THE UNIVERSAL PATH

BY

J. VAN RIJCKENBORGH

AND

CATHAROSE DE PETRI

1985

CORNERSTONE LIBRARY

No. 2
ROZEKRUIS PERS HAARLEM THE NETHERLANDS

International School of the Golden Rosycross
Lectorium Rosicrucianum

Headquarters:
Bakenessergracht 11-15, Haarlem, The Netherlands

Translated from the Dutch
after the revised edition 1977

Original title: Het universele pad

ISBN paper version 90 6732 007 2
ISBN electronical version 97 8906 732 692 6

Copyright © 1985 Rozekruis Pers, Haarlem, The Netherlands

I
RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA

You will have noticed that the large number of religious groups and societies practicing negative occultism, advertise more openly and in a more banal way in the advertising columns of our newspapers and also use pamphlets, posters and other means. This religious propaganda, mostly prepared in a childish way, testifies of the spiritual decadence of our century and of the enormous crisis mankind faces.

It is always very easy to determine, whether a certain action does possess the purity of inner spontaneity, or not. Everyone realizes that this kind of propaganda is imported from the U.S.A., where the science of advertising has been studied thoroughly and where it is the custom to propagate religious tendencies of all kinds in such a way that it makes a European heart stand still.

You should know however, that things which seem coarse and banal to us, are quite ordinary and not in the least bit shocking to the Americans.

Why that is so, is beside the point here. It is of little interest to us at the present time, to know why the American community in its alchemical processes must overcome the phase of natural religion in the American way. The main thing is to find the reason, why the American natural-religious methods are so readily accepted in our European countries.

And in our opininon this phenomenon is caused by the ending of a period of culture.

When someone has reached the end of his life process and possibly shrinks from its inevitable consequences, his actions lose the spontaneity of sincerity, and he takes to experimentation and to imitation.

His behaviour shows a spasmodic nervousness, he raises his voice and gives himself airs, and his external positiveness discloses the greatest negativity, he is in reality then a poor wretched creature.

When the dictators shout at their loudest, you can be sure that the situation is worse then ever.

In reality things are as follows: – if there truly is essential life in something, this life manifests itself by growth and expansion.

This growth and irrestistible expansion spring from life itself, and therefore are completely genuine.

When there is life, there is a natural magnetic attraction, there is a focus and a magnetic field.

In modern history there were periods in which the European community of nations had such a focus and such a magnetic field.

Europe set the tone, because from her a tone actually emanated, because she was entitled to it.

Frequently this predominating position hung by a thread, because the vital power, the potential was not used correctly. Recovery was possible at that time, because unused powers were liberated and were employed in the renewal, as was the case at the time of the Renaissance and after the French Revolution.

Without those mighty European turnabouts of the past, Europe’s task in the large community of nations would have died out long ago to a small heap of smouldering ashes.

So we are once again faced with a change on the old continent. This change already casts its shadows, and that is why the curve of nervousness is rising.

The old apparatus, used so long, functions no longer, or at best very clumsily, and therefore new ways of life are being imported from abroad.

The former fundamentals now disclose themselves horizontally in commonplace religious advertising, the undeniable symptom of decline of a period of culture.

This advertising is undertaken in many different ways. You should not consider this superficially. The advertising activity in the newspapers is the more external and childish way. There are also groups who are trying to acquire leading positions in practically the whole civil, social and economical apparatus by means of political authority. In this way they try to gain or even strengthen their control over the nation.

It should be clear however that this forcing spells its own death. If a man or a group possesses spiritual qualities and a true inner calling so that consequently there are a magnetic focus and a power field, neither God nor man can resist such a power, as it progresses towards fulfilment.

All obstacles then turn into advantages. Hence comes the saying: “Those who believe do not hurry.” We may hold different opinions about the nature and the causes of all these phenomena. But one sign is undeniable: The whole world is in a whirlpool of a very revolutionary period, and all eyes are turned towards the old Europe.

Europe is facing a new day of revolution – another renaissance is at hand.

And if you still have but a spark of the old national strain, you know that inevitably the world is driven to an immutable aim – and that no man can resist or delay this process.

Some groups of people in this world live in the political field, and thus they are interested in the coming political revolution, they are completely bound to the political conflicts.

Others are taken up by the social conflicts of our time, while more exclusive factions of our fellow-men concentrate on the economic aspects of the present world storms. According to your individual character you are interested in one of these three aspects of revolution. You have either political or social or economic interests. And accordingly you can imagine that – in so far as your attitude is also natural-religious – you will make your religious opinion subject to your political, social or economic interests. All this is quite natural.

The natural-religious consciousness has to do with a condition of the blood, showing hereditary traits. The inclinations of the ancestors are maintained in our religious communities by a magic supported by powers of the reflection sphere.

This natural-religious consciousness is altogether directed to earthly things, horizontally, it is completely biological.

It manifests itself in all ages and always in the same manner. The Bushman, the Mohammedan and the so-called Christians alike, are induced into a religious ecstasy because to their natural aptitude and attitude and are so prepared to fight against their enemies.

War psychosis and war anxiety are greatly encouraged in this way. You know all this.

Now the pupil of the modern Spiritual School should find out how much he himself is involved. Do you have social, political or economic interests, and in what respect does your natural-religious state correspond with it? This is a self-examination which the pupils of a Spiritual School must undertake very soon; for the problems connected with it will shortly be of the greatest importance.

For the modern Rosicrucian is not at all interested in the political, social and economic turmoil of our time and even less in all the doings of the religious according to nature, with their overt and hidden advertising.

For there is another life, another aim and another religion which demand all our attention and energy.

In the troubled waters of our time, this point of view may seem altogether negative, because you look at the events of life from your own circle of existence.

However, we must say that the conduct of a pupil of the modern Spiritual School is one of the greatest activity; an activity about which we do not leave you in the dark; an activity about which we speak and write continually.

The pupil who learns to understand this standpoint of the Spiritual School inwardly, finds himself placed as it were in another world. He perceives all the hustle and bustle of this world as through a mirror.

He does not only perceive the obvious, he looks through it and beyond it. He peers into the darkest hiding-places of the human soul. He will not be deceived by a newspaper or a radio advertisement.

He knows what is said at the conference-tables, and is most thoroughly informed.

Therefore he observes the activity of the whole world with the highest possible objectivity. He will surely not forge his plough into a sword, and he will not uselessly oppose anything that is inevitable in this world.

In the middle of enormous disturbances of a furious ocean of passions, it is yet possible to achieve great inner calm, the calm of the new life which is not of this world.

It is a reality full of mercy and truth, an essential life which sometimes develops in the midst of the greatest turmoil. Its potentiality has been proved in all world history. And therefore the Bible declares in Revelation, Chapter 18:

“And I heard a voice saying: Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped as high as heaven”, to the heart of the reflection sphere. “And see, the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her.”

It is hoped that everyone will understand very intelligently and in a scientific-occult way the holy warning: “Flee from the coming storm!”

This concerns the flight, the ascent, the entry into the new life, into a new sphere of existence.

May the storm of the coming events find you safely at home.

II
THE DOOR BEHIND THE VEIL

Man’s consciousness is determined by his blood. Without leaving the slightest trace of doubt, the esoteric teachings of all times have continually explained this axiom to their pupils.

“The Kingdom of God is within you”, the Holy Scripture declares with emphasis, and the key to this Immovable Kingdom must be forged or liberated in your blood, in the red vital substance which enters every fibre of your being.

This is the great mystery of genesis, which all authentic Spiritual Schools try to convey to their pupils.

The blood determines the grade and the quality of a man’s consciousness!

The Universal Doctrine sees the human life fluid in three manifestations: firstly the ordinary blood, secondly the nerve fluid and thirdly the lymph. This life substance with its three aspects is produced in and by the physical body. The necessary elements for this production are also threefold: man nourishes himself with solids and liquids of a chemical nature, with gases of an atmospheric constitution and with planetary elements of an etheric quality.

This threefold life substance, produced by the body and partly explained through such a threefold nourishment, maintains in its turn the whole physical organism, thereby completing the biological cycle.

The motor activity in this whole process is made possible by force, by a vitality, whose nucleus or focus lies behind the frontal bone, between the two eyebrows. A certain consciousness is radiated by this nucleus or focus into the whole life fluid; a certain spiritual vibration emanates.

The focus of consciousness in its simple form is called the biological spirit, and we designate its radiation of consciousness in the blood as “the soul”. Thus we can see the natural relationship between the spirit, the soul and the blood. You must understand now that the radiation of consciousness, or soul vibration, proceeds from the biological spirit, but its intensity, quality, range and consequences are determined by the blood. Also the functions which are inconceivable without organic structure and nerve activity, such as thought, emotion, will, desire and all activity, are directed by the blood, both with regard to their extent and their limits.

Consequently we may conclude that as soon as the human personality is brought to life by birth, the biological spirit finds itself in a captivity of sorts. The spirit itself does not direct the life system, but it is directed and controlled. Confined, imprisoned in the material personality, it is used as a life factor of the blood, but all initiative and all activity of life proceed from the blood. Man in this dialectic nature does not live out of the spirit, but entirely out of the blood.

As soon as the life cycle starts, as soon as man is tied to the wheel, as soon as soul and blood have been vitalised, have received life, the soul maintains itself, dragging the spirit along in captivity, fiercely desiring and seizing all other necessary factors of life in a vast fire of existence. Therefore the initiated Paul rightly states that man is created a living soul and not a living spirit.

It would not be right to consider the spirit as a neutral factor, as the innocent victim resulting from this process. The biological spirit is a spark of the original spiritual essentiality and this alone may be called “man” in the true sense of the word. This spark of the spirit has proceeded away from the original human spirit in the primeval age, with its speculative and forcing endeavour to influence God’s great plan of genesis by its own will and in its own way.

A dramatic result was the consequence. The rebellious spirit spark drove the whole microcosm in the wrong direction, the original development was given strict limits and the spirit spark driven to manifestation in conformity with its nature.

Therefore there lives within the biological spirit the image of the perfect man who is everything and can do everything and knows everything, but who experiences a counter-nature and continual dialectics, an unattainability, an imprisonment and a complete deprivation of initiative, bound to the wheel of birth and death, being at the mercy of the soul-being created by him, which seems to die only to live again, which accompanies him from the cradle to the grave, and from the grave again to the cradle. That is the spirit’s sorrow, its suffering, its despair and its bewilderment.

A cry for redemption vibrates through the whole microcosm, but this cry for help is heard only as a whisper in the soul because of the urge of the living soul-being to exist. In a great many cases the spirit can not reveal itself anymore in the soul because of man’s coarse condition.

The former soul-being, that is a man in whom not only the blood-consciousness but also the spirit spark could make itself heard, has then become an entity with a blood-consciousness only. Esoteric science then speaks of soullessness. The nucleus of the spirit of such men lives externally, as in animals; all individuality is lost and, just as in animals, habits of group and species with unforeseen consequences come to development.

In the first instance we discern the blood-consciousness, that is the consciousness in which only the voice of the blood, class, group and ancestors speaks. This is the man, who has become completely a biological creature, who is completely earthbound.

Secondly there is the so-called soul-consiousness, that is the blood-consciousness in which, besides the activity of the biological spirit, the voice of the spiritual nucleus of consciousness can still speak, can also express its hopes, its desires and ideals. People with soul-consciousness strive for cultural development in all spheres of life. They are trying to make of this world and mankind a life domain and a society which comply with ethical and religious norms.

Thirdly there is a spiritual consciousness, that is a consciousness of the dialectic nucleus of the spirit separated from the blood. People possessing this spiritual consciousness liberated from the blood, experience their captivity and dependence on the blood-being and are capable of receiving in their spiritual consciousness impulses of a higher order, in consequence of which the insight of these people with reference to the state of their fall becomes a clear knowledge.

And fourthly there is the original consciousness or the microcosmic consciousness. Some authors simply call it cosmic consciousness or heavenly consciousness, the consciousness of man’s original essence. If, using this science of consciousness, we observe the behaviour of mankind and in the first place our own, we can come to some instructive conclusions.

In conformity with the four states of consciousness we can speak of a fourfold mentality, of a fourfold mystic life, of a fourfold activity. Every man can behave only according to his state of consciousness and should only be judged accordingly.

For instance the mystic life of a man with blood consciousness will be completely directed to nature and the course of the seasons. The religious festivals for him mean: eating, drinking and merriment. At Easter a train passenger travelling through certain secluded districts of The Netherlands, can see how in the dusk the Easter-bonfires are being lit. The country-people, so much bound to the land with body and soul, stand around the flames in the circle of light. In this way man with a blood-consciousness sends up his thanks for the re-awakened nature.