Gleanings of a Mystic
by Max Heindel
(Part 1)
A Series of Essays on Practical Mysticism
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The contents of this book are among the last writings of Max Heindel, the mystic. They contain some of his deepest thoughts, and are the result of years of research and esoteric investigation. He, too, could say as did Parsifal: "Through error and through suffering I came, through many failures and through countless woes." At last he was given the living water with which he was able to quench the spiritual thirst of many souls. He also developed to their depths pity and love, and could feel the heart throbs of suffering humanity.
Strong souls are usually endowed with great energy and impulse, and through these very forces, they forge to the front ranks though they often suffer much. As a result they are filled with compassion for others. The writer of these lessons sacrificed his physical body on the altar of service.
In writing the books and monthly lessons, in his lectures and class work, and in the arduous pioneer work of establishing a Headquarters within the short span of ten years, Max Heindel accomplished more than many who are blessed with perfect health could have accomplished in a lifetime. His first book, his masterpiece, The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, was written under the direct guidance of the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross. It carries a vital message to the world. It satisfies not alone the intellect, but also the heart. His Freemasonry and Catholicism, has found its way into many Masonic libraries. The esotericist has received much from the book entitled, The Web of Destiny , which is a mine of mystical knowledge and helpful esoteric truths. It is also a guide to the investigator, establishing danger signals for the venturesome ones who wish to take heaven by storm. To the science of astrology he has given more in a few years than has previously been discovered for centuries. His two valuable works, Simplified Scientific Astrology and The Message of the Stars, deal largely with the spiritual and medical aspects of astrology. The latter gives methods of diagnosis and healing which form a valuable addition to the works of other authors, both ancient and modern. These books may be found in the libraries of many doctors of the old school.
In Gleanings of a Mystic are found twenty-four lessons which were formerly sent out to students. It is the wish of the writer of this introduction that these lessons may carry a message of love and cheer to the soul-hungry reader and hope to the disconsolate one.
It is no rare occurrence to receive questions relating to Initiation, and we
are also frequently asked to state whether this order or that society is
genuine, and whether the initiations they offer to all comers who have the
price are bona fide. For that reason it seems necessary to write a
treatise on the subject so that students of the Rosicrucian Teachings may
have an official statement for reference and guidance in the future.
In the first place let it be clearly understood that we consider it
reprehensible to express condemnation of any society or order, no matter what
its practices. It may be perfectly sincere and honest according to its
light. We do not believe that we rise in the opinion of discriminating
men and women by speaking in disparaging terms of others; neither are we
laboring under the delusion that we have all the truth and the other
societies are plunged in Egyptian darkness. We reiterate what we have often
said before, that all religions have been given to mankind by the Recording
Angels, who know the spiritual requirements of each class, nation, and race,
and have the intelligence to give each a form of worship perfectly suited to
its particular need.
The Mystery Schools of each religion furnish to the more advanced members of
the race or nation embracing it a higher teaching, which if lived,
advances them into a higher sphere of spirituality than their brethren. The Mystery Teaching of the East is inappropriate for the spiritual aspirant of the West. Please ponder this well so that you may not fall a victim to misguided people who try to persuade others that the Christian religion is crude compared with oriental cults. Ever westward in the wake of the shining sun, the light of the world, has gone the star of empire, and is it not reasonable to suppose that the spiritual light has kept pace with
civilization, or even preceded it as thought precedes action? We hold that
such is the case, that the Christian religion is the loftiest yet given to
man, and that to repudiate the Christian religion, esoteric or exoteric, for
any of the older systems is analogous to preferring the older textbooks of
science to the newer ones which embrace discoveries to date.
Neither are the practices of Eastern aspirants to the higher life to be
imitated by Westerners; we refer particularly to the breathing exercises.
They are both beneficial and necessary to the unfoldment of the Hindu, but it
is otherwise with the Western aspirant. To him it is dangerous to practice
breathing exercises for soul unfoldment; they will even prove subversive of
soul growth, and they are, moreover, absolutely unnecessary. The reason is
this:
During involution the threefold spirit has become gradually encrusted in a
threefold body. In the Atlantean Epoch man was at the nadir of materiality.
We are just now rounding the lowest point on the arc of involution, and
starting upward on the arc of evolution. At this point, then, all mankind is
immured in this earthly prison house to such a degree that spiritual vibrations
are almost killed. The atoms in the bodies of a significant portion of humanity are vibrating at an exceedingly low rate, and when in the course of time one of these people develops to a point where it is possible to further him upon the path of attainment, it is necessary to raise this vibratory pitch of the atom so that the vital body, which is the medium of esoteric growth, may to a certain extent be liberated from the deadening forces of the physical atom. This result is attained by them by means of breathing exercises, which in time accelerate the vibration of the atom, and allow the
spiritual growth necessary to the individual to take place.
These exercises may also be used by a great number of people in the Western
world, particularly those who are not at all concerned about their
spiritual advancement. But even among those who desire soul growth there
are many who are not yet at the point where the atoms of their bodies have
evolved to such a pitch of vibration that acceleration beyond the usual measure
would injure them. Here the breathing exercises would do no harm; but if
given to a person who is really at the point where he can enter the path of
advancement ordinarily mapped out for those precocious brothers and
sisters in the West, in other words, when he or she is nearly ready for Initiation
and when he or she would be benefited by spiritual exercises, then the case
is far otherwise.
During the aeons which we have spent in evolution, our atoms have accelerated their vibratory pitch enormously, and as said in the case of one who is really nearly ready for
Initiation, the pitch of vibration is higher than that of the average man or
woman. Therefore he does not need breathing exercises to accelerate
this pitch, but certain spiritual exercises suited to him individually which
will advance him on the proper path. If such a person at this critical
period meets some one who ignorantly or unscrupulously gives him breathing
exercises, and if he follows the instructions accurately in the hope of
getting quick results, he will get them quickly but in a manner he
has not looked for, since the vibratory rate of the atoms in his body will in
a very short time become accelerated to such a pitch that it will seem to him
as if he were walking on air; then also an improper cleavage of the vital [etheric]
body may take place, and either consumption [tuberculosis] or insanity follows. Now please put this down where it will burn itself into your consciousness in letters of
fire: Initiation is a spiritual process, and spiritual progress cannot be
accomplished by physical means, but only by spiritual exercises.
There are many orders in the West which profess to initiate anyone who
has the price. Some of these orders have names closely resembling our
own, and we are constantly asked by students whether they are affiliated with
us. In order to settle this once and for all, please note that the Rosicrucian
Teachings have constantly taught that no spiritual gift may ever be traded
for money. If you bear this in mind, you may know we have no
connection with any order which demands money for the transference of spiritual
power. He who has something to give of a truly spiritual nature will not barter
it for money. I received a particular injunction to this effect from the Elder
Brothers in the Rosicrucian Temple, when they told me to go to the English
speaking world as their messenger, a claim I do not expect you to believe
save as you see it justified by fruits.
Now, however, about Initiation: What is it? Is it ceremony as claimed by
these other orders? If so, any order can certainly invent ceremonies of a
more or less elaborate kind. They may by flowing robes and clashing swords
appeal to the emotions; they may appeal to the sense of wonder and awe by
rattling chains and by deep sounding gongs, and thus produce in their members
an "esoteric feeling." Many revel in the adventures and experiences of
the hero in "The Brother of the Third Degree," thinking that this is surely
Initiation, but I tell you that it is very far from being the case. No
ceremony can ever give to any one that inward experience which constitutes
Initiation, no matter how much is charged or how fearful the oaths, how awful
or beautiful the ceremony, or how gorgeous the robes, any more than passing
through a ceremony can convert a sinner and make him a saint, for conversion is
to the exoteric religionist exactly what Initiation is in the higher mysticism.
Please consider this point thoroughly, and you will have the key to the
problem.
Do you think that any one could go to a person of depraved character and
agree to convert him for a certain sum and carry out his part of the
agreement? Surely you know that no amount of money could bring about that
change in a man's character. Ask a true convert where he got his religion and
how he got it. One may tell you that he received it upon the road as he
was walking along; another says that the light and the change came to him in
the solitude of his room; another that the light struck him as it
struck Paul upon the road to Damascus, and forced him to change. Every one
has a different experience, and the outward manifestation of that inward
experience is that it changes the man's whole life from the very
least to the very greatest aspect.
So it is with Initiation; it is an inward experience, entirely
separate and apart from any ceremonial whatever, and therefore it is
an absolute impossibility that any one could sell it to any one else.
Initiation changes a man's whole life. It gives him a confidence that he
never possessed before. It clothes him with a mantle of authority that never
can be taken from him. No matter what the circumstances in life, it sheds
a light upon his whole being that is simply wonderful. Nor can any ceremony
effect such a change. We therefore hold that anyone who offers initiation
into an esoteric order by ceremonials to everyone who has the price, brands
himself as an impostor. For the true teacher, if he were approached by an
aspirant with an offer of money for spiritual attainment, would answer
indignantly in the words used by Peter to Simon the sorcerer, who offered him
money for spiritual powers: "Thy silver perish with thee."
To obtain a better understanding of what constitutes Initiation and what
the prerequisites are, let the student fix firmly in his mind the fact that
humanity as a whole is slowly progressing upon the path of evolution, thus
very slowly, almost imperceptibly, attaining higher and higher states of
consciousness. The path of evolution is a spiral when we regard it from the
physical side only, but a lemniscate when viewed in both its physical and
spiritual phases. (See the diagram of
chemical caduceus from The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. In
the lemniscate, or figure 8, there are two circles which converge to a central
point, which circles may be taken to symbolize the immortal spirit, the
evolving ego. One of the circles signifies its life in the physical world from
birth to death. During this span of time it sows a seed by every act and
should reap in return a certain amount of experience. But as we may sow
seed in the field and lose return on that which falls on stony ground, among
thorns, et cetera, so also may the seed of opportunity be wasted because
of neglect to till the soil and the life will then be barren of fruit.
Conversely, as diligence and care in cultivation increase the productive power
of garden seed enormously, so earnest application to the business of
life — improvement of opportunities to learn life's lessons and extract from
our environment the experience it holds — brings added opportunities; and
at the end of the life-day the ego finds itself at the door of death laden
with the richest fruits of life.
The objective work of physical existence over, the race run, and the day of
action spent, the ego enters upon the subjective work of assimilation
accomplished during its sojourn in the invisible worlds, which it traverses
during the period from death to birth, symbolized by the other ring of the
lemniscate. As the method of accomplishing this assimilation has been most
minutely described in various parts of our literature, it is needless to repeat
it here. Suffice it to say that at the time when an ego arrives at
the central point in the lemniscate, which divides the physical from the
psychic worlds and which we call the gate of birth or death according to
whether the ego is entering or leaving the realm where we, ourselves, happen to
be at the time, it has with it an aggregate of faculties or talents acquired
in all its previous lives, which it may then put to usury or bury during the
coming life-day as it sees fit; but upon the use it makes of what it has,
depends the amount of soul growth it makes.
If for many lives it caters mainly to the lower nature, which lives to
eat, drink and be merry, or if it dreams its life away in metaphysical
speculations upon nature and God, sedulously abstaining from all unnecessary
action, it is gradually passed and left behind by the more active and
progressive. .... the active, alert, and wide-awake who improve a larger
percentage of their opportunities, are the pioneers. Contrary to the commonly
accepted idea, this applies also to those engaged in industrial work. Their
money-getting is only an incident, an incentive, and entirely apart from
this phase their work is as spiritual as or even more so than that of those
who spend their time in prayer to the prejudice of useful work.
From what has been said, it will be clear that the method of soul growth as
accomplished by the process of evolution requires action in the
physical life, followed in the post-mortem state by a ruminating
process, during which the lessons of life are extracted and thoroughly
incorporated into the consciousness of the ego, though the experiences
themselves are forgotten — as we forget our labor in learning the
multiplication table, though the faculty of using it remains.
This exceedingly slow and tedious process is perfectly suited to the
needs of the masses; but there are some who habitually exhaust the
experiences commonly given, thus requiring and meriting a larger scope for
their energies. Difference of temperament is responsible for their division
into two classes.
One class, led by their devotion to Christ, simply follow the dictates of
the heart in their work of love for their fellows — beautiful characters,
beacon lights of love in a suffering world, never actuated by selfish
motives, always ready to forgo personal comfort to aid others. Such were the
saints; they worked as they prayed; they never shirked in either direction.
Nor are they dead today. The earth would be a barren wilderness in spite of
all its civilization did not their beautiful feet circle it on errands of
mercy, were not the lives of sufferers made brighter by the light of hope
which radiates from their beautiful faces. Had they but the knowledge
possessed by the other class they would indeed outdistance all in the race for
the Kingdom.
Mind is the predominating feature of the other class. In order to aid it in
its efforts toward attainment, mystery schools were early established
wherein the world drama was played to give the aspiring soul while he was
entranced, answers to the questions of the origin and destiny of humanity.
When awakened, he was instructed in the sacred science of how to climb
higher by following the method of nature — which is meditating upon the
experience, and incorporating the essential moral to make thereby
commensurate soul growth; also with this important feature, that whereas in
the ordinary course of things a whole life is devoted to sowing and a whole
post-mortem existence to ruminating and incorporating the soul substance, this
cycle of a thousand years, more or less, may be reduced to a day, as held by
the mystic maxim, "A day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day." To be explicit, whatever work has been done during a single day, if
ruminated over at night before crossing the neutral point between waking
and sleeping, may thus be incorporated into the consciousness of the spirit
as usable soul power. When that exercise is faithfully performed, the sins of
each day thus reviewed are actually blotted out, and the man commences each
day as if it were a new life, with the added soul power gained in all the
preceding days of his probationary life.
But! — yes, there is a great big but; nature is not to be cheated;
God is not to be mocked. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Let no one think that the mere perfunctory review of the happenings of a day
with perhaps the light-hearted admission of, "I wish I had not done that,"
when reviewing a scene where he did something palpably wrong, will save him
from the wrath to come. When we pass out of the body into purgatory at
death and the panorama of our past life unfolds in reverse order to show us
first the effects and then the causes which produced them, we feel in
intensified measure the pain we gave others; and unless we perform our
exercises in a similar manner so that we live each evening our hell
as merited that day, acutely sensible of every pang we have inflicted, it
will avail nothing. We must also endeavor to feel in the same intense
manner, gratitude for kindness received from others, and approbation on account
of the good we ourselves have done.
Only thus are we really living the post-mortem existence and advancing
scientifically towards the goal of Initiation. The greatest danger of the
aspirant upon this path is that he may become enmeshed in the snare of
egotism, and his only safeguard is to cultivate the faculties of faith,
devotion, and an all-embracing sympathy. It is difficult, but it can be
done, and when it has been accomplished the man or woman becomes a wonderful
power for good in the world.
Now, if the student has pondered the preceding argument well, he has
probably grasped the analogy between the long cycle of evolution
and the short cycles or steps used upon the path of preparation. It
should be quite clear that no one can do this post-mortem work for him and
transmit to him the resulting soul growth. You think it preposterous when a
priesthood offers to shorten the sojourn of a soul in purgatory. How, then,
can you believe that anyone else can — no matter what the
consideration — obviate the necessity of a number of purgatorial existences for
your benefit and transmit to you at once the usable soul power you would have
acquired had you pursued the ordinary course of life to the day you are ready
for Initiation? Yet this is what the offer to initiate a person not yet upon
the threshold means. You must have the soul power requisite for Initiation
or no one can initiate you. If you have it, you are upon the threshold by your
own efforts, beholden to no one, and may demand Initiation as a right which
none would dare dispute or withhold. If you have it not and could buy it,
it would be cheap at twenty-five million dollars, and the man who offers it for
twenty-five dollars is as ridiculous as his dupe. Please remember that if
anyone offers to initiate you into an esoteric order, no matter if he calls it
"Rosicrucian" or by any other name, his demand of an initiation fee at once
stamps him as an impostor; explanations of the effect that the fee is used to
purchase regalia, et cetera, are only added evidence of the fraudulent
nature of the order for it is said, "Initiation is most emphatically not an
outward ceremony, but an inward experience." I may further add that the
Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross in the Mystic Temple where I received the
Light made it a condition that their sacred science must never be put in
the balance against a coin. Freely had I received, and freely was I
required to give. This injunction I have obeyed, both in spirit and to the
letter, as all know who have had dealings with the Rosicrucian Fellowship.
To obtain a thorough understanding of the deep and far-reaching
significance of the manner in which the Sacrament of Communion was instituted,
it is necessary to consider the evolution of our planet and of composite
man, also the chemistry of foods and their influence on humanity. For the
sake of lucidity we will briefly recapitulate the Rosicrucian teachings on
the various points involved. They have been given at length in the
Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception and our other works.
The Virgin Spirits, which are now mankind, commenced their pilgrimage
through matter in the dawn of time, that by the friction of concrete existence
their latent powers might be transmuted to kinetic energy as usable soul
power. Three successive veils of increasingly dense matter were acquired by
the involving spirits during the Saturn, Sun and Moon Periods. Thus each
spirit was separated from all other spirits, and the consciousness which could
not penetrate the prison wall of matter and communicate with others was
forced to turn inwards, and in so doing it discovered — itself. Thus
self-consciousness was attained.
A further crystallization of the before mentioned veils took place in the
Earth Period during the Polarian, Hyperborean, and Lemurian Epochs. In the
Atlantean Epoch, the mind was added as a focusing point between the spirit
and body, completing the constitution of composite man, who was then
equipped to conquer the world and generate soul power by endeavor and
experience, each having free will and choice except as limited by the laws
of nature and his own previous acts.
During the time man-in-the-making was thus evolving, great creative
Hierarchies guided his every step. Absolutely nothing was left to chance.
Even the food he ate was chosen for him so that he might obtain the
appropriate material wherewith to build the various vehicles of consciousness
necessary to accomplish the process of soul growth. The Bible mentions the
various stages, though it misplaces Nimrod, making him to symbolize the
Atlantean kings who lived before the Flood.
In the Polarian Epoch pure mineral matter became a constituent part of
man; thus Adam was made of earth, that is, so far as his dense
body was concerned.
In the Hyperborean Epoch the vital body was added, and thus his constitution
became plantlike, and Cain, the man of that time, lived on the
fruits of the soil.
The Lemurian Epoch saw the evolution of a desire body, which made man
like the present animals. Then milk, the product of living animals, was
added to human diet. Abel was a shepherd, but it is nowhere stated
that he killed an animal.
At that time mankind lived innocently and peacefully in the misty
atmosphere which enveloped the earth during the latter part of the Lemurian
Epoch, as described in the section on "Baptism" Men were then like children
under the care of a common father, until the mind was given to all in the
beginning of Atlantis. Thought activity breaks down tissue which must be
replaced; the lower and more material the thought, the greater the havoc and
the more pressing the need for albumen wherewith to make quick repairs.
Hence necessity, the mother of invention, inaugurated the loathsome practice of
flesh eating, and so long as we continue to think along purely business or
material lines we shall have to go on using our stomachs as receptacles for
the decaying corpses of our murdered animal victims. Yet we shall see later
that flesh food has enabled us to make the wonderful material progress achieved
in the Western World.
The more spiritual we grow, the more our thoughts will harmonize with the
rhythm of our body, and the less albumen will be needed to build tissue.
Consequently, a vegetable diet will suffice our needs. Pythagoras advised
abstinence from legumes to advanced scholars because they are rich in
albumen and apt to revive lower appetites. Let not every student who reads
this rashly conclude to eliminate legumes from his diet. Most of us are not
yet ready for such extremes; we would not even advise all students to abstain
entirely from meat. The change should come from within. It may be safely
stated, however, that most people eat entirely too much meat for their good;
but this is in a certain sense a digression, so we will revert to the further
evolution of humanity in so far as it has a bearing upon the Sacrament of
Communion.
In due time the dense mist which enveloped the earth cooled, condensed,
and flooded the various basins. The atmosphere cleared, and concurrently
with this atmospheric change a physiological adaptation in man took place.
The gill clefts which had enabled him to breathe in the dense water-laden
air (and which are seen in the human fetus to this day) gradually
atrophied, and their function was taken over by the lungs, the pure air
passing to and from them through the larynx. This allowed the spirit,
hitherto penned up within the veil of flesh, to express itself in word and act.
There in the middle of Atlantis the sun first shone upon man as we know
him; there he was first born into the world. Until then he had been
under the absolute control of great spiritual Hierarchies, mute, without voice
or choice in matters pertaining to his education, as a child is now under the
control of its parents.
But one day when he finally emerged from the dense atmosphere of
Atlantis; when he first beheld the mountains silhouetted in clear, sharp
contours against the azure vault of heaven; when he first saw the beauties of
moor and meadow, the moving creatures, birds in the air, and his fellow man;
when his vision was undimmed by the partial obscuration of the mist which
had previously hampered perception; above all, when he perceived himself as
separate and apart from all others, there burst from his
lips the glorious triumphant cry, "I am."
At that point he had acquired faculties which equipped him to enter the
school of experience, the phenomenal world, as a free agent to learn the
lessons of life, untrammeled save by the laws of nature, which are his
safeguards, and the reaction of his own previous acts, which become
destiny.
The diet containing an excess of albumen from the flesh wherewith he
gorged himself, taxed his liver beyond the capacity and clogged the system,
making him morose, sullen, and brutish. He was fast losing the spiritual
sight which revealed to him the guardian angels whom he trusted, and he saw
only the forms of animals and men. The spirits with whom he had
lived in love and brotherhood during early Atlantis were obscured by the
veil of flesh. It was all so strange, and he feared them.
Therefore it became necessary to give him a new food that could aid
his spirit to overpower the highly individualized molecules of flesh (as
explained in the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception section on Assimilation), brace it for battle with
the world, and spur it on to self-assertion.
As our visible bodies composed of chemical compounds can thrive only upon
chemical aliment, so it requires spirit to act upon spirit to aid in breaking
up the heavy proteid and in stimulating the drooping human spirit.
The emergence from flooded Atlantis, the liberation of humanity from the
absolute rulership of visible superhuman guardians, their placement under
the law of consequence and the laws of nature, and the gift
of wine are described in the stories of Noah and Moses, which are
different accounts of the same event.
Both Noah and Moses led their followers through the water. Moses calls
heaven and earth to witness that he has placed before them the blessing and
the curse, exhorts them to choose the good or take the consequences of their
actions; then he leaves them.
The phenomenon of the rainbow requires that the sun be near the horizon, the
nearer the better; also a clear atmosphere, and a dark rain cloud in the
opposite quarter of the heavens. When under such conditions an observer stands
with his back to the sun, he may see the sun's rays refracted through the rain
drops as a rainbow. In early Atlantean times when there had been no rain as
yet and the atmosphere was a warm, moist fog through which the sun appeared as
one of our arc lamps on a foggy day, the phenomenon of the rainbow was an
impossibility. It could not have made its appearance until the mist had
condensed to rain, flooded the basins of the earth, and left the atmosphere
clear as described in the story of Noah, which thus points to the law of
alternating cycles that brings day and night, summer and winter, in
unvarying sequence, and to which man is subject in the present age.
Noah cultivated the vine and provided a spirit to stimulate man. Thus,
equipped with a composite constitution, a composite diet appropriate
thereto, and divine laws to guide them, mankind were left to their own
devices in the battle of life.
I. Initiation: What It Is and Is Not — Part I
II. Initiation: What It Is and Is Not — Part II
III. The Sacrament of Communion — Part I
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