Commentaries on the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries

Anyone who has reached this web page is familiar with the internet, so let us use the internet as an analogy to understand the Secret Symbols. But first, who are the Rosicrucians?

In the period 1614-16 at Cassel in Germany, a series of documents was published which are now collectively known as the Rosicrucian Manifestoes. Their shortened titles are the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confessio Fraternitatis and the Chymical Marriage. These are the primary source of the Rosicrucian teachings. Next in importance, is a document published at Altona in Germany in 1785 and called the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries. This is the document that we shall use in our internet analogy. It consists of diagrams and text.

The text is like a computer user’s manual. Who reads those? They might as well be written kabalistically for all the sense they make. However if you can use MS DOS, you can certainly read the text of the Secret Symbols. In fact, we have some commentaries on the text and these will be added to as time goes on. The relationship of the text to the symbols is that it explains what they mean and how to use them. However it is the symbols that are of primary importance in the Secret Symbols document. Let us turn to them.

Each page of symbols is like an internet web page with a free downloadable software that makes the symbols understandable. If we can log on to the kosmic internet we can down load free software from the kosmic’s hard drive to our personal (ie spiritual) hard drive. When the kosmic software downloads, it goes into either "executable" or "self executing" mode. Let us pause here because there are a number of issues:

• How do we log on to the kosmic internet? Via the disciplines of study, meditation and prayer.  This is assisted by the kosmic web site diagram known as the Tree of Life.
• How do we find on the web page the link to the free kosmic software? The particular symbol we are looking at, is a specific web page that has the program "zipped" inside it. To help you find the link downloading that program we are writing commentaries over a period of time for each page of the Secret Symbols. These commentaries will lead you to the right link. Once we down load the program, it "unzips" on our spiritual hard drive if it is "self executing". We recognize this as an illumination experience.
• How do we "unzip" the program so that it goes into "self executing" mode? Via the disciplines of study, meditation and prayer.
• What if the program remains "executable"? As with computers, we must actively intervene and take further action in order to unzip and execute the program. How do we do that? You guessed it, the disciplines again.
• What happens when we execute the program? We may get an enlightenment experience, but more likely, we need to do more spiritual work on ourselves. What work? The Great Work consisting of the 12 Disciplines, the Reconciliation of the 7 Pairs of Opposites and the 3 Orientations to God.

By looking at the pages of the Secret Symbols, we are at least downloading "unzipped" programs that remain "executable" until we are able to read the user’s manual and make them work in our lives.

Happy (kosmic) net surfing.