Fifty-three years ago, in 1969, this writer offered his first course in elementary astrology. Things were different then. A significant amount of time was spent in helping students learn how to cast a horoscope, using ephemerides and tables of houses, and also learning how to determine if a horoscope was cast correctly. One day, back then, three ladies from a neighboring city, asked this writer if he would teach them to cast horoscopes. They were sure they would be able to read horoscopes, if they had them. One of the ladies was a colorful person with a big personality, which she readily shared, whether one wanted it or not. One day her horoscope in the daily newspaper, said she should surround herself with red. Upon reading this, she promptly went out and bought a red sports car, which didn’t enhance her husband’s appreciation of astrology in the least. As with many candescent personalities, there were compensatory dark areas. In her view of life, she hated Saturn, no doubt because she didn’t like restraint. She thought someone should invent a cannon to blow Saturn out of the sky. She is not alone in her opinion. Many people, perhaps even a majority, dislike Saturn. It may be that they don’t like the things Saturn represents, such as fear, hatred and doubt; or it may be that they disdain restraint, or being held to task, or other similar saturnian things. In any case, Saturn does not have a good reputation among people familiar with astrology. Some pay lip service to the positive side of Saturn, but their conviction is not very deep or sincere, especially when Saturn plays a part in their lives. Saturn, along with the truly positive things it represents, needs rehabilitation in the attitudes of many. As things stand now, dark attitudes about saturnian limitations, permeate the psychic atmosphere, and inhibit recognition of positive saturnian virtues—we remain in Sumerian darkness. However, this is not an astrological essay, so the redemption of saturnian virtues will not happen here. This is an essay about spiritual philosophy. The intent of this essay is to redeem something else held in almost universal detestation, pain. If we can introduce true, positive, attitudes about pain into the world, we will have done a great service to our evolutionary progress. Hopefully, this will be a modest beginning.

The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception tells us the nervous system is an expression of the desire body. The desire body has other physical expressions such as the muscular system which carries out desires in the physical body. The nerves stimulate the muscles, but that isn’t the neural function we are seeking. We are seeking the function of feeling. Through the nervous system, we feel the external world, while we are in our physical bodies. The senses, such as sight, are superb refinements of the nervous system. Pain, as a somatic feeling, is sensed by specialized receptor cells in the peripheral nervous system. A stimulus is transmitted through the central nervous system to the brain, then to the etheric brain, and finally to the region of feeling in the desire body. When we sense pain, we are aware of our bodies, and the stimulus in the world. Awareness is important. We humans are in a long, drawn out, process of waking up through many rebirths. In this process, anything that awakens us and brings us to awareness of reality, is beneficial, no matter how horrible it might seem. We are told in the The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception that we began to awaken to, and become aware of, the external world during the Lemurian epoch. Boys at that time were made to participate in extremely brutal fights. The purpose was twofold. One reason was to develop will power, and the other was to feel the world without, through pain. Whatever produced awakening through pain, was good. Since we are such slow learners, that function of awakening through pain is still important. As children, we learn that fire burns. Without the sense of pain, one could hold a hand in a fire, until it burned away. Indubitable positivity.

As we have grown through evolution, pain has taken on new functions and meanings. It has thoroughly positive value, beyond warning us of danger, in some of its functions. When we build muscles, we experience pain, and we know we are succeeding—“no pain, no gain” as the body builders say. These positive functions of pain are more than physical. They have become part of our moral and psychological evolution. Through many experiences, we have developed a complex psychology in the desire body. It is made up of emotions, desires and feelings in many moods attitudes, sentiments, and the like. Through these developments and refinements, we have come to interpret and appreciate, subtle sensations of pain from the external world. Consequently, we can experience such positive things as a gentle, loving, caress, the beauty of a face, or the scent of a rose. Perhaps the pressure on neural receptors that we call pain, is not so bad after all—ask any mother who has painfully given birth to the wonder that is a new personality.

Because we are as imperfect as we are, pain serves another function in our moral evolution. This function is also a matter of awareness. In the same way pain warns us of the danger of destruction when we place a hand in a fire, pain also warns us of the danger in our unregenerate deeds, our sins. Our deeds, in all of our bodies, have consequences. Since the chain of creation proceeds from thoughts, to desires, to actions in the ethers, to the physical body; our misdeeds follow the same path into our physical experience. Sometimes the process is so slow that it takes several rebirths to manifest physically. Often, when we experience physical consequences, we no longer remember the misdeeds, even though there may have been many replications, say of bad thoughts, for example, in the distant past. Sometimes our bad attitudes have become so habitual that we take them for granted, and we learn to tolerate them in ourselves. In extreme cases, we balk at ridding ourselves of them, or even transforming them, because we think we would be losing part of our being. Greater reality does not tolerate such illusions. Causes will have their consequences; and the eventual consequence of persistent misdoing, is pain. The pain persists until there is awareness leading to reformation. We may not be aware of the causes in the personality, but the Spirit is aware, because it is the creative source of the deeds. Perfect feedback. Awareness, in the Spirit is slow, but it will surely come, even though it may take several rebirths. “The mills of God grind slowly but the grind exceedingly fine.” In this process, there is a tremendous improvement in efficiency with the retrospection exercise. It isn’t always easy to be aware of our attitudes in retrospection, due to their subtlety, but it can be done, and it is much to our benefit to keep trying.

Awareness is a form of consciousness. Consciousness is one of the goals of evolution. The Rosicrucian philosophy states in several places, that consciousness is currently a result of the struggle between the vital body and the desire body. Therefore, pain must also be a factor in this struggle in the evolution of consciousness. The scale of this struggle, in time and space, is of evolutionary proportions; much more than we conceive of it to be, in its manifestation in our daily lives.

The vital body is of a solar nature—we are vitalized by the sun. The evolution of the vital body commenced in the Sun Period. Our somatic experience, in all of our bodies, was at that time “soft” and solar. In the Polarian and Hyperborean epochs of this revolution of the Earth Period, before the sun, planets and satellites were precipitated out of the ethers, everything was part of what could be called a proto-sun. In the Lemurian epoch, the solar system, as we know it, was formed out of this proto-sun. Planets were formed in the whirling proto-sun, until the sun, as we know it now, came to be. Moons were expelled, or co-formed, where necessary. In the Lemurian epoch, conditions were significantly changed from the earlier epochs. The Lemurian epoch is a small scale recapitulation of the Moon Period. In the Moon Period our desire bodies commenced their evolution. The desire bodies of our human life wave were agencies used by the Divine Hierarchies, for the precipitation of the planets into the chemical subdivision of the physical world. This activity of precipitation was active in macrocosm and microcosm. Our dense physical bodies solidified, coetaneously with the physical body of the earth. Because the solidification of the earth, and our human physical bodies, was too deep, the forces and beings responsible for solidification and formation, had to be removed from immediate presence in the earth, lest the earth and its inhabitants harden out of the ability to evolve. Moreover, some in our life wave had devolved to the degree that their presence was a danger to human evolution. To address these problems the moon wa separated from the earth to remove the hardening, formative forces, and the “failures” most responsible for the hardening, to a safe distance.

Solidification requires discrete differentiation. Materialization is an activity of differentiation, whether it is a planet or a bodily organ, that is materialized. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception tells us that, at some point in the Lemurian epoch, the bony skeleton was formed, for example. All of these evolutionary advancements, in microcosm and macrocosm, were accomplished by the hardening power of the desire body, which was then in ascendency in its struggle with the vital body. In the Lemurian epoch, we were also becoming aware of our separate physical bodies, and the external world. This awareness was accomplished by pain felt in the desire body. Thus, we had the exercises of painful cruelty, mentioned above. As was said, whatever produced awareness, was good. Out of these exercises, we developed the “lower will” described in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, and the higher will in Divine Spirit, via conscious soul, in reflection from the dense, physical body. To our enormous grief, which continues to this day, we overdid all of our activities in the Lemurian epoch—extremity is the way of the Lucifer Spirits, who influenced us. Through unbridled expression of sexual desire in the quest for immortality, which was born out of the fear of death; as well as death-dealing black magic; we have brought ourselves to great pain, while simultaneously exiled from direct inner guidance, into a hardened material world, with a hardened materialistic attitude. In our skewed evolutionary journey, we are blessed with the Rosicrucian philosophy, which helps us to know that by our efforts in loving, self-forgetting service, we are to etherealize and dissolve the earth, and in so doing, build our soul bodies to live in the inner worlds again. What was sacrificed during involution in the Lemurian epoch, is to be regained at a higher level in the coming epochs.

Beyond physical hardening, there is moral and psychological hardening. It is also the result of indulgence in desire. Psychological and moral hardening are more difficult to correct. Part of the reason for the difficulty is subtlety. Most people are aware of only the most obvious emotions and desires, such as anger and fear, and they are deficient in finer feelings. They exercise the desires that they know, and they (in the lower self) revel in them, because desire is exciting. The hues of emotion are almost infinite. In the future a large part of our inner work will be developing a wider range of emotions, but for now, we are not very colorful. This deficiency is complicated by the fact that the desire body is the seat of the inner adversary to the true Self. The inner adversary is called the “lower will” and “a sort of animal will” in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. It loves desire, without a care about hardening. In many respects we have become hard hearted, or what the Old Testament calls, “stiff-necked.” Repeated desire gratification can even choke awareness of conscience. Though adversaries, the desire body and vital body, can work together, for better or worse. If the Self is concentrated on one goal, all of its vehicles are brought together to work as one for the aim of the Self. The pseudo-self, the inner adversary in the desire body, cannot create, but it can imitate, and it does so very well. If we are not inwardly discerning and self-knowing, the inner adversary will mimic the true Self, to impel the personality to its desires. With its cunning, it senses that, if it can express a given desire enough times, it will get the vital body to assist it to its ends by co-opting the habit-forming tendency of the vital body. All of this is happening, in the part of our being, of which we are mostly unconscious. The result is moral and psychological hardening in a well-woven desire body-vital body complex. In extreme cases, it produces what Max Heindel calls a “sin body” which requires thousands of years of sustained effort to break down. Sin bodies are rare but, lest we breathe easily too soon, we must realize that all of us have living backlogs of unredeemed destiny weighing us down, and urging us to actions not in our best interests. In our waking consciousness, we may not believe this, but if we didn’t have such a backlog, we would have no Dweller on the Threshold, and we would all be high initiates. Even a little, sincere retrospection, or honest self-observation, reveals to us that we are not all sweetness and love within.

What is to be done about this? How is the hardening to be dissolved?

These questions can be answered, in one regard, in a manner similar to the way the hardening occurred, i.e., in macrocosm and microcosm. The macrocosmic answers are both easy and difficult. The easy part is that the softening, leavening, and levitation of the earth is enhanced by the tremendous sacrifice of Christ. The desire body of Christ interpenetrates the macrocosmic, desire body of the earth, and the desire bodies of all of its inhabitants. We lave in a desire world atmosphere of Christ’s loving desires, the influence of which (if we accept it) has a salubrious effect on us individually, and collectively. We use it, at a pace which is extremely slow, relative to our spiritual longing. Attitudes expressed in the laws and customs of people, are softening. The word altruism didn’t exist before the nineteenth century; capital punishment is gradually being abolished; and cruelty to animals is gradually being seen for the monstrosity that it is. The difficult part is, that we have no metric by which we can measure our progress, by which we could be encouraged or stimulated, to greater collective kindness. Various historical personages have put forth guesses as to when we will be collectively successful. Nostradamus predicted the dissolution of the earth around the year 7000. That is approximately the time when the vernal equinox reaches zero degrees of Capricorn in the natural, or sidereal, zodiac. That point was called the Southern Gate of the sun by Plato and other ancients. It is the gate by which gods enter the earth, and men leave the earth. Max Heindel tells us that the opposite Northern Gate, was where ancient Egyptians said that souls awaiting rebirth, congregated to come to birth. Other ancients said the Northern Gate was where gods left the earth. The vernal equinox was at the Northern Gate at the time of last deluge of Atlantis. Berossos, the Chaldean astrologer, who was honored by the Greeks with a statue with a golden tongue for the truth he spoke, predicted the earth would end in fire, when the planets meet at the Southern Gate. It is like the words of the folk music spiritual about the flood of Noah and the rainbow: “no more water, but a fire next time.” We know the hardening moon drifts away from the earth at a rate of one and one-half inches per year, but we do not know if that is a valid correlative indicator of unhardening. At this rate, the moon will only be six hundred feet more distant by the year 7000, when the vernal equinox will have approximately precessed to the Southern Gate, on the cusp of the fiery Sagittarius. We can calculate the gravitational effect of the greater distance, but not the spiritual hardening effect. We do not even know if lunar drift is a correlative of psychological hardening and, if so, its effect on our behavior. It is all engaging speculation, but it is only speculation. The Bible tells us and Max Heindel reiterates several times, “the hour no man knoweth.” For us that is good. It gives us a sense of mounting anticipation and urgency, in doing our part, For spiritual aspirants, it enlarges our compassion for the lingering agony of Christ, who is burdened by the weight of the earth , and our unkindness toward each other.

In the human microcosm, there seem to be several agencies employed by the divine hierarchies, such as the Recording Angels, who help us in our evolutionary work concerning, including the problem of hardening. One agency is analogous to that of the macrocosm, Christ. The washing of the feet in St. John’s gospel is more than a demonstration of humility, and, as Max Heindel points out, it is a recognition, and appreciation, of the interdependence of the server and the served. It is also about spiritual softening, through spiritual cleansing: “He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” If one is blessed to receive the baptism of Christ in the Life Spirit, one is clean, and softened. As wonderful as such an experience is, it is not efficient at this time in our evolutionary career, because very few qualify for that experience. Another means to psychological and moral softening, is radical catharsis. Part of initiatory work is radical catharsis, analogous to our post mortem purgatory. A deep and sincere retrospection, in full awareness of one’s transgressions, softens one’s heart, such that one cannot consider repeating the old hard ways. Even a moment of intense cathartic compassion has the same effect. Again, few have the courage and integrity, to face themselves, as if in confession, before Christ, and that includes many Rosicrucian Probationers. Since few qualify, or qualify themselves, for spiritual softening by these agencies; and since the need is great—with an added urgency of time; the Recording Angels must resort to the remedy that is available and effective for all, pain. Whether physical or psychological, pain softens. Even hardened and adamantine souls are eventually softened by pain, and they abandon their unregenerate desires. A lifetime of pain produces a person of tender compassion. It was with great wisdom, that Max Heindel chose to reference the Vision of Sir Launfal four times in his writings, to demonstrate this principle. As with almost all principles, this can be abused. It is possible to use pain to drive one deeper into one’s hardening desires, but such tendencies are extremely rare, and not likely to be ultimately successful. To intentionally seek pain, as in masochism, is perverse, and ultimately unsuccessful, as a way of life. To accept pain as an awakener, when it is due, is healthy; to endure pain, when it is necessary in order to serve, is laudatory, and both acceptances produce an inner softness, comparable to the still silent voice of the Christ within. In general, pain is our friend in spiritual softening.

As aspirants, we want to grow as quickly and safely as possible. We want to become Christ-like. In our aspiration, to the degree of our sincerity, we have a promise that “no pains will be spared to give us exactly what we need for our development.”