Seven Hermetic Letters

 

 

 

 

 

Georg Lomer

FIRST LETTER 
RISE UP AND BECOME LIGHT

Introduction

My dear reader, these letters should teach you to recognize, to awaken, to develop and to use your finer, higher, secret powers. The “natural” human being, one who is neither quick-witted nor awake, can be compared to a rock which has not yet been struck by the rod to bring forth the living water. For some, adverse experiences and life catastrophes serve as such a rod. Others have good powers of observation they immerse themselves by contemplating the circumstances which everyday life presents to them and, on a long-term basis, contemplate the destiny of other people as well. Sooner or later this will bring about an awakening. Many, however, retain until their physical death the childish opinion that human beings are nothing more than highly developed animals, and that their task and purpose is exhausted with eating, drinking, procreation and conducting business. The line between animal and human being, my dear reader, runs in reality right through the middle of present-day humankind.

All you have to do is look around, and you will find this premise confirmed. You will see foxes and jackals, vultures and peacocks, predators and cows, but only a few human beings. You will see these animals with all their animal instincts, at all levels of society, in all professions; there is no external division. At times you see these animals in positions of honor and power; knowing this, you will no longer be surprised why so many judicial and business practices resemble a criminal plot or conspiracy, and why “high politics” resembles a madhouse. Examine the motives and you will find the animal.

Let these letters have an effect on you. Perhaps they will serve the purpose of being an awakening rod, striking your heart to open the door to the higher, the “actual,” human being. I do not demand that you believe something because of my mere assurance. Your intellect was bestowed upon you so that you might make use of it. You have the right, in every respect, to know “why” when it comes to the advice and recommendations given in these letters.

It is, however, necessary that we proceed on a common basis. Archimedes said: “Give me a point in the universe where I can stand, and I will lift the earth out of its hinges!” Therefore, we require a firm point of departure in order to walk together and reach our goal. If you consider a certain color blue while I consider it green, we shall never agree; should we want to purchase something green, you would not understand my proposal nor would you accept it. Of course, the subject matter we are dealing with here is much more important than the mere purchase of a meaningless green substance.

Therefore let us consider the following, and then you may decide if you agree with my representation. This is absolutely necessary as far as the principal theme is concerned. At this point, do not concern yourself with minor details in respect to the expression of words.

If I have a table in front of me, I know that the table did not come into being by itself. A carpenter or cabinet maker, a man who had the ability to make such a table, must have made it. When I look at a piece of art, for instance a painting, I know that the painting did not come into being by itself but was painted by a creative artist.

When I look at the world as a whole, I say to myself: The world cannot have come into existence by itself; there must be something that originally made it or created it, just as the mechanism of a clock leads to the conclusion that a watchmaker made it. Therefore the wonderfully moving organism of the whole universe must lead to the conclusion that there is a founder of this universe and someone who keeps it moving. It is completely unimportant as to whether we imagine this “something” to be essential or personal. Under any circumstances, it has to be something which is greater and more powerful than all “matter,” or a person greater and more powerful than all “persons.” The artist as such stands always above the art.

If we agree that this creative, forming and preserving power and under certain circumstances a destructive power as well is a “spirit,” then we have found our common denominator.

It is obvious that this spirit which created and controls the universe must be present in every single one of His creations. He keeps them alive continuously and reveals Himself and His lawfulness through their mediatorship. Instead of speaking of the “wisdom of our body,” like many of the new age scientists do, we should rather speak of the “wisdom in our body.” When I hear a piece of music, I do not praise the beauty of the piano keys, but the ability of the pianist, who only makes use of the keys in order to express his intentions. These intentions consist of the bringing forth and articulation of certain harmonies, rhythmically harmonizing together, which cause your inner delight and mine. No listener or connoisseur of music doubts this.

Apply this allegory to your whole organism. Here the player, the spirit, wants harmony. The heart beats, the lungs labor, the blood corpuscles race through the vessels in accordance with rhythmic laws which your conscious will did not give them. Your entire conduct of life, your life’s schedule, takes place in a certain rhythm sleeping and waking, youth and old age, etc. which was not determined by your conscious will. Yes, even your outward destiny, when you have learned to see it, shows an unmistakable rhythm, ebb and tide, recurrent experiences and forms or shapes. In short, your entire existence is integrated into the wheel of all the occurrences in the entire universe, in the living “breath of God,” without any conscious action on your part, many times even without your knowing anything about it. However, there is one most important exception:

As soon as you consciously or unconsciously violate the laws of harmony that rule the occurrences in the universe, such as not treating your body properly, committing violations against a group of human beings of which you are part or into which you are integrated, or crimes and so on, you yourself will have to carry the often embarrassing consequences. You will carry them in the form of ailments, external conflicts, and catastrophes in your life.

This great law of cause and effect rules inexorably and incorruptibly. You can only reconcile it with your separate existence when you recognize it and apply it consciously to yourself and your life. The spirit that created and formed you knows why you should serve Him. Does not every watchmaker know his work, and did he not assign a certain role for every wheel in the whole scope of things? It is your task to find out, to feel out as well as you can, your intended purpose, in order to enlist your whole life into the service of this leading thought which was placed within you. Only the horse that jumps over the hurdle placed in front of him no longer requires the whip.

Every machine has its control, and that applies also to your own organism that is to be understood in the broadest sense. Any machine has a particular control for each of its various main purposes and it is necessary to know them so that in every instance you can properly operate them.

First, a few words about the structure of matter. If you assume that matter consists of electrons, the basic element of electricity, then you will have approximately the right idea. Every atom of an element consists of one positive nucleus, which is orbited in ellipses by negatively charged electrons. The nucleus is the sun; the orbiting electrons are the planets. It is therefore a planetary system on a small scale. Your visible body, which consists of billions of atoms, is therefore a cosmos, which is held together and controlled by a unified will. The vibrations of the planets in this cosmos are relatively slow that is why they are perceptible to the simple senses.

In order to comfortably equilibrate the disturbances in this artful organization, the regulating spirit created a model in accordance with the manner of an artist which is incorporated with the physical body; but the fluid or subtle body, the second body of a human being, is invisible under normal circumstances. This body also consists of electrons, but they orbit considerably faster around their sun centers. Both bodies are held together by electromagnetic powers.

Under certain circumstances this fluid body can (after death) leave the physical body wholly or in part and become visible to clairvoyant human beings (appearances of phantoms and apparitions etc.). In rare instances it can also happen that, through a process of condensation, this body can become visible and tangible to the physical senses. This has been observed and photographically documented by scientists such as Dr. von Schrenk-Notzing, Dr. Grunewald, and Dr. Geley. These appearances of partial fluid members of the body and of whole figures were produced with the help of mediums. Their telekinetic manifestations are transformations of the subtle body that has left the physical body. Such a separation of both bodies always causes some harm, even if only temporarily, to the state of health of the particular medium. The peculiar symptoms, like labor pains, which accompany this separation process, and the sometimes severe state of exhaustion, are proof of this. These things can only be accomplished through an at least partial loss of consciousness; in other words, it occurs in a state of trance. This leads to the conclusion that our consciousness is based upon the cooperation of both bodies. Not until this cooperation takes place will the organs of the senses be activated, and these sensory organs allow human beings to enter into communication with the outer world.

The communication cable, the soldering joint of both power systems, is the sympathetic nervous system, a highly important, independent nerve center, and its main ganglia is located behind the abdominal organs.

The fluid body lives by itself in the kingdom of the subconscious, as it manifests itself in many dreams. Subconsciousness is the lens through which a human being can symbolically perceive events which otherwise remain hidden from a person’s sensory perception. On the lower development levels, this ability of perception is limited to corporal functional disturbances and the like. On the higher development levels, however, the fluid body can become a valuable intermediary of extra-sensory cognizance of events, and many other things.

The fluid body does not possess its own will, but rather it obeys any influence that orders it, provided this influence exerts enough force. This influence can either originate from the individual himself or from another person, for instance through suggestion or hypnosis wherein, through other activities of the senses, the attention of the person to be hypnotized is diverted and the will and concepts of the hypnotist take the place of his own.

From whence does the will, which usually makes its effects known in both our bodies, the coarser and the finer, take its nourishment? The more a human being finds himself in an animalistic, original state, the more can the motor of all his actions be found in instinctiveness. The instinct for self-preservation, the sexual urges (hunger and love) , and all the passionate tendencies connected with these urges, control the elementary human being, which of course in the higher sense cannot actually be called a “human being.” They are enormously powerful forces, and their main carriers in the body are the red blood corpuscles which are charged with tremendous electrical energies. The genital glands or gonads the male testicles and female ovaries are the principal storage areas. The lower the level upon which a human being stands, the more unrestrained is the control of these primitive instincts over such a human being. And even what we proudly consider to be the “intellect” is for the most part in the service of primitive instinct.

The glutton and the drinker who misuse their minds to find ever new delicacies to tickle their palates; and the lecher who lives only for sexual desire what are they? They are merely servants of their blood; they stoke a fire which will eventually destroy them. The “profiteer” or “businessman” who consider such activity to be the purpose of life, and who sees his entir destiny in the accumulation of material objects, in the end con demns himself to death with these transitory things. This well known phrase “Making Money,” written with capital letters, is nothing more than extended gluttony! In addition, it is some thing with which a human being can thoroughly upset his stom ach. The intellectual power which he sacrifices for these thing: must therefore be considered as the lower or elementary powe of thinking.

You must also know that thinking is an electrical procedun which occurs in a plastic, exceedingly fine substance, a modification of ether. It is important to these lessons to realize that all thought forms and imagery which serve the instinct in both the narrower and wider sense are formed out of this very important energy substance. These thought forms are lower thinking, and are directed only towards the coarsest interests of the thinker.

We will once more summarize all four things:

1. The coarse, physical body.
2. The subtle, fluid body.
3. The power of the instinctual life.
4. The lower power of thinking.

Here we have before us the powers that work together, the lower quadruplicity, of which the last three components form the soul of a human being in its mortal parts.

Dear reader, it is absolutely necessary to commit this exactly to your memory, because it is the foundation of our future undertakings.

Do not forget that this part of the soul, the organizing principle in us, does not possess a conscious immortality. This part of the soul serves the worldly life exclusively, and as soon as this life comes to an end, it no longer requires a control center to control it. If your entire “I” rises in the narrow interests of your own person, then by necessity it will also fall. This then is the significance of this sentence: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it.”

We must also think of the ending of this verse in the Bible: “And whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.” What does “for My sake” mean?!

You must understand that the spirit did not create a human being for himself alone. He placed the human being under thousands of other beings, so that he could recognize, out of the multitude, a higher unity under whose order he, as a special being, must fulfill particular tasks in order to consciously return, eventually, to the lap of unity when the task has been fulfilled. Standing amidst visible and invisible crossings of energy in an immense cosmos, a compass is required to find your way. And this compass is given to a person in the form of the higher eternal part of his being.

If he lives in the world of the senses with his physical body and fluid body provided it is not developed in the lower astral sphere of the subconscious then a person has, above and beyond that, the possibility to ascend, here as well as in the beyond, to higher spheres of life and activity by means of higher centers of energy which are given to him. These are the centers that bring him into contact with the soul of the nations, races, and humanity, and eventually with the world soul. Centers that are within him are only present as an embryo, and in most human beings they are only developed to the minutest extent. The majority of human beings are not even aware of their existence and they may well allow an aptitude to atrophy which constitutes their actual higher human value.

In the principle of thinking, in the power of thinking, we find the bridge to this higher and finer essence of our being. It expresses itself as higher, more abstract thinking, as objective self-knowledge, moral will, spiritual productive powers of creation, intuition and conscience.

Within the being of this power of thinking a higher 1consciousness lies enclosed which is far above the more animalistic I-consciousness of the lower quadruplicity and which takes the first step into the super-ego.

Way above this quality of thinking lies the phase of pure illumination a level of consciousness which was present in Christ and which will be awakened in those who are on the path of Hermetics. With this, an expansion of perception and knowledge is given which is based on the quickest vibrations of the prime matter of ether and is rooted in the ability of “vision” which raises the human being above the bounds of the narrow, fatal “personality” and allows him to participate in the spheres of activity which elevate him into the circle of the so-called “gods.”

Here we are dealing with the activation of the divine genius which lies latent in all of us. Higher thinking and illumination are the steps which lead to the divine genius. These two qualities of consciousness can be signified as the purest emanations of the highest and seventh principle within us, namely cosmic consciousness; all together they form the higher triplicity in human beings. This divine genius has its point of contact in a particular central point of the brain. The best way to imagine this point is in the center of the head. The divine genius is the actual regent of your destiny; it puts you in the place where you belong and where you should gather certain experiences; it trains you for particular tasks which you must fulfill through pain and suffering and which will change in every new life. This divine genius warns you and is your infallible advisor, when you have learned to listen to him. He will give the profoundest happiness and peace to your soul, as soon as the soul has subjected herself to his guidance. He is the immortal within you, the “Son of God” who can say of himself and with full justification: “Behold, I and my Father are one!”

Setting Goals

And now, my dear reader our goal! What do you expect from these instructions? Answer this question for yourself, but do it conscientiously.

Do you expect worldly advantages that are easily obtained, which give you priority over your fellow man without making any high demands upon yourself? Do you want to shine through secret abilities which will place others at a disadvantage but into your favor? Do you want to receive valuable goods, but without being prepared to sacrifice for them? Then these letters were not written for you. Leave them be, and pursue your pleasures.

Know that the value that these letters conceal cannot be bought or sold; you have to work for it, and become these valuable things yourself. The path to the grail passes over the dead body of your old “1.” Whosoever would be born again must first learn how to die. Are you prepared? Have. you heard this calling? Examine yourself! You are dealing with serious things.

This course of instruction intends nothing less than to make the God-man conscious within you and to make him the Lord of your life! This is not something which can be obtained through thinking and studying. The keenest intellect cannot capture what you must experience in your Innermost as a process of transformation an experience with all the horror of a new birth. (“Except ye be converted, and become as little children.”)

The higher trinity (the symbol for the higher trinity is a right-angled triangle) should therefore be brought into the lower quadruplicity (symbolized by the quadrangle) for revelation. The higher triplicity should allow the “perishable” mortal partner to participate in its own omniscience, omnipresence and eternity. The higher trinity should transfigure the soul, and become more identical in character and help the soul achieve conscious immortality and the degree of omnipotence of which she is worthy. The richer, the more highly developed the vessel of the spirit is, the greater the might which he is capable of exerting on this basis upon a low, most imperfect form of crystallization, the coarse matter. The intended process of transformation is connected to this fact, of which we spoke earlier.

The Procedure

In the kingdom of the spirit there exists a law: Same can only be understood by same. Every difference is merely a difference in vibration. The coarsest and slowest vibrations of the primary matter which form all things show themselves in the substance of a human being, the physical body. The fluid body is finer than the physical body, yet the higher self is the finest; and subtle beyond all concepts is the vibration of the cosmic consciousness, about which an ancient proverb speaks: “God is a consuming fire.”

In order to become more receptive to the influences of the divine genius, the lower “I” must be systematically upwardly purified and brought to higher vibrations; in short, it must become more refined. Only when the bride is ready will the bridegroom come.

The success of that endeavor depends upon the personal aptitude of the student; it will depend especially on his inner honesty and uprightness (because “many are called, but few are chosen !”). Furthermore, it also depends on his perseverance, because every organic process of development requires a certain time to mature. And, finally, it depends upon the “blessing” and the “love from above.” The genius cannot be forced downward into every vessel; instead, he selects his own place.

The metaphysical kingdoms are not without dangers. Whosoever is not in possession of purity and perfection will not find the entrance to this kingdom. In spite of searching, he will not be admitted.

However, any aspirant can achieve this, no matter what his circumstances; it constitutes a degree of self-mastery and control over one’s own destiny which raises a person above the crowd as a noble champion for life. Certainly this one goal is worth the effort of the noble.

The erring ways of a self-indulgent age begin with mastering life from the wrong end. One wants to live like a lord, a life of luxury wherein all passions are completely satisfied and life is enjoyed to the fullest. One wants to dominate the world in other words, other human beings before one has learned to master or control himself. The results are that those “masters” who make fools of themselves are fools in the spirit and, because of inner insurmountable weaknesses, stumble again and again through the course of their lives as soon as they are attacked where they are vulnerable in their animal souls.

In reality, being a master begins without exception with the mastery of your 9wn person. We are given the microcosm, the “small world”; that we learn from it is our first example, our first assignment. And unless this assignment is satisfactorily solved, we grasp in vain for higher goals.

Balance and Transformation

Before we turn to the practice, let us be very clear about two main points.

(1) Speak to no one, whoever it may be, about your intentions, not to mention the details of these procedures. By so doing, you expend currents of energy which you should instead gather for yourself. The possibility also exists that you will di rect hostile counter-currents towards yourself which will harm you and jeopardize your intention or plans. Do not even speak to your wife or close friends about this.

(2) Be absolutely honest and candid with yourself. If you fool yourself or extenuate what is embarrassing for you, then you deceive yourself and you will not be able to reach even the closest goal. The energies you want to work with will answer you in the same manner as you ask. If the question you ask is dishonest or untruthful, the answer will be in accordance. You cannot build a house on quicksand.

You can begin at any time. Any minute can be the beginning of a new life. Be completely clear about this: These instructions are not something to mock, but will re-orient your entire life towards a particular, purposeful direction.

Once you have begun, you should not interrupt this course of instruction except when you are forced by illness to do so. Should you interrupt this course, you will suffer a severe setback, much more than you might believe, and you will lose the advantage which was so difficult to attain and which can only be regained with a very great effort. You lose a considerable amount of time and sacrifice your energy for nought.

Now that we have explained these important points, let us begin with the practice. This course of instruction is structured in a sequence of levels which must be followed one after the other. Every level is estimated to take one month, but can be extended at one’s discretion if necessary. In other words: Every level must be properly completed, completely finished, studied and practiced thoroughly, internally digested, before you can begin with the next level. Otherwise you will build a structure which is not solid and which will fall apart in days to come.

There is no self-schooling without self-cognizance. The heading of Step 1 reads as follows: balance and transformation.

You should take stock of your entire life up to now; with that, a new phase of your life begins. Observe the following fundamental rules.

Fundamental Rules Of The First Level

1. Avoid alcohol and nicotine!
2. Avoid sexual satisfaction of any kind!
3. Rise 5 minutes earlier every morning!
4. Practice patience daily!
5. Practice self-judgment daily!
6. Every evening, undertake a criticism of the day and plan 
the next day!
7. A thorough cleansing with water at bedtime! 
Practical Exercises For The First Month

Here you have two negative exercises (what you should not do) and five positive exercises (what you should do). Act in accordance with the following explanations. It is absolutely necessary to deprive yourself of those things mentioned above throughout the entire course of instruction, because:

(1) Both body and spirit are connected and influence each other. They must be thoroughly detoxified, because a cleansed will can only grow in a cleansed organism. Wine and brandy are forbidden from the first day. Should you be addicted to alcoholic beverages, you can replace them with beer. However, within four weeks you must be entirely off beer as well. Should you be much addicted to beer, first limit your consumption to one half the normal amount; then, after fourteen days, to a quarter, and after three weeks you must totally abstain.

(2) Any kind of sexual intercourse weakens you; at this time you require all your energy for higher purposes. You must also abstain from erotic thoughts, because these weaken you just as much as the actual intercourse; for some people, even more so. Avoid sensuous reading material and conversation; do not listen to any obscenities or stories on the subject. Should you experience nightly seminal discharges without any action on your part, do not worry about it. It is the given form by which nature expels any excess, and, as a rule, only that much is expelled as nature can spare. When the number of such discharges is too great, the reason is a pathological overstimulation. Consider a seminal discharge of two times a week a healthy limit. Should you exceed this limit, seek medical advice or try a cool sitz bath before bed to have an effect on the reproductive centers. (Most people do not have these frequent discharges. )

(3) If, for example, you normally rise at 7: 00 in the morning, then rise at 6: 55 A.M. on the first day of these exercises, the next day at 6: 50 and so on, 5 minutes earlier every day. In two weeks you will rise 1 hour and 10 minutes earlier. If necessary, use an alarm clock the first few times. After one week, make up your mind at bedtime to awaken at the proper time in the morning. If you have total confidence, your plan will succeed immediately the following day. You will make it easier for yourself to succeed if you go to bed early.

(4) I recommend the following two exercises:

(a) The Pea Exercise: Take a handful of peas (preferably yellow) , and scatter them throughout a room. Then kneel down and gather them on a plate. This has to take place in a very leisurely way, without a trace of upset or impatience, slowly without haste. Should you experience any indignant emotions, stop gathering the peas immediately and wait until you have completely overcome this feeling; then continue to gather. It must be your goal that such emotions simply do not occur. You have to eliminate them before they arise; better yet, make up your mind from the beginning not to entertain these types of emotions.

(b) Sitting Still: Sit on a chair in a quiet room, facing a clock. Should you not have a wall clock available, place a pocket or wrist watch in front of you. Sit erect on the chair in such a way that you do not touch anything for support, then place your hands on your knees. Fix your eyes upon the watch without moving a muscle. Pay particular attention to the fact that not one muscle fiber moves or even twitches. Also, your torso must remain completely motionless. Attempt to refrain from blinking the eyelids; there is no harm done if you should not be successful immediately.

Begin this exercise for a period of 1 minute, and every second day increase it by another minute; in other words, the duration of the exercise on the third and fourth day is 2 minutes, on the fifth and sixth day 3 minutes, and so forth. After 14 days you will have reached a duration of 7 minutes. The best way of accomplishing these two exercises is by alternating every other day. Today the pea exercise and tomorrow the sitting still exercise. The best time is early in the morning.

(5) The self-criticism or self-judgment should be executed on the basis of a very particular scrutiny of your present life.

You want to ascertain your wrong-doings. Sitting down in a very quiet place, contemplate the individual phases of your life. Scrutinize one period after another. Make notes. Consider the following main points:

What was your main motive at various stages of your life? The guideline of your decisions? When did you act badly or malevolently towards your parents, teachers, brothers and sisters, acquaintances, relatives, superiors, authorities? Answer one point after the other. Call everything by its rightful name do not spare yourself anything. The only things to be considered are your faults or shortcomings. Should you not find any, reflect again. You must have made some errors, because no one is without fault. Attempt to recognize the consequences, both to yourself and to others, which were caused by your behavior. Remind yourself! Never pity yourself falsely! Do not defend yourself or make excuses for yourself.

When you have found a number of points, faults or shortcomings, reprimand yourself in a loud and subdued voice, in the same way that a judge or plaintiff would speak to you. Use severe and harsh expressions or language.

Deal with another period of your life every day. The old long-forgotten things are just as important as the present ones. Once you have gone through all the periods of your life, begin again and you will discover more faults in the time frame which you already covered before.

Dedicate half an hour every day to this exercise; the best time is early in the morning, right after the patience or sitting still exercise. Very valuable help develops for this highly important task if you obtain an impeccable graphological character analysis of your handwriting. It should be done by a graphologist you do not know personally. Point out to him that it is important to you that he give you a very critical evaluation of your handwriting, and that you want everything exposed, without any holding back; you want the true nucleus of your character with all its weaknesses.

Should you yourself be experienced in graphology, you can of course analyze yourself, though in order to receive an unbiased evaluation it is much better if someone else does it. Should you not know a qualified graphologist you can contact the author. Though this graphological evaluation is a valuable tool to apply to oneself, it is not absolutely necessary. You can attempt to replace it with the following exercise:

Instead of the mirror of your handwriting, make use of the mirror of human beings. How are you mirrored or reflected in the opinion of your fellow man? Begin with your friends and adversaries. Scrutinize one after the other; contemplate what they think of you and how they came to that conclusion. Do not hide behind the excuse: “How can I know that? !” You do know. Behind every animosity hides a true cause which you must sift out. You yourself initiated many of the avalanches that have caused you great danger. In one instance they may have originated due to your own lack of control, while in another they may have been caused by dubious activities.

Once you have completed all that, then begin with your business and professional acquaintances. Did some of them not tell you the truth at one time or another? Perhaps they exaggerated. What you should understand is the actual point they were trying to make it is a reflection of yourself. Then continue with your closest relatives and intimate friends. What does your brother, your sister, your spouse say about you and your character? Look for the flaws and shortcomings which they find in your character rather than your good characteristics, which you already know.
Should the need arise, you can always obtain full particulars about yourself, about your character, and your other habits by anonymously contacting a good detective agency or information bureau and asking for information about yourself.

Always allow yourself time for all these things. Every day, deal with some of your shortcomings. Always record the main points which you have found, for in the end they will give you a clear overview.

There is yet another method you can employ as a means for self-recognition, and that is your hand. The hand of a human being is a weather map which clearly shows from which corner the storms of your life originate. In its form and in the formation of the lines of the palm, the hand reflects the danger points of your development, the years you have to struggle as well as the amount of energy that has crystallized within your person. You will come into possession of a clear and exact knowledge as to where you must place special emphasis in regards to your self-development.

Should you want to make use of this possibility, seek out a good chirologist (not to be confused with some of the charlatans who advertise their services). There are some in Germany. Provide this person with any necessary documents, such as palm and finger prints, also the outer forms of the fingers. A personal visit is, of course, best.

Before you get into the flow of things in regards to self-development, it is necessary to recognize your own limits. A human being can only develop to a certain predetermined level in any given lifetime.

Naturally, you can analyze and judge your handwriting and hand yourself with the help of good books on the subject. However, the necessary knowledge on these subjects cannot be gained in a short time. It takes many years of practical study as well as a special aptitude in order to become a good graphologist or palm reader.

(6) Each evening, spend some time alone, if possible in a dark room. Recall all the events and experiences of the day the people, the words, the activities. Ascertain how successful you were with today’s exercises and where you failed, where the results were unsatisfactory. Keep a diary in which you carefully and unhurriedly record the results of your retrospective view. If properly done, this systematic self-recognition and self-assessment will take at least a full month. Should you, contrary to expectations, finish your retrospection before the month is over, repeat the same procedure once more.

Summarize all your mistakes and shortcomings in brief, poignant principal sentences or key words. Hereupon make a plan for the next day. It is best to do this in writing. Make a note of your intentions to cast off those things which, as far as you are aware of them, constitute your character flaws the very next day, and to avoid the mistakes in the future that you made earlier in your life. Write this down in the form of a command.

(7) Before you go to bed, cleanse yourself with water. When you wash your upper body and your face, combine your action with the sharply defined idea: “As the water now cleanses all the dirt from my physical body, that is how my will shall cleanse all the dirt from my soul! I progress every day!”

It would be very advantageous to assign a certain hand gesture to the thought, thus helping to remove certain mistakes and shortcomings from your character. For example, let us imagine that you have recognized that you are inclined towards greed, that you are not punctual, that you lie, and so on. So when you wash yourself, think: “With this movement of my hand I eliminate my greed; with this movement of my hand I eliminate my tardiness; with this movement of my hand I eliminate my lies!” In the beginning you must execute this procedure with your fullest attention. However, after a while this will occur more mechanically, which is allowed; to a certain degree, it is even desired. In this manner you effectively insert the tendency you want into the organizing powers of your Innermost. The main point to be made here is that this has to occur on a regular basis. When you do this, it is important that your thoughts remain with the subject at hand; you should not be occupied with other thoughts, no matter what they are.

Therefore, your daily schedule for the first month of exercises is as follows:

In the morning: 
Rise in accordance with the instructions in this chapter.

In the forenoon: 
 Alternate the two patience exercises and self-judgment.
In the evening: 
Practice criticism of the day, make plans for the following day, and cleanse yourself with water.

Once the month has passed, ask yourself whether you have reached your goal as set out in the instructions. Should you not have done so, then continue with these exercises until you have achieved your goals. Only then can you continue with the second level; otherwise, it will not serve your purpose because you will not succeed.

SECOND LETTER 
RISE UP AND BECOME LIGHT

Your Special Mission

When you, my friend and student, have thoroughly studied and practiced the First Letter completely, you will have achieved two things. First, you will have a clear picture of your own character and its shortcomings, and secondly you will have made the first step toward correcting and eliminating those shortcomings. In other words, you will have begun to see yourself as the spirit sees you in order to acquire an insight into your intention, your purpose, and to bring yourself into line with this intention. Be convinced that the spirit has a special purpose for you which no one but you can fulfill. You were created especially for this task by the spirit. The spirit would not have led you to certain places, would not have had you meet certain peopIe, if such an intent did not exist.

Your task may have an insignificant outer appearance; it can take place in the framework of meaningless professional duties, or by carrying out seemingly unimportant chores. It is up to you to carry out these tasks with all your love under any circumstances. You can be certain, especially now, that they are the right thing for your inner growth and maturity. Once you have outgrown this, you will be summoned to tackle another task. The reason why many human beings do not progress is that they want to skip a grade, or want to withdraw from it, before they are mature enough for the next grade.

Life consists of the premise that you learn your lessons one level at a time. Whoever does not take this seriously but smiles at it arrogantly will sooner or later be brought back onto the proper path through severe experiences and adversity many, of course, not until they are on their death bed.

In this sense there is no “lower” or “higher” work. Wherever you are, do your duty with joy and total devotion; that is how you earn your patent of nobility, which opens the door to the next echelon of the spirit.

The Monitory Letter

Now that you have recognized your shortcomings and know where to apply the lever in order to make a perfect tool out of yourself, summarize the essence of the knowledge you have attained in a few short efficient sentences and place them in your vicinity in such a way that you are constantly and repeatedly reminded of them. Write sentences such as “Learn to be silent,” “Remain calm,” “Be patient,” etc. Write this on a small piece of paper and place it on your desk, your book shelf, or anyplace that often catches your eye. Write these words very clearly with ink or a colored pen or pencil. Cut this paper and give it a particular shape, i.e., round.

Should this be too conspicuous, abbreviate the sentence or write only the first letter of each word. Should this still be too conspicuous, then use any symbol at your discretion, i.e. a pentagram, and, when you draw it, think intensively about the sentence which you wish to commit to the paper and about which you want to be admonished. Whenever you look upon this piece of paper, you will consciously or unconsciously receive an impulse which will guide you into the desired direction. Here the same principle is applied as in advertising. If you read the same advertisement a hundred times in many media, then the hundred and first time you might go and buy that particular product, even though originally you had no intention of buying it. You are in a store and you think about something entirely different; you are undecided. Then the automatically accepted impression announces itself as a desire, an urge. You obey the impulse and you do not know why you acted in this manner or how it came about.

The Make-Over Of Your Character

The aforementioned method is a good aid to create positive new habits. Whosoever wants to make over his character, to rebuild it which is what you want must put good new habits in place of the bad old ones. That which is called “character” is a conglomerate of certain deep-rooted habits. Therefore, “He has a good character” means “He has good habits!” All habits can be traced back to right or wrong thinking; they are therefore habits of thinking. Now we have reached the fundamental significance of thinking for our entire lives, endeavors and destiny.

Thinking: “Blessed Electricity”

In the First Letter you learned about the inner structure of the human organism. You know that the human organism consists of various electrical systems which interlink and form a unity for the duration of this physical life. Picture it in the shape of a pyramid; its apex represents the immortal trinity and its base the mortal quadruplicity. From the apex to the base, the inner structure becomes coarser and the oscillations of the prime element slow down.

All systems are in contact with one another and constantly exchange multitudes of electrons. It is the purpose of these instructions to help the higher, differentiated, more finely built and more quickly vibrating electrons of the higher systems to attain control over lower electrons of the lower systems so that the eternal being can be victorious over the mortal being. Only in so far as this is successful can a mortal partake in the might and splendor of the immortal. The element of power, which is the carrier of this exchange and which we have to make use of in this endeavor, is thought. All spiritual exchange of liquids becomes conscious in this thought; it is, so to speak, the inside, the inner aspect of our vital electricity. Only through thought can our higher will gain influence over the lower centers.

Thought: An Energy System On A Small Scale

Impress upon yourself that thoughts are real things formed out of an etheric, extremely plastic fine substance. All imagination, ideas and concepts are formed out of this fine substance. They are the archetypes of all things. Everything visible has its origin in these archetypes. Examine the works made by human hands: hou~es, machines, airplanes, steamships, railroads, inventions of all kinds, entire cities, yes, even countries. Before they came into being externally, they had to be created internally in thought. First a thing is thought of, and then it is made.

Thought is therefore the prime deed which is formed first, and anything further is formed accordingly. What an immense creative power is inherent in the act of thinking! Thinking means to create.

Every Thought Wants To Become A Reality

It is a fact which can be proven that every thought which is thought of with some attentiveness has the tendency to become reality. Stand at the edge of a high cliff and think that you could fall if you do, you are already halfway down. The thought was sufficient to give your body muscles the impetus to fall: instinctively, you will hold on to something. Walk into a hospital room where every patient is afflicted with cholera; if you have the firm conviction that you are immune against this disease, you will be safe. Your thought has conferred to every cell of your body the strongest powers of resistance.

The stutterer stammers because he is constantly tormented by the fear of it; this means he cannot get rid of the thought of stuttering. The saints got their “stigmata,” the nail marks of Christ, because their entire thinking was permeated by the Passion of Christ. Or when a pregnant woman is witness to certain horrible events, such as a soldier’s hand being cut off in a fight, her child may be born prematurely with only one hand. Another woman sees a friend day after day whose hand, due to an accident, has taken the appearance of a claw, and she is upset over it. And her child comes into this world with a hand similar to a claw.

Death Through The Effects Of Thoughts

Even death can be caused purely through the effects of thought. Well-known is the case of a Paris criminal who was sentenced to death but became the object of the following experiment. He was told that, as a special favor, he could choose between dying peacefully in his cell through blood-letting or execution on the gallows. He was undressed, blindfolded and tied to a bench. His back was lightly scratched with a needle, upon which warm water was poured over his back. In forty minutes the man was dead.

Students wanted to play a prank on an unpopular janitor. They disguised themselves, seized him, and hauled him before a Vehmgericht, a court, which sentenced him to death. They had the executioner’s axe and block available. He was blindfolded and tied to the block, and the sentence was carried out; that is, the executioner hit him with a wet towel over his bare neck. ~

When they untied the man, he was dead. The thought that the execution was real had killed him.

No one has the right, as so often happens, to scoff at such a respectable power as the power of the imagination. There would be no single achievement or work of human hands without the power of the imagination!

You yourself unknowingly work with this power every day. Every feature or line on your face is formed by your power of thought. What you think day by day, the way you think, your habits or train of thought leave their signs on your face as a symbol of your character, clearly readable to a good psychologist. Show me what you look like, and I will tell you who you are.

It is therefore not unimportant what kinds of thoughts ym harbor within yourself, that is, the thoughts you think into you organism every day. You now hold a great degree of sickness and health in your own hands, concerning which you formerly had merely an idea. Be mindful that annoyances spoil your appetite, sorrow causes heart ailments, and annoyances that repeat themselves affect the liver. In many instances, even cancer can be traced back to continued worries and fearfulness or anxiety. You have it within your power to control the kind of thought currents, whether constructive or destructive, which you allow to affect you. Is it not time that you learn to know the mechanics of this immense power in detail?

The Building Blocks Of Thinking

The thinking human being is therefore, consciously or unconsciously, a mighty master-builder who must know how, with skillful hand, to make use of the building blocks of his thoughts if he wants to avoid failures or even cause his house to collapse. The least you should expect is that you must thoroughly know these, your own building blocks. Every thought is a picture of a concept, a model made of a plastic fine substance, and the real picture forms itself in accordance with this fine substance out of coarse matter. In just the same way, we possess a fluid model body after which the physical body was formed. In a thought we therefore have before us the next finest element, which influences, guides and forms again the fluid body.

We are dealing here with pictures, essentially entirely optical pictures, that is, visual pictures. It is in these pictures that the whole of our act of thinking takes place. All our thinking is a sequence of pictures which together result in an action.

These actions of thought are the first act or deed, and everyone should be conscious of this responsibility which he shoulders with the deeds that he thinks about. Inevitably he is setting powers into motion; in most instances he no longer has the power to stop or impede them. If he thinks evil, then the evil has been accepted by the world of effects and somehow, somewhere, it will take on shape and form. It may be that he who thought this evil adopts it himself as an evil habit of thinking, and sooner or later the visible act will follow, or it may happen that the engendered thought picture will influence one person or several others and they will eventually carry out this deed. However, every deed or work that has been carried out eventually comes back to the original perpetrator, because the world is a closed circle and a human being is a marksman who, mostly without knowing it, shoots all of his arrows, be they good or evil, at himself. In the future be mindful of this with each of your thoughts.

The aforementioned exemplifies how important it is to make this enormous world-power subservient to oneself. In order to achieve this, you must, to begin with, know the source of this world-power. Only then can you seize it and purposefully instruct and increase it, and eventually make use of it in accordance with the will of your higher self.

The Energy Sources Of Thoughts

We will begin this chapter by mentioning the most important matter first: The principal energy sources of thoughts are your own wishes and desires. These are the motors which create infinite sequences of pictures, and place them before your spiritual eye so that you act in accordance with this enticement. Should you follow suit, then at that moment the entire tension of energy that is produced is extinguished, equilibrated, and it escapes you. Any excitement or tension that is connected to a wish endeavors to influence you to satisfy it, and thus cause it to discharge by some kind of outward action. A wish is blind and does not want to serve you; instead it wants to serve itself exclusively. Should you let the wish have its will, then the electrical energy which is stored up in that wish finds its discharge through this, similar to lightning that strikes the earth. Have we not learned how to tame this lightning so that it can carry out productive work?

The Power Of Wishing Your Motor

You should learn to control this power of wishing, so that it can serve your higher purposes. Be glad if you are endowed with passionate temperament and a strong desire. Be glad about the elementary energy which is contained within you; it is the dynamo whose current will help you ascend, to be born again in the spirit and in truth. It is a fact that every wish you conquer no matter what manner of wish it may be makes you master over yourself and thereby master of your destiny. Every ascent begins with the ability to “deny yourself something.” And every fall begins with the loss of self-control. Therefore you must walk this path if you are in the least serious about this discipline. The strongest special motor that is built within you is the sexual sphere. In this regard, a few particular words are of absolute necessity.

The Upper And Lower Light

The creative prime fire is located in two lights or poles submerged in the human being. The upper pole is the divine genius and has its seat in the brain. Nowadays, this upper pole is preponderantly undeveloped in most human beings. The lower pole is the sexual energy or power and it has its seat in the loins. It is very active and is the source of most of our wishes.

Between these two poles there is a lively and significant exchange of energy. The barometer of this exchange is thinking. The more productive the lower pole is, the more it links its energies with the outside and the less energy is delivered to the function of thinking. And, vice versa, the more radically the outflow of sexual energy to the outside is denied, the greater the benefit for the power of thinking.

Sexual energy seeks the immortality of the race by means of the propagation of children. The genius in a human being seeks his individual awakening for the purpose of a conscious immortality. And this purpose requires the enormous energies that are stored in the sexual center. Since both the sexual energy and the genius are in a reciprocal relationship towards each other, the attainment of the conscious immortality of the individual depends upon a temporarily ascetic lifestyle. The upper light can only awaken if the lower one lends it its electric energies. That is why you cannot succeed without absolute control of the sexual urge.

Natural man lives on the outside, that is, he sees the world through the veil of his own wishes and desires. Spiritual man lives on the inside, that is, he sees the world without desires, but with the eyes of the spirit.

The Effects Of Asceticism

You have to know all the effects that will follow, and which you can attain through the discipline of the wish. In general, the first thing that you experience will be a noticeable increase of energy; you become subjective as well as objective, healthier and more productive. Your body rejuvenates in every aspect. And soon you will also experience a significant increase in the powers of your imagination. Everything that you think takes on forms that are more defined and more plastic the powers of imagination increase. You can think faster and become quicker in your responses and more versatile.

At the same time, you will observe that your influence upon other people is slowly but surely increasing. It will increase to exactly the same degree as is proportionate to your successful and proper execution of the exercises given to you. In your own interests, you must be very precise and conscientious. Everyone carries the baton of the spirit in one’s knapsack.

We will now begin with the practical exercises of control. As you know, they start with thoughts, that is, they begin inwardly and continue outwardly with the entire sphere of life’s activities. Therefore the motto for the second level is: Be The Master In Your Own House.

Be The Master In Your Own House

Above all, be firm in the knowledge and become accustomed to the fact that you and your house are not one and the same. It is a common expression to say: “My body, my intellect.” The word “my” expresses ownership. Therefore there must be an owner who feels that he is separate from his property or possessions.

From now on, rise early in the morning, which, in accordance with the experiences of the first month, will serve your purpose best. Then abide by the following rules:

1. Restrict your meat consumption as far as health permits.
2. Wage a daily frontal attack upon all your known weak
nesses.
3. Practice each muscle-control exercise daily: 
(a) finger stretching exercises;
(b) arm stretching exercises with a glass; (c) slow walking exercise, step by step.
4. Practice minor concentration exercises daily.
5. Avoid any unnecessary expenditure of energy; maintain 
your composure under all circumstances.
6. Practice daily the accumulation exercise wherein you 
practice the denial of wishes.
7. Continue to practice the daily self-criticism every eve
ning and the making of plans for the following day. Explanations

(l) The consumption of meat is not desirable for various reasons. It is purchased through the death of a feeling and innocent being, which physically is comparatively closely related to you. Even if you assume that the actual slaughtering of such an animal is quick and therefore almost painless, it is nevertheless true that the entire preparation, the transport, the stay at the slaughterhouse, the blood-curdling surroundings and so on, have an effect upon the animal. It is and remains an act of barbarism with which you should, if at all possible, avoid any involvement. Ask yourself the question: Would you eat the meals you eat if you had to slaughter the animal yourself?

With the animal blood, you also absorb the organic carrier of the animal’s passions and uncontrolled desires. A complete change of animal flesh into human energies is not always successful, and not every human being has these capabilities. It is well-known and understandable that eating too much meat causes human beings to be hot-tempered, sensuous and passionate. This is an obstacle on your chosen path of development.

In this context, through experience, a predominantly or purely vegetarian diet promotes higher abilities and helps prepare the organic foundation for them. It is important to our purpose that a certain refinement of the organization can be better and more easily obtained by developing the body through vegetable substances. As you know, millions of human beings in the Far East live essentially without meat. There is certainly a direct connection in so far as their gentle disposition is concerned. They consider the white man on the whole to be aggressive, although he might not think of himself in these terms. The vibrations of thinking are the ones that are perceptible to sensitive races. There is so much talk about the ideal of peace, but to

Western man this ideal cannot seriously be brought any closer as long as they remain meat eaters to the present degree.

The northern races have lived for many thousands of years in a harsh northern climate, where they cannot maintain themselves without substantially nourishing food. The northern race requires a concentrated, almost rich and fatty diet. Northerners have become physically accustomed to such a diet to such a degree that a complete change in diet would cause severe health consequences. Therefore conduct yourself as follows: Limit your meat dishes to that which is absolutely necessary. Eat a meal with meat no more than once or twice a week. Also, limit the amount of sausage you eat, etc. Instead of meat, eat eggs, cheese, milk, pasta, pancakes or farinaceous food. Food that can be recommended is rice and corn, and also all kinds of nuts and fruit. Fish in the ascetic sense is not meat. You can enjoy it once a week. Coffee and tea are allowed, but only moderately and considerably diluted or watered down. In general, the amount of food you eat should be very moderate. Never eat to the point that you feel satisfied. The satisfaction of your palate IS unnecessary.

(2) The spiritual frontal attack upon your weaknesses is waged as follows: Place a chair in front of you. Affix to it a picture of yourself, possibly one from earlier days. If your powers of imagination are already strong enough, then instead of using the picture you can image yourself sitting on that chair.

Now stand in front of or opposite your picture and speak to it as if it were a stranger, and address it in this manner: “Now I know you! I despise your inclinations towards (mention all the bad characteristics that you became aware of during the previous month). Between you and me I will build a partition that will separate us. I do not want to have anything to do with you anymore. We are through with each other!”

Then turn the picture on the chair around or away from you, or turn your back to it and speak of your new intentions or resolutions in short but conclusive sentences. You must take great care when formulating these sentences; be certain that they are positive and not negative. For example, you should not say: “I will not lie anymore, I will not display any more bad manners, I will not enter into any dubious business dealings!” Instead you should say: “Henceforth, I will speak only the truth! (or keep silent!) , I will develop only good habits, I will only conduct business honestly,” and so on. It is a law that a positive abbreviated sentence not only commits itself to one’s memory much more easily but is much more quickly and easily turned into deeds than a negative word. Therefore act accordingly!

You must pronounce these sentences with great emphasis in the following manner: Make two fists and extend your arms forward at shoulder height. When you pronounce the word “I,” quickly pull in both arms, and then thrust them forward again when you utter the word “will.” Repeat this procedure with every single power sentence. You must always do this with the greatest possible muscle tension, just as if you were doing some heavy physical work, or as if you were lifting heavy weights or something similar. You will understand that when you perform these thrusting motions you can give your life a proper new impulse, a new stimulus of energy. In a manner of speaking, you are starting the ball rolling.

The best time for this exercise is early morning. You should begin the day with this exercise in order to be influenced by it all day. It would be most advantageous to practice these, sentences immediately after you awaken, with your eyes still closed. As soon as you notice progress in one direction or another, limit yourself only to the most important points. The more you progress, the sooner you can omit the first entire part of this particular exercise, namely addressing the picture.

(3) The three muscle-control exercises should be done daily, in sequence, i.e., the first exercise once, then the second exercise once, then the third exercise once.

The first exercise is as follows: Seat yourself at a table, in a tall and erect posture, without touching the table. Then stretch your arms out and keep them straight and rigid; place them in front of you on the table, with both hands side by side clenched in a fist. Now begin very slowly to stretch out the thumb of your right hand, controlling every phase of this motion as if it were of the greatest importance to you. Then follow the same procedure with the index finger and continue with all the other fingers of the right hand, until all the fingers on the right hand are outstretched. Once you have done so, reverse the entire procedure, beginning with the little finger, until all fingers are in the same position as when you started, and the clenched fist lies before you as it did in the beginning. Then begin with your left hand and follow the same procedure.

The second muscle-control exercise is as follows: Fill a wine glass to the rim with water. Hold it in your right hand and raise the glass so that the water level of the glass is level with your lips. Then stretch out your arm with the glass in hand to the right side very slowly, without trembling or spilling a drop of water. Observe this entire procedure very intensely. Then reverse the whole procedure and return the glass to its point of origin. Repeat the procedure with your left hand.

The third muscle-control exercise is as follows: Stand erect, heels together, and look straight ahead. This slow walking motion is divided into three phases; count from 1 to 3 with each motion. Beginning the first phase with the left foot, slowly lift your heel on the count of 1 and, by the time you have counted to 3, bend your knee; everything is executed in very slow motion. It should take a minimum of 5 seconds. (In the beginning, time these movements!) By the time you have counted to the second 3, you will have lifted your left leg and moved your foot forward, the same as if you were walking. This will be executed in the same time-span as the first phase, and this phase should be just as intensely observed as with all the previous exercises. During the third phase, by the time you have counted to 3 you will be setting your left foot on the ground, shifting your body weight onto the left foot, and, while you are counting 3, pulling your right foot so that it is next to the left foot, in the same position as when you started. Again, observe every movement very closely and intensely. After this, begin the exercise with the right foot. Should you not succeed with one or the other exercise, then repeat it that same day.

(4) Usually you do not have your mind completely on your work during many of your activities in everyday life, but think of all kinds of other things. In the morning, while taking your bath and when you are getting dressed, you might think, for example, of things you have to do that morning or a meeting you have to attend that day. While you have lunch, you might think of a certain letter you have to write, etc.

The minor concentration exercise consists of having your thoughts exclusively on the object with which you are occupied at the moment, or with the activity, which is just as necessary. You should learn to consciously pay attention to your thoughts, to keep them together. Know that there really is no such thing as an “inferior” activity. It will become inferior if you execute it badly. Direct your will towards taking care of everything in the best way possible. Be completely attentive; be deeply engrossed in what you are doing at the moment. If you write a letter, if you wash your hands, if you are reading a book, if you play with a child or a dog, if you eat dinner or knot your tie in everything you do, pay attention only to what you are doing.

Your thoughts will always try to drift, especially in the beginning. Call them back to the point where they left off with firm perseverance. Do not get tired of immediately correcting yourself of the slightest deviation from what you want.

Choose a different hour for this exercise every day. For instance, begin this exercise on the first day from 8: 00 A.M. to 9: 00 A.M., the second day from 9: 00 A.M. to 10: 00 A.M., and so forth. Continue in this manner every day until you have reached the evening hours and have covered all the hours of the day, then begin again in the morning. This exercise is very important. Not only will it give you a better memory, which you will soon notice, but it is also the preliminary stage and preparatory exercise for the major concentration exercise which is part of next month’s program. The more precisely, conscientiously and successfully you execute your exercise now, the easier it will be for you to succeed with those which follow. You have to work hard for each level; nothing will come by itself.

(5) The avoidance of unnecessary expenditure of energy by remaining absolutely calm is the counterpart or side-piece to the minor concentration. The energy which is employed during concentration in a certain direction which, in other words, is consumed for a practical purpose must be gained by overcoming wishes (6) and by maintaining your composure (5). The exercises numbered 4 to 6 are in an important inner relationship to each other, which you must understand and which you must take into consideration. Think about this relationship so that you yourself know the mechanism which you want to set in motion.

Be mindful of the fact that you have to maintain your composure; in other words, you have to remain calm under all circumstances, inwardly as well as outwardly!

During the course of the day you are assailed by many new temptations, which not only cause you to react in one way or another but whose intention it is to also interfere with yom peace of mind. And it is this peace of mind alone in which you can maintain your energy. People or things attempt to cause you to be annoyed, angry, fearful, hateful, envious, passionate, etc.. in order to draw the current of energy of your volition and thinking towards themselves and to benefit from your energy. They want to draw the energy from you because with every excitement you are relinquishing energy. A very excitable persor is always weaker than a calm person. The stronger you are by nature, the more diligently you are flattered and sought out by people and things. Attempts are made to coax you into conversations, to internal and external participation in various events. The object of their actions is, so they say, to help you “come out of your shell!” In reality, however, it means nothing more than that these people begrudge you the condition you are in because you have gathered so much energy, which they suspect or feel that you possess, and which they want to enjoy with you. Therefore, the first commandment that you have to obey is

Isolation! Consider yourself to be an electric accumulator, which has to carefully control any output of its own current. Never pursue other people on the whole, keep more to yourself. That does not mean that you should live like a hermit You must find a happy medium. Learn to be reserved without offending other people and without attracting any attention. A certain amount of isolation is absolutely desirable if you want to progress on your new path.

Pay close attention as to whether each new acquaintance that enters your sphere of activity or tries to make contact with you actually wants something from you that takes energy away from you. Govern yourself and your inner position accordingly beware! Again, this does not mean that you should deal with 54 your friends and acquaintances in an unpleasant, repulsive or unfriendly manner. You should be a true humanitarian, whatever the situation may be. Learn to be helpful, obliging and considerate without exhausting yourself.

If you maintain your inner as well as your outer calm under all circumstances, you may be assured that you will preserve a certain amount of energy in reserve. Should you notice that something threatens to pull you out of this position of tranquility, immediately prevent this danger by actively erecting a wall of thoughts, a spiritual bulwark, between you and the object of temptation. You can accomplish this in the following manner: Improvise a sitting-still exercise as well as you possibly can under the circumstances (this can be done so that it goes totally unnoticed by anyone else). Then image yourself completely surrounded by an invisible steel dome which does not allow any serious disturbance to come close to you. If you are subject by nature to exasperation, then you should practice this thought-picture often without having any special reason to do so. You will find that it will prove its worth.

(6) The accumulator exercise goes hand in hand with the previous exercise. It is not a matter of suppressing all wishes that emerge during the course of a day, because that would trigger severe and unpleasant reactions. Remember, your organism is entitled to many wishes, which imperatively demand fulfillment if the organism is to continue to exist. It is your little brother, which you have to take care of. But you cannot allow him to subjugate you. Always remember that this is his nature. Therefore, in order to accumulate the energy of your wishes, practice the non-fulfillment of your wishes.

(a) Negative Exercise Examples: Deny yourself little conveniences when you sit down remove the cushion you are used to. Do not choose a comfortable chair, but pick an especially hard or uncomfortable chair. Do not wear house shoes. Deny yourself certain things while eating, such as the sugar, the salt or other spices that you enjoy. Do not use any butter on your sandwich. Take the smaller portion of your favorite foods. Eat the least of those foods that you like the most. Drink only water for an entire day. Do not eat your favorite meat on your sandwich for a whole day. Also, omit a meal which is not important, such as afternoon tea or coffee. Deny yourself the conveniences of your professional life to which you have become accustomed. Deny yourself a visit to the theater, to a concert, or something you were looking forwarc to. Do not buy something that you intended to buy simply for pleasure. (It could be a book, a rare stamp, a vase, a newspaper etc.)

Deny yourself conveniences as to your sleeping accommodations by removing the bedside rug; replace the pillow with a head-roll or place a large note-book or board under your pillow.

(b) Positive Exercise Examples: Do things which you have to force yourself to do or things which, up to now, you did not like to do. You may have to write an unpleasant letter which you should have written long ago, and you “never found the time” to write. Write this letter now.

You wanted a heart-to-heart talk with someone, but for many reasons you always postponed it. Do it now!

Should you have some urgent shopping to do, instead of doing this in a hurry and taking the shortest route, make a detour and force yourself to walk very slowly. Or, for instance, if it irritates you when you hear certain sounds, like a slate pencil on slate, or chalk on a blackboard, the filing of fingernails with an emery board, or when someone passes his hand over velvet and so on force yourself to listen to them with a sunny disposition and the greatest inner peace, and make it happen!
Should you have an aversion towards certain animals, for instance cats, frogs, spiders or snakes, get close to these animals as soon as you have the opportunity, touch them, pet them, and be a good friend to them. Be mindful of the fact that the

World Spirit created them as well as it did you, and in substance you are definitely related to them. You should hate nothing, since everything originates from the One Spirit, and you must make every effort to overcome aversion or dislike, as when certain human beings, animals or things make you shudder.

Also overcome the disgust for certain foods which you do not like.

All these negative and positive exercises should be practiced without the feeling of coercion. You should do them gladly, with joy and with an inner vivacity of the soul. As long as you do not achieve this, as long as you moan and groan, you have not grasped the essence of this exercise. The external attitude is important, but even more important is the inner attitude. You should endeavor to attain the feeling of being penetrated with that joyful equanimity which is superior to all things. Your mood, your contentment, should no longer be dependent on something external. Be a rock of calm and contentment, untouched by notions such as “little” and “much,” “good” and “bad,” “comfortable” and “uncomfortable.” Practice the feeling of being a rock until it has become second nature.

Certainly, the above examples are only a point of reference as to how these exercises should be executed. You are not bound by them without exception you can add some of your own. This, however, applies only to the positive and negative exercises above;.all the other exercises have to be strictly adhered to. Exercise every day, with a minimum of one positive and one negative exercise.

Your daily schedule is as follows:

In the morning: 
Spiritual frontal attack and muscle-control exercises.

During the course of the day: 
One hour minor concentration; maintain your composure or peace of mind; accumulator exercise.

In the evening: 
Daily criticism and making plans for the coming day.

THIRD LETTER
 RISE UP AND BECOME LIGHT

Introduction

By now you should have a clear picture of the nature of the power of thought, your strongest weapon of life and death in this existence. You know how this power is nourished, how to gather and store it and protect it from loss. If you have completed the First and Second Letters, you have learned to utilize this power for yourself through the easy method of concentration.

Before commencing with the higher methods of concentraion, you must become acquainted with the manner in which you can pursue the effects of this course of instruction to the furthest extent and how you can control the progress you have already made.

Before you enter upon this inward path, it is necessary to protect yourself from harmful influences that come from the outside, because they can interfere or lead you astray from your course of development. Therefore, put your house in order! Withdraw from all people you have recognized as bad. Should this be difficult to do because of external circumstances, limit the association to the barest minimum and under no circumstances become or remain intimate. Also erect in this instance the invisible “steel dome.” Only then will you be prepared.

The Inward Path

A human being is like a branch on a tree. You do not find the greatest abundance of sap in the bark, but on the inside of the tree. Here the sap circulates most actively and connects the branch with the main trunk of the tree. That is where you must search if you desire an insight into the secret activities of the powers that organize, build and destroy, and which so ardently desire to control.

Just as the greening leaves correspond to the day consciousness, the sap of the branches corresponds to the subconsciousness. The functions by which these subconscious procedures become conscious to you are dreams.

Dreams: The First Threshold To The Beyond

If you wish to find the origin of all things, first you must folIow the guidepost of dreams. This is the entrance to the depths of your existence. This is the barometer for the procedures that take place in your fluid body. This is where the primary pictures which are to form within you are active. This is also where new and super-sensitive capabilities first show and reflect themselves. It means you have to understand the dream, if you Want to observe the transformation of your own depth.

Dreams: A Second Reality

Know that dreams are just as much a real (or unreal) experience
as any waking experience. The difference lies merely within your state of consciousness. In your daytime thinking you are externally distracted through the senses (compared to the leaves (on a tree), whereas your night-time experiences are inwardly concentrated (compared to the circulation of the sap in the branch of a tree). While in this state your “I” is transferred to another sphere of experience, into another medium, and mostly into the inner fluid body. You see what you perceive there, so to speak, through another lens.

What you experience there appears before you with a far greater intensity than the occurrences of the day. When you cry in your dreams, your tears are hotter and more bitter than all the tears you shed during the day. You experience insignificant things, yet you perceive them with an extraordinary profundity. And it is always you who experiences these events and no one else. And when you awake relieved or sad in the morning, you should not say “It was only a dream!” and then try to forget everything as quickly as possible. Instead you should ask yourself, “What was this dream trying to tell me?” Dreams are just like the events of the day; they are messengers with sealed letters, written in a coded secret writing. What they have to tell you can be important and of unique value.

All Dreams Are Allegorical

The secret writing of dreams is written in symbols which you have to learn to decode. These symbols, in their entirety, form a language which is far above all languages in the world, the universal language of the spirit, and is understandable to everyone once he has found the key.

The decipherment of dreams is nowadays again on the verge of becoming a meaningful science. The concept of this book does not require more than a brief outline. It should, however, suffice to give you a good start. Even in this instance, what will advance you the most will be your own work. Whosoever wants to penetrate the secrets of dreams does not require a keen intellect, but must possess imagination and some intuition for his own peculiar picture language. Then you will discover what the psychic disequilibrium wants to convey to you, and its finest barometer is the dream.

You have to clearly understand that every dream must be understood symbolically either in its entirety or at least in part. For instance, a businessman with no children dreams that he is throwing a small child into the water. Interpretation: He is giving up a new plan, which he rather would have liked to implement. A military officer dreams that he is placed into a coffin in full uniform. Interpretation: He changes his profession and “dies” as an officer. Although every person has his own dream type which is significant to him alone and much more so the more developed his spiritual life is it is also a fact of experience that certain dream symbols reoccur and have a particular meaning to most human beings; to know them is very useful.

Body Symbolism

For instance: The limbs or parts of the body mostly represent members of the family or valuable possessions; the loss of teeth usually represents the demise of a relative. On the other hand, new teeth can mean new possessions and the like. It is also interesting to know that certain body orifices or openings and individuallimbs take the place of others. For instance, the thumb takes the place of the male genitals, the nostril takes the place of the ear, etc. This also applies to the body liquids. Milk, for instance, can represent blood. An increase in the weight of the whole body or parts of the body, as for instance the face, symbolizes prosperity in material and health matters. Loss of weight represents the opposite. Doubling the size of the body represents marriage. Dissolution or transformation of the body points to death. The body is often represented as a machine or an apparatus, even more so as a house, and the individual rooms correspond to the body cavities. The head and the forehead represent the top floor or the attic. Spiders in the attic mean headaches; the eye is a window, the stomach is the kitchen, the intestine a dark passage, hallway or subway, the abdominal cavity the basement. An important personality entering the basement with a light could mean that a doctor examines the abdominal cavity.

Blood shows itself as light, the activity of the heart as a rhythmical flashing and darkening light. Also, red colors such as red roses, red wallpaper, and red clothing are often a symbol of blood. Tears show themselves as pearls.

Money Symbols

In accordance with the part money plays in everyday life, there are an infinite number of symbols for money, even in a dream. Among these in accordance with their form there are also opposite symbols. Everything that has to do with gold and silver or any semblance thereof golden hair, valuables etc. is to be understood as a symbol of money. Cutting one’s hair means loss of money. Money is also symbolized by vermin of all kinds, such as lice, fleas, bedbugs. Furthermore, the analogy of excrement, whether human or animal in origin, lies in the fact that it is also a product of one’s labor, namely the labor of the body.

Often, blood is also a money symbol; there is a saying that you have to “bleed,” meaning you have to pay. Everything that is eaten, such as meat, bread, cake, game (venison) , cattle, etc., means income, especially as far as men are concerned. Furthermore, symbols of fertility such as eggs, fruit, rice and fish represent income as far as women are concerned.

Fertility And Love

Now we have reached the voluminous subject of sexual symbolism, which is of great importance. In regards to women, the principal female organ, the womb, appears often as a physical mother. Should she appear as being “inebriated,” it means the dreamer is pregnant. Sweets and the picking of flowers are endearments and enjoyments of love. Children are represented as jewels, mirror images, photographs. Male genitals appear in many different disguises such as a lance, an arrow, a rifle, or a revolver, whereas when women dream of their fathers it oddly enough represents the male genitals. The male semen appears as flour or wine. Should the real, physical father appear, he will usually appear in the form of some imposing personality such as an emperor, general, principal of a company and the like.

Animal Symbolism

Animals mean different things, often feelings and passions. Dogs, for instance, represent low sensuous desires; cats, treacherous adverse thoughts; large predators, such as lions, crocodiles etc., represent danger; horses, fiery sensuality; worms, maggots, and snakes, sickness and any kind of unpleasantness; legendary animals, adversarial thoughts.

Death And Life

Vital energy expresses itself as a fire in the stove and a supply of coal, also in greening and evergreen trees and plants, as well as in light, radiating flames. Illnesses show themselves in the form of a consuming fire with or without smoke, at times also as invasive and rising water; black animals such as dogs, mice, cats and ravens represent death and sickness.

At times death shows itself as a person, skeleton, ferryman, clergy, stranger etc. The colors of death are black, white, gray, blue, violet and purple. Approaching sickness and death expresses itself in the form of an engagement, and death itself as a wedding.

Weather Symbolism

Clouds, especially thunderstorms, always represent dangers. Flaming inscriptions are always warnings, and they are especially meaningful when they appear in the sky. Sunny weather and a pleasant, smiling landscape always symbolizes a good state of affairs in a particular matter. The darker the weather in a certain scene, the bleaker its sense. More serious dangers sow themselves in the picture of a runaway car or horse and wagon, or a speeding train. Great catastrophes or revolutions announce themselves to the dreamer through cosmic symbols such as flooding, earthquakes, falling or occultation of the sun or moon, comets, fiery shapes in the sky. Dreams Of Motion

The extraordinarily frequent dream of driving in a car or traveling on a train or boat is the journey of life upon which we have all embarked. If you dream about a smooth and fast journey in one of the above vehicles, the smoother you will find your journey of life. The more obstacles there are in your path, the more laborious will be your existence or the problems with which you are occupied at the moment. Dreams of flying are dreams of ambition, where a person deems himself to be above others. Rhythmical forward movement such as riding, swimming, bicycling, dancing, etc., usually represents eroticism.

The Purpose And Goal Of Dreaming

The dream takes these thousands of pictures from the treasury of your memory and arranges them for its purpose. Accordingly, a symbol can have very different meanings. The value of these symbols is never absolute. What you experience are the intended actions, where you yourself are both audience and actor. We are dealing here with a dual personality, where all the people that appear and act in your dreams flow together into one whole person at the moment you awaken. The entire kaleidoscope that you experience is you yourself. The purpose of this whole experience is to equilibrate all the severe tensions which exist in you. Most of your dreams are in one sense or another wish dreams or dreams of fear or anxiety. The more undeveloped your soul is, the more dreams of that nature you will have. Remember this well.

Dream Control As A Barometer Of The Soul

Constant dream control continuously gives you an insight into the events of your own inner self. You recognize which kinds of wishes and fears are active within you. You learn to know without any further ado, that is, without aesthetic and moral extenuation or disguise, where you have not overcome your shortcomings. You must learn how to examine your dreams in a self-critical manner, in other words, you have to have it out with your dreams.

The deeper you penetrate, the clearer it will become to you that many dreams have a secret double meaning, and this will become apparent to you when you have reached a certain level of maturity in your development. Love and death, father and mother, and other symbols bear an even higher mystical meaning, which you must find. If the soul herself appears as a symbol, you experience her as a bird; also, if you dream of flying, it will unveil to you many a secret in this connection.

The further you progress, the more will the character of your dreams change. Much of what was in the foreground will fade. New signs and types of scenes will emerge but you will learn from all of them. Gradually, in accordance with your inner development and ability of concentration, dreams of the higher type will mix with the games of the lower sphere of consciousness.

And you will receive proof of the practical awakening of higher energies within you. You begin to become conscious through Christianization and enlightenment of the soul from the higher trinity. The lower quadruplicity, inclusive of the body, becomes refined and receptive for these highly spiritual impulses and enters into the service of the superior systems.

Hand in hand with this dream work goes the further schooling of the powers of thought, of which you will find more detailed information in the explanations. Above all: Major Concentration.

Major Concentration

Major concentration is also called the “collection” or “immersion” and is divided into a passive and an active phase. The passive phase precedes the active phase, and it strives to accomplish, as far as is possible, a complete immobilization of the entire lower quadruplicity as much as is feasible to avoid any unnecessary energy consumption in this respect. The scholar who is completely taken up by his work and the businessman who becomes totally absorbed with making money are already unconsciously practicing this concentration exercise at a certain level. When the scholar writes a first-class work that makes him famous and the businessmen becomes a financial tycoon which influences the fate of whole nations, they are indebted to this type of concentration.

You shall now learn how to systematically develop and direct all your attention to one point. It is achieved in the following manner:

(A.) Passive Phase: Switch off all external attractions. Choose a dark room. Make certain that there is complete silence all around you and that you remain alone. Assume a position of rest which is appropriate for you. First, try the following: Take a seat on a comfortable chair, if possible an easy chair. Sit in an unconstrained position; rest your head and back against the back of the chair with your hands on your knees. Place your feet side by side, 4 6 inches (10 15 ).) ).. ). ). )..

). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ).. ). ). ). ).. ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ).; ). ). ).. ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ).. ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ).. ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ).; ). ). ). ). ). ).. ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ).. ).: “). ). ). ). ).!”

). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). )., )., )., ). ). ). ).. ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). )..
). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ).. ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). ). in a calm and even manner.

The second goal is to bring all your thoughts to rest. This is the more difficult part of your task and sounds easier than it is.

Just when you have reached this point of rest, your thoughts begin to protest, and they behave like a family of climbing apes or like a swarm of disturbed bees and are indignant about the coercive force that wants to rule them. Another difficulty exists with some people because of their inclination to fall asleep. Be alert and remember that you should not fall asleep under any circumstances. Instead you should remain completely awake; you should become accustomed to a special state of wakefulness, because it is the fundamental basis for everything that follows.

It would serve the purpose if you would be guided during this entire process by envisaging an upright burning flame that is as straight as an arrow. What you should retain in your thoughts is: “I am wide awake and I resemble a quietly burning flame! ”

The state of absolute inner steadfastness which is produced through this procedure is of a very particular kind and it will probably take a few attempts before you succeed. What is referred to as “attempts” applies only to the external position. Should you not succeed in the position indicated, then repeat the exercise in a different position, for instance lying on your back, on your side, kneeling, or in a squat position. You can also put your hands into a different position you can fold them, make a loose fist, or place them in your lap in such a manner that the outside surface of the fingers of one hand touches the outside surface of the fingers of the other hand. Remain with the position which gives you the best results. It might take several days to find the right position. Only a practical approach to this problem will yield the best results and will further your progress.

The goal, as mentioned before, is internal and external steadfastness. Once you have accomplished that, the active phase follows.

(B.) Active Phase: This phase can be structured in various ways in accordance with your intentions. It can consist of:

1. A self-command, or 2. Meditation, or
 3. Contemplation.

(1) Autosuggestion and Belief: Autosuggestion (self-command) is by far the most effective manner in which you can influence your habits, deep into the organic area. It is the spiritual flank attack which will certainly lead you to victory, even when dealing with deep-rooted shortcomings and even when the frontal attack is not sufficient.

You must proceed with a plan which you have determined beforehand; that is, you have to employ suggestion formulas, as mentioned previously, which are positive, powerful and brief. (“Under all circumstances I remain courageous!” or “Day by day I have myself under better control!” or “My health is incontestable! “)

When dealing with a particular narrowly defined object, you would be well advised to draw in your mind a clear outline or picture of the goal you wish to attain. For instance, see yourself endowed with the attribute you are trying to attain. The livelier the colors and forms of this imaginary picture, the more exactly will it be executed by the powers of formation of your organism and turned into practice. Your fluid, spiritual body obeys this order and, with the certainty of a mathematical law, puts the necessary powers into motion to reach the goal, regardless of whether this body has received only general or well defined instructions. This body accepts the order without question and it becomes its dogma; it will obey blindly. Every belief has come into being in this or a similar manner.

The act of implanting or memorizing can be accomplished in various ways. The simplest approach is to convince yourself of the order or the autosuggestion by quiet recitation in your mind. This has to be done as follows: word by word, slowly, with a pause after each word. The sentence has to be repeated several times in short intervals. Besides this simple and, so to speak, basic method, there are others with which you will become acquainted during the course of this schooling.

(2) The Nature Of Meditation: When you practice meditation you are dealing with the inner immersion of a sequence of pictures with corresponding feelings. Pictures, like feelings, are exactly specified or outlined. The closer observation begins by embellishing the original picture in detail. This has to occur with absolute exclusivity, and will represent no difficulties if the first passive concentration phase is practiced properly. Once this is understood, then follow the development of the sequence of pictures before your spiritual eyes which goes hand in hand with the corresponding immersion. This immersion must take place with such inner conviction that the observer and the object of his observation become, so to speak, one. Once you have mastered that, the result is the third phase, the phase of enlightenment or inspiration, a comprehension and understanding of the most profound truthfulness of the entire sequence of pictures. You will only be able to understand that in its entire depth with which you are able to consciously merge internally. This procedure is a process entirely of its own and of a particular manner, which on the whole cannot be properly explained; rather, it must be experienced.

(3) The Nature Of Contemplation: The nature of contemplation, as indicated by its name, means to remain in the same motionless position with a single concept in the form of a picture. The spirit is completely motionless and directed towards one particular object. Then the spirit will experience the merging process, mentioned before, of the consciousness with the proper exercise and aptitude. The higher level of this condition presents itself as ecstasy and is not readily granted to everyone. It would be desirable to reach this level, especially if intensive consequences upon your everyday life are to be achieved. More will be said about this subject in another chapter.

Before we begin with the practice of the third level, we should note that exercises 5 to 7 in the previous Letter (the exercise of remaining calm, the accumulator exercise, and the daily self-criticism) have to be maintained permanently. We must not pass through the course in such a way that we complete level after level of subject matter that we consider to be painful but which we forget later on. We want to achieve a transformation and development of the entire personality; we want to form attributes of permanence of the highest value which remain an asset to us that we shall never lose.

Practical Exercises Of The Third Level

1. Record your dreams every morning and seek to obtain a clear understanding of their significance.
2. Practice five minutes of power breathing every morning.
3. Practice a preliminary concentration exercise daily, al
ternating between these two exercises:
(a) the object exercise described in 3
(a) below, or (b) the fantasy exercise.
4. Practice point fixation daily.
5. Alternate a daily meditation on the following:
(a) death and burial, or
(b) the tree of life
6. Practice the spiritual flank attack.

Explanations

(1) The best method of recording your dreams is in a diary, which you have to change or arrange accordingly. The purpose would be best served if you record your dreams on the left hand page of your diary and the events of the day on the right; or you can arrange a single page in that manner. The purpose is to bring daily events into some relationship with your dreams. (In this regard more explanations will follow in this chapter.)

Your dream experiences take place in the fluid body, without any mediation of the sensory organs. The dream approaches your “I” from another, unaccustomed side.

Therefore, as a consequence, you are inclined to forget the events in your dreams immediately unless they are impressed upon your physical memory at once. It is absolutely necessary that everything you dream be recorded immediately upon awakening. At the very least, write down the key words so that you can fill in the gaps later on. If you choose the key words properly, it will be sufficient to recall the entire event.

Remember, every dream you process is mostly a dream of desire or fear. Through these dreams you can look into the most secret chambers of your hopes and worries. The prime elements of a dream, its pictures, are merely aids through which the dream attempts to express a thought, and nothing more. Even where long forgotten pictures that seldom appear have emerged again, they do not appear or emerge for their own sake but always as the means to an end. And to find this purpose is your task. If a dead person appears to you in a dream, that person may not actually be signified; rather, the dream may only want to say to you: “Something old and long forgotten is returning!” A large gathering at which you are present only signifies in the end that you will be in contact with many people. Never forget that these are pictures, pictures, pictures. At times a dream is words in pictures, or an illustration of the words of a sentence, a proverb, an expression, an idiom. For instance: “Having your eye on someone,” “to butter someone up,” or “to trick someone.”

How these things will be represented in a dream is impossible to calculate because of the abundance of analogies. All the above examples do not have an absolute, but only a relative, value which changes accordingly.

In the beginning, in your search for the right interpretation, you will in all probability fail many times. Do not let this affect you. Should a dream remain incomprehensible to you for the time being, examine it again tomorrow or the following day. The more your inner development progresses, the more you will discover distinct relationships with your everyday life.

Do not believe that you work in vain to overcome your fears and desires; try especially to overcome all passions. This is not a senseless sport. Rather, it serves a more serious purpose: to calm down the ripples on the mirror of your soul in order to give her the possibility of reflecting clear pictures of the spiritual world, comprehending the truthfulness of things as faithfully as possible, and communicating them to you. Into the dreams of passion or emotion, dreams of truth of various kinds will eventually become mixed. First, your dreams will be reports to you of changes within your physical body, then reports from the outside world, whether close or far away, and finally there will be dreams that picture the future and that will give you actual proof of a plane of occurrences and experiences in which everything that occurs is indicated as the present.

In order to ascertain the content of a dream in this particular direction, begin your interpretation with this consideration: Are you dealing here with a wish, an expectation or fear? To what extent could it be more than that? Record what you believe you have found. It is also advisable to re-read all your dreams from time to time; often they will show a different aspect, one which you did not see before. Pay special attention to recurring dreams, as they are somehow of particular importance to you.

(2) Power Breathing: Early in the morning, stand in front of your window. Place your feet in an acute angle and look straight ahead. Thrust your clenched fists parallel to each other straight forward (starting position). Now execute power breathing in three stages:

(a) Slow inhalation. At the same time move your outstretched arms to the side, fists clenched, until they are in a horizontal position in relationship to your body.

(b) This is followed by slow exhalation. At the same time, move your arms downward on both sides until they are perpendicular to the ground.

(c) Take a breather. At the same time, move your arms forward into the stretched starting position.

All movements must be executed in slow motion, and each of the above (a, b and c) breathing exercises should take 10 seconds. In the beginning, use a watch. During the entire exercise, the arms have to remain stretched and the fists clenched.

(a) The Object Exercise: Take a small object into your hands, such as a tin soldier, doll, photograph, a small picture of a landscape (a postcard) , etc. Look at the object from all sides as meticulously as possible. Do not think of anything but you and the object. Pay attention to every detail and imprint it all upon your mind, even the least important thing. Then close your eyes and seek to recall that object so clearly, in all its finest details, that you have it, so to speak, tangibly in front of you. Make the effort until this condition occurs. As soon as this happens, open your eyes and compare the picture in your imagination with the real one. Correct any deviations.

Repeat this experiment with the same object, then repeat it in the course of the day with other objects of your choice, but do not use objects that are too large.

(b) The Fantasy Exercise: Using a pencil, write down the names of 9 objects that come into your mind at random. Close your eyes and try to imagine one object after the other as clearly as you can. This exercise can only be considered successful when you see each object before your inner eye with such clarity that you can touch it. Repeat this exercise during the course of the day with other objects of your choice.

(4) Point Fixation: The point fixation exercise is to be practiced in the following manner. Draw a circle with a diameter of approximately 1 inch (2 cm) on a white piece of paper. In the center of this circle, draw a dot approximately one-fifth of an inch in size. Sit calmly in front of it in a comfortable chair at a distance of 5 feet (150 cm) and look at that dot. Fix your eyes upon that dot for 1 minute without blinking and without moving any muscle in the slightest. After the first minute has elapsed, change your position by slowly bending your body forward, by moving closer to the dot, and then by moving backwards into your original position. Carry this movement out several times during the second minute.

Increase the duration of this exercise by a full minute every second day, to a maximum of 12 minutes.

Should your eyes tear or burn, raise your eyebrows briefly and this disturbance will be eliminated. If necessary, you can also wash your eyes with cold water or a cool chamomile infusion.
(a) Meditation Death and Burial: The meditation regarding death and burial should be carried out in complete external and internal tranquility; therefore the best time will be in the evening.

As soon as you are finished with the preliminary passive phase (part of the major concentration in this chapter), picture the following as best as you can, as if you were present and observing everything that occurs: A human being has died. His or her last breath has just escaped, and the eyes have lost their sparkle. The limbs become rigid, the skin-like wax. Green and blue spots (livor mortis) appear on the back and wherever the body touches a surface. Out of the mouth runs a brownish decomposition liquid. The entire body begins to give off an odor. And you did so much for this body!

You fed this body as if there was nothing more valuable in this world. Many times you became subservient to this body; when it expressed carnal desires, you satisfied its senses. And what is your reward? Only what you see before you!

Then the corpse is adorned. The worthless shell of the soul is dressed in festive garments, and surrounded with flowers, and probably the corpse is kissed. It is placed into a coffin, the lid closed and tightened down with bolts. The coffin is then lowered into the grave, covered with earth, and left to its fate. The limbs of the corpse become soft like a sponge. Feel that! The mouth is open and out of it drains a carrion-like slimy liquid, which raises a stench in the coffin. Smell this! The wreaths in the grave have long ago become putrefied and smell of decay. Soon the entire corpse swarms with maggots and worms.

Observe this picture. Hear how these vermin wind through the muscles and slowly pull them asunder, and how the worms creep through the sockets of the eyes, through the lungs. Maggots wriggle in the intestines. Millions upon millions of bacteria consume the soft abdominal parts as a desirable booty. The corpse collapses; there are open tears. Look at it! Whole tendons are exposed everywhere, and even these will also be destroyed and gnawed away. The entire body is a picture of misery.

And you have often betrayed your better part for this picture of misery, and you were to this body more obliging than it deserved you pampered it as if it were your most precious possession. And what is your reward? What you see before you!

Now look at it in all its magnificence all that is left is the skull and the bare skeleton. The departed was probably vain and proud of his beauty. Where is it now? He was probably proud of his or her fine soft skin, the strength of his or her muscles, and his or her beautiful facial features. Naked, the skull is leering at you, vacant are the sockets of the eyes, the teeth are without lips, the jaws hang loose. It will only take a short time and the skeleton will be dust and ash. You will be able to blow the dust with one breath into all directions. And yet at one time it was a human being! What an insane exaggeration for those who saw their purpose of life in this decay!

Turn away, turn away, from this chimera! Even your life can come to an end at any moment. All that has to happen is for a small cerebral artery to burst, a vital center in the spinal cord to fail, or the heart to stand still and you step upon the bridge to the world beyond. The seconds fly by and every second brings you closer to this goal. Irrevocably, the hand of the clock races around the dial. Each minute comes and goes, never to return again. Your whole life is a single fall towards death. And you fill this short phase which is given to you with nonsense.

Turn away, turn away from everything transitory and lead your soul into the radiant kingdom of exalted thoughts. Turn away from everything mortal and rise up towards immortality.

Turn away! Oh, turn away from the form because it breaks may it be ever so enticing and recognize the Spirit which is above and behind all forms, Who outlasts and rises above all, because He created them all. Turn away, and you shall be saved from destruction.

(b) Meditation The Tree Of Life: Practice the meditation on the Tree of Life in the same fashion as the previous exercise. Immerse yourself in the manner described into the following picture: A mighty tree stands evergreen above an eternal spring. Look how broad and mighty its branches spread to all sides. How fresh and full of life the green beckons you. Is it an oak? Is it an ash? It looms mightier than the universe; you cannot see its top. A power current nourishes the entire tree from the roots to the top and disburses into the last and finest of branches. Come closer and inspect the single leaves; each is different from the other, each leaf has its own peculiarities. Picture this individually.

Once in a while a branch withers away. Then a human being might say: A certain species of animal has become extinct, a nation perishes. Once in a while the tree sprouts new branches. Then a human being would say: A new plant, a new nation comes into existence! Regularly, withered leaves fall to the ground those are corpses that dissolve into the elements. Every dead person is represented by such a leaf, as such a withered leaf never attains eternal life. However, where is the leaf’s path to immortality? …

There are two paths: one to the outside and the other to the inside. The sap which nourished the leaf must travel to the blossom, whose urge is outward. It is pollinated and develops into a fruit. A new tree unfolds next to the old one, and in a very short time the same cycle repeats itself endlessly. This is the path away from the primary source, the path of external fecundation, the outward path. The other path is when the sap that nourished the leaf withdraws into the branch, into the trunk of the tree, and unites with the original sap current which was there from the beginning, which to him is father and mother at the same time. That is the shortest path to immortality, the path to God’s heart, the path of internal fecundation, the path to the Innermost.

There are the two paths. Which one has been yours so far? Which path will be yours in the future? You too are a leaf on the tree of the world. And you too have a choice concerning how you want to travel. Have you traveled the external path because of thoughtlessness? Or did you do it because of a sense of duty to your nation, your family? Have you never felt that shudder of passing away which pervades one who exhausts all his power or strength on the external path? Did your ears never hear the warning: “Swing the wheel round or change your course!”

Continuance from generation to generation does not spare you the death of your consciousness. The race continues to live; only the individual dies. However, if you yourself want to enter into the eternal life, you have to change and choose the path to the great Innermost, the path into the unspeakable sanctuary. You have to prepare your consciousness now for the coming unification. You have to withdraw your sap current at the right time, with your entire will. Only in this manner will you become the right vessel. Only in this manner will you obtain the exquisite possession. Only in this manner will the Crown of Life become yours, that for which the best of humankind have striven since time immemorial. Adhere to this thought with exclusive devotion; examine these thoughts from all sides. Become completely absorbed in this. Seek to awaken within you the feeling of a holy yearning. And again and again reach for the picture of the tree.

Alternate every evening with the previous meditation, so that you meditate one evening on Death and Burial and the following evening on the Tree of Life. Practice as a rule for half an hour, and do not extend it any longer, but also do not practice for less. Should you have passed over this train of thought too quickly, repeat it once more. Control the length of time with a watch.

(6) The Spiritual Flank Attack: The best time to accomplish the flank attack is while falling asleep. Once you have bedded down comfortably, practice the relaxation exercise already described (A. Passive Phase). This exercise will be very easy when it is done while in bed. At the right moment, give yourself the auto-suggestions which you have prepared. Here it is very important to seize the moment between being awake and falling asleep. You should take the autosuggestion with you into your sleep. In this manner even the night must serve your ascent. The more often you practice this, the better you will succeed. I suggest that every week you change your autosuggestion in accordance with content and form.

Your daily schedule is therefore as follows:

Early morning: 
Record your dreams, probably first in key words. Power breathing.

During the course of the day: 
Concentration and preliminary exercises. Point fixation.

Evening: 
Meditation, daily criticism and making plans, spiritual flank attack.

FOURTH LETTER 
RISE UP AND BECOME LIGHT

Introduction

Now you have reached, to a high degree, control over your own personality, including your physical body. You have also taken the first important steps upon the path to the inner kingdom, to the kingdom of life and abundance. Before you advance any further, it will be necessary to guard yourself against surprises which will interrupt your development unpleasantly. Such surprises always occur by means of the senses. This results in the rule: Post a Sentinel at the Gates of the Senses.

Post A Sentinel At The Gates Of the Senses

A guard with crossed halberds, who does not allow such impressions to approach you and let them in, cannot do you any harm. Therefore you should make a choice among all the things you encounter. You should concern yourself only with those impressions that you do not fear, those which cannot disturb your development. The time will come when you do not require these precautionary measures because, on the whole, you will see and perceive this world quite differently than you did before. But for the time being, you must proceed with caution because you are not yet sufficiently mature.

If possible, avoid all noisy streets crowded with excited people. Do not look at store windows or displays which could tempt you in accordance with your own experience. Do not listen to human beings who flatter you or otherwise play on your weaknesses; they are liars. Rather keep company, if necessary, with good, valuable people, regardless of the external position they may hold. Read good, serious books. Listen to or play morally good music. In short, live a lifestyle that keeps your inner peace in an equilibrium.

Human beings of the opposite gender should only be considered as sisters or brothers. Do not look any longer than absolutely necessary. The look is a procurer.

The Magic Of The Eye

It is absolutely necessary that you also obtain complete control over the powers of your eyes.

The eye is far more than just the mirror of the soul. It is the entrance and exit of currents of energy which you must keep under complete control. The part the eye plays can be active or passive in accordance with the frame of mind you are in; if you are passive, then you are receptive to foreign influences, and if you allow another human being to look into your eyes while in this condition, it will be easy for him to influence you. The person who is speaking is always more active than the one who does not speak. Should he gaze into your eyes while speaking, he has the upper hand or decided advantage from the start.

Through the eye, he sends unhindered swarms of electrons of his commands suggestively into your Innermost, and if you are not on guard you will be at a disadvantage.

In a way the eye is a light-telegraph whose secret Morse code is accepted by the subconscious of the receiver and transforms it into deeds. Know that this telegraph also transmits commands that are not spoken verbally. You have no guarantee that these orders or commands will not harm you. Exercise caution consciously, especially when in the presence of strangers: Allow no one who is speaking to you to look directly into your eyes! Do not look at the person while he is speaking; look inconspicuously in another direction. The more important such a conversation is, the more strictly you must follow this rule.

If that person forces you in one way or another to look at him, then do so, but in such a manner that you adjust your sight into the far distance. In other words, do not look directly at that person but at the background, the area behind that person, only for a moment. Do not allow that person under any circumstances to catch your eye and detain it. Otherwise he will cast the wireless electric spark from his will into your brain. Always remember that you, like an electric accumulator, must remain in a certain isolation if you wish to travel your own path and remain free from foreign, uncontrollable influences. Any breakthrough of this isolation will not only cause you to lose valuable energy but, under certain circumstances, deliver you to a hostile power which will try to disturb any ascent, any harmonizing, any crystalline formation within the serious practitioner. The human eye is the mightiest seducer of evil as well as of good. Only where you are as certain of your partner as you are of yourself may you make eye-to-eye contact.

This applies in instances of love, friendship, and with people to whom you are completely superior. It is of course advantageous to observe strangers with whom you come into contact, in order to gain an opinion. Choose a moment when they do not look at you, when they are otherwise occupied. During such moments, cast your gaze like lightning at their faces, with the conscious intent to look at them especially sharply and exactly. Study their features, their facial expressions, their unconscious little gestures. After you have gained some practice, you can learn quite a bit from this observation. However, the mighties1 method is the master look which protects you from strange influences on the one hand, and on the other hand gives you superiority and allows you to lend emphasis to your impressior on others. This master look is also called the active or central look.

The Development Of The Master Look

You will only be completely successful with this exercise if it goes hand in hand with the completion of all the aforementioned exercises. You cannot take one brick out of a building and use it by itself; you must leave each brick in its place. That way, you have a complete building. The master look is steadiness itself and is firmly directed to one point. This point is between the eyebrows of the partner, directly above the bridge of the nose. This is the point of fixation upon which you must learn to focus. Do not believe that you will acquire this superior steadiness and firmness of the look without using this special exercise. The particulars in regards to this exercise follow in the second part of this Letter. The effect of this central 1ook upon your partner is that he will be under the impression that you are looking into his eyes with a penetrating look, that you are, as it were, looking through him. This look has the effect of being something special, as you will soon notice in the behavior of others. Such a person will treat you more considerately, respectfully, and will be more obliging. You will have it easy if you wish to influence such a person, no matter in which direction.

Application Of The Master Look

The master look should therefore have an application as an excellent remedy against the influence of others. Following that, it should be an excellent means of defense against the attempts of foreign influences. You should not use this look frequently and indiscriminately, but only when it is important to you and you wish the effect to be especially thorough. When you apply the master look, do so as inconspicuously as possible, and always only for a short time. The subject should not be aware that you are making use of an arbitrary technique. Make use of it occasionally during the course of a conversation, especially when you wish to be penetratingly effective through your words. As a rule, your look should only be applied with a particular phrase, in order to lend your words the proper emphasis. The proper application requires an active disposition of the soul. Make use of the master look based on the sense and consciousness of the following sentences: “I rest within myself! I am accumulated energy! I retain my energy! I make use of my energy at my discretion!”

When required, bear in mind also that thoughts which are not spoken can be transferred to another person through the master look. The master look emanates immediately into the physical central seat of the divine genius of the other person. The genius receives it and also reads those thoughts that are not spoken. The genius reads these thoughts without the necessity that they should reach the other person’s earthly consciousness immediately. Should these thoughts be bad, the genius in the other person will make certain that they are communicated or become conscious to him in the form of a warning, a presentiment or something similar. The other person will become suspicious, careful and fearful when he thinks about his relationship with you, and he will be reserved and stay away from you and you will not be the receiver of the advantages you had hoped for.

Be always aware of the tremendous responsibility which lies in the nature of the master look. Because thoughts that you have not verbalized can be passed over without your will, you may sooner or later harm yourself. Make it a strict rule that you only make use of the master look with feelings of kindness or benevolence towards the other person; in other words, with honest feelings. The genius in human beings is omniscient and cannot be deceived by a mask.

The Discipline Of A Wish

Always be aware that you, together with all other creatures, form a large body, the macrocosm, and that you as well as they are regarded as an organ of this exalted body. But if one organ places itself above the others, then it does not do its task correctly and appropriately. It requires more nourishment than what it is entitled to. It withdraws energies and fluids from the whole which are above the permitted proportions. Through this the entire body suffers and, in the end, the organ which committed this wicked deed itself. Sooner or later the consequence is a defensive reaction by the central body (macrocosm) against that particular organ. The central body first attempts to heal the organ, but, when healing is for one reason or another impossible, it eradicates it without mercy. lllness, grief, pain and catastrophes are healing processes which are necessary wherever they appear. Do not resist evil! Say “yes!” to suffering! Bear patiently whatever happens to you as far as catastrophes are concerned. They are the cleansing tempests which the central body sends over your life. These are the means of the spirit to obtain recognition for his will.2
Your most important practical life task is your conscious integration into this higher will. This integration must be a complete one; it must encompass your entire thinking and aspirations and it must begin with the wish. You know that the thought of wishing is the prime deed, the determining action, in everything you undertake. Draw your conclusions from the following: Do not wish anything that could harm and disadvantage your fellow men. Be always conscious of the fact that they are a part of the central body to which you belong as well. They are ocean water just like you and, though poured into different bowls from the great ocean, they are, from the ocean’s point of view, you yourself! Become more and more aware of the great unity, grow into it as into a new condition of the soul. And above all: Hate No One!

Hate No One

All things and beings came forth from the universal God-Spirit. If you hate or despise them, then you hate and despise God. And since you also belong to the great unity, you therefore hate yourself as well.

You should not even hate the so-called “evil,” for it is made from the spirit, just like you, and sent into the world with its particular task. This task is often that of destruction, annihilation and transformation. Yes, evil is incarnate annihilation itself. It is the most cruel, radical servant, the hardest, most unmerciful tool of the spirit. But you should not hate it any more than you would hate a bacillus pestis. Of course, being free of hate does not mean that you should submit yourself to evil without a defense. You were put into your place to fight, and only with a struggle will you attain perfection. Know that the “evil” which is put into your path is to be your best teacher towards perfection. And use the following phrase as a guideline: Fear Nothing!

Fear Nothing

The might that created you and led you into the world knows the reason why. It also knows the best path for you to take. Everything that you encounter comes out of its hands. The whole universe is your Father’s house. Why should you fear anything which, like you, lives in your Father’s house?

The high primordial force from which you yourself came forth created the other beings, and if it puts them in your path, then that occurs with a certain intention. And this means that you must recognize this divine intention. Nine-tenths of all things that human beings fear are based purely on illusion and will never occur; they are only an entirely unnecessary burden for the soul. Therefore never allow these shadowy thoughts to be the cause of your fears.

Not to fear anything does not mean to rush towards danger. The further you develop yourself, the more often will you be privy to warnings of real dangers. Listen to such warnings without being fearful because of them. The more you live in the feeling of unity, the closer you are to its omniscience.

The Great Brotherhood

Everything alive forms a great brotherhood. Bear in mind that everything that exists in the world is necessary, otherwise it would not have been created. All beings, from infusoria to the stars, are your life’s companions and your blood relatives. You are closely connected to all of them in the spirit. Absolute good will towards all beings of this world should be a high commandment for you and should become a dear habit. Moderate your “I” point of view. Observe what you encounter and who you encounter from the other’s point of view and also with the sense of another’s understanding. Also include animals into this kind of observation, especially when they are close to you and your house.

No human being and no animal is “low”; all of them carry the royal mark, the artistic mark of the creative spirit on their foreheads. Learn to see it! What changes is only the task and therefore the form. All beings are single sounds in the immense symphony of the universe. If you want to understand them and yourself properly, you must be informed about the rhythmic laws which rule the world.

The Teachings Of Rhythm

All life is motion. And all motion has a rhythm. The sunspotmaxima and -minima to which the earthly periods of war and peace are so significantly synchronized appear at regular intervals. The planets rotate in regulated periods of time around the sun. On earth, day and night change with the accuracy of clockwork.

“Und schnell and unbegreiflich schnelle Dreht sich umher der Erde Pracht.
Es wechselt Paradieseshelle
Mit tiefer, schauervoller Nacht!” (Goethe)

“Quick, incomprehensibly quick the Earth’s splendor rotates about. It changes Paradise’s luminosity into a deep, dreadful night!”

Human beings with their entire being are also integrated into this immense world rhythm. They are at the same time woof and weaver in this wonderful fabric; these cosmic energies which, as angels of the Highest, hold the destiny and life of everything that came into being in their hands, are active even within them.

The Fundamental Thought Of Astrology

You are aware of the effectiveness of the sun’s energy on earth in everything alive. Now contemplate on the effectiveness of all the other constellations. You know, for instance, the earth’s relationship of ebb and tide to the moon.3 Have you ever thought about the fact that a woman carries the lunar rhythm within herself in the form of her menstrual cycle? In a manner of speaking, she is a part of the ocean herself. It is, however, important to know that the cycle of her organism does not coincide with the time of the high points of movements of the ocean (spring tide). Rather, a woman carries within herself this lunar rhythm, lunar movement, lunar energy; she is herself, so to speak, a partial moon. Fertility, illness, death and all organic change is, as Dr. Fliess has proven, closely connected to the female number 28 and the male number 23, and it is carried out in a multitude of combinations of these numbers.

The planets as a rule are farther removed from us than the
sun and the moon, the “lights” of astrology. In spite of that, they are still intimately connected to us. The sun is not as strong in the winter when it is closer to the earth, but in the summer when it is farther away. The degree of effectiveness is dependent upon the angle at which it shines upon the earth or a part of the earth. Therefore the astrological significance of a planet fundamentally depends upon its angular position. When
an angular position of 90 degrees is considered to be extremely unfavorable and an angular position of 120° exceptionally favorable, this is not a mere supposition but is based on a thousand-fold incidents of practical experience rather than upon some arbitrary theoretical combination. You must imagine the manner in which this is effective to be just the same as was mentioned in regards to the moon. A part of this planetary energy is incorporated into the earthly organism, and the kind and direction of this inner implanted rhythm which can never be lost depends upon the respective positions of the planets and constellations at the moment of birth. The higher self, the divine genius who guides and regulates every new incarnation of a human being, not only determines the procreation and conception through the chosen parents, but also, through the choice of the proper celestial moment, gives this child the necessary abilities and inner rhythm to fulfill its special tasks. This moment coincides with the moment of the first breath.

Indeed, how much the entire firmament has helped with the earthly garment of every newly incarnated individual proves that the structure of the physical appearance and personal character is fundamentally very much dependent upon the sign of the zodiac which, at the time of birth, was ascending on the eastern horizon. These are also established facts that have been ascertained through observation and been proven in countless cases.

You can imagine all these effects of the stars as immense dynamos, which orbit in the skies and, in accordance with their positions in relationship to each other and the earth, mutually strengthen, weaken or combine with each other in their inductive effect. On the basis of accurate astronomical charts that are interpreted in accordance with many thousands of years of experience, these interrelations can be calculated and composed, so to speak, like a weather map for each individual; its consideration can only be an advantage. A great Science based on the most accurate observation has newly arisen, which in truth deserves to be called the “queen of the sciences.” It is this science which gives us the last astral completion of our world picture, our view of life. The signs of the zodiac, as the symbols of our inner life and our wishes, our possibilities and limits, are the proceeds of the recognition of astrology. The inner rhythm coincides with the exalted rhythm of the heavenly spheres, and upon this the last and profoundest cognition is based, and the self-mastery of a human being makes him the master even over catastrophic constellations. “In your breast are the stars of your destiny!”

The Secret Of Breathing

The integration of human beings into this cosmic periodical clockwork which is periodically ticking away is carried out by means of breathing and begins with the first breath. Only breathing, which is of itself a rhythmic procedure, sets the entire mechanism of the organism in motion. It is the great flywheel by which the heavenly periodicity, the will of the stars, transfers itself automatically to the individual. Heartbeat, bloodstream, circulation of the fluids, bowel movements, all depend on breathing. Be master of your breathing and you will be master of your entire inner rhythm. The significance of this in the final analysis will become clear through the following considerations.

The Periodicity Of Destiny

Even what is characterized as your “destiny” follows strict rhythmic laws which have their analogy, their substantiation, in the whole heavenly mechanism. Here particular numbers playa primary role, namely 7, 9 and 12, but there are also longer cycles. It is absolutely necessary to divide and observe your life from this point of view. Do this in the following manner:

In a quiet moment, reflect on your entire life. Be as accurate as possible in regards to those points in time which constituted your internal and external changes, especially the main events of your life. Then establish continuous periodic sequences in which you place seven years of your life on the first line. In other words, if you were born in 1870, then you will have the years 1870 to 1876 on the first line of your chart; the second line will have the years 1877 to 1883; the third line will have 1884 to 1890 and so forth. You should have seven columns across, and under the year 1870 you will have the years 1877, 1884 and so on in the second line. Under the year 1871 you will have 1878, 1885 and so on. Under the year 1872, you will have 1879, 1886 and so on.

The next task will be to research these vertical columns and find the connections between them. As soon as you have found the common thread, it will become clear to you that in your life always in intervals of seven years certain tendencies reoccur, whether they be family influences, professional changes, directions of your inner life, etc., and you will recognize how old things reoccur in a new form; how your entire life, so to speak, develops in an ascending spiral. The spiral always has the same fundamental sound; however, it produces ever higher octaves and new variations.

Proceed in the same manner with the number 9 as well as with other numbers. One number may be of particular importance in a certain individual’s life, yet in another life it is another number.

We will now begin with the practical part of the exercises of the fourth step.

To Lose Everything Means To Find Everything

The motto inscribed above is valid not only for this step, but to an increased degree for all the other steps into which you will gradually grow. Beforehand, this sentence disclosed to you a primary result of your exercises, and now gives that result to you in a very short form, because it is advantageous to be reminded anew by fanfare at certain points on your path.

Practical Studies

1. Begin the day with a standard series of breathing (destiny breathing) exercises.
2. In order to practice the master look, practice one of the exercises noted below, daily and in sequence: 
(a) the basic mirror exercise.
(b) the head movement exercise. 
(c) the picture exercise.
3. Practice the cosmic eye exercise several times daily.
4. Practice the cosmic food exercise once or several times daily.
5. Autosuggestion during chewing and swallowing.

Practice one of the following three exercises daily in sequence:

(a) meditation on the “World Father.”
(b) 
meditation on the “World Mother.”
(c) the empathy exercise on “my fellow man.”

Explanations

In addition to the above instructions, the following directions for their execution are given:

(1) Complete Breathing Exercises: First, assume a position of complete rest, either on a bed, a comfortable chair or a recliner. Close your eyes, relax, and direct your entire attention to your breathing. Remove all other thoughts; do not think of anything else. Complete breathing can be compared to a wave which swells from the bottom to the top. When you first begin to breathe, let the abdomen bulge out, followed by the lower and eventually the upper chest region. This is accomplished by slowly counting from 1 to 3 in your mind. When you reach the number 4, hold your breath. At 5, 6, and 7, pull in and extend your abdomen with every count.4 Having reached number 8, begin to exhale slowly until you have reached the count of 12. Remember that all counting is done in your mind, not verbally. After each of these complete breathing exercises, take a regular breath to avoid any over-exertion.

In order that the breathing may be properly carried out, your attention must be directed completely towards the exercise. Once this mechanism has been properly trained, which should be the case after approximately 4 to 5 complete breaths, then let the following thought flash through your mind while breathing: In the manner in which I now breathe, I will form my destiny!

Twelve repetitions forms one series. Each morning you should carry out at least one series, but do not exceed 20.

The purpose of this destiny breathing is twofold. First of all, a thorough massage of particular internal parts of the organism, inclusive of the sympathicus,5 is carried out, especially of the abdominal organs. Then you will build a mental bridge to the energies that form your destiny, which have sensuous-tactile images in the rhythm of your organism. In order to be effective upon the invisible, it is of benefit to make use of sensuoustactile symbolic pictures.

The Training Of The Master Look

(a) The Basic Mirror Exercise: Draw a dot approximately ¼ inch or larger directly above the bridge of your nose.6 Sit in a comfortable position, rigid and erect, in front of a mirror at a distance of about 3 ½ feet, and fix your eyes on the dot without blinking. Your facial expression should be friendly, and it will also be advantageous to put yourself into a friendly mood so that the expression is unforced. Begin this exercise with 2 minutes and increase it by I minute every day to a maximum of 10 minutes. Over a period of time, increase the distance gradually to approximately 7 feet.

(b) The Head Movement Exercise: This requires the same preparation and seating position as in exercise (a) above. Turn your head to the left as far as you can without losing sight of the dot above the bridge of your nose. Once you have reached this point, remain in this position for a moment, then slowly return to your starting position.7 Repeat the same procedure by turning your head to the right. Also, this exercise has to be executed without blinking your eyes, and without removing your gaze from the mirror. This exercise should not take longer than half a minute. Repeat this exercise a second time and then a third time. In the beginning, do not attempt this exercise more than three times, because it is fairly strenuous. In order to avoid confusion in regards to this exercise, I will explain it in more detail. Since this exercise has to be done every third day, it is recommended that on the first day you should pause between sets of 3. Each subsequent exercise every third day the set should be increased by one rotation, with no pause between sets.

(c) The Picture Exercise: Set up three pictures or photographs of different people around you in such a manner that one photograph is in front of you, the second one to the side of you, and the third behind you. Your position should be the same as in exercises (a) and (b) above. Begin the exercise with the picture in front of you by focusing for a while freely and without restraint upon the dot above the bridge of the nose. Then turn around quickly on your chair and seek with lightning speed to focus in on the same point on the second photo. Eventually do the same with the picture behind you. Change the position of the pictures often. It is advantageous to speak to the people in the pictures as if they were living human beings. Always maintain a posture and countenance of kindness or friendliness. Also, your eyes should remain motionless during this exercise, which means that you should not blink. Should you be inclined to blink or to close your eyes, then refer to what has been said earlier in this book about that subject. (Raise your upper eyelids and, if necessary, wash your eyes with lukewarm water, or an infusion of chamomile tea.)

(3) The Cosmic Eye Exercise: This exercise is not one that has to be practiced at a particular time of the day; it is a general exercise for the entire day. Become entirely one with the concept that everything which surrounds you is an immense eye, which constantly looks at you and observes you. It looks at you through all other human beings, through the animals, through the entire world that surrounds you and with which you come in touch. During the course of the day, make this clear to yourself repeatedly at every opportunity. Imagine how the world eye looks at you and examines you through the eyes of human beings and animals. What does it see in you? What would you like to see in yourself? Ask yourself these questions again and again.

In a way, all beings are, so to speak, living lenses of this cosmic eye. Friends and foes, acquaintances and relatives, dogs, horses, cats, etc., are not as they appear to you. Without being aware of it themselves, they have another purpose which they fulfill as tools of the spirit. They come out of the unknown, examine you, and return to the unknown. Through them the cosmic spirit himself gazes upon you. Not only does the cosmic spirit look at you through human beings and animals, but also through your entire surroundings. The universal energy which created the eyes of the beings is itself an eye. It is an immense eye which surrounds you in the form of sun and rain, wind and storm, forest and heath. In all the things that surround you, it looks upon you and accepts and records all your life’s expressions and manifestations. Even your thoughts do not remain hidden from this all-penetrating cosmic eye. Be always conscious of this fact right to the depth of your being.

The light of the sun is only a symbol for this immense eye. Its light is above the light of all suns. Even the night itself is not dark for this eye.

“The darkness itself would not be dark to you, and the night shines like the day. And the darkness is like the light!”

Therefore, be in awe in the presence of this seeing, all-encompassing energy. The finest and highest that is within you is a part of it. The most profound and the last within you, gives you the answer to the question about the thousands of “others.”

(4) The Cosmic Food Exercise: This exercise is to be practiced during your meals and is divided into two parts, which are joined together without constraint.

1. Giving Thanks.
2. The Breaking of Bread.

Giving thanks takes place by making it clear to yourself, in the presence of your food and drink, from whence they originally came and how far this nourishment has traveled until it has reached your table. You should not eat like an animal in the barn which devours its food greedily and thoughtlessly. You should eat like a fully conscious person who knows his position in the house of his Father. Because if this ripening had not been meant for you personally, you would not have had any bread today; neither would you have any tomorrow. Ponder how milk is given to you from the abundance of the cows, how the cows eat the grass in the meadows, which the rain and sun let grow. Who sent the rain and the sun so that you are given the milk? Have no doubt that the milk is a message, a gift, of higher authorities. If there were to be a failure of crops, a failure in growth in the country, you would have nothing to eat and drink. Whatever you eat is given to you. You must give thanks.
Those who bring you all these things are only the organs of the actual provider which carries it out. He allows all the elements to work together, whether it be in your homeland or in a foreign country. He makes it fruitful so that you are helped, because He wants you to live!

Certainly, it is proper to pay for your food. But the money to buy it is given to you by other people. It is certainly proper, in order to obtain money, that you perform your regular work. But your healthy limbs and organs, your thinking mind with which you accomplish this, again are given to you. That is the reason for giving thanks.

The breaking of bread takes place by consciously calling forth a profound feeling of thanksgiving. Take all your food with a particular sense of awe. Never believe that one morsel of food is insignificant. See in everything the spirit of the provider which is given to you in every morsel, and who makes His love known to you through this. Think often while dining about what you eat and drink. Within this lies a secret which you must discover through your own introspection.

These thoughts should remain with you while you chew and swallow. Seek to accompany each bite with the thought that you are now taking in organized all-encompassing cosmic energy.

(5) Autosuggestion During Chewing And Swallowing: It would be appropriate to utilize your chewing and swallowing movements for the integration of autosuggestion. When you charge these bodily rhythms with thought-energy, it enters you and your being with the greatest imaginable promptness. In this manner the finer energy system is integrated with the coarser system and has, as you will see from experience, a more lasting effect. I recommend this method, but not in every instance; however, it can be used occasionally.

For example, should you not be punctual and not sleep well, charge your chewing motion with the words: “I am punctual!” Repeat this sentence again and again until you have finished chewing whatever is in your mouth. Then swallow it with the vivid imagination: “I now ingest punctuality. I take it in as a lasting component of my being!”

Following that, do the same with the sentence: “I am sleeping better every day!” When you swallow your food after chewing it properly, imagine vividly that with this food you take in sleeping energy.

For this purpose and intention it is best served to eat your meals alone, at least when you want to achieve these things. Should this not be possible, then you can do such practices unnoticed while in the presence of company. It is necessary that your participation in conversation should be somewhat limited, in other words that you internally withdraw from the other people at the table and indulge in your particular thoughts which belong only to you.

These autosuggestions can be employed for any purpose. Should you by nature lack love for your fellow man, lack kindness to animals, lack gentleness, lack the ability of perception for a particular area of knowledge, as for instance for these particular Hermetic letters of instruction, then make use of this method. You will find it to your satisfaction. However, do not forget to form short, precise and positive sentences before you begin this project. Breathing exercises in this respect can be employed to a much higher degree. How this is to be accomplished will be learned later.

(a) Meditation on the Cosmic Father: Do the major concentration. Once you have reached the first, passive phase, immerse yourself most profoundly into this sequence of pictures: Imagine the image of your natural father. Call forth all the feelings of respect and love which you had when you were a child and which you may still feel now. If you did not know your father or he did not measure up to this standard in your life, choose instead any other man who was or still is to you a person of respectability.

Now imagine him to be naked and bare. Imagine precisely all the details of his body, the torso, the limbs in all their fine details.

Once that is done, imagine his appearance continuing to increase in size, first to about the size of a house like a huge giant standing before you. In your imagination enhance this image further! In the next step, increase his size to that of a mountain super-human contours come into being and the familiar features become difficult to recognize. Are not the feet rooted into the ground like immense bedrock? Have the arms not become long stretched-out mountain crests, and has not the hair become forests? And the eye a clear mountain-lake? Imagine all this and enhance it in every detail.

Now this giant is growing into something colossal. He is as large as a continent. Then he becomes as large as our globe; then as large as the solar system. Imagine all this step by step, and enhance it in detail as well as you can. What dimensions! What changes in this particular form, if you view it from your human point of view! And yet it is your father. Repeat this with every picture you imagine, and still it is your father. Conclude this meditation by reciting The Lord’s Prayer in your mind.

(b) Meditation on the Cosmic Mother: Begin this exercise just as with the previous one, with the difference that in the second phase you imagine your mother instead of your father, or if necessary a female person who represents to you a person you respected or still respect. Also imagine this person to be naked and bare in every detail. Then follow the above description in every detail. Conclude this meditation by reciting the following words in your mind: “Cosmic Mother, I salute you! Holy Mother, bless me!”

(c) Empathy Exercise My Fellow Man: First practice the passive phase of the major concentration. Then direct your inner attention to the individual who, in your opinion, is your worst enemy. Should you not have one, then choose a person you know whom you consider to be very unpleasant, whether male or female. Imagine this person in every detail in the manner described in the previous exercises. Imagine his or her facial features, his or her deportment, his or her manner of speaking. All this has to be done without any emotion, purely factually, sober-minded and objective. Do not cling too much to details as such, but seek to grasp the general expression, which results from team-work of the whole. Keep mainly with the good and pleasant attributes.

Then call forth within you a feeling of love for all beings. Embrace your “enemy” with these warm feelings. Internally become accustomed to his being, his way of thinking; enter into his soul. While doing this, remain relaxed. The most important thing is the sympathetic emotional attitude. Only through love will you be able to reach the proximity of the other person spiritually. This is the art of the soul, wherein one person is more successful than another.

Once you have felt the waves of warm feelings of sympathy, then adopt a passive and vacant state of mind, assume a receptive posture and wait quietly. Do not expect anything in particular. If you have done everything properly and if you have reached maturity, you will receive the innermost thoughts and feelings of your “enemy” like lightning. All his or her secrets will be like an open book and you will be able to recognize them thoroughly. For the time being, you will have knowledge of a part of that person’s soul, and through repetition you will come into the knowledge of other parts of the content of his soul.

This may occur for one person in the form of a wordless recognition; all of a sudden you just “know it.” Another person may experience it in the form of a sentence which he or she hears, or in the form of a picture which he or she sees internally and which is mainly to be understood symbolically. This symbolism corresponds exactly with the symbolism of dreams.

The decision as to whether the goal of the exercises has been reached lies with an infallible inner feeling. You will be able to see through any human being or object with which you are “one.” The entire exercise is divided into the following main parts:

(l) The passive phase of the major concentration. (2) The active phase, consisting of:

(a) The preparation of the mental image of the person 
chosen.
(b) The awakening of the feeling and the active send
ing out of sympathy.
(c) Deliberate vacancy and passivity.
.
This meditation can also be practiced out of sequence, if the circumstances are such that it becomes desirable. This will be especially advantageous before important meetings and negotiations with acquaintances or strangers. These exercises are always to be performed fairly late in the evening just before you go to bed or just before you fall asleep.

Your daily schedule should therefore be as follows:

Your early morning exercises: 
Record your dreams.
A series of complete breathing exercises. The training of the master look. Your exercises during the course of the day: The cosmic eye exercise.
The cosmic food exercise.

Your evening exercises: 
Meditation on the Cosmic Father or the Cosmic Mother or the Empathy Exercise.
 Daily criticism and making plans for the next day.

FIFTH LETTER
 RISE UP AND BECOME LIGHT

A Warning Which Should Be Taken Seriously

Only one who enjoys total health of the physical body and soul should enter into the exercises of the fifth level. Exceptionally weak human beings, namely those who suffer from consuming or mental ailments, especially from obsession and the like, should refrain from the exercises that follow, since they could cause serious harm.

Should a person who is afflicted with the above ailments decide to continue, and begin with the exercises that follow, the author of these letters declines any moral responsibilities. Should any practicing student have any doubts in regards to his abilities, he is welcome to contact the author to receive special instruction.

All those who, on the basis of this warning, are not in a position to continue our course of instruction have it within their power to lead a rich and fruitful life. All they have to do is remain on the path they have entered and, as far as time and energy allow, immerse themselves for a few years in the study of astrology or chirology and they will be richly rewarded. Learning either of these subjects by themselves can take an entire lifetime.

However, my other companions who have reached this point and who are in full possession of healthy energies, come now and take my hand and allow yourself to be helped to climb to the fifth level. Above all: Learn Silence!

Learn Silence

The world in which we live echoes with infinite idle talk. The more the words that are spoken, the fewer the deeds that are performed. In a sense, words become a substitute for deeds; what is even worse, the word nips the deed in the bud. However, all things which shall become tangible reality in the physical world must have time in the spiritual world before they mature, precisely as a child must mature in the mother’s womb before it sees the light of day; otherwise it will perish on account of its own internal imperfection.

The best method to insure failure, when it comes to a thought or plan, is to speak about it prematurely. Not only are you giving away living energy, which would, if retained, maintain the tendency to perfect itself and to serve the thinking human being, but you also awaken, on the basis of one’s own psychological law, immediate upcoming counter forces which oppose the immature neophyte in the spiritual kingdom and seek to destroy him. A finished, completed fact is a might with which everyone must deal in one manner or another. It enters the world as a knight in armor and fights for its position. Whereas an immature fact is a helpless infant which is easily over-powered.

The discipline of silence is one of the most important weapons in the struggle for happiness and success, one which you cannot do without in the struggle for the ineffable bliss of self-perfection. Much has been said and written about the art of speaking, but very little about the art of silence. And yet it is an ability that has to be practiced regularly. The person that speaks seems to be at an advantage when viewed superficially. The reason for this is that a speaking person awakens the impression of activity and is more active in actuality than the silent listener. Be assured that this superiority is only overt until it is confronted by a disciplined person, in other words, a taciturn person who does not indiscriminately surrender to his partner, but instead is very particular when selecting the people or words by which he wishes to be influenced. From this moment on it should be a rule for you that you should ask yourself these questions regarding every human being with whom you come into contact: “Can he or she influence me positively or negatively?9 Does he promote or obstruct my progress on the path which I have entered upon?” Conduct yourself accordingly!

Active And Passive Silence

Passive silence is allowed if it is conducive to your advancement; you can subject yourself to the influence of conversation without mental reservations. You can listen with feelings of sympathy and consent. However, should these feelings influence you unfavorably and obstruct your development, or should you have any reason to believe that they might, then immediately initiate active silence with your full consciousness; that is, practice silence with inner reservation. As long as you are subjected or exposed to such people or thoughts, be firm and hold on to the idea: “You cannot harm me, you cannot influence me, I am on guard!” It would, however, be more practical to abbreviate this to a short catch-phrase such as: “I am absolutely uinfluenceable !”

Be especially on guard during times of depression, despondency, despair and illness. You are very easily influenced in this state. Be especially careful under these circumstances; wear the armor of active silence and keep the entrance to your soul closed. The more a stranger tries to persuade you while you are in this condition, the more careful and reserved you should be. While in this condition, do not accept any suggestions unless they are the encouraging suggestions of true friends!

But your task is not limited to this. In addition to these general instructions of silence, there are particular ones which will make you the master of your tongue and represent a new accumulation exercise.

Restrict Your Speech Daily For One Hour

For one hour daily, speak only when absolutely necessary. Ponder whether or not each word and sentence should be uttered, and therefore speak slowly and deliberately. All talk just for the sake of talking is thereby omitted. Think of those monks who exercise their speech only one day a year and lead a useful and blessed life in spite of it.

The effect of this procedure is manifold. You will recognize with convincing severity the worthless rhetoric in which most of humankind is engaged. You will soon learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff and be amazed by the lack of ideas around you. Your fellow man will approach you much more attentively, and deal with your words with more respect, the sounder they are and the more they contain.

The main value of this exercise lies within the significant saving of energy, and the inner increase of energy you will experience on account of it. Every word impulse which you suppress accumulates as psycho-electric energy within you, increases your astral resiliency, and therefore serves your higher purpose.

Practical Application

It stands to reason that this entire change in your manner of speaking has to come about as inconspicuously as possible. In everything that you say, remain very courteous and obliging; in everything you do, be pleasant and kind. No one should notice any particular purpose.

Choose a different hour every day: today, for instance, from 8: 00 9: 00 A.M., tomorrow from 9: 00 10: 00 A.M. and so on. Continue this until you have practiced each hour throughout the entire day. Take, of course, those hours which are available to you when you are in the presence of people, so that you can practice this exercise. Once you have gone through a series of one-hour exercises, extend the exercise time to two hours daily, whether two consecutive hours or one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon. Eventually it could be the entire morning or the entire afternoon. Should this exercise become a habit, it does no harm; as a matter of fact, it will only be of benefit to you.

If you are very talkative by nature, help yourself over the first hurdle by writing, so to speak, a monologue, whereby you let off steam. You can also carryon such a monologue while you are out in nature, when no one is around. In the beginning, it will give you a certain balance while things are still difficult. Bear in mind that this is only allowed in the beginning, while you are waiting for its full effect. Only total effort will bring total benefits. Whoever cannot be silent in the manner described is not ready for any further exercises.

The Fortunes Of Hunger

By now you must have experienced that your dietary restrictions have had beneficial effects. Now it is absolutely necessary to intensify these efforts to a certain degree. The organism must be free of any waste if it wants to become a true vessel for higher energies. Never has anything great come forth from contented people or nations. You have to eat less and smaller portions if you want to lead your spirit to his ultimate energy of increased preparedness for activities. Has not a full stomach brought nothing more than idle worthless thoughts? Quieta non movere! (What rests, let it rest) was from time immemorial the motto of the well-fed.

Bear in mind that the individualized spirit is a fighting organ which is given to humankind to conquer its place in the universe. This place is not necessarily for the well-fed; they fall asleep very easily, become weary and degenerate. On the other hand, the hungry are alert, awake and industrious. To this day the true poets still live in the attic. The bird sings until the young ones are in the nest. Hunger and need create the inventor, yet selfishness and dissatisfaction create the revolutionary. Hunger and need strike with a hard fist unto the brazen rings which everyone carries around his heart from birth so that they break and liberate the human being for the rhythm, the healing currents, of the great unity. John and Jesus and thousands of hermits and many before and after them knew why they went into the desert where they nourished themselves meagerly before they began their exalted missions…

Human beings seem to fear nothing more than hunger, yet it is the best spice of life. Yes, it is even more: it is the ladder of ascent and the lever of all development. The migration of entire nations and the structure of entire cultures began and were caused by it. May you too enter into a foreign country, may you too build yourself up, and may you therefore not fear hunger. Instead, take it into your service as a valuable friend.

One Month Of Fasting

It is a prerequisite that under no circumstances should you allow yourself to be weakened, emaciated and reduced to misery. When it comes to any kind of fasting, there are limits which cannot be violated if you want to avoid serious harm. These limits express themselves in your subjective state of health; as long as you feel fresh and able to work, as long as you are not “skin and bones” and you still have a distinct layer of fat on your body from which you can draw, then the limits have not been surpassed. On the other hand, always remember that you should not become a hunger fanatic; instead you should be a wise administrator of your body, which you discipline as a teacher would his student.

Practical Application

Twice a week, have a soup day wherein your main meals consist only of liquid nourishment. You can still eat bread for light lunches but meat in any form is strictly forbidden. Milk and eggs are allowed. It goes without saying that fat and oils of all kinds are included; you have to place special emphasis on the intake of a sufficient amount of fat. Fat is indispensable for nerves that are used excessively. Preferably, use only vegetable fats if at all possible.1O The soups which replace solid food should have nutritional content and be of value to the human body. For their preparation, use legumes and alternate these with corn or flour products of all kinds, such as oats or oat flakes, buckwheat, grits, semolina, cream of wheat, pearlor pot-barley, sago, rice, etc. And, of course, fruit should be eaten every day.

All these instructions in regards to food must be fulfilled with your heart and soul, with an inner preparedness, not something to which you subject yourself unwillingly, such as homework. Only when this is done wholeheartedly does it meet the requirements of this task the psycho-physical refinement of your entire organism. If one opposing element remains in your soul, it will act as an opposing part, a hindrance to your development, and it will delay and influence your progress until that element is completely eliminated.

So much for the general instructions of this step; the special instructions result from the following points of view.

The Path To Your Innermost Your Path To God

In order to find yourself, you must leave yourself in order to return again as a transformed person. You can only leave yourself and you will only find yourself when you change your spiritual center of gravity, when you have “died” here in order to awaken there, because only through “death” will human beings achieve rebirth. You must sacrifice your little “I” in order to find the great “I.” But you will only achieve this feat, and will only decide to make this sacrifice, when you take the ardently desired yearning for the divine as your nourishment while on this path, because the promise as it was made in ancient times is still valid today: “If thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him if thou seek Him with all thy heart!…” Also, should you seek with your whole heart, then all the instructions that follow and which I can give you will be a helping hand and a new step which you will probably find in an instant, when you least expected.

The Sons Of The Primordial Light

In the beginning of our great cosmic day, only the primordial energy existed. It was an etheric, spiritual fundamental substance of electromagnetic attributes from which, in the course of development, all beings, from planets to bacteria and human beings, came into being through progressive condensation. Everything alive came into being from this universal fire nebula, the first materialization of the primordial light. It is made and formed out of the shapelessness to which the influences of the constellations were, in a manner, effective in giving direction as carriers of particular cosmic rhythms. The infinite differences of forms and shapes and their ever-changing “destiny” are based upon the different crossings at every junction of the heavenly energy lines. Every crossing can be ascertained and calculated point by point, a task which astrology which, nowadays is in the beginning stages of its immense ascent, has to fulfill.

Even a human being is a part of such condensed individualized universal energy. For a particular time, the human being is an individual part of the entire rhythm, and contains within certain limits dependent upon the mortal form all the possibilities and abilities of the primordial being. Should he want to practice these attributes or learn to practice them, he must in order to attain the requisite abilities cease to exist as an individual, as the ancient mystics used to express it. You must sacrifice the small volition to find the great volition. You must reverse the “fall into matter” (the Fall of Man) , the product of which was individualization, and carry out the return to the Father’s house, as it occurred in the profound parable of the lost son. Natural death as such is not this return, because this return is a spiritual procedure. God is a spirit, and those who serve Him must serve Him in the spirit and in truth! Now bear in mind the spiritual breath. The Spiritual Breath

Not all of the entire primordial substance is condensed into visible forms. The fiery primordial energy is not found only in your organism, where it has taken on the state of a congealed, rigid condition of the coarsest vibrations. It is not simply dispersed among the thousands upon thousands of beings which form and inhabit the visible worlds; the main part of this primordial fire, this primordial light, fills the entire universe and forms an immense invisible treasury beyond all imagination, the entrance of which is open to the knowledgeable. The guide which leads to this treasury is the breath.

The breath is, in a manner of speaking, the umbilical cord through which you are uninterruptedly in contact with the universal spirit. When breathing ceases, then your limited earthly individual life ceases. Yes, all suffering which disturbs your personal rhythm is inevitable (you must pay heed to it) and connected to the activity of breathing with annoyances. Fear, envy, pain, stinginess, hate, etc., go more or less hand in hand with serious breathing disturbances, because they are based upon estrangement from the universal spirit. Make contact with Him and all disturbances will disappear like fog below the sun.

By no means is the significance of the function of breathing exhausted with the physical, chemical intake of oxygen and the elimination of carbon dioxide, etc. There is also a “spiritual oxygen,” if we want to retain this term, the intake of which can be of much greater significance to you.

Know that your total “I” does not coincide with the limits of your body; it exists not only internally but is also external to your body, and it is much more extensive than the physical body. The breath is the external physical function that establishes the connection between the two parts of your being. It is the main cable which, during your life here on earth, connects your lower mortal “I” with the eternal, cosmic human being. Do you want to learn how to utilize this cable to its fullest extent?

With the living breath, a human being enters into the concealed energy, the electromagnetic mother-substance from which not only the structure and cohesion of his physical body is always nourished anew since it falls apart as soon as the breath leaves definitely but which also supplies the prime elements of his fluid astral body, the mostly invisible second form of expression of his soul. To truly control your breath means to form and control, in accordance with your will, the life and destiny of both bodies. This true mastery over the breath is achieved through one’s spiritual impregnation, and the first step towards this goal, conscious breathing, has already been practically exercised.

This, of course, is no longer the first step. The second step, this impregnation, is much more important.

In order to achieve this impregnation properly, the power of your imagination has to be developed to a sufficient level, a goal that we have striven for in the preceding exercises. But what is even incomparably more important and essential is that the procedure of the inner awakening must have taken place within you; without that, any “imagination” is dallying in superficiality and every “word” remains an echo. In other words, the transformation of the inner point of view, the “change of the lights” which is the foundation of any further ascent, must have taken place. You yourself know best how much have you progressed on this path. You have learned how to control yourself. I repeat: Have patience with yourself! You will harvest the ripe fruit only if you know how to wait.

The A wakening Of The Higher “I”

By way of suggestion, you have already become partly acquainted through practice with the two main centers of the procreative fire which were placed within you as the “lower light” and the “upper light.” You are acquainted with their reciprocal relationship and know that the upper light can only become stronger if the lower light is weakened. Only when the lower one has been overcome can the higher Eros illuminate and commence its activities as we wish and aspire.

You must also know that between these two points of energy there is a third, the astral heart center, which is just as important and which you can imagine to be in the area of the solar plexus, not far from the physical heart. Here the psycho-electric currents of the two main directions meet and cross, namely the north-south, which connects the upper light with the lower, and the east-west, which connects the external light with the inner. Both directions are at right angles to each other. If you extend your arms horizontally while standing with the palms of your hands upwards and at the same time receiving the breath of the universe, you will gain and understand through this the sacred ancient symbol of everything higher and everything perfected pertaining to mankind the cross.

Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

The astral heart, of which the physical heart is but a coarse replica, is the location and the organ of a highly important current equilibration. All astral procedures reflect directly in this current equilibration: All passions such as hate, envy, etc., but also all emotions such as fear, sorrow, and shock call forth severe disturbances in this significant equilibration. Many heart ailments have their origin in severe sorrow and many a death has been caused by sudden shock. Have you ever paid attention to how constrained and irregular the breathing of a spiteful person is?

Everything Physical Has Its Roots In The Soul

The more you strive towards the light, the more unconditional and victorious becomes the genius within you, the more you yourself become light; also, this vital center works with much less waste, and these streams of light flow through with much less restraint and conduct the circulation of the upper energies better and more quietly and reflect the brilliance of the spirit much more purely. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!”

Mysteries Of The Word

The awakening of the higher “I” is closely connected with the deeper being of the word and breathing. Words do not come into being by chance; they do not form by themselves. Words are pertinent symbols, intimately connected with whatever is expressed, and not what the superficial view understands them to be. This is readily understood when it comes to certain verbs (action verbs) whose sound is a reproduction of the activity to be represented, for example: hissing, rustle, quiver, thunder, lightning, breaking, etc. These words possess the ability to consciously force the picture of what is expressed upon the listener. The more original a language is, the richer it is in such “painting” of words, where sound and content cover themselves in a uniquely perfect manner. The German language, judged in accordance with that standard, is one of the most perfect in the world.

If you research this more deeply, you will find that this relationship between the word and its content can be discovered throughout. All human language is a succession of these kinds of significant symbols of sounds. That applies to every word, every sound and every letter.

If we take a closer look at nouns or adjectives, we will make the peculiar discovery that all of them represent firm, rigid, visible or tangible activities, motions that are expressed, reproduced through the perception of the senses which they arouse in us. This also applies to the actual verbs (action words). To me the wind “whistles” and “howls,” water “trickles,” thunder “roars,” because wind, water and thunder trigger within me such inner feelings which are best described by the words “whistles,” “howls,” “trickles” and “roars.” A sensory perception is an etheric vibration and wave-length of a particular kind in our astral center. As everyone knows, the color “red” vibrates differently than “violet.” The external airor ether-vibration continues through a certain transmission apparatus in our Innermost and forms here an inner picture which I, in accordance with the training of my thoughts, can call forth anew at my discretion through an act of the will with comparatively easier or greater difficulties. There exists at all times an intimate connection between this inner picture and the word through which we express it. We do not actually think in pictures of the senses, but rather in word-pictures, that is, in the end, in letters.

Therefore, everything we create or produce is first created in thought or word-pictures, which means, in the end again, in letters. In this manner we come inevitably to the conclusion that letters are energy, even though they are elementary energies; you must, however, possess the ability to make proper use of the letters.

If I think of “sweet” or “tart,” “quiet” or “screaming,” then those words already contain purely in the succession of the letters the sense, the meaning which is connected with them when they are expressed. The foundation is the word which is thought, the first garment, the first form and the formation of a thing. The spoken word is the second form. The visible realization in the external, material, physical world is the third. All the things that are around us, if they are viewed in this manner, are a succession of letters which have become physical and tangible and, consequently, words. In order to understand this in its entirety, you must often and thoroughly become mentally absorbed in these things and engage in practical experiments. Only in this manner will you gradually learn to comprehend the inner being of words and letters, which contain the liveliest life. The entire world will appear to you in a new sense as a real and true “Word of God.” The Soul Of Vowels

Examine the inner sense or meaning of the “i” vowel; analyze the effect which it has upon your feeling (the sound rather than the shape of the letter by which it is represented). Look at the group of words which the vowel “i” mainly helps to form. You will find that it mainly expresses individualization and separation, as in the words: I (lch) , we (wir) , wicked (schlimm) , grim (grimmig) , middle (Mitte) , will (Wille) , etc. Besides that, this vowel also includes a fiery lambent element: fiery (hitzig) , light (Licht) , lightning (Blitz).

Examine the consonants in the same manner and you will also find significant secrets of the same kind concealed there. You will discover in the “1” an inner relationship to the German word Welle which [in English] means wave, which is similar to the [English] word “bell,” where the “1” has a relationship to a wave of sound. In the consonant “s” there is a relationship to fire, etc.

It is absolutely necessary that you undertake such studies daily. Before you can work with these energies, you must have become well acquainted with them. How you can accomplish this practically will be discussed later on.

The Sacred OM And Its Practice

Let it be said that particular relationships exist between certain parts of the body and certain letters, a circumstance which can be turned to one’s benefit. Every organ, every body cavity, every body part has, so to speak, its own resonance. Try to get this clear in your mind with the following example: If you stand before a piano and sing in certain clear tones towards the instrument, you will awaken an echo with these tones. The appropriate strings of the piano vibrate according to the sounds emitted, some more and others less. Piercing, disharmonious sounds produce an echo only in so far as they contain musical tones.

A human being is but an instrument upon which a knowledgeable will is able to play, provided that it is “in tune.” Are there not human beings who are all music? And are there not others whose whole being is one single dissonance, who are always out of tune or disgruntled?

Your entire body is rhythm which has turned into a solid form. It is, so to speak, “the word of God” that has turned into flesh, which as you know from earlier discussions expresses and reveals itself in the visible world in the form of rhythmic laws.

The solidification of this rhythm which has become form is in reality only an illusion, because behind it is concealed a lively life that reacts extensively upon all the rhythm that influences it from the outside. Every dance, every march, shows us that the effect of music on the whole teaches us the way a person feels, his mood and the well-being of human beings. Music is nothing more than a spirit that has become audible and which has revealed itself to the ear. Of course, this spirit wishes and aspires to harmony in the entire sphere of its revelation. “The Music of the Spheres” which was known to the ancients exists in reality and affects even the lowest physical worlds.

To reiterate: Every organ in the body has its own tone out of which it came forth, and it is structured upon this rhythm. Should you succeed in bringing this sound externally to the organ, then this organ will vibrate, which enables it to increased activity, to an increased, more highly potentized performance.

The point of contact, the “seat” of the divine genius in a human being is, as you know, approximately at the center of the head, in the area of the so-called pineal gland, from whence it emanates in all directions. The object is to find the sound which is particular to the cranial cavity in whose focal point this center of emanation lies, and then to make use of it systematically. This particular sound is recognizable when it increases the volume of an intense resonance on the inside of the head and is to be paid attention to. This is not always the same in every individual and race. Here the structure of the head is of great importance. For instance, in a man of the Aryan race, this sound lies in the neighborhood of E on the musical scale, which you can find approximately in the middle of the keyboard on any piano. It is necessary to ascertain this sound by experimentation. More about this later.

Sound and letter are in a close relationship of activity, whereby the letter gives, so to speak, the sound its organic garment, in which it can best effect its inner value. This relationship is much closer, as can be explained in a few words. Therefore you can speak of a shrill “i” but not of a shrill “a.” You can perceive a “u” as a deep sound, but not an “e.”

Once you are developed to a certain degree, you will notice that sound and words or parts of words, especially vowels, are in a peculiar relationship to the various colors. That is the appearance of the so-called “color-hearing.” It is desirable to pay attention to these things and to carry out appropriate investigations on yourself. What kind of color perceptions do you engender through the vowels “a,” “e,” “i,” “o,” “u”? What kind of color perception do you engender by hearing certain kinds of music or certain kinds of tones on the musical scale? Recognize that sounds are also light, and that light can also be perceived as sound. There must also be a universal consciousness of which sight and hearing are only human modifications!

Utilizing the sequence of letters through which the musical note E receives its strongest resonance is the traditional, ancient and sacred Sanskrit syllable “OM,” which in our course of instruction will receive its proper fundamental significance. Practicing its mode of application systematically and, on the other hand, beginning and promoting the inner upheaval of the concept of space and time (since without it you will not advance) are the essential tasks with which you will be occupied at this level.

Practice

You have more than enough to do in working through the aforementioned chain of thoughts; besides that, you have received practical hints in accordance with how you are to proceed. Now carry out the following special tasks: In the morning:

1. Practice spiritual awakening.
2. Practice cosmic breathing.
3. Alternating every other day, meditate on:

(a) The symbol of the pentagram.
(b) The symbol of the sun.

During the day:

4. Practice silence (as described).
5. Once a day, the thousand-year practice.
6. During your main meals, practice cosmic gratitude.

Evenings:

7. Alternate daily:
(a) 30 minutes of the spiritual ABC’s, or
(b) The coffin exercise, along with the attempted “I 
am” and the jubilation and ecstasy. Following that, the “OM” practice every evening. 
Explanations
.
(1) The “spiritual awakening” is symbolized by waking up every morning, and therefore it should be practiced immediately thereafter. The natural [earthly] consciousness (not the awakened consciousness) lies in a dream-like condition, and is not fully active. This exercise will contribute to awaken it from its slumber.

Practice as follows:

Immediately after you awaken, enliven yourself through repeated flexing of all your muscles. Then relax completely and, while you are totally mentally awake, follow the instructions given in the Third Letter concerning the passive phase in the chapter on the major concentration. Even the head should not be moved at all. Now entertain the thought: You have just returned from a long voyage; you have been away many, many years and everything you see, you see for the first time. View your surroundings from your position of rest, everything in its smallest detail: the wallpaper, the furniture, the curtains, etc. Do this as if you have never before seen all the things you observe. Let them affect you as if they were something completely new. See if they do not have something new to say to you, something which they have not done until now. Also, should you be married, look upon your spouse and your children from this point of view. Do they not have something to say to you that you did not know or that you were not aware of? Have a plan for every day. Once this exercise has fulfilled its purpose, you will know it; therefore, I do not have to say anything more about it. Duration of this exercise: several minutes.

(2) Cosmic Breathing: The moment you get out of bed, begin this exercise. Duration: several minutes.

Sit upright with your hands on your knees, your back free (in other words, no backrest) , in front of an open window through which you look to the outside. Now breathe slowly and freely, fully controlling your thoughts, without any forced unnaturalness.

While practicing this, think and create a mind-picture of the following: With every breath I inhale, I am in direct contact with the ends of the world! The air that I inhale continues without interruption around the entire earth and far into outer space. I draw this breath into me from space, and I actively come into contact with the remotest distances, and these most remote distances are spirit, living spirit! And out of this spirit treasury I draw all the energies that I wish!

Should you have justified wishes, then charge your inhalation with them. Practice until you succeed and until you have a clear feeling that you have done it properly. Never overdo this exercise, and also, do not over-exert yourself. The more completely you forget your physical body, the better it will be. It will serve this purpose best if you begin by imagining “the ends of the world,” as indicated above, then turn to the vivid mind-picture of the “treasury of the spirit” and conclude the exercise by adding this sentence to your wish-breathing: “Peace and energy for the entire day,” or something that is appropriate for you. It is up to you to make changes in accordance with the circumstances that prevail.

(a) Meditation on the five-pointed star is practiced in the following manner: Draw a pentagram with ink or a lead pencil by drawing five lines of equal length in the shape of an upright star, as shown below, approximately 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter.

Now place this drawing in front of you so that you can look at it easily. Enter into your customary state of passivity. Begin by focusing in on the pentagram with the following questions: “Wherein lies its peculiarity and perfection? What connection do I myself have to the number 5?”

Now imagine the lines to be emanating fire, and allow them to influence you as lines of energy. Totally immerse yourself therein. Assume the position of the star externally and seek to feel how this star gleams within you. Say to yourself: “The star out of the chaos!” Feel with ardor how the lines of fire penetrate you, how you yourself become this star. The duration of this exercise is not to exceed 10 minutes.

(b) Meditation on the symbol of the sun: In the same manner as 3(a) , draw a circle approximately 1 1/2 inches (3 cm) in diameter with a point in the center. Practice this meditation in the same manner as described in 3(a) by concentrating upon the following points: “Why is the circle more perfect or complete than the star? What or whom does the circle represent? What or whom does the point represent? What happens to the circle when I move the point from the center of the circle to an arbitrary position?!”

Now imagine the circle also emanating fire. Transfer yourself in spirit into the center and immerse yourself completely in it. From where you are in the center, the distance to the edge of the circle is the same on all sides. Everywhere around you the fiery blaze burns.

Change your position within the circle! What happens now to the circle? Transfer yourself to various places within the circle! Where and how do you view the circle now? Say to yourself: “The center is everywhere!” Experience this internally. The duration of this exercise is not to exceed 10 minutes.

(4) Practice silence, as described in this Letter.

(5) The Thousand-Year Exercise: Imagine in detail what would happen to a human being or a place in 100 years. You, your friends, your colleagues, your competitors, your spouse, your children… what has become of them in 100, 500, 1,000 years? Look at their mortal remains, which, when they are touched, turn to dust. Look at them scattered in the ground, sand and water, at home and in foreign lands. They died suddenly or through lingering ailments, they died as a result of an accident, were killed or killed in action. Every day choose a different person for this exercise and look at them from this point of view.

Then proceed to the localities. The house in which you live, the street, the part of the city you live in, the whole city, yes, even the country you live in, what will happen to these in 100, in 500, in 1,000 years?! Look at the houses where today you find gardens; the gardens where today you find houses. Look at the cities, desolate or totally gone, turned back to the forests which were there before the cities. You see deserts and prairies where once the pulse of large metropolitan cities was beating. Plants and animals have found new areas where man for a long time considered himself to be master over them. Who took all this away? Who changed it all, and who banished it into another form?

Form and transformation are the only things you see. Only the tempo changes and only your sight is limited. And you once mourned over these transitory forms, or you were proud of them! Your life is nothing but a raging fall to your death. What tomfoolery and racket has this shameful insanity all around you made out of this moment of God? (6) The Cosmic Exercise of Gratitude: Whenever you have a meal, stop for a moment and send your thoughts full of gratitude to the place where it grew for you. When you eat an apple, think of the tree which blossomed for you so that you may live. When you drink milk, think of the cattle which sacrificed it for you. When you break bread, think of the grain field that the sun ripened for you. If this would not have been done for you, you would not enjoy these things. All these foods are direct messages from the kingdom of the One who is eternally alive. Messages that say to you: Live! Live for Me! Your answer should be enjoyment with gratitude.

Do not say: “I was the one who paid for everything!” You paid for it with money, but who gave it to you? Who made use of the human mediators in order to give it to you?

Do not say: “I worked for it, therefore I deserve it…” Who gave you the ability to work and who maintained your health? Who protected you from accidents?

Before you eat, sacrifice a thought of gratitude to the Universal Spirit. Say very little, but eat consciously; then every meal will advance your inner development.

(a) The evening exercises are by far the most important at this particular level, since you take these impressions with you to sleep.
The spiritual ABC’s are at the top. This exercise is of the greatest significance for the practical awakening of the eternal human being which slumbers in everyone, but who, as far as you are concerned, is already in the process of awakening. It will help to form and develop the spiritual body by means of the energies of the letters. Only the spiritual body is able to assure you a personally conscious continuance beyond physical death. We have become acquainted with the energies of these letters as elementary symbols of motion, so to speak, as final units upon which the multiform of all the things around us can be traced back. Since human beings also belong among these multifarious forms, they learn on the basis of these indivisible units or the effective energies that are concealed therein to create themselves anew on a new foundation. A final understanding of oneself is revealed to such individuals, a perceptible comprehension of one’s most profound character which cannot be attained in any other manner. The procedure is as old as it is reliable.

You are by no means dealing here with an intellectual course of action in the common sense. What is set in motion is over and above all intelligence; you cannot judge this from the point of view of the common intellect, but only on the basis of one’s own experiences, which alone convey the proper knowledge.

The entire procedure could best be described as a parallel to the breathing procedure. Just as the conscious spiritual breathing endows one with the highest attributes, this procedure also becomes an invaluable weapon in the hands of the knowing practitioner. In the same manner, I will teach you the practice of the letters, and to be the artist and the keyboard at the same time, the singer and the song in one; only then will the song have the assurance of eternal life and achieve the unpunished passage through the gates of death when it enters into the mystical marriage with the higher self-consciousness of the human being.

What is of importance here is this: You should learn to speak the letters in your mind and transfer the concept of your “I” into certain parts of your body. Here you are, so to speak, dealing with a new way of learning how to stand and walk in the spirit. Now you have the foundation for these exercises. Therefore begin these exercises with your feet. Continue from one part of the body to the next, from organ to organ, systematically upwards. It is desirable to study the inner structure of your entire body to the extent that you know where every organ is located. Having this knowledge makes the exercises easier and expedites them. Furthermore, it is a law that if these energies are properly executed and awakened in the feet, the spiritualization process spreads automatically to the other parts of the body. It should suffice here to point to the entrance of the path, for anyone who practices the exercises properly will find the remainder of the path by himself or herself.

Continue as follows: Choose a quiet hour in the evening when you will not be disturbed in order to practice the vitalizing of the word. Begin in the proper posture with an evocation. Collect yourself, close your eyes, spread your arms sideways, your elbows in an angle, your hands slightly open with the palms turned upward in a receptive gesture. Speak slowly, consciously tasting every word:

“Perfect Spirit, I am calling you! Perfect Spirit, enlighten me! Cause what is here to be there, And what is there to be here. And be omnipresent to me!”

With these words the mortal within you calls the immortal.

Following this, the actual exercise begins, and you can practice this while standing and walking slowly, or while sitting or lying down. Choose whichever is most successful for you. The most effective way is usually the passive phase of the concentration exercises; at least do this in the beginning, because in this manner you will reach your goal much faster. Later on, you will not be so dependent upon preparations of this kind. Every ability develops through exercises.

Now seek to have the letters come alive in your feet. Start with one letter first. It is much easier with the help of the breathing exercise. Inhale slowly and naturally, and when you exhale imagine that you breathe the letter into the left foot. At the same time, seek to transfer your “I” consciousness into the left foot and feel the inner effect, the inner being, the spirit of the letter in the foot; perceive it with feeling. That may seem to be more difficult than it really is, but if you employ some perseverance it can be achieved. It is very important to develop energy and endurance, as without it you cannot become the master builder of your immortal body. You must practice and repeat it even though you might not be successful immediately until you clearly feel certain changes in the respective part of the body, in this instance the foot. Only then has the purpose of this exercise been fulfilled, the particular goal achieved. It should also be mentioned that in the course of time the physical body will experience a change, a refinement, which will be obvious to the onlooker.

It should also be mentioned that this whole system cannot be accomplished in one month, nor in several months a realization to which anyone would come in due time. In order to complete this exercise it will require years of serious, continuous work and immersion in this task. The divine art of spelling is not child’s play. Whoever is offended by its peculiarities and, when reading the instructions, finds them to be childish, absurd or incomprehensible, truly does not know what he or she is doing and will soon change as soon as he or she decides to walk this path, since all of this is based upon ancient experience and through practice has been proven thousands of times.

(b) The Coffin Exercise: Darken the room. Place a burning candle on a shelf directly above your head. Lie down on a bed, couch or the like. If nothing else is available, sit on a chair. Bring about the passivity and engage in the following meditation:

Now you are lying in a coffin. With all your senses, familiarize yourself into this concept as intensely as you possibly can. Feel how closely the walls of the coffin surround you, how your feet touch the wood, how the lid of the coffin is closed above you. Smell the putrefying wreaths. Listen to the worms eating and moving through the walls of the coffin. Awaken within yourself a feeling of seclusion and great loneliness. Once you are completely permeated by these feelings, begin the second part of this exercise.

Your body is now your coffin. You are buried within this body. The limbs, flesh and bones are the walls of the coffin in which you are incarcerated. Once you have clearly experienced this, then continue with the third sequence of thoughts:

Are “you” identical with your body? No, you are not! Are you bones, flesh, nerve tissue, brain or lungs? No, certainly not! All of these are but your tools, of which you make use. Who are you? You are a part of the universal cosmic will, of completely equal value to every other part, eternal and indestructible as it is, a spirit from this spirit. Be conscious of this truth in all its profundity. It is absolutely necessary that you do so. Speak slowly in your mind, with special emphasis on these words: “I am!” Jubilate them into you. Feel: “I am a creative spirit, which does not change! The form is a created thing which may decay when it has fulfilled its task!” Allow yourself to be pervaded by the magnificence of this thought: “Immortal Spirit!…”

And finally, proceed with an attempt to achieve ecstasy. Ecstasy means to be able “to stand outside, to have the ability to place yourself outside,” in other words, to step out. You have to step out of your physical body in order to draw any conclusions out of your knowledge. This occurs as follows: Imagine as intensively as you can in your mind that you rise, get up, and slowly walk towards the door. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to imagine every single movement, especially when you make your first attempts. The more you have perfected the passive phase of the major concentration and can place your physical body into this state, the more you will be able to devote your thoughts to the exercise, and hence you will succeed sooner and better. If you do not succeed right away, no harm is done. Everything is development.

While standing at the door, look back upon your physical body which is resting there in peace. Observe every detail of your body, the position of your limbs, the color and expression of your face, the detail of the furniture upon which your body is resting and the surroundings. Bear in mind that you are dealing here not with a typical fantasy exercise, but with the exercise of a well-schooled power of the imagination. The better your progress has been on the “path,” the sooner you will succeed. This is an action of self-objectivity in which a great secret should show its effects practically, the secret of the potential omnipresence of the spirit.

Bear in mind that whenever you think about another place, it requires a certain quality of being there. You are there in your thoughts, and that means you are actually there with a part of your being, your entire being. You are actually and truly transferred there. Now you shall learn to increase this you will be able to transfer with such intensity as to make actual and objective observations from this new point of view. The success of this is, on one hand, dependent upon the degree to which you can forget your physical body and, on the whole, your coarser I; on the other hand, it depends on the level of concentration you have reached. Everything that appears to you on the outside is nothing but your inner imagination.

Repeat the above exercise until you have felt unmistakably that you have been “outside of your body” and made objective observations which you can verify. Never exercise more than 30 minutes daily. If you do not achieve your goal within 30 minutes, then postpone it until next time. Frequent repetition leads to success. Should you experience any physical or nervous discomforts, stop the exercise immediately. Repeat this exercise the next time you feel at peace.

Once you have succeeded with this fundamental exercise, leave your room in this state of ecstasy and go to other rooms in the same house, where people are present that are known to you, and try to ascertain what these people are doing or with what they are occupied. Proceed with this task exactly in all its details spiritually just as you would do it physically. Afterwards, examine what you have noticed in peculiarities and changes. Only do exercises which allow you to verify the results. Initially, limit yourself to the inhabitants of the house you live in. Should you notice that this exercise affects you too much, then do it only once or twice every week. Do not force anything; everything must develop organically. There are also no problems if, for the time being, you omit this exercise and begin at a later date. You can conclude this part of the 7(b) exercise with the “I am” penetration. (c) The OM exercise will form the keystone of every day. First determine your tone, as mentioned before. Experiment practically by singing one note after the other, extending each tone. A piano or any other appropriate instrument will serve this purpose well. The sacred syllable OM must be sung letter by letter in the following sequence of sounds: A OU M. Every vowel must be drawn out, and you must conclude with the M as a humming reverberation. The three vowels should not be sung with a sharply accentuated separation, but very softly disposed of from one to the other.

Once your tone has been found, I recommend that, in the beginning, the syllable be sung framed by the sentences: “God is Spirit!” and “Light is God! Life!”

Follow the musical notation which is given here as an explanation.

Song (very solemn) God is Spirit, A-OU-M, Light is God, Life!

Voice (Portato) : 
God is Spirit, A-OU-M, Light is God, Life! ,

As you can see, the entire exercise is arranged around a single chord, whose serious and deep tranquility has to be brought to its consequence externally as well as internally. This entire small composition should be repeated at least 12 times. In the course of the evening you can practice this exercise without the accompaniment of an instrument by limiting it to the upper half, the vocal part, which contains the essential sounds. You have to practice in a position of complete rest, sitting upright, with your hands on your knees, eyes closed, completely devoting yourself to the word and sound; in a way, you must become the word and sound yourself. If your fundamental sound is different from the a fore-mentioned, then you have to change the chord and the musical background accordingly. For example, the most frequent chords, from high to low, are C, E, and G or C, F#, and A, always in medium range.

The entire exercise is elementary, simple and easy to perform. The vowels a, o and u are in a very particular relationship as far as the vibrations are concerned; they are in a very particular inner relationship to each other which you can find and feel if you pay very close attention to the movements of your mouth and your entire voice apparatus while you articulate. Should you not possess an instrument, you can do without it. All you need to do is to make the initial singing and resonance. attempts in accordance with your inherited musical sense of hearing and perception. It will surely guide you as far as you have learned to pay attention to it to some degree.

SIXTH LETTER
 RISE UP AND BECOME LIGHT

Foreword To The Sixth Letter

You must have noticed that, in the previous letter, you were given certain liberties to practice a certain exercise only in part, and to complete the remainder at a later date. These liberties are of necessity. The time has now come where you have to become more independent and slowly let go of the hand that has been guiding you, and allow your own spiritual growth the necessary room. Without this you will not be able to fulfill the goal of these letters and grow. The goal of these letters is not spiritual uniformity, it is not disability, but is instead individual development of the deeper powers of the soul, even though the goal is altogether mystically established on the same foundation. Therefore it is a higher level of maturity! The different astrological limitations of each individual determine the extremely various distribution of developing spiritual endowments, and that has to be taken into consideration. One person’s strength may lie more within such abilities as clairvoyant dreaming or visions, whereas another person’s ability may lie more within the effectiveness of one’s energy over distances. The crown of development of the spirit is still the unification of the active and passive elements; however, not everyone is born to achieve this goal in this life.

In the Sixth Letter, I will give you the main goals, including the instructions for the exercises that belong to it. I will cite them in complete detail as much as possible. It will be your responsibility to assign these exercises to the appropriate times of the day. It will also be left up to you to merge the new exercises with some of the Fifth Letter exercises, since the exercises of the Fifth Letter are by no means concluded, as you no doubt have experienced. In the future, it will also be your decision which exercises you will do now and which you will practice later. The exercises that have to be practiced under any circumstances I have marked with an asterisk.

In the future, never neglect the exercises of the Sixth Letter and continue to work on yourself in the sense of forming your character, because with these exercises you mold your own destiny. Do not believe that with the completion of any of these exercises or any sequence of exercises you are finished with them once and for all. Be constantly on guard against backsliding; be an alert guard for the spirit.

Impregnated Water

In addition to earlier instructions, I recommend the following as an effective procedure for self-influence: Write a particular sentence in the form of an order in large blue or black letters on a piece of paper and lean it against a glass that is half filled with water. Place the glass at the edge of a table and sit in front of it at a distance of approximately 20 inches (50 cm). The light should fall directly upon this piece of paper. Then enter into the passive phase and immerse yourself completely into the wording and meaning of the sentence. Once you have become completely one with the idea of the sentence, direct your sight upon the glass and imagine intensely that the spirit of the order is drawn into the water. Then stand up and charge the water once more by taking the glass into your left hand, while you position the fingers of your right hand above the water in order to let the thought-current flow into the water. Do this with a sense of authority. You are performing a spiritual impregnation of water, and anyone who is astrally sensitive will clearly notice the actual change in the water, which can be proven by its different taste. Thoughts are subtle things of an electromagnetic character …

Once these procedures have been completed, drink the water slowly with your eyes closed.

Properly understood, our entire life is a pilgrimage of the lower “I” to the higher “I.” Whosoever wants to change the caterpillar into a butterfly must first become spiritually acquainted with the thought of flying. Wings can grow from yearning. We should place the following motto above this step: “You and I are one!”

All the exercises pertaining to this idea arrange themselves around this sentence as the focal point. What is of the greatest importance here is the systematic transformation of your accustomed concept of time and space, the orderly separation from the traditional, and the bringing about of an extended encompassing “I” consciousness.

The Centrifugal Exercise

Immerse yourself into the following concepts, one after another:

(a) The base of a mountain
(b) An ocean wave
(c) A cloud
(d) The starry sky

You should feel yourself in these concepts subjectively rather than objectively, so that, spiritually, you become what they represent. Proceed as follows:

(a) The Base Of A Mountain: Stand with your eyes closed and your feet apart in such a manner as if you intended to anchor or root them into the ground. Remain motionless and, as intensely as possible, imagine that you are the mountain, your legs being the base. Forests grow on you. You are traversed by water veins; roaring life pulsates within you. You are one with the earth. You are a part of it and you feel its delights and pains: the glowing sun, the raging storm, even every pain is a delight, because it is life!

(b) An Ocean Wave: Proceed in accordance with the aforementioned instructions. Immerse yourself into the words “ocean wave” and what they represent. Take part in the surging and billowing of an infinite flood around the globe, independent and free of the soil, gliding freely and infinitely. Be the wave yourself, feel yourself as the wave!

(c) A Cloud: Follow the previous instructions; however, do this exercise sitting down in the same position as with the concentration exercise. Immerse yourself by imagining that you are floating freely, high above the ground, gorges and canyons. Look at the earth far below as a globe. Differentiate between the blue oceans, the green forests, the white snow lines of the glaciers. Look at the silvery threads of the rivers. Look above and see the eternal sun in an inexhaustible glow. (d) The Starry Sky: This is the most difficult exercise in this chapter. The best way to tackle it is in a position of rest. The best time is in the evening, when everything is quiet, possibly on a couch or in bed, before falling asleep. Immerse yourself in this concept: Imagine that the limits of your skin are the limits of the firmament. You yourself are the starry sky, with everything that is contained therein. Within you orbit the suns and planets, moons and comets. They orbit in majestic order and tranquility. Just as the blood flows in your body, that is how living currents of energy flow through the inner cosmos. And just as the spark of your thoughts is present as fast as lightning in your arm, head or leg, so will you also be present everywhere you want to be in the inner cosmos. “You are everywhere you want to be.”

When this exercise is properly executed, it brings with itself the sentience of perfected secure tranquility, which is beyond compare. Any burgeoning of unrest tells you that you have made a mistake somewhere, and that you should begin anew at another time. The next exercise serves that purpose.

The Infinity Exercise

In a proper position of rest, concentrate on a bright dot or light ray, for instance on a sun ray which falls through an opening in a curtain or a light ray from a lamp which you have to isolate through appropriate means. Look at it until the image is as clear as the original. In order to produce and control this image, it is sufficient to suddenly look away from the object and rest your eyes on a dark area, then change your position and call forth the image anew, until it fades and passes over into the imagination of infinite space. The next exercise is especially important.

The Higher Mirror Exercise

Learn to observe your entire external life as a reflection of your inner life. Everything that you encounter, everything that befalls you or happens to you is the answer to your inner state, to the inner readiness which you, on your part, bring to these things. Neither “good” nor “evil” are imposed upon you arbitrarily by an external moody power. You yourself, your higher “I,” sends these things to you in order to learn from them about their coming. In this manner, human beings and things are carriers of veiled messages which you have to understand in order to partake of their blessing. The person as such means nothing, but what he has to tell you means everything. Once you understand this and make it your inner possession, that person will be withdrawn from your life and disappear. Everything you experience is an outflow of your inner state of maturity. Even “immaturity” belongs to the above-mentioned inner readiness it calls for Divine Providence in order to come into knowledge. As soon as you change, as soon as your outlook changes, your surroundings take on a different appearance. Then, unconsciously, you are catling other things, and they must then cross your path.

The Fruit Of Your Thoughts

The fruit of your thoughts is one of the most important things about which you must be informed. Thoughts that you transmit are energy capital that you invest. They are coined forms which develop while alive. They are organisms to which you give independence by sending them out so that they can work for or against you in the causal sphere. Since they are electromagnetic energy systems, they attract the same elements so much more to the degree that they are equipped with thought-energy, and eventually, after they have done their work, they return to you like the Australian boomerang laden with either blessings or destruction. This return occurs in specific numerical intervals, where the I year periodic, the 7 year periodic, and multiples thereof are of particular importance.

Contemplate again and again the thoughts, intentions or deeds through which you have caused those things that you now experience, which at one time you sent to yourself, for they are the reflection which you have, so to speak, inflicted upon yourself. Analyze the people and things which you meet in respect to the question: Why do they reflect myself? Recognize yourself in other people (things), albeit from a higher point of view.

This peculiar reflection begins already with your immediate surroundings, with people and things in your proximity. Question yourself in respect to your own spouse, your friends, acquaintances, etc., why, especially why they have crossed your path. Recognize the guidance of your external life being conducted by your own higher inner life!

Respect and pay attention to even the smallest event. Do not believe that there are things in this world which are unimportant and meaningless. Everything is a tool, everything is an analogy.

When you are analyzing all these things and occurrences, also include the dream symbolism with which you have now become familiar and which is very essential. It will give you the most important information, because without the dream symbolism you will not be able to obtain a truly thorough understanding of what the intentions are here. The keys to this are concealed therein and their skilful employment must become habit. To recognize thoroughly and completely the great unity as an external sign, even on the smallest scale, practice the following exercise for at least a few weeks.

Help Yourself

This means: Perform all the work that belongs to your daily personal maintenance yourself. Make your own bed, clean and air your bedroom, wash all the dishes that you have soiled. Sweep, clean and dust. And as far as all your other (professional) duties allow, help with preparing meals; peel the potatoes, clean the vegetables, do the shopping. Furthermore, set the table, clear the table, participate in washing or drying the dishes. Of course everything is to be done as is possible within the scope of your particular personal circumstances.

You do not have to give any detailed explanations to other people in regards to your activities. Limit yourself by giving general answers. You will find the words which conceal the more profound nature of your activities without being in conflict with the truth. The external mechanical manual work is not of importance as far as this exercise is concerned, but the manner in which you do it is.

You have to do this with a cheerful mood and a happy, obliging heart. Practice an especially keen control of your thoughts. Never allow any feelings of weariness, boredom and criticism to cause you to abandon this exercise. Always keep this fact firmly in mind: that all visible things with which you come in touch are the body of God, His perceptual revelation, His outer garment. If you love God, you must also love all these things, you must love the Creator through creation. Fill your heart with this feeling, a feeling of sacred love, a love that does not appertain to the thing as such, but to the infinite might and cosmic energy that stand behind it, a love that is above all things.

As proof that you have completely reached this level, and have replaced the lower connection with the higher, do the following exercise at least once at this level.

The Elimination Exercise

Detach yourself from an object of which you were especially fond at earlier levels of your development and which was valuable to you, such as money or something representing a monetary value, particular treasures, such as works of art, jewelry, etc. Donate the particular object to a good, charitable purpose. Do this gladly, with an absolute inner renunciation. Always remember that the words “all things are yours” also applies to you. How can he who owns everything be inseparably bound to a single item?

When you make this offering, do it quietly, possibly unnoticed. The “recording angel,” to whom nothing is hidden, sees your most secret chamber. He sees the purity of your volition. He is, as in everything, also within you. Remember the poet Schiller’s words:

“Do not have your heart cling to goods
that adorn your life in passing.
Those who have possessions should learn to lose, those who are fortunate, should learn pain!”

Learn to lose, learn pain! You will be repaid a thousand times in the inner kingdom… When you make this sacrifice, as mentioned above, for the benefit of someone who is in need, in the end the other person is yourself. You make yourself a present of that which you are giving away. In the higher sense you do not lose it, even once. It remains in the circle of the great unity that surrounds you and the other person. Whether the other person is just as well informed as you are about these secrets of the spirit is not important. Everything depends upon your course of action and the manner by which you accomplish it.

The higher mirror exercise which is woven like a red thread through this whole step always directs your special attention upon the following.

The Secrets Of Names

You have already been informed that the name which an object carries is under no circumstances a “coincidence,” but is connected in the most peculiar manner with its inner being. You have had sufficient opportunities to obtain, when it comes to the vowels and the many action words (verbs) , clear illustrations of this inner connection.

Now learn to apply this to human beings. Know that the name which is given to a person is anything but unimportant and indifferent to his further development. It is, in a manner of speaking, the seal that is impressed upon him or her shortly after birth. It is a forming energy which accordingly affects his or her future nature. A name is destiny!

As a preliminary exercise, try to understand the names of certain things, such as “tree,” “soul,” “abyss,” or certain concepts such as “love,” “hate,” “mercy,” and “omnipotence” from the inner point of view. Make use of the hundred upon hundreds of opportunities that offer themselves to you every day to pursue such considerations, especially such words which, for one reason or another, leave you with an especially profound impression during the course of the day. Try internally to comprehend them analytically, try to understand the energies which are active within them, try to understand them as energies themselves. Then proceed with the names of people with whom you are somehow in contact.

The Magic Of Names

Always remember that the name of an individual is an impression which is conferred upon him or her shortly after birth, seemingly arbitrarily. Even the searching and finding of the proper name by the parents is in accordance with firm inner laws. The will of the parents is by no means as free as they themselves usually assume. However, they should always be aware that with this right of giving their children names, they exercise a destiny-determining might, and the responsibility of this act is not minute. Although they are only the mediators of a higher will, even mediators are obligated to act in accordance with their knowledge and conscience if they do not want to violate their duties.

The proper name is like a well-fitting garment that fits and suits the wearer better the longer he wears it. A human being grows, so to speak, into his name, and blessed is he who understands the deeper sense of his name and makes it his own.

It was of profound significance when, in ancient times, the victor who had conquered a powerful enemy took his name as well as his weapons. It is, in fact, of absolute importance that the last descendant of a dying family transfer his name to an adopted child in order to preserve the name.16 It is often the custom in North America to include, in addition to other first names, the name of some well-known person such as Washington, Luther, etc. The child receives through this a developmental tendency which he would not otherwise possess. Many people who immigrated to Germany gave their children ancient German names such as Siegfried, Sigurd, Sigrid, etc. This is definitely not a meaningless pastime, as assumed by many, but a deliberate attempt, unknown to most, to attract the secret energies of names for assimilation and conquest. It is no coincidence that such names are preferred which contain the auspicious syllable “Sieg,” which means victory.
 A name is not “sound and fury” if you understand it in this sense and consider its deep roots with the nucleus of the human character. It is therefore absolutely meaningful when, at a certain point in their development, human beings who undergo a particular astral training adopt a particular name which appropriately indicates their future activities and which is intended for use in an inner circle of developed brothers that are at the same level. Even you, my student and friend, should take such a name at the end of this course of instruction. Deliberate now by what name you wish to be known after the conclusion of the seventh step.

After you have this well thought out, direct your attention, as has been mentioned before, upon those human beings with whom you are connected. Observe them externally and then internally. What kind of symbols appear in connection with them on your horizon? Particular groups of people? Animals? Particular repetitions, orders, warnings? Why are they represented by these particular kinds of symbols? What should they tell you?

The macrocosm has something to say to you. It speaks to you in this manner and it speaks particularly insistently, otherwise it would not, and of this you can rest assured, send you these names.

It is also a good exercise to find out the common characteristics of the people with whom you share the same first name. Examine, for instance, all the people you know with the name Henry, John, George, etc., and what they have in common. Be assured that these common characteristics do exist. The same seal also determines the same developmental tendencies. Hone your psychological sight and you will find them. These common characteristics are often not only of the internal or character-logical kind, but also clearly express themselves externally in the behavior, facial features and attitude of the person in question.

Perfect And Imperfect Names

Furthermore, examine the individual names in respect to their perfection; the perfection in essence depends upon the vowels. A truly perfect name should contain all five vowels, even if they are contained in both the first name and the surname. The more a name meets these ideals, the more perfect it is; of course these names are very uncommon. The bearer of such a name has the greatest qualifications to ascend, all by himself, to a high degree of inner perfection without any particular participation from other people. As a rule you will find in him a high degree of emotional harmony and an inner-resting happiness, or at least you will find within him the beginning signs of or disposition to this inner harmony.

However, the more a name lacks any of these five vowels, the more the person requires the help of others, a completion through other people, for his or her development. And the blessing of this cooperative effort is again dependent upon the degree of reciprocal complementation of the names. If your name only contains the vowels e and i, the vowels a, o and u must be supplied in order to complement this name. Should this not be the case, and you only receive an a, o or u, or two of these vowels, then the complementation is not complete and you will therefore not achieve perfection, or you will reach perfection only under very difficult circumstances.

This is one of the great laws. Examine it: apply it by questioning it in regards to your marriage, your friendships, relatives and other relationships such as business, etc. You will make the most peculiar and surprising discoveries. Do not be discouraged by the peculiarity and unusualness of this procedure.

In the beginning, most of the profoundest truths are peculiar to human beings. You can in this manner and without much difficulty attain unexpected, appropriate insight into the fortunes or misfortunes of marriages, the harmony or disharmony among friends. From a new point of view that will not deceive you, you can evaluate your professional connections and the relationship with your fellow workers. At times you will see that a missing vowel is provided by the birth of child, which is instinctively perceived as a necessity and added by the parents to the child’s name. And this child then holds together a marriage which was on the verge of breaking up and mends it anew. But you will also find the opposite: If a woman has the same vowels as the man, which are already contained in his name, then the marriage will very rarely last. The same polarity will repel. The same applies to all the other closer relationships among human beings. Observe therefore the conditions and circumstances of professional, political and other cooperative efforts or collaborations. Also examine the reciprocal connections between the different countries. Maybe you will reach the conclusion that Europe (= Europa) is an inseparable unity which cannot be harmed without punishment. Perhaps you will realize that it is an organism which is placed under the sign of the cross, of which Germany (Deutschland, pronounced “Doitschland”) is just as much an indispensable member as any other country.

Therefore let me reiterate: Every human being is a unique incarnation of the heavenly word and can find his own cause and become conscious of himself by immersing himself into his inner self and viewing the many thousands of images of the external world as what they are and what they want to be: reflections (mirages) , reflexes of internal circumstances and procedures, a world of pictures with which you are confronted and with which you can compare things for the sole purpose of becoming cognizant, especially cognizant of yourself. An ancient Indian proverb says: “The universe exists only for the sake of your soul.” This must be properly understood.

The Destiny Of The Departed

As soon as you have reached the highest level of cognizance in your present incarnation, the entire illusionary surroundings around you disappear, the flow of pictures by means of the senses ceases, the illusionary day that surrounds you becomes extinguished, and you are left alone with the quintessence of your life. If you have taken the phantasmagoria of the abundant external formations as genuine, and you have not recognized the illusion in the existence, and you have taken the picture only as a symbol, but did not grasp the meaning, then you are not mature enough for the great awakening which stands at the end of the development of the realm of human possibilities. You remain more or less an obedient student who is being sent to the same class again and again until he has understood that the things which pursue him, that frighten him or make him happy, always in accordance with the seeds he has sown, are pictures. They are pictures with which his unawakened soul surrounds herself until the time has come when the soul incarnates again.

Only while you are here, in other words during your physical life, can you awaken out of the illusionary dream which is called the “world.” The longer you remain here, the more the great reflection (mirage) will leave you, and you will learn to see consistently, with greater clarity, from countenance to countenance. For you, the moment of death is nothing more than an easy passing over from a cloudy sphere into the kingdom of complete harmony, just as all the ocean storms affect only the upper surface levels of the water, but never reach the blissful quiet depths. Whosoever has developed these depths within himself, whose consciousness has descended, or rather ascended, to these depths, has outgrown all sufferings and all transitoriness; he has become pure spirit and entered into the kingdom of abundance because he is the All and the All is within him…
Therefore, my friend, take account of how close you have come to this exalted goal. Are you reconciled with your destiny, completely and honestly? Have you recognized its sense? How far have you developed the “eternal human being” within yourself, whose seat is never the sophistic intellect but the depth of the heart?

The Heart-God Devotion

You have already noticed earlier the importance of the center of your astral heart for the lasting connection with the outer spirit. By now you have understood that this outer spirit has created for himself other centers in which he symbolically reflects himself, centers that are many thousands of times more powerful than your little human heart. Above all, the center which is closest to us is the sun. Just as the beat of your heart drives the vital currents through your body and keeps the physical revelation process going, the sun is also a point of cosmic concentration whose will drives tremendous electric currents of energy through the planetary spheres. The sun is the heart of a celestial body which has a beat and rhythm as your own, a body in which the planets with all their micro-organisms are incorporated, just like the limbs and organs in your body. And let us say it again: your heart is the turnover or cardinal point, and through its mediation this heavenly center keeps you continuously alive. When it sets at night, you fall asleep and enter into the dominion of the moon and other constellations which, during the day, are drowned out by the superior influence of the sun.

All of this applies only to your mortal physical body. Once its time has expired, when the built-in clockwork has run out, the physical body decomposes and helps to form new organisms. You, however, have begun to form a new immortal body for whom the sun does not set. You have ignited within yourself the higher consciousness to which even the night can do no harm. You strive towards the inner, omnipresent, cosmic sun which shines behind and above all the physical suns, the “sun” for which the sun on our firmament is no more than a symbol.

But as you know, symbols have a deeper significance. They are to be our illuminating fires of far-away native shores. In the spiritual kingdom, we are to find our way back to them, from which we became so severely estranged through the “fall into matter.” Let the sun be an image to you, a symbol of the sacred heart of God which offers itself day after day as a sacrifice so that we can live, a sun that dispenses currents of fire upon the worlds, so that what we sow may mature and our hearts continue to beat until they are demanded from us at the time of the Great Harvest.

And they also have another reason, these great and high symbols of the cosmos. While we spiritually connect with them, as we say, we revere and honor these high celestial powers within ourselves, those which formed us, those which united for our formation and maintained our energy. Yes, and even more than that, through this connection we draw down to ourselves the energies which they represent, and cause them to unite with us to a greater extent. The ancient axiom: “What is above is also that which is below” experiences here its practical effect and application. The thought which we direct towards these spiritual regions is the cable that connects us with these higher powers and makes us inseparable and forces its awakening, cleansing and exalting currents upon us.

Implementation: Face the rising sun and do the following in sequence.

Appellation, Sun-Breathing And Sun Meditation

Appellation: After you have composed yourself, stretch your arms to the side, whereby you may imagine that you emulate with this gesture the world-encompassing posture of the sun. Then speak words such as these, slowly and fervently:

“Ignite me, fiery heart of God,
Find me, glowing fire of God,
As you rise above the universe, so rise in me.
Heal me, my Savior, of that which is mortal,
Hold me, my Holy One, in your light.
Shine eternal love into my heart.”

While in the same position, but with your eyes closed and only if you feel the urge, continue with the following exercise:

The Sun-Breathing Exercise: Face the sun in such a manner that it shines directly in a straight line onto your face, possibly directly into your mouth, which should be slightly open. Inhale long slow breaths of the sun’s energy. Imagine with the greatest of liveliness that you now unite with this exalted soul of the sun, and that you draw this soul down to you and draw her into you. Let this imagination become totally plastic, so to speak, so that you can touch it. Understand that the sun’s energy becomes a part of you, the sun’s soul flows through the respiratory ducts into the center of your heart, awakens it, anneals it thoroughly and from there spreads throughout the entire body. Feel the trickling, the rushing, even up to the finger tips; everywhere, even the smallest cell of your body takes part in this pervading flow. You will learn to know very particular, peculiar and blissful feelings. It is at the same time an inductive current which is awakened within you in this manner. Yes, it is even far more than that these are spiritual energies which come forth within you through this contact exercise. All of this you must learn to comprehend internally if it is to come to its full effectiveness.

Once you have progressed and if you have done your exercises properly, you no longer require the sun visibly in order to reach your goal. Remember that any daylight, no matter how much it is dispersed, originates from the sun, whether the sun is visible to your eyes or not. Now begin with the Sun Meditation.

The Sun Meditation: Take up your usual meditation posture. Bring about the appropriate concentration. If you want to bring about the desired state more perfectly, you can place some cotton into your ears and immerse yourself into the idea: “The heart of the sun is within me!”

Produce the following picture within you, namely a sun center that is located in the region of the heart around which the energies of your organism revolve.

Look at this center as a wheel, as a fiery swastika which is in a state of continuous rotating motion
 and which is permanently connected
through a fine cord, similar to an umbilical
cord, with the sun center that is located
outside of you.

Meditate on the sentence “Heart of the World.” Experience how your consciousness shifts more and more from the narrow “I” to the spacious “I,” how the borders of your being expand cosmically, and finally you will feel within yourself the beating and pulsating celestial sun.

You will succeed with this exercise differently on different days. In accordance with the degree of your ability to concentrate, you will sooner or later reach your goal for the first time. However, you have to practice this exercise only in the morning; you cannot practice it in the afternoon. You cannot circumvent this exercise. Always remember that as far as you are concerned, if the sun is never to set for you, then you must ignite the sun within yourself. This is an allegory, but it is more than an allegory.

Spiritual Travel

The light shines without restraint through seemingly infinite realms to our earthly sight. And the more you become light, the more you realize that space is not what it seemed to be for such a long time, but instead it is only a symbol of what is behind it, which is important to comprehend. You realize more and more that the borders of a room no longer apply to you the moment you no longer acknowledge them, that they actually disappear when you want them to. If you became light, if you created your light body, all the royal kingdoms of the heavenly Father would be open to you and you could travel through them in accordance with your desires, whether these royal kingdoms be spatial or of thought; yes, thinking is also a creation in space-forms.

Continue with your exercises in regards to spiritual travel. Make use of the technique which was explained in the Fifth Letter and progress step by step. Once you have achieved the state of concentration, focus in on your goal, practice the imagination exercise and let the vacuum of the silent waiting follow. Select as an object of your exercise a human being and objects from your immediate and distant surroundings, from the circle of your acquaintances and your professional life, from your own hometown or from far-away places. A pictorial representation, perhaps a photograph, etc., of a particular person will serve this purpose especially well. Place it in front of you at the beginning of the exercise or bring it into contact with your solar plexus. A small object which the individual has carried on his person will do. But you are by no means dependent upon all these things.

The best time for such attempts is at night, after sunset, especially the hours around midnight.

The question you might ask in regards to the other person should be formed precisely and exactly, so that there can be no doubt in regards to the sense of the question.

Should you not be dealing with a person upon whom you wish to concentrate, but if the subject of your interest is not an actual person, you will be well advised to envision the question in large fiery letters on a black velvety background.

Beware of all unnecessary questions. Beware of any harmful thoughts which you could send to others on this occasion. Remember that the concentration imparts an extraordinarily increased efficacy to everything you think. As soon as you enter into this heightened state, you take on a very great responsibility. With the first harmful thought you let pass, you leave the brotherly chain and draw the merciless reprisal of the “recording angel” upon yourself. Should you not feel strong enough or mature enough to act accordingly at this point, then refrain from these exercises in their entirety. In any case, you would be well advised to begin these exercises with an introductory concentration upon these words: “My heart is full of love for all human beings!”

The Cosmic Question

As soon as you have penetrated into the practice of these procedures to a certain degree, you will make the observation that you no longer require such cumbersome preparations as you did in the beginning in order to bring about the state of concentration. Eventually you will be able, in accordance with your wishes, to bring this about even amidst many people, such as in restaurants, meetings, etc.

The Father hears the son wherever he may be, and gives him an answer that he has asked for in his heart. He speaks to all human beings and answers their thousands of anxious, bitter and humble questions but most of them have not learned to pay attention to His words and to understand His language. Mostly they do not even know “who” and “what” they actually are themselves. They have given up their royal birthright for a pottage of lentils, a so-called “enlightenment.”

Now you have advanced to a certain point and have gained a certain experience, which means that you have developed so far as to gain the ability to associate and speak to your higher self at any time without preparation. If you require an answer in a serious matter, ask without fear, ask with assurance that you may receive an appropriate response. Exercise your highest birthright and wait; be assured that you will receive an answer. It will come to you in the form of a symbol, a person, an animal, a situation, an expression, a lightning-fast inner enlightenment, etc. It is always entirely clear and easy to understand, provided of course that you have familiarized yourself with the expressions of this cosmic language.

You will never fail, never be misguided, when you place your entire outer life under the guidance of such a higher will that speaks to you, which is none other, if you understand this properly, than your own will.

Belief As Potency Of The Will

The spiritual mechanism of this question and answer game works much more easily and more promptly the more ardently you are convinced of and pervaded with its constant preparedness. The answer which you receive, of course, will be entirely different than you expected; it will occur even in the instance where it is not believed; it will occur with the infallibility of a divine law of nature. Belief is the highest and finest form of the human will; it levels the inflowing current of the cosmic energies of answers, so to speak, into a path. Whosoever believes in the right things and in goodness wants to have these higher cosmic powers, this higher will, in his deepest Innermost. Whosoever does not believe in this does not want this, perhaps he even deceives himself with all kinds of sophisms in regards to the actual motive of his non-belief. Today many people no longer believe in themselves, at least not in the sense as it is mentioned here, because they have not yet found themselves or have been defeated by the deception of the forces of destruction, who have told the searching masses tall tales, believing and proving with a tedious superficial science that a human being is “only an animal,” and therefore it is unnecessary to entertain and satisfy any needs which reach above that. The people of the nations of the world have been subjected to this rhetoric until they finally believe it, and they have become easily guided objects of self-motivated politics.

Only an awakened human being, that is, only one who has understood himself to be the embodiment of the heavenly word is actually the one capable of true belief in the highest and most sacred sense. Nobody can see the light who has not developed it within himself. And nobody can imagine it who has not been called. In the period in which we now live, many are called…

The Pilgrimage

The high creative light, which has solidified into visible forms, is beginning its pilgrimage around the terrestrial sphere, in order to gather, in a chain of dreams which is also called life, individual experiences and to fulfill individual tasks. As soon as the dreamer awakens and realizes the deception, thus begins his return to God. From this moment on, all form is only a mere illusion to him and can no longer captivate him. And as the sun travels and shines above “good” and “evil,” so you too, my friend, travel when you have attained the knowledge and changed your surroundings and your garment, as a symbol of your indestructible self which remains the same in any kind of form. The pilgrimage of your life will result in a visible allegory.

Implementation: Dress in the most unattractive clothes you possess and engage in an activity which, if possible, is different than your own. If you work in an office or intellectually, then find work either through an acquaintance in your town or anywhere else, and let that work be heavy farm labor, garden work, construction work, etc., that does not suit your abilities. Should you have no other possibilities, then take time for it during your holidays or any other free time you might have, as long as this work is not part of any other duties you might have.

During this time span, it would be very desirable if you were to come into contact with people of other professions and settle completely into their surroundings. Remain silent in respect to your deeper motives. Take part in their worries, wishes and inclinations. Do this reservedly with the thought: God also made these human beings, so that they can work and live their lives; they are just as valuable parts of God’s body as you yourself.

You have a free hand as to the closer formation of this pilgrimage; you can adapt it in accordance with your circumstances. Trade, farming, factory work will give you many possibilities, and you can easily find this out.

It would also be greatly advantageous for your higher purposes if you could find an opportunity and make yourself available to your “enemies” those who envy you, your competitors and be of some kind of service to them. A pilgrimage is much more a pilgrimage the more you voluntarily place a burden upon yourself. Be conscious that the smallest activities you undertake have their mystical significance, which the world does not see. Allow your eyes to open up to this kind of experience. Your Father’s house is full of surprising miracles.

This exercise is not complete as long as you feel a shadow of antipathy within you. Whatever that feeling is to which you are unaccustomed, whether it be exertion or a strange Circle of people, it is not transformed into light and has not been melted with purification, or, using ancient terminology, “God’s Love.” Only when you have fully surrendered yourself, when you have experienced the swelling joyousness, the inner jubilation within you which cannot be mistaken for any other feeling, only then has the goal of this exercise been reached, and you can strive towards the next step.

Close your day, the end of the day, alone or together with others, with the following recitative:

The Candle Psalm

I am a flame that shines eternally,
I am a breeze that never scatters,
I am the light that existed from the beginning. Holy, holy, holy is My name.

I am the voice in the great stillness,
I am the question and I am the answer, I am the spirit Who will live eternally. Holy, holy, holy is My name.

I am the love and the all-merciful,
I am the lightning that unites heaven and earth, I am the immovable, the uncreated.
Holy, holy, holy is My name!

Implementation: When you perform the recitative, a white candle should be lit.

The words in bold letters should be sung in a festive, solemn tone, with the same tone as the A in the OM exercise (the Fifth Letter). Both of these words must reverberate in their entirety. The remainder of each verse must be uttered slowly in a calm pathos. The following words are spoken: “a flame that shines eternally,” “a breeze that never scatters,” etc. Also the words at the end of each verse “Holy, holy,” etc.

Should you a have a piano available or any other instrument, then the words should be accompanied by the appropriate chord, as for instance with the introductory chord of the OM exercise of the Fifth Letter. Also, the final sanctification can be accompanied by the appropriate chord, just like at the end of the OM exercises.

SEVENTH LETTER 
RISE UP AND BECOME LIGHT

The Double Countenance Of Human Beings

Recognize, O human being, the profound analogy of your body. There is no limb, no part of your body which does not have something of its own to say to you, something in particular. You are a boundary being, a being between two worlds, and if you view yourself from this point of view, you will realize that you are put together out of two halves which express very clearly their double origin and double determination. Did it ever reach your consciousness that you have an upper and a lower face? That the middle section of your body lies approximately at the height of your navel, and signifies a section between two worlds?

The lower face encompasses all the organs and parts of the body which occupy themselves with the elimination of waste and with animal procreation. The lower face has a nose, a mouth, lips, cheeks, yes, even eyes (the reproductive glands). You will find, if you examine it carefully, surprisingly exact analogies between the upper and the lower organs and also between their manner of activity. The analogies extend so far that conclusions from the lower to the upper are allowed in regards to many details and individual peculiarities and vice versa.

The lower face is your earthly face; it is the earth and it is turned towards the lower pole and its functions serve the lower; the lower mouth eliminates the waste which no longer serves you, but serves the earth. The lower nose serves sexual stimulus, which weakens you but which serves the existence of your race. The lower nasal cavity of the woman has become the birth canal through which the mature fruit is ejected. The lower eyes are blind as long as they do not gain their sight from the spark from above. The entire lower face is the distorted grimace of the upper face, your heavenly face. It is the symbol of the animal to which you are chained bodily as long as you live. At the same time you have been grown together out of two bodies, of which the lower one signifies your corporeal origin as a picture, and the upper one signifies your spiritual path. Our human ancestors became cosmic beings when they accepted the upright gait as a permanent possession. They stretched their heads upwards into the free air and saw the skies and the stars, and the skies and stars became theirs. The spirit of the universe overshadowed them and ignited a light in their Innermost and it became master of the animalistic companion and enabled the blessed to be immortal. They found speech, they found singing and devotion. For many thousands of years they were ashamed of their lower brother with whom they were joined; they struggled with him to no end and hid him shamefully from the light of the day, until finally the hour had come when he was to be delivered through the “love from above.” He was delivered to serve. And behold, today this hour has come.

The Analogy Of The Limbs

Examine the analogy of your limbs. If the heart is the sun of your body, then the limbs are the symbols of the six main planetary energies that form your organism, including the moon. The whole, the holy number, is seven, which became flesh and ruled your life.

Stand upright with your feet apart and your arms stretched upwards to the side. In your imagination:

(a) draw a straight line between your hands and from each hand a straight line to the sexual pole, then
(b) a straight line between your feet, and then
(c) a straight line from each foot to the head.

The result will be that you have two triangles that penetrate each other, one with the apex downward and the other with apex upward. These two triangles form the creative sigillum which has since ancient times been called Solomon’s seal. (Solomon’s or Salomon’s seal has nothing whatsoever to do with the person of Solomon; it is a threefold expression of three languages for the sun, Sol om on, namely sol (Latin), om (Sanskrit), and on (Chaldean).)

The first triangle strives towards the earth, the second upwards towards heaven. And this also contains a profound analogy. You are created out of the “lower” and the “upper,” or “below” and “above,” out of struggle and conflict, action and reaction, two energies which, so to speak, penetrate and intersect you. Heaven and earth embraced each other in order to call you into existence, O human being.

Symbolism Of Feet And Hands

Now address these things in detail. Observe your feet: they firmly cling to the ground and firmly keep you on the ground. The toes are turned downward to the earth; the inner half of the soles of your feet are traversed by starry, orderly lines. You walk on stars without being aware of it, as if the cosmos which arches below the earth immeasurably has thrown its reflected splendor upon you, as if the cosmos from whose lap you came forth has sealed you with his mark.

Now look at your hands. As awkward as your toes are, that is how finely structured your hands are. You have ten fingers and ten planetary energies including the sun, the moon and the earth, which determine and influence your life. The toes, undeveloped as they are, belong to the animalistic partner within you and the fingers with their fine structure give expression to your spiritual part. Each hand represents all nine principal energies of our solar system and you yourself are adding the tenth energy to the nine, namely the earth-energy. The currents, the influences of these energies, flow continuously over into you and through you; continuously they charge you with manifold graduated electric energies. Where do your thoughts originate? It is your responsibility to guard them, to order them so that the will of the universal spirit, the One who sent the thoughts to you, is properly served. Did you not become one with this, your higher will? As you know, thoughts are the inner expression of electrical current fluctuations of the universal will. To become one with this universal will means to become an active user and controller from a passive medium of these energies; it means no longer to be at its mercy, but instead, by assimilating with the Master of the universe, to become a master yourself.

The universe is external and internal. If you influence your Inner, your influence is effective on the outside all by itself, because everything is in the most intimate contact, the most intimate reciprocal action. “So God created man in His own image” points to the same fundamental truth, which therefore must be reiterated so seriously and urgently: “In the image of God created he him…”

Mysticism Of The White Light

If you reflect a sunbeam through a prism, it disperses into the seven main colors of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. All other shades are mixtures and combinations of these fundamental colors. You can imagine the fission of the divine white primordial energy into the seven main planetary energies in this same manner. It is not a coincidence, but has a profound foundation, that every planet has had a particular color bestowed upon it as a symbol.

Now pay special attention to the following: Animals and plants do not contain all the colors of the spectrum, but only certain colors, which means energies. Only human beings have all the colors united within them, at least in accordance with one’s aptitude. It is given to human beings, by taking the proper path and by living an appropriate lifestyle, to develop the radiating white light within oneself and consequently to consciously find the way back to the exalted unity, and hence out of the colorful multitude of shape, forms and personalities. However, you must comprehend the significance of this.

The Candelabrum With Seven Branches

You know the beautiful symbol of the candelabrum with the seven branches, illuminated by seven candles, that adorns our festive days. Know that this holy symbol originated from ancient temple wisdom which was passed on to our present day and, today as well as then, has its profoundest justification. You yourself are and should be this candelabrum with the seven branches, upon which the energies of the Universal One glow in seven beams, until you succeed in uniting them again with the one Light above all lights, and time and the world will disappear for you as a dream…

And just as the two visible ends of the spectrum have an invisible continuation to the naked eye the infrared and the ultraviolet light so the planetary energy symphony is perfected and completed through the lately discovered planets, Uranus and Neptune, and has increased to nine. You recognize the holy Nine as the completion of the Seven.

The Old And New Aristocracy

You will find a peculiar reflection of these mysteries of the ancient past on insignias, emblems or coats of arms of nobility, the so-called crowns of nobility. You know that the lower aristocracy had crowns with five pearls, the barons had crowns with seven pearls, and counts had crowns with nine pearls. The pearls are fastened on a circlet (coronet) which is placed onto the head. Today these have become meaningless baubles; the people who own these crowns are no longer aware of their ancient secret significance.

The golden circlet upon which the pearls are fastened symbolizes divine omnipotence, as it is incorporated in the sun. The pearls are the planets that revolve around the sun. Five planets correspond also with the thought that is reflected in the pentagram. Whosoever controls the ancient well-known planetary energies (Jupiter = wisdom and goodness, Mars = desire, Venus = love, Mercury = intellect, Saturn = selfishness) has attained the right to wear the first simple crown with the five pearls. When Uranus and Neptune are added, a higher sense of reason and a higher level of love is added. Whoever masters these seven, has overcome them internally and made them his own, is not far from the uniting nine; whereas the moon symbolically represents the temporary (transitory) and the sun the higher (everlasting) self of a human being. It is truly a divine thing to honor the seven and the nine.

The ancient crowns have become meaningless; they had to fall, because the actual significance was lost. Should the time not be close wherein a new aristocracy, an aristocracy of the spirit, forges itself new crowns out of the old gold?!… If you want these thoughts to be practically expressed and have their blessing come to live within you, then practice the letter meditation.

I Am The A And The O

We must keep in mind that the letter forms A and O, as they have been passed on to us, conceal a profound meaning; they are not arbitrarily selected kinds of expressions for certain sounds, but more than that. They are gestures which, not without reason, are at the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet. They are corporeal signs and you have to learn their proper use. Stretch your arms obliquely in front of you so that they form a large A with its vertex lying within your torso or directly behind it. Lift your arms upwards and interlock your fingers as in a prayer and they form the letter O.

Then proceed with the meditation as follows: In a quiet hour, take seven white candles. Darken the room, arrange the candles side by side in one row, four to six inches apart, and then light them. Should you have the candelabrum with the seven branches, use it. Proceed with slow and devotional gestures. Say the following in a solemn and composed manner when you light the first candle:

“Solidified into a form from the fire-mist, the eternal flame shines in me…”

When lighting the second candle: 
”Cast off and slain in thousands of forms, I awakened, I, myself to myself!”

When lighting the third candle: “I traveled far…”

When lighting the fourth candle: “Home is near…”

When lighting the fifth candle: “My heart, jubilate…” When lighting the sixth candle: “Crown your gates…”

When lighting the seventh candle: 
”Breathe immortality, take your crown! Rejoice! Rejoice! O soul!”

Now distance yourself by a few steps from the lit candles, lower your arms, internally assume the usual meditation posture and strongly imagine that you are a pillar of white light. Once the picture becomes plastic, then sing, solemnly and subdued in the manner described earlier, the words:

“I am…”

Now form with your arms the letter A as aforementioned, and continue in the same tone:

“The multitude…”

When you perform this exercise, imagine that an infinite abundance of worlds and formations emanates from you. Be at the same time the sun which sends out currents of light and energy and produces life a thousandfold. Relish this thought, let it become alive within you! You yourself are in all those thousands of forms or shapes! Then form the O as aforementioned, closing your arms by raising them above your head in the form of a ring by interlocking your fingers, as if you were praying, and continue to sing: “I am the unity!
Holy, holy, holy is My name!…”

Remember this well: that the A is to be practiced at the beginning of the exercise and the O at the end. The creation of the universe began with the fission of the Universal Spirit into the multitude of individuals, and it will end with the return of these individuals to the Great Unity, after a long course of enjoyment and suffering. Just as the colorful multitude of the letters of the alphabet is initiated by the extended arms of the A, it will end with the redeeming circle of the concluding O.

The Significance Of Folding Your Hands

You will learn to know the deeper significance of folding your hands while praying. The more a human being moves his arms, the more energy he wastes needlessly; he incessantly throws away little invisible particles of energy that are then lost to him. A person who wants to gather and compose himself must fold his hands. Through this gesture, he himself will benefit from those escaping energies. The left and the right hand have different polarities. When they are interlocked, they impregnate each other; that is, there is an exchange of current which is to the advantage of the person praying. That which would otherwise be needlessly wasted now serves one’s inner development. Anyone who is exhausted and sits quietly, closes his eyes, folds his hands and breathes calmly and slowly will quickly notice in his own body a significant increase in energy.

The length of the aforementioned meditation exercise is not as important as its proper execution. Do this only when you are in the proper frame of mind. It will be easily ascertainable when the goal of this exercise has been reached.

Once more, observe the contrast between your hands and feet. The feet are plump and not as finely articulated. The hands are slender-boned and inspired by inner life. The feet are directed towards the motherly lap of the earth, the hands upwards to the sun. Remember: The more spiritual the character of a human being, the finer the bone structure of his hands and the more plentiful will be the universal runes which line the palms of the hands.

The cosmic spirit, your father, imprints His heavenly seal into both of your hands. They outline your career, the stations of your life, everything you touch upon; they mark the crucial points at which, in accordance with your will, you must make the great decisions and which determine your further development through future incarnations or your eventual deliverance from the obligation of rebirth.

Have you ever noticed that the writings or lines of the right hand are different from the left? Make the effort to compare them. Should you be experienced in chirology, then you know that the lines in the left hand represent that share of your spiritual inheritance which has been handed down to you; in other words, they represent the tendencies and possibilities that you brought with you from earlier incarnations, whereas the right hand indicates what you will do with these possibilities. Therefore, the right hand indicates how far you have awakened spiritually and how far you have consciously prepared yourself for the life plan which God has designed for you.

When you fold your hands, you join your past with your future and meld both into one unity; you form a closed ring, an eternal presence that is removed from time. The left is the enduring hand and the right hand the active one, and only together do they form an organic whole. And here we touch upon a universal secret which requires an explanation.

God’s Biform

The uncreated spirit reveals Himself in two forms; He has two faces, both of which are of equal importance, and they are only perfect when united. They are called the male and female principle, or God the Father and God the Mother. What science specifies as positive and negative electricity, as positive and negative magnetism, is the expression of the very same duality. What we call day and night, life and death, is based on the same principle. The living produces works and personifies the “male principle”; the dying sacrifices itself entirely and personifies the “female principle” in its highest potency. Everything that has ever been created, the entire world of formation, is subject to this law. It has its day and its night, whether that be suns, planets and moons, or plants, animals and human beings. Everything which we call “life” comes forth solely from this contrast, this mutual struggle between two fundamental energies which do not find their fulfillment and highest determination through the defeat of one and the victory of the other, but in their equilibrated harmony, in the perfection of their equilibrium.

There is no single thing in existence which is only male or only female. The struggle of the two energies takes place in the organism of the human body more so than anywhere else, so that it therefore becomes the scene of action of cosmic revolution. If we take an overview of the development of human civilizations, the ups and downs of nations in history, we become aware that at certain times the father-energy or father deity has had the upper hand in the consciousness of human beings and enjoyed the higher worship, while at other times the mother-energy or mother deity has prevailed. In the south of Europe, you will find to this day a worship of the Virgin Mary which represents a strong memory of the ancient Mother of the Universe, who was held in high esteem by all the nations of the world under many different names. Her name was Isis in ancient Egypt; to this day she is called Kwan Yin in the Far East; in other places she is called Maya or Maria; in all these instances you are dealing with the same superior universal thought. Is not the Madonna portrayed standing on the crescent of the moon and surrounded by a wreath of stars even to this day? Ancient cosmic symbols sparkle, but most of the devout are completely unaware of them as such.

The World As Love Mystery

Man and woman are the division of God. Their eternal seeking and finding each other, separating from each other and finding each other again, determines all life; in truth this is a high love mystery. God the Father is on the whole not thinkable without God the Mother. He would be only half of a whole, and hence imperfect. The eternal procreating father-energy requires an eternal, conceiving, form-giving, bearing mother-energy. You may call the former primordial Spirit and the latter primordial substance; here the fundamental truth is of importance, not the name.

Without love, the world could not exist. What allows the celestial bodies to rotate in blissful rhythm around their central points, what allows the planets to revolve around the sun, what allows the negatively charged electrons to revolve around the positive atomic nucleus, can only be love!

Everything you see around you as “life,” from birth to the grave, is set and kept in motion by love. Attraction and repulsion are two components and they do not form a unit until they work together. The birth of any organism is the birth of a sequence of love, its death a passing over into another sequence. Being properly prepared for death means to train yourself for a new and higher sequence of life. Therefore anyone who has loved only himself will find it very difficult to die. Show me how you die, and I will tell you who you were.

Man and Wife Within You

The world is made of fire and water, light and darkness, yes and no.

The earthly concepts of “father” and “mother” are the lower mortal symbols of an infinite, much more profound, and higher pair of divinity and energy which stand behind and above, in which the unrecognizable oneness reveals itself. They meet again and again, struggle with each other, balance each other and produce together the symbol of their harmony, the child. When this is properly understood, it is a high symbol, the highest of all to one who is truly cognizant. However, understand that while you are in your human, earthly reality, you are prolonging suffering in an endless chain. What child has not been born to suffer?!

The true mystery of generation lies not in external but in inner procreation.

You know that there is not one being which is only male or only female; this applies to human beings as well. Observe the nipples of a man and the facial hair of a woman. And how often do you find a male spirit in a female body or a female spirit in a male body? We are hermaphrodites and, in love, a whole man strives for a whole woman. That occurs in the external as well as in the inner love which takes place in the sanctuary of your body. The wisdom of old age rests essentially upon this inner love; the primary sexual orientation subsides and the suppressed secondary sexual orientation comes forth. The completion once sought for on the outside is sought for on the inside; and it is found. An inner procreation takes place, which renews, delivers and liberates the old human being if he is able to master it.

Mystical Love

Whoever has passed through the mystical death, and I hope you have done so, no longer sees in external procreation the crown and goal of his life. Whoever has found the divine lady does not require female servants. He regards them as messengers, symbols or analogies, but knows himself to be independent of the compulsion to procreation which controls the whole world. What he loves is no longer the human being, but the deity, which approaches him in the form or shape of this or that person and speaks to him through the mouths of different human beings. It is the deity which he, at the same time, carries and feels within himself.

In other words, he no longer cares about the external reflections which disappear in the space of time like smoke, but procreates with the divine energy within himself, the immortal child, the inner Christ. The Very Holy Three

Here now lies the mystery of the time-honored number three. God the Father within you as the procreating will and God the Mother within you as the illuminated Holy Ghost with her eternal virgin soul, procreate in mystical love the Divine Child, the son, which again is you yourself, your higher, immortal God-I. Draw an equilateral triangle and you will then have the appropriate symbol of this procedure. It can only be understood in words by those who have lived through it and gone through this process internally. The trinity which is taught by the old religions indicates nothing else but the Holy Three.

Now, there are certain steps which you can take to promote and support this inner spiritual birth which is the actual goal of religious development. Everything these letters want to teach you essentially serves this goal. Beautiful pictures of the Madonna that you view with the proper attitude and upon which you concentrate will serve you well, in addition to good pictures of Christ that represent the living, blessing, or resurrected Christ and not, of course, the crucified Christ. Christ should not remain on the cross within you, but should be awakened. He has been crucified long enough. The time has come wherein He must be taken off the cross and placed in His proper place, in the seat on the right hand of God. Meditate on “the Christ in me,” whether you acquire an insight into Him in human form or whether you feel Him as the sun within you which rises over evil and good. Or meditate on words such as “eternal love,”‘ “blissfulness,”‘ “mercy and light.” The Cross Exercise: “The Vital Water” *

Preliminary remark: Your male-female nature reveals itself in many details in the structure of your body, which you must discover, at least in part, by yourself. Pay attention to certain important symbolisms. The vertical line has always been the expression of the concept of the male, whereas the horizontal is the expression of the female. Meditate on why this must be so. When you draw a cross, it represents the collaboration of the male and female principles, and where both lines intersect is logically the point where the creative energy is strongest and where it immediately becomes effective.

If you spread your arms sideways in a horizontal direction, you form this mystical cross; you yourself are a representation of man and wife in reciprocal action. Your own body, your own Inner, becomes the scene of action of the creative activity of both fundamental energies. There are gestures, positions or postures of the body which contain a greater meaning than that which is understood superficially through a point of view that is coarsely or mechanically inclined. Yes, bodily functions are at times the cover of a higher spiritual principle which will only blossom in you when you have matured!

If the preponderance within you is male and if you are, through your upbringing, inclined to male activities, it is of necessity first to strengthen, develop, and practice the female energies within you. This occurs by getting in touch with the universal cosmic female energy which exists outside of you.

Implementation: Face south, close your eyes, and take the position of the cross. The palms of your hands face upwards and at the same time assume a receptive gesture. Now concentrate with your entire inner attention upon the central point in both palms of your hands. In a very short while, you will feel how the current of the astral light flows over and into you at this point. You feel a prickle, a suction, a very fine ripple of the highest and most peculiar nature. This perception has nothing to do with autosuggestion. However, this state can only be achieved if you are sufficiently prepared; otherwise this effort will be a waste. It would be without purpose to begin the second part of this exercise if you have not completed the first part.

In regards to the second part of this exercise, you have to be satisfied with indications, which will suffice to inform you enough, provided the “love from above” will help you. Know that the breathing process conceals a love mystery. Inhalation, exhalation, and breath-retention are the different phases of the procreational and birthing process. Its deeper significance will be revealed to you under the proper circumstances at the right moment.

Do you want to procreate the Divine Child within you? Then be worthy of the Divine Child…

The Significance Of Christmas

If you have penetrated deeply enough into these matters, then Christmas, along with many other things, will unveil itself as a highly meaningful analogy. An inner process is here appropriately characterized through an external symbolism. Ask yourself: Who is “Joseph”? Who is “Maria”? Why was this festival celebrated during the days which usher in the return of the sun for the northern hemisphere? Why does the Christ child come into the world in an animal stable? And what is your opinion about the profound symbolism of the Christmas tree, which now shint1s above our Yuletide festivities?

Contemplate these matters with your heart… If you have followed all of these instructions and have practiced them as they were intended, then you know what the sage wanted to say when he said: “Behold, all things are becoming new!”

From now on you stand perfectly happy and reconciled in the changing world of appearances. You have found the anchorage which can never be lost.

The Might Of Renunciation

You have already begun to make a peculiar discovery. You yourself are transformed, and with this transformation you attain everything that you do and say in a transformed sense. Initially, it is a new and surprising power. Your thoughts and wishes begin to realize themselves in physical form before your very eyes, where and how and when you expect it the least. The fulfillment of old yearnings awaits you somewhere on your path. The earlier slow pace of your life’s carriage increases unexpectedly into a fast gallop. It seems that the hindrances which have remained with you for so long have now fallen by the wayside. With your inner life, your outer life will change as well.

However, the word that you speak with full consciousness and will shall achieve an unrecognized significance. It becomes a cosmic order which brings serving energies or powers of a very high potency into motion. You will learn to see the magic of blessings in an entirely new light. With these new powers, you will load an immense responsibility upon your soul. Always be mindful of this, even when it comes to the most trivial matters in the course of your life!

The Teachings Of The Spiritual Vacuum

To reiterate the Arcanum of these effects is called renunciation. It is not a renunciation that is learned superficially or through autosuggestion, or a renunciation for selfish purposes, an imaginary renunciation, but an inner renunciation that is true and mystical, where it makes no difference whether one lives in poverty or wealth, humility or splendor, a renunciation through which the things of this world are in truth only a meaningless garment. Being perfectly happy or having no wishes whatsoever guards the entrance to these mysteries, and nobody will reach the inner sanctum of the temple who does not enter it with clean feet.

What happens in such a case is this: By not wishing for anything in regards to an occurrence, a vacuum is formed in the causal world. As little as outer nature permits a vacuum, neither does the spiritual world allow it; instead, it seeks to fill it as quickly as possible. This equalization can only lie in the fulfillment of that which you have chosen not to desire, because that is the thing which corresponds precisely with the vacuum.

You see, within all this you will find a contradiction with which you must somehow come to terms. When wishes that you no longer harbor fulfill themselves as a result of this renunciation, they are therefore no longer fulfillments of “wishes.” In other words: The fulfillment of a wish that has truly been renounced is a meaningless thing for the true mystic. And it should be! Here too, infinite wisdom knows exactly what she is doing; she lays the whole world at the feet of the mature human being. Only he knows how to properly make use of it, because he no longer takes more of the treasures of the world than what he requires for his higher tasks.

Universe Meditations

Go outside on a clear night and look for a quiet and protected place under the starry sky where you can be alone and undisturbed. Should it be winter, practice this meditation in your room, perhaps by a window. Begin by examining the most beautiful and largest constellations; remain longer with those that have the purest and strongest flames, for instance Sirius (in the winter) and Capella or Vega (in the summer).

Now assume the posture of directing your eyes towards the sky, the meditation position to which you have become accustomed. Within you, call forth one of the following concepts as plastically as you possibly can.

(a) The Heavenly Tree*: You are standing under an lmmense tree. You do not see the trunk or the branches because they are in darkness. However, the lights of thousands upon thousands of stars sparkle at the tips of the branches. Imagine this in the finest detail; number the stars with numbers which yet remain within your comprehension. You are standing in awe under an indescribably immense Christmas tree. The lights sparkle for the highest of celebrations: You were born to yourself, you were given to yourself as a gift. Should you not be grateful?

Stretch your arms out and speak the Lord’s Prayer slowly and solemnly into the radiant sky.

(b) God’s Matrimonial House*: The entire universe is God’s matrimonial house. All infinite life in the radiant vastness is the constant wedding celebration of the exalted One, wherein man and wife embrace each other. Man and wife are the poles that keep life in motion. Every light that you see is a song of triumph of the Loved One, past the infinity of space. Know this and feel this: God is Love!

You too fell from the colossal universal tree as a fruit, so that you can serve the High Love. Without this Love, you would not be. Without this Love, you would not exist. Within this lies your entire destiny, chosen and agreed upon by you. “He that remains in love remains in God and God in him!” Or, as the Bible says: “And he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.” (I John 4: 16). Penetrate more deeply into these thoughts. Allow them to penetrate you totally. Then begin the following exercise.

Star Breathing

Without losing sight of the whole, firmly envisage the most beautiful constellation in the heavens. Slowly inhale and let the following thought penetrate you as intensely as possible: “With this breath I inhale the power of love of the universe!” Be mindful that you are blood from the blood of the stars. Bear in mind that, through breathing, the cosmic currents of energy pass over into your circulatory system and immediately become blood and flesh within you. Bear in mind that through this star breathing you are inseparably integrated into the great chain of the universal cycle. Let these words come alive in you: “One with You, very holy God!…” Midnight Communion

When all the voices of the day are silent, your soul should be awake. When the exalted Mother spreads Her hands, your heart should be listening.

Unnoticed, convert a small table with a white or black tablecloth into an altar. Draw a perfect circle with coal or crayon, and in the circle an equilateral triangle, in such a manner that the tips of the triangle touch the circle. Place a white candle at each of these three contact points.

At the central point of the circle and triangle place a small piece of white bread, enough for one bite; in addition, place a cup of wine in the center with enough wine for one mouthful.

Ceremony: Now light the three candles while you speak in a low and solemn voice:

“In the name of the Father!” (light the first candle) 
”In the name of the Son!” (light the second candle) “In the name of the Holy Ghost!” (light the third candle)

Then kneel in front of this altar and immerse yourself in the holiness of the moment, and speak in a low and penetrating Voice:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God…” (Pause)

“Heavenly Father,
Creator, Preserver and Transformer of the Universe, be with me!” “Heavenly Mother,
holy Soul of the World,
Who has carried me in Her lap from the beginning, be with me!”

“O Son of God,
crucified by His own will,
slain, descended into the depths,
reborn in me by divine will,
risen from the dead,
risen to blissfulness,
has found his way home into his Father’s house!”

“Very holy Father, very holy Mother, with you I am united in life and death, I am united with You forever.”

Take the bread, eat and speak: 
”This is my body, which was given for all!”

Take the wine, drink it and speak: 
”This is my blood, which was shed for all! OM!”

Remain for a while in deep devotion, then get up, extinguish the candles, and remove the cloth with the circle.

Epilogue and Appeal

My brother, we have traveled a far distance. Should you have followed me from beginning to end, then you have passed through an external and inner development which, as intended, will leave permanent traces in your life. You have experienced a mystical transformation, a new spiritual birth which, like any new birth, is connected with pain and sacrifice, and without which the good to which we aspire cannot be reached.

In these letters I have attempted to give you absolutely as much as one can give to a stranger. I have expressed myself as clearly as it is allowed in respect to the difficult and responsible subject matter. I am fully aware that many things have been said concerning which you can only read between the lines and which, when taken seriously, cannot without reservation be placed in every hand. However, not only do books have their destiny, they also have their good angels. This book was written with the honest wish to help the sincere seeker, but will surely escape the keen eyes of dishonest contemporaries, who will be blinded to it. Besides that, it has been established from a purely psycho-technical point of view that no one who has not been called will reach this sanctuary. The admission to this sanctuary, thank God, cannot be purchased, obtained by trickery or coerced. It can only be facilitated through sacrifice and, of course, through the most demanding sacrifice of which a human being is capable. Whosoever intends to exploit these letters for selfish and immoral purposes will bite on granite or will inflict upon himself the greatest harm.

The echo which my attempt has found is not without promise. Many have already begun to enter upon the difficult path which I have indicated. And from these people, the invisible chivalry will be recruited which will work in secrecy and will form the guardsmen for the good in future spiritual struggles. Throughout entire countries where the Germanic tongue is spoken, scattered islands are coming into being which are independent of boundaries, representing purposeful unity for the struggle of the light, unassailable because they are not organized as visible alliances.

Much greater, however, are the numbers of those who have accepted these letters in sympathy without obligating themselves to their practical implementation. The reason for this is the inner resistance of the suspicious, mistrustful “modern human being” against anything which seems to be compulsory. But the basic requirement for success with these exercises lies precisely in the voluntariness of the devotion. There, the external circumstances of the esoteric exercise practice places hindrances in the path. For example, it is very difficult for those that are married to practice sexual abstinence for a longer period of time. But as a preliminary measure towards the aspired transformation, this sexual abstinence is absolutely necessary. It should be mentioned that it is a transitional stage which does not have to be adhered to as strictly once the goal has been reached.

Also, those people are mistaken who assume that these letters are a lifelong extinction of all enjoyment, and who thus commence a permanent asceticism which opposes all pleasure. Quite the contrary, the attempt is made here to bring forth the deepest values from life. Whosoever wants to be in the deepwater channel must, in order to find it, leave the mud-flats in which most of his fellow beings are so cheerful and satisfied and splash about totally unaware. Once he has reached this new point of view and has firmly ascertained this secure anchorage, he may be merry with the merry makers, human among human beings, so long as this is not understood as excess in any direction. Certainly the world and its “delights” will no longer have the same meaning to him as they do to other people.

It is a fact that hunger is the best cook. All those who overfeed, all those who have ruined their stomachs and their livers, this is for their enticement! Yes, even a meager life-soup gains a new, unimagined appeal when, for once, nothing is in the pot.

My dear reader, it goes without saying that these letters are imperfect, like everything that is written by human hands. Originally I had planned to follow these letters with an eighth and a ninth letter in order to remove some of this imperfection. However, the time to complement these letters has not come yet. That is why, for the time being, the Seven Letters remain. I have, however, taken care for the completion of their content.

I am certain that nobody will read them without benefit, even when he does not draw any practical conclusions. One or the other truth will be impressed upon him and will never be lost again. Our temporary soul is ill and requires a physician. She is ill because of a madness for money and competition. Nations, classes and individuals suffer severely because of it.

What we would require would be quiet islands, far away from everyday life, where the healthy equilibrium of souls would be established again upon anew, stable and sound basis. Not “sanatoriums” where, through electrical currents, massage, and rest-cures the sinful body is energized for new sins. Not psychoanalytical healing institutions whose main weapon is the systematic unraveling of erotic experiences and desires, placing a particular emphasis on the animal instead of overcoming it.

I am speaking of free cloisters which make it their responsibility to retrain and return the soul to her own high nature, of free cloisters in which the world-weary and disillusioned, the life pilgrim hungry for God and spirituality, may find refuge for a while (and not just for a short period of time) , with the assurance of finding an inner development and a new, non-materialistic philosophy of life which alone will bring him permanent peace. I am speaking of guideposts to happiness, houses of tranquility where all healing methods and remedies passed on from the ancient mystical systems are offered in a modern garment, such as proper concentration, contemplation, musical meditation, wherein ceremonial rites light up venerated mysteries and where seekers are internally exalted and fecundated. In short, I am speaking of places where today’s totally scatterbrained human being may find, in brotherly love, the internal and external help which he so urgently needs (not “business love,” which you pay for whether it be first or second class).

I send these words out into the world so that they may knock on the right doors. I wonder whether I will hear an echo?