(6) My course is the course of Râ, and the course of Râ is my course

(3) 'For I have heard from men like you, Sir, that only knowledge which is learnt from a teacher (Âkârya), leads to real good.' Then he taught him the same knowledge. Nothing was left out, Yea, nothing was left out.

(7) I have done well, I have done well; I have done to the satisfaction of Râ

(61) In the translation here given I have followed the form adopted by the later recension, correcting the text when necessary by the copies written in the better periods

(7) The son said: 'Surely those venerable men (my teachers) did not know that. For if they had known it, why should they not have told it me? Do you, Sir, therefore tell me that.' 'Be it so,' said the father.

(10) After five years of retirement he decided to renew his struggle for a reformation of the arts and sciences of his day, this time with the aid of a few trusted friends. He sent to the cloister where his early training had been received and called to himself three brethren, whom he bound by an oath to preserve inviolate the secrets he should impart and to write down for the sake of posterity the information

(2) I am Râ himself, I am not to be ignored, I am not to be molested

(33) He showed all things to me and wrote them down for me: also their names he wrote for me, and their laws and their companies.

(534) Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher—the nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said. But to whom we are to assign these studies, and in what way they are to be assigned, are questions which remain to be considered. Yes, clearly. You remember, I said, how the rulers were chosen before? Certainly, he said. The same natures must still be chosen, and the preference again given to the surest and the bravest, and, if possible, to the fairest; and, having noble and generous tempers, they should also have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. And what are these? Such gifts as keenness and ready powers of acquisition; for the mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind’s own, and is not shared with the body. Very true, he replied.

(14) "While at work your thought is to be actually concentrated in it, undistracted by anything whatever irrelevant to the matter in hand—pounding away like a great engine, with giant power and perfect economy—no wear and tear of friction, or dislocation of parts owing to the working of different forces at the same time. Then when the work is finished, if there is no more occasion for the use of the machine, it must stop equally, absolutely—stop entirely—no worrying (as if a parcel of boys were allowed to play their devilments with a locomotive as soon as it was in the shed)—and the man must retire into that region of his consciousness where his true self dwells. I say that the power of the thought-machine itself is enormously increased by this faculty of letting it alone on the one hand, and of using it singly and with concentration on the other. It becomes a true tool, which a master-workman lays down when done with, but which only a bungler carries about with him all the time to show that he is the possessor of it." If the student will master the idea expressed in the above several quoted paragraphs, he will indeed become a Master of Mind. And if he will extend the idea to the field of his Emotions, and will put into practice there the same idea and method, he will also become a Master of his Emotions—an accomplishment of inestimable value. But, before doing either of these things he will find it necessary to come to a full realization of the fact that his Self—his real "I"—is a Something superior to and transcending both his Thought and his Emotions. He must enter into a vivid realization of the "I AM," before he may hope to be able to say "I Do" regarding these accomplishments. As the old Rosicrucian masters were wont to say: "When the 'I' knows itself to be the Self and Master, then only is it able to take its throne and enforce its will upon its subjects in the world of its thoughts, desires, feelings, and emotions." Not only may the enlightened "I" manifest its power along the lines above indicated, but it may also work its will in that region which popular modern psychology has chosen to call "The Sub-Conscious Mind." The latter is merely that great region of mind outside of the limits of the concentrated field of attention. In that great region a great part of the thinking of the average man is performed, the results being flashed into the field of his attention in a more or less haphazard way. Without going deeply into the subject, we would say here that the man who has grasped the reality and power of the "I" is able to issue positive commands to this part of his mental machinery, and not only cause it to perform the work of thought classification, induction and deduction, for him, but also to present the report of such work to his conscious attention at any specified time and place. The Masters of Mind relieve themselves of much of the drudgery of ordinary intellectual processes in this way, and obtain results logically perfect and ready for use, according to the measure of training and direction which they have been able to impose upon the aforesaid regions of their mind.

(26) I see Râ, when he is born from Yesterday, at the dugs of the Mehurit cows? His course is my course, and conversely mine is his

(2) Now then, if there be any that have a desire to follow me, and would fain have this Knowledge whereof I write, I advise him to follow me in this following Table, [Pattern or Way,] not presently with the Pen, but with the Labour of the Mind, and then he shall find how I could come to write thus; whereas I was not taught from the Schools of this World, but only a little of this mean Hand-writing, as may be seen here.

(4) Whence I unto my Leader: "See thou find Some one who may by deed or name be known, And thus in going move thine eye about." And one, who understood the Tuscan speech, Cried to us from behind: "Stay ye your feet, Ye, who so run athwart the dusky air! Perhaps thou'lt have from me what thou demandest." Whereat the Leader turned him, and said: "Wait, And then according to his pace proceed." I stopped, and two beheld I show great haste Of spirit, in their faces, to be with me; But the burden and the narrow way delayed them. When they came up, long with an eye askance They scanned me without uttering a word. Then to each other turned, and said together: "He by the action of his throat seems living; And if they dead are, by what privilege Go they uncovered by the heavy stole?" Then said to me: "Tuscan, who to the college Of miserable hypocrites art come, Do not disdain to tell us who thou art." And I to them: "Born was I, and grew up In the great town on the fair river of Arno, And with the body am I've always had.

(21) The writing of these memoranda of mine, I well know, is weak when compared with that spirit, full of grace, which I was privileged to hear. But it will be an image to recall the archetype to him who was struck with the thyrsus. For "speak," it is said, "to a wise man, and he will grow wiser; and to him that hath, and there shall be added to him." And we profess not to explain secret things sufficiently - far from it - but only to recall them to memory, whether we have forgot aught, or whether for the purpose of not forgetting. Many things, I well know, have escaped us, through length of time, that have dropped away unwritten. Whence, to aid the weakness of my memory, and provide for myself a salutary help to my recollection in a systematic arrangement of chapters, I necessarily make use of this form. There are then some things of which we have no recollection; for the power that was in the blessed men was great. There are also some things which remained unnoted long, which have now escaped; and others which are effaced, having faded away in the mind itself, since such a task is not easy to those not experienced; these I revive in my commentaries. Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write what I guarded against speaking: not grudging - for that were wrong - but fearing for my readers, lest they should stumble by taking them in a wrong sense; and, as the proverb says, we should be found "reaching a sword to a child." For it is impossible that what has been written should not escape, although remaining unpublished by me. But being always revolved, using the one only voice, that of writing, they answer nothing to him that makes inquiries beyond what is written; for they require of necessity the aid of some one, either of him who wrote, or of some one else who has walked in his footsteps.

(8) In his dedication the author and illustrator of the manuscript declares that he has set forth all the operations of the Great Work. He prays to the Holy Spirit that he may be included in the number of those who have pursued this most noble of the sciences and that he may be set always in the path of righteousness. Exclusive of his own researches, the main sources of his information are said to be the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Raymond Lully, and Arnold of Villa Nova.

(2) I am the Teller in the divine ship: I am the unresting navigator in the Bark of Rā

(8) Chapter IV. We firmly believe that through deep meditation on the inventions of the human mind and the mysteries of life, through the cooperation of the angels and spirits, and through experience and long observation, our loving Christian Father C.R.C. was so fully illumined with God's wisdom that were all the books and writings of the world lost and the foundations of science overturned, the Fraternity of R.C. could reestablish the structure of world thought upon the foundation of divine truth and integrity. Because of the great depth and perfection of our knowledge, those desiring to understand the mysteries of the Fraternity of R. C. cannot attain to that wisdom immediately, but must grow in understanding and knowledge. Therefore, our Fraternity is divided into grades through which each must ascend step by step to the Great Arcanum. Now that it has pleased God to lighten unto us His sixth candelabrum, is it not better to seek truth in this way than to wander through the labyrinths of worldly ignorance?