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The content below is composed of the various writings concerning archetypes by Max Heindel, authorized messenger of the Brothers of the Rose Cross. Covering in a comprehensive manner the illuminating subject of archetypes and archetypal forces, this information will be found a valuable addition to the reference library of any esoteric student.
Foreword — Archetypes are created by archetypal forces working in the four lower Regions of Concrete Thought. Archetypes live, move, and create as a mechanical appliance made by man works — but without reason. When the archtype is built it is set into vibration, and as long as it continues to vibrate the form which it sustains continues to live. When the archetype ceases to vibrate the form disintegrates.
There are no words adequate to convey a conception of what the soul (Spirit) feels when it stands in that presence, far above this world where the veil of flesh hides the living realities under a mask; also, beyond the world of desire and illusion where fantastic and illusory shapes mislead us into believing that they are something very different from what they are in reality. Only in the Region of Concrete Thought, where the archetypes of all things unite in that grand celestial choir which Pythagoras spoke of as "the harmony of spheres," do we find truth revealed in all its beauty.
— Mysteries of the Great Operas, p. 101
If we do not apply ourselves to the labor of life, or if we persistently follow a path that is subversive of soul growth, our discordant life destroys the archetype. Rebirth in an altered environment then gives us a chance to retrieve the neglected opportunities. On the other hand, when we live in harmony with the plan of life inscribed in the archetype of our dense body, there is a constructive consonance in their vibrations which lengthens the life of the archetype and, consequently, also the life of the physical body.
When we realize that our life on earth is the seed time, and that the value of our post-mortem existence is in direct ration to the increment we have earned on our talents, it will be at once apparent how supremely important it is that our faculties should be used in the right direction. While this law applies to all mankind, it is superlatively vital to aspiring souls, for when we work for good with all our might and main, each added year of life increases our heavenly treasure enormously. Advancing years give greater skill in soul culture, and the fruit of the last few years may easily outweigh that acquired in the first part of the life.
— Letters To Students, pp. 83-84
Objects in the Physical World always hide their inward nature or construction; we see only the surface. In the Desire World we see objects outside ourselves, inside and out, but they tell nothing of themselves or the life that ensouls them. In the Archetypal Region there seems to be no circumference, but wherever we direct our attention, there is the center of all, and our consciousness is at once filled with knowledge concerning the being or thing at which we are looking. It is easier to catch in a phonograph the tone which comes to us from heaven than to set down the experiences we encounter in that realm, for there are no words adequate to express them; all we can do is to try and live them.
In this connection we should realize that every act of every human being has a direct effect on the archetype of the body. If the act is in harmony with the law of life and evolution, it strengthens the archetype and makes for longer life in which the individual will get the maximum of experience and make soul growth commensurate with his status in life and capacity for learning. Thus fewer embodiments will be necessary to bring him to perfection than one who shirks the strain of life and endeavors to escape its burdens, or one who applies his forces destructively. In the latter type of life the archetype is strained and breaks early. Thus, those whose acts are contrary to the law shorten their lives and have to seek new embodiments a greater number of times than those who live in harmony with the law. This is another instance in which the Bible is correct when it exhorts us to do good that we may live long in the land.
This law applies to all without exception, but it has greater significance in the lives of those who are consciously working with the law of evolution than in those of others. The knowledge of these facts should add tenfold or a hundredfold to our zest and zeal for good. Even if we have started, as we say, "late in life" we may easily lay up more "treasure" in the last few years than in several previous lives. And above all, we are getting in line for an early start in years to come.
At the time when the Ego is coming to rebirth, it forms the creative archetype of its physical form in the Second Heaven with the help of the Creative Hierarchies. That archetype is a singing, vibrating thing, which is set into vibration by the Ego with a certain force commensurate with the length of life to be lived upon earth, and until that archetype ceases to vibrate, the form which is built of the chemical constituents of the earth will continue to live.
When the Ego is coming down to rebirth it descends through the Second Heaven. There it is helped by the Creative Hierarchies to build the archetype for its coming body, and it instills into that archetype a life that will last for a certain number of years. These archetypes are hollow spaces and they have a singing, vibratory motion which draws the material of the Physical World into them and sets all the atoms in the body to vibrating in tune with a little atom that is in the heart, called the seed atom, which, like a tuning fork, gives the pitch to all the rest of the material in the body. At the time when the full life has been lived on the earth the vibrations in the archetype cease, the seed atom is withdrawn, the dense body goes to decay and the desire body, wherein the Ego functions in Purgatory and the First Heaven, takes upon itself the shpe of the physical body. Then the man commences his work of expiating his evil habits and deeds in Purgatory assimilating the good of his life in the First Heaven.
The foregoing describes the ordinary conditions when the course of Nature is undisturbed, but the case of the suicide is different. He has taken away the seed atom, but the hollow archetype still keeps on vibrating. Therefore he feels as if he were hollowed out and experiences a gnawing feeling inside that can best be likened to the pangs of intense hunger. Material for the building of a dense body is all around him, but seeing that he lacks the gauge of the seed atom, it is impossible for him to assimilate that matter and build it into a body. This dreadful hollowed-out feeling lasts as long as his ordinary life should have lasted.
The Law of Cause and Effect, however, is the arbiter of the way the life is to be lived, and certain opportunities for spiritual growth are set before the Ego at various points in its earth life. If these opportunities are made use of, the life will continue along the straight path, but if not, it diverges, as we might say, into a blind alley where the life then is terminated by the Creative Hierarchies, which destroy the archetype in the heaven world. Thus we may say that the ultimate length of an earth life may be shortened if we neglect opportunities. There is also the possibility in the case of a few where the life has been thoroughly lived, where it has been very full, and where the person has endeavored in all cases to live up to his opportunities, that more life may be infused into the archetype than had been done in the first place, and so the life may be prolonged, but as said, that is only in exceptional cases.
Man, on account of his divine nature, is the only being who has the prerogative disorder in the scheme of his unfoldment, and he may end his own life by an act of will, so may he also end the life of a fellow creature before its time has come. The suffering of the suicide would also be the suffering of the murdered, for the archetype of his body would keep on gathering material which it would be impossible for him to assimilate; but in his case, the intervention of other agencies prevent the suffering (of the murdered) and he will be found floating about in his desire body, in a comatose state, for the length of time that he would ordinarily have lived.
While, as said....my tonal vision and the ability to function in the Region of Concrete Thought was indifferent and chiefly confined to the lowest subdivisions thereof, a little assistance from the Brothers that night enabled me to contact the fourth region, where the archetypes are found, and to receive there the teaching and understanding of that which is contemplated as the highest ideal and mission of The Rosicrucian Teachings.
I saw our headquarters and a procession of people coming from all parts of the world to receive the teaching. I saw them issuing thence to carry balm to afflicted ones near and far. While here in this world it is necessary to investigate in order to find out about anything, there the voice of each archetype brings with it as it strikes the spiritual consciousness a knowledge of what that archetype represents. Thus there came to me that night an understanding which is afr beyond my words to express, for the world in which we live is based upon the principle of time, but in the high realm of the archetypes all is eternal now. These archetypes do not tell their story as this is told, but there is borne in upon one an instant conception of the whole idea, much more luminous than can be given by the reciter in words.
The Region of Concrete Thought, as you will remember from our other teachings, is the realm of sound, where the harmony of the spheres, the celestial music, pervades all that is, as the atmosphere of the earth surrounds and envelops everything terrestrial. Everything there may be ssaid to be wrapped in and permeated by music. It lives by music and grows by music. The word of God there sounds forth and forms all the various types which later crystallize into the things we behold in the terrestrial world.
On the piano five dark keys and seven white constsitute the octave. Besides the seven globes upon which we evolve during a Day of Manifestation, there are five dark globes which we traverse during the Cosmic Nights. In each life cycle the Ego withdraws for a time to the densest of these five, that is, Chaos, the formless world where nothing remains save the centers of force known as seed atoms. At the beginning of a new life cycle the Ego descends again into the Region of Concrete Thought, where the "music of the spheres" at once sets the seed atom into vibration.
There are seven spheres, the planets of our solar system. Each has its own keynote and emits a sound varying from that of every other planet. One or another among them vibrates in particular synchrony with the seed atom of the Ego then seeking embodiment. This planet then corresponds to the "tonic" in the musical scale; and though the tones from all the planets are necessary to build up an organism completely, each is modified and made to conform to the basic impact given by the most harmonious planet, which is therefore the ruler of that life, its Father Star. As in terrestrial music so also in the celestial there are harmonies and discords, and these all impinge upon the seed atom and aid in building the archetype. Vibratory lines of force are thus formed, which later attract and arrange physical particles, as spores or sand are marshaled into geometrical figures by bowing a brass plate with a violin bow.
Along these archetypal lines of vibration the physical body is later built, and thus it expresses accurately the harmony of the spheres as it was played during the period of construction. This period, however, is much longer than the actual period of gestation, and varies according to the complexity of the structure required by the life seeking physical manifestation. Nor is the process of construction of the archetype continuous, for under aspects of the planets which produce notes to which the vibratory powers of the seed atom cannot respond, it simply hums over those which it has already learned, and thus engaged it waits for a new sound which it can use to build more of the organism which it desires in order to express itself.
Thus, seeing that the terrestrial organism which each of us inhabits is molded along vibratory lines produced by the song of the spheres, we may realize that the inharmonies which express themselves as disease are produced in the first place by spiritual inharmony within. It is further evident that if we can obtain accurate knowledge concerning the direct cause of the inharmony and remedy it, the physical manifestation of disease will shortly disappear. It is this information which is given by the horoscope of birth, for there each planet in its house and sign expresses harmony of discord, health or disease. Therefore all methods of healing are adequate only in proportion as they take into consideration the stellar harmonies and discords expressed in the wheel of life — the horoscope.
In the heaven world there are pattern pictures — archetypes. We find in the Greek language the word "apxn," meaning "in the beginning," that is, the commencement. The Christ says of Himself, or rather the Initiate who understands his divinity says: "I am the beginning (apxn) and the end." There is in that word "beginning" (apxn) the nucleus for everything we have here.
In the temple there was placed an ark, and the ark was arranged in such a manner that the staves could not or should not be taken out of it; during the whole journey through the wilderness those staves must remain there. They were never removed until the ark was taken into the temple of Solomon. We see here a state where a certain symbol, an archetype, something that comes from the beginning, is made in such a manner that it can be taken up at any time and carried farther on. In that ark was the nucleus around which everything in the temple centered. There was the magical rod of Aaron, and there was the pot of manna; also the two tablets of the law.
We have here described a perfect symbol of what man really is, for all the while he is going through this vale of matter and is traveling continually from one place to another, the staves are never under any condition removed. They are not removed until he comes to that state symbolized in Revelation where it is said: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out."
During all the time that has intervened from the moment when man commenced his passage through matter, he has had that spirit of peregrination. He does not remain stationary. Every so often the temple was taken up, and the ark was carried farther on to a new place. So also is man taken from place to place, from environment to environment, from condition to condition. it is not an aimless journey, for it has for its goal that promised land, the New Jerusalem, where there shall be peace. But while man is on this journey he must know that there will be no rest and no peace.
As stated in the Cosmo in connection with the constitution of our planet, the path of initiation goes through the earth from circumference of center, one stratum at a time, and though our physical bodies are drawn that way by the force of gravitation, their density prevents trespass as effectually as the force of levitation which repels the uninstructed class spoken of from sacred precincts. Only when by the power of our own Spirit we have left our dense body, instructed by and because of right living, we are able to read the etheric record to best advantage. At a farther point of progress the "water startum" in the earth is opened to the Initiate, and he is then in a position to read the record of past events permanently engraved in the living substance of the Region of Archetypal forces, where duration and space are practically non-existent, and where all is an eternal Here and Now.
It is curious that the commission of suicide in one life and the consequent post-mortem suffering during the time when the archetype still exists often generates in such people a morbid fear of death in the next life, so that when the event actually occurs in the ordinary course of life, they seem frantic after they leave the body and so anxious to get back to the Physical World again that they frequently commit the crime of obsession in the most foolish and unthinking manner.
An esoteric maxim says that "A lie is both murder and suicide in the Desire World." The teachings of the Elder Brothers given in the the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception explain that whenever an occurrence takes place, a certain thought form generated in the invisible world makes a record of the incident. Every time the event is talked about or commented upon, a new thought form is created which coalesces with the original and strengthens it, provided they are both true to the same vibration. But if an untruth is told concerning what happens, then the vibrations of the original and those of the reproduction are not identical; they jar and jangle, tearing each other to pieces. If the good and true thought form is sufficiently strong it will overcome and break down the thought forms based upon the lie, and the good will overcome the evil; but where lies and malicious thoughts are the stronger, they may overcome the true thought form of the occurrence and thus demolish it. Afterwards they will jar among themselves, and all in turn will be annihilated.
Thus a person who lives a clean life, endeavoring to obey the laws of God and striving earnestly for truth and righteousness, will create thought-forms about him of a corresponding nature; his mind will run in grooves that harmonize with truth; and when the time comes in the Second Heaven to create the archetype for his coming life, he will readily, intuitively, from force of habit from the past life, align himself with the forces of right and truth. These lines, being built into his body, will create harmony in the coming vehicles, and health will therefore be his normal portion in the coming life. Those who, on the other hand, have in the past taken a distorted view of things, displayed a disregard for truth, and exercised cunning, extreme selfishness, and disregard for the welfare of others, are bound in the Second Heaven to see things in an oblique manner also, because that is their habitual line of thought. Therefore the archetype built by them will embody lines of error and falsity; and consequently, when the body is brought to birth, it will exhibit a weakness in various organs, if not in the whole bodily organization.
It is only when we enter into the higher realms, and particularly into the Region of Concrete Thought, that the eternal verities are to be perceived; hence we must necessarily make mistakes again and again, even despite our earnest efforts always to know and tell the truth. On that account it is impossible for us to build a thoroughly harmonious vehicle. Were that possible, such a body would really be immortal, and we know that immortality in the flesh is not the design of God; for Paul says that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."
But we know that even today a very small percentage are ready to live as near the truth as they see it, to confess it and profess it before men by service and by righteous and harmless living. We can also understand that such must have been few and far between in the bygone ages, when man had not evolved the altruism that came to this planet with the advent of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. The standards of morality were much lower then, and the love of truth almost negligible in the greater part of humanity, who were engrossed in their endeavors to accumulate as much wealth or gain, as much power or prestige, for themselves as possible. They were therefore naturally inclined to disregard the interests of others, and to tell a lie seemed in no way reprehensible and sometimes even appeared meritorious. The archetypes were constantly full of weaknesses, and the organic functions of the body today are interfered with to a serious degree as a result, particularly as the Western bodies are becoming more high-strung and more sensitive to pain on account of the Spirit's growing consciousness.
Assimilation of the fruits of each past life takes place before the Spirit descends to rebirth, and consequently the character generated is fully formed and readily expressed in the subtle, mobile, mind-stuff of the Region of Concrete Thought, where the archetype of the coming dense body is built. If the Spirit seeking rebirth loved music, it will seek to build a perfect ear with the semi-circular canals accurately placed and the ampullae very thin and sensitive to vibration; it will seek to form long and slender fingers wherewith to execute the heavenly chords caught by the ear. But if it detested music, if in the past life it endeavored to close its ears to sounds of gladness or the sob of sorrow, the desire to shut itself away from others thus formed would cause it to neglect the ear when building the archetype, and as a consequence this organ would be defective in a degree commensurate with the neglect caused by the character of the previous existence.
Similarly with the other senses; who drinks from a fount of knowledge and endeavors to share his knowledge with his neighbors, lays the foundation for powers of oratory in a future life, because the desire to communicate knowledge would cause him to pay particular attention to the formation and strength of the vocal organ when he is building the archetype of his coming body. Those who, on the other hand, endeavor to gain access to the mysteries of life for the sake of curiosity or to gratify their own pride of intellect, neglect to build an adequate organ of expression, and are therefore found to have weak voices or impediments in speech. In this way it is brought home to them that expression is a valuable asset. Although the brain of one thus afflicted may not sense the lesson, the Spirit learns that we are strictly accountable for the use we make of our talents, and we must pay the penalty sometime, somewhere, if we neglect to speak the word of Life to Light our brothers or sisters upon the path, when well qualified by knowledge to do so.
When the Ego is on its way to rebirth through the Region of Concrete Thought, the Desire World, and the Etheric Region, it gathers a certain amount of material from each. The quality of this material is determined by the seed atom, on the principle that like attracts like. The quantity depends upon the amount of matter required by the archetype built by ourselves in the Second heaven. From the quantity of prismatic ether atoms that are appropriated by a certain Spirit, the Recording Angels and their agents build an etheric form which is then placed in the mother's womb, and gradually clothed with physical matter, which then forms the visible body of the newborn child.
In the three lowest divisions of the Region of Concrete Thought are the archetypes of everything we see in the Physical World, as mineral, plant, animal, and man, of the continents, rivers and oceans; and here the trained clairvoyant whose faculty enables him to reach these high realms sees also the universal ocean of flowing life, in which all forms are immersed, sees the same vital impulse moving from form to form in rhythmic cycles, sustaining the form specialized by the Ego of man or the animal and plant Group Spirit.
These archetypes are not merely models in the sense we generally speak of models, as a thing in miniature, or in a finer material; they are creative archetypes, molding all the visible forms, such as we see in the world, in their own likeness, or rather likenesses, for often many of the archetypes work together to form a certain species,e ach archetype giving part of itself to build the required form. They are marshaled and directed by "The Archetypal forces" which are found in the fourth division. From the substance of the four lower divisions our mind is formed, enabling man also to form thoughts and make images which he may afterwards reproduce in iron, stone, or wood, so that by means of the mind which he obtains from this world man becomes a creator in the Physical World like the archetypal forces.
But what is that which directs the mind as the archetypal forces guide the operations of the archetypes? It is the Ego, and it gathers its clothing or garment from the three highest sections, which are called the Region of Abstract Thought and Ideas.
— Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures
There are two classes of people for whom the purgative process does not commence at once, namely, the suicide and the victim of murder. In the case of the suicide it does not commence until the time when the body would have died in the course of natural events, but in the meantime he suffers for his act in a way that is as dreadful as it is peculiar. He has a feeling of being hollowed out, as it were, and of inhabiting an aching void, due to the continued activity of the archetype of his form in the Region of Concrete Thought.
In the case of people, young or old, who die unnaturally or by accident, archetypal activity ceases; the higher vehicles undergo a modification at death, so that the loss of the dense body in itself gives no feeling of discomfort; but the suicide experiences no such change until the archetype of his body ceases to work, at the time when death would have naturally occurred. The space where his dense body ought to have been is empty, because the archetype is hollow, and it hurts indescribably. Thus he also learns that it is not possible to play truant from the school of life without bringing about unpleasant consequences, and in later lives when the way seems hard he will remember in his soul that the cowardly attempt to escape by suicide only brings added suffering.
There are people who commit suicide for an unselfish reason, to rid others of a burden, and they of course have their reward in another way, but they do not escape the suffering of the suicide, any more than the man who enters a burning building to save others is immune from burns.
The victim of murder escapes this suffering because he is in a comatose state as a rule, until the time when natural death should have occurred, and is taken care of in that respect, like the victims of so-called accidents, but the latter are always conscious at once or shortly after death. If the murderer is executed between the time of the murder and the time when his victim would naturally have died, the comatose desire body of the latter floats to its slayer by magnetic attraction, following him wherever he goes, without a moment's respite. The picture of the murder is always before him, causing him to feed the suffering and anguish which must inevitably accompany this incessant re-enactment of his crime in all its horrible details. This goes on for a time corresponding to the period of life of which he deprived his victim. If the murderer escapes hanging, so that his victim has passed beyond Purgatory before he dies, the "shell" of his victim remains to act the part of Nemesis in the drama of re-enactment of the crime.
— Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures
Thus the esoteric scientist refers all causes to the Region of Concrete Thought, and tells how they are generated there by human and superhuman Spirits.
Remembering that the Creative Archetypes of everything we see in the visible world are in the World of Thought, which is the realm of tone, we are prepared to understand that the archetypal forces are constantly playing through these archetypes which then emit a certain tone, or, where a number of them have massed to create a species of plant, animal, or human form, the different sounds blend into one grand chord. That single tone or chord,a s the case may be, is then the keynote of the form thus created, and as long as it sounds, the form or the species endures; when it ceases the single form dies or the species dies out.
A jumble of sound is not music any more than words massed together haphazardly are a sentence, but orderly rhythmic sound is the builder of all that is, as John says in the first verses of his gospel, "In the beginning was the word....and without it was not anything made;" also "the Word was made flesh."
Thus we see that sound is the creator and sustainer of all form, and in the Second Heaven the Ego becomes one with the nature forces. With them he works upon the archetypes of land and sea, on flora and fauna, to bring about the changes which gradually alter the appearance and condition of the earth, and thus afford a new environment, made by himself, in which he may reap new experience.
He is directed in this work by great teachers belonging to the Creative Hierarchies, which are called Angels, Archangels, and other names, who are God's ministers. They instruct him then consciously in the divine art of creation, both as to the World and the objects in it. They teach him how to build a form for himself, giving him the so-called "nature-spirits" as helpers, and thus man is serving his apprenticeship to become a Creator each time he goes to the Second Heaven. There he builds the archetype of the form which he later externalizes at birth.
— Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures
Taking a more detailed view of the several divisions of the Region of Concrete Thought we find that the archetypes of physical form, no matter to what kingdom they may belong, are found in the lowest subdivision, or the "Continental Region." In this Continental Region are also the archetypes of the continents and isles of the world, and corresponding to these archetypes are they fashioned. Modifications in the crust of the earth must be wrought in the Continental Region. Not until the archetype model has been changed can the Intelligences which we (to hide our ignorance concerning them) call the "Laws of Nature," bring about the physical conditions which later the physical features of the earth according to the modifications designed by the Hierarchies in charge of evolution. They plan changes as an architect plans the alteration of a building before the workmen give it concrete expression. In like manner are changes in the flora and fauna due to metamorphoses in their respective archetypes.
When we speak of the archetypes of all the different forms in the dense world, it must not be thought that these archetypes are merely models in the same sense in which we speak of an object constructed in miniature, or in some material other than that appropriate for its proper and final use. They are not merely likenesses nor models of the forms we see about us, but are creative archetypes; that is, they fashion the forms of the Physical World in their own likeness or likenesses, for often many work together to form one certain species, each archetype giving part of itself to build the required form.
The second subdivision of the Region of concrete Thought is called the "Oceanic Region." it is best described as flowing pulsating vitality. All the forces that work through the four ethers which constitute the Etheric Region are here seen as archetypes. It is a stream of flowing life, pulsating through all forms, as blood pulsates through the body, the same life in all forms. here then the trained clairvoyant sees how true it is that "all life is one."
The "Aerial Region" is the third division of the Region of Concrete Thought. Here we find the archetypes of desires, passions, wishes, feelings, and emotions such as we experience in the Desire World. Here all the activities of the Desire World appear as atmospheric conditions. Like the kiss of the summer breeze come the feelings of pleasure and joy to the clairvoyant sense; as the sighing of the wind in the tree-tops seem the longings of the soul, and like flashes of lightning the passions of warring nations. In this atmosphere of the Region of Concrete Thought are also pictures of the emotions of man and beast.
The Region of "Archetypal Forces" is the fourth division of the Region of Concrete Thought. It is the central and most important region in the five Worlds wherein man's entire evolution is carried on. On the one side of this region are the three higher Regions of the World of Thought, the World of Life Spirit, and the World of Divine Spirit. On the other side of this Region of Archetypal Froces are the three lower Regions of the World of Thought, the Desire, and the Physical Worlds. Thus this region becomes a sort of "crux" bounded on one side by the Realms of Spirit, on the other by the Worlds of From. It is the focusing point, where Spirit reflects itself in matter.
As the name implies, this region is the home of the archetypal forces which direct the activity of the archetypes in the Region of Concrete Thought. From this Region, Spirit works on matter in a formative manner. Diagram 1 shows the idea in a schematic way, the forms in the lower World being reflections of the Spirit in the higher Worlds. The fifth Region, which is the one nearest to the focusing point on the Spirit side, reflects itself in the third Region, which is nearest the focusing point of the From side. The sixth Region reflects itself in the second and the seventh reflects itself in the first.
— The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, pp.49-51
The suicide, who tires to get away from life, only to find that he is as much alive as ever, is in the most pitiable plight. He is able to watch those whom he has, perhaps, disgraced by his act, and worst of all, he has an unspeakable feeling of being "hollowed out." The part of the ovoid aura where the dense body used to be is empty, and although the desire has taken the form of the discarded dense body, it feels like an empty shell, because the creative archetype of the body in the Region of concrete Thought persists as an empty mold, so to speak, as long as the dense body should properly have lived. When a person meets a natural death, even in the prime of life, the activity of the archetype ceases, and the desire body adjusts itself so as to occupy the whole of the form, but in the case of the suicide that awful feeling of "emptiness" remains until the time comes when, in the natural course of events, his death would have occurred.
— The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
Water Stratum: In this stratum are the germinal possibilities of all that exists upon the surface of the earth. Here are the archetypal forces which are back of the Group Spirits; also the archetypal forces of the minerals, for this is the direct physical expression of the Region of Concrete Thought.
— The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
It is said that Jesus was the son of a carpenter, but the Greek word is tekton and means builder; arche is the Greek name of primoridal matter. It is also said that Jesus was a carpenter (tekton) himself. It is true, he was a tekton, builder or Mason, a son of God, the Grand archetekton. At the age of thirty-three, when he had taken the three-times three (9) degrees of Mystic Masonry, he descended to the center of the earth. So does every other tekton, Mason or phree messen (child of light), as the Egyptians called such, descend through the nine arch-like strata of the earth. We shall find at the time of the first advent of Christ both Hiram Abiff, the son of Cain, and Solomon, the son of Seth, reborn to take from Him the next great Initiation into the Christian Mysteries.
It is stated in the Bible that Joseph was a carpenter, but the Greek word is tekton, which means "builder." In Mystic Masonry God is called the Grand Architect. Arche is the Greek word signifying primordial substance, and a tekton is a builder. Thus God is the great Master Builder, who out of primordial substance fashioned the world as an evolutionary field for various grades of beings. He uses in His universe many tektons, or builders, of various grades. Everyone who follows the path of spiritual attainment, endeavoring to work constructively with the laws of Nature as a servant of humanity, is a tekton or builder in the sense that he has the qualifications necessary to aid in giving birth to a great soul. Thus when it is said that Jesus was a carpenter and the son of a carpenter, we understand that they were both tektons or builders along cosmic lines.
Goethe, the great mystic, fittingly ends his version (of Faust) with that most mystic of all stanzas found in literature:
The stanza puzzles all who are not able to penetrate into the realms where it is supposed to be sung, namely, heaven.
It speaks of all that is perishable being but a likeness, that is to say, the material forms which are subject to death and transmutation are but a likeness of the archetype seen in heaven. "The unattainable here is accomplished" — that which seemed impossible on earth is accomplished in heaven. No one knows that better than one able to function in that realm, for there every high and lofty aspiration finds fruition. The indescribable longings, ideas, and experiences of the soul, which even it cannot express to itself, are clearly defined in heaven; the Eternal Feminine, the great Creative Force in Nature, the Mother God, which draws us along the path of evolution, becomes there a reality. Thus the Faust myth tells the story of the World Temple, which the two classes of people are building, and which will be finally the New Heaven and the New Earth prophesied in the Book of Books.
— Mysteries of the Great Operas
Sound from a vacuum cannot be heard in the Physical World, but the harmony which proceeds from the vacuous cavity of a celestial archetype is "the voice of the silence," and it becomes audible when all earthly sounds have ceased. Elijah heard it not while the storm was raging; nor was it in evidence during the turbulence of the earthquake, nor in the crackling and roaring fire, but when the destructive and inharmonious sounds of this world had melted into silence, "the still small voice" issued its commands to save Elijah's life.
The other class of beings which must be mentioned are called archetypal forces by the Western School of esotericism. They direct the energies of the creative archetypes native to this realm. They are a composite class of beings of many different grades of intelligence and there is one stage in the cycle journey of the human Spirit when that also labors in, and is past of, that great host of beings. For the human Spirit is also destined to become a great creative intelligence at some future time, and if there were no school wherein it could gradually learn to create, it would not be able to advance, for nothing in Nature is done suddenly. An acorn planted in the soil does not become a majestic oak overnight, but many years of slow, persistent growth are required before it attains to the stature of a giant of the forest.
We learned previously, when considering the World of Thought, that each form in this visible world has its archetype there — a vibrating hollow mold which emits a certain harmonious sound; that sound attracts and forms physical matter into a shape we behold, much in the same manner that, when we place a little sand upon a glass plate and rub the edge with a violin bow, the sand is shaped into different geometrical figures which change as the sound changes.
The little atom in the heart is the sample, and the center around which the atoms in our body gather. When that is removed at death, the center is lacking, and although the archetype keeps on vibrating until the limit of the life has been reached — as also previously explained — no matter can be drawn into the hollow shape of the archetype, and therefore the suicide feels a dreadful gnawing pain as if he were hollowed out, a torture which can only be likened to the pangs of hunger. In this case, the intense suffering will continue for exactly as many years as he should have lived in the body. At the expiration of that time, the archetype collapses as it does when death comes naturally. Then the pain of the suicide ceases, and he commences his period of purgation as do those who die a natural death. But the memory of sufferings experienced in consequence of the act of suicide will remain with him in future lives and deter him from a similar mistake.
When the Spirit has made its choice, it descends into the Second Heaven where it is instructed by the Angels and Archangels, how to build an archetype of the body which it will later inhabit upon earth. Also here we note the operation of the great law of justice which decrees that we reap what we sow. If our tastes are coarse and sensual, we shall build an archetype which will express those qualities; if we are refined and of aesthetic taste, we shall build an archetype correspondingly refined, but no one can obtain a better body that he can build. Then, as the architect who builds a house in which he afterwards lives, will suffer discomfort if he neglects to ventilate if properly, so also the Spirit feels disease in a poorly-constructed body, and as the architect learns to avoid mistakes and remedy the shortcomings of one house when building another, so also the Spirit which suffers from defects in its body, learns in time to build better and better vehicles.
In the Region of Concrete thought, the Spirit also draws to itself materials for a new mind. As a magnet draws iron filings but leaves other substances alone, so also each Spirit draws only the kind of mind-stuff which it used in its former life, plus that which it has learned to use in its present post-mortem state. Then it descends into the Desire World where it gather material for a new desire body such as will express appropriately its moral characteristics, and later it attracts a certain amount of ether which is built into the mold of the archetype constructed in the Second Heaven and acts as cement between the solids, liquids, and gaseous material from the bodies of parents which forms the dense physical body of a child, and in due time the latter is brought to birth.
In the Region of Concrete Thought....all solid objects appear as vacuous cavities from which a basic keynote is continually sounded and thus whoever sees a thing also hears from itself the whole history of its being. Thought- forms which have not yet crystallized into physical action or being do not present themselves to the observer as a cavity, but here thoughts are not silent. They speak in a language which is unmistakable and convey far more accurately than words can, what is their intent until the force which their originator expended to bring them into being has been spent. As they sing in the key peculiar to the person who gave them birth it is a comparatively easy matter for the trained esotericist to trace them to their source.
— Questions & Answers, Vol. II
On the other hand, what really brings about death is the collapse of the archetype of the dense body.
— Questions & Answers, Vol. II
The path along which this part (of mind-stuff) of the silver cord will grow is indicated in the archetype, but it requires approximately twenty-one years to complete the junction.
— Questions & Answers, Vol. II
This physical body of ours is fashioned in an invisible mold is called the archetype, and so long as that archetype persists our physical body remains alive. When death occurs from natural causes, or even in the so-called accidents (which usually are not accidents at all but events used to terminate a life according to the design of the invisible guardians of human affairs), the archetype is disrupted and the Spirit flees.
A suicide, however, is different. In this case the archetype persists after death for a number of years until death should have occurred according to natural events, and being unable to draw to itself the physical atoms it imparts to the suicide during those years of his post-mortem existence a continuous aching feeling, something like a gnawing, or a dull but exceedingly painful toothache.
— Questions & Answers, Vol. II
At the same time he sees an archetype in the process of construction which shows the shape the earth will take at the place when a cataclysm or series of cataclysms have broken up the present shape of this continent and the adjoining ocean. Perhaps it is hazardous to set a time when this remodeling of the earth will begin, but the archetype or matrix molded in mind-stuff, and representing the creative thought of the Grand Architect and His builders, seems to nearly complete that, judging by the progress during the years the writer has watched its construction, it seems safe to say that by the middle of the present century (1950), if not before, the upheavals will have started.
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Contemporary Mystic Christianity |
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