within us

how the new reality resounds within us

The seven spirits in the work of Jakob Boehme

and in the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross

In Jakob Boehme’s book Morning Redness in the Rising of the Sun, which he published in the year 1612 and which was later called ‘Aurora’, he wrote that he had been permitted to look ‘into the centre of the hidden nature’. There he saw, as he wrote, ‘not with my ordinary eyes, but with the eyes of the Spirit’, how God’s power works everywhere in creation through, what he called, ‘the seven primordial spirits’. From second to second, these seven primordial spirits, emanating from the one source, sustain, irradiate and further develop creation. The universal teachings, too, speak of the seven rays of the universal sun that illuminate the all. We can only try to approach such a great mystery with, we might say, our imaginative power. This is not a kind of e ort to seize something by any means, but rather: to understand something, suddenly seeing something that had been there all along. Jakob Boehme writes: ‘If you want to know or fathom something, you should simply place yourself before it, with a deep longing to understand. If you do so, you will discover that you will receive two things: insight and power, the insight you asked for and the power to do something with this new insight.’ The fact that new insight is always linked with new power is clearly demonstrated by Jakob Boehme in his description of the sixth primordial spirit. He says that the sixth primordial spirit causes every being to emit, indeed, that he must emit a sound. This sound expresses

new reality resounds within us

everything that lives in this being. Nothing remains behind. Therefore, if we speak of new insight, new knowledge, immediately also a new sound follows, a new way of living. It is very important for us to understand as well as possible this sixth primordial spirit, also called by Boehme the spirit-of-sound, because it contains the key to a proper understanding of the period ahead, to which the Spiritual School often refers as the Age of Aquarius. The Age of Aquarius is namely the period in which everything will be judged by its sound. We sometimes read that a time will come when people will speak without words and when thoughts will simply be transmitted through sound, vibration.

THE SEVEN PRIMORDIAL SPIRITS How can we get an idea of the e ect of the seven primordial spirits, the seven rays, and of the sixth one, the spirit-of-sound in particular? Just as Jakob Boehme, we try to do so by simply ‘placing ourselves before it’. According to the author, the rst, the second and the third primordial spirits build every being. They make the structure, the form and the mobility, but as yet without consciousness; they work ‘in darkness’, as he calls it. Let us imagine a tree. The rst spirit makes the structure, the trunk. Boehme calls it ‘the sour spirit’ that makes everything contract, and which makes ‘something’ out of ‘nothing’. The second spirit works in the ow of juices and the overall form. Boehme calls it the sweet, soft spirit. The third one originates where the rst and the second one interfere with each other as it were. It gives the multitude and the mobility, the motion and the murmuring of the thousands of leaves. These three spirits work in darkness. They work blindly. Life does not originate until the fourth spirit, the spirit of the re. This example shows that not all spirits work in all creatures in the same way. The e ect of the fourth spirit, for instance, is for our eyes not properly visible in a tree. In every creature, all seven spirits are always active, but not all of them are always equally visible or imaginable for us, because their e ect in this nature has solidi ed, frozen in a certain way.

MAN Let us now imagine man. You will see before you that the rst primordial spirit creates the skeleton, the hard structure in him.

Understanding is not the right word… we should place ourselves before it, as Boehme says. Then we receive insight as well as power to do something with it

The second primordial spirit creates what is sweet, owing, soft, not so much the blood, but rather the hidden streams, the etheric streams. The second primordial spirit creates the form and the softness in the human being. The third spirit creates the multitude, the mobility, which is manifested in the human body in another way than in the tree and is much more hidden, much more inward, for instance in the countless alveoli, in the markings and lines on the skin and the hairs, but also in the hundredfold division and the – relative – mobility of the skeleton. Then there is the fourth primordial spirit, the spirit that brings life and consciousness, the spirit of the re and the light. In the human being, it brings the consciousness re, the ‘serpent re’. It is the astral consciousness re that burns in the spinal canal and ends in the brain. The result of it is light, the light of the eyes, which expresses the whole consciousness. Through the re of the fourth primordial spirit, the human being is vivi ed and acquires consciousness. However, the way in which he lives is determined by the fth spirit. This is the spirit of warmth. In other words, it is the way in which the re radiates warmth – or doesn’t. The fth spirit is the spirit of love, the way in which a human being transforms re into warmth – and warmth into love. Then comes the sixth spirit. We may certainly state that the sixth spirit – we also say ‘the sixth ray’ – has a special signi cance in the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross. This is why we try to understand properly what this meaning implies. However, here understanding is actually not the right word. It suggests that we can study something from a book, and assimilate it intellectually. No, we should place ourselves before it, as Boehme says. Then we receive insight as well as power to do something with it.

CHRISTIAN ROSYCROSS AS PROTOTYPE In the story about the dream of Christian Rosycross, a large group of people is imprisoned in a deep dungeon, in pure impotence and misery. Five times, moved by pity, people standing at the edge of the prison tower, lower a rope, but hardly anyone succeeds in seizing this rope to climb up. And even if someone succeeds, the others often drag him down again. Then the sixth attempt arrives. Christian Rosycross is the prototype of the western human being of our time, seeking liberation. He is the prototype of the human being who now populates this school. He climbs on a stone – that is, on all the work and striving that he has accomplished to the best of his ability and knowledge – and by a miraculous swing of the cord, ‘perhaps by the will of God’, he says, the rope comes his way; he can seize it and he is pulled up from the dungeon. We are people with the signature of Christian Rosycross: we would, in the power of Christ, like to bring the rose of immortal being to bloom on the cross of our personality. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be reading this now.

The microcosm is sometimes compared with a bronze clock or stupa. Sounding this clock, that is, the pure and clear expression of our task in life, links us with this task

The Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross is a school of and for people who have been pulled up from the dungeon by the sixth ray. We are here, we belong here because, deep down, we react primarily to the activity of this sixth ray, because we have a certain a nity with particularly this ray. What does this mean? In the universal teachings, the sixth ray is sometimes called the ray of devotion, of unwavering devotion. Any esoteric Internet site can tell you so. Only through devotion, is the seventh and last step possible, the new mode of life, gnostic magic, the complete renewal of our individual and collective eld of life. We discussed that Jakob Boehme refers to the sixth primordial spirit as the spirit of sound. He says that it is this spirit that orders and shakes up everything that the previous spirits have brought, and he explains that it makes something shrink and gives it stability. This is logical, because it cannot resound in any other way. One of the e ects of the sixth spirit is the voice, speech, not in the sense of producing words with more or less meaning. No, speech in the sense of sound is quite something else. It is the power to express what lives in our innermost being, without the intervention of whoever or whatever, and without keeping anything secret and unreserved. In the prologue of the Gospel of John, we read: ‘In the beginning was the word.’ This is the power of the sixth primordial spirit, because if God speaks this word, he speaks everything with one word. Then there is nothing that is not spoken. There is nothing of himself that he withholds and that he does not speak with this word. With one word, he expresses his whole being. This is what is meant by the power of speech, of sound. In the Spiritual School, sound is also the way in which the pupils cooperate and resound together. This is why the microcosm is sometimes compared with a bell, a stupa or a bronze clock. Sounding this clock, that is, the pure and clear expression of our task in life, links us with this task. Therefore, we might say that the sixth primordial spirit makes everything that is within us also radiate outward ever more clearly and strongly, but simultaneously, it causes us to increasingly re ect on what resounds, on what is our true inner being. What is the true inner human being? We call this the one, all-encompassing human principle of life: Christian Rosycross. Christian Rosycross is the symbol, but literally also the power, of the unsullied microcosm within us, the true human being, the exalted human being.

THE NUCLEUS PRINCIPLE OF THE SCHOOL Through the activity of the sixth primordial spirit, we express ourselves; we cannot do otherwise. And we will, by our mode of life, always reveal everything that we are, what we stand for, and this is what increasingly forces us to set out seeking what this nucleus of the

true inner human being is. This applies to every individual person, but equally for this group of people, for us as the group of pupils of the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross. Now that we re ect on the activity of the sixth ray, the sixth primordial spirit, we would simultaneously like to focus our attention on the nucleus principle of this school. This principle is also referred to by the name Christian Rosycross. In the Fama Fraternitatis, the Call of the Brotherhood of the Rosycross, we read how this fundamental principle, this power principle, is sought and found by the workers in the service of this Brotherhood. The Fama relates that it began with the death of one of the brothers in a place called Gallia Narbonensis. However, before this happened he chose a successor, who received the task of adjusting the building of the brotherhood to prepare it for a new time. While taking up this task as an able architect, he came across a hidden, bronze tablet that was attached to the wall with a large nail. When he pulled out the nail to transfer the tablet to a more suitable room, a large piece of plasterwork fell from the wall and a hidden door became visible. Behind this door, they found Christian Rosycross. At rst glance, this simple description contains the whole task of this school, and upon closer study, we will see that the essence of sound, the essence of the sixth primordial spirit, plays a crucial role in it. It begins with the memorial tablet, that is, with what shows us the way. This memorial tablet is made of bronze. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Copper is the substance of Venus, that is, the human love nature, the material of the fth primordial spirit, according to Jakob Boehme. Copper is mixed with tin, the substance of Jupiter. In other words, copper, the love nature of man, his human warmth, his interest, his compassion and his feeling, achieves a truly higher resonance, if it is combined with tin, the element of the Spirit-Soul. Then it also becomes, just as Boehme describes it, a bit more solid, clearer, and it begins to resound. Then copper becomes bronze. This Jupiter principle does not come automatically: rst, we die in Gallia Narbonensis, which means that the old personal striving has been dissolved in the country of servitude. Then it has become completely worn down, nally to disappear. However, what is most mysterious is the nail with which the tablet had been attached. J. van Rijckenborgh writes about this: ‘Esoterically, this point is sometimes called the sixth nail, or the sixth cord with the help of which Christian Rosycross climbs up out of the pit. The ve other points are to be identi ed with the ve points of the pentagram, the ve points of the soul body.’

RELEASING THE NEWLY CREATED ETHERIC VEHICLE Let us call upon our imaginative power again in order to understand what is said here. The one all-encompassing, inner, microcosmic principle of life, to which we refer as Christian Rosycross is, of course, power. It is a princi-

ple of pure power. It is not an object; it is not something; it is not a place; but it is power. Pure power cannot sojourn in the physical body, because our current body and consciousness are too strongly crystallised. During our pupilship, a new vital body, a true soul body, is generated in us. If a human being wants to nd Christian Rosycross within himself, he must rst nd the memorial tablet and pull out the sixth nail. In other words, he should liberate the new soul body and detach it from the natural, biological life. Here, too, it is exactly as Boehme says: we should make the soul body resound in the power of the sixth primordial spirit. By this liberating sound, everything will immediately be expressed that must be expressed. As in one sound, everything will become clear for everyone, in any situation, at any moment. However, a bell cannot resound if we hold it. It must toll freely. Finally, this is also related to one special aspect of our work. Again, this has to do with the question: ‘What kind of people are those pupils of the Rosycross?’ It is a very diverse group; you encounter all types of people and character traits, in a very colourful mixture, but there is one common value at another, much deeper, inner level. Logically, there must be such a value, otherwise we would not have joined this school and would not have been pulled out of the pit by this sixth cord. J. van Rijckenborgh writes, almost casually, in his explanation of the Fama Fraternitatis, and particularly about nding the memorial tablet: ‘Here we take the opportunity to point out the essential di erence between a mystic and a gnostic. Both build a soul body, and both extract from their mode of life the essence, the vital power that develops the higher ethers. Both have a link with the world of the Christ spirit, but what now happens is that the mystic is satis ed with it, but the gnostic isn’t. What is the reason for this? The cause for this cannot, at least not yet, be indicated. Sometimes, it is assumed that the gnostic ultimately possesses more love of humanity. The mystic is absorbed in producing and giving life power for the bene t of the world and humanity, but the gnostic wants something di erent: he would like to o er his services to the leading powers of human development. He wants to cooperate consciously in the development of humanity. There is something in his being that stimulates him to do so. This is why he cannot act di erently. And this is why he wants and must penetrate behind the mystery of his existence. This is why he must ultimately wholly liberate the soul body, which has developed by his e orts, from any material impediment. Otherwise, he is unable to satisfy what is contained in him or her, as human type, as a task.’ This is also why, here and now, the activity of the sixth primordial spirit, the spirit of sound, is decisive. This is why we continue seeking the one, all-encompassing principle of life: Christian Rosycross. We may be very grateful that now, at this moment, a new generation of young people, are willing to enter the spiritual building of the Brotherhood. We hope that the ensuing changes in the building will stimulate all to nd the bronze memorial tablet, to pull out the nail and to be wholly assimilated by the sound of the liberated Spirit-Soul body.