The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, by Max Heindel

THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION

Chapter 11: The Genesis and Evolution of our Solar System

Chaos

In the previous pages, nothing has been said about our Solar System, and of the different planets which compose it, because it was not until the Earth Period was reached that the present differentiation was made. The Earth Period is the acme of diversification, and although we have been speaking of only one class of virgin spirits -- those who, in the strictest and most limited sense, are concerned with the Earth evolution -- there are in reality seven "Rays" or streams of life, all pursuing different evolutions, yet all belonging to the original class of virgin spirits to which our humanity belongs.

In the previous Periods all of these different sub-classes or Rays found a suitable environment for their evolution on the same planet. But, in the Earth Period, conditions became such that in order to provide for each class the degree of heat and the vibration necessary for its particular phase of evolution, they were segregated on different planets, at varying distances from the Sun -- the central source of life. This is the raison d'etre of our System and all other Solar Systems in the Universe.

Before proceeding with the description of evolution of our humanity on the Earth after its separation from the central Sun, it is necessary for the maintenance of sequential order in the description to explain the differentiation which scattered the planets of our System in space.

Active manifestation -- particularly in the Physical World -- depends upon separateness; upon the limitation of life by form. But during the interim between Periods and Revolutions, the marked distinction between form and life ceases. This applies not only to man and the lower kingdoms, but to the Worlds and Globes which are the basis of form for the evolving life. Only the seed-atoms and the nuclei or centers of the World-Globes remain -- all else is one homogenous substance. There is but one Spirit pervading space. Life and Form, its positive and negative poles, are one.

This state of things was what Greek mythology described as "Chaos." The ancient Norsemen and the Teutonic mythology call it "Ginnungagap," which was bounded upon the northern side by the cold and foggy "Niflheim" -- the land of mist and fog -- and upon the south side by the fire "Muspelheim." When heat and cold entered into space which was occupied by Chaos or Ginnungagap, they caused the crystallization of the visible universe.

The Bible also gives one the idea of infinite space preceding the activity of the Spirit.

In our present materialistic period we have unfortunately lost the idea of all that lies behind that word Space. We are so accustomed to speaking of "empty" space, that we have entirely lost the grand and holy significance of the word, and are thus incapable of feeling the reverence that this idea of Space and Chaos should inspire in our breasts.

To the Rosicrucians, as to any occult school, there is no such thing as empty or void space. To them space is Spirit in its attenuated form; while matter is crystallized space or Spirit. Spirit in manifestation is dual, that which we see as Form is the negative manifestation of Spirit -- crystallized and inert. The positive pole of Spirit manifests as Life, galvanizing the negative Form into action, but both Life and Form originated in Spirit, Space, Chaos!

To get an idea from everyday life which will illustrate, we may take the hatching of an egg. The egg is filled with a moderately viscous fluid. This fluid, or moisture, is subjected to heat, and out of the soft, fluidic substance comes a living chick, with hard bones and comparatively hard flesh, and with down that has a comparatively hard quill, etc.

When a living chick can come out of the inert fluid of an egg without the addition of any hardening substance from outside, is it a far-fetched idea to claim that the universe is crystallized Space or Spirit? There is no doubt that the claim will seem foolish to many; but this book is not for the purpose of convincing the world at large that these things are. It is intended to aid those who inherently feel that these things must be and to help them to see the light upon this great World-mystery, which the writer has been permitted to behold. The special object at present is to show that Spirit is active all the time -- in one way during Manifestation, and in another during Chaos.

Modern science would sneer at the idea that life could exist upon a Globe which is in the process of formation. That is because science cannot dissociate Life and Form and cannot conceive of Form except as solid and tangible -- cognizable by one of our five physical senses.

The occult scientist, in accordance with the above definitions of Life and Form, holds that life may exist independently of Concrete Form; may have Forms not perceptible to our present limited senses, and amenable to none of the laws which apply to this present concrete state of matter.

It is true that the Nebular Theory holds that all existence (which is to say all Form, the Worlds in Space and whatever Forms there may be upon them) has come from the fiery nebula; but it does not recognize the further fact insisted upon by occult science -- that the fiery nebula is Spirit. It does not admit that the whole atmosphere around us, the space between the worlds, is Spirit and that there is a constant interchange going on all the time -- Form dissolving into Space, and Space crystallizing into Form.

Chaos is not a state which has existed in the past and has now entirely disappeared. It is all around us at the present moment. Were it not that old forms -- having outlived their usefulness -- are constantly being resolved back into that Chaos, which is also as constantly giving birth to new forms, there could be no progress; the work of evolution would cease and stagnation would prevent the possibility of advancement.

It is axiomatic that "The oftener we die, the better we live." The Poet-Initiate, Goethe says:

Who has not this --
Ever dying and bringing to birth --
Will aye remain a sorry guest
Upon this dismal earth.

and Paul says, "I die daily."

Therefore, as students of occult science, it is necessary to realize that even during active manifestation, it is Chaos that is the basis of all progress. Our life during Chaos is based upon our life in active manifestation, and vice versa, i.e., what we are able to achieve during active manifestation, and the ability to progress at all, is the result of the existence in Chaos. The interim between Periods and Revolutions is in reality much more important to the growth of the soul that concrete existence, though the latter is the basis of the former and therefore cannot be dispensed with. The importance of the Chaotic interim lives in the fact that during that period the evolving entities of all classes are so closely united that they are really one; consequently those which are of lower development during manifestation are in closest contact with the more highly evolved, thus experiencing and benefiting by a much higher vibration that their own. This enables them to live over and assimilate their past experiences in a manner impossible when hampered by Form.

We have seen the benefit to the spirit in man from the interim between death and a new birth. There the form still exists, though much more attenuated than the dense body; but in the Cosmic Night and intervals of rest between Periods and Revolutions, when there is perfect freedom from form, the beneficial results of past experiences can be much more effectively assimilated.

We have a word which was originally coined to convey the idea of the state of things between manifestations. This word, however, has been used in a material sense to such an extent that it has lost its primal significance. That word is Gas.

It may be thought that this is a very old word, which has nearly always existed as a synonym for a state of matter lighter than liquids, but such is not the case. The word was first used in "Physica," a work which appeared in 1633, the author of it being Helmont, a Rosicrucian.

Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1577-1644), Excerpt from "A Source Book in Chemistry, 1400-1900," by Henry M. Leicester, Herbert S. Klickstein

One of the most prominent disciples of Paracelsus was Jan Baptist Van Helmont. After studying several sciences, he finally chose medicine and became an ardent follower of Paracelsus. An extended trip through Europe impressed him with the importance of chemistry. He gave up his medical interests and devoted the remainder of his life to chemical investigations. As a chemist, Van Helmont has been said to represent the transition from alchemy to chemistry.

Van Helmont had little use for philosophical reasoning and was an active exponent of experimental work. The true elements he asserted to be air and water. Many experiments were performed to support his views. His work on gases has earned him the title of "the real founder of pneumatic chemistry." It was he who first coined the name gas and recognized carbon dioxide (gas sylvestre) as a product of combustion and fermentation. Although he believed in magic and alchemy, he represents a definite advance over Paracelsus in the clarity of his many ideas and in his emphasis on the use of the balance. With it he demonstrated, in many instances, the indestructibility of matter in chemical changes. He was the first to use quantitative methods in chemical experiments.

As one of the early students of physiological chemistry, Van Helmont had an extensive knowledge of bile, gastric juice, and stomach acids. What today we term enzymes resemble in many ways his ferments. He had some understanding of wound infection and serum immunity. The gravimetric analysis of urine is to his credit. On Van Helmont's death, his son, Franz Mercurius (1614-1699) collected and edited his manuscripts, some of which had previously been printed separately. They were published in 1648. [1]An English translation, "Oriatricke, or Physick Refined," appeared in 1662. [2] It is from this volume (edition of 1662) that the following passages are taken.

Van Helmont rejected the elements and principles of Paracelsus as well as the doctrines of Aristotle. He believed the true elements to be air and water.

I have said, that there are two primary Elements; the Air, and the Water; because they do not turn into each other: but, that the Earth is as it were born of water; because it may be reduced into water. But if water be changed into an Earthy Body, that happens by the force or virtue of the Seed, and so it hath then put off the simpleness of an Element. For a flint is of water, which is broken asunder into Sand. But surely, that Sand doth lesse resist in its reducing into water, than the Sand, which is the Virgin-Earth. Therefore the Sand of Marble, of a Gemme, or Flint, do disclose the presence of the Seed. But if the Virgin-Earth, may at length, by much labour be brought into water, and if it was in the beginning created as an Element; yet it seems then to have come down to something that is more simple than it self; and therefore I have called those two, Primary ones. I have denied the fire to be an Element and Substance; but to be death in the hand of the Artificer, given for great uses. I say, an artificial Death for Arts, which the Almighty hath created; but not a natural one. [3]

The doctrine does not allow the interconvertibility of the two "elements" nor their reduction to a simpler state. Fire and earth are not elements. Van Helmont's famous "tree experiment" was supposed to prove that all plants are derived from water alone.

But I have learned by this handicraft-operation, that all Vegetables do immediately, and materially proceed out of the Element of water onely. For I took an Earthen Vessel, in which I put 200 pounds of Earth that had been dried in a Furnace, which I moystened with Rain-water, and I implanted therein the Trunk or Stem of a Willow Tree, weighing five pounds; and at length, five years being finished, the Tree sprung from thence, did weigh 169 pounds, and about three ounces: But I moystened the Earthen Vessel with Rain-water or distilled water (alwayes when there was need) and it was large, and implanted into the Earth, and least the dust that flew about should be co-mingled with the Earth, I covered the lip or mouth of the Vessel, with an Iron-Plate covered with Tin, and easily passable with many holes. I computed not the weight of the leaves that fell off in the four Autumnes. At length, I again dried the Earth of the Vessel, and there were found the same 200 pounds, wanting about two ounces. Therefore 164 pounds of Wood, Barks, and Roots, arose out of water onely. [4]

His reasoning is not completely erroneous, for willow wood is about half water. Van Helmont did not recognize the role of carbon dioxide in this process. The first use of the word gas and some of Helmont's concepts on fermentation and chemistry are contained in the following passage. [5] It is not difficult to understand how experiments such as the one cited here on the burning of charcoal should have given rise to the phlogiston theory.

Moreover, every coal which is made of the co-melting of Sulphur and Salt (working among themselves in time of burning) although it be roasted even to its last day in a bright burning Furnace, the Vessel being shut, it is fired indeed; but there is true fire in the Vessel, no otherwise than in the coal not being shut up; yet nothing of it is wasted, it not being able to be consumed, through the hindering of its eflux. Therefore the live coal, and generally whasoever bodies do not immediately depart into water, nor yet are fixed, do necessarily belch forth a wild spirit or breath. Suppose thou, that of 62 pounds of Oaken coal, one pound of ashes is composed: Therefore the 61 remaining pounds, are the wild spirit, which also being fired, cannot depart, the Vessel being shut.

I call this Spirit, unknown hitherto, by the new name of Gas, which can neither be contained by Vessels, nor reduced into a visible body, unless the seed being first extinguished. But Bodies do contain this Spirit, and do sometimes wholly depart into such a Spirit, not indeed, because it is actually in those very bodies (for truly it could not be detained, yea the whole composed body should flie away at once) but it is a Spirit grown together, coagulated after the manner of a body, and is stirred up by an attained ferment, as in Wine, the juyce of unripe Grapes, bread, hydromel or water and Honey, &c. Or by a strange addition, as I shall sometime shew concerning Sal Armoniack: or at length, by some alternative disposition, such as is roasting in respect of an Apple: For the Grape is kept and dried, being unhurt; but its skin being once burst, and wounded, it straightway conceiveth a ferment of boyling up, and from hence the beginning of a trasmutation. Therefore the Wines of Grapes, Apples, berries, Honey, and likewise flowers and leaves being once pounced, a ferment being snatched to them, they begin to boyle and be hot, whence ariseth a Gas; but from Raysins bruised, and used, for want of a ferment, a Gas is not presently granted.

The Gas of Wines, if it be constrained by much force within Hogsheads, makes Wines furious, mute and hurtfull: Wherefore also, the Grape being abundantly eaten, hath many times brought forth a diseasie Gas. For truly the spirit of the ferment is much disturbed, and seeing it is disobedient to our digestion, it associates it selfe to the vitall spirit by force; yea, if anything be prepared to be expelled in manner of a Sweat, that thing, through the stubborn sharpness or soureness of the ferment, waxeth clotty, and brings forth notable troubles, torments, or wringings of the bowels, Fluxes, and the Bloudy-flux. I being sometimes in my young beginnings deluded by the authority of ignorant writers, have belied the Gas of Grapes to be the spirit of Wine in new Wine. But vain tryalls have taught me, that the Gas of Grapes and new Wine are in the way to Wine but not the spirit of Wine, for the juyce of Grapes differes from Wine, no otherwise than the pulse of water and meal, do from Ale or Beer: For a fermentall disposition coming between both, disposeth the fore-going matter into the transmutation of it self, that thereby another Being may be made. For truly, I will at sometimes teach, that every formall transmutation doth presuppose a corruptive ferment. Other more refined Writers have thought, that Gas is a winde or air inclosed in things, which had flowen unto that generation, for an Elementary co-mixture: And so Paracelsus supposed, that the air doth invisibly lurk under the three other Elements, in every body; but in time onely, that the Air is visible: but his own inconstancy reproveth himself, because, seeing that he sheweth in many places else-where, that bodies are mixed of the three first things; but that the Elements are not Bodies, but the meer wombs of things.

But he observed not a two-fold Sulphur in Tin (and therefore is it lighter than other Mettalls:) whereof one onely is co-agulable by reason of the strange or foreign property of its Salt, whereby Jupiter or Tin maketh every Mettall frangible or capable of breaking, and brickle, it being but a little defiled with its odour onely: but that the other Sulphur is Oily. For Gun-powder doth the most neerly express the History of Gas: For it consisteth of Salt-peter (which they rashly think to be the Nitre of the Antients, and the which is at this day plentifully brought to us, being dried up from the inundation of Nilus) of Sulphur, and a Coal, because they being joyned, if they are enflamed, there is not a Vessel in nature, which being close shut up, doth not burst by reason of the Gas. For if the Coal be kindled, the Vessel being shut, nothing of it perisheth: but the Sulphur, if the Glasse being shut) it be sublimed, wholly ascends from the bottom, without the changing of its Species or kinde. Saltpeter also being melted in a shut Vessel, as to one part of it, gives a sharp Liquor that is watery; but as to the other part, it is changed into a fixed Alcali.

Therefore fire sends forth an Air, or rather a Gas, out of all of them singly, which else, if the air were within, it would send forth from the three things being connexed. Therefore those things being applied together, do mutually convert themselves into Gas, through destruction. But there is that un-sufferance of Sulphur and Salt-peter, not indeed by the wedlock of cold with hot, as of powerfull qualities (as is believed) but by reason of the un-cosufferable flowing of boyling Oil and Wine, no lesse than of water; or of Copper and Tin, being melted with Wine. For in so great heat, when they co-touch each other throughout their least parts, they are either turned into a Gas, or do leap asunder.

Van Helmont's identification of the gas obtained in fermentation with that produced by burning charcoal is one of the first important generalizations in agricultural chemistry.

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Notes:

1. "Ortus medicinae, Id est, initia physicae inavdita. Progressus medicinae novus, in morborum, ultionem, ad vitam longam ..." Elzevir, Amsterdam, 1648. Other editions followed: 2d ed. Venice, 1651; 3d ed. Elzevir, Amsterdam, 1652; Lyons, 1655 and 1667; Frankfurt, 1682; Frankfurt, 1707.

2. "Oriatricke, or Physick Refined, the common Errors therein Refuted, and the whole Art reformed and rectified: being a new Rise and Progress of Phylosophy and Medicine, for the Destruction of Diseases and Prolongation of Life. Written by that most Learned, Famous, Profound, and Acute Phylosopher, and chemical Physitian, John Baptista Van Helmont, and now faithfully rendered into English, in tendency to a common good, and the increase of true Science; by J[ohn] C[handler], sometime of M[erton] H[all] Oxon.," London, 1662; reissued with new title page and introductory matter in 1664.

3. Ibid., p. 104.

4. Ibid., p. 109.

5. Ibid., pp. 106-107.

Helmont did not call himself a Rosicrucian; no true Brother does so publicly. Only the Rosicrucian knows the brother Rosicrucian. Not even the most intimate friends or relatives know of a man's connection with the order. Those only who are Initiates themselves know the writers of the past who were Rosicrucians, because ever through their works shine the unmistakable words, phrases and signs indicative of the deep meaning that remains hidden from the non-Initiate. The Rosicrucian Fellowship is composed of students of the teachings of the Order, which are now given publicly, because the world's intelligence is growing to the necessary point of comprehension. This work is one of the first few fragments of the Rosicrucian knowledge being publicly given out. All that has been printed as such, previous to the last few years, has been the work of either charlatans or traitors.

Rosicrucians such as Paracelsus, Comenius, Bacon, Helmont and others gave hints in their works and influenced others. The great controversy concerning the authorship of Shakespeare (which has to no avail blunted so many goose-quills and wasted so much good ink that might have served useful ends) would never have arisen had it been known that the similarity in Shakespeare and Bacon is due to the fact that both were influenced by the same Initiate, who also influenced Jacob Boehme and a pastor of Ingolstadt, Jacobus Baldus, who lived subsequent to the death of the Bard of Avon, and wrote Latin lyric verse. If the first poem of Jacob Baldus is read with a certain key, it will be found that by reading down and up the lines, the following sentence will appear: "Hitherto I have spoken from across the sea by means of the drama; now I will express myself in lyrics."

In his "Physica," Helmont, the Rosicrucian wrote: "Ad huc spiritum incognitum Gas voco," i.e., "This hitherto unknown Spirit I call Gas." Further on in the same work he says, "This vapor which I have called Gas is not far removed from the Chaos the ancients spoke of."

We must learn to think of Chaos as the Spirit of God, which pervades every part of infinity; it will then be seen in its true light, as the occult maxim puts it: "Chaos is the seed-ground of the Cosmos," and we shall no longer wonder how "something can come out of nothing," because Space is not synonymous with "nothing." It holds within itself the germs of all that exists during a physical manifestation, yet not quite all; for by the wedding of Chaos with Cosmos there is something new brought forth each time, which did not exist before; something that was not foreshown and latent. The name of that something is Genius -- the cause of Epigenesis.

It appears in all kingdoms. It is the expression of progressive spirit in man, animal and plant. Chaos is therefore a holy name; a name that signifies the Cause of all we see in Nature and inspires a feeling of devotion in every tried, true and trained occultist. He regards the visible sense world as a revelation of the hidden potentialities of the Chaos.

The Birth of the Planets

To express himself in the dense physical world, it was necessary for man to evolve a suitable dense body. In a world like this he must have a body with limbs, organs, a muscular system by means of which to move about; also a brain to direct and co-ordinate his movements. If the conditions had been different, the body would have been modified accordingly.

It is necessary for all beings, high or low in the scale of existence, to possess vehicles for expression in any particular world in which they may wish to manifest. Even the Seven Spirits before The Throne must possess these necessary vehicles, which of course are differently conditioned for each of Them. Collectively, They are God, and make up the Triune Godhead, and He manifests in a different way through each of Them.

There is no contradiction in ascribing different numbers to God. We do not sin against the "oneness" of light because we distinguish three primary colors into which it divides itself. The white light of the Sun contains the seven colors of the spectrum. The occultists sees even twelve colors, there being five between red and violet -- going one way around the circle -- in addition to the red, orange, yellow, green, etc., of the visible spectrum. Four of these colors are quite indescribable, but the fifth -- the middle one of the five -- is similar to the tint of a new blown peach blossom. It is in fact the color of the vital body. Trained clairvoyants who describe it as "bluish-gray," or "reddish-gray," etc., are trying to describe a color that has no equivalent in the physical world; and they are therefore compelled to use the nearest descriptive terms afforded by our language.

Perhaps Color will enable us to realize the oneness of God with the Seven Spirits before The Throne better than anything else. We will therefore turn to diagram 11.

Diagram 11

We see here a white triangle looming up from a dark background. White is synthetic, containing all colors within itself, as God contains within Himself all things in the Solar System.

Within the white triangle are a blue, a red and a yellow circle. All other colors are simply combinations of these three primary colors. These circles correspond to the three aspects of God, which are without beginning, and end in God; though externalized only during active manifestation.

When these three colors are interblended, as shown in the diagram, there appear four additional colors, the three secondary colors -- each due to the blending of two primary colors -- and one color (indigo) which contains the entire gamut of colors, making it in all the seven colors of the spectrum. These colors represent the Seven Spirits before the Throne. The colors are different, as are also the Seven Spirits, each having a different mission in the Kingdom of God -- our Solar System.

The seven planets circling around the Sun are the dense bodies of the Seven Planetary Genii. Their names are: Uranus with one satellite, Saturn with eight moons, Jupiter with four moons, Mars with two moons, the Earth and its moon, Venus and Mercury. [1]

Bodies are always found to suit the purpose they are made to serve, hence the dense bodies of the Seven Planetary Spirits are spherical, that form being best adapted to the enormous velocity with which they travel through space. The Earth, for instance, travels about 66,000 miles per hour in its orbit.

Man's body had a different shape in the past from that of the present, and from that which it will have in the future. During involution it was approximately spherical, as it still is during ante-natal life, because the intra-uterine development is a recapitulation of past stages of evolution. At that stage the organism developed the sphere, because during involution man's energies were directed inward, upon the building of its own vehicles, as the embryo develops within the sphere of the uterus.

Man's dense and vital bodies have straightened, but his higher vehicles still retain their ovoid form. In the dense body, the coordinating and governing brain is situated at one extremity. This is the most unfavorable position for such an organ. Too long a time is required for impulses to travel from one extremity to the other -- from the brain to the feet, or for impacts on the feet to reach the brain. In cases of burns, for instance, science has demonstrated that valuable time is lost, the skin being blistered before a message can be carried from the injured place to the brain and back again.

This inefficiency would be greatly lessened if the brain were in the center of the body. Sensations and the responses thereto could be more quickly received and transmitted. In the spherical planets the Planetary Spirit directs from the center the movements of its vehicle. In future man will bend over, as shown in diagram 12. He will become a sphere, directing his energies outward because a spherical form affords the greatest facility for motion in all directions, and indeed, for combination of simultaneous motions.

Diagram 12: Man's Form of Body

The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception teaches that there is a further evolution in store for planets.

When the beings upon a planet have evolved to a sufficient degree, the planet becomes a Sun -- the fixed center of a Solar System. When the beings upon it have evolved to a still greater degree, and consequently it has reached its maximum brilliancy, it breaks up into Zodiac, becoming, so to speak, the womb for a new Solar System.

Thus the great hosts of Divine Beings who, until then, were confined within that Sun, gain freedom of action upon a great number of stars, whence they can affect in different ways the system which grows up within their sphere of influence. The planets, or man-bearing worlds, within the Zodiac are constantly being worked upon by these forces, but in various ways, according to the stage they have reached in evolution.

Our Sun could not become a Sun until it had sent out from itself all the beings who were not sufficiently evolved to endure the high rate of vibration and the great luminosity of the beings who were qualified for that evolution. All the beings upon the different planets would have been consumed had they remained in the Sun.

This visible Sun, however, though it is the place of evolution for Beings vastly above man, is not by many means the Father of the other planets, as material science supposes. On the contrary, it is itself an emanation from the Central Sun, which is the invisible source of all that is in our Solar System. Our visible Sun is but the mirror in which are reflected the rays of energy from the Spiritual Sun. The real Sun is as invisible as the real Man.

Uranus was the first planet to be thrown off from the nebula when its differentiation began in Chaos, at the dawn of the Earth Period. There was no light but the dim light of the Zodiac. The life that left with Uranus is of a rather backward strain and is said to evolve very, very slowly.

Saturn was next differentiated. It is the field of action for the life which is at the stage of evolution corresponding to the Saturn Period. This planet was differentiated before the ignition of the nebula and (like all nebulae when passing through their Saturn Period of evolution) was not a source of light, but a reflector.

Jupiter was differentiated shortly afterwards, when the nebula had become ignited. The heat of Jupiter is not so great as that of the Sun, Venus or Mercury, but on account of its immense bulk, it is capable of retaining its heat and thus remains a suitable field of evolution for very advanced beings. It corresponds to the stage which will be reached by the Earth itself in the Jupiter Period.

Mars is a mystery, and only a limited amount of information may be given out. We may say, however, that the life on Mars is of a very backward nature and that the so-called "canals" are not excavations in the surface of the planet. They are currents such as, during the Atlantean Epoch, spread over our planet, and the remains of which can still be observed in the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis. The shifting of the Martian "canals" noted by astronomers, is thus accounted for. If they were really canals, they could not possibly shift, but currents emanating from the Poles of Mars may do so.

The Earth, including the Moon, was next set out from the Sun, and later Venus and Mercury. These and Mars will be referred to later, in connection with the evolution of man on the earth, and need not be further considered at this time.

When a planet has Moons, it indicates that there are some beings in the life wave evolving on that planet who are too backward to share in the evolution of the main life wave, and they have therefore been set out from the planet to prevent them from hindering the progress of the pioneers. Such is the case with the beings inhabiting our Moon. In the case of Jupiter it is thought probable that the inhabitants of three of its moons will eventually be able to rejoin the life on the parent planet, but it is thought that at least one of the others is an eighth sphere, like our own Moon, where retrogression and disintegration of the already acquired vehicle will result from too close adherence to material existence upon the part of the evolving beings who have brought themselves to that deplorable end.

Neptune and its satellites do not properly belong to our Solar System. The other planets -- or rather their Spirits -- exercise an influence over the whole of humanity, but the influence of Neptune is largely restricted to one particular class: the astrologers. The writer, for instance, has several times felt its compelling influence in a marked way.

When laggards inhabiting a Moon have retrieved their position and returned to the parent planet; or, when continued retrogression has caused complete disintegration of their vehicles, the abandoned Moon also commences to dissolve. The momentum of a spiritual impulse which propelled it in a fixed orbit for eons, may endure for eons after the Moon has been vacated, and from the physical point of view it may still seem to be a satellite of the planet in encircles. As the time goes on, however, and the power of attraction exercised by the parent planet diminishes, its orbit widens, until it reaches the limit of our solar system. It is then expelled into interstellar space; dissolved in Chaos. The expulsion of these cinder-like dead worlds is analogous to the manner in which hard and foreign bodies imbedded in the human system make their way through the flesh to the skin. The Asteroids illustrate this point. They are fragments of Moons which once encircled Venus and Mercury. The beings once confined upon them are known in esotericism as "The Lords from Venus" and "The lords from Mercury;" they retrieved their lost estate in a large measure by service to our humanity, as will be later described, and are now safe on their present planet, while the Moons they inhabited have partly disintegrated, and are already far outside the earth's orbit. There are other "seeming" moons in our system, but the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception does not notice them, as they are outside the pale of evolution.

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Notes:

1. Astronomical discoveries since the writing of this book attribute 4 satellites to Uranus, 9 to Saturn, and 11 to Jupiter.

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