The Mysteries of Eternal Life
Gnostic teachings on the Rose + Cross
As our Rosicrucian Order is consecrated by the Gnostic Church and includes Gnostic teachings in its rites and instruction, We include this commentary on the Church's teachings concerning the Rose Cross, which are delivered within the Gnostic Hierurgy on the second and third days of spring. To place these in context, the Church celebrates “The Mysteries of Eternal Life” during the Holy Week of Spring and “The Mysteries of Death” at Autumn, following its 1901 ceremonial. The following is adapted from a homily delivered in New York on Easter Sunday 2024 by Tau Apollonius, Primate of the Church for North America.
At the spring equinox heat, light, and life, Christ, prevails over cold, darkness, and death. Nature as a whole resurrects and adorns itself with beautiful colors: plants emerge from the earth, buds sprout on branches, hibernating animals awaken. It is at this time of Easter that our Church celebrates ‘The Mysteries of Eternal Life’, liberation from death, and rebirth. This constitutes our holy week of spring.
The First Day – Sacred Fire
We celebrate the First Day of Spring on the first Sunday which corresponds with or follows the equinox. We praise the New Sun as it emerges from rest with brilliance. The earth is revived and offers itself to the Sun with flowers and greenery. Our hymns praise the “sacred fire of the earth,” the “torch of the world”, the “Star of the Pleroma” – all references to the Sun. We sing to the “divine sun of justice” who triumphs over the dark and has saved us from the serpent. This recalls Apollo, the sun, who defeats the python. The Orphic hymn to Apollo extols him: “you are the eye that sees all, you bring light to mortals… You make everything bloom…”
This First Day of Spring was celebrated on Palm Sunday, when we acknowledge Ieshu as having come to save humanity. We refer to Him as “the gentle aesthete” and offer him a bouquet of flowers. He is praised as the King of Heaven, the King of the Pleroma, the highest of the Pleroma, who descended to earth in a body, placing his ethereal nature under a material garment.
Christ the Savior, the “light of the world”, is the principle of heat, life, and light. The Christ principle manifests in two forms: as the physical sun, which at this time prevails over darkness and death; and in human form as saviors. We recognize Ieshu.
Eliphas Levi writes of The Great Magic Agent, or The Mysteries of the Astral Light:
“…the day star is only the reflection and material shadow of the sun of truth which illuminates the intellectual world, and which itself is but a gleam borrowed from the Absolute. The sun of the divine world is the infinite, spiritual, and uncreated light; this light is, so to speak, verbalized in the philosophical world, and becomes the focus of souls and of truth…”
The Second Day – The Rose Cross and the Royal Secret
On the Second Day of Spring (Wednesday), the wooden cross is honored. From the intersection of the vertical and horizontal, Christ manifests in the form of five flames or the flaming star, blossoming like a flower, a five-petal rose. This is the royal secret, the mystery of the rose-cross. A rose-cross is carried in procession and planted in the middle of the altar with a small column on either side, one surmounted by the sun and the other by the moon. Above hovers a dove. In the Gospel reading for this second day, Ieshu says to his disciples, “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Whoever believes his doctrine will exit the cycle of reincarnation and pass from death to life. Even if dead, they will live. They will have eternal life.
So what was this teaching? The Gospel reading is followed with a prayer:
“O sublime star, O divine flower of the Pleroma, who never abandoned mankind, and who from the earliest times revealed to it your Royal Secret… we tell you today the royal secret you once entrusted to us: here, my dear friends, is what is true and certain: what is below is like what is above, and what is above is like what is below… As all things were and came from One, so all things are born from this one thing by adaptation (specification)… This is the generator of everything, the will of the whole universe. It ascends from earth to heaven and descends from heaven to earth, and receives the strength of both higher and lower things. It is the force of all force, stronger than all things, fluid and penetrating all solid things. Its power remains intact when it is condensed in the solid. We must therefore know how to separate thick from subtle.”
In the ‘1899 Catechism’ of the Church we find the following passage which explains the shape of the Tau cross:
"What is the humblest manifestation of Christ on earth? It is the terrestrial fire, principally that which we draw from vegetation, either from its wood, or its fruit.
"When the physical rays of the sun come into contact with a plant, the vibratory movement from the Universal Source is intercepted by the vibratory movement of the plant, and this produces a change with the result of forming other rays and vibratory movements, which ultimately fix carbon from heat and light into a latent state. That heat and carbon manifests itself as fire when other vibratory movements are communicated through the wood. In fact, if we dig out piece in a horizontal piece of wood and in it rapidly turn another piece of wood, we obtain fire in that cavity. That is the Christ manifested. The vertical piece of wood is the Father, the horizontal piece of wood is the Mother and the fire is the Son, or Child. The tool which serves to produce the fire therefore has the form of a reversed T, and the upright T is the symbol of Christ. The Christ therefore has two fathers: 1) the celestial, which is at the origins of all things; and 2) the terrestrial, which is the carpenter who created the T."
The Third Day – Sustenance of the World
The Third Day of Spring (Thursday) is day is dedicated to Christ the Savior, the sustenance of the world. On this day Ieshu reveals to his disciples the remaining ineffable mystery: Christ is the true life and the blood of the grapes. After worshipping Christ in the flame, we now worship Him in the bread and wine. In procession a red banner is carried, on which is embroidered a white pelican opening its breast to feed its young, with a Rose-Cross surmounting its head. On the banner are also inscribed the words “hope” and “charity”.
The bread and wine are symbols of immortality. The Christ principle, which is the invisible source of the physical sun, the blazing star, and which is present in fire and in flowers, is also present in fruit and wheat. This same Christ manifests in human form as saviors. In Christ is the promise of immortality, escape from the cycle of reincarnations and, ultimately, deification. The process involves first understanding that there is an ‘ascending’ and ‘descending’ generator, which is the will of the universe, out of which all things are born as adaptations, or specifications of One; and second it involves separating thick from subtle.
This also teaches a method of dying, such that the ethereal body will rise up the vertical beam and flower through the head, or bear fruit. The Church teaches that Ieshu’s body was carefully secluded in a cave where he rested from his labors and prepared to transition from this mortal life to the ethereal and eternal life. Eliphas Levi writes of the Astral Body:
"We have spoken at length of a substance diffused through infinity, the single substance which is Heaven and Earth, that is to say, volatised or fixed according to its different degrees of polarization. This substance is what Hermes Trismegistus calls the Great Telesma. When it produces refulgence, it is called Light. This is the substance that God created before all things, when He said, Let there be Light!... In the infinite this unique substance is ether or etherized light. In the stars… it becomes astral light. In organized creatures, it is magnetic light or fluid. In man, it forms the astral body, or plastic mediator…
"…This force was known to the ancients; it consists of a universal agent whose supreme law is equilibrium… The Gnostics made [this agent] the burning body of the Holy Ghost… This ambient and all-penetrating fluid, this ray detached from the sun’s splendour, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and by the power of central attraction, this body of the Holy Ghost, which we call the Astral Light and the Universal Agent, this electro-magnetic ether… is really the blind force which souls must conquer in order to detach themselves from the chains of earth; for if their will should not free them from its fatal attraction, they will be absorbed in the current by the same power which first produced them, and will return to the central and eternal fire."
Adoration of the Rose Cross
O cross, our only hope
For you, under your star, with 5 flames
An icy black air
blew over our bodies and our souls
O holy cross, in your wood,
Christ annihilated himself
from thee comes life, O cross,
over all shines your supreme mystery
Sweet object of our faith, O you, a blazing star.
We see kings before thee
bowing their suppliant majesty.
Wonderful wood of the cross,
Rameau, girded with royal purple,
holy tree, prince of woods, no tree in nobility equals thee.
The heavenly birds can be seen
among the thorny branch,
the feather of its branch,
forms the silken green leaf.
From your wood, criss-crossed,
rises a dazzling flower,
before the blazing chalice spreads a beneficent light.
It is this divine sparrowhawk,
who bears within you the seed of light
you more beautiful than the olive tree,
child of mother earth
You live between the sun
and the moon, emblem of the ancestors,
of the unparalleled child-king,
still unknown to so many
O cross, mysterious bed
where God himself gives birth to the righteous.
Chain where the stone Christ
learns in August knowledge.
O Cross of Christ, king of kings,
Flag, coat-of-arms and warm Victory
O Holy and sublime cross.
Honor, blessing and glory.
So that your blazing star may light up the human race forever, O Christ, we pray you...
Christe Eleison
That your fragrant rose may forever embalm mankind, O Christ, we pray thee
Christe Eleison
As our Rosicrucian Order is consecrated by the Gnostic Church and includes Gnostic teachings in its rites and instruction, We include this commentary on the Church's teachings concerning the Rose Cross, which are delivered within the Gnostic Hierurgy on the second and third days of spring. To place these in context, the Church celebrates “The Mysteries of Eternal Life” during the Holy Week of Spring and “The Mysteries of Death” at Autumn, following its 1901 ceremonial. The following is adapted from a homily delivered in New York on Easter Sunday 2024 by Tau Apollonius, Primate of the Church for North America.
At the spring equinox heat, light, and life, Christ, prevails over cold, darkness, and death. Nature as a whole resurrects and adorns itself with beautiful colors: plants emerge from the earth, buds sprout on branches, hibernating animals awaken. It is at this time of Easter that our Church celebrates ‘The Mysteries of Eternal Life’, liberation from death, and rebirth. This constitutes our holy week of spring.
The First Day – Sacred Fire
We celebrate the First Day of Spring on the first Sunday which corresponds with or follows the equinox. We praise the New Sun as it emerges from rest with brilliance. The earth is revived and offers itself to the Sun with flowers and greenery. Our hymns praise the “sacred fire of the earth,” the “torch of the world”, the “Star of the Pleroma” – all references to the Sun. We sing to the “divine sun of justice” who triumphs over the dark and has saved us from the serpent. This recalls Apollo, the sun, who defeats the python. The Orphic hymn to Apollo extols him: “you are the eye that sees all, you bring light to mortals… You make everything bloom…”
This First Day of Spring was celebrated on Palm Sunday, when we acknowledge Ieshu as having come to save humanity. We refer to Him as “the gentle aesthete” and offer him a bouquet of flowers. He is praised as the King of Heaven, the King of the Pleroma, the highest of the Pleroma, who descended to earth in a body, placing his ethereal nature under a material garment.
Christ the Savior, the “light of the world”, is the principle of heat, life, and light. The Christ principle manifests in two forms: as the physical sun, which at this time prevails over darkness and death; and in human form as saviors. We recognize Ieshu.
Eliphas Levi writes of The Great Magic Agent, or The Mysteries of the Astral Light:
“…the day star is only the reflection and material shadow of the sun of truth which illuminates the intellectual world, and which itself is but a gleam borrowed from the Absolute. The sun of the divine world is the infinite, spiritual, and uncreated light; this light is, so to speak, verbalized in the philosophical world, and becomes the focus of souls and of truth…”
The Second Day – The Rose Cross and the Royal Secret
On the Second Day of Spring (Wednesday), the wooden cross is honored. From the intersection of the vertical and horizontal, Christ manifests in the form of five flames or the flaming star, blossoming like a flower, a five-petal rose. This is the royal secret, the mystery of the rose-cross. A rose-cross is carried in procession and planted in the middle of the altar with a small column on either side, one surmounted by the sun and the other by the moon. Above hovers a dove. In the Gospel reading for this second day, Ieshu says to his disciples, “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Whoever believes his doctrine will exit the cycle of reincarnation and pass from death to life. Even if dead, they will live. They will have eternal life.
So what was this teaching? The Gospel reading is followed with a prayer:
“O sublime star, O divine flower of the Pleroma, who never abandoned mankind, and who from the earliest times revealed to it your Royal Secret… we tell you today the royal secret you once entrusted to us: here, my dear friends, is what is true and certain: what is below is like what is above, and what is above is like what is below… As all things were and came from One, so all things are born from this one thing by adaptation (specification)… This is the generator of everything, the will of the whole universe. It ascends from earth to heaven and descends from heaven to earth, and receives the strength of both higher and lower things. It is the force of all force, stronger than all things, fluid and penetrating all solid things. Its power remains intact when it is condensed in the solid. We must therefore know how to separate thick from subtle.”
In the ‘1899 Catechism’ of the Church we find the following passage which explains the shape of the Tau cross:
"What is the humblest manifestation of Christ on earth? It is the terrestrial fire, principally that which we draw from vegetation, either from its wood, or its fruit.
"When the physical rays of the sun come into contact with a plant, the vibratory movement from the Universal Source is intercepted by the vibratory movement of the plant, and this produces a change with the result of forming other rays and vibratory movements, which ultimately fix carbon from heat and light into a latent state. That heat and carbon manifests itself as fire when other vibratory movements are communicated through the wood. In fact, if we dig out piece in a horizontal piece of wood and in it rapidly turn another piece of wood, we obtain fire in that cavity. That is the Christ manifested. The vertical piece of wood is the Father, the horizontal piece of wood is the Mother and the fire is the Son, or Child. The tool which serves to produce the fire therefore has the form of a reversed T, and the upright T is the symbol of Christ. The Christ therefore has two fathers: 1) the celestial, which is at the origins of all things; and 2) the terrestrial, which is the carpenter who created the T."
The Third Day – Sustenance of the World
The Third Day of Spring (Thursday) is day is dedicated to Christ the Savior, the sustenance of the world. On this day Ieshu reveals to his disciples the remaining ineffable mystery: Christ is the true life and the blood of the grapes. After worshipping Christ in the flame, we now worship Him in the bread and wine. In procession a red banner is carried, on which is embroidered a white pelican opening its breast to feed its young, with a Rose-Cross surmounting its head. On the banner are also inscribed the words “hope” and “charity”.
The bread and wine are symbols of immortality. The Christ principle, which is the invisible source of the physical sun, the blazing star, and which is present in fire and in flowers, is also present in fruit and wheat. This same Christ manifests in human form as saviors. In Christ is the promise of immortality, escape from the cycle of reincarnations and, ultimately, deification. The process involves first understanding that there is an ‘ascending’ and ‘descending’ generator, which is the will of the universe, out of which all things are born as adaptations, or specifications of One; and second it involves separating thick from subtle.
This also teaches a method of dying, such that the ethereal body will rise up the vertical beam and flower through the head, or bear fruit. The Church teaches that Ieshu’s body was carefully secluded in a cave where he rested from his labors and prepared to transition from this mortal life to the ethereal and eternal life. Eliphas Levi writes of the Astral Body:
"We have spoken at length of a substance diffused through infinity, the single substance which is Heaven and Earth, that is to say, volatised or fixed according to its different degrees of polarization. This substance is what Hermes Trismegistus calls the Great Telesma. When it produces refulgence, it is called Light. This is the substance that God created before all things, when He said, Let there be Light!... In the infinite this unique substance is ether or etherized light. In the stars… it becomes astral light. In organized creatures, it is magnetic light or fluid. In man, it forms the astral body, or plastic mediator…
"…This force was known to the ancients; it consists of a universal agent whose supreme law is equilibrium… The Gnostics made [this agent] the burning body of the Holy Ghost… This ambient and all-penetrating fluid, this ray detached from the sun’s splendour, and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and by the power of central attraction, this body of the Holy Ghost, which we call the Astral Light and the Universal Agent, this electro-magnetic ether… is really the blind force which souls must conquer in order to detach themselves from the chains of earth; for if their will should not free them from its fatal attraction, they will be absorbed in the current by the same power which first produced them, and will return to the central and eternal fire."
Adoration of the Rose Cross
O cross, our only hope
For you, under your star, with 5 flames
An icy black air
blew over our bodies and our souls
O holy cross, in your wood,
Christ annihilated himself
from thee comes life, O cross,
over all shines your supreme mystery
Sweet object of our faith, O you, a blazing star.
We see kings before thee
bowing their suppliant majesty.
Wonderful wood of the cross,
Rameau, girded with royal purple,
holy tree, prince of woods, no tree in nobility equals thee.
The heavenly birds can be seen
among the thorny branch,
the feather of its branch,
forms the silken green leaf.
From your wood, criss-crossed,
rises a dazzling flower,
before the blazing chalice spreads a beneficent light.
It is this divine sparrowhawk,
who bears within you the seed of light
you more beautiful than the olive tree,
child of mother earth
You live between the sun
and the moon, emblem of the ancestors,
of the unparalleled child-king,
still unknown to so many
O cross, mysterious bed
where God himself gives birth to the righteous.
Chain where the stone Christ
learns in August knowledge.
O Cross of Christ, king of kings,
Flag, coat-of-arms and warm Victory
O Holy and sublime cross.
Honor, blessing and glory.
So that your blazing star may light up the human race forever, O Christ, we pray you...
Christe Eleison
That your fragrant rose may forever embalm mankind, O Christ, we pray thee
Christe Eleison
