AUDI ALTERAM PARTEMOnes Liberties Are The Liberties Of Everyone, His Source Is A Part Of The United Power Of All Beings!.....Dr. Harvey Spencer Lewis
"Give thanks for Life, for Light, for Love. Let your love brighten your heart and the heart of others. Surround yourself with a widening aura of love and dispel the shadows of gloom and depression." - H. Spencer Lewis
"The common descent of all creatures established the fact that all human beings are brothers and sisters, coming form the one Creator and the same essence, of the same vitality and of the same consciousness, independent of questions of race, belief, colour or any other distinctions of personality." – H. Spencer Lewis in "Mansions of the Soul" We are guilty of believing that Jesus Christ chose only those of His own race to be his 12 disciples, and that he did not go out and choose two Chinese, two blacks, two Indians, two Arabs, two women or two homosexuals, therefore he would be called a Supremacist, Racist and Bigot by today’s worldly standards. MY COAT OF CHANGEABLE COLORBy H. Spencer Lewis
Rosicrucian Digest, July 1937
I WANT to ask my fellow members frankly whether it is possible that I am so vacillating in any religious, spiritual and social convictions that I am really a continuous “turncoat” or wear a coat of many colors?
From time to time some readers of this magazine who do not give careful thought, to what they read, or a proper analysis of what I have written and said in the course of twenty-five years, accuse me of being pro this or pro that and anti this or anti that. From the reading of just one article of mine in the current issue of this magazine, these readers will come to a surprising conclusion and, without recalling what they have read in preceding issues, they accuse me of being what I am not.
Our correspondence here at Headquarters, shows that in the past twenty-five years, and especially within the last five or six years, I have been accused of being not only a Jew but also a secret and mysterious agent or representative of insidious Jewish propaganda; and during the same period of time In have been accused by others of being a very secret agent of the Roman Catholic church carrying on a form of disguised propaganda for the Roman Catholic religion. Then again, at other times, I am accused of being vigorously opposed to the Jewish religion and everything Jewish, and in fact a member of some Jesuitical Society pledged to eliminate the Jews and the Jewish religion from the face of the earth. Throughout these past years I have been accused very consistently in some Roman Catholic publications of being bitterly opposed to the Roman Catholic Church and one of Satan’s most subtle destroyers of all faith in the Roman Catholic religion. Then again, after having expressed some personal opinion in this monthly department of the magazine, I am suddenly accused of being an atheist and a spy of the Russian government working against all religions and a disturber of the peace of all individuals – Jewish and Gentile, Roman Catholic and Protestant, pagan and heathen.
When, at one of our national Conventions, a representative from Washington brought to the opening session the gold cross of honour of the American Flag Association, and read the citation certificate making me a Knight of the Flag and an honored member of the Order of the Flag, equalled by the same honor conferred only upon Colonel Lindbergh, thereby being dignified by the highest patriotic award of the American Patriotic Society could grant to an individual, I was being accused of being a radical kind of American and most certainly a bitter enemy of the Communist movement, the Fascist movement, and all the other undemocratic movements throughout the world.
When in one issue of the “Rosicrucian Forum” magazine there appeared one of my discussions praising the nutritive and other values of the California prune, I was accused of being biased in regards to food, vegetables, climate and scenery of this country and looked upon as one seceding from the American republic and becoming a supporter of a California empire.
When I have expressed some personal criticisms of conditions in Germany, I have been accused by many or nearly all of our German readers of being anti-German and anti-Hitler. On the other hand, when I have spoken of the excellent things I have found in Germany I have been accused of being a patron of secret alliances in Europe supporting the Hitler regime.
In some magazines and newspapers within the past ten years I have been accused of being a Jew by birth and religion, and of hiding it under cover though it were something I was publicly ashamed of but used in privacy to the detriment of the Christians. On the other hand, some Jewish publications and some Jewish individuals have tried to claim that they had evidence that I was not born in a Protestant family of Methodist faith as many and unquestionable documents will prove, but that I was born in a Roman Catholic family and secretly educated in a Jesuit school.
When some years ago I wrote, as I often do now, against war and war propaganda, I was accused of being a “slacker” and an evader of the “draft” law, in spite of the fact that I was duly registered by our government and given a draft number and was waiting my call to military duty when the war suddenly ended by the signing of an armistice, and these facts are supported by government reports. I have been accused of being a secret and hidden and promulgator of the plans of the colored race to rise in their political, economic ad social position, and these accusers have even gone so far as to intimidate that there was a strain of colored blood in my ancestry. On the other hand, because I was at one them, and probably still am, an honorary member “The Aryan Society of America, I was accused by colored factions of being secretly in opposition to any degree of fair play being shown to the colored race.
Because of my writings in support of the logical and excellent British attitude in many regards, critics have investigated my ancestry and found that I was of Welsh extraction, and therefore a secret agent of Great Britain, ready to become a British spy in America in case of war, and always pro-British and anti-American. On the other hand, in addition to having been accused of being one hundred per cent German by blood and attitude of mind, I have been accused of being so pro-French that I sing the Marseillaise every time my companions sing the American anthem!
And right now, I am being accused of being one hundred percent pro-Mussolini and pro-Fascism, and one hundred percent anti-democratic and anti-Communistic, just because of my recent interview with Mussolini and my honest and unstinted praise of his remarkable accomplishments in Italy and with the Italian people. My accusers have suddenly abandoned all of their convictions that I was anti-Catholic and anti-Italian and extremely pre-Communistic and all reversed their opinions, this time feeling that they are as absolutely sure of their conclusion as they have been on so many occasion in the past years.
And, on top of it, I now find that an article which I wrote for this department before I started on the Rosicrucian tour in January and which appeared in these pages during my cruise through the Mediterranean, has suddenly made me again a one hundred percent supporter of the Roman Catholic church, of the Vatican and the Pope, and in fact I now find myself in the unique position of being a papal legate almost ready to be vested with ecclesiastical robes of a cardinal or an archbishop or something of the kind.
Why? Because in this recent article appearing in these pages I ventured to express my personal and sincere opinion regarding the efficiency, the practicability, and necessity of an autocratic form of government for any great international movement such as the Roman Catholic Church. I do not recall whether I expressed my personal admiration for the character, mentality, and sincerity of the present Pope, but if I failed to do that I herewith express my admiration for a man of his deep learning, his great forsight, and his excellent diplomacy. But my article did not deal with any endorsement of the Roman Catholic religion or church as such, but it dealt exclusively with that form of autocratic government which has made the Roman Catholic church as an international institution an eminent success in the face of every form of attack and criticism that could be directed against it by every type of individual, by every form of government, and particularly by the mad horde of unthinking individuals who prefer no form of government to any kind. For the very same reason, I could have and should have endorsed the autocratic form of government that controls and directs the welfare, progress and destiny of the Christian Science church, for it, too, has a hierarchy much like that of the Roman Catholic Church. I am sure that I did say that any form of cultural, educational, co-operative movement, composed of and operating through the individuals and characters of diversified nations in many lands and under many conditions must be autocratic in its government and control if it is to be a permanent success and fight the many battles that will naturally come its way. But this would apply even to such movements as the Freemasonic Fraternity and similar bodies as our own Rosicrucian Order.
Certainly those critics who have written so freely and bombastically about my article that appeared in the March issue of this magazine, “The Rosicrucian Digest, did not carefully read what I wrote and did not observe that my comments were neither a criticism nor and endorsement of the Roman Catholic religion as such.I was not writing about religion but form of government.
All of our members should know by this time, and our readers who are not members should gradually learn, that AMORC is not actively interested in politics or religion. Just yesterday afternoon I spent a very pleasant hour under one of the palm trees on a comfortable bench on the lawns of Rosicrucian Park, discussing our teachings and ideals with a priest of the Catholic Church who is one of our advanced members. On my trip through the Mediterranean on an Italian steamship, I again did what I have done every time I have crossed the ocean, and that is, to spend a large part of my recreation time in philosophical and religious discussion with the Roman Catholic chaplain or priest on the ship. I am proud of the excellent ideas that I have gained from my discussions and talks with many Roman Catholic priests within our Order and outside of it, but I am also proud of the fact that I have had many similar beneficial talks and discussions with Jewish rabbis, with pagan priests, with Protestant clergyman, and with all types of religious individuals. I am proud of the fact that I have friends--real friends--among these various religious denominations. I have found extreme peace and inspiration in attending, while in Europe, the low masses and the high masses and other services of the Roman Catholic Church, but I have also found similar peace and inspiration in some Sabbath Day services in Jewish synagogues and in so-called pagan temples of the Near East.
I have no antipathy toward any religion, any creed, or any doctrine, and I certainly have no such bias or prejudice in favor of any one of them that I would attempt to say that theirs is the only path, theirs is the only gateway to heaven.
It is true that I have written critically of certain religious doctrines found in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Protestant churches, in the Jewish synagogues and elsewhere. I have written critically of the interpretations that have become standardized in the modern versions of the Christian Bible, but I have also criticised other scriptural writings belonging to other sects and creeds. On the other hand, I have praised and shall continue to praise the good things as I find them, in church, in politics, among men and woman, and groups of individuals.
I am not going to change my opinions one iota because of a hundred or a thousand German or Italian, Russian, American or other individuals write to me and accuse me of being pro this or anti that. I am going to speak of the good in all things, in all movements, all individuals, all nations, as I personally find them and observe them.
Of course I may be wrong in my conclusions. My observations may not be correct. But of one thing my readers and the members of our organization can be sure, and that is, that I am absolutely sincere and that I have no ulterior motives, and there are absolutely no secret alliances motivating me in anything I say or do.
In answer to the argument that when I praise some individual, some movement, some form of government, some nation, I am fostering that movement and may not be aware of the injustice or the unfairness of my attitude and what results from it, I can only say that it is my duty as chief of this organization to help spread the truth as I find it, and to bring light where there is darkness and to help destroy falsehood. If in my way of doing this, and through erroneous conclusions or wrong observations, I am helping to spread untruth instead of truth, it will be my Karmic debt for which I shall have to make just compensation, even though it is done innocently of wrongdoing and in absolute sincerity. But to accuse me of having ulterior motives and being wilfully, deliberately, and secretly pro this or anti that, is to be absolutely unfair and unreasonable.
In order for these accusations to be true, I would have to change my coat and turn my coat so many times a month and year that it would soon become threadbare and colorless, or else I would have to wear a coat of more colors that the proverbial Jacob’s coat. Certainly I could not efficiently, and to any degree of success, assist any of these movements, individuals, nations, or people that I praise by wearing a coat of their color one week, and a coat of opposite color another week. If I wore a coat of but one color consistently and continuously, then there might be some reason to suspect that I was so enamored of that color, so enslaved to it and by it, that it colored my viewpoint of everything else, and I might be justly suspected of being secretly a propagandist of that one color.
I believe that the majority of our members like to have me express my opinion regarding things that I have seen and observed in my tours and travels around the world, and especially because my connections with the Rosicrucian Order enable me to make many intimate contacts and to learn things at first hand that the average person does not learn. One of the things I have learned is that not one of us can put very much faith--in fact very little--in what we read in our own and foreign newspapers and magazines. Yet it is from such sources that the average individual, who have criticized me in my attitude derives his or her knowledge and beliefs regarding the things I have commented upon. And in most cases my opinions and convictions have been opposite to what is popularly claimed in the controlled newspaper propaganda.
Fortunately for me and my attitude in regards to many things of a political, social, economic and educational nature, while in various lands on this recent cruise I was surrounded and accompanied by over one hundred and forty Rosicrucian members of every walk of life, professionally and socially, and of every grade of intellectual and cultural understanding, and in nearly every instance they have concurred in and unanimously agreed with my observations and conclusion. These touring members represented not only a very fair cross-section of our entire membership, but a very excellent cross-section of American citizenship. I highly valued their opinions and conclusions, and I was glad to find that in practically every instance their opinions where in harmony with my own, therefore proving to me, at least, that my glasses are not colored, and that my attempt to be broad and tolerant in every respect is not a fanatical hallucination on my part.
In the earliest issue of this magazine, "The Rosicrucian Digest," it was editorially stated that "The Rosicrucian Digest" would become at times and on occasion militant in its attitude and especially in its attack upon darkness and falsehood. We are determined to spread the light where it will do the utmost good. In my department and in those articles signed by me I shall continue, as an individual, to express my opinion of truths and falsehoods as I observe them. No influence by one contingent or another, no threats by members or readers expressing the intention of withdrawing form our organization or from the subscriptions list of this magazine will cause me to withhold what facts I think are of interest or what beliefs I consider illuminating.
The organization does not insist that members shall adopt the opinions I hold, nor change their religious, social, economic, political or intellectual conclusions or convictions in accordance with mine or those of any officer of the organization. But at least, in fairness to yourself and in fairness to our motives in preparing these articles and expressing these opinions, our readers should read them carefully and not try to read between the lines certain ideas that are not there and were not intended. At least, if the opinions we express are incompatible with your own, allow me the same honor, the same privilege, of being sincere, as you claim in the things you believe and express.
