| When we study the history of the ancient nations we shall find
                       that at about six hundred years B. C. a great spiritual wave had its inception on the
                       Eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean where the great Confucian Religion accelerated the
                       progress of the Chinese nation, then also the Religion of the Buddha commenced to win its
                       millions of adherents in India, and still further West we have the lofty philosophy of
                       Pythagoras. Each system was suited to the needs of the particular people to whom it was
                       sent. Then came the period of the Sceptics, in Greece, and later, traveling westward the
                       same spiritual wave is manifested as the Christian religion of the so-called “Dark Ages” when the dogma of a dominant church compelled belief from the
                       whole of Western Europe. It is a law in the universe that a wave of spiritual awakening is
                       always followed by a period of doubting materialism, each phase is necessary in order that
                       the spirit may receive equal development of heart and intellect without being carried too
                       far in either direction. The Great Beings aforementioned, Who care for our progress,
                       always[pg 008]take steps to safeguard humanity against that danger, and when they foresaw
                       the wave of materialism which commenced in the sixteenth century with the birth of our
                       modern Science, they took steps to protect the West as they had formerly safeguarded the
                       East against the Sceptics who were held in check by the Mystery schools. In the thirteenth century there appeared in central Europe a
                       great spiritual teacher whose symbolical name was Christian Rosenkreuz.or
 Christian Rose Cross.
 who founded the mysterious Order of the Rosy Cross, concerning
                       which so many speculations have been made and so little has become known to the world at
                       large, for it is the Mystery school of the West and is only open to those who have attained
                       the stage of spiritual unfoldment necessary to be initiated in its secrets concerning the
                       Science of Life and Being. If we are so far developed that we are able to leave our dense
                       physical body and take a soul flight into interplanetary space we shall find that the
                       ultimate physical atom[pg 009]is spherical in shape like our earth; it is a ball. When we take a number
                       of balls of even size and group them around one, it will take just twelve balls to hide a
                       thirteenth within. Thus the twelve visible and the one hidden are numbers revealing a cosmic
                       relationship and as all Mystery Orders are based upon cosmic lines, they are composed of
                       twelve members gathered around a thirteenth who is the invisible head. |