Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Chaosphere Experience

PASCHAL BEVERLY RANDOLPH


Physician, Philosopher, world traveler, Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis; Hierarch of Eulis and the Ansaireh; member of L’Ordre du Lis of France; the Double Eagle of Prussia, and Order of the Rose of England, was born in the city of New York, October 8, 1825.
His father was William Beverly Randolph, a nephew of John Randolph of Virginia; his mother, Flora Beverly, a native of Vermont, was of mixed East Indian, French, English, German and Madagascan blood.

Randolph’s mother died when he was but five years of age. A half-sister took him into her house, without, however, making a home for him, or in the least endeavoring to educate him, or in any way guiding or instructing him. In order to exist he had to lead the life of a beggar-child, minus schooling or moral-spiritual training, with the sole exception of one winter in a public school.

At the age of fifteen his life at the home became unbearable. He ran away and became a sailor, a life led by him until he was twenty. During this time he visited almost every part of the world and being keen of nature, gathered knowledge and experience, which he put to good use in later life.

Of his birth, Randolph himself wrote—and the analysis is keen and deep—and accounts, at least in greater part, for his extraordinary life:
“I was born in love, of a loving mother, and what she felt, that I lived. I am the exact living counterpart of her feelings, intense passions, volcanic, fiery; her love, like high heaven, deeper than death; her agony, terrible as a thousand racks; her hope and trust fervent, enduring, solid as steel; unbreakable as the lightning, which blazes in the sky.

“Her loneliness, I have been a hermit all my days, even in the midst of men; in a word, I am the exact expression of that woman’s state of body, mind, emotion, Soul, longings, spirit, aspirations, when she took in charge the incarnation of the soul of him who now is penning these lines.”

This view of Paschal Beverly Randolph is a high resolution scan of a rare photograph found in the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis archives located on the grounds of Beverly Hall in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
Another writer who was acquainted with the parents of Randolph and had watched Randolph’s later career, said:
“It has long been brought against the Randolph that he is angular and eccentric. When was real trueborn genius otherwise? Flora, his mother, was a woman of extraordinary mental activity and great physical beauty, nervous, ‘high strung,’ and willful; a native of Vermont, of mingled Indian, French, English, German and [Royal] Madagascan blood. She had not a drop of Negro blood in her veins, nor consequently has her son. The tawny complexion of both mother and son came from her grandmother, a born Queen of the Island of Madagascar, of whom she was extraordinarily proud. The father of Randolph was William Beverly Randolph, of the proud family of that name of Virginia. His mother died in 1830, leaving her son practically an orphan. The so-called ‘angularity’, and genius of her son, had its origin in the fact that in his veins ran no less than seven distinct varieties, or strains of blood, but no Negroid; though there were no shame in this, were it true; but he is not a mulatto, quadroon or octoroon, as so frequently stated by his enemies, but is probably the most perfect specimen of the composite, or concrete man now living.

“It is unquestionably this mingling of various nationalities in him—and the accumulated Karma, both good and bad of the many lives—that constitute the source of his peculiar mental, psychic (Soul) power and almost marvelous versatility. It also accounts for his singular cerebral conformation.

“Given: a mother, herself a composite of conflicting bloods, very nervous, somewhat superstitious as all Orientals are; deeply poetical, vain as all beauty is; imaginative as are great Souls; aspiring as old Souls who have suffered much; deeply religious inborn as in advanced Souls; confiding and utterly trustful, stormy as are all who love deeply; intuitive and spiritual, due to much Karmic experience; imperative as are all of Royal birth; ambitious, physically and mentally active; quick as the lightning from heaven; exacting to a high degree; gay and gloomy by turns; now hopeful, then despondent; highly sensitive; innately refined due to past births; passionate and passional, tempestuous; now stubborn and headstrong, cold as ice, then Vesuvian, volcanic, loving, yielding, soft, tender, gentle, proud, generous, warm-hearted and voluptuous; and what must be the child of such a mother; but that which he is, a genius! Now in heaven, then in hell! comprehending, because suffering, both.

“Thus the mother—a mother while becoming so, which all too few are—Willed her child to be all she was, all its father was—whom she loved with all her heart—and yet more!—and the father willful, egotistic, boastful, haughty, vain, proud, conceited, sensuous, ambitious, dictatorial, intellectual, prodigal, unstable, variable, imperative; all these as a result of birth in an old and proud family; all these crystallized and condensed, mingled and mixed in their son; it will readily be understood that he came fairly by his angularities, eccentricities, personal appearance, talent, psychic and spiritual powers, his charm and ability to direct and fit into position, among all manner of men, kings as readily as beggars. Add to this the fact that while bearing him, his mother was in deep trouble; had been ill-treated by those she trusted as friends; was thrown back upon herself, forced to eat her own heart, as it were, and as a result, sought sympathy, guidance and peace among those who had attained and gone before, and no knowing ones will wonder that he was, like Saint Germain and Cagliostro, born a seer.”

This same writer who had watched the development of the run-away boy until he had become a worldwide recognized author and a power in the world, taking up the thread beginning with Randolph’s leave by ship from New York, wrote:

“After his mother’s death, he was literally cast adrift on the world; educating himself, never attending school above a year or two at the most. Incessant study, in part due to an inborn loneliness, made him probably one of the best read men in the country. From his twelfth to his twentieth year he was a sailor, and during this time he experienced even more than the usual amount of abuse and savage treatment.
“A severe accident—from which he never wholly recovered—that befell him while chopping wood, caused him to abandon the sea, and to learn the dyer’s and barber’s trades, at both of which he worked while pursuing his varied and extensive reading, especially on medicine, a profession he later followed with marvelous success, until the breaking out of the war for slavery, during the first two years of which he visited California, Mexico, Central and South America, England, Ireland, Scotland, France (the fourth time), Turkey, Greece, Syria (the second time), Egypt and Arabia.

“Returning at the hour of the nation’s greatest peril, he offered his services to the Government, raised and sent into the field a great many of the then despised colored soldiers destined for the ‘Fremont Legion,’ but later became part of other corps.

“In conjunction with these herculean labors he published his work on human antiquity, Pre-Adamite Man, ran it through three large editions, and then, at the President’s personal request, he went to Louisiana and for nearly three years, in addition to his duties as Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas, did noble duty as an educator of the freed people.”

Randolph had a clear understanding of his own nature. During the great trials and tribulations brought upon him by those whom he had fully trusted he wrote, and therein voiced an eternal truth:

“Perhaps people who understand ethnology will understand why I am what I am. From birth I breathed a rich, voluptuous atmosphere, because I breathed my mother’s sphere, and drank in love from her bosom—her very Soul.

“Is it any marvel then that my entire Soul was given up to studies of the master passion of human kind; or that I wrote book after book on love, life’s grandest theme? I myself think not, for I solemnly believe I was born [destined] for the purpose of talking and writing upon this eternal theme; for I began to love nearly a year before I was born, and have kept it up to this very hour.

“I do not feel that I ever was low in my taste, nor debased in the consummation; on the contrary, I have been inspired by a lofty love inherited from my mother, and this love has been with me since the hour she left me for heaven.

“My great trouble, a part of my nature, has been ready credulity. On that rock I have often stuck. When a man said he was my friend, or a woman—hundreds of both—told me they loved me, I unquestioningly believed both, and never yet failed to suffer for my too ready acceptance on my faith.

“This trait of my character has been the cause of nearly all my suffering, yet I could not help believing others, cannot even now, in this my most bitter hour [imprisoned because I so unquestioningly trusted], for my heart is full of love for all mankind, nor lurks therein any revengefulness toward any, even those who left my side when the storms came down, or the dark phalanx, who blindly cried havoc, and bitterly assailed me.

“I will not be a hypocrite either, and profess I love my foes, for I do not, nor do I believe any one else does, say what they may. On the contrary, I desire to see the wrong-doers punished —that is the Law—to see others suffer even as they made me suffer, until their Souls shall cry, ‘Hold, we have been wrong, the penalty is paid.’

“How curious a thing is fate or destiny! I firmly believe my lot was cast when for a time I should be entirely surrounded by cyprians, rogues, and hypocrites, as for the six months prior to April 16, 1872, that I might learn, and be ripened, as the sun shines in the sky and ripens the fruit upon which it shines. I do not hate nor accurse my enemies, nor yet turn the other cheek to be smitten again; I wish all of them a place in heaven, and the sooner they shall arrive there the quicker will I know that they have paid their debts of evil and wrong-doing. And yet, according to the eternal law all men should understand, the question arises: Can any of these men [or of any one] who have so deeply betrayed my faith and wronged me, ever be actually happy, whether dead or alive, so long as my Soul—Immortal as the eternal’s—be unable to free itself of the bitter memory [impression made upon it]; my life blasted by their inordinate love of gold and slander? I think not, and shall devote the next ten centuries of super-moral life to the solution of this very tremendous problem.

“Certain it is that, knowing something of the laws of mind, soul, justice, and of my own enduring and vehement nature, I cannot think they will enjoy heaven when I or anyone else continues to suffer as the result of their machinations. I believe this to be an eternal principle, imminent, positive, founded in mind and soul. When the world finally understands this Law, and governs itself accordingly, the good time coming will be close at hand! God speed the day when it shall be so understood and abided by!

“Every man who advocates ideas that the masses have not yet grown up to accept is denounced as a visionary; his sentiments misrepresented, his motives misjudged, his character traduced. He who designs to labor for the enlightenment and elevation of mankind must take it for granted that he will be denounced and derided, and must be prepared to forgive his oppressors and forget the ill, for they truly know not what they do.

“The ignorance of the multitude is great, and the majority of mankind are not prepared to understand or appreciate many of the most simple and evident truths. He who is unable to bear patiently all abuse, scorn and indifference, should not dare to enter the field of reform. But he who has prepared himself to accept poverty, deprivation, suffering and the disdain of those of his day; to labor on whether his contemporaries hear or refuse to listen, he shall do a work whose issue shall be everlasting, and whose memory shall not perish, but be resurrected after all of his time has passed on and is forgotten.”

Prior to 1854, Randolph had already become thoroughly familiar with the teachings of the Magnetists of France; with the precepts of Saint Germain and Cagliostro on Magnetic vision. These he compared with the inculcations of the Oriental seers and the writings of Paracelsus, Lane, Cuila Vilmara, Jennings, Lytton and others and was engaged in writing what later became his work—Seership. However, the work of Seership was temporarily delayed by his preparation to become, first: Supreme Grand Master of the Supreme Dome of the Rosy Cross of France and, second: Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas for the western world.

On his return to America, after his second trip to the Orient, Dr. Randolph was made acquainted with two members of the Council of Three of the Fraternitas, Drs. Fontaine and Bergevin of New York, who in turn gave him a letter of introduction to W. G. Palgrave of London, one of the members of the Inner Council of the Fraternitas of England, who in turn introduced Dr. Randolph to Hargrave Jennings. General Ethan Hitchcock introduced Dr. Randolph to the German Inner Council, and also sponsored him in France.

During the period between 1854 and 1856, it was decided by Count Guinotti and the World Council then sitting in Paris, that the time had come for a division of authority; the establishment of a Supreme Grand Master for Europe [England not included] and one for the Western World. This was finally consummated in 1858, as already mentioned.

In 1858 the Supreme Grand Dome met in Paris. The Conclave was opened by the Supreme Grand Master Levi. After the opening of the meeting in solemn form, Levi turned over the Wand to the Supreme World Hierarch, Count Guinotti, who, in ancient form, closed the Supreme Grand Dome and opened under the grand ceremonial of L’Ordre du Lis. Levi, in due order, at the behest of the Supreme Hierarch, gave up his seat as Supreme Grand Master of the Supreme Grand Dome, and Randolph was inducted before the Altar of the Three Fleur de Lis, and took the oath of both L’Ordre du Lis and as a Supreme Grand Master of the Supreme Grand Dome. After taking his seat, the Grand Ritual was performed, he stepped down from the chair, handed the Wand to Count Guinotti, who proceeded to recall Supreme Grand Master Levi to his seat and the proper officers proceeded to Initiate Dr. Randolph into his office as Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis for the Western World [North, Central and South America] and the Isles of the Sea.

On his return to America, Randolph occupied himself first of all in the formation of the Supreme Grand Dome for the Fraternitas, which up to that time was governed by the Secret Councils of Three and Seven, and to the preparation of texts. This was accomplished by 1860. Randolph then decided on a world tour for two specific purposes: (a) to cement his fellowship with all the members of the various Councils of the world; to contact as many as possible of the active Rose Cross or Philosophic Initiates, and (b) to collect material for several books he had in mind.

In the summer of 1861 he left for a ten-week series of lectures in San Francisco, and to establish the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis of the Western World on the shores of the Pacific.

After concluding this engagement, he visited Europe and the Orient to gather information respecting human antiquity and ontology, treading the spots made sacred because of their association and connection with the Nazarene, Mohammed, Plato and other great reformers, who for their particular age, gave the world a workable exposition of the Divine Law governing human behavior.

He successfully visited England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Malta, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Turkey and Greece. The first result of these travels was his celebrated book, Pre-Adamite Man, a work dedicated by direct request to President Lincoln, then a member of the Council of Three of the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis. This work concluded, Dr. Randolph, also at the President’s request, went to New Orleans to establish schools for the education of the freed children, a work somewhat marred by the wholly selfish interest of those who were against almost everything that both Lincoln and Randolph held dear.

During his visit to Syria, Randolph was permitted to finish his study of the Ansaireh secret teachings and was made a priest of the Ansaireh, something theretofore unknown. The result of these studies among the Ansaireh of Syria and his Initiation into their cult, was the interpretation of their teachings suitable to the western mind, as contained in his master text Eulis, a work for which evil minds persecuted and prosecuted him, but for which he was finally vindicated.

Alexander Dumas became a firm friend of Randolph during his various visits to France and declared that his life and adventures in various directions would easily afford the groundwork for a score of D’Artagnans, Monte Christos and “Admiral” Crichtons, in everything but wealth.

This more more frequently seen view of Paschal Beverly Randolph is also from a high resolution scan of a rare photograph found in the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis archives located on the grounds of Beverly Hall in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
Another author of the period who knew Dr. Randolph well, wrote most truthfully:
“The pebbles [small annoying things] in our pathway make us more footsore than the huge rocks we stoutly climb. And it was the small annoyances, born of petty spite and envy that mostly grieved the subject of this sketch; but believing, with Lord Brougham, that ‘the word impossible is the mother-tongue of little Souls,’ Dr. Randolph never uttered or even thought it. ‘When I wrote my works,’ he said, ‘I meant [felt] every word I penned, hence decreed their immortality in advance.’ He spoke the truth. During the past twenty-five years, at least a score of thousands of new writers have tried their wings, and most of them, books and writers, have fallen into the deep sea of forgetfulness. Not so with those sent forth by the lone toiler in a garret. Take up and read nine hundred works out of nine hundred and ten, and when you finish their perusal, that’s the last of them for you. True, many of them may so impress themselves upon you that your memory of them will never wholly fade away; but take up any one of Randolph’s books, and the memory will so haunt you as to compel a rereading again and again, and every time you do so, fresh new thoughts will continually flash out upon you from their magic pages. The great mass of works are the labor of skilled talent, but Randolph’s are the bold, untrained utterances of Genius.

“If greatness consists partly in doing and producing much with means which, in the hands of the others, would have been insufficient, then Randolph possesses that constituent of greatness. If greatness means power and ingeniousness to concentrate the gifts and talents of many on one point, to inspire others with sympathy and enthusiasm for the same end, and to make them gladly contribute toward it, then he was great. If it is great to see from the earliest manhood the main end of one’s individual life, steadily pursuing it to the very end with the highest gifts of nature, then he was great. If greatness means to soar high in the one selected sphere; to be trivial or puerile in none—on the contrary, to retain a vivid sympathy with all that is noble, beautiful, true and just, then he was great. If it is a characteristic of greatness to be original and strike out on new paths; indeed, even to prophetic anticipations, then he was great. If greatness requires marked individuality, which yet takes up all the main threads that give distinctness to the times we live in, then he was great. If greatness means an inventive and interleaguing imagination that gathers what is scattered, and, grandly simplifies and unites the details, and rears a temple, then he was great, for his mind and Soul possessed greatness. Truly great men are not jealous and are void of envy. They are full of inspiring ambition, but free from a desire to keep competitors down. Randolph showed no envy, or anything else that destroys true greatness.

“No one ever heard from his lips any indication from which it might be surmised that he shared in that superciliousness with which modern philosophers and thinkers frequently look upon other sciences and branches of knowledge. On the contrary, he took the deepest interest in human society, and all the branches that treat of men and social beings. He never fell into the grievous error of considering matter, space, force and time of higher importance than mind, society, right and goodness.”

After the trial and vindication, Randolph wrote in soliloquy:

“Every genius is ticketed for misery in this life; for theirs is but an angular, one-sided, painful development. A few advantages are purchased at an enormous cost. A short, brilliant, erratic career, more kicks than praises; more flattering leeches than fast friends; rich and joyous today, houseless and suffering the pangs of hell tomorrow; understood by God alone; seldom loved till dead; the victims of viciously minded men, and the solitary pillars of life. Genius is a bright bauble, but a dangerous possession; invariably open to two worlds. They are assaulted, coaxed, flattered, led captive on all sides through their affectionate nature. Rest comes to them only with death; and peace comes only through the knowledge of having done their best. They are compelled to train all their previously neglected facilities to something like harmony with those few wherewith they startled the world. As an example: A man who is a great architect, musician, physiologist, painter, sculptor, poet, or reasoner, must cultivate all his other faculties until he becomes rounded out. He thus outgrows his special angularities, and develops into a different man altogether. As he does this, he is most apt to lose his genius and be no more than a common man. It is a blessed thing to be able, as I am, to tell all such, and all the other tearful, unknown, sad-hearted, weary Souls, the unpitied, unappreciated wives; the struggling, honest man who goes to the wall because he cannot pollute his Soul by chicanery and low knavery, whereby coarser men find thrift; I repeat, it is a joy to me this night to be able to pen these lines of assurance that in very truth there is rest, and peace, and sweet sleep, and comfort, and sympathy and appreciation; and there are warmly loving hearts waiting for them in the beyond; and how some of us will rest, when our year of jubilee shall come, and death sets us free.”

How weary and heavy the heart must be to pen such lines after hard-earned victory has been won!

One of Randolph’s Acolytes, after the conflict between justice and injustice, penned these lines of him in which he found immortal truths and the exposition of the Arcane laws affecting human existence.

“The heart alone can write of and for the heart…. The heart that has throbbed to the music of its own and others’ anguish—that has sickened at the greed and ingratitude, the unfeeling rush and scramble, the trampling down of other torn and bleeding hearts—until it has turned away from the world, all forgetful of the greatest benefactors, and in solitude showers upon its enemies thoughts such as only the great and good are capable of thinking.

“This greatest thought—that which the world will yet build monuments to—is not so much the corruption and abuse of society, as it is the remedy for the gigantic evils which stare civilization and heaven out of countenance.

“Religion has yet to learn the fact which science is slowly demonstrating, and which Dr. Randolph so well understood; that salvation must be physical and mental as well as spiritual [This is Levi’s law of the Duad, the holy trinity, which is part of all that exists.] There can be no half-way work about it. We are as much—in very truth, much more—physical as spiritual, and so long as we remain so, we must have a body and a mind in addition to spirit.

“Love has its physical moods and modes as well as its spiritual inclinations. The basis of a full love is health, and the basis of health is harmony, or a well-balanced union of the body, mind and spirit—the equilibrium all Philosophic Initiates have taught. From palpable facts we reach the hidden. Through the body we reach the mind, and through its crystal walls the spirit. Spirit [the life of the Soul] is God. It rules the world, and in us, our own mind, and through this the body. The power of our spiritual self rules our world; but this power depends upon purity. How can there be purity of the spiritual being within, and how can it use the body if that body be loaded down with the filth and rubbish of false conditions; false conditions that are the result of our own follies and acts, likewise with diseases of the body? I am very well aware of the great hue and cry about “prenatal” conditions; but I have yet to learn that the child in embryo is not the cause of the peculiarities of the mother while enceinte. In either case, we who love and loathe cannot shirk the responsibilities and penalties of our acts, no matter what the cause. The measure of humanity is love—not the bastard thing accepted by society as love; but the heart’s love based on physical health and mental purity. How many of those bearing the human form have actually reached the status of being truly human? The measure of Godhood in man is his power of self-control. How many are there not blown hither and yon, like dry leaves in an autumn wind, by trifles beneath the notice of a great mind? Many are tormented to distraction for a new dress, or for the want of something a more fortunate neighbor has, and making a hell of what is called a home; where heaven, all smiles and joy, should sit all the year ‘round. How devoid of manhood to vend one’s way homeward, nervous and sour of disposition because, forsooth, some one has overreached or thwarted him in his business?

“All there is in us worth Immortalizing, worth preserving and presenting to the Infinite is our love nature and our Will power; which must begin at home [as does charity], if at all. By virtue of our Will we control ourselves, and when we are perfect masters of ourselves—our passions, thoughts, desires, etc., we will be Masters of God’s universe of lesser Nature. How many are there who can truly say in the face of adverse storms, and feel what they say: ‘Let the winds blow high or low, the thunders of evil roll, and the lightning’s glare, I am above it all. Do your worst—I was here first!’

“Disease and Purity are antagonists; strangers! Do you foolishly believe that death is going to do for you that which you failed to do for yourself and that death will eliminate the evils which you should have eliminated yourself? Foolish thought! We make our summer and winter ourselves, and you and I will be tomorrow what we make of ourselves today. Eternity! Today is eternity. A truly healthy [normal] mind in an impure or diseased body is an impossibility.”

Dr. Randolph, like Saint Germain and Cagliostro, both Initiates of the Orient, in all his writings had very little to say of the Fraternity over which he had the honor to preside. Perhaps the most lucid and revealing statement made by him was during the trial in 1872, when it was necessary to make some mention of it:

“This Order of men [over which I preside] is divided into three parts [the Trinity, or Duad of Levi], corresponding to the universal and multiform trinity. The first division is known as Volantia, because its main object is the culture of the human Will. The Division upon which this is based is thousands of years old, and in Oriental lands is known as ‘Merek el Gebel’ or the Gate of Light.

“The second division is known as Rosicrucia, and in the East is known as the Door of the Dawn, in the West as The Door. It is of Ansairetic origin. The distinctive degree of this division is Decretism, or the culture of the Triple Will. It is mystic, profound; has as its object the development of all inherent and but-little-dreamed-of human energies and powers, not with reference to things of the fleeting moment, but of stable and eternal principles, having their rise on earth, their culmination in the eternal beyond.

“The third division of the Order is known as the Dome, is Chaldaic in origin; Pythagoric in essence and philosophy, and in the Orient is known among its members as The Mountain. Its distinctive degree is Posism, the practical use of Knowledge, Will and Agape [not carnal, unbridled passion, but celestial love, nonphysical, hypersensuous, and therefore transcendental].”

This is an exoteric statement of the teachings and the training of the Arcane Fraternity. No one can form even a conception of their nature who has not attained to at least the second division, that of Rosicrucia.

RESUMÉ

Due to the importance of Dr. Randolph’s position as the first Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis of the Western World, a resumé of his activities is not out of order:

Born October 8, 1825, in New York City.

His mother left him an orphan at the age of five.

Enlisted as a sailor boy at the age of fifteen.

Travelled in many countries until he was twenty years old, i.e., 1845.

Between the years of 1845 and 1850 he studied medicine and the Arcane science.

In 1850 he was in Germany and was admitted to the meeting held by the Fraternitas Rose Crucis at Frankfort on Main as a member of the First degree. There he met General Hitchcock, who quickly recognized in him the person to become Supreme Grand Master of the Western World. He was there introduced to Charles Trinius and Count Guinotti.

In Paris during 1854 he finished his studies in the practice of skrying by means of water, ink and the magic Mirrors, as followed by Count Cagliostro and Saint Germain, and laid plans for the publication of his work on Seership.

In England, then in France in 1856, in preparation for induction as Supreme Grand Master of the Western World of the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis.

In Paris 1858, inducted as Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis of the Western World and the Isles of the Sea, and created a Knight of L’Ordre du Lis.

In London 1861, where he was made a member of the Order of the Rose and received with honors by the Supreme Grand Master Hargrave Jennings of England. Thence to the Orient, where he received final Initiation into the Ansaireh of Syria and was inducted as Hierarch of the Ansaireh; then traveled through other countries of the Orient and back to America, via France, in 1863, as Hierarch of the Ansaireh or Imperial Eulis.

Dr. Randolph was the author of many books, among them:

Pre-Adamite Man, seven editions.

After Death, or, Disembodied Man, six editions.

The New Mola, a treatise of Magnetism.

Love, Woman, Marriage, eight editions.

Love; Its Hidden Mysteries, eight editions. Companion to above.

Seership; the Mysteries of the Magnetic Universe, seven editions.

Ravalette; the story of Initiation, five editions.

Soul, the Soul World; the experience of the Soul in the Beyond.

The Rosicrucian’s Story.

Hermes Mercurius Tnismegistus, his Divine Pymander.

Paschal Beverly Randolph, Supreme Grand Master of the Fratennitas Rosæ Crucis; Brotherhood, Order, Temple and Fraternity of the Rosy Cross and Hierarch of Imperial Eulis, died July 29, 1875, and was succeeded in office by Freeman B. Dowd, who had been trained, and directed by Randolph and selected as his successor in 1871.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Friends and Friendships




A big blow from a stranger hurts less than a small blow from a friend.

A friendship that ended never really began.

A stranger stabs you in the front. A lover stabs you in the heart. An enemy stabs you in the back but real friends don’t carry knives.

Another lesson learned. Better know your friends or else you will get burned.

Back then, it meant so much to have you by my side. I always had your back and you always had mine.

Be careful what you say. Friendships can end in one minute because of a stupid word.

Best friend is ten letters but so is lying bitch.

Breaking up with a lover is a million times easier than breaking up with a best friend.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.

Dealing with backstabbers, there’s one thing I’ve learned. The bitches are only powerful when your back is turned.

Does it hurt you to know that we haven’t spoken in days? Does it hurt you to know that we can’t look at each other without looking away? Does it hurt you to know that everything we had as friends is gone? Does it hurt you? It’s hurting me.

Don’t get mad at the people you love. Getting mad is only an easier way of dealing with the pain but the longer you hold onto the pain the less you’ll remember that you love them and then one day your anger will disappear, they will be gone, and you’ll be left all alone just remembering.

Don’t let a little dispute ruin a great friendship.

Don’t rely on someone you can’t trust. Trust someone you can rely on.

Don’t stress the people from your past. There’s a reason why they didn’t make it to your future.

Don’t turn your back on your friends. That’s the best target.

Don't let petty things get in the way of a good friendship. Forgive and forget.

Everyone else in the world was here when I needed them but the one person I needed the most turned their back on me and that person was you.

Everyone’s telling me that you told them we’re not friends anymore. This surprises me because I thought that it was just a small fight that all friends can recover from eventually. I guess we just have different views on the situation. It would help to know why you’re mad and what I did wrong so I can fix it. Let me know. Write me a note if you don’t want to tell me face to face. Friends can get through anything, right?

Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends.

Friends are friends until they talk behind your back. Then they’re backstabbers.

Friends...the people who stab you in the front.

Friendship is as fragile as glass. If it’s mishandled, it can be broken forever.

Friendship is like China, costly, rich, and rare. When broken it can be mended but the crack is always there.

Fuck you. If you're not going to be at my funeral, I don’t give a fuck about you and your problems. I stick to my real people.

How can it be that two of the greatest friends in the world can go from being each others everything to absolutely nothing?

Why don’t we talk any more? You don’t even call. We barely keep in touch. I don’t even feel the same love when we hug no more.

I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry.

I always knew lovers could break your heart but I never knew your friends could.

I couldn’t wait to see you again but it’s funny how these friendships end.

I didn’t ask for it to be over but then again I didn’t ask for it to begin, for that is the way it is with life as some of the most beautiful days come completely by chance but even the most beautiful days eventually have their sunsets.

I didn’t ask for it to be over but then again, I never asked for it to begin.

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod because my shadow does that much better.

I guess in the end people become the people they promised they’d never be.

I had a friend once. Then the rope broke and he got away.

I hate how we have stupid fake conversations. We’re supposed to be friends. You’re not supposed to ask how I’m doing. You’re supposed to know by the sound of my voice. I’m not supposed to ask what you’ve been up to. I’m supposed to be doing things with you. We’re not supposed to have that awkward silence. We’re supposed to talk non-stop but I guess if we don’t know these things then we’re not supposed to be friends.


I hate this life. Why? I’m sick of it. All my so-called friends are full of shit.

I have your back if you have mine but if you don’t then you best be watching yours.

I just want to die to see which of my friends care enough to come to my funeral.

I know I’m supposed to hate you. I’ve been trying for so long but even after everything that’s been said and done I still want to wipe away your tears. I still want you to be happy and I still miss what I lost. I still miss my best friend.

I learned it’s better to have few friends that will stay true than to have many friends that are going to turn their backs on you.

I love how your own friends who are supposed to care about you have to point out your flaws and make you feel like shit. Reality hurts like a bitch.

I never wanted to believe that you could lie, that friends deceive, and here I am. I’m still the same. I watched you change. You won’t come back. I’ll watch you crash and burn.

I remember I kept thinking I know you never would but now I know I want to kill you like only a best friend could.

I swear I felt you stab me in my sleep. I know I did because I never had my back turned long enough when I was awake.

I thought you were my best friend. I thought we were friends until the end. I thought you’d always be there for me in rain or shine. I thought you would be there all the time. I thought you were my real true friend. I thought what we were going through would some time mend but I guess I was wrong. Our friendship really isn’t that strong.

I thought you were my friend and we would be together until the end but you fucked everything up and said shit that wasn’t true so now you must pay, bitch -- all the blame is on you.

I trust everyone. It’s the devil inside them I don’t trust.

I want to tell you how you did me wrong but now I’m only back to square one. I’m giving you all my trust back again and hoping you’ll still be my best friend. I can’t take the pain anymore. You lied and made me so unsure but I want you to be here by my side. Now, can’t we be best friends and ditch the lies?

I was betrayed. How can you say that you feel sorry inside? It’s devastating losing close friends. I’ve gone away. You make me stay but I can’t tell it from lies. I’ve gone insane losing close friends.

I will forgive but I won’t forget and I hope you know you’ve lost my respect. You better watch out if you don’t know what’s going on around you. You better think twice before you fry off the handle and lose it.

I’ll never have any closer friends than the ones I had when I was young.

I’m holding onto something that used to be there and hoping it’ll come back but knowing it won’t.

I’m not even going to get pissed anymore. I just got to learn to expect the lowest from the people I thought the highest of.

I’m not like them. I don’t stab people in the back. You hurt me, I’m warning you, and I’ll be the next friend you lack.

I’m sorry. Did my back hurt your knife?

I’ve figured out what you’re all about and I don’t think I like what I see so I hope I won’t be there in the end if you come around.

I’ve learned it takes years to build up trust and only seconds to destroy it.

If I added up the times you made me feel special and multiplied it by a thousand, it wouldn’t even come close to all the times you made me feel like shit.

If I had known in the first place you would hurt me like this, I would have never said best friends till the very end.

If it’s very painful for you to criticize your friends you’re safe in doing it but if you take the slightest pleasure in it that’s the time to hold your tongue.

If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart, forgive them for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart.

If someone wants to be part of your life, they’ll make an effort to be in it.

If you scatter thorns, don’t go barefoot.

In the end you’ll figure out whose fake and who’s true and who would risk it all for you.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

It has to be hard to watch someone you love change before your eyes and know you can’t do anything about it but it must be heartbreaking to remember the way they once were.

It sucks when the people you know become the people you knew.

It’s easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

It’s funny how friendships end up. They just get down in the dumps. People lie and talk behind each other’s backs. They hurt you and make your heart crack. They don’t understand what they do because best friends would never do that to you so keep your friendship long and strong. Never break a friendship that has lasted for so long.

It’s funny how you can be hurt so bad from the person you least expected it from.

It’s funny how your worst enemies always seem to turn out to be all your best friends.

It’s funny how your worst enemies always seem to turn out to be all of your best friends’ best friends.

It’s funny, you know, how just by saying three little words could hurt someone so much.

It’s hard to trust anyone when the one you’ve opened your heart to let you down.

It’s sad how you can miss what could be the friendship of a lifetime because you are too afraid of what people might think of you.

It’s sad to see that two close people don’t recognize each other anymore. Not because they grew up but because they grew apart.

It’s so ironic how best friends just slip and they become enemies so quick.

It’s terrible how you have to go through such a tragedy to realize who your true friends are.

It’s what people do without thinking that causes quick tears. Eventually, the tears will be forgotten but the hurt will stay in the heart forever.

It’s amazing when two strangers become the best of friends but it’s sad when the best of friends become two strangers.

It’s never your enemies that get you. It's always your own people.

Just before you never speak to me again remember when you used to be my friend. You treated me like shit. I’m never going to deny it and I even played your little game. I was there every time you called my name. I still thought our friendship would last but now everything is in the past. All the secrets I shared and you never even cared so let me tell you and don’t make me repeat it: I fucking hate you and yes, I mean it.

Lately, I got to watch what I say. You take things personal nowadays. You used to laugh and now you get mad. Damn, I just want my best friend back.

Maybe some people aren’t meant to be in our lives forever. Maybe some are just passing through to teach us a lesson.

Men kick friendship around like a football and it doesn’t crack. Women treat it like glass and it falls to pieces.

Neither of us meant for things to be this way. If things went differently, maybe we would still talk today.

Never say you have lost a friend because if a friendship is capable of ending, it never really existed.

No matter how hard I seem to try, you turn around and twist my words into a lie. Are friendships supposed to be like this because if they are then I quit.

No person is your friend if he demands your silence or denies your right to grow.

One wrong could cost a few years. Make the perfect friendship go down in tears.

People come into our lives and walk with us a mile and then because of circumstances they only stay awhile. They serve a need within the days that move so quickly by and then are gone beyond our reach. We often wonder why. God only knows the reason that we meet and share a smile, why people come into our lives and walk with us a mile.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Remember when you held my hand and wiped away my tears? Remember when you held me close and chased away my fears and how you'd go out of your way just to make me smile, calling me at 3 am just to talk awhile?

So if I have to leave you I want you to know that in the end it wasn’t because I stopped caring. It was because you stopped being a friend.

Some people don’t catch on. They rather just pretend. While things are going smooth, they smile and call you their friend. Funny how you never know who cares until it hurts and when it’s over does it matter who blew off whom first?

Some people don't deserve the memories you share with them.

Some say that time changes and best friends can become strangers.

Sometimes I feel like my friends turn against me when their other friends are around.

Sometimes I just feel like running away just to see who would follow, just to see who really cares, or if anyone cares at all.

Sometimes it’s easier to just say you’re mad than to admit to them that you’re actually hurt.

Sometimes it’s easier to trust someone you don’t know because you don’t expect too much instead of the person you know very well, the person you trusted so much and hurt you so deeply.

Sometimes it’s good to fight because then you know who’s there for you and then you find out who’s not.

Sometimes it’s your closest friends who end up hurting you more than your worst enemies ever could.

Sometimes losing your best friends over a significant other isn’t worth it because now I don’t have anyone to talk shit about them with.

Sometimes people build you up just to knock you down.

Sometimes the pain is too much to bear. Sometimes if you don’t watch your back it will cost you. Sometimes you wonder who the fuck would care if they lost you.

Sometimes the things you complain most about are the things you care most about. Unfortunately, you don't always know that before it's too late.

Sometimes you have to run away to see if they’ll follow.

Sometimes your best friends are really enemies in disguise.

Sorry for whom I am and what I’ve done. I guess I’m not as good as a friend as I thought.

Stay true to yourself because there are very few people who will stay true to you.

Take out the picture. Blow off the dust. Take off the frame; it’s starting to rust. Remember the times we had together. What ever happened to best friends forever?

The best thing about pictures is they never change even if the people in them do.

The friendship that can cease was never been real.

The more arguments you win the fewer friends you will have.