SOCIETAS ROSICRUCIANA IN ANGLIA

THE SEVEN STEPS OF WISDOM - STEP 6

It is time to look more closely at the Rosicrucian path and see whether it is right for you. We can assume that, as a Mason, you believe in a supreme being, though the name and circumstances of worship might vary. If you're not already a member of the Society, you could quite well be a Jew, a Moslem, a Hindu, a Sikh or a follower of any of the great religions. The obligation Masons take refers only to a neutral title applicable to any Divine Being - the 'Great Architect of the Universe', and a Mason would take that obligation on whatever Book of Holy Scriptures is appropriate to his religion - Christians on the Bible, Moslems on the Quor'an, etc. The Outer Order of the Golden Dawn similarly requires only belief in a Supreme Being, the the Inner Order is more specifically Christian.

At one time in the United Kingdom the vast majority of people belonged, more or less actively, to one Christian denomination or another and knew the main points of the Bible stories well. This is no longer true: a rapidly growing minority belongs to other religions and the majority of the rest practice no religion at all on a regular basis. The odds are that you do not go to church regularly ... do you belong in a Christian Society like the SRIA and, if you are a practicing Christian, are you going to be comfortable with the esoteric ideas the Society incorporates?

The Work of the Devil?

The Chief Adept of one of our Provinces introduced the idea of a guided meditation based on the Tree of Life and the Paths upon it at every College in his Province whenever he attended a College meeting.

A father and son, practicing Christians, took exception to this and resigned from the SRIA. Now the question is not whether such a meditation is appropriate for everybody at every meeting - that might be uestioned, though not on religious grounds - but whether the father & son were right, as Christians, to take exception to the Tree of Life and paths (and Tarot images connected with them.) is something you must consider.

Make no mistake: each one of us is entitled to take whatever path back to the Divine Source is appropriate to him (or her). The question is much more one of whether they should ever have walked the Rosicrucian path as fratres of this Society. (Note that, when this paragraph was read over by non-members, it was thought to read as the SRIA rejecting them: the reverse is true - that they were right to reject the SRIA, but should have done so before.) We can think of one or two fratres whose Christian beliefs seem to hold a potential conflict of conscience for them, and we know the odd Masonic brother who thinks we dabble in things no good Christian should.

Be assured: Rosicrucians are Christians who seek to return to the divine source and (if you are not yet a member) you will be required to read and sign a declaration that you accept the 'Trinitarian Christian Faith' before you can be admitted. Within that broad declaration, however, there is a wide spread of belief from mainstream orthodoxy, through mysticism to a strong Gnostic element.

What Denomination is the SRIA?

We have said several times that the SRIA holds no prescriptive dogma, though the Rosicrucian Manifestos appear to have come out of the reformation in Germany and at least one was probably written by a Lutheran pastor. However, if the manifestos are to be believed, the Order dates back to pre-reformation times. We know of several members of the Salvation Army in the Society, several Greek Orthodox members, at least one Roman Catholic and the Supreme Magus sings in the choir at in his Parish Church. Some provinces hold annual church services and, as has been said elsewhere, a majority of members would call themselves 'Christian' without being regular worshippers at any particular church and a variety of views are held within the SRIA.

So Why Have a Rosicrucian Order if You're All Christians?

We live in secular world. It's easy to see why we need such an organization now: the much more interesting question is why we needed it in the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The probable answer has changed over the centuries, or some of the raison d'etre of the SRIA has changed.

Initially, the evidence would suggest, there was a significant body of knowledge, likely to be misunderstood if it was simply disseminated. Later a significant part of any reason was centred around resistance to the growth of a materialistic science that excluded any spiritual element and tried explain the universe as a machine.

We have seen that quantum physics is supporting many of the esoteric ideas which materialist science thought absurd. Rosicrucian and other esoteric orders have kept the Western Mystery Tradition alive through the materialistic centuries and we should rejoice in this fact and welcome the discoveries of quantum physics and those described in The Field and other books.

Why Bring the Myth of Christian Rosenkreuz into Christianity?

What is a myth? A myth is a story made up to explain a feature of existence or the environment. It may be entirely and consciously allegorical but is sometimes an unsubstantiated oral tradion with truth at its root.

The Christmas story as generally told may be a genuine oral tradition but is more likely to be an allegory at least in part. There are four gospels recounting the life of Jesus - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Mark and John don't mention his birth at all and Matthew only says Jesus was born in Bethlehem without going into details. Luke comes nearest to the traditional story, saying that Jesus was laid in a manger because there was 'no room' at the 'inn'. The word translated 'inn' could equally well be translated 'house' and the words translated 'no room' could equally well be translated 'no provision'. A wooden manger was often scrubbed out and used as a cot if there wasn't anything else, so we could have a situation where there wasn't a crib in the house so they brought in a manger. Shepherds are mentioned as coming to see the baby, but there is no mention of an ox or an ass and the shepherds only went to the 'place where the baby was laid'. The same is true of the three wise men. Nowhere is the any mention of a stable.

This, we stress, is not to say that the oral tradition is untrue, nor is it to say that the message implicit in the Christmas story is untrue either, or that it depends on the truth of the oral tradition to make it true. Like the story of Christian Rosenkreuz, the meaning of the Christmas story is true, whether the story itself is true or not - one has only to look beneath the commercialism to see the truth!

Meditation & Study

Reading

We would like you to look at a copy of the New Testament and read the opening Chapter of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, just that you know what we're talking about and so that you can form your own opinion of our remarks. Knowledge is power (as is said in the Zelator ritual) so donÕt let anyone tell you what to believe.

Diary

You should continue to record your thoughts, the times you spent reading and meditating etc. On this occasion you should indicate which of the study topics you chose, whether you found it (and the choice) useful, etc.

Meditation Topics

There follow several choices of meditation topic. We want you to spend day 1 considering which of these topics you want to try and doing any required preliminary work. The remaining six days you should spend on the exercises themselves. If you decide you have made the wrong choice, change, but record the fact and your reasons.

Choice 1: Extension of Step 4 - The Tarot

Exactly as described in Step 4, but choose 6 different cards from the major arcane (trumps) to study and visualize each night.

Choice 2: Psycho-Kinetcs - the 'Sevens' Test with Dice

This will test your psycho-kinetic ability. Take 2 dice and a shaker. The aim is to make the total score for two dice faces together come up as seven: 1 + 6; 2 + 5; 3 + 4; 4 + 3; 5.+ 2; 6 + l. There is always one low face and one high face so that the effect of bias is almost completely eliminated.

1 Throw the dice together from the cup while concentrating on the two dice totaling seven. Do this at least 50 times and preferably 100 times.

2 Record the scores on the two faces separately, and record the combined total in a separate column.

3. Count up the number of sevens in the 'combined total' column.

The odds against a 7 total in any one throw are 5 - 1, so you would expect 6 in 36 by chance. Look at your scores on the table below

If you find after 72 throws that you have a 'No Psi Effect' result you can always do further runs if you are interested, but we recommend that you do NOT do a repetitive exercise again without a significant break, since the worst enemy of a psychic skill is boredom and a tired brain.

Choice 3: Extension of Step 5 - The Paths on the Tree

Print out again the black and white Tree of Life sent as part of Step 5 and colour the paths in accordance with the numbers shown below.

0 Yellow 1 Yellow 2 Blue 3 Green 4 Red 5 Red-Orange 6 Orange 7 Orange-Yellow 8 Yellow 9 Yellow-Green 10 Violet 11 Green 12 Blue 13 Blue-Green 14 Blue 15 Blue-Violet 16 Red 17 Violet 18 Violet-Red 19 Orange 20 Red 21 Blue-Violet**

** These are the colours according to BOTA; there are other scales

The explanation as to how these colours are arrived at is involved and may be touched on at a much later stage, but the arrangement is that used by the Golden Dawn and in some other Rosicrucian societies.

Choice 4: An extension of Step 2 - A Creative Thinking Exercise.

If you have a limited time slot to consider all possible uses of a glass bottle, how many alternative uses to the obvious one of 'container for liquid' can you come up with? Possibly, amongst others: Molotov cocktails; holding a firework (a rocket); part fill several bottles and blow across the tops to make musical notes ... and so on.

Now consider these items:

Choice 5: Simple Clairvoyance with a Pack of Cards 1.

Take a pack of ordinary playing cards and shuffle them

2. Take the top 10 cards (still face down) and put the rest aside for the moment.

3. Try to guess the colour of the ten cards. Put those you think red in a pile on the right and those you think black in a pile on the left.

4. When you have finished turn the cards over. Score reds in the right hand pile and black in the left hand pile as correct. Make a note of the score.

5. Return the 10 cards to the pack, shuffle and repeat.

Total Number of guesses_____________

Number Correct __________________ Look up on the table below:

Note that Choices 2 and 5 are adapted from Are You Psychic? by Hans Eysenk and Carl Sargent; Prion; 1996

Questions for Contemplation

After the next Step, we will be asking you to send us your thoughts on the some questions. This week you should record your thoughts in your diary, for your eyes only.

1. Do you think anything in the esoteric interests of the SRIA is 'Unchristian'?

2. Do you agree with us (and with the writer of this 6th Step) that it is unimportant whether the oral tradition surrounding the birth of Jesus is true, and that truth about the meaning of Christmas is not dependent on factual truth of the story?

3. Think of the story of the death of Hiram Abiff from the same point of view: is the truth of the meaning of that story also independent of the truth of the story itself.

4. Like the Christmas story and the Christian Rosenkreuz story, it might be factually correct. How do you rate all three stories? True? Partly true? Allegory? Myth?

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