Max Heindel
Max Heindel (23 July 1865 – 6 January 1919), born Carl Louis von Grasshoff, was a Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic.
Quotes
[edit]- The man who realizes his ignorance has taken the first step toward knowledge.
- The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1909) Introduction
- Christ said, "The Truth shall make you free," but Truth is not found once and forever. Truth is eternal, and the quest for Truth must also be eternal.
- The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
- We venture to make the assertion that there is but one sin: IGNORANCE, and but one salvation: APPLIED KNOWLEDGE.
- The Rosicrucian Mysteries (1911)
As a forerunner in defense of peace education, antimilitarism and pacifism for conflict resolution and world peace achievement:
- Peace is a matter of education, and impossible of achievement until we have learned to deal charitably, justly, and openly with one another, as nations as well as individuals. As long as we manufacture arms, peace will not become established. It should become our aim and object to do all we can toward the abolition of militarism in all countries and the establishment of the principle of arbitration of difficulties.
- Letters to Students: LETTER NO. 92, July, 1918.
As a forerunner in defense of women's suffrage and women's rights:
- ... looking at woman suffrage from the larger standpoint, it would be to the advantage of the men of the present day to grant women that which is really their right--a full and complete equality in every particular. The double social standard which obtains at the present time, whereby a man may commit the social sin without being ostracized, should be done away with. Woman's work should be paid as much as man's work, ... It would be of an enormous benefit to the race if she were given an equal right with man in every particular. For not until then can we hope to see reforms brought about that will really unite humanity. ... While laws are only makeshifts to bring humanity to a higher plane where each one will be a law unto himself, doing right without coercion, it is nevertheless necessary that such reforms should be brought about at the present time by legislation.
- The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions and Answers - Volume I: QUESTION NO. 185, 1910s
Heindel advocated for ethical vegetarianism:
- But there are vegetarians and vegetarians: In Europe conditions cause people now to abstain from flesh eating to a very large extent. They are not true vegetarians for they are lusting for flesh every moment of their lives, and they feel the want of it as a great hardship and sacrifice. In time they would of course grow used to is, and in many generations it would make them gentle and docile, but obviously that is not the kind of vegetarianism we need now. There are others who abstain from flesh foods for the sake of health; their motive is selfish, and many among them probably also lust after the "flesh pots of Egypt". Their attitude of mind is not such either that it would abolish ferocity very quickly. But there is a third class which realizes that all life is God's life and that to cause suffering to any sentient being is wrong, so out of pure compassion they abstain from the use of flesh foods. They are the true vegetarians, and it is obvious that a world war could never be fought by people of this turn of mind. All true Christians will also be abstainers from flesh foods for similar motives. Then peace on earth and good will among men will be an assured fact; the nations will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks that they may cease to deal death, sorrow, and suffering, and become instruments to foster life, love, and happiness.
- Teachings of an Initiate (1927)
Creed or Christ (1909)
[edit]- No man loves God who hates his kind,
- Who tramples on his brother's heart and soul;
- Who seeks to shackle, cloud, or fog the mind
- By fears of hell has not perceived our goal.
- God-sent are all religions blest;
- And Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life,
- To give the heavy laden rest
- And peace from sorrow, sin, and strife.
- Behold the Universal Spirit came
- To all the churches, not to one alone;
- On Pentecostal morn a tongue of flame
- Round each apostle as a halo shone.
- Since then, as vultures ravenous with greed,
- We oft have battled for an empty name,
- And sought by dogma, edict, cult, or creed,
- To send each other to the quenchless flame.
- Is Christ then twain? Was Cephas, Paul,
- To save the world, nailed to the tree?
- Then why divisions here at all?
- Christ's love enfolds both you and me.
- His pure sweet love is not confined
- By creed which segregate and raise a wall.
- His love enfolds, embraces human kind,
- No matter what ourselves or Him we call.
- Then why not take Him at His word?
- Why hold to creeds which tear apart?
- But one thing matters, be it heard
- That brother love fill every heart.
- There's but one thing the world has need to know.
- There's but one balm for all our human woe:
- There's but one way that leads to heaven above--
- That way is human sympathy and love.
We Are Eternal (1911)
[edit]- On whistling stormcloud; on Zephyrus wing,
- The Spirit-choir loud the world-anthems sing;
- Hark! List to their voice: "We have passed through death's door,
- There's no Death; rejoice! life lives evermore."
- We are, have always been, will ever be.
- We are a portion of Eternity,
- Older than Creation, a part of One Great Whole,
- Is each Individual and immortal Soul.
- On Time's whirring loom our garments we've wrought,
- Eternally weave we on network of Thought,
- Our kin and our country, by Mind brought to birth,
- Were patterned in heaven ere molded on earth.
- We have shone in the jewel and danced on the wave,
- We have sparkled in fire, defying the grave;
- Through shapes ever-changing, in size, kind and name
- Our individual essence still is the same.
- And when we have reached to the highest of all,
- The gradations of growth our minds shall recall,
- So that link by link we may join them together
- And trace step by step the way we reached thither.
- Thus in time we shall know, if only we do
- What lifts, ennobles, is right and true.
- With kindness to all, with malice to none,
- That in and through us God's will may be done.
