Be in time and eternity, disciple of Michael, in the love of the gods, in the heights of the cosmos.
Rudolf Steiner
Introduction
The Rosicrucian Society of Misraim Service is an international community of Misraim Service members around the world. It is based on a Rosicrucian spiritual community whose aim is to continue the Rosicrucian Tradition. This is done to strengthen cooperation across national boundaries and to enhance the esoteric ritual work of individual nations where Misraim Service is practiced.
The goal of the Rosicrucian Society of the Misraim Service is for members to deepen esoteric work by attending joint meetings in connection with individual study of esoteric rituals and texts to support spiritual work. In the yearly joint ritual meetings, members of the Misraim Service can seek spiritual communion together through inner honesty and beyond national boundaries, thus also finding the way from heart to heart, soul to soul and spirit to spirit.
The Rosicrucian Society of Misraim Service works in the Rosicrucian spirit. Members include both men and women, and it is independent of gender, ethnicity, religion, social position and political idea as well as intellectual and aesthetic ideas. Through ritual work, its symbolic value and contemplation, members come together in freedom and spiritual brotherhood to evolve as individuals and thus be better able to fulfill our various tasks in the world. The Rosicrucian Society of Misraim Service rejects all sectarian drifts and does not consider politics as its mission.
The esoteric activity of the Rosicrucian Society of Misraim Service consists of two types of Service, related to each other:
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The Esoteric Temple Service, which includes the Michael's Mass
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The Misraim Service, consisting of 9 initiatory degrees
Misraim
Service
The modern form of the Rite of Misraim appeared in 1728 in Naples, Italy. However, its symbolism is well earlier rooted in ancient Egypt and from there in the primordial Oracles of Atlantis.
The Rite of Misraim appears historically in Naples, as in 65 AD a colony from Alexandria settled in Naples, Pompeii and Cumae. This colonization was desired by two high initiates, one Christian, St. Mark, and one Hermetic, Ormus. In 45 A.D., the hierophant of the temple of Serapis Ormus was baptized by St. Mark is thus the Hermetic mysteries were united with the Christic ones, giving rise to the modern configuration of the "rose," symbol of Isis, united with the "cross," symbol of Golgotha.
Then, from Naples, the Rite was later taken to several cities with which Naples had trade relations, including Venice in 1778 and Genoa. In the 18th century, the Misraim Rite was a branch of what is called "Egyptian Freemasonry." The word "Misraim" is in fact the Hebrew name for Egypt itself, a word whose plural form refers to both Upper and Lower Egypt.
On the other hand, the Memphis Rite can be considered a "parallel" to the Misraim Rite, formed in 1815 in Montauban, France, created from collections of degrees from the Scottish Rite and Misraim. Both of these Rites were united by Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1881 into the Misraim-Memphis Rite as a vehicle for the regeneration of human society.
Rudolf Steiner founded the Rosicrucian Esoteric School shortly after receiving a license of the Misraim Rite from Theodor Reuss on November 24, 1905. Steiner developed the Misraim Rite to adapt it to the human needs of the present age of the conscious soul. Contrary to what is usually thought, Steiner celebrated symbolic ceremonies of worship, just as he considered this the highest and at the same time most profound form of esotericism possible for humanity at this stage of evolution.
The Rosicrucian Esoteric School is divided into Classes with a total of 9 degrees:
1. The First Class consisting of esoteric lectures and meditations
2. The Second Class consists of 3 degrees, in which symbolic worship is practiced in bringing the past to consciousness
3. The Third Class consists of 6 degrees, in which worship is practiced in anticipating the future
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In the path of the Classes, occult exercises are practiced for the development of inner faculties. There is also the Temple Service where holidays are celebrated in the esoteric sense throughout the year.
The first meeting of the Second Class also called the Cognitive Cult Section, was led by Rudolf Steiner on January 3, 1906. In 1907 Steiner had to separate his Rosicrucian Esoteric School from the one founded by H.P. Blavatsky, which was not only based on the Eastern tradition, but under Annie Besant came to contrast with the esoteric principles and knowledge held by the Rosicrucians. Then the work of the First and Second Class temporarily ceased due to World War I in 1914. When the work was resumed after the war, a few meetings were held before Steiner's death in 1925 and again after his death.
According to Steiner's teachings with 1879 the time has come when Rosicrucian secrets can be revealed. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift between hermetically sealed societies protecting the teachings of initiates, and an era in which these same secrets can be communicated openly into the world to nurture souls who seek them.
Indeed, this is how Steiner expressed himself when addressing members of the Anthroposophical Society on April 20, 1924:
"The Mysteries themselves go back to that time when the free development of man still had to come. Now is the time when man must again find the Mysteries [...] it really becomes necessary to find a place on Earth where the Mysteries can again be founded. The Anthroposophical Society must, in its future development, be that path to the renewed Mysteries. Such is also your mission, my dear friends!"
This "place on Earth" is wherever men gather as Brothers and Sisters in the building up of the being of the Temple of the Misraim Service. Thus, seizing on Steiner's exhortation, after his death, several anthroposophical groups in Europe resumed work in the Second and Third Class on the basis of Rudolf Steiner's Misraim Rite and the Misraim-Memphis Rite.
Michael's
Mass
World War I was the first event that shook Europe by karmically binding it to the fate of the entire modern world. Europe's mission to form the center between the ancient wisdom of the East and the growing power of the West proved even more vital: Europe as the radiating center of the Ego-Christ was to bring balance between the tendency toward spirituality devoid of individual consciousness and that of materialism killing individual spiritual life. Ego-consciousness was being strengthened as it passed from Europe to the West, and if it had succumbed to spiritualism or materialism it would in any case have missed the opportunity for an encounter with the Christ.
If this was Europe's task, how could the Western peoples unite with the Christ impulse in a form suitable for modern times?
Thus Rudolf Steiner in the years between 1914 and 1920 sought to answer this epochal question, the answer to which would be the possibility of leading the destinies of the nations of Europe to the event of 1933 in which the Etheric Christ would become more manifest to human consciousness. For Steiner it was a matter of combining esoteric practice with action in the world. And in order to do this it was necessary to unite the ancient priestly way of Abel with the way of Cain, inaugurated by the resurrection of Lazarus brought about by the Christ Himself-in other words, the union of the possibility of remaining in contact with the divine, working for the transformation of the Earth.
In order to cultivate this spiritual seed, it was necessary to abandon the group soul, which prevailed in the family and nation, in order to find one's individuality: this is what esoterically s called the Pilgrimage to the Self.
By joining the action of the Brothers of Past Times who trod the paths of the spirit before others, the Brothers of Present Time, who carry within themselves the sacred fire of the Ego, and the Brothers of Future Times, who guard the image of the destination of evolution, each man comes to be able to become Master of himself, re-establishing the connection with the spiritual world by means of a free act that begins with meditation.
Precisely because meditation has no value in the world of matter, it is of the utmost importance for the world of spirit, because meditation is the greatest free act that man can perform and therefore is where man's spirit can meet the cosmic spirit in complete freedom. To this end Steiner gave new mantras whose purpose was to awaken inner activity in meditation through awakening in 4 stages: in thinking, feeling, willing and ego.
This is how Rudolf Steiner exhorts us:
We sleep in the "I. We use the word "I" only because the gods once pronounced it for us-our Angels-and now men pronounce it in imitation.
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But we must wake up in the "I"!
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Here is to you the Imagination for Awakening: an altar, on which shines Sun. We approach the altar and experience ourselves completely as shadows, completely devoid of essence.
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Until now we had said, "I Am."
Now with awareness we say, "I am not."
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From the Sun shining on the altar comes a deity that vivifies the shadows. We are like a shell that receives the light of divinity, which comes from the Sun.
By grace we receive this divinity, it gives itself to us. [...]
Awaken in the I: you are in your own spiritual being.
Experience yourself as the one who receives from the gods and gives himself!"
