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flagging faith and cementing their tie to the church, instead of responding with dictum and dogma NOT
SUPPORTED BY REASON, which would open wide the flood-gates to the seething sea of skepticism and
sweep the searcher for light away from the haven of the church into the darkness of materialistic despair.
CHAPTER XIX. ADDRESS AT THE GROUND BREAKING FOR MT. ECCLESIA 42
Teachings of an Initiate
It has already been the blessed privilege of the Rosicrucian Fellowship to rescue many a sincere seeker,
anxious but unable to believe what seemed contrary to reason. Given reasonable explanation of the
underlying harmony between the dogmas and doctrines propounded by the church and the laws of nature,
such ones have been sent back into the church fold rejoicing in the fellowship there, stronger and better
members than before they left.
Any movement that is to endure must possess three divine qualities: WISDOM, BEAUTY, AND
STRENGTH. Science, art and religion each possesses one of these attributes in a measure. It is the purpose of
the Rosicrucian Fellowship to unite and harmonize each with the others by teaching a religion that is both
scientific and artistic, and to gather all churches into one great Christian Brotherhood. Just now the clock of
destiny marks an auspicious moment for the commencement of building activities to erect a visible center
whence the Rosicrucian teachings may radiate their beneficent influence to further the well-being of all who
are physically, mentally, or morally infirm.
Therefore we now lift one shovelful of earth from the corner of the building site with a prayer for WISDOM
to guide this great school along the right lines. We turn up the ground a second time with a supplication to the
Master Artist for the faculty of presenting the BEAUTY of the higher life in such a manner as to render it
attractive to all mankind. We break the ground for the third and last time in connection with these exercises
as we breathe a prayer for STRENGTH patiently and diligently to continue the good work so that it may
endure and become a greater factor for upliftment than any of its predecessors.
Having thus broken ground for the site of the first building, we will now proceed to plant the wonderful
symbol of life and being, the composite emblem of the Western Mystery School. This consists of the cross,
representing matter, and the climbing rose that twines around its stem, representing the verdant evolving life
climbing to greater and greater heights by this crucifixion. Each of us nine members will take part in
excavating for this the first and greatest ornament to Mt. Ecclesia. We will plant it in such a position that the
arms point east and west, while the meridian sun projects it bodily towards the north. Thus it will be directly
in the path of the spiritual currents that vitalize the forms of the four kingdoms of life: mineral, plant, animal,
and man.
Upon the arms and upper limb of this cross you notice three golden letters, "C.R.C.", the initials of our august
Head, Christian Rosenkreuz, or CHRISTIAN ROSE-CROSS. The symbolism of this cross is partly
explained here and there in our literature, but volumes would be required to give a full explanation. Let us
look a little further into the meaning of this wonderful object lesson.
When we lived in the dense WATER-LADEN ATMOSPHERE of early ATLANTIS, we were under entirely
different laws than govern us today. When we shed the body we felt it not, for our consciousness was focused
more in the spiritual world than in the denser conditions of matter. Our life was an unbroken existence; WE
FELT NEITHER BIRTH NOR DEATH.
With our emergence into THE AERIAL CONDITIONS OF ARYANA, the world of today, our
consciousness of the spirit world waned, and form became most prominent. Then a DUAL EXISTENCE
commenced, each phase sharply differentiated from the other by the events of birth and death. One of these
phases is a free spirit life in celestial realms; the other an imprisonment in a terrestrial body, which is
virtually death to the spirit, as symbolized in the Greek myth of Castor and Pollux, the heavenly twins.
It has been elucidated in various places in our literature how the free spirit became enmeshed in matter
through the machinations of the Lucifer spirits, which Christ referred to as false lights. That was in FIERY
LEMURIA. LUCIFER MAY THEREFORE BE CALLED THE GENIUS OF LEMURIA.
The full effect of his misguidance did not become fully apparent until THE NOACHIAN AGE,
CHAPTER XIX. ADDRESS AT THE GROUND BREAKING FOR MT. ECCLESIA 43
Teachings of an Initiate
COMPRISING THE PERIODS OF LATER ATLANTIS AND OUR PRESENT ARYANA. The rainbow,
which could not have existed under previous atmospheric conditions, stood painted upon the cloud as a
mystic scroll when mankind entered the Noachian Age, where the law of alternating cycles brings ebb and
flow, summer and winter, birth and death. During this age the spirit cannot permanently escape from the body
of death generated by the satanic passion first inculcated by Lucifer. Its repeated attempts to escape to its
celestial home are frustrated by the law of periodicity, for when it has freed itself from one body by death, it
is brought to rebirth when the cycle has been run.
Deceit and illusion cannot be allowed to endure forever, and so the REDEEMER appeared to cleanse the
passion-filled blood, to preach the truth which shall set us free from this body of death, to inaugurate the
immaculate conception along lines most crudely indicated in the science of eugenics, to prophesy a new age,
a new heaven, and a new earth, of which He, THE TRUE LIGHTS, will be the Genius, an age wherein will
dwell the righteousness and love for which all the world is sighing and seeking.
All of this and the way of attainment are symbolized in the rose cross before us. The rose, in which the sap of
life is dormant in winter and active in summer, illustrates aptly the effect of the law of alternating cycles. The
color of the flower, its generative organ, resembles our blood, yet the sap which courses within is pure, and
the seed is generated in an immaculate, passionless manner.
When we attain to the purity of life there symbolized, we shall have freed ourselves from the cross of matter,
and the ethereal conditions of the millennium will be here. It is the aim of the Rosicrucian Fellowship to
hasten that glad day when sorrow, pain, sin, and death shall have ceased, and we shall have been redeemed
from the fascinating, enthralling illusions of matter and awakened to the supreme truth of the reality of Spirit.
May God speed and prosper our efforts.
CHAPTER XX. OUR WORK IN THE WORLD
PART I (ISSUED MAY, 1912)
Lately there has come to us a realization that the work of the Rosicrucian Fellowship is not our private work;
it is the work of the Elder Brothers and every member of the Fellowship. IN THE ACCOMPLISHMENT
THEREOF IS A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY FOR SOUL GROWTH, and we have no more right to
arrogate it to ourselves than we have to deprive members of material food; we must give all the opportunity
to aid in the work physically, mentally, or financially according to time, talent, and ability. We also realize
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