THE MISSION OF CHRIST AND THE FESTIVAL OF THE FAIRIES

Art Sean & Ashlie Nelson

Whenever we are confronted by one of nature’s mysteries which we are at a loss to explain, we simply add a new name to our vocabulary which we then use in learned juggling to hide our ignorance of the subject. Such are the ampere which we use to measure the volume of the electric current, the volt which we say indicates the strength of the current, and the ohm which we use to show what resistance a given conductor offers to the passage of the current. Thus by much study of words and figures, the master minds of the electrical science attempt to persuade themselves and others that they have fathomed the mysteries of the elusive force which plays such an important part in the world’s work; but when all is said and they are in a confidential mood, they admit that the brightest lights of electrical science know but very little more than the schoolboy who is just beginning to experiment with his cells and batteries.

 Similarly in the other sciences, anatomists cannot distinguish the canine from the human embryo for a long time, and while the physiologist talks learnedly about metabolism, he cannot escape the admission that the laboratory tests whereby he endeavors to imitate our digestive processes must be and are widely different from the transmutations undergone in the chemical laboratory of the body by the nourishment we take. This is not said to disparage or belittle he wonderful achievements of science but to emphasize the fact that there are factors behind all manifestations of nature–intelligences of varying degrees of consciousness, builders and destroyers, who perform important parts in the economy of nature–and until these agencies are recognized and their work studied, we can never have an adequate conception of the way the nature forces work, which we call heat, electricity, gravity, chemical action, etc. To those who have cultivated the spiritual sight, it is evident that the so-called dead spend part of their time in learning to build bodies under the guidance of certain spiritual hierarchies. They are the agents in the metabolic and anabolic processes; they are the unseen factors in assimilation, and it is therefore literally true that we should be unable to live save for the important aid from those we call dead.

 To grasp the idea of how these agencies work and their relation to us, we may recall an illustration used in the COSMO: Suppose that a mechanic is at work making a table, and a dog, which is an evolving spirit belonging to another life wave, sits watching him. It then sees the process of cutting the boards; gradually the table is formed from the material, and at last it is finished. But though the dog has watched the man work, it has no clear conception of how this has been done nor of the ultimate use of the table. Suppose further that the dog were gifted with only a limited vision, hence unable to perceive the workman and his tools; then it would have seen the boards gradually falling apart in certain places, then joined and assembled in another manner until the table took shape and was finished. It would see the process of formation and the finished product but would have no conception of the fact that the active agency of a workman was necessary to transform the lumber to a table. If it could speak, it might explain the origin of the table as Topsy did her own by saying that it “just growed.”

 Our relation to the nature forces is similar to? that of the dog to the invisible workman, and we also are apt to explain nature’s mysteries as Topsy did. We learnedly tell the child how heat from the sun evaporates the water of the rivers and oceans, causing it to ascend to the cooler regions of the air where it condenses to clouds which finally become so saturated with moisture that they gravitate towards the earth as rain to replenish the rivers and oceans and be again evaporated. It is all perfectly simple, a nice automatic perpetual motion process.

Derek Emmons, My Little Angel by ShadowElement

But is that all? Are there not a number of holes in this theory? We know that there are, though we can not digress too far from our subject to discuss them. One thing is lacking to fully explain it, namely, the semi-intelligent action of the sylphs who lift the finely divided vaporized particles of water prepared by the undines, from the surface of the sea and carry them as high as they may before partial condensation takes place and clouds are formed. These particles of water they keep until forced by the undines to release them. When we say it storms, battles are being fought on the surface of the sea and in the air, sometimes with the aid of salamanders to light the lightning torch of separated hydrogen and oxygen and send its awe-inspiring shaft crashing zigzag through the inky darkness, followed by ponderous peals of thunder that reverberate in the clearing atmosphere, while the undines triumphantly hurl the rescued raindrops to earth that they may be again restored to union with their mother element.

 The little gnomes are needed to build the plants and the flowers. It is their work to tint them with the innumerable shades of color which delight our eyes. They also cut the crystals in all the minerals and make the priceless gems that gleam from golden diadems. Without them there would be no iron for our machinery nor gold wherewith to pay for it. They are everywhere and the proverbial bee is not busier. To the bee, however, is given credit for the work it does, while the little nature spirits that play such an immensely important part in the world’s work are unknown save to a few so-called dreamers or fools.

Judy Mastrangelo, Fairy Revels

 At the summer solstice the physical activities of nature are at this apex or zenith, therefore “Midsummer Night” is the great festival of the fairies who have wrought to build the material universe, nourished the cattle, nurtured the grain, and are hailing with joy and thanksgiving the crest wave of force which is their tool in shaping the flowers into the astonishing variety of delicate shapes called for by their archetypes and tinting them in unnumbered hues which are the artist’s delight and despair.

 On this greatest of all nights of the glad summer season they flock from fen and forest, from glen and dale, to the Festival of the Fairies. They really bake and brew their etheric foods and afterwards dance in ecstasies of joy–the joy of having brought forth and served their important purpose in the economy of nature.

 It is an axiom of science that nature tolerates nothing that is useless; parasites and drones are an abomination; the organ that has become superfluous atrophies, so does the limb or eye that is no longer used. Nature has work to do and requires work of all who would justify their existence and continue as part of her. This applies to plan and planet, man and beast, and to the fairies as well. They have their work to do; they are busy folk and their activities are the solution to many of nature’s multifarious mysteries, as already explained.

 We are now at the other pole of the yearly cycle, where the days are short and the nights long; physically speaking, darkness hangs over the Northern Hemisphere, but the wave of spiritual light and life which will be the basis of next year’s growth and progress is now at its greatest height and power. On Christmas night at the winter solstice when the celestial sign of the Immaculate Virgin stands upon the eastern horizon at midnight, the sun of the new year is born to save humanity from the cold and the famine which would ensue were its beneficent light withheld. At that time the Christ Spirit is born into the earth and commences to leaven and fertilize the millions of seeds which the fairies build and water that we may have physical food. But “man shall not live by bread along.” Important as is the work of the fairies, it fades into insignificance compared with the mission of Christ, who brings to us each year the spiritual food needed to advance us upon the path of progress, that we may attain perfection in love with all which that implies.

 It is the advent of this wonderful love light that we symbolize by the lighted lamps on the altar and the ringing of the Christmas bells which each year announce the glad tidings of the Savior’s birth, for to the spiritual sense, light and sound are inseparable; the light is colored and the sound is modified according to vibratory pitch. The Christmas light that shines on earth is golden, inducing the feelings of altruism, joy, and peace which not even the great war could entirely obliterate.

 The war is past, and as we always value that most which we have missed, it is to be hoped that all mankind will unite this Christmas in the songs of songs “On Earth Peace, Good Will toward Men.”

Taken for the book Rosicrucian Christianity Lectures by Max Heindel.

Questions and Answers about “LIFE on EARTH”

 

QUESTION NO. 4

 IF THIS EARTH LIFE IS SO IMPORTANT AND REALLY THE BASIS OF ALL OUR SOUL GROWTH, THE LATTER RESULTING FROM THE EXPERIENCES WE GAIN HERE, WHY IS OUR EARTH LIFE SO SHORT IN COMPARISON WITH THE LIFE IN THE INNER WORLDS, APPROXIMATING A THOUSAND YEARS BETWEEN TWO EARTH LIVES?

Mental Forms Crystallized

 ANSWER: All that is in this world which has been made by the hand of man is CRYSTALLIZED THOUGHT; the chairs upon which we sit, the houses in which we live, the various conveniences, such as telephone, steamship, locomotive, etc. were once a thought in the mind of man. If it had not been for that thought, the thing would never have appeared. In similar manner, the trees, the flowers, the mountain and the seas are crystallized thought forms of the nature forces. Man, when he leaves this body after death and enters the Second Heaven, becomes one with those nature forces he works under the direction of the creative hierarchies, making for himself the environment which is necessary for his next step in unfoldment. There he builds in mind stuff” the archetypes of the land and the sea; he works upon the flora and the fauna; he creates everything in his environment as thought forms, as he changes the conditions, so they appear when he is reborn.

 But working things out in mind stuff is very different from working thinks out in the concrete. At the present time we are very poor thinkers, and therefore it takes an enormous period of time for us to shape the thought forms in the second heaven; then, also, we must wait a considerable time before these thought forms have crystallized into the actual dense physical environment to which we are to come back. Therefore, it is necessary that we should stay in the Heaven World for a much longer time than we remain in the earth life. When we have learned to think aright, we shall be able to create things here in the Physical World in a much shorter time than it now takes to laboriously form them. Neither will it be necessary then to stay our of earth life as long as the present time.

 

QUESTION NO. 5

HOW LONG WILL IT BE BEFORE WE CAN DO WITHOUT THE PHYSICAL BODIES, AND FUNCTION ALTOGETHER IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS AGAIN?

ANSWER: This question reveals a state of mind which is all too common among people who have become acquainted with the fact that we possess spiritual bodies in which we may move through space with lightning rapidity, bodies which do not need the material raiment and, therefore, will require no care on the part of their owners. These people long then for the time when they may grown such figurative wings and shed this “low and vile mortal coil” altogether.

Spiritual Bodies that allows us to move with the speed of light.

 Such a state of mind is extremely unfortunate. We should be very thankful for the material instrument which we have, for that is the most valuable of all our vehicles. While it is perfectly true that our physical body is the LOWEST of all our vehicles, it is also a fact that this vehicle is the most finished of our instruments, and without that the other vehicles would be of little use to us at this time. For while this splendidly organized instrument enables us to meet the thousand and one conditions here, our higher vehicles are practically unorganized. The vital body is formed organ for organ as our dense physical body, but until it has been trained by esoteric exercises it is not a fit instrument to function in alone. The desire body has only a number of sense centers which are not even active in the great majority of people, and as for the mind, it is an unformed cloud with the great majority. We should aim today to spiritualize the physical instrument, and we should realize that we must train our higher vehicles before they can be of use. For the great mass of people that will take a long, long time. Therefore, it is best to do the duty that is close to our hands, then we hasten the day when we shall be able to use the higher vehicles, for that day depends upon ourselves.

 

QUESTION NO. 11

HOW IS IT THAT ONE ATONES FOR ALL SIN IN PURGATORY, THEN AT REBIRTH MUST AGAIN SUFFER THROUGH THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT FOR SINS OF A FORMER LIFE

ANSWER: There are two distinct activities in Purgatory. First, there is the eradication of bad habits. For instance, the drunkard craves drink just as much as he did before death, but now he has no stomach and alimentary canal go around to the various saloons, although he may even get inside the whiskey casks and steep himself in the liquor, he obtains no satisfaction, for there are no fumes as when chemical combustion takes place in a stomach. Thus he suffers all the tortures of Tantalus–“Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”

 But, as desire in this world burns out when we realize that is cannot be gratified, so in time the drunkard is cured of his desire for drink, because he can obtain no liquor, and he is born innocent of evil so far as that particular vice is concerned. However, he must overcome that vice CONSCIOUSLY, and so at a certain time temptation will come in his way. When he has grown up a companion may ask him to “come and have a drink.” Then it depends upon WHETHER HE YIELDS or not. If he does, he sins anew and must be purged anew, till at last the cumulative pains of repeated purgatorial existence will cause him to have a disgust for drink. Then he will have consciously overcome temptation and there will be no more suffering from that source.

Our bad actions get imprinted in the heart atom.

 As to the evil that we have done to others, for instance, where we have dealt cruelly with a child placed under our care, where we have beaten and starved it or otherwise maltreated it, the scenes where we have thus done wrong will have impressed themselves upon the atom in the heart; later on, the etching will have been transferred to the desire body and the panorama of life, which unrolls BACKWARD, will again bring these scenes before our consciousness. WE shall then ourselves feel as the child felt who was our victim; WE SHALL FEEL THE STRIPES that WE inflicted just as the child felt them; WE shall feel the mental anguish and mortification, WE shall suffer pang for pang, and then, when we are reborn, we shall meet our victim and have the opportunity to do good to the victim instead of doing evil. If we do so, well and good; if our old enmity asserts itself as before, then further stripes in the next Purgatory will at last cause us to see that we ought to be merciful to those under our care. So we do not suffer ANEW for sins of a former life; WE ARE BORN INNOCENT through the blessed ministrations of Purgatory, and AT LEAST EVERY EVIL ACT WE COMMIT IS AN ACT OF FREE WILL. But TEMPTATIONS are placed before us in order to ascertain whether the purging has been sufficient to teach us the needed lessons, and it is our privilege either to yield or to stand strong and firm for the good.