ETERNAL AND UNIVERSAL IN THE PRESENT
why there is a modern rosycross Jan van Rijckenborgh The ordinary, dialectical method of following well-trodden paths or of covering up one’s inner poverty is not what underlies the activities of the Spiritual School, already in existence for 88 years. Its main purpose is the realisation of a truth and a task that invariably remains the same, namely to guide fallen humanity back to the original fatherland, and to show humanity the one way, the one truth, and the one life, to which no alteration can ever be made.
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long with the changing times, the nature and extent of the sunken, human state changes, as well as the physical and spiritual state of being of humanity, as a result of which the Universal Teachings intelligently adapt themselves to the needs of the moment. We do not want to keep what is old alive, but rather what is universal. We do not want to use old methods, but universal ones, as to their rational-moral intention of this moment. This is also how we interpret the words of Christ: ‘The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’ This seemingly contradicts: ‘Think not that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.’ This is why it is necessary to understand how what is eternally immutable manifests itself in time, in accordance with the present. If our spiritual work cannot meet this signature, it is dead. Any spiritual movement should understand the task of what is universal in the present. In this context it may, therefore, seem strange that we draw your attention to the past, namely to the heavenly 2 pentagram 3/2012
vessel from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. We do so in order, by a journey into the past, to try to explain its topicality for the present and to turn a possible deadlock in your course of life into a true journey home. ‘The old has passed away, it has become new.’ What has become new? If we look at the illustrations in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, we recognise in all of them the heavenly vessel, or the bark of the sun. One illustration shows Osiris embarking on the ship of the sun and we see his seven rays. In other pictures, the bark is often manned by seven oarsmen or is equipped with seven oars. Sometimes, we see Isis and Osiris sitting side by side, while the seven rays form the child Horus. When Xisuthrus – or Xisuthros, the Chaldean Noah – is saved, we see how, apart from him, seven deities sit in the heavenly vessel. When the Chinese Yao embarks, we clearly see that seven other figures accompany him. We may also think of Manu and the seven Rishis who travel with him in his ark. In addition, we may draw your attention to simi-
