Q. Does reviewing the past complete the candidate's first degree
initiation?
A. No, there is a further step taken in each degree; the pupil
sees in addition to the work done in each Revolution also the
work accomplished in the corresponding Epoch during our present
stay upon globe D, the Earth.
Q. How would these be classified?
A. During the first degree he follows the work of the Saturn Revolution
and its latest consummation in the Polarian Epoch. In the second
degree he follows the work of the Sun Revolution and its replica,
the Hyperborean Epoch. During the third degree he watches the
work as performed in the Moon Revolution and sees how that was
the basis of life in the Lemurian Epoch.
Q. What does he see in relation to our Earth?
A. During the fourth degree he sees the evolution of the last
half Revolution with its corresponding period of time in our present
stay on Earth; the first half of the Atlantean Epoch which ended
when the dense foggy atmosphere subsided, and the Sun first shone
upon land and sea. Then the night of unconsciousness was over,
the eyes of the indwelling Ego were fully opened, and he was able
to turn the Light of Reason upon the problem of conquering the
world.
Q. What stage in evolution had man then reached?
A. That was the time when man as we now know him was first born.
Q. Were not candidates entranced for three and one-half days in
earlier times?
A. When in the olden systems of initiation we hear that the candidate
was entranced for a period of three and one-half days, reference
is made to the part of initiation just described. The three and
one-half days refer to the stages gone through; they are not by
any means days of twenty-four hours.
Q. How long a time is required for such initiation?
A. The actual time varies with each candidate but in all cases
he is taken through the unconscious development of mankind during
the past revolutions.
Q. Is it not said that he is awakened on the fourth day?
A. When it is said that he is awakened at the time of sunrise
on the fourth day, that is the mystical way of expressing that
his initiation into the work of the involutionary career of man
ceases at the time when the Sun rose above the clear atmosphere
of Atlantis. Then the candidate is also hailed as a "first-born."
Q. What does the fifth degree reveal?
A. Having become familiar with the road we have traveled in the
past, the fifth degree takes a candidate to the very end of the
Earth Period, when a glorious humanity is gathering the fruits
of this Period and taking it away from the seven globes upon which
we evolve during each day of manifestation into the first of the
five dark globes which are our habitation during the Cosmic Nights.
Q. What does this teach the candidate?
A. After being shown the end in the fifth degree, the candidate
is made acquainted with the means whereby that end is to be attained
during the remaining three and one-half Revolutions of the Earth
Period, the four remaining degrees being devoted to his enlightenment
in that respect.
Q. What advantages does this give the candidate?
A. By the insight he has thus acquired he is able to co-operate
intelligently with the Powers that work for Good, and thus he
will help to hasten the day of our emancipation.
— Ref. Cosmo, pp. 526-528
— Rays from the Rose Cross Magazine, January/February, 1996
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