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Back to God and HealthAn Address Given by the Imperator Before the Convention
of the Naturopath Association[By H. Spencer Lewis] [From The Mystic Triangle June 1926] (Editor's Note: When the plans were being made for the Convention of the Naturopath Association to be held in the Auditorium at Tampa, a committee called upon the Imperator and asked him to make the opening address before the Convention. The address was given on Saturday evening, April 24, and was referred to by the newspapers as the feature of the Convention. This indicates the attitude on the part of various organizations in this country desiring to have the Rosicrucian principles presented and the co-operation of the organization in all movements tending toward the uplift of man. The following article is reprinted from one of the newspapers of Tampa as it appeared in the issue of April 25th. It shows how completely the newspapers of the South publish the speeches and addresses of the Imperator when they are made public. Many of his discourses at the church services on Sunday night have been published in the same manner. This address is especially interesting to all our members.) ---------- "Twenty years ago I had the pleasure of being acquainted with those who are present here to-night as leaders in the movement known as the Natureopathic System for the Restoration of Health, and I recall distinctly that they were looked upon not only as pioneers in a great unknown field in this country, but also as reformers and possibly fanatics. Yet to-day, after twenty years of evolution in thinking on the part of the men and women of America we realize that this country and this people have taken the leadership in a movement that is surely wending its way toward God and health. "I have chosen as my subject, 'Back to God and Health' and this implies that we have wandered or strayed from the natural and moral path that leads to health. In many ways this is true. For years this country and its people were swayed by the dogmas and creeds propounded by those who would lead us into the channels and the customs that would take us away from our natural birthright of attunement with God and with all of the natural forces that give us life and health. But we who know the trend of human affairs rejoice in the fact that man has found freedom of thought and the determination to find God and health within his own consciousness and within his own simple existence. "America leads today in the number and excellency of Therapeutic systems offered to its people, free from the superstitions, the false beliefs and the antiquated practices so popular in the old countries, and we must pay homage to the various movements sponsored by foresighted men and women, broad-visioned churches and organizations, which have fostered a study of the natural laws pertaining to man's life and health and which have slowly and permanently broken down the faith and trust that men and women and children had placed in injurious drugs and questionable proprietary remedies. I do not mean by this to cast any reflection upon the various standard and reputable and efficient systems of medical practice, endorsed and recommended by the most eminent schools and scientists of this country. In fact, I do not mean to criticise any one of the various systems generally offered in this country today, but I do refer to the obnoxious patent medicines and under-cover systems of therapeutics that were enslaving mankind to habits and indulgences not making for health and detrimental to the moral as well as the physical standard of the race. "As most of you probably know, I am a representative of an organization which has existed for many centuries in many countries, which organization, known as the Rosicrucian, has been devoted to the teaching and promulgation of these natural laws which enable men and women to maintain their natural birthrights, develop their inherited powers and faculties, and attain success and happiness through mastership over those things which are commonly called the obstacles in life. The Rosicrucians do not represent a movement devoted to the ailing, and they do not recommend any one system of therapeutics as superior to any other. With studied carefulness they promote the idea that illness of any kind is a result of violation of some natural law and that the patient is not the one to diagnose his situation and attempt to cure matters, but that he should consult an eminent authority or a specialist or a qualified practitioner and secure such medical or therapeutic help as he may require. But the organization does teach certain fundamental principles in regard to the nature of life, its maintenance and its enjoyment, as have been known to the organization for many centuries and which have been partly responsible for the reputation that the organization has of possessing certain secret knowledge regarding the natural laws not commonly appreciated by the multitudes. Permit me, therefore, to speak of some of these fundamental principles and show you wherein man has a right to perfect life and may possess it through certain simple rules. "The Rosicrucian Ontology, or science of being, begins with the fundamental proposition which we find so ably expressed in the Christian Bible; that in the beginning God created man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. No matter how we may analyze this statement, and we find it expressed in practically the same words by all of the ancient schools and cults and in all the sacred writing of the Orient, we come to a few definite facts that science of to-day proves and men and women everywhere are discovering to be absolutely true. "First of all, man is a dual creature. He has a physical body and a spiritual body called the soul. In the process of creating and evolving this most wonderful of all God's creations there came a time when these two bodies were united by the process of breathing or by the intake of the breath of life. Our own experiences have shown us that just as we become conscious of our existence as an animated being by the uniting of these two bodies, so the other great change called death or transition is a separation of the two and in the interval between birth and death these two bodies must co-ordinate, co-operate and function in unison and harmony in order that there may be health as well as life. "Few men or women there are who will believe that health or disease or physical pain and suffering are a result of some condition of the spiritual body. The most casual observation of the operation of natural laws and the divine laws of the universe makes it plain to us that disease and ill-health, suffering and pain are things of the flesh and of the physical body and not of the spiritual body. For this reason we are justified in confining our study of health and disease to a study of the physical body of man and its relation to the natural forces and its weakness and power. "Reverting again to the fundamental proposition of the Rosicrucian Ontology we find that this physical body of ours was formed of the dust of the earth. But we change those words to the modern scientific terms and say that the physical body of man is composed of the material elements of the earth; or may we go even further and say that man's physical body is being formed hourly from the living, vitalizing, physical elements of the earth upon which we live. It is true that there would be no life without the soul or the divine essence, and that this divine essence exists not only in the organized body called man but also in all of the elements of which the body of man is composed. There is the divine essence in the water, in the minerals of the earth, in all vegetation, in everything that exists. We know today that there is no such thing as dead matter and that all matter is living, is alive with the essence or divinity, with that vital force known by many names, undiscoverable except in its manifestations, and most assuredly emanating from the greatest of all constructive sources of creation. But living matter, unorganized in the image of God, does not constitute the living body of men. It is only when the elements of the earth pass through that wonderful transmutation process established by God that they become organized and associated in such a way that they have the highest form of physical expression on earth, the body of man, so wonderfully and fearfully made. "Complex as is this physical body in its organization, in all its parts, in its beauty of synchronous action, co-ordination, sympathetic co-operation, and power to move itself, it is nevertheless composed of and being re-composed of the simple things of the earth according to a divine law. "Man was not created in the image of God with any intention that he should take upon himself the right to change the fundamental laws of nature or to modify them or to negate them, and man has found that when he goes too far in his privilege of exercising his mind and his ability to choose and ignores some of the necessities of life, some of the demands of nature, some of the decrees of God, he weakens his physical constitution by the violation of natural laws and breaks his attunement with nature and goes farther away from God each time. Without question man has evolved a custom and habit of living not originally decreed in the scheme of things and in many ways decried by nature and abhorred by the divine principles. He takes himself away from the open country, from his contact with the natural forces of the earth, from the sunlight, the earth's magnetism, the fresh vegetation, the pure water and the proper Cosmic vibrations, and confines himself for hours in small enclosures, in foul air, in darkness, and in the breeding places of disease, germs and ill health. He sets aside the right of the body to have free expression, unimpaired freedom of movement and proper ease by tightening about his body various limiting and binding articles of clothing and brings pressure to bear upon the vessels and nerves of his body, binds his feet, throws the body out of balance in walking or standing, and does many things to the mechanical operation of his body that are contrary to the laws of nature. He ignores the demands for rest and sleep, he negates the demands of the functioning organs and arbitrarily adapts periods and times for them which are not consistent with the perfect scheme outlined by nature; and in thousands of ways he takes it upon himself to force his physical growth and his physical development into habits and customs not harmonious with the decrees of nature. Nature has provided him with the thousands of elements that should enter into the re-composition of his body from day to day and yet man arbitrarily selects but a few of these as his choice and abstains from the rest, and in all his thinking and doing he is hourly violating some law of nature for which he must pay the penalty in the form of pain and suffering, disease, ill health and eventually death. "The Natureopaths call to your attention the fact that as man in his living reverts more and more to the natural things of life and goes back to nature, to God and to the simple way of living, the more perfect will be his health and the stronger and more natural his physical body in accordance with the original plan of creation. It is only in a normal healthy body that the soul of man can function and exist harmoniously, and if man would find God and find happiness, success and prosperity he must maintain the physical body of his existence and its normal standing that everything may manifest the divine, the vital essence that gives him life, that gives him health and gives him power to do. As he breaks down his physical organization he lessens the ability of the soul, the essence and the mind in him to function in all their majesty and power. There is no question about the fundamental principle involved--get back to nature! Get back to nature's way of living! Get back to earth! Get into the sunshine, into the air, enjoy the vegetation that nature has provided, and all the things that give the elements necessary to the body, take in all the fresh air that contains the vital force of life, expand your consciousness, give greater freedom to your divinity to express itself, and you will become healthy, mighty in your own birthright, wonderful in your inherited privileges and blessings, and become what God and nature intended man to be; the living image of the great Cosmic powers with all the creative forces sustaining and maintaining the ability to accomplish and attain." | ||
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