(72) For this body is but a husk, from which the new body grows— ["The new body grows out of the heavenly substantiality in the Word, out of the flesh and blood of Christ, out of the mystery of the old body."] —as it is with a grain of wheat in the earth. The husk or shell will not rise again, no more than it does in the wheat, but will remain for ever in death and in hell.

(18) Thou canst not better comprehend, apprehend or understand this, than in and by thy own body, which, through the first fall of Adam with all its [the body's] birth or geniture, fitness, faculties and will, is become just such a house as the place of this world is come to be.

(37) Now behold, thou Child of Man, (seeing thou art an eternal Spirit) thou hast this to expect after the Breaking [or Deceasing] of thy Body; thou wilt be either an Angel of God in Paradise, or a hellish ugly diabolical Worm, Beast, or Dragon; all according as thou hast tbeen inclined [or given to] here in this Life; that Image which thou hast borne here in thy Mind, with that thou shalt appear; for there can no other Image go forth out of thy Body at the Breaking [or Deceasing of it;] but even that which thou hast borne here, that shall appear in Eternity.

(4) 'If a man could not understand it before the falling asunder of his body, then he has to take body again in the worlds of creation.'

(106) For [there] the Word clothed the Soul, and shut up the Kingdom of Hell, and there it shall wait till the Day of the Restitution, and then it shall get a Body again out of the Element, out of the Body that was here [in this Life,] when the last Day; and not a strange Body, but the same it did bear, in the [one] Element hidden in the four Elements, that same shall go forth and flourish as Adam [had done] in [his] Creation. The Gate of the Redemption.

(28) For this flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, but is only a seed which is sown into the earth, out of which will grow an impalpable or incomprehensible body, such as the first was before the fall. But the spirit is eternal life, which uniteth, qualifieth or mixeth with God, and comprehendeth the internal Deity in nature.

(40) But seeing thou art made out of the seed of the earth— [Red earth is fire and water, conceived with or by the Word Fiat out of the matrix of the earth: when man imagined or set his desire into the earth he became "earthly."] —and hast set or put thy body back again into thy mother, therefore thy body also is become a palpable, dead or mortal body, such as thy mother is.

(92) And then from all the qualities which are in the body, there grows a bud or head, and there is a new body in the bud or head, which is formed or figured answerable or like to the first root in the earth, only now it gets another more subtile form.

(3) Tat: Thou sayest things impossible, O father, things that are forced. Hence answers would I have direct unto these things. Am I a son strange to my father's race? Keep it not, father, back from me. I am a true-born son; explain to me the manner of Rebirth. Hermes: What may I say, my son? I can but tell thee this. Whene'er I see within myself the Simple Vision brought to birth out of God's mercy, I have passed through myself into a Body that can never die. And now i am not as I was before; but I am born in Mind. The way to do this is not taught, and it cannot be seen by the compounded element by means of which thou seest. Yea, I have had my former composed form dismembered for me. I am no longer touched, but I have touch; I have dimension too; and [yet] am I a stranger to them now. Thou seest me with eyes, my son; but what I am thou dost not understand [even] with fullest strain of body and of sight.

(35) Behold, thou reasonable Soul, to thee I speak, and not to the Body, thou only apprehendest it:- When the Birth is thus continually generated, then every Form has a Center to the Regeneration; for the whole divine Essence [or Substance] stands in continual and in eternal P Generating (but unchangeably) like the Mind of Man, the Thoughts being continually generated out of the Mind, and the Will and Desiring out of the Thoughts. Out of the Will and Desirousness [is] the Work [generated] which is made a Substance, in the Will, and then the Mouth and Hands, go on to perform what was substantial in the Will.

(52) That soul and body will come together again at the Day of the Resurrection thou may perceive here by the earth. For the Creator said, Let the earth bring forth grass and herbs, and trees bearing fruit, each according to its kind. Then each sprang up according to its kind, and grew. And as before the time of the wrath it had a heavenly body, so it got now an earthly one, answerable to its mother.

(12) "And this same rule applies to the characteristics brought over from past incarnations. You have not the memory of the experiences, but you have the fruit in the shape of characteristics, tastes, inclinations, etc. You have a tendency toward certain things, and a distaste for others. Certain things attract you, while other things repel you. All of these things are the result of your experiences in former incarnations. Your very tastes and inclination toward the study of the occult which are now causing you to read these lines, they are your legacy from some former life in which some seed-thoughts of esoteric teaching were dropped into your thought by some teacher or friend, and then aroused your interest and attracted your attention. You learned some little about the subject then—perhaps much—and developed a desire for more knowledge along these lines, which, manifesting in your present life has again brought you in contact with similar reachings. The same inclination will lead to further advancement along these lines in this life, and still greater opportunities in future incarnations. Nearly everyone who reads these lines will feel that much of the occult teaching now being received is but a re-learning' of something previously known, although many of the things now taught have never been heard before in this life. You pick up a book and read something, and know at once that it is so, because in some vague way you have the consciousness of having studied and worked out the problem in some past life. All this is in accordance with the Law of Attraction which has caused you to attract that toward you for which you have an affinity, and which also causes others to be attracted to you. In the same way, and from the same cause, are the many reunions in this life of persons who have been related to each other in previous lives. The old loves, the old hates, work out in the new lives. We are bound to those whom we have loved, and also to those whom we have injured. The story must be worked out to the last chapter, although an increasing knowledge of the 'why and wherefore' of such things may relieve one of many entangling attachments and relationships of this kind." The Life After Death The body of the Rosicrucian teachings includes very close and detailed instruction concerning the life of the soul between incarnations, the phenomena of the Astral World, and similar subjects, which would require many large books to record. In the present chapter we shall attempt to present to the student a general idea of the teachings concerning such subjects, without going into details which cannot be presented at the present time in the space at our command.

(43) For the dead or mortal flesh has encompassed the astral birth, and man's flesh is a dead carcass, while it is yet in the mother's body or womb, and is encompassed with hell and God's wrath.

(4) Which what it finds there active doth attract Into its substance, and becomes one soul, Which lives, and feels, and on itself revolves. And that thou less may wonder at my word, Behold the sun's heat, which becometh wine, Joined to the juice that from the vine distils. Whenever Lachesis has no more thread, It separates from the flesh, and virtually Bears with itself the human and divine; The other faculties are voiceless all; The memory, the intelligence, and the will In action far more vigorous than before. Without a pause it falleth of itself In marvellous way on one shore or the other; There of its roads it first is cognizant. Soon as the place there circumscribeth it, The virtue informative rays round about, As, and as much as, in the living members. And even as the air, when full of rain, By alien rays that are therein reflected, With divers colours shows itself adorned, So there the neighbouring air doth shape itself Into that form which doth impress upon it Virtually the soul that has stood still.

(111) Though the body stands in the outward palpableness, yet it is formed according to the kind and manner of the inward birth, for in the inward birth or geniture stands the word, and the word is the sound or tone, which riseth up in the light in the fire-flash through the bitter and astringent quality.

(75) But now in both of them, viz. in the earth and in thy flesh, there is hidden the light of the clear Deity, and it breaketh through, and generateth to itself a body according to the kind of each body; for man according to his body, and for the earth according to its body; for as the mother is, so is the child also.

(1) If you did not exist in flesh, you took on flesh when you entered the world. Why is it, then, that you will you not take your flesh with you when you rise into the aeon? What is better than flesh is what animates. What came into being because of you, is it not yours? Doesn't it exist with you? But while you are in the world, what are you missing? That is precisely what you have attempted to learn.

(24) A writer, speaking of the above important fact concerning rebirth, says: "A soul does not fully awaken from its second soul-slumber immediately upon rebirth, but exists in a dream-like state during the days of infancy, its gradual awakening being evidenced by the growing intelligence of the babe, the brain of the child keeping pace with the demands made upon it. In some cases, however, the awakening is premature, and we see cases of prodigies, child-geniuses, etc., but such cases are more or less abnormal and unhealthy. Occasionally, the dreaming soul in the child half awakes, and startles its elders by some profound observation or mature remark or conduct. The rare instances of precocious children and infant genius are illustrations of cases in which the awakening has been more than ordinarily rapid. On the other hand, cases are known where the soul does not awaken as rapidly as the average, and the result is that the person does not show signs of full intellectual activity until nearly middle-aged. Cases are known where men seem to 'wake up' when they are forty years of age, or even older, and then take on freshened activity and energy, surprising those who had known them before." Here we ask the student to carefully consider another point concerning the need of and consequences of the second soul-slumber. Just as in the first soul-slumber the soul underwent a period of spiritual digestion and assimilation of the experiences of its earth-life, so in the second soul-slumber it undergoes a period of digestion and assimilation of its experiences on the Astral Plane. In both of these periods of spiritual digestion and assimilation the soul converts the substance of the experience into the solid flesh, bone, and blood of its "character." It has outlived many things during its sojourn on the Astral Plane, and has left many undesirable qualities behind it.

(28) But that the fruits get a body other than the earth is, which body is much fuller of virtue, fairer or more beautiful, also of a better taste, relish and smell, is because the astral birth or geniture receiveth power or virtue from the word, and formeth or frameth another body, which stands half in the death and half in the life, and stands hidden between the wrath of God and the love.

(36) Behold! thy spirit or thy soul is generated from or out of thy astral birth or geniture, and is the third birth in thee, just as an apple upon a tree is the third birth or geniture of the earth, and has not its vegetation in, from, or within the earth, but from above the earth; and if it were a spirit, as thy soul is, it would not suffer the earth any more to tie or bind it to corruption.