The temple of the rosy cross

Front matter

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THE

TEMpLE OF Tp R0$Y Cl(0$.

Preface

To provoke thought, and thus lift the world out of the rut into which it has fallen, the following pages have been written. The soul is no common or vulgar thing; and all approximation thereto, in thought, must be transcendental. This work claims to contain the fundamental principles of all religion* — the philosophy of manhood, and the road leading to a true life and immortality, here, on this poor, much abused earth. " This is a matter-of-fact age," and " the day of miracles has passed. " That is. those things which unaccountably happen, which were formerly ascribed to God, have come a little nearer home, and are now ascribed to nature. What satisfaction there is in a name, especially to children! The superstition of the past, and of the stars, narrowed down to that of " the ape" and " the mud!' Instead of the facts of observation, I have attempted those of logic and common sense. Darwin and Huxley have narrowed the mind down to a contemplation of the mud (" protoplasm" ) but I call you to a contemplation of man and his possibilities. / came, and found this beautiful earth fanned by the breath of deadly poison, which men, in the very agony of breathing, call life. / go ; but in going, I would leave it a little purer for having been here. I am satisfied that man is the architect of* himself, and of all conditions, from " protoplasm" up; and it has been my effort to stir him upward to the creation of things worthy of himself. This year, 1881, is the close of an epoch in the world's history. It will, indeed, be sad, if we follow in the bloody track of our forefathers downward. We have now an opportunity, next year, of cutting loose the shackles that chain us to the corpse of the past. Shall we make the attempt? Reader, study these pages; the great ideas are merely shadowed, and are left crude and bare of detail, for you to clothe as your mind shall open to the grasping. Do not deny what I have written, without a full and clear comprehension of the ideas.

It is not claimed that this work is wholly Rosicrucian. The sublime principles of this fraternity are not conveyed in this manner; but enough is given to enable the thoughtful and earnest searcher after truth to get a glimpse o\ the glory hidden, even now. as in the past.

1; is not the lond Bounding bells of a sabbath morning, nor the roaring

gans and voices; neither is the high-toned oratory of the officiating

priest, true worship: neither is it the means, however charming and gratifying, which move the infinite to the answering of prayer. Remember, " silenee is strength;'' noise confuses. It is "an empty sound," which silence comprehends not, or in the comprehension of it, - it. The unwavering, persistent, incomprehensible (by us) thought, is the sustaining and noiseless moving poAver of the universe; and he who hath most of it is the most prayer-answering God, and in and by virtue thereof he is the greatest prayer.

F. B. DOWD.

INTRODUCTION

THE SUPEENATUEAL.

In this matter-of-fact age the existence of God is seriously questioned by the greatest thinkers. The reason is obviously in the definitions which the religious world — more especially the Christian — gives to the term. The very nature of reason precludes the idea of the existence of a Thing above, separate and apart from the relationship of things. Eeason cannot transcend its own source,, That which is seen and known as nature — it being an infinitude of objects and phenomena — is considered as sufficient. And to reason and observation it does seem so. But if we undertake an analysis of this thing we call nature, we shall find it fully as remarkable and as contradictory as to suppose a Supreme Being as its maker.

The antipathies of things show no one source. There seems, even to broad and deep reason, two principles at war with each other; equally so to the fool they appear. One cannot be the cause of the other — nor can they be self-adjusting and regulating. Why? Because to us — not even to our reason — no thing is self- existent nor self-supporting. Everything in existence is dependent upon something else.

If there is an exception to this, it cannot be a Thing. If we pass by things in our thought, and descend to principles, they also are dual and antagonistic.

To suppose Good to be the principle, and evil its mere effect, is an absurdity, for one is as real as the other; and

INTRODUCTION.

evil is as much the cause of good as good is the cause of evil.

We are so constituted that definitions are a necessity of all growth, intellectual as well as physical. All nature is an ■it to define itself. But what is it that is defining itself in this warfare of elements — this clashing of interests ? Is it not something hidden away alike from feeling or observation and reason?

The things or principles that clash are patent — we think we know them. All are conversant therewith, from the 1 Dwest worm that crawls, to the loftiest intelligence; whether it be named pleasure and pain, or God and the Devil, or positive and negative. But that something — which is struggling up out of the rock, water, air, and mud, into forms of beauty, use and deformity— as if to make itself known in multitudinous ways — what of it ?

Suppose we name it power! It is neither positive nor negative — neither good nor evil— but in the definition of itself becomes either good or bad, or indifferent. Power is that which supports all things, and we can well say it is neutral, for in itself there is no duality. But pause a moment and think; even power has its antagonist — weak- - ! Is there the iveakriess of nothing ? Is power limited to things, or even to principles ?

Again : where can weakness be found save in things ? So power and weakness must be an attribute of things ; but where they come from is unknown.

But what is a principled If we can grasp a principle we have a foundation upon which to stand. It is as easy to define a thing as a principle. A principle is that which is self- existent.

There can be only one thing in existence that is not derived from something else. What if it be a formless and boundless ocean! having nothing that can bo predicated of things — neither fire nor that other thing that extinguishes fire; but perhaps a fire, by the side of which the sun is black — or a light the opposite of our daylight, by the side of which the night and the day are alike — in which worlds float like specks, or as aninialculae in water.

We call good a principle, when it is only our tuay of estimating the phenomena of life. Think you there is any good where there is no sense to feel ? So good and evil, being only oar estimate, of that which we sense — it is our product and must belong to us — and ive are the principle after all.

We judge by reason of sense. Then may not sense be that formless, unchangeable, infinite something that is not a thing — that hidden and undefinable fire whose sparks are our thoughts, and whose warmth is our life ? A fire, whose quenching by the Infinite will gives forms of matter in the cooling — to be fanned into a blaze by a breath of his life — things all luminous within, darkened outwardly as if by a contraction of the sense ?

May not sense be the Infinite substance of all space ? in which thought is as the rolling of worlds — and it, pulsating with motions and emotions, whispers and voices that do not strike upon our dull senses — so stupid are we. Even our atmosphere pulsates as a breath, and the ether vibrates to every voice or thought, and the " aching void," far beyond all suns, worlds and universes — that void of nothingness where God is enthroned as " the over- soul" of all — even there the tremblings of thought and feeling meet an answering response!

What do we know after all ? We know this : It is sense that is trying to define itself in this contradictory manner we call nature. Out of it and into it come so-called principles, laws and things — as the breath going out and coming in. It is the actor, the cause, the source of a mighty river called life.

12 [NTRODUOTION.

There are other senses of which we have never dreamed —

the unknown is beyond the known.

How small and weak is the latter compared to the former! How small the possible in comparison to the impossible! Is the Supernatural the impossible ? Then how great and vast it must be! It is natural to grow in knowledge, but the things unknown are infinite — they are all in our ignorance. How vast it is compared to our knowledge! Is Ignorance the Supernatural ?

The light that flows from the sun is small compared to the limitless darkness that hovers around its radius. Is the

DARKNESS the SUPERNATURAL ?

The above is greater than the below. Is it to be wondered at that men have universally looked up to God ? However vast nature may be there is something still above it, which, although incomprehensible, still has an existence to every thinking mind. My nature is limited by my knowledge of myself and my relationship to others. So nature is a limited thing, as my mind is my limit.

May not this nature, after all, be merely a mental product as the good and evil of it is? A mental product! not of one, or even of a race, but of all minds in unison! Is all nature outside of us, or is it tvithin, as a wondrous mystery hidden in our ignorance.

Is not the impossible within us, the same as weakness, and ignorance, and darkness ?

Education is nothing but the opening of a " door,' 1 or the lighting of a lamp in a dark place, through which things before unknown appear to us as the possible, and are very simple.

The circumstances of our lives are all within us, as the possibilities of our natures, but hidden from us in our ignorance, till our acts flow out as a light, showing us merely a few things of the many still lying back in the infinite darkness of the unexplored beyond.

The hidden is infinite. We are hidden from ourselves, and know not the wondrous powers lying back of our smallness.

Even we are astonished at the wondrous skill of this thing we call man, which is but the supernatural revealing itself to us. It is very close to us — possibly it may be us ! hidden from us, as all things are hidden from the infant's closed eyes.

I feel so, at least at times, when I forget the narrow limits of this life, and it is my effort herein to show what acts are the greatest lights in this infinite darkness of ignorance, so that peradventure some one more gifted than 1, may possibly surprise the Supernatural himself some day with the torch, lighted not by man.

It may be an idle task to search for God, but he has given us questioning minds, and every instinct of nature prompts us to ask, " Who and what is God?" and I realize that the world grows by each apparent or pretended solution of it. Possibly God joins himself to us in this way from out the shoreless darkness of our own natures.

The first letters of God's alphabet is nature. They are multitudinous — for each object is a letter. Yv'hat is the word? " The word of God" is the sense of all these things when reduced back from the contradictions of multiplicity to one. It then becomes intelligible to sense of a limited capacity. For nothing less than infinity can comprehend the meaning of all things. But the sense of the finite mind is the same as that of the infinite mind. All things are in one, and exist in it and of it, but not feom it.

In this infinite variety of things — this multiplicity of objects — this division of the one — the mind goes back in search of the first principle, the foundation from which they all spring. This infinite principle of power is sense* The vast oceans of space pulsate with sense. The worlds, suns, stars and objects of space are each and all held

'ether and kept in place by sense. All things are sus- Lded in an ocean of sense. Nay! things are sense — and

isible, if the darkness would roll from off our souls. Sense is the only thing in existence that comprehends things. To comprehend is to enclose, or envelop. God reveals himself to the sense of things. In fact, he is sense itself.

God exists not as an objective, but as a subjective being — not separate and apart from nature, but as the creative principle thereof, residing in ail and permeating all that is. In this view the supernatural becomes comprehensible. It 13 the soul of nature and objects: hence God is objectified in his works.

He who looks for God as an object to worship will find many on the road to power, but he who looks for God within himself will feel the fullness of satisfaction and power, which God gives to all who love the good and true.

That which is unchangeable is supernatural and eternal. In nature things are mutable. Matter may be divided till there is nothing left of it. Analyze a thing, and you have nothing left of it save a little dross. Take a chair for example. "What is it ? A few pieces of wood put together for use. Take it to pieces and the chair vanishes. Burn the wood and we have ashes. Melt the ashes and we have some other substances to which science gives names. But where and what is the chair ? Is it a mere name ? or is it a substance? It is an effect — a result of the combination of pieces of wood. If it is an effect, where and what is the --use? I answer, the chair was first an idea conceived in the mind of some man. and came out of the man, and was formed in matter for use. But the real chair is an idea, and hence it is as indestructible as man himself.

The same is true of all things that man makes. They come out of man as the light of his intelligence illuminates the darkness of his ignorance, wherein infinity exists.

Nature is matter, motion and space, but the sense of it is the supernatural. It interprets itself, as I am feebly trying to do. Each man must interpret for himself, and his interpretation will be himself merely, as the sense of his mind illumines the darkness within.

Space is a vaccuum in which things exist in motion or in sense. It is the " over-soul," and comprehends or includes all. This is the supernatural. The sense of a thing gives it motion, and in motion things gestate, as in a womb, and grow, or become materialized.

At the centre of things there are no things, neither is there any motion there. Perfection and stagnation exist at the centre. The centre is a vaccuum, and is the soul

All worlds wheel around centres, and centres are souls, and souls are Gods. In God (" The Over- Soul" ) all things are possible — in nature, where soul is a centre, the impossible exists, because here is ignorance, darkness and weakness.

" He who limits things by his narrow sense is a fool," says Hargrave Jennings, one of England's great Rosicrucians; and I say, whoever limits the possible shows his weakness and want of comprehension.

We do not know what exists in nature. We know very little, and what little we know is a damage to us, save as it shows us our weakness and the power and infinitude of the possible. To return to ideas.

We are as we think: ideas rule and govern all action and all growth. Ideas are souls — entities of all beingunchangeable and indestructible; they exist in the spirit;

INTRODUCTION.

the atmosphere is the spirit of the earth, and in it are the souls of vegetation having been evolved from the earth. They hover around, and when conditions are favorable they descend according to the law of attraction and affinity, and spring up in the soil as vegetation.

Vegetation does not depend altogether upon seeds, it springs spontaneously from the earth. To illustrate: when a young man, my father burned several coal pits on one

I during the winter; the next fall, in passing by, I saw ral plants, commonly called the Mullen, growing in the old coal bed. The Mullen 'plant was unknown in that part of the country previously. A man in Northern Iowa dug a well over one hundred feet in depth. The great pile of clay lay there in the sunlight and darkness, wept o^er by dew and rain, scorched in summer and froze in winter, till the next year it produced a crop of weeds that were not to be found anywhere in all the country round about.

It is a well known fact to the pioneers of the wilderness of northern Pennsylvania (and, I suppose, to other woo 1- lands) that on a newly- cleared piece of woodland when the soil is killed by burning, "fire-weeds" spring up almost as thick as the hair on an animal's back.

There is such a thing as chemical affinity; and the ear h being prepared by heat or in any other manner mak js " conditions'' for new or old forms of vegetation to come into existence. The earth's atmosphere is all alive wrf h i leas — ideas of vegetables, animals and men — all waiti g for favorable conditions to enable them to be born ir 3 existence.

Ideas are infinite in number and variety, correspond^" j to all conditions from mineral up to man. They are 3 soul -life and volition of matter, and they enter into mat r at every point where conditions are favorable.

A scientist told me the other day that a drop of nit :ic acid applied to a piece of fresh broken granite rock, revealed under the microscope numerous living beings similar to animalculse found in stagnant water. " This," said he, "proves that the solid rock is full of life." But it proves no such thing. It simply shows that the union of the acid with the rock produced motion there, and wherever there is motion there is a magnetic current, and forms having life spring into existence — not that they were any more in the reck than in the acid, or that of necessity they were in either.

I hold that all forms are ideas materialized, that ideas are eternal, but forms are evanescent. The sunlight gives color to vegetation; color is an idea, but, although the foundation of color may reside in the mineral of plants, yet we all know that the sun develops it.

A child develops in utero, but who does not know that the soul comes through the father? Matter is the mother; spirit is the father.

In every atom of matter is a vacuum — else there would be no attraction — for matter crowds upon vacuum and hence takes form, and vacuum is the womb of matter, into which ideas are attracted whenever moved by a magnetic current.

All life and organization are dependent upon this current, and this is dependent upon the formation of a magnet, or the union of the positive and negative, the acid and alkali, the father and mother. As spirit is the father, and as ideas (souls) come from the Father, so does spirit baptize matter, impregnating it. 'Gtod is a spirit." So the supernatural is a spirit, and will beget itself in matter whenever conditions are favorable. It is upon exactly the same principle as the generation of mosquitoes in stagnant water. Low weak forms are generated in low conditions.

Ideas, being soul, are food for souls. Hence man grows s INTRODUCTION.

in creative and original power through his reception of ideas. Ideas take root in the soil of man's mind according to its condition, exactly as vegetation springs up in the soil of the earth. If the soil be poor the vegetation will be inferior. If the mind be low and vulgar, the ideas attracted will be inferior; but ideas of whatever grade or kind are a creative power. There is a spontaneity of mind as well as of earth. That which springs up of itself is generally weeds, but the most delicious fruits are produced by effort — culture. The higher the culture, the nearer the approximation to the supernatural. To show the road thereto is my object.

Look you at the burrowing worm, and at the soaring eagle! Step up, slowly, laboriously, from the lowest form, step by step, to the highest form of life known on this planet — man. Do you stop here ? And because your poor sight sees no higher form will you deny its existence ? Do you see intelligence graded from the snail to the loftiest intellect, and then, by your narrow sense, limit gradation or power ? Behold the grass of the fields ! the lilies of the valley! Then look aloft, by day or by night, at the wondrous manifestation of an intelligent power, and blush in shame at your presumption.

AVe grasp a little knowledge, a little of life, a little of spirit by the five senses, but the vital principles of science and of human action are only grasped by the loftiest reason. This is intuition. Are you a reasonable being, and yet limit God by denying him ? If so, your reason is of the lowest order; it is destructive; it is not GoD-like and creative. Analyze matter in the crucible of thought — dissect all forms with the scalpel of reason, and then when you are done with your work tell me what you know If your work has not inspired you with a love of the unknown mystery surrounding and dwelling within all things, you are an egotist. If you cavil at names you are a fool. Are you an artist ? Then take your inspirations from one who works eternally, and never makes a failure. Are you a mechanic ? Go study the suspension bridges the spider makes, and the comb of the honey bee, or the mechanism of a tree. I need not multiply words. Whatever you are, or whatever you aspire to be, the power is waiting for you — the patterns are spread out for your study.

The supernatural is in all, and is subservient to our wishes. But it is our work to make conditions — these have no limit. There is no interference — you can be just what you like to be ; but growth is slow. Why hurry ? Is not eternity for us ? It is the hurry and worry of life that destroys power. Trouble and vexation destroy health and pleasure, and these are all there is of value.

All things are suggestive, for they are ideas; they call us out or ourseivss to revel in the infinite. Is there no suggestion that comes to you, kind reader, of the supernatural ? Is there no intuitive feeling that speaks to you of immortal undying power ? Do you not, in your better moods, long to drink at the fountain of life, pleasure and individuality ? If not, I am sorry for you. Ideas give fullness of life and pleasure — the greater the idea, the greater fullness and power. What idea is greater than the supernatural ?

We talk glibly of the laws of nature, as if they were fixed and immutable ; but they are set aside by every habit which disgraces the race. Furthermore, modern times are rife with accounts of the dead appearing to the living, and of the living appearing as the dead: of levitation and the moving of substance without a motive power, etc., etc. The suspension of any one law of nature proves beyond all question that all are subject to the same power, and all may be suspended or rendered inoperative.

Chapter I. Pkinciples Of Nattjke

I believe in definitions ; but all definition is arbitrary. To define a thing is a creation. That nature exists is a certainty, but when we come to define it we shall find It not so simple. "We define things in order that we may understand each other.

We speak of nature as if it was an entity — an individual thing. But the fact is, there are myriads of things and conditions in nature which are parts thereof. In all this diversity, there must be a something the intellect can seize upon as a fact upon which to stand while we search in this whirl of atoms and worlds for a stationary principle of being. To find that, which is common to all, is to find the real. If nature is divided into parts, it exists as a whole ; every part must have something common to the whole.

To analyze a part is to analyze the whole, for the same laws inhere in an atom, as in a world. An atom exists by the same laws that the earth does ; and its modes of action are the same.

The law whereby matter coheres and gathers together, is attraction. This is a binding force. But the law that dissolves atoms, and throws them off, is the law of repulsion. These two — the positive and the negative — constitute the laws of motion. Everything exists by virtue of motion ; but there is a point where there is no motion. That point is the centre from whence motion takes its rise. . At the centre of the earth there is no up nor down, no positive nor negative ; it is simply vacant of these things — i. e. all thingsexist here in solution, as it were — or conditionless.

Things differ in nature. Shall we say, then, that nature does not exist because there are so many natures ? By no means : for there are two laws, acting in all conditions, which belong to that real nature which is the substratum. They flow out from it as the positive and negative flows from a magnet. As there is a neutral point between the positive and negative, a point where neither exists, so nature is a neutral ground lying between antagonistic forces.

Nature may be likened unto a magnet, which, in itself, moves not, but sends out positive and negative forces. To a thing belongs motion and space ; without motion nothing could exist. It is motion that fills the void, and prevents nothing from asserting its sway.

Things in motion must have space to move in ; so all things are triune in manifestation.

A thing is composed of the visible and invisible ; one visible point is space in which it exists ; another is the thing itself ; but the third, or invisible point, is its motion. The earth and space surrounding it are visible, but its motions are invisible. It stands still, and we are always on the top.

The soul of nature is motion, or rather, that which produces motion. Hence, the third part of things, which is the most important part, is invisible. Matter, space and sense are the three things which constitute nature. Matter needs no definition. Space is known, and is relatively a vacuum ; but the sense thereof is known not by visibility. The relative proves the absolute, the same as a part proves the whole. A relative vacuum proves an absolute vacuum ; as relative sense proves an absolute sense.

Existence is that which is visible, or that which comes en raport with visible things. The invisible and the unknown are the absolute. The nearer we approach the unknown the more we are entering the realm of power, and losing our hold on visible and tangible things.

22 PRINCIPLES OF NATUBli.

The nature of a thing is its conditions, and these conditions are only its modes of action. As there are only two laws of action — if those laws are followed to their source we shall find nature herself totally stagnant and indifferent, as at the centre.

The antagonists of nature are readily distinguished, — the male and the female, positive and negative, heat and cold, life and death, etc., etc. : wherever we look we find opposites ; but the third, and most important part of everything is not so easily distinguished, and its existence often denied by pretended thinkers Body and mind are readily known, or matter and motion ; but the soul, or that which moves things is unknown. "We distinguish things by their difference, but often fail to take into account that the conditions standing between, and incorporated into every atom of matter in existence, constitute the important factor of existence itself

It is said that "Like attracts its like ;" that "Birds of a feather flock together," etc., etc. But this is a superficial view of this great subject. The great underlying principle of nature is, that opposites attract each other, and are bound together in inflexible chains. Like repels its like; but upon a close examination, things are not alike — they only resemble each other, and this little resemblance causes repulsion.