Three Mystical Stages in Rosicrucian Doctrine: From Hidden Fire to Christ in Glory

To obtain this result, the purpose of these operations is written on the temple's pediment where it says "Watching While Sleeping," alluding to a state encountered by certain mystics and called "Perpetual Vigil." [2nd figure Hidden Fire = II STAGE awakening of centers and acquisition of powers] What does this figure deal with? Those who have followed the course on Symbolic Geometry can understand even simply from the form: you see a Square with a Triangle inside. In the course on Symbolic Geometry we said that traditionally this representation represented the Hidden Fire because it is fire hidden within matter. The fact that the entire image is filled with fire makes it clear that we are on the right track. Therefore, the image refers to the awakening of a power or ardor capable of regenerating consciousness. The 2 books then clarify the subject: On the left, in fact, a passage from Revelation is written in the book, you see there is a book with seven seals. If you remember there is this passage in which no one could be found who could open this book with seven seals and then the Lamb is found: "Then I saw standing in the midst of the throne surrounded by the four living beings and by the elders, a Lamb, as if slain. He had seven horns and seven eyes, symbol of the seven spirits of God sent throughout all the earth. And the Lamb came and took the book from the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders prostrated themselves before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sang a new song: 'You are worthy to take the book and to open its seals, because you were slain and have redeemed for God with your blood men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation and you have made them for our God a kingdom of priests and they will reign on earth.'" "Worthy IHSVH to take the book and open its seals, Let us praise God, Let us praise God" Here are drawn seven seals that symbolize the seven capital sins that are rooted in man's consciousness and from which, through this igneous power, man's consciousness must free itself. On the other side there is instead a passage from Deuteronomy that says "Cursed is he who does not maintain in force the words of this law, to put it into practice!" The practice serves to obtain a rapid method of purification of the centers of consciousness which in the writing around this figure are compared to lotus flowers. The described practice is a practice to awaken an inner fire of love toward God and establish it in the heart. In making this journey, this inner fire had to traverse obstacles, delicate points of consciousness that the Kabbalists called "lotus flowers or roses." Here indeed one cannot read the upper part of the image where it is written: "It will therefore be advisable for us first to purify the lotuses and once purged with penance, offer them supplicating with sincere faith, entrust them to the Deifying Light and then She, the eternal Wisdom, distilling from above the superexcellent manna of nectar and water, fire, rain, distilling drop by drop over the earth, in hearts, in souls and in our strong minds and in the Body, Spirit and Soul or MICROCOSMIC ternary reborn." This makes clear this purification of the centers of consciousness before operating the awakening of this inner fire that will cause the human trinity to be reborn, welding it into a UniTrinity. [3rd Figure Christ in Glory = III STAGE incorporation into the Risen Christ] Finally, here is the last image when this stage is completed, here it is possible the incorporation into Christ which in Rosicrucian doctrines is identified as the true and proper Philosopher's Stone according to what Paracelsus says: "It is Christ, the God-Man who transfigures us just as the philosopher's stone transmutes metals. [...] Through him and in him we rise like the rose and its proud buds from the same seed, from the same sprout." - Paracelsus Here in this figure is represented the Man who is glorified as adhering to the deified and glorified humanity of Jesus Christ. This is represented by a flaming star with the name of Christ and the symbol of resurrection represented by the Phoenix. Finally, the Rose. The Rose in the Zohar represented the Messianic presence, in the Grail romances similarly it has often been the symbol of the Grail itself, the place that contains the blood of Christ, that is, divine life and presence. This suggests that the special content that these Rosicrucians wanted to bring to the world and on which they wanted to found a spiritual reform was a particular and special divine presence synthesized precisely by the Rose. The first Rosicrucian according to the Fama Fraternitatis dies in England. Precisely in England this movement primarily spreads in these years with Fludd and Maier but especially in subsequent years with Elias Ashmole, Robert Moray and the Royal Society.