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The Secret of Rosicrucian HealingBy The Imperator [H. Spencer Lewis] [From The Rosicrucian Digest January 1939] FOR many years there has been a question in the minds of our members as to whether the Rosicrucian Order of AMORC was giving sufficient emphasis to that feature or factor of Rosicrucianism that deals with therapeutics. Every member who has carefully studied or read the history of ancient Rosicrucianism has been impressed with the fact that at various periods in the past centuries Rosicrucians were most eminently known for their therapeutic activities; and, in fact, in certain periods of the past various sections of the Rosicrucian Order in different countries were known under different names as far as the public was concerned, simply because of their very active interest in all forms of therapeutics. For that reason one branch of them at one time was known as "Therapeuti" and of course there was another branch of their membership that was known almost exclusively as the "Essenes," and again those that were known more or less secretly as the "Vibrationists" seemed to represent a school of therapeutics rather than a school of philosophy. The Rosicrucians themselves never were very greatly concerned as to what terminology was applied to them by the public and gave little thought to what opinion was expressed of them in pamphlets or books. Of course, during the very early centuries printing was not a popular nor feasible proposition, and there was very little printed matter that did concern them, and when printing did become a possibility the Rosicrucians themselves were the first to take advantage of it, and that is why there were so many Rosicrucian pamphlets printed for more or less private circulation during the early part of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. And the same thing has been true in the recent Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries when we, as representatives of the modern activities of the Rosicrucian Order, concerned ourselves very little as to what the popular encyclopedias or dictionaries said about the ancient Rosicrucians or the present day Rosicrucians. I have often thought that perhaps the Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages even encouraged or enjoyed the misrepresentation about their organization that appeared in many encyclopedias, because the more the public was misinformed about them and the more mystery there appeared to be about their origin and early history, the more appealing became the organization to thinking men and women. At the present time much of this has been changed, because the largest and most widely circulated encyclopedias and dictionaries of today found it necessary to get at the real truths and present a more accurate story. But to go back to the ancients again, let me call your attention to the fact that at one time nearly all of the scientific experimentation on the part of Rosicrucians was generally classified under the term "alchemy." But, very unfortunately for the intelligence of the lay mind, all alchemists, whether they were Rosicrucians or not, were classified as individuals who were seeking easy means of transmuting the baser metals into gold, and of course along with this misunderstanding was the idea that these alchemists, therefore, were seeking for an easy and royal road to riches and fortunes. This became the widespread universal opinion, although it was never pointed out that any individual or group of alchemists, whether they were Rosicrucians or not, ever accumulated any riches or any wealth, and therefore if the accumulation of material things, especially gold, was the real purpose of the alchemical experiments, they were undoubtedly a total failure in that regard. But the alchemists, like their precursors and master teachers and the leaders long before them, were seeking something more than the transmutation of metals. It just so happened that in the alchemist's crucible, and in the process of using fire and water for transmutation purposes, the most simple tests were made with zinc and other primary elements which could be easily transmuted into something different. But, these experiments or tests, if you choose to call them so, were simply to prove and demonstrate the law involved in what they were attempting to do, and were not for the purpose of accumulating the results therefrom. For instance, Cagliostro, with all of his ill-repute, chose to specialize in working with carbon and it just happened that he was able through the alchemical processes to make diamonds and, later, pearls, and he became known as the richest possessor of pearls and diamonds in Europe, despite the fact that he gave away all the pearls and diamonds and never attempted to accumulate them. Other alchemists worked along other lines, but nearly all of them did at one time or another successfully transmute some baser metals into gold. Whatever happened to the gold was never known, but certainly it was not accumulated, and cost more to produce than it was worth; therefore, the idea of building up a personal fortune through the application of Cosmic or mystical laws was absolutely wrong and was far from their minds. Perhaps it was because no real alchemist or mystic wanted to use the laws in such a sense that it became an unwritten law finally in the Rosicrucian Order, which law is prevalent today, that each Imperator or Grand Master of each jurisdiction can make a transmutation demonstration of zinc into gold only once during his lifetime and that solely for the purpose of illustrating the basic laws involved and never for public demonstration or exhibit--except that he is permitted to have some outside scientists present to record the fact properly. This is what occurred in the New York Grand Lodge many years ago when the Imperator did transmute a piece of zinc into gold under the most severe test conditions and in the presence of metallurgists and scientists from a number of universities. But the real purpose back of all the alchemical, scientific and mystical experiments on the part of the leaders in the Rosicrucian movement was to find what has become popularly known as the "Philosopher's Stone." There are members today, reading of this in some of our monographs, who want to know whether the "Philosopher's Stone" was a materialistic thing or was symbolical, or something else, and we have always said it was purely symbolical. Perhaps this article at this time will help to reveal the real nature of this symbolism. The early Rosicrucians who took it upon themselves to do healing work in a humanitarian spirit, and as one of the necessary reformations to take place in the world, came to the conclusion--or else reached the conclusion through earlier experiments--that there was some secret involved in connection with the vital force of life in the human body, or in all animal and plant bodies, that was still unknown. Strange to say, the earliest Rosicrucians did not interest themselves very greatly in the rapidly evolving school of "medicine" that then held the world's attention, because such school of medicine was merely a step beyond a school of biology with which the early Rosicrucians had long been familiar. If you understand rightly the first principle of the Rosicrucian ontology which says, "God formed man out of the dust of the earth and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul" you will understand that the Rosicrucians looked upon the physical body as merely a secondary part of man, made out of the primary elements of the earth, and not so essential to his existence as the "breath of life." Arguing then as we argue now, that the Scriptural statement, and all mystical statements of other periods of time before the so-called Christian Bible was written, refer to the fact that after the breath of life entered the physical form made out of the elements of the earth, man became a "living soul" instead of a "living body" you will see that the emphasis there is given to the Divine or ethereal or psychical part of man and not to the material part of man. So the Rosicrucians argued that whatever might become wrong in the normal functioning and condition of the human body should not be viewed from the viewpoint of its material composition alone or essentially, but from both viewpoints. Or if any emphasis was to be given, it was to be given to the so-called breath of life, or the vital life force that animated the body and kept it in its proper functioning and harmonious form, after it had been completely formed of the material elements of the earth. For this reason botany and all biological principles were studied carefully in their relationship to the chemical, physical, material composition of man's life and all of the early Rosicrucians were quite expert in the preparation and administration of so-called herbal extracts which later evolved into forms of "medicine" and "drugs." It is strange but true that the more primitive or fundamental is a man's thinking, the more does he give emphasis to the biological side of man's nature as being more or less secondary to the Divine and essentially spiritual part of his being. For that reason, we find that even the earliest American Indians--who most certainly did not have either the Christian Bible or other textbooks of science or religion to read--became very expert in the raising of herbs and in the study of botany, not for the preparation of "medicines" but for the preparation of such extracts as would give man the necessary or missing mineral and earthly elements and fluids to make his physical body normal, to hold and maintain the spiritual part of his body. We find that the earliest "medicine men" among the American Indian tribes, and the so-called pagan or heathen medicine men of the South Sea Islands and all primitive tribes, practiced an art of therapeutics that involved or applied more of mystical principles and intangible ethereal powers than herbal extracts, because they argued that the real secret key to health, and therefore to disease also, lay in this secret power that was so intangible that it could not be administered through minerals or extracted juices or anything of an earthly nature. The presumption among all of these early thinkers was that if man ate more or less properly and drank the proper things, he would have a physical body that met all the necessities and requirements of the physical laws and Divine laws for that matter, inasmuch as man's body was first formed of the "dust of the earth." They argued, as we Rosicrucians argue today, that disease and ill health do not start in the physical body unless forsooth the individual neglected the proper diet or neglected to eat and drink properly for a long period of time, or deliberately took into his system such material elements as were poisonous or inharmonious. Everyone who has made a careful study of the matter knows that the physical body in its physical composition, or let us say in its chemical, biological and physiological composition, has to be neglected and badly treated for a considerable period of time before any real disease begins to manifest. But the greater and more frequent cause of ill-health and disease is the neglect or mistreatment of the essential spiritual or vital forces in the body representing the other part of man, the intangible, esoteric, ethereal part that is so little understood. Such neglect need exist only for a few hours or a day to produce long-standing chronic conditions or illnesses and diseases that may take years to correct and may eventually lead to an early and unnecessary transition. But what was this secret power or energy that so vitalized all of the body and that was more important than the material part of man's body? Many men besides the alchemists in their laboratories attempted to find this secret, and if we turn to even the history of Galileo we find that he, not as a Rosicrucian but as one who was inspired like many have been inspired before, attempted to answer this question. He was born at Pisa in 1564, and was the son of a Florentine physician and scientist who had retired as a physician, but kept up his active interest in mystical work; in fact his father came in contact with the Rosicrucian activities and alchemists' activities very frequently, and he planned, as a nobleman and a man of wealth, to have Galileo, his very beloved son, become a physician. But Galileo seemed to turn his attention more toward science and especially toward mathematics than he did toward the then popular school of metaphysics. But strange to say, he, like many other Rosicrucians and mystics (such as Roger Bacon, Sir Francis Bacon, and a large number of others whom I could mention) became interested in the peculiar optical effects of curved glasses. Of course there is hardly a Rosicrucian or mystic who has any sort of laboratory of his own who does not become interested sooner or later in optics and especially in the magnificent beauties that are revealed by the prism in connection with the sun's rays and the colors contained in what is called "white sunlight." And so he turned his attention to the effects of the glass and soon discovered, as others discovered ahead of him, that the glass revealed the microcosmic world and could be inverted in its application to reveal the macrocosmic world. While Roger Bacon and other Rosicrucian mystics long before his time applied the glass to the microcosmic world and were responsible for the creation of what we have today in the form of microscopes, Galileo turned his attention heavenward, and took a great interest in the things of the universe that surrounded him. But he was not merely fascinated by the unknown world in its material form but in what he might learn of this secret power that came from somewhere in the universe and entered man's soul with the first breath and continued to remain as long as man breathed. In this regard he was perhaps no different from other mystics, nor even from the mystery schools of Egypt under Amenhotep and others who learned to reverence and respect the sun disk, not as a "God" but as a symbol of the Divine forces that radiated throughout nature. In fact, we find some of the earlier mystics definitely stating that in the solar spectrum--or in other words in the different rates of vibrations emanating from the sun, which rates of vibrations segregated themselves through a prism into different colors--we would find therapeutic values, and today we know that the application of color is very definitely indicated in the cure of many forms of physical and spiritual conditions that are called illnesses or disease. Color therapy today has not advanced to what it should have advanced in the scientific world, simply because there is more or less prejudice connected with it among scientists, but among Rosicrucians the application of color principles or light is more important than the application of anything of a botanical or biological nature. And so Galileo, while he astounded the world with his astronomical discoveries and contentions and suffered humiliation at the hands of churchmen and others for daring to postulate ideas that were contrary to the vague statements in the Bible, really did more for healing work in his secret experiments among the Rosicrucians than he did for present-day astronomy and science. And then we can turn also to the wonderful Rosicrucian, Michael Faraday. Now, he cannot be considered just as a Rosicrucian, an advanced Rosicrucian, or an experimenter along purely Rosicrucian lines. He was the son of a blacksmith with limited education, and he employed his time as a young man as a bookbinder merely because of the remuneration it gave him. Certainly this combination would not suggest that he would ever become an eminent scientist, but he did become interested in chemistry and finally he, too, turned his attention toward optics as did Galileo, but he, on the other hand, began his investigation of the microcosmic world, that is, a small world that might exist on the point of a needle instead of the world that might exist in the universe above him. In his search for this secret of vital power, he began to look for a representation of the power in those peculiar elements of the earth that seemed to have an intangible and esoteric influence upon various things and especially upon one another. This led him into his famous experiments with a magnet and his plan of revolving a copper disk between the ends of a magnet and noticing that when the magnetic field affected the copper disk it was more difficult to revolve the disk than when the disk was outside of the magnetic field. He then finally went into the matter so deeply as to become a member of the earliest "invisible college" composed of men who were seeking the invisible and intangible secrets of life. They were not trying to find some drug preparation or something "to put on the market," or to sell anything or build up a reputation for themselves as healers. Later some men did attempt to open institutions of healing--in which matter they were greatly misunderstood--such as Franz Mesmer, who tried to apply some of the principles discovered by Faraday. But the principal conclusion of Faraday was that all energy in the human body and all energy in all plant life and all energy in mineral life was due to a form of electricity that was more or less static and at rest under certain conditions, and which exerted itself in a large field without material contact. This large field was called the "magnetic field," and in "magnetism" he found part of the secret of life. But, Faraday was also just a beginner and despite the fact that in electricity today and in the science of electricity there are many things bearing Faraday's name in honor of his discoveries, he did not find the real secret that some of the early alchemists found, although he did widen the field of the application of the power. But to keep our members from guessing as to what this power may be, let me state it is the "vibratory energy" that is referred to in our earliest monographs under various names, and which constitutes the real key to the healing processes in the Rosicrucian system. While scientists have sought to discover serums and have recommended one form of serum or another for this or that condition, and while others have tried to find various salts and herbal extracts that would counteract or create various conditions in the body that would be of a healing nature, the Rosicrucians soon found that instead of these medicines or drugs acting upon the physical body of man, the physical body of man acted upon them, inasmuch as the physical body had to expel these things immediately because they were abnormal, foreign matter, taken into the body and not required by nature's healing processes. Therefore, whatever action and reaction took place from the use of medicines or drugs was the reverse of what these scientists thought it would be, for instead of the drugs acting upon the body, the body had to act upon the drugs and expel them. In the meantime, a warfare or battle was set up in which the natural healing forces of the body attempted, and very often succeeded, in making the necessary cure. But it is a fact that when the vital powers or Divine Cosmic powers within man's body and within normal range are functioning to the proper extent, there is no necessity for either herbal extracts, medicines, drugs or any of the remedial things that are limited strictly to the physical, material composition of man's body. While we speak of the white corpuscles or cells in the blood stream that fight and destroy bacilli or germs of various kinds, the truth of the matter is that it is not chemistry or the earthly matter that man eats or drinks that creates and builds up the so-called white cells to carry on their work of purging, expurging, extirpating, or cleansing the body of undesirable and abnormal conditions. It is the vital force, the vital energy in the human body, taken in through the breath and otherwise, that creates these white cells and maintains their integrity. These white cells have to do more than the ordinary red blood cells which merely nourish and take a certain amount of energy through the capillaries to all parts of the body. They have to maintain their own integrity, their own existence, and they have to maintain a consciousness and condition that is typical of an individual living body, inasmuch as they must be able to function as independent living bodies, and in addition to this they must be able to analyze definitely all that they come in contact with and decide what is destructive, what is dangerous, what is unnecessary and what should be destroyed, and then get rid of the destroyed and remaining refuse. All of this requires a supreme, Divine intelligence that is not possessed by all of the cells of the body. But, nevertheless, the energy that is functioning in these white cells and in the red blood cells and in every other cell of bone and tissue of the body is a Divine Cosmic energy that the Rosicrucians alone know how to apply and how to introduce into the body. In the first place, in a normal, healthy body such additional vibratory vital Cosmic Divine energy is not needed. It is there in abundance, there in reserve, and there in constant use and application. When you realize that each hour of the day, whether we are awake or asleep, laboring, exercising, working or resting, a certain number of thousands of cells throughout the body break down, disintegrate, and become cast into the refuse, and that an equivalent number must be rebuilt to take their place, you will see that the human body is a vast chemical machine creating and recreating new matter from what we eat and drink, and that there is an intelligence directing this chemistry that is not very well understood by the average person. Scientists may talk about metabolism and the testing of your metabolism to see whether what you eat and drink and the manner in which you breathe is assisting in the chemistry of your body, and they may speak of blood counts, respiration, pulse beats and all that sort of thing, but that is nothing more than testing a piece of machinery to see that it is operating rightly without testing to find out about the electrical current that is running into the machine to make it operate. This electrical current, if I may use a simile, is a Divine current that the Rosicrucians alone have discovered, and to them it is just as vital and important--and shall I say just as secret--as was Faraday's discovery of the magnetic field or as was Galileo's discovery of a larger world of which the earth was not the sole center. And so in the Rosicrucian healing methods, whether they are applied Cosmically or at a distance, or more especially in their clinics and laboratories, this vital energy that becomes lacking is strengthened and increased, and applied most directly to where it is needed. I speak of clinics and laboratories because it has been the custom among the Rosicrucians in all ages to maintain certain "houses" for the alleviation of suffering individuals, the cure of diseases, and the creation of inspirational methods of living. Just as the early Fratres and the "Knights Templars" established places in the mountains for the lost travelers and called them "hospices," from which our word "hospitals" comes, so the early Rosicrucians and mystics established laboratories and clinics or sanitariums as we would call them today, where those suffering from chronic or long-standing or complicated conditions could be carefully examined, carefully diagnosed and given careful treatments. The principal form of treatment in such cases is to raise the vibratory rate of the entire body. This means to instil into the human body an additional amount of this vibratory Divine Cosmic energy so that all of the cells become functioning units in a normal harmonious manner in the direction of creation rather than in the creation of destruction and, this is not done by the use of electric or "electronic machines." It is a known fact, and easily discernible under the microscope, that after a living cell taken from any part of the body becomes lowered in its vitality or rate of vibration, it begins to die, so to speak, or disintegrate. It seems to destroy itself and to reduce itself to the most fundamental, elementary elements of the earth's dust. In the absence of the right vibratory rate or the right Divine energy, it ceases to carry on its constructive mission and therefore ceases to be upbuilding and retrogresses. So, in these clinics and sanitariums the Rosicrucians apply directly to the sick body not chemical elements alone, that may be absent in the diet and which are readily corrected, but that vital energy and rate of vibrations that cannot be applied either with medicines, herbal extracts, drugs and natural electricity or any of the other inventions of man's scientific laboratory. This represents the "Cosmic-key" of the Rosicrucian secret healing methods. Sometimes in mild cases or temporary conditions, or transitory conditions, these vibratory rates and this vibratory energy can be directed toward a patient by absent treatment. This is what is being done daily and nightly, weekly and monthly throughout the year by our Council of Solace and its many members and workers. And that is what can be done also by a great many of our members who have passed through the Sixth and Seventh Degrees. On the other hand, in many cases this matter of correcting the vibratory energy in the human body can be accomplished more quickly and more definitely through what we call a three or six-minute contact treatment, such as is outlined in our Sixth Degree. But on the other hand, there are many cases where malignant growths and destructive processes in the body have existed for days, weeks, months, and perhaps years, and have become chronic and are continuing to increase rather than decrease, when the patient must come or go to a Rosicrucian Clinic or sanitarium and receive contact treatments and special vibratory treatments hourly, or three or four times daily, at the hands of highly developed and experienced Rosicrucian doctors. When this is done, and these so-called patients or sufferers are taken within the confines of a definite clinic or sanitarium and are under the careful observation of specializing Rosicrucians who know how to apply this golden key and give it efficiently and definitely, not only is the diseased condition in the physical body eliminated but the whole psychic, spiritual and Cosmic entity of the body is raised to such a degree that further disease cannot attack it, nor any form of disease continue to exist in it. This makes for the great difference between the Rosicrucian system of healing and those other systems which merely cleanse the body chemically and leave it to change back again in the next day, week or month, or bring about merely an alleviation of the pain rather than a cure of the cause. The cause of all disease, lying in the vibratory nature of the psychic body, must be remedied before any permanent cure can be established. But, every person who suffers from some form of disease or illness does not require the personal attention at a clinic or sanitarium, and for that reason everyone who suffers is neither urged to nor expected to go to a clinic, and they should not arbitrarily decide for themselves that they need clinical treatment and take themselves away from their home environment or natural environment to some strange place. All sufferers who may feel that their condition has lasted too long and has not been adequately met or overcome by any other system of therapeutics should first of all have their condition properly diagnosed by a Rosicrucian physician in some city, or by writing or addressing the Council of Solace and learning at first hand whether they require the assistance that can be given to them at a clinic or sanitarium, or whether they can be assisted in the privacy of their own home by the operation of the Cosmic laws through the channel of the Council of Solace. But, in all cases the "golden key" to therapeutic treatment of an efficient, harmonious, natural nature is to change the rate of vibratory energy functioning through the physical body, so that it becomes what was first decreed by God when He said that man would become a "living soul" because he had the "breath of life" within his physical body.
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