With the commencement of the twentieth century a further step was
taken. It was realized that something must be done to make[pg 012]religion scientific as well as to make science religious, in order that
they may ultimately blend; for at the present time heart and intellect are divorced. The
heart instinctively feels the truth of religious teachings concerning such wonderful
mysteries as the Immaculate Conception (the Mystic Birth), the Crucifixion (the Mystic
Death), the cleansing blood, the atonement, and other doctrines of the Church, which the
intellect refuses to believe, as they are incapable of demonstration, and seemingly at war
with natural law. Material advancement may be furthered when intellect is dominant and the
longings of the heart unsatisfied, but soul growth will be retarded until the heart also
receives satisfaction.
In order to give the world a teaching so blended that it will
satisfy both the mind and heart, a messenger must be found and instructed. Certain unusual
qualifications were necessary, and the first one chosen failed to pass a certain test after
several years had been spent to prepare him for the work to be done.
It is well said that there is a time to sow, and a time to reap,
and that there are certain times for all the works of life, and in accordance[pg 013]with this law of periodicity each impulse in spiritual uplift must also be
undertaken at an appropriate time to be successful. The first and sixth decades of each
century are particularly propitious to commence the promulgation of new spiritual teachings.
Therefore the Rosicrucians were much concerned at this failure, for only five years were
left of the first decade of the twentieth century.
Their second choice of a messenger fell upon the present writer,
though he knew it not at the time, and by shaping circumstances about him they made it
possible for him to begin a period of preparation for the work they desired him to do. Three
years later, when he had gone to Germany, also because of circumstances shaped by the
invisible Brotherhood, and was on the verge of despair at the discovery that the light which
was the object of his quest, was only a jack-o-lantern, the Brothers of the Rosicrucian
Order applied the test to see whether he would be a faithful messenger and give the
teachings they desired to entrust to him, to the world. And when he had passed the trial
they gave him the monumental solution of the problem of existence first published in
“The
Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception” in November, 1909,[pg 014]more than a year before the expiration of the first decade of the twentieth
century. This book marked a new era in so-called “occult”literature, and the many editions which have since been
published, as well as the thousands of letters which continue to come to the author, are
speaking testimonies to the fact that people are finding in this teaching a satisfaction
they have long sought elsewhere in vain.
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