes inert. The steam engine rotates under the impetus of an invisible gas called steam. Before steam filled its cylinder, the engine stood still, and when the impelling force is shut off its motion again ceases. The dynamo rotates under the still more subtle influence of an electric current which may also cause the click of a telegraph instrument or the ring of an electric bell, but the dynamo ceases its swift whirl and the persistent ring of the electric bell becomes mute when the invisible electricity is switched off. The forms of the bird, the animal, and the human being also cease their motion when the inner force which we call life has winged its invisible way."

All forms are impelled into motion by desire: the bird and the animal roam land and air in their desire to secure food and shelter, or for the purpose of breeding. Man is also moved by these desires, but has in addition other and higher incentives to spur him to effort; among them is desire for rapidity of motion which led him to construct the steam engine and other devices that move in obedience to his desire.

If there were no iron in the mountains man could not build machines. If there were no clay in the soil, the bony structure of the skeleton would be an impossibility, and if there were no Physical World at all, with its solids, liquids, and gases, this dense body of ours could never have come into existence. Reasoning along similar lines it must be at once apparent that if there were no Desire World composed of desire-stuff, we should have no way of forming feelings, emotions, and desires. A planet composed of the materials we perceive with our physical eyes and of no other substances, might be the home of plants which grow unconsciously, but have no desires to cause them to move. The human and animal kingdoms, however, would be impossibilities." ...more »

The Etheric Region »

"In addition to the solids, liquids, and gases which compose the Chemical Region of the Physical World there is also a finer grade of matter called ether, which permeates the atomic structure of the earth and its atmosphere substantially as science teaches. Scientists have never seen, nor have they weighed, measured, or analyzed this substance, but they infer that it must exist in order to account for transmission of light and various other phenomena. If it were possible for us to live in a room from which the air had been exhausted, we might speak at the top of our voices, we might ring the largest bell, or we might even discharge a cannon close to our ear and we should hear no sound, for air is the medium which transmits sound vibrations to the tympanum of our ear, and that would be lacking. But if an electric light were lighted, we should at once perceive its rays; it would illumine the room despite the lack of air. Hence there must be a substance capable of being set into vibration, between the electric light and our eyes. That medium scientists call ether, but it so subtle that no instrument has been devised whereby it may be measured or analyzed, and therefore the scientists are without much information concerning it, though forced to postulate its existence.

We do not seek to belittle the achievements of modern scientists. We have the greatest admiration for them and we entertain high expectations of what ambitions they may yet realize, but we perceive a limitation in the fact that all discoveries of the past have been made by the invention of wonderful instruments applied in a most ingenious manner to solve seemingly insoluble and baffling problems. The strength of science lies vested in its instruments, for the scientist may say to anyone: "Go, procure a number of glasses ground in a certain manner, insert them in a tube, direct that tube toward a certain point in the sky where now nothing appears to your naked eye. You will then see a beautiful star called Uranus." If his directions are followed, anyone is quickly and without preparation able to demonstrate for himself the truth of the scientist's assertion. But while the instruments of science are its tower of strength, they also mark the end of its field of investigation, for it is impossible to contact the spirit world with physical instruments; so the research of esotericists begins where the physical scientist finds his limit and is carried on by spiritual means.

These investigations are as thorough and as reliable as researches by material scientists, but not as easily demonstrable to the general public. Spiritual powers lie dormant within every human being, and when awakened, they compensate for both telescope and microscope, they enable their possessor to investigate, instanter, things beyond the veil of matter, but they are only developed by a patient application and continuance in well doing extended over years, and few are they who have faith to start upon the path to attainment or perseverance to go through with the ordeal. Therefore the esotericist's assertions are not generally credited." ...more »

The Desire World »

"In this world matter and force are widely different. The chief characteristic of matter here is inertia: the tendency to remain at rest until acted upon by a force which sets it in motion. In the Desire World, on the contrary, force and matter are almost indistinguishable one from the other. We might almost describe desire-stuff as force-matter, for it is in incessant motion, responsive to the slightest feeling of a vast multitude of beings which populate this wonderful world in nature. We often speak of the "teeming millions" of China and India, even of our vast cities, London, New York, Paris, or Chicago; we consider them overcrowded in the extreme, yet even the densest population of any spot on Earth is sparsely inhabited compared with the crowded conditions of the Desire World. No inconvenience is felt by any of the denizens of that realm, however, for, while in this world two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time, it is different there. A number of people and things may exist in the same place at the same time and be engaged in most diverse activities, regardless of what others are doing, such is the wonderful elasticity of desire-stuff. As an illustration we may mention a case where the writer, while attending a religious service, plainly perceived at the altar certain beings interested in furthering that service and working to achieve that end. At the same time there drifted through the room and the altar, a table at which four persons were engaged in playing cards. They were as oblivious to the existence of the beings engaged in furthering our religious service, as though these did not exist.

The Desire World is the abode of those who have died, for some time subsequent to that event, and we may mention in the above connection that the so-called "dead" very often stay for a long while among their still living friends. Unseen by their relatives they go about the familiar rooms. At first they are often unaware of the condition mentioned: That two persons may be in the same place at the same time, and when they seat themselves in a chair or at the table, a living relative may take the supposedly vacant seat. The man we mistakenly call dead will at first hurry out of his seat to escape being sat upon, but he soon learns that being sat upon does not hurt him in his altered condition, and that he may remain in his chair regardless of the fact that his living relative is also sitting there.

In the lower regions of the Desire World the whole body of each being may be seen, but in the highest regions only the head seems to remain. Raphael, who like many other people in the Middle Ages was gifted with a so-called second sight, pictured that condition for us in his Sistine Madonna, now in the Dresden Art Gallery, where Madonna and the Christ-child are represented as floating in a golden atmosphere and surrounded by a host of genie-heads: conditions which the esoteric investigator knows to be in harmony with actual facts.

Among the entities who are, so to speak, "native" to that realm of nature, none are perhaps better known to the Christian world than the Archangels. These exalted Beings were human at a time in the Earth's history when we were yet plant-like. Since then we have advanced two steps; through the animal and to the human stage of development. The present Archangels have also made two steps in progression; one, in which they were similar to what the Angels are now, and another step which made them what we call Archangels." ...more »

The World of Thought »

"When we have attained the spiritual development necessary consciously to enter the World of Thought and leave the Desire World, which is the realm of light and color, we pass through a condition which the esoteric investigator calls The Great Silence. As previously stated, the higher regions of the Desire World exhibit the marked peculiarity of blending form and sound, but when one passes through the Great Silence, all the world seems to disappear and the Spirit has the feeling of floating in an ocean of intense light, utterly alone, yet absolutely fearless, because imbued with a sense of its impregnable security, no longer subject to form or sound, past or future; all is one eternal now.

There seems to be neither pleasure nor pain and yet there is no absence of feeling but it all seems to center in the one idea: "I AM!" The human Ego, stands face to face with itself, as it were, and for the time being all else is shut out. This is the experience of anyone who passes that breach between the Desire World and the World of Thought, whether involuntarily, in the course of an ordinary cyclic pilgrimage of the Spirit, which we shall later elucidate when speaking of the post-mortem existence, or by an act of the will, as in the case of the trained esoteric investigator; all have the same experience in transition.

There are two main divisions in the Physical World: the Chemical Region and the Etheric Region. The World of Thought also has two great subdivisions: The Region of Concrete Thought and the Region of Abstract Thought.

As we specialize the material of the Physical World and shape it into a dense body, and as we form the force-matter of the Desire World into a desire body, so also do we appropriate a certain amount of mind-stuff from the Region of Concrete Thought; but we, as Spirits, clothe ourselves in spirit-substance from the Region of Abstract Thought and thereby we become individual, separate Egos." ...more »

Creed or Christ (Poem) »

Life and Death »

The Panorama of Past Life »

The Second Heaven »

The Third Heaven »

Birth and Childhood »

The Mystery of Light, Color and Consciousness »

Education of Children »

Core Concepts

Advanced Level:

A Word to the Wise »

The Four Kingdoms »

Man and the Method of Evolution »

Rebirth and the Law of Consequence »

The Path of Evolution »

The Work of Evolution »

Stragglers and Newcomers »

The Earth Period »

The Genesis and Evolution of our Solar System »

Evolution on the Earth »

Back to the Bible »

The Mystic Christian Analysis of Genesis »

Christ and His Mission »

Future Development and Initiation »

The Method of Acquiring Firsthand Knowledge »

The Constitution of the Earth; and Volcanic Eruptions »

Christian Rosenkreuz and the Order of Rosicrucians »

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Contemporary Mystic Christianity

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