Fall 2014 Grand Councilor's Message

Greetings Seekers, Sorores and Fratres!

As many of you know, my father has been having health issues for many years. Lately he has become very poor of health, with visible signs of deterioration. I mention this not for sympathy or as an excuse for any slowness of reading emails or any other excuse. I mention it because he has determined that he has a condition known as Failure to Thrive.

Failure to Thrive is an interesting condition, as it is not a disease, but rather a dis-ease. This is more of a bucket that doctors throw people into when they seem to be declining in health but without any discernable cause. This has been studied most with foster children coming from abusive situation. The second most studied group is senior citizens in nursing homes. If you have any experience with either study group you know that they deal with what they perceive to be unalterable conditions. Thus Failure to Thrive is mostly connected to depression. Additionally, having Failure to Thrive indicates that one is not even attempting to survive.

As my father talks to others from his church they often comment “Sounds like it is all in your head” - much to my father’s ire. He is a firm non-believer of mind over matter. He thinks it is all poppycock, as I and Soror Ronda watch it manifest. To avoid the mind versus brain discussion, let’s use thoughts and emotions for this message. And as Rosicrucians, we know just how important one’s mental and emotional beings affects the rest of our whole self.

I am not going to go into any particular practice that you can find on the web or in the bookstore. No, we have all we need at our disposal. This was the theme of Frater Dave Wheeler’s presentation during the recent 2014 Colorado Rosicrucian Convention. (We hope to have videos of the convention available on YouTube soon thanks to the wonderful efforts of Terra Media.) The practice can be summed up as “mental alchemy”. H. Spencer Lewis has a chapter on it in his book Rosicrucian Principles for the Home and Business, and there is the book Ralph M. Lewis wrote entitled Mental Alchemy.

In being open to find examples of how to deal with Failure to Thrive from a Rosicrucian perspective I was presented with three great writings that were not exactly about Failure to Thrive, but rather on Thrive. Yes, as the condition truly is a state of being in dis-ease, finding resolution is essential. The three writings presented to me were the first two articles in the new “Forum” and “Liber 777: The Celestial Sanctum”. Within the forum Imperator Christian Bernard’s article “Being a Thinking, Active, and Responsible Mystic” discusses how important mysticism is in the 21st century and that there is a definite need for conscious and responsible mysticism. The second article in the “Forum” is by Ralph M. Lewis and is entitled “Being Content: Satisfaction as a Thought Process”. If you have not read this article I highly recommend it. It can be found online through the “Rosicrucian Beacon” (pg. 15).

But I would rather draw attention to “Liber 777” due to the fact that when a person becomes a member of AMORC, this is one of the first documents they have access to, or receive in the mail. The beginning of this document speaks to the need for finding harmony, with oneself, others and nature. I remember in high school English class we were told that the three types of conflict in literature are (yes, you guessed it) man vs self, man vs man and man vs nature.

Some key points that I feel should be mentioned from “Liber 777” are:

• “The harmony we must maintain with regard to ourselves involves the body, mind, and emotions.”
• Reason is one of the most important (of the mental faculties), because our daily life is conditioned by our proper judgments. The more we apply our reason to healthy and useful reflections, the more we make it as it was meant to be—an instrument designed to express the best in ourselves.”
• “…it is important to know that feelings based on anger, pride, jealousy, and spitefulness, etc., are quite harmful to our emotional well-being and consequently to our physical equilibrium. …feelings of fear, anxiety, and distress—are equally damaging to the general harmony that should prevail on all levels of our being.”
• “We cannot know Peace Profound as long as we remain in a negative or discordant emotional state.”

It is of vital importance to our being that we engage in activities, thoughts and emotions that are of a positive nature. Yes, challenges will arise, but how do you perceive them? Are challenges something that makes you irrationally angry or opportunities for advancement of your thought processes? Each time you are presented with a situation take note that the emotions, thoughts, and actions have long term consequences that affect our being on all planes. Granted, at some time our body will begin to show signs of aging and will not heal as fast, etc. But again, our attitudes will greatly determine how we go through the aging process.

Do you want to fail to thrive, survive, or thrive?

Peace Be With You,

Brian Mitchell, FRC